A few years ago I heard that RoN’s random RNG was bad, and that each nation only had a handful of possible matchups in a 1v1. I wasn’t able to find any documented testing on this, and nobody I talked to was able to say what the matchups were or confirm the details with certainty. So, of course, I sat down and ran 165 1v1 matchups and recorded the results.
Back then that was enough to complete the primary objective: to see whether the nation RNG only allowed for certain matchups in 1v1 (true), and I lacked the skills to parse the data to find out what each of those matchups actually was in a time-efficient way. Now I don’t, so here are the results of a not-quite-large-enough sample.
It looks like each nation has six (or possibly fewer) matchups. Due to insufficient sample size, it’s likely that there are actually six matchups per nation in this situation, but that I simply didn’t run enough tests to uncover all of them. Thus there are some nations which appear to only have four or five matchups based on this inadequate sample, but they probably do actually have six.
I don’t know what version of the game these were tested with (I don’t seem to have recorded it, and don’t remember), but the testing was done in March 2021. Note that these results are essentially a combination of: “if player 1 is X nation, what nation can player 2 be” and the reverse. It’s not impossible that some of these matchups are available either only as player 1 or only as player 2 — I simply don’t have enough data to say either way. I will say that the most different matchups that I recorded either player having is four, so (unless I made some mistake) at the very least it doesn’t seem to be the case that the matchups are evenly split between the two player slots (with each “side” contributing 3 possible matchups per nation).
This is the sort of thing that should be easy to crowdsource, but everybody is fucking lazy 🫠
Update March 2024: I recently witnessed a 7th matchup (French vs Russians), so maybe there aren’t actually six matchups per nation.
Americans
- Egyptians
- Greeks
- Indians
- Persians
- Russians
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Aztecs
- Bantu
- British
- Lakota
- Maya
- Spanish
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Bantu
- Aztecs
- French
- Inca
- Iroquois
- Koreans
- Turks
British
- Aztecs
- French
- Inca
- Iroquois
- Koreans
- Turks
Chinese
- Egyptians
- Japanese
- Maya
- Persians
- Spanish
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Dutch
- Egyptians
- Japanese
- Maya
- Mongols
- Persians
- Spanish
Egyptians
- Americans
- Chinese
- Dutch
- Germans
- Nubians
- Romans
French
- Bantu
- British
- Greeks
- Indians
- Lakota
- Persians
Germans
- Egyptians
- Greeks
- Indians
- Japanese
- Persians
- Russians
Greeks
- Americans
- French
- Germans
- Inca
- Iroquois
- Nubians
Inca
- Bantu
- British
- Greeks
- Indians
- Lakota
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Indians
- Americans
- French
- Germans
- Inca
- Iroquois
- Nubians
Iroquois
- Bantu
- British
- Greeks
- Indians
- Lakota
- Russians
Japanese
- Chinese
- Dutch
- Germans
- Nubians
- Romans
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Koreans
- Bantu
- British
- Lakota
- Maya
- Mongols
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Lakota
- Aztecs
- French
- Inca
- Iroquois
- Koreans
- Turks
Maya
- Aztecs
- Chinese
- Dutch
- Koreans
- Romans
- Turks
Mongols
- Dutch
- Koreans
- Romans
- Turks
- [possible missing fifth nation?]
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Nubians
- Egyptians
- Greeks
- Indians
- Japanese
- Russians
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Persians
- Americans
- Chinese
- Dutch
- French
- Germans
- Romans
Romans
- Egyptians
- Japanese
- Maya
- Mongols
- Persians
- Spanish
Russians
- Americans
- Germans
- Iroquois
- Nubians
- [possible missing fifth nation?]
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Spanish
- Aztecs
- Chinese
- Dutch
- Romans
- Turks
- [possible missing sixth nation?]
Turks
- Bantu
- British
- Lakota
- Maya
- Mongols
- Spanish