Pythium revelers

[Coldshard]

So I checked around and havent seen any reports of a bug with these guys... but in a couple of test games I have created nearly a hundred of them and 'none' of them have picked up the 20% chance of nature or blood..

I know it is technically possible to get this many without having the chance pop up, but I am well into the "vanishingly small" section of probabilities here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Has anyone had any luck getting the extra magic paths out of these guys?

[ano]

Yes they get the extra levels but it seems to be VERY rare. I also think that the probability is less than 20%

[Meglobob]

Perhaps report this as a bug?

[sector24]

I have had the same problem sometimes. But once I got a reveler on the 3rd try. It's one of the (many) things I hate about LA Pythium.

[Ironhawk]

I played a fair amount of LA Pyth before the last patch and I got revelers with blood about as often as I expected. I think the 5th in one game an the 10th in another.

[Lingchih]

You have a 10% chance of getting one with blood. Took me about 10-15 tries in my last game to get one with blood. You will get one eventually though.

Of course, at that point, you will have a dozen or more of the worst kind of heretic running around your country. I was unimpressed with them. They can make a jade knife, but LA Pyth is not a blood sac nation. They can also cast Orgy, to get a very poor seducer.

[ano]

sector24 said:
I have had the same problem sometimes. But once I got a reveler on the 3rd try. It's one of the (many) things I hate about LA Pythium.


Yes. Mages who can do everything usually can do almost nothing.
My friend tested revelers a lot and I believe he concluded that there's less than 20 percent chance in fact. Blood revelers are very important for Pythium actually but unfortunately they can't be a core of strategy with such small chance of a blood pick.

[llamabeast]

For me I got them with about the expected frequency.

I'd say the chances of this being a bug are pretty small, being as there's nothing unique about revellers.

[llamabeast]

I just recruited 10 and 6 were either N2 or N1B1! Freaky.

[MaxWilson]

Sometimes I wonder about the quality of the pseudorandom number generator used by Dominions. I've noticed weird correlations occasionally--in my current game I have found no fewer than THREE Air sites producing mages (Mirror Lake, Inverted Tower, and one other) when I usually don't find any. It could just be observer bias, but:

http://web.archive.org/web/20011027002011/http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2001182781025.gif

If it looks like a duck but might sometimes look like a duck even if it wasn't a duck, is it a duck anyway...?

-Max

[Ironhawk]

ano said:
Blood revelers are very important for Pythium actually but unfortunately they can't be a core of strategy with such small chance of a blood pick.



Why do you say that they are very important? I found them to be nice but rather unimportant in the grand scheme of LA Pyth. Basically just gives you access to an endless stream of free assassins. Good, but nothing to write home about, given the weakness of assassins in general.

[Wick]

Out of 100: 87 N1, 9 N2, 4 NB. It's fine.

Edit: It's not fine -- the unit says 20% chance.

[NTJedi]

Ironhawk said:

ano said:
Blood revelers are very important for Pythium actually but unfortunately they can't be a core of strategy with such small chance of a blood pick.



Why do you say that they are very important? I found them to be nice but rather unimportant in the grand scheme of LA Pyth. Basically just gives you access to an endless stream of free assassins. Good, but nothing to write home about, given the weakness of assassins in general.



Revelers aren't even stealthy... what free assassins do you mean?

[Wick]

He means the satyr assassins from the Orgy spell. Unfortunately, since each Reveler costs 30g over Serpent Cult's other N1 mages that's 600g for a point of blood and not, in my estimation, remotely worthwhile.

[PvK]

They can work out very well, with actual luck. I got two N1B1's hiring fewer than ten revelers, and seduced someone who had several paths at levels I lacked.

[Endoperez]

28 Revelers (20% NB random): 2 Revelers with N2
26 Skopets (20% B random): 7 Skopets with B1

Heh, I just realised why I was getting such high unrest in my capital as Bogarus... I forgot Skopets generate unrest! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[JimMorrison]

Strange that these 20% picks are getting such universally low numbers.

I very often use mages that have a 10% pick, and over time I feel I consistently average about 15% of those mages getting the extra pick. That is to say, in most games it's closer to 20% on a 10% pick, then there is the random run here or there with almost none getting the extra pick.

[Endoperez]

JimMorrison said:
Strange that these 20% picks are getting such universally low numbers.



7/26 = 0.27
I don't see where you find the "universally low numbers".

