Random Magic Paths - is it truly random? - Page 8

BigDaddy · #71 February 17th, 2005, 02:28 PM

Arallen and Bummer_Duck, if you are actually seeing long strings of alternating air and earth mages, I would suggest that it is a bug, but with the sophistication of random number tables and RNG these days, I believe the flaw would be in the windows OS. If you're using a different OS, I almost can't comprehend the problem. Depending on the actual coding of course, it could be caused by an artifact in the memory of the computer, caused by windows clunky and inefficient memory management.

Reboot, and try again! But be warned random systems do do unexpected things, and thats the beauty of them.

BigDaddy · #72 February 17th, 2005, 03:54 PM

Restarting the computer incessently is a dogmatic method of course, if you're not seeing a real pattern.

If the system wasn't random you could use and expert system (thats the engineers term for artificial intelligence) to predict the outcome. Of course with the turing machine's (a computer is a turing machine)inability to actually produce random numbers, with enough samples the expert system may eventually learn how predict the supposed randomness, but it would take quite a few samples and a very sophisticated expert system.

Has anyone learned anything from reading these posts?

(Corrected spelling)

Kristoffer O · #73 February 17th, 2005, 04:38 PM

I learned that Bone Daddy is a nerd

BigDaddy · #74 February 17th, 2005, 04:39 PM

Thats funny because i'm not bone daddy and Ivan's posts where nerdier. No offense intended Ivan.

Turms · #75 February 17th, 2005, 04:46 PM

You reasoning is invalid BigDaddy. Johan Osterman already posted that Dominions II uses a pregenerated random number table. That means it's random number generator works exactly the same in any computer with any OS. If it didn't the battle replays wouldn't work.

I have still a question though:
How is the seed for a new turn generation chosen?
The normal way is to take it from the clock or something. That is the only place I could think that could somehow affect the randomness of picks (very unlikely).

Turms

BigDaddy · #76 February 17th, 2005, 04:53 PM

OK, I didn't notice Johan's post (I was wondering what method was used). Pre-generated number tables are very common (they are more efficient), but I think an artifact could still cause problems.

I don't think the seeding technique is likely to be the problem. I believe the seeds are used to select a starting point on the table and a "movement" pattern around the table, and it can be made even more comples. Repeats are highly unlikely in any case.

Kristoffer O · #77 February 17th, 2005, 07:04 PM

BigDaddy: But it was Bone Daddy that claimed that we and he and his whole family were nerds

Turms: Clock I believe.

Chazar · #78 February 18th, 2005, 06:08 AM

(Removed joke)

Turms · #79 February 18th, 2005, 06:39 AM

Chazar:
I would prefer to be quoted me, you would do it in such a way that it does not distort my words.
It is no big deal, but if someone just checks your post one could draw the conclusion that I am whining because I believe that the random picks are not really random. Which is not what I was doing.

Thank you,
Turms

Chazar · #80 February 18th, 2005, 12:11 PM

Umh, sorry, I did not see that: I did not distort anything in my quote and I left the quoted sentence intact and in full. Furthermore all I quoted from you looked to me like a mere, valid and purely technical question, which received an honest and purely technical answer from Illwinter in reply. So I didnt see any possible harm in my joking. Sorry!