Beginner's Question.... What's "Preserve Random Seed"?

[dman2430]

You know, that option when starting a new game. What exactly does "preserve random seed" do and should I turn it on or off?

Thanks for your help,
The Rookie

[Willem]

The random seed is what is used for battle. I don't know the exact mechanism, but if you have it checked, reloading a save game and fighting the same battle again will give you exactly the same results as before. Not having it checked means that if you reload your game, you might win the encounter you lost before. Or vice versa.

I believe it also has an effect on what comes out of a goody hut as well, though I can't confirm.

[vmxa1]

The game was designed so that reloading and fighting the same battle over and over to get the results you want would not work.
The RNG would be the same so the out come would be the same. This worked only if you did everything the same as before. Otherwise the RNG would change at the time of the fight. You could also move or fort up and wait for the next turn to get a new number. It does work on the huts as well.
I suspect that people cried about not winning every fight and got them to change it so you can turn of the seed and now just reload to your hearts content and never lose a fight or get a bad goody hut. Of course this is not exactly an honorable way to play. To put it another way it is cheating.

[bobbo008]

cheating is an opinion. one could argue since the game itself allows you to do it, it isn't.

[vmxa1]

Not really.

[Datajack Franit]

Reloading is cheating- of course playing fair is 100 times harder but hell, how fun!

Still remember Egypt's chariots seizing Berlin; how could you play the game and still have fun by wasting such chances for epic battles?