This topic is not about advertising low luck, it is not about discussing the values of low luck vs ADS, so I don’t want to see a single opinion about either of those. I know ADS and low luck are very different, and I will never try to pose low luck as an official rule in any tournament.
I merely pose the question here of the people who use Low Luck as a strategic modeling tool and play with it, what are the experiences? Personally I’ve been finding that the Axis wins at a 7 bid against myself, and even recently I’ve been doing down to a 0 bid and the Axis is still winning. Are the experiences similar elsewhere or do I simply need to step up the Allies’ side of the game?
I haven’t played too much LL Revised, but it might have to do with some early Allied moves.
Russia can be extremely devastaing on R1 in LL.
The Wrus/Ukr combo can be pinpointed for the best Russian result and it even puts into play Russia attacking Belo/Wrus AND Ukr. The riskiest being Belo since you can send 3 inf and 1 ftr, but you can still guarantee taking Wrus and Ukr.
I think worst case the ftr retreats in Belo but you should still clear the defenders and have your ftr left.
Also a well time Allied SBR campaign can be a real drag on Germany. An early investment in a 2nd bomber for both the UK and US can be dropping the Germans income by 12 a turn and a 3rd US bomber can guarantee 10 per turn on US alone.
I think the bid still has to be in the 7-9 range although you’d probably have to place at least 1 inf in Europe to guarantee you don’t get WrusBeloUkr-Banged. :-D
I like to do the Russian triple with 1 Russian tank in Belo instead of the fighter, because there’s more chance of taking the territory and the Germans will have to toss a couple inf at it which will put a big strain on them.
And with bombers that seems to be more of a risky strategy, in low luck the AA guns fire just the same as ADS, and I constantly get burned before the bomber makes up for its input. But then again, I usually find the US comes into play so damn late with their ground troops…
I thought the LL SBR rules were:
Attacker does 3-4 ipc damage per bom, but losses 2-3 ipc (to their collected income) per bom.
Was this changed?
I haven’t played LL in a while.
Regardless, the game is much more economic. I find LL to be extremely helpful in determining which battles to pursue and basic strat, since any good LL strat will equate well to ADS. However, the opposite is not necessarily true, a good ADS strat does not equal a good LL strat.
The US shouldn’t be too slow. They can still hit Alg in rd 1 or 2, meaning at least a token threat on SE by rd 3.
There should be no real difference in the bid for LL vs. ADS, maybe an IPC or 2?? The Axis should be able to do well with 7, 8 but shouldn’t be winning all the time so there is probably some streamlining the Allies need to do to get to maximum efficiency (or close to it).
Oh I’m using the Triple A low luck which doesn’t have special SBR rules. Triple A’s low luck doesn’t affect AA guns at all, they’re all rolled separately per fighter/bomber.
I like using LL because like you said, a good LL will be a good ADS (in the long run anyways).
And I can get the US into the game, I guess it’s just about stepping the Allies’ game up. So far my goals have been Alg on round 2, Libya/Norway on round 3, which I can achieve just fine; I’m wondering how and when to advance with the damn Russians. I remember I used to be able to go to Ukraine pretty early, but now I’ve scared myself from advancing there due to a drubbing from E. Europe. There’s just some things I need to look at more closely with the Allies, because right now for me they’re my shorter leg.
In the triplea LL system you roll one dice and hit with 3 or less, if you attack with 3 bmrs/ftrs, attacking TT with AA gun.
As for SBR, if your bmrs surive AA fire, you roll one dice for each bmr. 2 bmrs can do 10 damage to Germany, or
6 to Germany and 6 to SE.
The LL vs ADS is interesting, might as well have flame war on this topic :evil:
LL or ADS does not have anything to do with the (un)balance of the game.
I don’t know you Bean, but you will not beat me if you play axis against me without bid. I would not lose more than 1 out of 10, and
LL or ADS have nothing, or very little to do with the amount of bid, or bid placement rules.
If you play me with LL I cannot imagine that you will win more than 1 out of 50 games (axis with no bid).
With ADS the variation will be bigger.
If you’re using triplea, LL or ADS will not affect SBR.
I play both LL and ADS, with multiplayer I think ADS is more “suitable”.
I’m wondering if G AC will be better with ADS or LL, at least the best LL players don’t buy AC with G.
But maybe this can be a smart move with ADS?
About bmrs etc, bmrs are not good investments, this doesn’t affect LL or ADS.
The units that are well worth buying in ADS are also good in LL.
And of course, good LL players are also good ADS players, and vice versa.
Actually, last time I did LL with SBR (FOE) the rules the dicey used was that the attacker took 3 or 4 IPC damage and did 2 or 3 IPC in damage. No matter how often I complained to them, they refused to change it.
So I guess that’s what the community decided was “fair.” Honestly, I think it’s backwards. 15/6 = 2.5 so you should take 2 or 3 IPC damage to your bomber a round. The average die result would also be 3.5 so you should do 3 or 4 damage per bomber. This always resulting in the attacker at least breaking even, at best pulling 2 IPC ahead.
And yes, LL does invite America to go mass bombers to ensure -16 IPC a round to Germany. Even if it coses America 20 IPC a round to do it. That’s because America still has 37 IPC (usually) of income so the damage taken is not overly cumbersome to the Americans. To the Germans it really sucks!
Well I suppose bombers would work in that sort of LL, but I’ve been using Triple A low luck which doesn’t have that special condition about bombers not dying and instead inflicting damage to both parties.
I guess theoretically bombers should work in ADS or Triple A LL if you’re persistent and count on the long term math. You’d have to overbuild by one bomber in case one of the bombers die for sure, and I dunno what you’d do with the rest of the cash.
