Polycube frequencies

Discuss about Blockout II from Jean-Luc, post your feature requests etc.
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lancelot
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jun 08, 2014 7:06 pm

Polycube frequencies

Post by lancelot »

My problem with Blockout II is that the distribution of the polycubes seems to be different from the one in the original Blockout. For Out of Control my strategy used to be to fill 4 layers leaving just one empty cell in each of them and then wait for a height 4 or height 5 polycube. So I was able to clear out 4 layers several times in a row. This seems impossible in Blockout II due to the polycube frequencies being different, in particular the frequency of the polycube consisting of 4 cubes in a row. Clearing out 4 layers, say, 3 times in a row seems hopeless.

I can think of a simpler test for this claim, that might be easier to verify: in Blockout II getting the same polycube twice in a row seems an extremely rare event. I'm not sure if I have seen it happen even once. In the original Blockout that wasn't such a rare event, and more than once I was even getting the same polycube three times in a row.
jlp_38
Posts: 264
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:09 am

Re: Polycube frequencies

Post by jlp_38 »

Hello,

Yes you're right, the polycube random distribution is different in BLockout II. In blockout II, a "bag system" is used. That means that (in OOC) all 41 polycubes are randomly permuted and then distributed, after the complete distribution, a new bag is generated. So the probability of having 2 times the same polycube is rather rare (last item in the first bag and first item in the second bag) and it's impossible to have 3 times consecutively the same polycube.
With this system, it is possible to adopt a "five layers strategy" as the 5cube bar is distributed once in each bag...
lancelot
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jun 08, 2014 7:06 pm

Re: Polycube frequencies

Post by lancelot »

Thanks, that explains it perfectly. I did have an impression that the distribution was in some sense less random than in the original Blockout, but I couldn't figure out exactly how.

So far I'm not sure whether I like the new system or not :). It can definitely make for more interesting strategies, something like counting cards. One needs to memorize the numbers 186, 372, 558, 744, 930, since those are the numbers of cubes played when the whole deck has been dealt to the player and then reshuffled. Inside every deck, one needs to remember whether the most important pieces have already been dealt out, say, the 5-row, 4-row, 3-row and the L-shaped pieces of heights 4 and 3. This should not be too difficult to remember. And then the gamble is, say, whether it's realistic to wait for the 4-row if it has to appear within the next 50 cubes played.
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