I think we will need a break after Coalition turn 5.

So 6 big rounds of combat and William out rolls in all 6.

Avergaes are
VBIR 3.67
Coalition 2.5
Alliance 5.17

So far have self killed 6 D5's to keep the line intact (3rd round damage is still to be taken).

So - 35% more compot for WIlliam - and yet 75% more damage done.

Other than not playing F&E - any suggestions?

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 08:29 am: Edit

Unquestionably true that Paul has been unlucky in the SB assaults this turn. The best I can say for the Kzinti defense is that it gave him the chance to get into trouble by being unlucky. In other words, the defense at each SB was enough that bad rolls would create a problem for Paul. It would have been perfectly reasonable for that to actually happen at one SB. But both?

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 08:47 am: Edit

Those dice must br brought to trail in front of thier peers and then executed to teach the others a lesson.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 09:45 am: Edit

Well on round 7of the SB assaults....I finally rolled the same as William!

Net effect is 1 to 8 extra dead Coalition ships ( Auto Kill rule has come up once so 1 of the 9 would have had to happen) and a couple less Kzinti crippled ships.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 10:23 am: Edit

My personal experience is that luck is associated with games. In my game with Dana Madsen I have consistently bad luck on combat rolls - until the end of a major combat when it doesn't matter anymore. In my game with Bill Steele, I have consistently good combat rolls.

Note that in both cases the actual distribution of numbers is random. However, when and where those rolls show up has been skewed in the two games.

Of course, a positivist would say that my observation is pure poppycock - and that the distribution of the dice is random. But, like a professional baseball player, I have a superstitious streak despite my degree in physics.

By Jon Murdock (Xenocide) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 10:56 am: Edit

My friend who works in a physics research lab told me that the longer he works there the more superstitious he gets about experiments succeeding and failing and even just working right with nothing breaking.

It appears to be hardwired into our brains.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 12:01 pm: Edit

Human brains are pattern recognition machines, it's what they are optimized to do.

When something is (a) important and (b) random, our brains WILL find a pattern in the noise and then make up a cause. If the pattern appears consistent enough, then observer bias makes us notice it even more.

If there's no "real" cause that we can actually identify, then the cause our brain picks may be something like "my lucky underwear" or whatever. In cases where psychology has any effect on success (AKA most things), this adds to the self-reinforcing nature of the superstition, because you actually will do better when you have the confidence that comes from your lucky underwear (or whatever).

Note that for something as complex and with as many die rolls as F&E, there being a pattern that exceeds 3 sigma unlikelihood if taken in isolation is strongly to be expected (the familywise error). Random doesn't mean uniform, quite the contrary, random includes streaks. Someone will roll unusually well in critical situations, or always have their maulers shock, or roll absurdly well on the B10 or on survey, or never seem to manage a pursuit, or lose far too many small combats, or get bad rolls in the first few rounds of capital assaults, or consistently miss directing a carrier by 1, or something.

Something that looks significant will happen, and our brains being wired to look for patterns and causes, will see that as a pattern and assign a cause.

By chris upson (Misanthropope) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 12:22 pm: Edit

i doubt there has never been a human so enlightened that winning five coin flips in a row feels equally unfair to him (well, her probably) as losing five in a row.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 12:42 pm: Edit

I feel badly for my opponent when I'm already doing well and the dice go badly for them.

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 01:02 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 12:42 pm: Edit

I feel badly for my opponent when I'm already doing well and the dice go badly for them.

---

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 01:28 pm: Edit

It's not nice, but to be 100% honest I get a little thrill when I roll a 6 and the opponent rolls a 1 when initiating a capital planet assault....

And I see red when the opposite happens.

I seriously doubt there are many people who feel otherwise.

Of all the players I have ever met, only Richard Eitzen has struck me as being close to agnostic with respect to runs of good or bad dice.

Richard, nice to know even you have a little emotional response to the dice. ;)

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 02:24 pm: Edit

Well after 14 dice rounds..

I outrolled in 2 of the least important rounds and William outrolled in 1 of rhe least important rounds.

William outrolled in 3 the next least important rounds.

William outpolled in 6 of the most important rounds (and we rolled equal in 2 of the other most important rounds).

I haven't rolled higher in the last 11 rounds either (rounds 1 and 3 I rolled higher!).

Turn average so far is

VBIR 2.7, Coalition 3 and Alliance 4.14

In small battles it's 2.33, 3.83, 3.83

In big battles it's 3.13, 2.375, 4.375

At 140 compot 5% a round for 8 rounds is a lot of extra damage I have taken.

In the small battle - I even missed a 50/50 (to kill the BATS on round 2) and William got a 1/3rd chance to force another cripple on me on round 3

So I don't need to look too hard to see a pattern......

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 04:50 pm: Edit

I did not forget sarcasm quotes.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 05:52 pm: Edit

Thief! Thief! Thief! Howard! We hates it! We hates it forever!

https://www.google.com/search?q=we+hates+it

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, June 15, 2019 - 02:16 am: Edit

Well, now 12 rounds without beating William on the roll. At least I have tied in 3 of them now.

Will do the Google search later as about to go out.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, June 15, 2019 - 07:06 am: Edit

13 rounds and haven't beaten William on the dice rolls

What is truly horrific is the averages (10 rounds so far) in the big battles

2.4 for me v 4.6 for William

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, June 15, 2019 - 08:09 am: Edit

The google meme is all about how the die roller looks at Paul. That said, his SB dice the last three rounds have been only slightly below average. The real trouble is what went down before.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Saturday, June 15, 2019 - 08:34 am: Edit

14 rounds and still haven't beaten Willlam.

After this rounds damage - I will need to take a break as mentally, the game is absolutely killing me.

I would suggest William Buys a lottery ticket as I think the odds of this happening are about 107,500 to 1. (i.e. winning 12 of 14 and drawing the other two).

Will let William post some replies but I will need to get a different outlook for a few days.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, June 15, 2019 - 09:57 am: Edit

I was formerly a professional poker player. I always thought I won at poker because of my strategy. But maybe it was just blind luck!

Anyway, based on the game results to date, the best I can say about my strategy is that it's not a total disaster. A totally disastrous strategy would lead to a bad position even in the face of excellent luck, which this one did not.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Saturday, June 15, 2019 - 12:58 pm: Edit

The funny thing is that for every other player in every other game I'm aware of (except poker, but that's another story), the laws of statistics actually work, and bad luck comes in manageable chunks! You are lucky in one battle and unlucky in another, maybe somewhat lucky or unlucky over the course of the game, but it mostly evens out. It seems only Paul has the secret of angering the dice RNG so that it stays angry across days, sessions, and sometimes even years.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Saturday, June 15, 2019 - 04:13 pm: Edit

No the dice Gods hate me as well. That is why i use plasma no die roll to hit.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat2) on Monday, June 17, 2019 - 08:00 pm: Edit

Anybody know of a good die roll server for F&E other than https://www.pbegames.com/roller/#theRoller

By Thomas Mathews (Turtle) on Monday, June 17, 2019 - 08:53 pm: Edit

You might want to look at rolz.org
I never could figure it out though.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, June 17, 2019 - 09:44 pm: Edit

What's wrong, if anything, with https://www.pbegames.com/roller/#theRoller?

I've been using it for a decade and have probably done 10s of thousands (or maybe just thousands) of rolls by now.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 - 04:32 am: Edit

Richard - the easy answer is it just does not like me.

After the last game, with William out rolling by an average of probably 1 pip over 3,000 dice and the recent 'fluke' - I just don't trust it.

Totally illogical, but I don't want the dice ruining a second game.