Dice

[bird45]

I think this crap is fixed no way its random my dice stats over my last 10 games is -36% for defense and -14% for attack gee I wonder why I lost my last ten random my ass.

[Jippd]

Believe it or not the man is not out to get you and there is no giant dice conspiracy

[Vaduzkrieg]

I agree with the dice being fixed. In the last few days I have lost battles where I have had 5 times the troop numbers. The defense doesn't lose a man and you just sit there watching the same 6 appear over and over again for the Defense roll.
But when I attacked I lost a 24-20 battle (I had 20 and was on Defense) and a 10-9 battle (I had 9 and was on defense) in one turn. I have NEVER had that kind of luck attacking someone. It's just frustrating to sit here and lose 8-1, 9-2 or 7-3 battles over and over again. There should be an option to turn luck off.
It really just makes the game boring and I will not renew my subscription because of this.

[Swifte]

I agree with the dice being fixed. In the last few days I have lost battles where I have had 5 times the troop numbers. The defense doesn't lose a man and you just sit there watching the same 6 appear over and over again for the Defense roll.
But when I attacked I lost a 24-20 battle (I had 20 and was on Defense) and a 10-9 battle (I had 9 and was on defense) in one turn. I have NEVER had that kind of luck attacking someone. It's just frustrating to sit here and lose 8-1, 9-2 or 7-3 battles over and over again. There should be an option to turn luck off.
It really just makes the game boring and I will not renew my subscription because of this.

Go home. Take your board game out. play 100 games. tell me these things never happen.

The dice ARE random - that's exactly WHY things don't happen the way you expect all the time.

[Jdsizzleslice]

The Dice ARE Random. But can be streaky. You might have a run where you have perfect dice. Then the next 5 games you lose because of them.

[Gweeedo]

I agree with the dice being fixed. In the last few days I have lost battles where I have had 5 times the troop numbers. The defense doesn't lose a man and you just sit there watching the same 6 appear over and over again for the Defense roll.
But when I attacked I lost a 24-20 battle (I had 20 and was on Defense) and a 10-9 battle (I had 9 and was on defense) in one turn. I have NEVER had that kind of luck attacking someone. It's just frustrating to sit here and lose 8-1, 9-2 or 7-3 battles over and over again. There should be an option to turn luck off.
It really just makes the game boring and I will not renew my subscription because of this.

Go home. Take your board game out. play 100 games. tell me these things never happen.

The dice ARE random - that's exactly WHY things don't happen the way you expect all the time.

Believe me I have!
the dice are never "EVER" as bad in a live board game as they are in CC.
Computer dice suck and it has been proved they are anything but Random

[Metsfanmax]

I agree with the dice being fixed. In the last few days I have lost battles where I have had 5 times the troop numbers. The defense doesn't lose a man and you just sit there watching the same 6 appear over and over again for the Defense roll.
But when I attacked I lost a 24-20 battle (I had 20 and was on Defense) and a 10-9 battle (I had 9 and was on defense) in one turn. I have NEVER had that kind of luck attacking someone. It's just frustrating to sit here and lose 8-1, 9-2 or 7-3 battles over and over again. There should be an option to turn luck off.
It really just makes the game boring and I will not renew my subscription because of this.

Go home. Take your board game out. play 100 games. tell me these things never happen.

The dice ARE random - that's exactly WHY things don't happen the way you expect all the time.

Believe me I have!
the dice are never "EVER" as bad in a live board game as they are in CC.
Computer dice suck and it has been proved they are anything but Random

Go grab a die that you own and roll it 100 times. Record the results. Go to random.org and get 100 random numbers between 1 and 6. Record those results too. Post them here.

[Gweeedo]

OK, I am rolling em right now..
Sorry but Computer generated dice suck! Always have for me.

Six sided dice I like, and they like me!
No question.
I'z gots me some loaded dice! (seems as if CC does too)

[Vaduzkrieg]

It's not what is expected it's what is statistically probable. And when the tie goes tot he Defense some of these numbers are nuts. I just had a 29 to 25 battle (I was on def with 25) and I lost and he had 7 men left. The odds of that happening are crazy. And I never have those odds when I attack. I played a game where the Def rolled 7 6's in a row. What are the odds of that happening? The last 5 rolls for me I have had -60% luck on defense. And I never get those lucky swings in my favour. Maybe I have to play 1000 games before I see it.

[Chirondom]

It's not what is expected it's what is statistically probable. And when the tie goes tot he Defense some of these numbers are nuts. I just had a 29 to 25 battle (I was on def with 25) and I lost and he had 7 men left. The odds of that happening are crazy. And I never have those odds when I attack. I played a game where the Def rolled 7 6's in a row. What are the odds of that happening? The last 5 rolls for me I have had -60% luck on defense. And I never get those lucky swings in my favour. Maybe I have to play 1000 games before I see it.

Err...there's a 55% chance of at least 7 attacking troops surviving in 29-25 mash-up. Seriously, put in the odds: http://gamesbyemail.com/Games/Gambit/BattleOdds

None of that is particularly surprising.

[Vaduzkrieg]

Im sure 55% is correct. Yet I have never had this. I have yet to win a battle where I have not had at least double the men. I won't even attack unless I have triple. Because I always lose.

[Vaduzkrieg]

And how is 7 sixes in a row not surprising?

[degaston]

The Dice ARE Random.

Perhaps you meant to say that the dice are not "fixed". They are definitely not random.

Random dice don't do this:

[Jippd]

What is the average distribution of all those bar graphs?

[degaston]

What is the average distribution of all those bar graphs?

