Random Events Mechanics?

[IronCrown]

I always get way more negative events than positive ones. At first I thought is was only in my mind (forgetting the good and only remembering the bad) but in my current game I kept an eye on them and I got 12 negative events in a row and only a single one positive and that was a useless quest.

I wonder, is it because there are much more negative events, or has it something to do with the difficulty setting? I play on Monarch.

As it is now, I'll play without events from now on. Getting almost only negative events is not fun At least one should only get one negative event in 20 turns or so. I had several mine accidents, slave revolts and floods within the crucial first 100 turns of the game (epic) and my forge was destroyed while building the Colossus

 

[KMadCandy]

my hero ori has posted the Random Events List. it includes the "chances", which is really the percentage of games that the event is active. even if the event is active, it might not happen to you, of course.

difficulty doesn't change it at all. except to make some of them all the more painful

 

[Bushface]

I kept a list of events during my last game. I got 7 "good" ones, of which 4 turned out useless, and 9 "bad" ones: my 10 AI opponents got, between them, 25 good and 17 bad. (Some of the AI's events occurred before I had made contact and so produced no in-game messages: they showed up during the replay). Thus I got more events than any AI civ, and a higher proportion of unfavourable ones.
The most irksome was just after I got Flight. The very next turn an airliner of mine crashed in my neighbour's land, giving him 1000 EPs against me: three turns later the same thing happened with my other neighbour. I'm thankful that I had only the two civs contiguous with mine. On the other hand, one unfortunate AI city got hit three times by monsoons.

 

[GarretSidzaka]

I brought this up with the developers. And some other ones did too. I told them that it is Unfun to have more negative events than positive ones. Maybe they can re-weight them in the next patch

 

[Enigmatrix]

I had a game where i turned up the number of events, (set it to 50%) and not only was i getting almost all negitive events, the exact same events were happening on the exact same tiles. I had 1 mine collapse 5 times. another volcano erupted 3 times destroying all 3 mones around it each time (all 3 of the spots were gold, my only source of it) and a single farm hit by 4 tornados, each happening within 2 turns of it being rebuilt. There is definatly something wrong with the rendomness, because it is not random.

 

[IronCrown]

In my previous game, there were no less than 8 occurences of the plane crash event within only five turns! It was especially annoying because the first one was a plane of my worst enemy crashing in my territory and I got 1000 EP towards him and thought 'yeah, finally something good happened'. And the very next turn one of my planes crashed in his territory and he got 1000 EPs too

The other crashes involved other AIs... I guess nobody ever boarded a plane again after that series of horrible accidents

 

[GarretSidzaka]

yeah i think they should weight all negative events like 10%-15% less, not for realism but for fun value

 

[Indiansmoke]

I experimented with the randomness of events by reloading a a game that was lost anyway numerous times. Result...after 4 turns, every time I reloaded, I got the same negative event and after about 10 turns I got the same quest. That was over 6-7 reloads.

 

[K.F. Huszár]

Hey.

I am also bothered by the seeming randomness of "random events".

I don't really understand why it written in the Civilopedia, that random events may depend on the style you play the game. In my last game, Gandhi got two serious bonuses first for Swordsmen ("larger shields" - cover promotion) and then for archer ("master bowyer).
It happened in the ancient or classic era and he waged two or three short wars before.

And what about the quests??? What triggers the quests? In this last game there was only one quest, of which I was only informed in the replay

So, random events are pretty cool - but they should be regulated better.

 

[IronCrown]

I experimented with the randomness of events by reloading a a game that was lost anyway numerous times. Result...after 4 turns, every time I reloaded, I got the same negative event and after about 10 turns I got the same quest. That was over 6-7 reloads.

That's because the game uses a random seed. That's a number that's used to generate 'random' results (computers cannot truly generate real random numbers due to their design, it's just not possible). Well, the random seed does not change on reloading the game so the results will always be the same for that game.

BUT you can check the option "generate new random seed on reload". Then every time you reload the game a new seed is generated and you get different results.

 

[ori]

Hey.

