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Also, I got into this game some 3 years ago I think. And before the SMG logo was appearing (It was straight Hasbro?) the blitz rolls with several armies froze the device pretty hard sometimes. I think the blitz rolls used to be rolled out. But SMG changed it to a probability matrix. Blitz is instantaneous these days.

The greatest concern is with the code granting an automatic win to an attacker of x number of troops over the defender. Losing a "random" amount of troops if unlucky on the probability roll. This explains why the losses can be so catastrophic sometimes. Like losing 30 to a defender's 5. That CAN happen but it happens a lot more than I would expect.

Why can't we just have blitz programmed to be true dice rolls? And why can't single rolls be true dice rolls? It can't be THAT taxing on the device to randomly generate some numbers.

It also makes sense that a hacker can make his rolls more likely to win but still appear like it's fair from losing some troops. I have observed this before, where it seems insane that a guy is only losing a few on his run through the map. Not just lucky I guess.

I played the actual board game the other day, and I was pretty sure the dice statistics were skewed also. However, the actual game roles worked out to be just as bad in many cases. Besides, I agree with other comments saying that as long as each player gets the same odds then it works out. The problem I have is more with attacking defending, the calculation for that seems wrong. I've seen one person with 7 armies defeat someone with more than 30. That would never happen in the actual game and it's either a game exploit, glitch/bug, or bad algorithm. That's just my two cents. Thanks!

My problem is not with the dice rolls themselves, they seem within margin or true random and give back the correct statistical probability. However, it doesn't appear that attack/defending positions play through each dice roll and exchange armies (such as defender wins ties and actually rolling 3:1 or 3:2 dice odds, rinse and repeat until end). I have the suspicion that the attack/defend algorithm is using a randomizer of it's own and not running through each turn scenario until it reaches the end case.. so in other words, it appears that there is a randomizer to determine enemy loses on each side rather than the "true" logic (and that's wrong because the actual result would be an exponential calculation) being played through in a loop until all army losses are calculated. In any case the statistics for attacking/defending armies is wrong. I've seen many occasions where someone with just about 6-7 men can attack someone with over 30 and win. This would never happen in the board game, it's frankly a statistical anomaly but recurs regularly enough to classify a flawed algorithm. I think the disconnect is that most posts in the forums I've read assume it has to do with the dice rolls itself, I don't think that's the case. Thanks.

 Watch it with the word "never." It definitely can and will sometimes happen.

After Ryan broke down the code I feel at ease with the roll-by-roll method. It's actually more accurate than real dice rolls because it takes the actual percentage odds of each scenario. people rolling dice isn't always random. The bad part about this code not using true dice rolls is your dice roll outcome is just a random scenario generated by the algorithm. That scenario where all dice are 1's is much more likely to happen because it's just a random pick from all possible combinations of an attacker losing. Not a big deal because the dice are just for show but why bother showing the dice at all if that's what you're going to do?

However, the blitz code is entirely different and needs to be changed. I don't think the concept of a formula where the attacker always wins if x% of troops above the defender. I'm sure they did this so that an attacker of 200 would never lose against a 2. Statistically speaking, it'll never happen but their code says literally it will never happen which is wrong in the real game. Instead, when you're in a dominant attack, it's a roll to be "unlucky" and when you're unlucky, a random amount of troops is lost. Random? That means it could be more risky running someone down with a super large army vs with a moderate army. This could explain why sometimes when I'm running the map, one battle obliterates my chances of finishing the run with massive and out of proportional troop loss. That CAN happen but the current blitz method is not based on the true game of Risk, it's engineered so that it will not tax the device running the game. Again, Risk was laggy before SMG rehashed the Blitz code about 2 years ago. And the complaints about it have been increasing ever since they changed the code.

The greatest concern about the breakdown of this code is that it's easily hackable. I could probably do it but as soon as I do it, I won't want to play anymore. I play to play not just to win. But knowing that others can easily modify it so that they don't lose so many troops as often ruins my ambition to try and play these "better" players. I think we need to just go to true dice rolls and add more server to how the results are generated.

I know SMG prefers that your individual device does the processing as I';m sure their servers are cheap and not capable of handling so many numbers but maybe they can give the expert players a premium option to pay for where all dice rolls are done via the server and we can care a lot more about who's winning matches. A higher bill for an expert premium option could also thwart cheaters if they had to pay per character instead of per google play account.

Watch the phrase "it'll never happen", lol. You can't really tell me to do it if you don't do it yourself? Right!

I figured a reason such an algorithm would have been created, such as it is, would be to improve performance. Would you have link a breakdown of the code that "Ryan" posted? I'm relatively new to the forum and online game. I am a developer though. I do love the game, but obviously there's something wrong with the algorithm and it could be improved.. without costing tons of performance.

I can run the statistics, some of the things I've seen have less than a 1% chance of happening. 

Ryan's link was only a few posts ago. Here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/Risk/comments/8rbgsy/deconstructed_the_official_android_version_how/

It doesn't give the actual code for legal reasons but has a very nice explanation of what he found.

I've played over 2500 games. I've seen plenty of less than 1% chance of happening happen. But being a conservative player, I don't often take the risk on it unless necessary, so it's not "often." But I see a lot of dumb wins to attacker or defender all the time, and don't question the code for those. Heavy weighted armies in blitz attacks are where I get most disgusted with this code. The giant attacking army can't lose, as in it literally has 0% chance of losing, but it could have a catastrophic loss on one attack. Some of those unlucky losses could seem normal though as it's random as to how many troops are lost. I don't like it.

Thanks SectaOne and Briand, I think the primary problem is described in Ryans post "If you were unlucky on the probability roll, the game forces a win and you lose a random number of troops." I might play around with the source, thanks for the link. That's good information to have. P.S. Briand, the way the game works has forced me to be somewhat of a conservative player as well.

I'd love to know the difference of true odds vs their algorithm for these larger armies, mostly concerning average troops lost. How much worse does it look for the attacker as more and more troops exist? 

Briand, I agree and it shouldn't be too hard to run the raw numbers and then compare that to a simple simulator ran over a few million outcomes. Not sure if I'll get to it right away but it's something I'd also be curious about.. to even see if our complaining is even valid LOL. But I suspect it is.