Selective perception

Many, many patterns are spotted daily in BattleMaster by eager players. Most of them exist only in the minds of the beholder(s).

Selective perception is a psychological feature that essentially says that if you look for a pattern hard enough, you will eventually spot one, even if there is none. Our minds are pattern-perception machines, and will spot patterns, no matter what. That's how pictures in the clouds and conspiracy theories come into existence.

There are many places in BattleMaster where someone will claim that a pattern exists. Beware of such claims and verify them - look on the Wiki, into the manual, ask other players and check for yourself if possible.

Almost everyone claiming to know in-depth details about the game mechanics that the game itself doesn't tell is overestimating himself or trying to fool you. There are exceptions, but if you make this your basic rule, you're fairly safe.

All the above is doubly true for powergamers. If there were an advantage in, say, doing something 4 times for 3 hours each vs. 3 times for 4 hours each, Tom would consider it a bug in most cases. The basic rules in BattleMaster for all things where you can choose the investment (either in time or money) are:

• Higher investments (more hours, time, etc. spent) will always yield higher results or at least better chances at higher results
• Equal investments, even if split up over multiple actions, will result in the same result or at least the same chances (if there's randomness involved, you might not get the same result, but the chances were even, you just had more luck one time)

Due to mathematics, of course, there indeed are a few minor patterns. When randomness is involved, trying once can mean scoring the top or bottom result, while multiple tries have a higher chance of landing you somewhere in the middle. Then again, in some parts of the game effects like this are taken into account. There is also rounding and it is entirely possible that 2x3 hours vs. 3x2 hours (or vice versa) would indeed benefit you in one specific case. Do not forget, however, that almost always there are external factors figuring in as well - region morale, troop strength, how many other people tried the same thing already today, etc. - and your specific case will be different next turn.

There are patterns everywhere in BattleMaster. However, Tom has always tried to make sure they are not in number-crunching game mechanics and that all options the game presents you with do have their use. If 4x3 were always better than 6x2, why offer 6 at all?