Random Civs aren't so random. A bug?

Artifex · January 12, 2004, 15:53

Anyone notice when you pick random Civs..90% of the time the Incas, Aztecs, Amercians, Iroquois, and Mayans are in your "Random" game.

Why is this? A bug?

I play Emperor, 8 civs.

Is there a way to truly make it random?

edit--ARRGH I thought I was in Conquests forum...I hate it when I post to the wrong forum accidentally...sorry.

Will Post in Conquests where I meant to.

teaster · January 15, 2004, 09:12

I usually play Huge maps with 16 civs, though this does increase the odds I have had all 5 of them in my last 3 random games. I thought this was just a strange coincidence but perhaps not.

pvzh · January 15, 2004, 14:14

Make sure you play with cultural link OFF. If it is ON you will be placed with the same cultural group predominantly.

All civ you listed are in american culture group.

geniemalin · January 21, 2004, 22:42

With cultural links 'on' I am the Portuguese.

Is there a European civ anywhere around? Not likely.

My nighbours are the Maya and the Mongols. The Incas and Iroquois are the two powerhouses, and Aztecs and America are also languishing away somewhere to the south of the continent.

I'm definitely beginning to agree there's something fishy going on

ZargonX · February 3, 2004, 14:31

Artifex: I have the exact same problem. Is something screwed up somewhere that is permanently loading the American cultural group :???:

vmxa1 · February 3, 2004, 17:52

Hum, I am seeing a lot of Inca and Mayan's as well. Do some maps with debug to see what it generated. You can see all the civs at the start.

SlightlyMadman · February 4, 2004, 14:05

This is really bugging me (pun intended). Almost every single game I've played with conquests, I've had the Mayans on my continent, as well as a couple other American civs (the rest tend to switch around a bit, but always Maya). Only in one out of the 10 or so games I've played was I an American civ (Iroqouis).

It's almost as if the game always thinks the human civ is in the American culture group.

It's possible that this only started with one of the beta patches, as I didn't notice it before then (but it still could have been happening).

It would be nice if you could exclude a culture group from the game. I guess I could always mod them out. I'm just sick of always fighting the same civs in the ancient age.

UnOrthOdOx · February 4, 2004, 17:11

um...

I haven't seen this yet. However, when I went to start my most recent game, I did notice that the game preloaded some of the above mentioned civs in the opponent boxes, and I had to manually check the 'random all' box before starting.

I think one of the conquests , maybe all of them, messes with your settings and loads them as opponents if you aren't watching. Are you sure all the boxes said random before you started?

geniemalin · February 4, 2004, 19:04

In my case anyway, yes, I specifically made all 11 civs random.

DrSpike · February 8, 2004, 08:08

Hmm, some are probably just playing in the same culture group and thus seeing the same civs. For those who aren't it seems strange..........perhaps test it, and turn the cultural link off to see if there is a bug. It doesn't need to be modded as it's an option. I haven't seen the problem, but which patch are people playing? I haven't got around to 1.15 yet.

Catt · February 8, 2004, 14:55

I actually did a test more than a week or so ago and just forgot to post the results (as the thread slipped off the front page). Version 1.15b, standard map, all random, culturally linked starts off. I launched sixty+ "quick starts" on those settings (just over 500 randomly chosen civs) and immediately checked out the space race on F10 to see who appeared in the game, and noted how many times (1) the Mayans appeared in the game, and (2) how many times the American culture grouping civs came up.

It was pretty clear that the appearance of both the Mayans and the American culture civs was right in line with expectations -- so no unusually frequent appearences.

Catt

vmxa1 · February 8, 2004, 15:57

Great then it is a done deal. Thanks Catt.

Artifex · February 8, 2004, 20:17

Yes the bug was fixed with 1.15. Big difference. I was talking asbout 1.13. It's definently not a problem now. Wow this post is almost a month old.

Catt · February 12, 2004, 02:15

Someone at CFC pointed out that the bug, if it existed, seemed to appear when "culturally linked starts" was *on.* I had actually started my tests a week or so back with default rules (including culturally linked starts) *on* before I decided to turn the culturally linked starts off on the theory that the setting could skew a limited number of results -- if the human civ happened to be American and happened to appear on many pangaea or continents maps, I felt it would produce more American results than "normal" and vice versus (i.e. less than "normal"). I had already recorded about 20 starts with linking *on* before I started again. I just ran an additional 55 starts, bringing my total to 75 starts which means 600 random civs, and American civs appeared 135 times -- 22.5% of the time. With 5 American civs of 31 total civs, we should expect approximately 16.1% of civs to be American cultural civs. Although 600 trials is not necessarily a determinative statistical sample, the deviation from expected results certainly seems significant -- based on those results, I'd cast my lot with the view that there is something slightly out of whack with "random" civ choices when culturally linked starts are *on,* even in v1.15b.

