Recurring numbers rolled - Game is rigged

[bobvdp]

Catan's code for "random" numbers is rigged. I can't tell you how many games I have played where 1 or 2 numbers are CONSTANTLY rolled, while other numbers are rarely rolled. Today's games consisted of never ending 8's and no 10's. Other games feature a stream of 9's. And nearly EVERY game includes 7's as soon as I get more than seven cards. I am convinced the game is rigged.

[Stroom]

This topic again.

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33282

tl;dr - you are wrong. Randomness often gives you RANDOM outcomes. If you don't like randomness, play some other game.

[bobvdp]

You can say what you want or site any source you want, I know what my experience has been. EVERY TIME I GET MORE THAN 7 CARDS A 7 IS ROLLED. And in EVERY game one or 2 numbers will dominate and dictate the outcome. "This topic again" tells me others have experienced it too.

[Stroom]

You can say what you want or site any source you want, I know what my experience has been. EVERY TIME I GET MORE THAN 7 CARDS A 7 IS ROLLED. And in EVERY game one or 2 numbers will dominate and dictate the outcome. "This topic again" tells me others have experienced it too.

This is a classic case of CONFIRMATION BIAS.

People who do not understand how randomness works, will complain that randomness does not favor them. You don't see any posts about someone saying something like "Wow, I had a settlement at 2-3-11 and all of those numbers were rolled 4x in a row and then I won". They would think that they were just highly skilled and luck had nothing to do with it.

Your experience is not the same as other players experience. And these experiences change game by game.

[Jellby]

EVERY TIME I GET MORE THAN 7 CARDS A 7 IS ROLLED.

So, every time you get more than 7 cards, but not every time someone else does? Are you suggesting the site is designed to work against you? Perhaps you should change your username or use a VPN.

[euklid314]

Two comments (a short one and a longer one):

*) "every game one or two numbers will dominate" ... yes, that is true for any CATAN game, BGA or real life. It is absolutely unlikely that 2s are rolled exactly 1/36 of the time, 3s are rolled exactly 2/36 of the time,... in a single game. Since the numbers are rolled randomly they will cluster each game at some numbers - but it is impossible to know in advance where the cluster will be.

*) "every time I get more than 7 cards a 7 is rolled" ... this is incorrect - you are simply lying. I just had to look into a single game of yours (last one that was finished was #450630178) and very early in the game (before you built your first settlement) you had more than 7 cards and twice in a row there was no 7 rolled.

From this data I could claim that NEVER a 7 is rolled whenever you have more than 7 cards ("proof" by looking at the beginning of a single game). This would be equally wrong as your statement.

Please also consider that if you are in a 4-player game and you end your turn with 7 cards on hand (which is still safe) it is quite likely that you have to give away cards till your next turn! You will very likely get an additional card in the next roll (now you have more than 7) and then you have to survive three (!) consecutive rolls without a 7. The probability for saving this situation is 58%, i.e. in 42% of these situations you have to give away cards.

If you end your turn with 8+ cards (because you could not trade or build) then you have to survive 4 consecutive rolls without a 7. This is rather unlikely (!), so in more than half of all cases you will lose cards.

In case you did not only want to just voice your frustation but are really interested in the numbers - keep a statistic!
Every time you have more than 7 cards you write down whether a 7 is rolled or not. Be careful to really write down ALL cases you have 8+ cards, also those where NO 7 is rolled. These cases are easy to overlook since you seem to consider them not noteworthy. Please also note that if you have, say, 9 cards and you survive one roll (i.e., no 7) but have to discard at the next roll (i.e., a 7), you have to write down also the roll where you survived!

If you do this for 20+ of your games you will notice that very close to 1/6 of all these situations a 7 is rolled and 5/6 of all these situations no 7 is rolled.

[edit]: I just continued to watch your game #450630178. And the next time you had more than 7 cards you survived 5 (!) consecutive rolls in a row without a 7 being rolled. Now, I have watched only the very beginning of the game (each player has 3 victory points) and you already had 7 situations with more than 7 cards and you survived all of them! You are playing very risky and are very lucky with your rolls.

[Romero91]

If you throw a dice 50 times, it is very possible that you get those results. Like one or two numbers could dominate.
That does not represent the real statistic and chance of the numbers getting rolled. The times you throw the dice in a single game is nothing compared to the total amount of rolls.
So this is like in real life -the more times you throw the dice, the more accurate the numbers will be to the real statistic.

[e4gunl]

We often play the board game, with real dice, at home and it is super weird how an unlikely number will get rolled again and again on a particular day. Last time we played, 12, 11 and 4 were getting hit constantly and our 8s and 6 were getting nothing.

[Mohnish]

Just played a game where 10 only dropped 1 time thats just bullshit.

[fiscused]

There's a well hidden button below the screen that determines the outcome of all dice rolls. If you want random rolls, you have to disable this feature.