Separate expected cards from payout frequency
Consider two settlements each touching a six tile, with no other production in this simplified example. At an independent-dice baseline, a six occurs in five of 36 outcomes and pays two cards. That is ten expected card-units per 36 rolls, but only five producing outcomes.
If one of those tiles is eight instead, the expected card total remains ten per 36, while ten outcomes can now pay one card. The baseline mean is the same; the distribution of payments is different. Actual short games need not match either expectation.
A shared number can create useful bundles
If wood and brick both sit on a number you cover, one hit may deliver a road payment. That coordination can be useful. If three wool tiles share your only strong number, the same burst may instead create a trading problem.
Evaluate what the bundle buys, not only how many cards arrive. Number diversity and resource diversity answer different questions: when do I get paid, and what can those payments build?
Balanced dice change immediate probabilities
Archipelago’s new standard games draw 24 ordered outcomes from a pool of 36 before resetting. The next-roll chance of a total depends on how many of its outcomes remain in that cycle. The live chart exposes those conditional odds.
The independent-dice examples above are a baseline comparison, not a promise about the current next roll. Diversifying numbers does not make any specific outcome due, and concentrating on a total does not guarantee that its remaining pairs will be drawn before the reset.
Use diversity as a trade-off, not a hard rule
Do not replace an excellent six with a weak two solely to claim more different numbers. Production strength, useful resources and expansion space still matter. Diversity is most helpful when comparing otherwise competitive openings.
After the game, distinguish a poor plan from a short run of variance. Review whether the opening had reasonable access and useful combinations using information available at placement time. Knowing the later rolls should not rewrite what you could have known then.