Catt

DrSpike · February 12, 2004, 05:48

Careful though.........is your civ also random? I'm not sure how the cultural link works; if the first civ had a slightly higher than population probability of being American that could snowball with cultural linking on.

Can you be more specific on what you did?

Catt · February 12, 2004, 15:20

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike
Careful though.........is your civ also random? I'm not sure how the cultural link works; if the first civ had a slightly higher than population probability of being American that could snowball with cultural linking on.

Can you be more specific on what you did?

Yeah - I started testing with linking on and then thought better of it because I felt too many things could skew it. But then others reported that they only fet there was a bug when linking was on.

Here's what I did: launch a new game, standard map size, random barbs, random landmass, water coverage, age, climate, temperature, standard 7 AI opponents - all random, random human player, difficulty happened to be demi-god, default rules (which includes culturally linked starts *on*), and normal aggressiveness setting. When presented with the start spot, click F10, note how many civs, both human and AI, were American, hit ctrl-shft-Q, and select Quick Start from the menu options. Repeat.

Unfortunately, I did not differentiate between how many starts involved human American civs versus AI American civs -- I just noted the aggregate number of American civ appearances (i.e., a column looking something like 3, 2, 0, 1, 4, etc.).

Culturally linked starts obviously is a non-random influencer on random civ selection -- one could assume that the human civ is chosen randomly, and if true, an additional number of civs (between 1 and 7) are then chosen less than randomly. All of which led me to be cautious about only 600 total trials without explaining the reason why I was cautious -- is that 600 real trials (with an expectation that the non-random effects of culturally linked starts is spread roughly evenly among the American and non-American civ appearences) or is it really only 75 trials with a view that only the initial civ chosen is random and all others are determined in a less-than-random fashion thereafter? If it's a de facto 75 trials (or something significantly less than 600 trials), the divergence between actual and expected loses a lot of bite.

And then, of course, there's the point you make, that perhaps the human civ choice is not in fact random and that American civs appear as human-playable civs more often than expected -- culturally linked starts would definitely exacerbate the overall appearence of American civs if such were the case. (Purely anecdotal, but most complaining publicly about the distribution seem to be complaining about the frequency of facing American opponents as opposed to the frequency of being given an American civ). And if it my tests constituted only 75 trials, they were also far too small to support a view as to whether the initial civ choice for the human really is random.

In any event, I am inclined to believe that there is something slightly awry, but quite open to being shown otherwise by someone who wants to conduct a more extensive evaluation.

Catt

DrSpike · February 12, 2004, 15:34

Yeah, nice though your evidence is it can only really be indicative. It seems likely to me that it should not be treated as 600 trials.

And with cultural links on (as it must be) any evidence is hard to interpret if you don't know how cultural linking works.

Bummer.

Fatwreck · February 19, 2004, 16:10

I know one thing and that is that 1.15 has not fixed this "bug" for me... every single game I get almost all of the american civs... it´s getting really old

DrSpike · February 19, 2004, 18:34

Pick different ones.

vmxa1 · February 19, 2004, 21:31

Well if it is a bug (and that is not a given), it will be a low priority. I say that because you could select the civs you want in the game.

Fatwreck · February 20, 2004, 05:02

Yeah I know, but there is a certain charm with all the civs beeing random

Brad Mayer · March 14, 2004, 21:05

YES, this is a bug!

1.15b
Culturally linked on (duh)
All AI opponents Random
Play any NON-AMERICAN sp civ (duh again)
Any size map (though Tiny will ALWAYS give you 3 AMERICAN civs!)
First 1.15b game on clean install, brand new WinXP system (but also on a Win2000 system, it makes no difference)

You will ALWAYS - repeat, ALWAYS - be next to the Three American Stooges. Every time!

Pleasae don't tell me to switch off Culturally Linked. Some of up _like_ cuturally linked, but not wit the same $#@% culture every time!

Sorry for my frustration, but I have searched and searched and searched but surprisingly (and sadly) I have found no one who had nailed this obvious bug down.

Instead one sees the attitude that "maybe" it is a bug, like you are imagining something.

