weather

[crusher]

Hi:
was anyone ran into strange weather in the winter of 42?? the first snow was in the first wk of oct then rain for two weeks then blizzard. nov went like this rain snow snow rain dec blizzard rain rain snow. Feb blizzard rain snow rain. march blizzard snow rain rain. well the germans were happy with this weather the russian winter offensive was stopped cold

[CRAZY_HORSE007]

HI Crusher,

take a look at the test our Matrix hero Ed Cogburn about wheater dice.





This issue has come up before and someone did a statistical analysis and found no cheating. Below is the written result of that test. If you want the .xls that comes with this, ask me.


------------------------------------
The data is in on 5 sets of 10 runs each with slightly different
starting conditions. All tests were run from just before 11/2/41
through 4/5/42 with balance set to even. The first test set was with no
combat playing human versus human at a test location approximately
historical. Test 2 was with no combat playing human versus human at the
6/22/41 starting position. Test 3 was a repeat of test 1 playing the
Soviet versus computer so computer directed combat started when the test
began. Test 4 was from a saved game where I player the Germans versus
the computer set to max help for the Soviets so there had been heavy
combat and the location was near historical. For test 4 the Soviets
were playing against the computer. Test 5 was a repeat of test 4 with
the Germans playing against the computer.

The good news is, it was statistically insignificant what the starting
conditions were, the results were remarkably consistent. The average
number of blizzard turns for the 50 tests was 11.66 turns while the
maximum was 15 turns and the minimum was 8. Interestingly enough those occurred in the same test set (test 4). The maximum consecutive string of blizzard turns was 13 and the minimum consecutive string of blizzard
turns was 3. Again those occurred in the same test set (test 5). Test
sets 4 and 5 were from the same starting conditions the only difference
being the Soviet versus the computer (test 4) or the German versus the
computer (test 5). These two test sets also gave the greatest average
number of blizzard turns (12.1 test 4) and the least average number of
blizzard turns (11.4 test 5). If there is a bias, the game favors the
human player over the computer with respect to the blizzard weather of
the winter of 41/42. I don't think that is the case; it's just a
statistical anomaly.

All the data points generated the probability of any given weather by
month. The first two weeks of November have the probability of rain 46% of the time and snow 54% of the time. The last three weeks of November have the probability of rain 4% of the time, snow 81% of the time and blizzard 15% of the time. December has the probability of rain 6.5% of the time and blizzard 93.5% of the time. January has the probability of rain 7.5% of the time, snow 6.5% of the time and blizzard 86% of the
time. February has the probability of rain 3% of the time, snow 11% of
the time and blizzard 86% of the time. The first three weeks of March
have the probability of rain 3% of the time, snow 78% of the time and
blizzard 19% of the time. The last two weeks of March have the
probability of rain 60% of the time and snow 40% of the time. Finally
the first week of April has the probability of rain 90% of the time and
clear 10% of the time. The likelihood of having blizzard weather for
all 16 turns in which it is possible is extremely unlikely. In test set
5 the two biggest surprises for the German player occurred when once the
blizzard started in 11/23/41 and lasted unabated until 1/8/42 for a brief respite. The other surprise was another time when the blizzard
started in 12/7/41 and went through 3/15/42 with only one snow turn in
the middle.

I didn't run any tests for weather as PBEM games but would be surprised
if it is any different. Also, I doubt that the game program uses probabilities any more accurate that 5% so those numbers in the previous paragraph can be rounded to the nearest 5%.


VERY GOOD JOB

Regards,

Marc

[Micha]

By the probabilities given the chance of having two rain turns in both Decembre and February is about 0.09%. That means on average it happens just once in every 1111 games.
Is that any consolation, Crusher?

[davewolf]

Originally posted by Micha
By the probabilities given the chance of having two rain turns in both Decembre and February is about 0.09%. That means on average it happens just once in every 1111 games.

Not bad compared to lottery jackpot.

[crusher]

well i guess the weather really is random. thanks for that info now i can kind of see what to expect.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by CRAZY_HORSE007

take a look at the test our Matrix hero Ed Cogburn about wheater dice.

For the record, I was not the author of the test, a previous member of the Beta team did this.