dice algorithm is clearly flawed

[Sinnerman88]

I play Catan because I love the game, but I am so frequently irritated by the dice algorithms. It's a BGA flaw that is maddening. The rolls are ridiculously streaky and disproportionate to the probabilities. Please fix this problem that everybody complains about.

[Jontia]

Please fix this problem that everybody complains about.

A few people complain about it regularly. Everybody would be a lot more noisey considering that roughly 5,000 games a day of Catan are played on the site.

[Theodicifier]

It's easier to implement a random number generator than to code up dice that are not random. I doubt there's an issue with the dice. Human beings, on the other hand, are very, very bad at judging whether something is truly random. In particular, random data is far more 'streaky' than most people intuitively expect.

This reminds of the discussion here, and the many 1 star reviews that backgammon apps receive...

https://www.njsoftware.com/note.html

[Kayvon]

Here's an analysis of half a million random numbers generated by BGA:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... and#p59122

The dice are weighted exactly as expected. Sorry about your bad luck.

[Paddles]

Ahh, this thread is different to the countless other threads, because the OP has thoughtfully provided not just an anecdote but supporting evidence and rigorous analysis. We won't need to call Lenny.

Oh.

[Goforit22]

I completely agree with poster that a game of Catan can extremely frustrating due to biased dice. Its probably also true that the dice is random, but for many games the dice is still the deciding factor.

I dont get why BGA havent implemented a card deck dice generator. Imagine dice determined by a number of card decks, number of dice sets determined by their probability. When the deck(s) is depleted, it start over. Will still be randaom, but much closer to a normal distribution for every game. Will put strategy in the high seat, not lucky dice.

It will take 10minutes for a AI to write code, max. I can provide it

[Bender3002]

10 minutes are over, where are the results?

[Goforit22]

lol, it took me 6 minutes i think

const { randomInt } = require("node:crypto");
function startRound({ decks = 1 } = {}) {
if (!Number.isSafeInteger(decks) || decks < 1 || decks > 1000) {
throw new Error("decks must be an integer from 1 to 1000");
}
const shoe = [];
// Each deck contains all 36 ordered dice pairs.
for (let deck = 0; deck < decks; deck++) {
for (let die1 = 1; die1 <= 6; die1++) {
for (let die2 = 1; die2 <= 6; die2++) {
shoe.push([die1, die2]);
}
}
}
// Unbiased Fisher–Yates shuffle.
for (let i = shoe.length - 1; i > 0; i--) {
const j = randomInt(i + 1);
[shoe, shoe[j]] = [shoe[j], shoe];
}
return { decks, remaining: shoe };
}
function roll(round) {
if (round.remaining.length === 0) {
throw new Error("Round exhausted. Start a new round.");
}
const [die1, die2] = round.remaining.pop();
return {
die1,
die2,
total: die1 + die2,
rollsLeft: round.remaining.length
};
}
// Choose the number of decks for this round.
const settings = { "decks": 3 };
const round = startRound(settings);
console.log(JSON.stringify(roll(round)));

[Jellby]

I dont get why BGA havent implemented...

Because

a) BGA does not implement games as a rule. It's either volunteer developers or developers paid by game publishers
b) Developers implement what they want to or what they're paid for
c) Even if they want to, developers can only implement what is sanctioned by the rights holder (typically the publisher)

[Strode]

I completely agree with poster that a game of Catan can extremely frustrating due to biased dice. Its probably also true that the dice is random, but for many games the dice is still the deciding factor.

I dont get why BGA havent implemented a card deck dice generator. Imagine dice determined by a number of card decks, number of dice sets determined by their probability. When the deck(s) is depleted, it start over. Will still be randaom, but much closer to a normal distribution for every game. Will put strategy in the high seat, not lucky dice.

It will take 10minutes for a AI to write code, max. I can provide it

How big is the deck? If it's really big, then you'd still have a lot of random variance. If small, then players might be able to say "we've just seen a couple 12s, so we know another is very unlikely"