But I'm not: It's a BUG, people!

ducki · March 14, 2004, 22:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Fatwreck
Yeah I know, but there is a certain charm with all the civs beeing random

Also, I like to be surprised.
I don't use the Space Race "exploit" to find out who I'm up against and only rarely use the "best cities in the world" screen.

Sure, I can pick the civs I'm up against, but then it's not random and I know in advance who I'm up against.

If you use the space race screen, well, then this doesn't really matter, I don't suppose.

I also agree with vmxa1 that this will likely be low priority, simply because Jesse has bigger fish to fry. Annoying? Yes. Frustrating? Yep. More important than the submarine bug? Not even close. Pity though.

Catt · March 15, 2004, 00:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Brad Mayer
You will ALWAYS - repeat, ALWAYS - be next to the Three American Stooges. Every time!

I'm inclined to believe that there is a bug, but the above is simply not true (at least not inmy install). My most recent game was 1.15b, standard map, all random, default rules (including culturally-linked starts). My random civ was the Ottomans. My closest neighbor was India; the Hittites were next closest; the Dutch rounded out our landmass. The Romans were on an isolated landmass within easy reach of mine. The other major landmass hosted all three remaining AI civs - Iroquois, Celts, and Sumrians. One American civ in the game, and on the other landmass.

To double-check, I just launched two new games, same random set-up with default rules, but this time selected a non-American civ as the human civ. Both times there was only one American civ (each time it was the Iroquois).

Catt

ZargonX · March 15, 2004, 11:29

Quote:

I'm inclined to believe that there is a bug, but the above is simply not true

But it's still true with the Byzantines, that's for sure

Brad Mayer · March 15, 2004, 13:18

The only part that is not true is the number '3', because there are 5 American civs possible. It is just that on Tiny there will be only 3 AI opponents, and _every time_, on both my installs of C3C, you'lll get three out of the 4 American civs.

But it doesn't matter what size map - you'll always be parked next to American civs. For me this pretty much wrecks the game, since I always prefer culturally linked starts as part of of the initial strategizing, and if I am the Japanese I expect to hit China first, not ole Smokey Jaguar.

BTW, C3C is installed over Civ Multiplayer Gold (itself unpatched - it's 'gold', ain't it? :-)

My latest approach is to open the main .BIQ file as a scenario file (saving off the original of course), _removing_ the 5 American civs, leaving everything else the same, and saving. That's too bad, I have nothing against Abe, Smokey, Monty and the gang, and would like some of them in the game - only not so darn CLOSE :-)

I'm only in the first game with this, but (as the Japanese), the Koreans, Mongols and Indians (but not the Chinese) are in the game, but not in my proximity! Instead I've immediately run into Ottomans, Babs and somebody else not East Asian. Hmmmm...more on this experiment later.

Thanks for the response.

Quote:

Originally posted by Catt

I'm inclined to believe that there is a bug, but the above is simply not true (at least not inmy install). My most recent game was 1.15b, standard map, all random, default rules (including culturally-linked starts). My random civ was the Ottomans. My closest neighbor was India; the Hittites were next closest; the Dutch rounded out our landmass. The Romans were on an isolated landmass within easy reach of mine. The other major landmass hosted all three remaining AI civs - Iroquois, Celts, and Sumrians. One American civ in the game, and on the other landmass.

To double-check, I just launched two new games, same random set-up with default rules, but this time selected a non-American civ as the human civ. Both times there was only one American civ (each time it was the Iroquois).

Catt

Fistleaf · April 11, 2004, 00:25

I have noticed this in my first 2 games on C3C. The American civs appear both times. Cultural linking is on, human civ is Dutch, all other 7 civs are random.
Perhaps this only happens for certain human civ selection or for human civs with certain traits (Seafaring is likely to cause some changes due to the forced coastal starting position).

Brad Mayer · April 12, 2004, 00:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Fistleaf
I have noticed this in my first 2 games on C3C. The American civs appear both times. Cultural linking is on, human civ is Dutch, all other 7 civs are random.
Perhaps this only happens for certain human civ selection or for human civs with certain traits (Seafaring is likely to cause some changes due to the forced coastal starting position).

Nope, doesn't matter which non-American civ you start out with.

BTW, it still happens with the latest (1.22) patch.

I'm really suprised this isn't considered a serious bug, especially since I believe that this is easily ixed, sinc I suspect that this is some sort of config file bug adjustment, rather than something in the exe source. Why? Because, apparently, not everybody is afflicted with this bug. If everybody was, there'd been so much hollering that it would have been fixed long time ago.

Thanks for your reply.