I am also bothered by the seeming randomness of "random events".

I don't really understand why it written in the Civilopedia, that random events may depend on the style you play the game. In my last game, Gandhi got two serious bonuses first for Swordsmen ("larger shields" - cover promotion) and then for archer ("master bowyer).
It happened in the ancient or classic era and he waged two or three short wars before.

And what about the quests??? What triggers the quests? In this last game there was only one quest, of which I was only informed in the replay

So, random events are pretty cool - but they should be regulated better.

they are not regulated at all, they really are random - quests are no different from other events.
The problem with more bad events than good events is probably due to the fact that quite a few of the bad effects do not have any prereqs so they can occur every turn, while most positive ones have prereqs so on average you have more negative ones in the random pool...
One thing that does have a tremendous effect on the number of events you get is how fast you progress through the tech tree - the later eras are set to produce more events so if you vastly outtech the AI you will have much more events than they have. This of course is only the case on lower difficulties...

 

[K.F. Huszár]

In one of my games a quest only happened when everyone possesed a certain tech - I tried with several reloadings.

(It was the Noble Knight quest - it began when I gave the tech needed to the last who had not researched it)

 

[ori]

In one of my games a quest only happened when everyone possesed a certain tech - I tried with several reloadings.

(It was the Noble Knight quest - it began when I gave the tech needed to the last who had not researched it)

reloading is not a valid test since the random seed that governs randomness in this game is preserved upon reload
This Quest does not require all civs to know a certain tech - it just requires the player who triggers it to know it. It still is a random occurance (i.e. unless you mod the game you need to fulfill the prereqs AND the random numbers have to chose this event to trigger and not some other event).

 

[quiddity]

the more ironic Imo is when you get 3 or 4 times in a raw the same mine collapse
after you paid to improve the "security" each time, i mean i though it would had been logical if after one mine collapse , if you paid for repair that this mine will not be "eligible" for any collapsing event until , i don't know, maybe 50-100 turns ?
Although it seems to be always the same tiles ( more or less ) who got catastrophic events ..

 

[Julian Delphiki]

^ So true, there should be some mechanism preventing such repeat of events.

 

[Enigmatrix]

also all the the AI's would often be hit by the same event at the same time. (50% event possibility for each country) and eveyone would be hit by a tornado, or everyone would have a fire, not some having tornados, some having fires, some having mine collapses.

 

[K.F. Huszár]

to Ori

load save is a valid test for random occurance IF you clicked "new random seed on relaod".

Otherwise

i strated a new game yesterday (noble) and i am CARPETBOMBED by not only random events but GOOD random events. I am at approx 610 AD and I had three or four slightly bad events (a quarry and a pasture destroyed) and several very good events e.g. a spontaneus golden age, peace brokered, three quests (two very easy), a "joyful wedding" and so on. Before that I got four tribal villages two of them containing techs and two others containg a hundred golds.

What's that??? Is it possible that there is a "sucker" and a "blessed" mode triggered automately before you start the game?
Seems not so likely

 

[IronCrown]

I think someone stole my luck and gave it to you

 

[mystyfly]

no one says that random events are to help you / good ones and bad ones balance themselves out...
they exist to make the games more different from each other, more unique.

m'kay, this one destroying your forge when building the collossus is bad..

 

[ori]

to Ori

load save is a valid test for random occurance IF you clicked "new random seed on relaod".

you are right - I usually assume that people saying reload does not work don't do this

Otherwise

i strated a new game yesterday (noble) and i am CARPETBOMBED by not only random events but GOOD random events. I am at approx 610 AD and I had three or four slightly bad events (a quarry and a pasture destroyed) and several very good events e.g. a spontaneus golden age, peace brokered, three quests (two very easy), a "joyful wedding" and so on. Before that I got four tribal villages two of them containing techs and two others containg a hundred golds.

What's that??? Is it possible that there is a "sucker" and a "blessed" mode triggered automately before you start the game?
Seems not so likely

that is the way randomness can work sometimes it does cluster favorable results, sometimes it sucks