[April Fool's] Wesnoth Random Number Generator Changes

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Y'know, I'm kinda starting to like the AI.

[Pp2]

Well, he is so powerfull that it is really hard to defeat him even on a 1 vs 0 game

[501st_alpha1]

Whoops... I probably should have read this thread first (as in, before the poll), but yeah... this is one elaborate April Fools joke... at least, I hope it is.

[ivanovic]

Before I forget to mention this:

Happy April Fools Day!

No, the random number generator we do use (no matter if on the server or on your computer) has no bias, it is the default random number generator that the programming language C++ comes with. Sure, if this is broken on your platform, then random numbers in Wesnoth are broken, but this is very unlikely. The AI is not able to cheat with random numbers either. In fact the AI has no idea which difficulty level is currently selected, though different parameters might be supplied to the AI in different difficulty levels. But this does solely depend on what the WML creator codes. For example the AI might only consider exactly one attack and the outcome or it might consider 5 attacks before sending a unit into battle. Beside this there is no plan for premium Wesnoth in the near future. Hey, which features should we really offer there? There is nothing!

Beside this the idea about the RNG done as hashsum over the everchanging internet is technically not possible. The Wesnoth AI is no mutating SkyNet (cf the popular movie series "Terminator") like AI.

[ivanovic]

Since some people will probably still say "but hey, the results of the script...", here is the content of the two scripts Dave wrote and put online:

rand-old.pl:

Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n";

print "Wesnoth random numbers\n";

my $last = int(100*rand);
for(my $i = 0; $i != 100; ++$i) {
        my $num = int(100*rand);
        if(($last-$num) > 10 or ($num-$last) > 10 and (rand > 0.2)) {
                redo;
        }

        print "$num\n";
        $last = $num;
}

rand-test.pl:

Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n";

print "Scanning pages...\n";

my $sum = 0;

srand(time);

for(my $i = 0; $i != 10; ++$i) {
        $sum += int(10000000 + 100000000*rand);
}

sleep 20;

print "Scanned $sum pages...\n";

print "Scanning of pages completed; generated check sum. Random number stream follows\n";
for(my $i = 0; $i != 100; ++$i) {
        my $num = int(100*rand);
        print "$num\n";
}

And yes, this code is *not* what is used anywhere inside of Wesnoth. Those scripts are crude hacks to make you believe some stuff...

[CheeseLord]

I believed it until this:

"Of course, it's possible the AI will make an illegal access to the memory page with the random number generator"

Super Robots for the win!! At this point, I realised that it's probably a April Fools joke..........

Damn!!! I just realised that Wesnoth replacing Age of Empires was a joke too

[Captain_Wrathbow]

I'm afraid I have to admit it- this one did fool me.
I knew from the start that the "Premim Wesnoth" was totally fake, it had more holes than walls. And it was obvious you all were kidding about an RNG-hacking AI, but I honestly believed Dave had found some issue with the RNG and was rewriting it.
I'm impressed that you went so far as to put the "new" RNG online for testing- that really added to the believability. Congrats Devs and all those who didn't believe it!

[joshudson]

Uhh, the AI has integrated http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?TheKenThompsonHack and become http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?HyperBug.

Don't bother reading the source code, the AI RNG cheat's not there.

[Mabuse]

yeah, this one was realy well made, he really got me.

Edit:
he really got me, though i couldnt belive that this was the wesnoth rng, and i just thought to myself:
"if i would have found out that my rng is complete crap, i wouldnt have admitted this in public and would have just fixed it in secrecy, i think the devs went crazy and dont realize what damage this could do to BfW and their credibility, if they now admit their rng is crap after all that discussions and treads about it"


it was a realy relief for me to realize this was an aprils joke

[uzy5o]

I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like the user ihatewesnoth is actually a set-up for this April Fool's joke.

[HomerJ]

If only it was...

Greetz
HomerJ