I might just think that rolling rockets with the US is a better option; you can slowly roll one dice each round, and in 1/6 games you get it right away which means the Axis is pretty much doomed. But I’ve got a while to go before I seriously roll for techs.
Another issue with LL is that it actually shortens many games. If two equally players play each other, then LL might make
a game very long, maybe 10 rnds +, but most games in the lobby ends much sooner than rnd 10.
In some ADS games, multiplayer, it’s actually easier to play until a capital falls, because of the uncertainty, one battle with
very bad dice rolls can change a game. This means that I’m not gonna concede until it’s certain,
because everything can suddenly change. In LL, from rnd 4-6, if one player has tuv advantage of 150-200, or say 200 tuv +,
usually the game will be literary and figuratively closed, there isn’t any opening for the side that struggles. And most such games will end long before any capital is even threatened. It could be possible to hold out (capitals) for maybe 12-16 rnds, but many games
ends rnd 5-6-7.
My record is 19 or 20 rnds, that was LL multiplayer. The last few rnds I actually went KJF!!! :mrgreen:
I took one or two islands from Jap, I guess Jap had 400-500 tuv… but no fleet :-)
I chased the 40-50 stack of German tanks+inf all over Europe, but Berlin was solid as rock.
Never had longer games with ADS than 12-13, I think.
Um wait a sec, wouldn’t LL lengthen games if both players are equal skill and the bid is right?
I think in ADS one roll can screw things up very badly so that in a few rounds one side gives up, but in LL you can calculate and minimize huge dice swings.
And it’s pretty hard to get a TUV advantage of 150-200 by round 4-6, and even still the Axis should have a chance because a lot of the Allies’ TUV is in ships rather than land units. Round 4-6 and the US has barely entered the game.
No, in LL games they end up shorter because people surrender when it’s statistically impossible to recover, Bean.
In ADS, people can hold out until they’re massively out numbered and their capitol has fallen. Because people hope their army is filled with sharpshooters thus defying the invasion. I just did it to Reddragon, though he’ll still probably win. Still, he had like 50 tanks and my pitiful Russian army of like 20 some infantry threw him back.
Anyway, if SBR goes back to 3 or 4 damage per bomber and 2 to 3 damage per AA Gun then I’ll go back to LL games. Not as my STANDARD choice, cause I like the chances of 2 infantry, 4 fighters vs 3 infantry coming out with no loss to me better in ADS then the auto loss of one of my guys!
Things shouldn’t swing badly in LL if you’re both equally skilled, thus very long games.
Lucifer I set up a game with port 3300 with password lucifer, except I don’t know if that port is really open and also I know from experience that I can’t open ports because the router I’m using is passworded. Maybe find some other way to host, I don’t nkow how?
No, it shouldnt swing much at all. Problem is, once you are out numbered by more then a slight margin, it’s game over because you cannot recover unless your opponent makes a bad mistake.
So if Germany has 40 infantry, 20 armor in E. Europe and Russia doesn’t even have enough uniforms for 40 infantry, let alone the gas to fuel 20 tanks, you may as well capitulate. Better to open a new map file and start again then beat a dieing horse, ya know?
That’s why LL games tend to be shorter then ADS games.
In ADS your 15 infantry, 7 tanks for Russia might just hold off the Germans or hurt them so bad that England and America can finish them off. It’s at least worth making him roll it out, even if the chances are slight.
So if Germany has 40 infantry, 20 armor in E. Europe
Then the game is pretty long already. I think I see what you guys mean though; LL games are long if both sides are equally skilled, and ADS have the potential to be longer because one side might rely on dice to come back.
@Bean:
So if Germany has 40 infantry, 20 armor in E. Europe
Then the game is pretty long already. I think I see what you guys mean though; LL games are long if both sides are equally skilled, and ADS have the potential to be longer because one side might rely on dice to come back.
Exactly. :P
Well it depends on the player personality. ADS could also be extremely short if you got diced hard and you don’t see a way back. It’s not like waiting actually turned the tides for you Jen, you’re still losing in spite of very nice defensive dice, right? Some people (like switch for instance) would throw in the towel or take a huge risk after getting diced early and if they get diced again, game over before round 5.
Hah, who say’s I’m losing?
You’re not knocking on Russia’s door and your fleet is bottled up very nicely. It’s round 4 and you’re finally exploiting Africa, but you’re losing that battle to America. Japan’s untouched, but as I said, I had to delay due to the BB to SZ 13 move. But, as promised, the fleets are back in the Pacific by round 4.
Miscommunication, I was talking about your game with Rising Dragon, not your game with me. That game waiting for lucky dice didn’t help, that was what I’m talking about.
I have to say you’re putting up a good fight in our game, except it doesn’t look like much of a KJF. :roll:
@Bean:
Miscommunication, I was talking about your game with Rising Dragon, not your game with me. That game waiting for lucky dice didn’t help, that was what I’m talking about.
I have to say you’re putting up a good fight in our game, except it doesn’t look like much of a KJF. :roll:
Yea, I had to wait until round 4, remember?
Now you have a sizable, but weak British fleet in the Pacific and a large American fleet in the Pacific. Looks a lot more like KJF now, eh? And it’s round 4, as predicted.
Anyway, I almost got screwed in SZ 15 by the dice gods. But luckily, my fighter found a bullet to put the bismark at the bottom of the sea. whew.
As for Rising Dragon, yea, I fully expected the game to be over a few rounds ago! But he waited, decided to go blitz up Africa instead of hitting Russia, giving me time to entrench and he got nailed with defensive fire. He’ll get it this round though. Nothing I can do, even with good dice, to stop that!
