Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

Even 20 times in a row is pretty astronomical:/ 100 times in a row, nope, if everyone on this planet was flipping coins from their births to their deaths - most likely (very very very likely) they'd all die before anyone did 100 in a row.

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

Ask a professional gambler or casino owners or bookmakers if you could flip a head 100 times in a row.

So long as there is a chance of something happening, sooner or later it will, it will be very, very rare but it will happen.

The odds of flipping a head 10 times in a row are only 1/1024, when you consider how many random rolls you must make in Dom3, you are bound to get a 'losing run' every now and then.

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

Yeah, but flipping heads 100 times in a row are this to the 10th power - roughly, 1/10^30. This is really astronomically low. If every human being in existence (roughly 6.10^9 of us) tried this every second for a year (roughly 3.10^7 seconds), the probability of someone. somewhere, getting 100 heads in a row would be of order 1/5.10^13, not that much different from someone winning the "Loto" TWICE IN A ROW ("Loto" is a chance game where you pick 6 numbers out of a possible 49, and then exactly 6 numbers are rolled, and you "win" if you guessed all 6 - something you have about 1 chance in 40000000 of doing).

Or, to put it another way, if all 6 billion human beings had starded flipping coins around the Big Bang, a hundred flips per second, it would still be very unlikely that one of them had flipped 100 heads in a row by now.

Now, I'm the first to tell my students (I do teach probability theory, among other things) that if you try long enough, something extremely unlikely like flipping 100 heads in a row will happen. But it helps to have an idea of what "long enough" means. In this case, it's really long.

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

Well, as a philosophy teacher I just want to add that all speculation on what is to come in the future is based on what have passed, which really doesn't tell us anything about the future as it is the past and not the future. Even if you add millions of past events together it is still the past you are "foretelling" with. The future hasn't happened yet, it is still unknown.

And saying that one future is more "likely" to happen than another future is subjected to the same problem (the problem of induction), in that the predictions are based on past events. The future as a factor is still not precent in the calculations.

Saying that the sun will go up the next morning is not certain, but it is not even (logically) more or less probable. The universe could disappear, and alien armada could destroy it or whatever. Just because we haven't seen it before must not mean that it can't happen or even that it is more or less probable. I would say it could happen or it could not - 50%/50%. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You could of course choose to believe in probability (and it seems wise) as you see the "truth" of it all day happening. But it is just that - belief. I just happen to believe in logic.

Sorry for my "off-topicness", but I couldn't resist to say something about the fascinating thing that is probability.

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

But it happened in my home province, Niefelheim. So the starting scales were in effect most of the game.

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

What is this logic you believe in... you are engaging deconstructionism to such an extreme level, you are essentially denying the practice of the scientific method (making assumptions/predictions about an underlying physical reality based on observation).

The gamebreaking fallacy of this type of argument, is that it is only possible to express given language... and language necessitates an outside world to communicate with... an outside world is only possible through interpretation of our senses, and so your argument is fallacious.

You can say anything you want has a 50/50% chance of happening... in fact, you can _say_ it has a 300% chance of occurring. Your ability to say this, does not invalidate, or even affect in the slightest, the validity or invalidity of probabilistic statements.

Sorry, but I am from a math background, and hence have somewhat strongminded views on the matter... All of human language, experience, science... all are essentially more closely modelled as probabilistic distributions, rather than discrete answers. Every measuring device or method in science comes with an error range. Even things that people think of as discrete, such as a statement like "I saw one man run off into the forest!" are really more accurately modelled as a probability distribution... Poor eyesight, tricks of light, sudden onset of mental illness... all are very real, though small, observable probabilities, that would give you more information about the situation if you knew said distributions.

/unrant!

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

The problem with the 100 heads in a row analogy it muddies the water becauase people are focused on the fact tht it is the same result 100 times in a row. You have to add that the odds are the same for any described 100 result sequence. The odds of 100 heads in a row is just the same as getting a head then a tail then a head then a tail etc.. over a hundred flips.

If you ask that question to the average person and most will say the odds of the latter are more likely when they aren't.

You will also get clustering and clumping of numbers since random probability is not a uniform occurence.
I work in an industry that is ruled by probability (the slot machine industry) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

The most interesting probability riddle to me is the one about how likely is it that 2 people share the same birthday in a room of 50 people.

Edit: I should add I am not a mathematician. I suck at math horribly. I just invent stuff.

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

I tried a test game playing niefelheim turmoil 3 luck 3 magic 3, sloth 1-2ish (can't remember) growth 3.

I got bad events nearly every turn of the game. The most common was "cursed for the rest of their lives" and barbarian hordes attacking provinces. I received good events as well, but there seemed to be something else at play.

I play Pangaea nearly exclusively, and always with turmoil 3 luck 3, and it is black and white as far as events go compared to my niefelheim game.

I am going to do another test game to see if it was just very abyssmal luck on my testing.

The only real difference besides it being two different nations I can think of is the cold scale, but surely the cold scale would not trigger the events I was getting.

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

As a gamer since an early age, and a Philosophy major for one academic quarter http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif, I would say this is a good example of different disciplines (Philosophy versus Mathematics) using different definitions of the same words (here "probability" and "likeliness"). I offer a counter-example, from the discipline of gambling: Since we know that betting on the sun rising would be extra-silly since if it doesn't, we'll probably all be dead, I will offer to bet you any monetary amount up to my current net worth, every day for the rest of my life, that any particular easily-observable star in the sky will continue to exist in the sky the next day. Limits: one bet per day; each bet is void if for some reason we cannot confirm the presence of the star due to weather or technological/informational problems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

PvK

Re: Niefelheim disasters--bug?
 

As for Dominions, I play a lot with Luck, but not yet as Niefelheim. One recent example: Oceania, Order 0, Cold 3, Luck 3. Turn 71. Generally results have been quite good within my dominion. I don't remember any serious bad results in my home province.