Catan Algo is broken.

[FromLardToHard]

The dice are a problem for sure. The Algo seems to randomly pick the winner, regardless of the tile number, at the start of the game. I have seen 11, 12 and 2 on the player that is going to win roll 4 times in a row. Games that go 60, 70 and even 80% done and not a single 6.

It is NOT just the dice. The entire Algo is broken and needs some attention. A few examples beside the dice are how some cards always come out together. Or how the robber will trigger a number to be rolled.

How is it the Spies Cards always come out together? If you get a spy, you use it on the guy with the other blue card to get the other spy from them.
How is it that the Inventor Cards come out together? If you get one, and there are no blue cards because if there is, it will be the spy, and another person gets a green card you wait because the chances are the other inventor in in their hands.
After more than 50% of a game goes by with out a number rolled to have that number roll 3 or 4 times in a row after the robber is moved there. This happens so often I am amazed no one talks about it.

Are these above items done on purpose?

I have working in IT for 30 years and humans are terrible at programming random generators. This is why high security random generators use thing like Lava Lamps to generate random things like Encryptions. Just Google Cloudflare lava lamps live.

[pavlo0007]

I noticed it too. This and the fact that when you have more than 7 cards, the next roll of the dice will be 7. If you move the robberto a given field, the next roll is with that number on the field with robber. When you push the robber no matter how it is definitely that the next player will roll 7. I think the numbers 4 and 10 rolls the same often than 5 and 9 in real game.

[Jontia]

All that is happening is that you're remembering the time things were weird and forgetting all the times things were not.
The human brain is evolved to see patterns, to find the shapes in the clouds and the lion in the grass.

[fiscused]

Actually, this happens when I play the actual board game also, so I don't think it has anything to do with the program. The game itself does this to players it does not like!

[Romain672]

So you create a new subject without even answering the last one, and without adding any substance.
What do you expect? What do you want?

You are just biaised like most people here. Do proper stats, and if it's convincing, you will stop having people like me defending the opposite. I at least would let people with great backgroud discuss about it (or do simulations since I'm good at it).

But for now, you just do claims which is expected to be biaised by human mind. Let's see two claims:
- after rolling 4 then 9, then the next roll is always 6
- after the robber is put on a tile, that tile will be rolled more frequently

The first claim (mine) is weird, you got no reason to see that, it look like a claim which happen in my (supposed) previous games, and if you just look at my future games, it can be dismiss easily.
The second claim (yours) is expected. You are human, you got emotions. When you have two town on a 6, and someone put the robber in that 6, then if 6 isn't rolled anymore, you will goes on, and forget that game. If 6 is rolled, then you will be mad, will think it's rigged. After that happen 36 times, you will dismiss the 31 times where 6 wasn't rolled, and remember the 5 times where it was. It's known, you can read about it since you like to refer to external paper.

And about Lava lamps, I answered in the other subject:

If you have a code where you can predict the next number generated one time out of one billon, then if you use it to connect to the nuclear bomb terminal, that can be pretty bad.
If you use it to have 0.1% more chance to win in your next Catan game, nobody care. (if that happen once)

That's a childish comparaison, but it's to show why having something which work really well is enough for a game like Catan, but will not be enough for something which need security like bank account.

[FromLardToHard]

All that is happening is that you're remembering the time things were weird and forgetting all the times things were not.
The human brain is evolved to see patterns, to find the shapes in the clouds and the lion in the grass.

So you get the Spy and there is another blue card issued. What is your move? Play the spy immediately or the other player with the new blue card? Tell the truth now. HAHAHAHA

[euklid314]

If you draw a spy and another player also has one blue card there is an 11,8% chance that he also has a spy (could be different=higher if more blue cards are known, i.e. VP constitution already out, ...).

Everybody can decide for themselves how they deal with this 11,8% chance. If the opponents are of equal strength it is often a good idea to target the blue card player. As a general rule of thumb, though, the strongest player should be targeted with a spy. Keeping a spy in hand and not play it at all is usually a bad move.

To answer your question: Of course one plays the spy immediately if there are only these two cards out! One has a 11,8% chance to steal an opponents spy (then one gains nothing for oneselves but one has eliminated a threat) and a 88,2% chance to steal a different blue card that the other player cannot play but you can play it. Why should one miss out on that?

If you claim that the chance of hitting a spy with a spy is different than 11,8% here on BGA you should better show your statistics to back up your claim.

[FromLardToHard]

If you draw a spy and another player also has one blue card there is an 11,8% chance that he also has a spy (could be different=higher if more blue cards are known, i.e. VP constitution already out, ...).

Everybody can decide for themselves how they deal with this 11,8% chance. If the opponents are of equal strength it is often a good idea to target the blue card player. As a general rule of thumb, though, the strongest player should be targeted with a spy. Keeping a spy in hand and not play it at all is usually a bad move.

To answer your question: Of course one plays the spy immediately if there are only these two cards out! One has a 11,8% chance to steal an opponents spy (then one gains nothing for oneselves but one has eliminated a threat) and a 88,2% chance to steal a different blue card that the other player cannot play but you can play it. Why should one miss out on that?

If you claim that the chance of hitting a spy with a spy is different than 11,8% here on BGA you should better show your statistics to back up your claim.

Great, ok you get an Inventor and another player gets a Green Card. Do you wait a round before playing it because the chances of the other inventor in also out is pretty good?

Should be similar stats to the Spy, but I bet 9 out of 10 players will do the same. Except of there are blue cards out because the chance is high that Blue is a spy and you will be the target.

When you start to play moves in the game based of how the Algo works that is not random. It is learned behavior based on past experience with an Algo that is broken.

[Jontia]

You have to provide evidence that things are broken. Point to regular occurrences of unusual behaviour, evidenced by large numbers of games selected randomly and the odd behaviour seen.

Tell me what the percentages are for this broken behaviour, and then tell me how you came up with that number.

Otherwise the simplest solution is that you are just seeing patterns that are not there.

[euklid314]

If you draw a spy and another player also has one blue card there is an 11,8% chance that he also has a spy (could be different=higher if more blue cards are known, i.e. VP constitution already out, ...).

Everybody can decide for themselves how they deal with this 11,8% chance. If the opponents are of equal strength it is often a good idea to target the blue card player. As a general rule of thumb, though, the strongest player should be targeted with a spy. Keeping a spy in hand and not play it at all is usually a bad move.

To answer your question: Of course one plays the spy immediately if there are only these two cards out! One has a 11,8% chance to steal an opponents spy (then one gains nothing for oneselves but one has eliminated a threat) and a 88,2% chance to steal a different blue card that the other player cannot play but you can play it. Why should one miss out on that?

If you claim that the chance of hitting a spy with a spy is different than 11,8% here on BGA you should better show your statistics to back up your claim.

Great, ok you get an Inventor and another player gets a Green Card. Do you wait a round before playing it because the chances of the other inventor in also out is pretty good?

Should be similar stats to the Spy, but I bet 9 out of 10 players will do the same. Except of there are blue cards out because the chance is high that Blue is a spy and you will be the target.

When you start to play moves in the game based of how the Algo works that is not random. It is learned behavior based on past experience with an Algo that is broken.

Why do you assume Inventor having similar stats than Spy? Do you not know the number of progress cards that are in play? Do you believe Spy and Inventor cards have the same likelyhood of occurring?

You are arguing with gut feeling without any numbers. Sorry to say but there is not a single reason to believe you - and you should also not believe yourself as long as you have not done your statistics.