[Endoperez]

Another batch:
24 Revelers, 4 randoms (3x Blood, 1x Nature)
24 Skopets, 3 randoms


I'll run at least one more batch. I reversed the scales from my first test, and now revelers have twice the randoms they used to have while Skopets are down to half of what they got before.

[Endoperez]

L 24 Revelers, 7 randoms (4xNature, 3x Blood)
M 24 Skopets, 6 randoms

M 24 Revelers, 4 randoms (3x Blood, 1x Nature)
L 24 Skopets, 3 randoms

L 28 Revelers (20% NB random): 2 Revelers with N2
M 26 Skopets (20% B random): 7 Skopets with B1

Total: 29 randoms outs of 150 mages, total 0,19333

L marks Luck 3 scale, about 16% of mages had random.
M marks Misfortune 3 scale, about 23% of mages had random.

I doubt the luck scale had any effect. With sample size of about 75, having 3 randoms more or less can be put up to random variation. If someone else feels like testing it, feel free, but it's boring.

Oh, and Reveler vs Skopet values:
Reveler: 13/76 = 17% had random
Skopet: 16/74 = 22% had random

[JimMorrison]

Well, I just ran a test batch, 9 nations (well 10, but Midgard has no mages with random picks to test, I did not know this!), trained 20 mages each, tried to get some variety in pick style-

Arco - Mystic, 3 50% picks: 3 got 0 (15% with 12.5% probability), 3 got 1 pick (15% with 37.5% probability), *13* got 2 (65% with 37.5% probability.), 1 got 3 (5% with 12.5% probability).
Marignon - Goetic Master, 1 10% pick: 2 got the pick, 10%.
Jomon - Kanushi, 1 10% pick: 1 got the pick, 5%.
C'tis - Sauromancer, 1 10% pick: 1 got the pick, 5%.
Utgard - Norna, 1 10% pick: 1 got the pick, 5%.
Patala - Nagarishi, 1 10% pick: 4 got the pick, 20%.
Atlantis - Angakok, 1 10% pick: 2 got the pick, 10%.
Pythium - Reveler, 1 20% pick: 6 got the pick, 30%.
Bogarus - Skopets, 1 20% pick: 4 got the pick, 20%.

This leaves us with an average fulfillment of (222%/250%) = 89% of random pick consistency, on a test body of 180 mages.

<3

[PvK]

Well within standard deviation, no?

[Lingchih]

Well again, to harp back on an idea that has been posted before, I think the random engine is flawed. I am not a programmer, but I do know how random engines work, and some are better than others.

The Dom engine, as I have witnessed through many different events, seems to hone in on it's first random number. I have gotten six of the same type of tartarians in each consecutive turn in a game, and received several of the same events time after time in games.

That said, I know that truly random engines are very hard to code. I think the one in Dom 3 works fine most of time.

[JimMorrison]

PvK said:
Well within standard deviation, no?



Indeed. The smaller samples show larger swings of course, and the larger the sample, the more homogenized the picks begin to look.


As far as the RNG goes, I'm not totally sure I agree that there is some fundamental flaw beyond it being an RNG. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif I mean, there are only 5 different types of Tarts, right? And you got 6 of one type in a string, which is relatively unlikely. But have you ever played Yahtzee? Ever been dealt a straight flush or 4 of a kind in poker? If you saw that sort of blatant streaks very commonly, I am sure that it would be indicative of a problem.

Really though, random is different from chaos. It would be interesting if there was a chaos generator rather than a random generator, and it looked at what you had gotten, and increased the probabilities on a geometrically curved bias skewed towards what has been lacking. Unfortunately, doing so would render ultra high prot/MR/def to be even more powerful than it already is, because rather than having a 16% chance to roll another 6 after your first one, the probability would artificially drop. Bear in mind, your odds of rolling a second 6 are NOT 2.8%, they are in fact still 16%. This is why the general rule of thumb will always be - short term streaks, long term statistical averages.

[Karlem]

Regarding random generator seed and such.

I think that it's decided when you create a game, why? I've seen this multiple times:

1.- Create a game, play a couple of turns
2.- Back up the game.
3.- Host it. Random events X & Y.
4-. Use back up and host it with no changes. Same random events X & Y.

Repeat point 4 a couple of times and that should prove this, isn't it?

[thejeff]

True, the seed probably is decided when you create a game, but that has no bearing on whether it's a good psuedo random generator or not.

Rerun a turn with the same orders, everything should come out the same.

Rerun a turn with even one slight change (that requires a different random roll) everything after that should be different.

