[FrankTrollman]

Interesting note, I did some experiments with purchasing 9 of our scampy little hags in a row.

Here's the first five runs, played on Aran with only one opponent and random events low. The number after the trial run is the number of repeats there are. The expected value is 2:

BBBNANBBD - 3*
NAANANNAD - 2
ABNAAABNA - 2
BDAAADBDD - 3
DDDDAAABB - 6*

That's a little high. Not astoundingly high, but a little high. I thought I noticed something about the non-repeats and the correlation with things happening. Also, both of the starred ones were way in the low numbers with their starting province. So I tried a couple runs with 17 players, common events, and a big map (cradle). Here are the first couple of test runs:

BNNBDBDBN - 1
ANDNAADAA - 2

OK, that's average. Actually, it's below average, but within statistically expected norms for that sort of thing.

I suspect that if the game state doesn't change enough, that you might get recursion of random paths - but in a multiplayer game or a game with many players in it, you won't notice. I also have a little bit of evidence that maybe being in the provinces that the game checks early end up with the same random generator several times in a row - but there isn't enough statistical evidence to say that with any certainty at all.

I will go out on a limb and say that the 7 test runs I've done so far don't lead me to believe that the generation is particularly unfair. If it's true about the simple game/complex game difference, it may explain why some people are so convinced that the fix is in - different play styles would make that happen either always or never in the early game.

-Frank