CIV IV makes me sad

[padillah]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


I'm sure they have, but independent analysis would do no harm while the debate rumbles on.

I know. That's what I mean. Take a look at the links I provided, these people have done more statistical analysis on the output of their routines than I've seen on video card benchmarks.

Tom P.

[yin26]

Streaks are surreal, other-worldly, as the coin-flipping heroes of Rosecrans and Guildenstern discover.

http://www.baseball1.com/carney/index.php?storyid=38 (1/4th the way down the page)

Searching for rosecrans and guildenstern coin:

Probability in mathematics
... To give a mathematical meaning to probability, consider flipping a "fair" coin. Intuitively, the probability that heads will come up on any given coin toss is "obviously" 50%; but this statement alone lacks mathematical rigor . Certainly, while we might expect that flipping such a coin 10 times will yield 5 heads and 5 tails, there is no guarantee that this will occur; it is possible, for example, to flip 10 heads in a row. What then does the number "50%" mean in this context? One approach is to use the law of large numbers . In this case, we assume that we can perform any number of coin flips, with each coin flip being independent—that is to say, the outcome of each coin flip is unaffected by previous coin flips. If we perform N trials (coin flips), and let NH be the number of times the coin lands heads, then we can, for any N, consider the ratio NH/N. As N gets larger and larger, we expect that in our example the ratio NH/N will get closer and closer to 1/2. This allows us to "define" the probability Pr(H) of flipping heads as the limit (mathematics) , as N approaches infinity, of this sequence of ratios: :\Pr(H) = \lim_ In actual practice, of course, we cannot flip a coin an infinite number of times; so in general, this formula most accurately applies to situations in which we have already assigned an a priori probability to a particular outcome (in this case, our assumption that the coin was a "fair" coin). The law of large numbers then says that, given Pr(H), and any arbitrarily small number å, there exists some number n such that for all N > n, :\left| \Pr(H) - \right| < \epsilon In other words, by saying that "the probability of heads is 1/2", we mean that, if we flip our coin often enough, eventually the number of heads over the number of total flips will become arbitrarily close to 1/2; and will then stay at least as close to 1/2 for as long as we keep performing additional coin flips. Note that a proper definition requires measure theory , which provides means to cancel out those cases where the above limit does not provide the "right" result (or is even undefined) by showing that those cases have a measure of zero. The a priori aspect of this approach to probability is sometimes troubling when applied to real world situations. For example, in the play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard , a character flips a coin which keeps coming up heads over and over again, a hundred times. He can't decide whether this is just a random event—after all, it is possible (although unlikely) that a fair coin would give this result—or whether his assumption that the coin is fair is at fault.

http://paillier.en.wikiax.net/en/probability (3/4ths down the page)

Indeed, coin tosses are one example. Civ 4 is another.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by padillah
Take a look at the links I provided, these people have done more statistical analysis on the output of their routines than I've seen on video card benchmarks.

Tom P.

So we don't need a lump of uranium sitting next to our PC's decaying merrily, or even a good brownian motion producer (say a cup of hot tea), we just need to plug Civ into hotbitsdotcom and get some genuine quantum uncertainty pumped into our combat calculations.

Awesome!

[padillah]

Thanks for the "Brownian Motion producer" reference.

I gotta read those again.



Tom P.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by padillah
Thanks for the "Brownian Motion producer" reference.

I gotta read those again.



Tom P.

For the 'ignorant', padillah is referring to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by the late Douglas Adams.

Unless he isn't, in which case he should let us know.

[padillah]

Sorry. Yes, I am indeed refering to Court Haus' reference to HHGTTG series.

Some of the funniest books ever written. Second only to the two Dirk Gently novels, also by Douglas Adams ( from me as well).

I forget sometimes, thanks. I'll try and be more transparent in the future.

Tom P.

[jdchambe]

I have an admission.

I regularly yell at the computer while playing Civ4. You know, say things like "what!?". "that's not fair!!". "how does she do that!??", etc.

There is also the somewhat low key: "oh great, here comes that bleeping AI's indestructible-uber-god archer again...".

My wife chuckles. My dog begs me to tell him what he can do to help. And no one else is ever the wiser....until now I suppose.

