Another First - Loss on 100% odds

Yaga · February 1, 2008, 18:35

I've seen losses as high as 99.7 and 99.8, but this is the first I've seen where the odds going in are ">99.9%"

Lancer · February 1, 2008, 18:43

"I'm so bad at Civ IV that..."

JeebusGreen · February 1, 2008, 19:16

Well, that 0.001% margin had to give way some time. Start keeping score, if it happens more than 1 in 100 000, you'll know it wasn't bad luck, it was malicious AI.

Lancer · February 1, 2008, 19:23

Use it. Say one day you're on a cruise in the caribbean. At night when nobody is watching you lose your balance and go overboard. You go into the water and find yourself surrounded by a dozen killer sharks! You remember that scout, and go about eating all those sharks.

Use it.

Theben · February 1, 2008, 22:49

Lancer, making more sense than usual.

dregor · February 2, 2008, 01:08

I personally find a little vindication in the praetorian being put down by a scout

Jaybe · February 2, 2008, 01:30

Originally posted by Theben
Lancer, making more sense than usual.

NO, you fool!

Foul luck does NOT mean that you will be compensated with great (or even good) luck in the future!

Not that it means that you will be cursed with more bad luck, either.

edit: typo

Lancer · February 2, 2008, 02:27

Nor does it mean that one can consume a dozen killer sharks, at least not in one sitting.

Lancer · February 2, 2008, 03:34

Aha! I know what the problem is. Bruce Banner took up scouting.

Theben · February 2, 2008, 15:51

Originally posted by Jaybe

NO, you fool!

Foul luck does NOT mean that you will be compensated with great (or even good) luck in the future!

Not that it means that you will be cursed with more bad luck, either.

Luck? Who's talking about luck? I'm just giving Lance the o'

for talking less crazy than he usually does. I mean, you've seen his other posts, right?

Theben · February 2, 2008, 15:52

Besides, this gives me hope that the Giants can beat New England on Sunday.

Wiglaf · February 2, 2008, 16:09

Originally posted by Theben
Besides, this gives me hope that the Giants can beat New England on Sunday.

Jaybe · February 2, 2008, 16:14

Originally posted by Theben
Luck? Who's talking about luck? I'm just giving Lance the o'

for talking less crazy than he usually does. I mean, you've seen his other posts, right?

Oh, for crying out softly! Lancer is occasionally a little out there, but he has Nothing, NOTHING I tell you, on the Wig for downright offensiveness, paranoid defensiveness, etc. He makes even the US Pres & VP look good. He gives Washington DC residents a bad name. ... I wonder if he's a government staffer.

I have put the Wig on my ignore list more than once.

Oops! Crossposted with the Wig himself.

Theben · February 2, 2008, 16:37

It's cool, man. Just the usual barbs he and I trade. No need to be defensive or paranoid.

Wiglaf · February 2, 2008, 16:40

As I recall, Jaybe, you and your Spanish posse became deeply offended with me because I pointed out obvious flaws in the AI in BTS. Judging by your insults in this last post, you still haven't gotten over it.

Jaybe, it's time to stop riding the donkey to work and man up. Look at your signature. No one gives a flying **** that you play BTS on noble or prince as Rome on Marathon speed taking 50 hours with huge hemispheres with standard civs PLUS OR MINUS 2 with aggressive AI. Or that you use the internet on a macintosh.

There's a time for a boy to become a man. When he stops endlessly obsessing and defending his civilization videogame, and starts chasing tail. I don't know how they do it in Mexico, but in America we start by hitting bars, universities, etc -- if you move to NYC, DC, LA, or DC, I can recommend a ton of places.

Arrrreba!

Jaybe · February 2, 2008, 16:49

The Wig continues to be himself.

Re the lifestyle advice, those stereotypical values are for the herd. I do it my own way, thank you.

Lancer · February 2, 2008, 20:09

Originally posted by Theben
Besides, this gives me hope that the Giants can beat New England on Sunday.

Brutus66 · February 3, 2008, 02:31

Originally posted by Jaybe

The Wig continues to be himself.

They don't call him the king of subtlety for nothing...

chuckdelicious · February 3, 2008, 06:39

In the game I'm currently playing, I declared war on the Vikings. We previously had open borders and he had a single Berserker get kicked to an open square deep in my territory. I send a cavalry over to dispatch him, but while he was on his way, the Berserker traveled three squares over to one of my cities. The city had an 85% defense and was defended by a Rifleman with City Garrison II. Now, I'm not sure what the odds were for the Berserker, he had Combat II, but not only did he defeat my Rifleman, he took no damage.

End results: my city razed: Vikings removed from the face of the planet.

DaShi · February 3, 2008, 15:03

I usually subtract about 10% from my odds against the AI.

Verrucosus · February 3, 2008, 15:28

Why would an apparently damaged praetorian unit attacking a full strength scout unit that enjoys a combat upgrade and a defensive bonus have a 99.9 % chance of success?

Lancer · February 3, 2008, 22:13

Seems there's alot of this goin round! GIANTS WIN!!!

Theben · February 3, 2008, 22:50

Supr49er · February 4, 2008, 11:51

Originally posted by Lancer
Aha! I know what the problem is. Bruce Banner took up scouting.

Are you sure it wasn't Chuck Norris?

Gibsie · February 4, 2008, 11:56

Originally posted by Verrucosus
Why would an apparently damaged praetorian unit attacking a full strength scout unit that enjoys a combat upgrade and a defensive bonus have a 99.9 % chance of success?

Well according to some basic maths the odds of a unit with Str 1.3 beating 5.2 7 times in a row are 0.0016% (Giving the Praetorian odds of 99.998%). I can't be bothered to work out the exact odds for every permutation that leaves the Praetorian dead and the Scout alive, but it's probably ten times as likely for the Scout to have survived whilst taking damage, leaving odds of 99.98% in favour of the Praetorian. Or greater than 99.9%. But not by much!

snoopy369 · February 4, 2008, 12:55

He has to win 7 out of 9 battles; not 7 in a row. 7 out of 9 gives you perms of (off the top of my head)
1 perm 7 of 7
7 perms 7 of 8
28 unique perms of 7 of 9 (7*8/2)
36 perms total. If the chances of any of these are around 0.0016%, which they should be somewhat higher but I'm not doing the math right now - let's say 0.002% just for rounding - then it's 0.072% or 99.93% chance of praet winning. Pretty low for a 99.9% all things considered, but it's certainly not nonzero; it will happen 7 times in 10,000, give or take.

Verrucosus · February 4, 2008, 13:16

Thank you, both. I had failed to take into account that even the damaged preatorian has a much bigger firepower. Thanks to the convenient in-game odds calculator, I don't think I did such a calculation properly since the Civ2/SMAC days. Now, if only we had reliable statistics about the total number of preatorian vs scout battles fought by Apolyton posters ...

Verrucosus

snoopy369 · February 4, 2008, 13:19

Zero on my end...

Common Sensei · February 4, 2008, 16:30

I was on the flipside of this once. I declared an early war against a neighbor and forgot about a Scout I left fortified on a bare hill who was attacked by an enemy Axeman.

The scout won and gained a large chunk of experience for it.

snoopy369 · February 4, 2008, 16:57

I think the scout would get 10xp for that, if I remember the relative percentages... maybe a bit less, but IIRC an axe is 2xp*str.rat, and that would be 2*5 for a scout