Site Searching Statistics Questions

[IndyPendant]

I'm not sure that's a correct analogy either, Baalz. (I'm not a statistician though, so I may very well need correcting.) The key difference, I think, is that the random chance has *already* been decided. Granted, if Dom3 checked that province each and every time a sitesearch spell was cast, there would be an equally slim chance each time of finding a suitable magic site regardless of how many sites have previously been revealed. But the game creates the sites randomly when the map is first generated.

Let's use your coin-toss analogy for the sites. I have *already* tossed the coin four times. In a random order, you check three of those tosses, and discover heads all three times. What is the chance that the fourth (randomized) pick will be tails? Well, let's see what options we have left:

HHHH
THHH
HTHH
HHTH
HHHT

So, from the options that are left--assuming a completely random pick order for the 'revealed' coins--the chance of the final coin coming up tails is *four times* the chance of it coming up heads.

Now, to bring it back to Dom3, that would mean that if a coinflip determined whether there was a site, then if you'd already revealed 3 sites, there would only be a 20% chance of a fourth site being revealed.

Or are the basic assumptions I've started with flawed?