by MichelSableheart on Fri Jan 05, 2024 3:14 am
I haven't noticed anything remarkable myself lately.
It shouldn't happen often, but it happens, especially on large maps with few players. If there are only 4 players to divide the territories amongst, a 3 territory bonus has a chance of 1/16 to go to a single player (there is a ~ 1 in 4 chance for each other territory in the bonus that it goes to the player who got the first territory). A 4 territory bonus gives a ~ 1/64 chance, a 5 territory bonus ~ 1/256.
World 2.1 has 3 bonuses consisting of 3 territories, 3 bonuses consisting of 4 territories and 3 bonuses consisting of 5 territories. That means that in a 4 player game, there is about a 58% chance someone starts with a 3 territory bonus, a 5.6% chance someone starts with a 4 territory bonus, and a 1.2% chance of someone starting with a 5 territory bonus. Also note that these aren't completely independent: if someone starts with a bonus, they hold less territories elsewhere on the map, so the chance that someone else also holds a bonus is slightly higher then normal.
You have played 81 4-player games on world 2.1. Given those odds, I would expect that out of those 81 games, roughly 47 had a player start with a 3 territory bonus, about 4 or 5 of them had a player start with a 4 territory bonus, and 1 of them had a player start with a 5 territory bonus. Note, however, that these are expectations, there will be variance. If 100 players play 81 4-player games on world 2.1, each of them has ~ a 62.4 percent chance of seeing a game with at least one 5 territory continent drop, which means that about 40 out of those 100 players will see 2 such games.
What you are describing, though unlikely, is still something I would expect to happen to someone on the site at some point, with someone dropping Vichy France or Italy in WWII Europe by far the most remarkable
MichelSableheart,
Een van de Veroveraars der Lage Landen
And a member of the Republic