Sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about.

First of all, Demigod is NOT WRITTEN in Lua.  It USES Lua for some of the game functionality (mostly scripting events, ai and similar).  The scriping of the game in Lua still mostly relies on libraries provided by the core game which are not written in Lua.

Second, Randomizing with the same seed produces same sequence of random numbers, not the same random number.

Third, Random option makes games impossible to start.  Same demigod on random some are reporting may be just some side effect of the underlaying problem

First. Random option may have been written in Lua.

Second. I've never sayd that. Stop ragin please.

Edit: Don't talk about things you don't know.

Here, I'll quote myself:

Seriosly reread, you didn't understand correctly what I was describing as the problem. I will repeat again: In Lua the FIRST (not the second) number you random after using math.randomseed is not random and is always the same. Any further numbers will do what you described in your "second".

Umm... No ? Seriosly man you have a mistake in your own calculations. First of all. Clocks sinched? That is nearly impossible. Even with the same PC specs loading times will differ at least by miliseconds. And that matters because of:

Second: I think YOU should read the Lua manual.

os.clock is not seconds. It is based on seconds, but not a number of seconds. It's seconds and milliseconds. It's a number like 56,495 which is  56,495 seconds which is 56495 milliseconds. The Random Seed will be based on 56,495 and not 56 or 57. Which will give you a good random seed. Different for every player.

You based a whole slew of conclusions based on one assumption that you didn't even bother to check.  You can gain full access to the lua scripts from Demigod if you wish so.  Doubt you will find anything there related to game creation and start.

Second, can't blaim me for not following your post 100% with all the mistakes, inacuracies and bottom line terrible writing.

Actually, to quote the documentation: "If Lua could get milliseconds from os.time() the init could be better done."  Or as rydier already said: "os.clock() (which has a 1 sec resolution in lua)"

So yes, you have no idea what you're talking about.

P.S. Oh and BTW, the first value of math.random after randomizing is not always the same, but rather could be same between two math.randoms if you randomize twice in a very short short interval before the two.

/bow to you for bothering to check

How about checking how (and where) table.random is implemented

In which way was I exactly flaming?  It wasn't like I called you names or anything and most of what I said was correct.  Ok I was wrong thinking the game lobby is not very likely to use Lua scripts in some form, but still it wasn't you that provided that info (which was actually something useful regarding the subject).

I only asked that you check the facts before making assumptions... So if you're really serious about helping how about really tracking down where table.random is implemented and if it's a Lua function, analyzing there on the spot what may be wrong.  That's what I would have done if I had access to the game files now.

In utils.lua:

# Return a random element in the table. Uses Sim's random stream if IsSim()
function table.random(t)
if IsSim() then
return t[Random(table.getn(t))]
else
return t[math.random(table.getn(t))]
end
end

Let's just say I can think of lots of things that could go wrong with this code just by looking at it, depending on when and by whom GetRandomHero() is called, as well as when seeds are initialized.

I think I'll rather wait for GPG to fix it than try and wade through the specifics myself

Wait, so it's not the current date?  Then you probably shouldn't use it.

You are forgetting the fact that this game relies on the fact that all the peers in the game use the same random seed.

My guess is that the random seed code goes something like this: math.randomseed(4) // frogboy rolled a 1d6

Obviously selection of demigods should be performed before the seeds are set to 4

No, the host/first player does not always get Regulus (or even the same Demigod in a given session). Just tested myself and got Erebus, Rook, Oak, Rook. While your desire to help is appreciated, it'd be a good idea to test things yourself before going to such lengths. That one user's report is certainly strange (and there's likely some bug causing it), but if it were an absolute case everyone would be reporting the same result.

While this statement assumes that each client is responsible for choosing *only* the player's own demigod (which is not an assumption I'd make without seeing it in the actual code), it's much more likely that all players choose all demigods via Deterministic RNG. Determinism (where all players are intentionally using the same seed) is a vital part of a P2P game--if random values were not determined based on a pre-set sequence which is the same for all players in the match, syncing would be impossible.

I know you're just trying to help, but there's a certain amount of hubris when an amateur tells a professional how to fix their problems.

You haven't seen the code.  Often times complex problems masquerade as trivial bugs/missing features.

It's best to just let GPG fix the problems.  I'd hate it if someone started spouting "solutions" for bugs in my game code when they haven't even seen the source code.