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Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 11 April 2024, 23:24
by htherlee
First of all, this is my favorite game. So this post is not meant to disparage or say anything negative about the person/people who program it for this platform. They are better at life than I am for knowing how to do so.

I do have an observation though. There are 150 bird cards. I’ve played Wingspan “in real life” many times. RARELY does a Raven or Gull get drawn in the first round. Yet, on here both get drawn within the first few draws EVERY TIME. So the game becomes, not a built up strategy over multiple rounds, but a race to draw. Because you know if you don’t get a Raven or Gull in the first round, the other player will. Is there a way to fix this so the 150 bird cards actually get shuffled?

I know there is a way to remove the powerful cards from the game. But i do like playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played. And the way it’s supposed to be played, is not that the powerful cards are always in the first 10 cards drawn.

Re: Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 12 April 2024, 08:29
by bergerOUS
hmm... well we have 150 bird-cards.... in this deck we have the big four.... it means that one of 37,5 cards is one of them.
In a two player game we have ten cards in both starting hands - if we draw 10 other cards from the deck we have 20 drawn cards

so you should have one of the big four in more than every second game (53%) at that point.

In my experience the most good players here, trie to draw more than ten cards during the first round...
At home we played it in another way, and I had to learn to draw more cards. Usually I loose games when I don't have payable water-birds in my starting hand.... that's the poor truth.

And yes at home we don't play the raven or gull so often but at home my deck is around 430 birds....

kind regards
berger OUS

Re: Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 12 April 2024, 11:16
by drdeadpool
Do you draw 10 cards in the first round? For some strategies sure! But I think its quite a stretch to say that we're expected to draw 10 cards each. More often than not you find a strong card and start working towards it long before that.

Reference : I'm currently ranked 1 in arena.

Re: Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 12 April 2024, 11:20
by drdeadpool
drdeadpool wrote: 12 April 2024, 11:16 Do you draw 10 cards in the first round? For some strategies sure! But I think its quite a stretch to say that we're expected to draw 10 cards each. More often than not you find a strong card and start working towards it long before that.

Reference : I'm currently ranked 1 in arena.
Im not any longer. Please ignore. My opinion is worthless now.

Re: Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 12 April 2024, 11:45
by drdeadpool
drdeadpool wrote: 12 April 2024, 11:16
Im not any longer. Please ignore. My opinion is worthless now.
Ok. I'm back on top. Let everyone bow down and tremble!

Re: Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 12 April 2024, 16:35
by Ceaseless
htherlee wrote: 11 April 2024, 23:24 First of all, this is my favorite game. So this post is not meant to disparage or say anything negative about the person/people who program it for this platform. They are better at life than I am for knowing how to do so.

I do have an observation though. There are 150 bird cards. I’ve played Wingspan “in real life” many times. RARELY does a Raven or Gull get drawn in the first round. Yet, on here both get drawn within the first few draws EVERY TIME. So the game becomes, not a built up strategy over multiple rounds, but a race to draw. Because you know if you don’t get a Raven or Gull in the first round, the other player will. Is there a way to fix this so the 150 bird cards actually get shuffled?

I know there is a way to remove the powerful cards from the game. But i do like playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played. And the way it’s supposed to be played, is not that the powerful cards are always in the first 10 cards drawn.
I didn't see you post any evidence of the powerful birds coming up in the first few draws EVERY TIME, as you put it. Still, the point of having the powerful bird cards is so the one who draws them can abuse the game and the other player can't catch up in time. I'm not sure what you're complaining about, those birds weren't designed for playing a fair game of Wingspan, lol.

Re: Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 15 April 2024, 20:06
by Slowbrow
bergerOUS wrote: 12 April 2024, 08:29 hmm... well we have 150 bird-cards.... in this deck we have the big four.... it means that one of 37,5 cards is one of them.
In a two player game we have ten cards in both starting hands - if we draw 10 other cards from the deck we have 20 drawn cards

so you should have one of the big four in more than every second game (53%) at that point.

[...]
I would just like to fix the probability (and if someone else can also do the maths and confirm that would be appreciated).

With sfiwt birds (180 total birds) I think that finding at least one of the P4 birds among the first 13 cards (2 players) is 26.1%.
And when 20 cards are drawn (quite probable before the end of the first round, especially if some duck/tern/grebe) is played, the probability is 37.8%.
So [at least one P4 bird played during the first round] would rather occur about twice every 5 games.

I would definitely be interested in comparing this probability with the author's statistics. But let's also keep in mind that neither a computer nor a human actually shuffle the cards trully randomly.

Re: Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 16 April 2024, 08:49
by Jellby
Yes, your math seems OK to me:

First 13 cards out of 180: 1-(176!/(176-13)!)/(180!/(180-13)!) = 26.1%
First 20 cards out of 180: 1-(176!/(176-20)!)/(180!/(180-20)!) = 37.8%
First 20 cards out of 150: 1-(146!/(146-20)!)/(150!/(150-20)!) = 43.9%

With 180 cards, in 50% of the games there will be at least one P4 within the first 29 cards: 1-(176!/(176-29)!)/(180!/(180-29)!) = 50.8%

Re: Ravens/Gulls

Posted: 06 May 2024, 13:47
by Sjarmtrollet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Also, real-life shuffling is rarely thorough enough to be properly random.