Random Civs aren't so random. A bug?

[Catt]

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]

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]

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]

Pick different ones.

[vmxa1]

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]

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

[Brad Mayer]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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.