The graph came from this thread: http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=194323
The center line at 16.66% is the expected average for all numbers. Almost everyone rolls 1's less than expected, and 2's and 4's more than expected. Looks like your dice stats are pretty much the same.

[chapcrap]

My dice stats fall in line with that graph as well.

[ntcbadabing]

I've read one of the most challenging things for a computer to do is to generate a truly random number. Even random.org would have to have predictability because it takes a mathematical formula to interpret the atmospheric noise and translate that to a number within a given range. As far as I know, no computer has yet been able to accomplish a truly random number generation. To expect CC to seems a little far fetched.. the dice are probably even fixed, but not fixed to make one player lose and another player win, but fixed to keep all players odds of rolling a particular number even. When your rolls start to get weighted to one side or the other, you could probably expect the CC RNG to put you back on track for equality. You can use this in your favor.. I've noticed I go on good luck and bad luck streaks.. so if I'm on a losing streak, I play some games I can afford to lose some troops on. If I'm on a winning streak, I go rampage with my big armies. Seems to work well, but as expected, I get the unexpected sometimes. I'm sure that's due to short, medium, and long term number tracking by the CC RNG formula. Or maybe I'm just way off and I just think it works, lol..

[degaston]

I've read one of the most challenging things for a computer to do is to generate a truly random number. Even random.org would have to have predictability because it takes a mathematical formula to interpret the atmospheric noise and translate that to a number within a given range. As far as I know, no computer has yet been able to accomplish a truly random number generation. To expect CC to seems a little far fetched.. the dice are probably even fixed, but not fixed to make one player lose and another player win, but fixed to keep all players odds of rolling a particular number even. When your rolls start to get weighted to one side or the other, you could probably expect the CC RNG to put you back on track for equality...

From what I've read, Random.org does generate true random numbers. I've looked at some samples from the site, and can find no bias like what is seen with CC data. The CC dice are obviously not "fixed" to ensure that all numbers appear evenly or everyone's data wouldn't be skewed. The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that they have a large set of random data in which 1's appear slightly less than 1/6 of the time, and 2's and 4's appear slightly more than 1/6th, and they've been re-using this data for years. The data set itself could probably pass any random test, but when you re-use it, the small bias will be reinforced over and over again.

Here's what I posted yesterday:

...Almost everyone rolls 1's less than expected, and 2's and 4's more than expected.

... and here's your data:

Coincidence?

[Jdsizzleslice]

The Dice ARE Random.

Perhaps you meant to say that the dice are not "fixed". They are definitely not random.

Random dice don't do this:

You are taking it out of context.

The Dice ARE Random. But can be streaky. You might have a run where you have perfect dice. Then the next 5 games you lose because of them.

[degaston]

You are taking it out of context.

Not trying to pick on you, I know you're not the first one to say that the dice are random, but I'm not sure how the context affects your statement. Are you claiming that the dice ARE random, and that all that data is just showing a streak? A streak that just happens to show an almost identical pattern for every player whether they've played 100 games or 10,000? Streaks are to be expected for random dice, but over a large sample of data, they will be cancelled out for some players by opposing streaks. If you start with a set of random numbers, that's fine. If you re-use that set of numbers in the same context, then it can no longer be called random.

[degaston]

You are taking it out of context.

Not trying to pick on you, I know you're not the first one to say that the dice are random, but I'm not sure how the context affects your statement. Are you claiming that the dice ARE random, and that all that data is just showing a streak? A streak that just happens to show an almost identical pattern for every player whether they've played 100 games or 10,000? Streaks are to be expected for random dice, but over a large sample of data, they will be cancelled out for some players by opposing streaks. If you start with a set of random numbers, that's fine. If you re-use that set of numbers in the same context, then it can no longer be called random.

[ntcbadabing]

degaston, it is interesting 2 and 4's come up more regularly for all players. A couple explanations for this could be CC's RNG formula leans to those numbers as it makes getting the average goal of 3.5 easier to accomplish. We have to remember that with CC's RNG, the 'RNG' should be programmed for all players to roll an average of 3.5 to keep the game fair so a truly random RNG wouldn't even work here as the average roll would then be random for each player. The other explanation could be when the formula was implemented, some of the beginning players the formula applied to needed to roll 2's and 4's to even their odds out and once the formula had the data necessary for long term RNG, 2's and 4's had taken over the formula and that remains to this day, which would suggest a broken formula. But it's broken for all equally, so for strategy gaming purposes, it works.

[degaston]

In other threads, CC reps have stated that they use Random.org which can supply sets of true random integers from 1-6. So which seems more likely:

They claim to be using random.org but they actually wrote their own code to generate pseudo-random numbers but there was a problem with it so instead of fixing their PRNG or getting numbers from a reliable source they tried to tweak the output to make people happy by giving them fewer 1's but they didn't want it to look too suspicious so they increased the 2's and 4's to keep the average just above 3.5 but now that the bias has been revealed they're just too lazy to go back and tweak the tweak after doing all that work?

or...

The code to refresh the set of numbers they get from random.org broke so they just keep using the same data over and over?

Occam's razor would favor the second explanation.

[ntcbadabing]

I don't know.. I do know you can't have a truly random number generator for CC games if you also want to implement something to make the players average dice rolls to be 3.5 .. that by design defeats the purpose of RNG. Without the feature to equalize rolling averages, you'd have random average dice rolls for each player. So now you have random.org using a mathematical equation to interpret atmoshperic noise (which has to be predictable) and a CC equation to manipulate those results to keep the players even. I'm just guessing at all this..

[Metsfanmax]

CC does not currently intentionally tamper with the results to alter the distribution of rolls.