From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!npois!npoiv!harpo!db Newsgroups: net.games.emp Title: The Plague is killing us Article-I.D.: harpo.964 Posted: Tue Aug 17 09:11:06 1982 Received: Sun Aug 22 03:49:28 1982 In our local game, it seems a large number of the countries are having serious plague problems. The empire manual Plague and innards sections seem to be a little inconsistent in their description of the probability of contracting the plague. Im interested in the answers to two questions. First, the plague manual page describes a likelihood-of-plague factor that begins with the factor (civ + mil)/999, and the innards page describes the LOP factor as beginning with the factor (civ + mil)/254. Is one a mistake, or is the difference only in how it is interpreted, with the innards version the actual equation? Second, assuming the worst case innards version, a LOP value of 3.2 is obtained assuming a fairly advanced country of t_level=r_level=300, ore=0, effic=100, mobil=100. the factor would go up for some sectors with ore, low mobility, etc, but the point is that even a factor of 5.0 would indicate about 5% chance of contracting plague. our country seems to be contracting plague with smaller factors than 3, in totally isolated sectors, at a much higher rate than 5%. Is there a possibility that empire doesnt do a true random number selection? has anyone else experienced a high plague contraction rate? dan becker harpo!db