Dice Complaints and Various Suggestions to Fix Them

wolfpack · Post by **wolfpack** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 2:53 am

I often have become suspiciousof the dice or possibly whos using them

tanar · Post by **tanar** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:33 am

I suspect that those 43% of people who are not happy with the dice just don't know how to play this game, and blame the dice for not being able to win games...

In SOME cases, yes, the unlucky dice may ruin your chances during YOUR turn. And yes it's boring if the dice ("always") behave badly the moment you happen to be playing the game. But most of the turns in the game are NOT your turns, and most of the attacks in the game are NOT done by you.

If you think that the dice favor the defender, be glad and LEARN how to defend, because in most attacks a) you're not involved at all (wish this), or b) you are the defending party (you're just not playing that moment).

So the real issue is not, are the DICE random (enough). Think if there were no dice, and you'd exactly know the outcome of every attack - would you then be able to win? Would the OTHER PLAYERS be random enough to leave you alone until you can take them out and be the last standing?

...

RexRegis · Post by **RexRegis** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:40 am

I just want to point out 2 things...
first of all
computers can't randomize...
they all use some kind of list of numbers.

second of all, if you throw 60,000 dices and expekt to get 10,000 of each number, you don't have a random dice, proberbility say that you should get 10k of each but the randomness say you should only get close to that, with some difference.

there is always a chance of getting 60,000 sixes... or ones or...

and remember the defender is stronger then the attacker, equals favor the defender.
meaning that the defender have 6 possible winning numbers while the attacker only have 5(1s can't win) and also the defender have a unbeateble number(6).

thejackofhearts · Post by **thejackofhearts** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:11 pm

Bonquida wrote:43% of people are not satisfied with the dice. This is less than half. It is also a lot of people! People who are not satisfied with a basic, important element of the gameplay. That would be like 43% of people saying the brakes on their car don't work well. Would car manufacturers still produce the same brakes if 43% of their customers had a problem with it? Probably, but SHOULD THEY? nah, not really.

Anyway, it might just be human psychology that is ticking me off, so I just started to tally all of my wins vs. loss attacking. I should win more often attacking than the defender in 3 v. 2 situations and I'm going to see if that is happening.

actually in 3 v. 2 situations you should lose more often than you win, cause with three armies you only get two dice rolls. and since the defender wins any ties, you have the statistical disadvantage by attacking 3 v. 2

thejackofhearts · Post by **thejackofhearts** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:18 pm

RexRegis wrote:I just want to point out 2 things...
first of all
computers can't randomize...
they all use some kind of list of numbers.

actually they don't always use list numbers, there is a program that "generates" random number based on the time in milliseconds. It takes the time and plugs it into a logorithm which spits out a number.

RexRegis · Post by **RexRegis** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 1:13 pm

in my knowledge you often start where in the list you start by using the time in milliseconds... but after that you use the list...
in C++ you use srand(time); to point out where in the list you start then you use rand(); to get the next number...

so if you write:
srand(400);
rand();
rand();
you will get the same 2 numbers EVERY time you run the program...

the commun way to write it is:
srand(current time);
rand();
rand();

but ofcourse you could write:
srand(current time);
rand();
srand(current time);
rand();

the last wont give you the numbers as they are listed, but it will take more computer power and isn't really necesary.

Nous-irons · Post by **Nous-irons** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 3:12 pm

Note that "random" does not mean "regularly distributed". It is, in fact, random. Random includes a chance that the dice will for a while have several values in a row.

Nous-irons · Post by **Nous-irons** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 3:21 pm

I believe /dev/random on Linux machines uses estimates of signal noise in a machine to generate random numbers. After all, noise is generated all the time, due to the nature of information entropy ... whether from the network or from the graphics card.

RexRegis · Post by **RexRegis** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 4:17 pm

Nous-irons wrote:I believe /dev/random on Linux machines uses estimates of signal noise in a machine to generate random numbers. After all, noise is generated all the time, due to the nature of information entropy ... whether from the network or from the graphics card.

this might be true... and would be great at some times... but what if the noise stays pretty even... and noise can be made, so you would be able to manipulate the results by make heavy loading on the machine.
not that you can controll it, but you can manipulate with it.

so there is still no way to make a perfect random number...

cyberdaniel · Post by **cyberdaniel** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:59 pm

Actually I heard that lava lamps can give random numbers. I heard that they made a study and the lava lamp gives random sequences of numbers or letters making one a very good way of generating random passwords.

dan n · Post by **dan n** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 5:29 am

Don't get me wrong, I know there is luck involved with the dice but how is it done? Is it completely random? In one game I had 8 men against one and lost, another game I had like 18 men against 2 and almost lost etc..etc.. It just seems that lately all the luck is against me. I'm just curious to know how the rolls are calculated?