But my complaints are always short lived. I will sometimes vocalize frustration, but when I do, it is just a vent for my frustrations when things aren't going well. I do in truth understand the odds, and do in fact understand that the AI doesn't really have unfair combat advantages despite how brutal it can seem when the streaks don't go my way.

I do keep the rants within my little gaming environment though as I would be emabarrassed if they got out.

But now that I've come out and admitted it, I can psycho-analyze. In my case, I think it is the extreme length of a single game that makes it occassionally frustrating. It's bad enough to realize I screwed up and that the AI is about to wipe the floor with me. It's even worse when I realize that the mistake was made 4 hours ago, and, with the exception of the educational experience, those 4 hours invested in my empire have been wasted.

As for Noble difficulty: I had trouble winning at Noble the first ~10 or so times that I played it. But now, I win at noble most of the time. It hasn't been metagaming the rules that has made the difference. That would certainly help, but it wasn't necessary. And it could not have been that anyway, because I didn't really even start thinking carefully about the details of the rules until I started getting my posterior handed to me by the AI again at Prince difficulty levels.

As for odds: 70% odds are horrible odds to go into a battle with unless you have overwhelming force to offset the rather high probability that you will lose. Even at 90% odds, I prefer to have at least a 2:1 advantage in total number of units to make sure I am able to hold against any counter offensive that might come back at me.

It is important to know the odds, but they should be the basis by which you decide how many extra troops to bring to the battle, and not the basis by which you set your expectations on whether or not any single skirmish will go in your favor.

edit: corrected typo

[Prussia]

HHGTTG books are indeed classical pieces of comedy.

In college I downloaded a typed up version of them so I could read them again (at that time, I hadn't read them in about 7 years), and everyone would be staring at me as to why the hell I was laughing at the quantum theory.

[jdchambe]

well, that aside, quantum theory is pretty amusing....

[jdchambe]

I can mention another thing that I've noticed has really changed my competitiveness against the AI. Something that hasn't been mentioned yet.

If you offer the AI a technology and ask it "what will you give me for this", the AI will frequently make an offer that massively to your disadvantage (like offering a 1200 beaker tech for a 5000 beaker tech).

I used to blindly accept those offers, figuring that the AI was offering me the best he was going to offer, but that frequently is not the case. I eventually did figure out though that the reason I was frequently behind the AI on tech was not because he was out researching me but because I was letting the AI make a donkey out of me on tech trading...

[ironbreaker_23]

Wow maybe this isnt the proper place to introduce myself but hello anyway. Im not new to civilization but I am new to this board. I came here from 1bbc.com. For one I want to say this board seems more active. Secondly I wANT TO SAY ALL OF YOU SEEM TO HAVE GOOD things to say in your opinions. Dr Spike is that le chuck from monkey island? So anyways I will post a lot i assume but for right now i need to rerad every message board here.

[Shogun Gunner]

Welcome!

This is a good as a place as any to say hello!

rereading every message on this board may take a lot of time

[Shogun Gunner]

Nice posts jdchambe.

I think if we took a poll, we would find a majority of civ gamers talk to their monitors!

You make a good point regarding offsetting poor odds in the tactic situation with strategic objectives. You can't play this game on the higher difficulty levels without losing some units.

You just have to have plenty of cannon fodder

I just lost a level six horse archer because he felt it necessary to rise to the top of the stack to defend a newly captured city. I wish there was a way to control individual units from "volunteering" so readily...

[TimeTraveler]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
I just lost a level six horse archer because he felt it necessary to rise to the top of the stack to defend a newly captured city. I wish there was a way to control individual units from "volunteering" so readily...

That's probably a good idea. There is more to it than simply handing defense to the unit best suited for it. It would be a better idea to take the value of a unit and multiply it with its chance of losing a battle. And go with whatever's lowest. Of course, there may be other indicators like if the attacker is close to a promotion or how much it would be damaged even if it won the battle.

But in any case, yeah, choosing which unit defends may actually be a good idea. Especially since various situations make it very difficult for the computer to determine the relative values of each unit in a battle.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by ironbreaker_23
Dr Spike is that le chuck from monkey island? So anyways I will post a lot i assume but for right now i need to rerad every message board here.

I can confirm that he is a monkey, but I don't know exactly from what island he escaped.

Oh, and welcome by the way.