Battle odds conspiracy

[Kuciwalker]

No you couldn't, assuming no change in the number of first strikes. Any random number that makes a Swordsman fail to hit an Axeman will also make a Warrior fail to hit an Axeman.

[kiky]

When starting new game there is an option :
'New Random Seed on Reload'

If this is not true than random seed will be saved in the savegame, as what Diadem said.

If it true, than yes, new things will happen

[Diadem]

It is true. That's because of the way battles and random number generators work. The random numbers that are going to be generated are fixed, in civilization 4. Reloading doesn't change them.

A battle with lower odds will have lower odds of winning each round of combat, and possible fewer rounds. The odds of winning a round are simply compared to a randomly generated number - if the random number is bigger you win the round, otherwise you loose.

So reloading and doing a battle with equal or worse odds, will just make the game compare equal or worse odds against the same random sequence of numbers - and we already know the outcome of that.

First strikes might change the above situation somewhat. If a very bad streak of numbers is going to be followed by a very good one, then it's possible that a unit with equal chance but more first strikes will win - part of the bad sequence is absorbed by the first strikes, so to speak. Those situations will be extremely rare though. In the overwhelming majority of cases it will just loose as well.


If you really want to reload, the way to do it is to do a combat with overwhelmingly good odds after you reloaded a failed attack, so that you'll still win despite the bad luck (you will probably see damage on your unit). Another option is to attack with a worthless unit, sacrificing it to the Lady Luck so that your next unit might get better random numbers on its attack. Yet another option is to wait a turn with attacking.

Best of course is to simply not use reloading. It's extremely tempting, and I must admit to doing it sometimes when I loose warlords, but it's rather cheap as well.

[Diadem]

Originally posted by kiky
When starting new game there is an option :
'New Random Seed on Reload'

If this is not true than random seed will be saved in the savegame, as what Diadem said.

If it true, than yes, new things will happen

Ah yes, you are right, of course. Selecting that option will change everything. If you select it, then reloading does change the odds of combat.

[rah]

Love random chance.
Attacking a city last night. Softened it up with tribs and cats. Started down the list of units to eliminate the defenders. 14 or so attacks and went 13-1 the one loss being a GG at 99.5