The battle rng can be infuriating some time

[Pengu]

It is just frustrating to watch the odds before a fight only to get screwed so badly it isn't even funny.
Had a stack of cavs and and attacked some phants and longbowmen. 5 uppgraded with 3 75.5 % odds,1 with 88.5 % odds and 1 with 88.8% odds. I won 1! of the 75.5% fights. And you could say it was bad luck but no way as it happens WAY too often imo....
What does it even come out to? 0.00001% chance of happening.....

 

[PPQ_Purple]

The math works out at 0.073597853% or just about 1 in 1358.

 

[Pangaea]

Gosh, tell me about it..! Why does the game have such an extreme ability to screw you over when the combats actually matter? Like early in the game when losing several 90% in a row will really mess up yer arse. 0.25% chance to lose them all? Okay, thank you game

 

[Fippy]

Why does the game have such an extreme ability to screw you over when the combats actually matter?

Pretty old topic and stat wizards are already lurking
From experience i know (for myself)..
a) odds cannot be trusted, 100% can be lost
b) like many other game RNGs it's not "true" and unlucky streaks happen more often than they should
c) same is true for lucky streaks, but as player we cannot see those cos we are not taking dumb fights

 

[krikav]

This is a big reason I have a preference of warfare with sturdy stacks, weather that is catapults at construction or some engineering bulb attack, or bread&butter cannonattacks or later infantry+artillery.
In such situations cities cost a number of siege. You pay the price and you get the city and then you roll on.

It's not as smooth nor as elegant as when a HA rush or a cuirstomp clicks, but I know I'm not being screwed over by lousy rng.

 

[Seraiel]

Yes, Odds cannot be trusted. I' ve also already lost many early warfares, while Cuirrassiers, Cavalry and Cannons always win.

 

[s.bernbaum]

It does seem to run in streaks. Recently, I played an Archipelago game, so there were lots of naval fleets. I would attack an AI fleet with half a dozen aircraft and every one of them would get intercepted by destroyers, who only have a 30% chance of intercepting. Then I would attack a different fleet, which had the same number of destroyers, with another half dozen planes and every plane would score a hit on a ship, with no interceptions.

 

[Kaiman]

Board games with physical dice often seem to run in streaks too. They are just more memorable.

And you could say it was bad luck but no way as it happens WAY too often imo....

Unless the displayed odds are failing to calculate some variable, then I doubt this.

 

[6K Man]

In the last week I had a 3 suicide cannons (Odds<20%) all win. Hooray. I then attacked with 3 city raider macemen (odds>80%). All lost, of course.

 

[TheBirdMan]

Now this is an issue, where I don't think there is a great difference in the "normal" BtS and the version I play.

I used to do as above wrote. Attacked with either 1 unit at a time - the one I believed had the best chance - or several units of the same type. And I ended up with exactly the same results. Some times you won, sometimes you lost - but many times I just felt that the game-engine was flawed.


Now I do attack with a stack of different units if I can - only the units I WANT do stay behind (for one or another reason) or KNOW are completely useless are left behind. That actually works. Not always - sh.t still happens. But it's not as bad as it used to be.

 

[Lennier]

Some of this problem is that we remember rolls going against expectations and the low-probability events more than the events that follow expectations. OTOH, I seem to have battles in the 70-80% range fail more often than 20-30% of the time. (I did once have a treb survive a 0.4% battle against a protective longbow on a hill that had several extra promotions (I think CD-3, D-4).

 

[sampsa]

Some of this problem is that we remember rolls going against expectations and the low-probability events more than the events that follow expectations

This. For whatever reason, it seems nearly impossible for most, even smart people to understand odds. I would say that my poker background helps here, but honestly these things are not understood by most poker professionals either.

On Strategy&Tips a maths teacher explained to me how it "evens out" and how "lottery numbers fall in exact proportion after years" due to some "force" or "memory". This is the world we live in.

In Civ 4 spoken, on a long testrun, when I WB create a city with three archers (no promotions, no fortification) and I attack with three AGG axes, no promotions, with combat odds of let's say 60% and if I repeat that endlessly, I should win in average 6 out of 10 fights. Surely not 6 out of the first 10 attacks, but maybe 600 out of 1000. At some point, it has to even out, that means probability in action for me. Because that situation is always the same, the odds are always the same and it is repeatable. How comes that it evens out over several thousand trials, if there is not a kind of "memory"?
What kind of "force" makes it happen? I don't expect someone to count but it is indeed very close to the lottery situation where numbers fall in the exact proportion after years.

 

[Infantry#14]

Don't you just wish to know the actual threshold before the battle begin? For example, if the next roll attack requires a 95% threshold to win, and you don't have a unit that has such high win chance, then you suicide a scout. The next roll is a 55% to win, then you send in your city raiding 3 unit with a 62% win chance.

In essence, this is divine guidance (cheating). Win the battles you want to win, and suicide units you don't need to those almost impossible threshold.

 

[Pangaea]

Don't know what that threshold thing is about, but in any case, you can't suicide a scout. They can't attack.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I think he means he wants to know the next dice roll in advance so that he can cheat by choosing which unit to send. So like basically he is assuming that the game just throws a 1d100. And that if he knew the next roll was say 66 he could than not send his 65% to win unit but instead "spend" that roll with another unit he either does not care about or which has a 67% to win.

Basically exactly what you do when you have new random seed on reload active and than you reload a failed fight.

 

[Infantry#14]

I think he means he wants to know the next dice roll in advance so that he can cheat by choosing which unit to send. So like basically he is assuming that the game just throws a 1d100. And that if he knew the next roll was say 66 he could than not send his 65% to win unit but instead "spend" that roll with another unit he either does not care about or which has a 67% to win.

Basically exactly what you do when you have new random seed on reload active and than you reload a failed fight.

Yep. I forgot Scouts can only defend in Civ4. Although reload with new random seed can take a long time. If you know in advance that you can win a 10% roll, you'll be creating legions of super units.

 

[AcaMetis]

Loading is much faster if you return to the main menu and (re)load a map from there rather than (re)loading a map directly from an ongoing game.

I don't know why it's much faster, but it is.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

The game needs to unload everything loaded and than load it again. By exiting to the menu you are making it unload all assets. The time you spend exiting and reentering is going to even out with the time of direct loading.

 

[AcaMetis]

Hmm...makes sense. Always felt like main menu -> load was faster than a straight load, though.

 

[Pangaea]

Oh yeah, it's definitely much faster to go to the main menu first. Otherwise the game can quite easily stand there loading for 30-60 seconds (at least in the later eras). Going to the menu is maybe 1 second, and then loading takes perhaps 1-2 seconds.

Altho the RNG can be extremely frustrating at times, I recommend to not get into the habit of reloading tho. Especially for combat outcome.