Random Generator Bug?

[Zenicetus]

people are complaining that they fail missions with 95%, but its only 95% not 100% theres still a chance that the mission can fail.

This isn't necessarily a problem with the random number generator (although that could still be involved). As far as I can tell, the success estimate doesn't factor in the effect of enemy spies, or ancillary traits. I've had a top-ranked assassin fail every time while showing 90%+ success, only to find out later that the city had four enemy spies in it, or a family member had several of the anti-assassin ancillaries (guard dogs, or whatever). This isn't reflected in the success estimate. It does make the game a bit more unpredictable, so it could be an intentional design instead of a bug... it's hard to tell without a comment by CA.

And there could still be problems with the generator getting "stuck" or otherwise misbehaving, underneath all that.

[Snoil The Mighty]

In the next couple of days I'll just play through 5 turns normally, I'll use every agent I can that entails a mission success expectation of under 100%. I'll catalog the results here. Hopefully will be able to do it tonight but no guarantee on that, what I come with i will post here.

Just as an aside, IRL, I had 5 nieces before my for my first nephew was born, and back in school a friend of mine was the 5th of 7 brothers-no sisters. Unusual chains of events can and do happen.

[Snoil The Mighty]

Ok, started a new campaign as England since they start with several agent types and I could get to tracking results straight. I am starting turn 33. I have left the game loaded and running for over 48 hours straight, have not reloaded once. I also currently have several spots where I have recorded results from initial trials, so I can go back and try them again, just to check. The first crusade was just called so I thought I'd chime back in on how this is proceeding.

First things first, until I get something-anything-that can show me there's a bug specific to the random solution generator I have to assume it works and that's what my numbers are telling me. I can only track events that have specific success-failure chances so Dip actions are out of the calculations. Princesses do get some %chance missions on the marriage thing so I had a few of those mixed in. Mostly it's been spies of course., but merhcants have their fair share of incidents as well. A few priest vs. heretic actions. Only got assassins just recently and a few of them mixed in as well. The total number of incidents I have results for is now at 134 and counting. However, as a side note, 32 of the missions were 100% success rate (32/32 on those oddly enough) so it terms incidents with a stated chance of failure, it's at 102. I am using unmodded, unedited version purchased the day of release, patched to 1.1 version.

Current assessment- there is no bug that I have seen at this point but 102 incidents to track is not enough to warrant any conclusions. I have kept track of certain sets of numbers like the 93% and above missions. Have had 22 missions so far in this range (mostly new spies on a first mission @93% of course but there was a 95% merch mission and 2 other incidents higher than that but less than 100) and have failed 2 times. Both were spy missions. Kept track of what I call the coin-toss range too (Anything showing as 45-55%) where I am 8/19, a little low but certainly not out of order.

I am not calling anyone out, but I can report only what I see and I have yet to see a definitive piece of evidence that can reasonably claim to be a smoking gun, i.e.- something that says "See this result? This conclusively determines the random solution mechanics are bugged." In fact everything I have recorded so far indicates it is working perfectly and as advertised. I will continue to post results from this campaign as it continues since 102 is not enough of a sample but so far.... Adam and Jamie are saying 'This myth is busted'.

[Carl]

@Snoil: If I understand the descriptions of the bug correctly, the bug simply won't show up in the kind of testing you do. The bug boils down to this: every time the game calculates the chance of somthing happenning it fires a new seed. This means that if you do a save and reload the same result will come up every time.

Whats happenning however is this:

You use a spy with a 93% chance of sucsess. He fails. Normally it should switch to a new seed. However a lot of the time it apparently stays stuck on the same seed, so no mater how many spies with the 93% chance are tried, the seed ensure they all fail.

Your testing means your doing diffrent things between failiures and thus it will never produce one of the situations in which it gets stuck. What you need to do is produce about 30-40 spies, find a target they all have a 93% chance sucsess rate against, then try one. If it sucseeeds, do somthing else elswhere, then try with another spy until you fail. When you fail, immidietly try every other spy with a 93% chance without doing everything else.

If the bug happens they should ALL fail on you.

It must be the same target they are used against BTW.

[Snoil The Mighty]

@Snoil: If I understand the descriptions of the bug correctly, the bug simply won't show up in the kind of testing you do. The bug boils down to this: every time the game calculates the chance of somthing happenning it fires a new seed. This means that if you do a save and reload the same result will come up every time.

Whats happenning however is this:

You use a spy with a 93% chance of sucsess. He fails. Normally it should switch to a new seed. However a lot of the time it apparently stays stuck on the same seed, so no mater how many spies with the 93% chance are tried, the seed ensure they all fail.

Your testing means your doing diffrent things between failiures and thus it will never produce one of the situations in which it gets stuck. What you need to do is produce about 30-40 spies, find a target they all have a 93% chance sucsess rate against, then try one. If it sucseeeds, do somthing else elswhere, then try with another spy until you fail. When you fail, immidietly try every other spy with a 93% chance without doing everything else.

If the bug happens they should ALL fail on you.

It must be the same target they are used against BTW.

Ok, I'll load up on new spies and try at the 93% level but that's going to take me a few turns to crank out a decent number, and my weekend just ended. Will post results here. And just to be sure, I'll figure out a way to test it at least 10 times though this may take a while.

[Carl]

Yeah, just be aware that if you use a save and reload you'll probably get the same results regardless as I think thats the prupose of seeeds.

[seneschal.the]

It seems it creates a new seed after you reload, but only once. So if you fail the first, reload and then fail again, you will always fail no matter how many times you reload. I've onlt tried this up to like 10 reloads, but...