[sector24]

Two important things to note:
1) The N2 reveler is garbage due to Epoptes, all that matters is the blood random, so it's really a 10% chance to get what you want.

2) The average is not as important as the worst case scenario, because you really only need 1 reveler (2 would be nice but is unnecessary). When the worst case is 50 or 100 recruits before you get a blood random, that sucks.

I think this is an unusually big deal for LA Pythium because the satyr you summon is extremely useful. Not just as an assassin, but as an assassin with leadership 40 that can summon maenads when there's nothing better to do. An extremely versatile commander all for a single blood slave. They are head and shoulders above an indy commander, and cheaper as well (both initial cost and upkeep). To not take advantage of this is foolish, but at the same time to try and take advantage of this is also foolish.

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
As far as the RNG goes, I'm not totally sure I agree that there is some fundamental flaw beyond it being an RNG. *snip* Really though, random is different from chaos. It would be interesting if there was a chaos generator rather than a random generator, and it looked at what you had gotten, and increased the probabilities on a geometrically curved bias skewed towards what has been lacking.



A high-quality pseudorandom number generator will produce numbers in the observation domain that are statistically uncorrelated with each other. That's about as good as you can do with stateful generators. It would not surprise me if Dominions had a weak pseudorandom number generator (JK is unlikely to have written one himself). I don't call that a bug, but it does mean I'm skeptical about certain kinds of empirical testing. Instead of one person recruiting 1000 Revelers and counting the random picks, I'm more inclined to trust the average of 10 people each recruiting 100 Revelers (in separate games) because the Revelers picked all on one machine may be correlated.

-Max

[Endoperez]

Reported problems with the Revenant randoms:
Coldshard, ano, llamabeast


Revenant random distribution reported as working fine:
Ironhawk, Lingchih, llamabeast, Wick, Endoperez, Jim Morrison

It's not quite 10, but it's close.



Also, one thing to keep in mind when speaking about RNG is that the computer doesn't categorize things. Things are just things. For a human, finding four sites with fire mages in your provinces seems like too small of a chance to be a coincidence. For the RNG, it's provinces A, D, E, F, H, L, M, N and P having, among others, sites 100, 185, 24, 280 and 65, or something. RNG problems with sites probably aren't visible to the player, unless multiple provinces have the exact same provinces or the same site appears multiple times in a province.

[MaxWilson]

Endoperez,

I agree about the categorization. That's why finding a bunch of illusionists in one game is just weird (and possibly observer bias) and not necessarily a bias in the game. I *wonder* about the quality of the pseudorandom number generator, but without knowing the implemenation it's hard to know if the pseudorandom number generator could make any difference. Suppose that one particular seed is more likely to generate 2's on a d8 roll. Does that translate to more Air sites than normal? Only if d8 rolls are involved in site generation, e.g. if the game rolls for the chance of a site existing and then randomly picks which path it will be from a path mask. But it could just as easily do it the other way around (pick the site directly, not the path first) and in that case the d8 weirdness wouldn't matter.

So. It's not too small to be coincidence, but I've just seen things occasionally that make me wonder.

-Max

[Coldshard]

I did go and run another test game.. 4 keeps on 4 different terrain types and recruited 50 revelers on each.. at the end there were 22 with +1 nature and 5 with +1 blood total but the distribution between keeps wasn't definitive enough with such a low sample set.. I just got tired of clicking after that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

My first two tests definitely went much worse, this one was at least somewhat close overall. Still not really happy with it though.

[PvK]

A hypothetical equation comes to mind:

nCOSG * O(P * 1/f) * cPer = nF + nPH

control-oriented strategy gamers * high-payoff/low-probability options * personality coefficient = number of frustrated gamers & paranoid hypotheses

[JimMorrison]

Hahaha <3 PvK!

Sounds like a way to finally quantify the elusive "bull**** tolerance" that I have been chasing since I bought EverQuest 8 years ago. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Lingchih]

PvK said:
A hypothetical equation comes to mind:

nCOSG * O(P * 1/f) * cPer = nF + nPH

control-oriented strategy gamers * high-payoff/low-probability options * personality coefficient = number of frustrated gamers & paranoid hypotheses



Hehe. Nice equation.

Seriously though, if you feel you must have a blood mage, just recruit them until you get one. Send all the rest of them off to die on the front. Or, if you have provinces enough, make one them the heretic province, and send all your failed revelers there to research or whatever.