Luck and mind duels

[AreaOfEffect]

The guide to the game explains the exact mechanics of Mage Duel. It's the astral level of your mage plus 1d6 versus the other mage's astral level plus 1d6. The difference between your mage's adtral level and the others were only 2, meaning your random die roll had to be above the opponents roll by 3 for 3 of those rolls.

Granted the chances of that happening out of only 4 attempts is low (1out of 54 to be exact), it still is possible. In fact, the law of averages demands that it happen when done in enough iterations.

My personal opinion is that luck certainly had something to do with it, just not the sort of luck you are referring to.

P.S.: Your odds of taking out one of his mages wasn't really that bad. He had only a 4 out of 9 chance of clean sweep. That means that 5 out of 9 times he would lose or tie to you at least once.

[Endoperez]

I counted that there was 30/36 chance of an Atlantian mage dying, personally. That included victories for Arcos as well as ties (both die).

Arcos (S4) - Atlantis (S2) wins
1 vs 1, 2
2 vs 1, 2, 3,
3 vs 1, 2, 3, 4,
4 vs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
5 vs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
6 vs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

or 26 chances out of 36 (6*6).

Atlantis ties:
1 vs 3, 2 vs 4, 3 vs 5, 4 vs 6

or 4 times out of 36.

Ends up as 30/36 or 5/6 chance of Atlantian mages dying, for each Duel. I think that'd be (1/6)^3 or 1/216 or so chance of three mages not dying, out of three.

[thejeff]

I'm pretty sure luck (the ability, not the roll) doesn't affect Magic Duel. As I understand it, someone always dies in a duel, sometimes both. If luck applied as normal, it would have a chance of saving the loser and no one would die. Which is not what we see.

It's possible that the loser's luck causes the winner to die instead, but that would be weird.

[Zeldor]

I think Dominions may have not the best random generator. For example strange results come when you recruit mages with small random [like 2,5-5%] and you get no random like that with 100+ mages recruited.

[Endoperez]

With 5% random random, there's 8% chance of not getting it in 50 tries. (1-0.05)^50 == 0.077. With 2.5% random (10% chance with four options, only one of which is the one you want), the chance of not getting that random in 50 tries is 28%, and 8% in 100 tries. Sometimes you just get unlucky.

There seem to be weird numbers thrown around sometimes, but they're very hard to test.

[Gregstrom]

8% is a pretty good chance of something not happening, really. The times when you get that 2.5% chance on your first recruit aren't mentioned so often (I've kept rather quiet when the 2.5% comes up in just the right way at the right time in an MP game, now I think about it...).

[StormCrow434]

All were Arco Astrologers...but they were two S4s and one S3. The lone S4 who won died the second time around (my Prophet).

So I lost a +2 Duel, then a +1, won a +2 and finally lost a +2. No ties.

Love to hear how Ylvali's test came out...I'd suggest trying it with a +6 difference. If the lower Astral mage wins then, you KNOW the shield is working! Try 10 tests, or until the lesser prevails.