3 ms·

If I remember correctly Sid Meier’s point was a little more nuanced than that. It wasn’t that people expect to win 90% of the time, it’s that humans have a ver

If I remember correctly Sid Meier’s point was a little more nuanced than that. It wasn’t that people expect to win 90% of the time, it’s that humans have a very poor intuition for odds and statistics. Pretty much everyone makes the common mistake of not understanding how a 33% chance of winning impacts independent events. People assume that 33% chance of winning, means a pretty such sure fire win after 3 attempts (after all 33% * 3 is approx 100%). But every battle in Civilization is an independent event, so to get a sure fire win (90% confidence) you need to fight something 6/7 times (I don’t know the exact number, been some time since I studied this). Having the number of fights you win against an opponent be 2 or 3 times greater than the intuitive number of fights makes people think the computer to cheating. When really they just don’t understand how stats work. To fix this the Civilization games actually skew their stats so they better align with human intuition. So if the game says you have a 33% chance of winning, then that means you’ll probably win after 3 fights. Despite the fact that really you have a 40%-50% chance of winning that fight.

devonkim 6y ago
Sid Meier also worked with the Firaxis folks on the recent XCOM reboot and this is well known and documented now how the stats work out in the game and how the game will cheat for the player eventually on lower difficulties. Nothing more frustrating than lining up shots perfectly and missing a 98% point blank shot from 2 feet away. I’ve always wondered what that 2% could be - gun jams, the character slips on a banana peel, who knows?
- username90 6y ago
  > . I’ve always wondered what that 2% could be - gun jams, the character slips on a banana peel, who knows? Or just, the other person moving around in a hectic life or death situation? Trying to shoot someone in short range isn't 100% hit. The characters calmly standing there waiting to get shot is just a game representation.

devonkim 6y ago

Sid Meier also worked with the Firaxis folks on the recent XCOM reboot and this is well known and documented now how the stats work out in the game and how the game will cheat for the player eventually on lower difficulties. Nothing more frustrating than lining up shots perfectly and missing a 98% point blank shot from 2 feet away. I’ve always wondered what that 2% could be - gun jams, the character slips on a banana peel, who knows?

username90 6y ago
> . I’ve always wondered what that 2% could be - gun jams, the character slips on a banana peel, who knows? Or just, the other person moving around in a hectic life or death situation? Trying to shoot someone in short range isn't 100% hit. The characters calmly standing there waiting to get shot is just a game representation.