Thanks!

tals · Post by **tals** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:04 am

From the FAQ (top right button)

The dice are based on high quality random numbers from Random.org. The numbers are read from a large file containing columns of numbers from 1 to 6, in the format A1 A2 A3 D1 D2. When the dice are rolled, the game engine reads a line from the file and discards it. The appropriate numbers are used and the others are ignored. The file contains 500,000 lines of dice rolls and is re-loaded when all the lines are used up. As of November 2006 we consume 125,000 lines of dice rolls per day.

dan n · Post by **dan n** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 10:05 am

in english please? One more thing...I find that when I play doubles my luck is awesome but in singles it's horrible...really. I know this sounds dumb but .......

dan n · Post by **dan n** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 10:27 am

OK....forget it. Now I just rolled like a star in a singles match. It's almost like it's all or nothing with this game. Either you roll great or you roll badly.

tals · Post by **tals** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:50 pm

dan n wrote:OK....forget it. Now I just rolled like a star in a singles match. It's almost like it's all or nothing with this game. Either you roll great or you roll badly.

Its just like dice!

Do this link
http://random.org/cgi-bin/randnum?num=1 ... ax=6&col=5

That is what this site does but on a much larger scale. Then every turn represents a row. So if you have 2 dice against 1. He takes column 1 and 2 against colomn 4. He then throws the entire row away and starts on the next row.

Hope that makes sense, so really its as random as they get - if you still don't think it is look at the numbers random.org generates for where the issue is.

Tals

cattrain · Post by **cattrain** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 1:31 am

what?!?! high quality my ****... comeon... random is random... javascript does it just as random as a billion line code from "randomdiceweekly.com" come on...

strike wolf · Post by **strike wolf** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 2:24 am

dan n wrote:in english please? One more thing...I find that when I play doubles my luck is awesome but in singles it's horrible...really. I know this sounds dumb but .......

Just basically the dice go through a generator that has certain factors. That's why you see dice that go through long periods of time where you just can't win then switch to a game where you just can't lose.

tals · Post by **tals** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 3:07 am

strike wolf wrote:
dan n wrote:in english please? One more thing...I find that when I play doubles my luck is awesome but in singles it's horrible...really. I know this sounds dumb but .......

Just basically the dice go through a generator that has certain factors. That's why you see dice that go through long periods of time where you just can't win then switch to a game where you just can't lose.

If that was true you should be able to see a correlation with your findings on random.org. I seriously doubt they are 'weighted' to particular times. Consuming 1/2 million rows a day means every second 6 rows are being used up. So even when you attack (not auto attack) you're be getting rows not consequtive. Does make me wonder if I leave off the auto attacks though.

Tals

b.k. barunt · Post by **b.k. barunt** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 11:48 pm

I've read far too many serious complaints besides experiencing a plethora of examples in my 18 games. Whatever system you are using now, it obviously is not working. These defensive dice are ridiculously lopsided in a very consistent way.

spiesr · Post by **spiesr** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:59 am

The word RANDOM: means that sometimes you will get owned on dice and sometimes you will pwn and sometimes in between, because it is random it dose not come out exactly equal!

b.k. barunt · Post by **b.k. barunt** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 11:01 am

evidently i need to make myself clear - i understand the meaning of the word "random". My contention is that the defensive dice are NOT random, and i believe that if you took a poll, you would find that a majority of players concur w/that opinion.

jay_a2j · Post by **jay_a2j** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 12:55 pm

Like 9/10 times that I attack a territory with one (1) army on it and its my first attack that turn, the defence rolls a 6.

tals · Post by **tals** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:04 pm

b.k. barunt wrote:evidently i need to make myself clear - i understand the meaning of the word "random". My contention is that the defensive dice are NOT random, and i believe that if you took a poll, you would find that a majority of players concur w/that opinion.

Not really I think you need to check random.org or this link

http://random.org/cgi-bin/randnum?num=1 ... ax=6&col=5

this is where the dice come from, take the last 2 columns and those are the defense dice. If you see a patern (which you won't

) then you have the problem.

Tals

superkarn · Post by **superkarn** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:06 pm

The file contains 500,000 lines of dice rolls and is re-loaded when all the lines are used up.

Re-loaded as in getting a new 500,000 lines file from random.org ... or reusing the same file over and over?

I sure hope it's the first one :!:

matjam · Post by **matjam** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 8:51 am

Im sorry but I have to agree with those that are complaining. I am seriously considering not playing ConquerClub anymore the dice have ruined it for me. There no consistent randomness. I have just played four different game and in each and everyone of them I have lost double rolls against weak players consistently and cannot make progress in the games. This is just ridiculous. ConquerClub seriously needs to relook at the dice randomness, because it really is not working, and it has pretty much runined the game for me. When you have long run of crap and then short runs of great and nothing in between there is a real problem there. I am pretty sure that if we were playing board game Risk you would not see the kind of dice generated by ConquerClub. Actually I said "pretty sure", make that "certain". The dice on ConquerClub are crap they do not refelct true randomness. There are too many people complaining for this issue not to be addressed!!