IF one chooses to use “re-roll chips” (purchased or given at the start of the game) then I think that they should only be able to use those chips on THEIR bad rolls, not to nerf their opponents good rolls.
This is a really good idea and should keep the arguments down. The only place where I see this being bad is on AA rolls. When people SBR me at the beginning, I always miss. But when someone comes in with like 3-4 planes in mid-game, I will have one round where I take out 2-3 of them and they get very upset. If my opponent doesn’t like it, they can’t do anything about it? But then if they can, I will probably roll no hits, so that’s not fair. The person rolling for the AA guns could get no hits and think that is unlucky and re-roll, essentially getting two opportunities with the AA gun. One could really get out of hand with this, but I would think that having the chips cost money may keep this down.
I think of all the options presented, my favorites are 1.) each player can choose their resolution technique. Must be played for entire game, not each battle. and 2.) the ability to purchase “bad luck chips” for 5 IPCs. These can only be turned in to cause a re-roll of your roll, not the entire battle.
I was working under that assumption, that the chips can be used to Re-Roll any One of Your rolls, and then it is used up. (you can re-roll your own AA gun rolls [but why would you, they are 1 out of 6, sucky], but you can’t make your opponent re-roll his)
I dislike the idea of buying chips though, because then I could just buy a bunch right as my troops get to moscow to make sure they get through. By having players start with a set number, (a low number), they will have to ration them out.
Another idea would be LowLuck chips. Each team gets 1-2 LL chips. They can then choose use one up by making an entire battle low luck (must declare before btl starts). (i would not support more than 2 LL chips per team, and by team I mean the entire side, so the axis get 1-2, the allies get 1-2, which means if Germany uses one chip up, that chip is gone and Japan can’t use it too, which is the same principle as Re-Roll chips, which I would allocate about 3-5 per team)
I dislike the idea of buying chips though, because then I could just buy a bunch right as my troops get to moscow to make sure they get through. By having players start with a set number, (a low number), they will have to ration them out.
This is a very astute observation. Taking this further, one could abuse this by getting to the point in the game where they’ve basically lost due to poor moves and then decide to just “go for broke” buying all “re-roll” chips and picking/setting-up some long-shot, game-changing battle and rolling for it 6-8 separate times to get the desired result. This is just like the old “last ditch tech” hail-mary turn ppl used to see in 2nd ed.
I still think that for what OP is trying to accomplish, buying “re-roll” chips is a decent enough option. Perhaps to combat the aforementioned abuse you could make it a rule that only 1 chip may be used per battle? per country turn? per side turn?
RE: LL chips……hmmmmm I wouldn’t think anyone should be forced to pay IPC for these. Maybe some hybrid system? 2LL chips given to each country at start of game and re-roll chips only for purchase? …starting to get a bit too complex for my taste here, but hey, whatever makes the game more enjoyable for both sides!
RE: AA shots, I still think that any re-roll activities should be limited to dice YOU roll, therefore when u have that big battle and your opponent rolls 3/5 AA hits, well, too bad so sad for you. It was his roll, congratulate him!
i would not support more than 2 LL chips per team, and by team I mean the entire side, so the axis get 1-2, the allies get 1-2
This works fine for 1v1, but what about multi-player games?
Since this is relevant to this discussion ill post it here.
Gnasape, when you gave me the LL rules on SBR i took them on blind faith that you got em from play tested and mathematically proficient sources. However it seems to me that base dmg for SBR’s should be 3 or 4 based on whether or not u hit on a d3, not a d1. If average SBR dmg was 3 1/6 then a d1 would be correct. But average SBR dmg is 3 3/6 so it seems to me that a d3, not a d1, should be rolled where a hit = 4 IPC dmg and a miss = 3 IPC dmg.
Change it up or prove me wrong friend. And hurry up with your turns! I swear u have the attention span of a gnat! Seems your only interested in a game for the first few turns then u wanna start another! GRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I would suggest using what another FTF playgroup has stated they are using. Re-Roll cards. Everybody gets one per game. This can be used to totally re-roll 1 battle per game. I also think it is the attacker’s choice to use this card.
I play dice ONLY and I can well see this. I get hammered by the dice server here . I can generate outcomes of the less than one percent against myself without breaking a sweat. There is no risk management or generalship that will overcome those. These are not “risky” battles. Last year I was eliminated from a tournament in the semi-finals from a round one standard attack that had an outcome of .05%. Again you CAN NOT plan for these outcomes as they are far too extreme.
As you play more games you can get a feel for the dice and what should or should not happen (probabilities). You also can gauge how these affect your strategies as well. If you engage in a battle with say 80% favorable outcome that should leave plenty of you units left, and roll a stunning defeat that leaves your opponent with more units left that you should have; you should know that what you were on was the right path. LL completely changes the risk involved and I think is one of the poorest ways to test a strat. The Russian Triple in AAR is dicey as all get out with random dice but in LL it is an almost guaranteed success.
Going beyond the one “got diced” card mentioned above perhaps tell your group you are trying something and if any really whacked rolls show up ask for a re-roll. I understand these are fun games and not tournaments. A good sportsman opponent should allow you a re-roll because if it is THAT skewed it will be obvious to all.
Lastly I want to touch upon the dice themselves. Are you using the same dice? I have gotten sets of dice before that roll really skewed one way or the other. We have a few at my house that are not allowed as we know they roll consistently high in one case and consistently low in another.
Each country has it’s own dice and this player is the only one that rolls badly. I think it has something to do with how he snaps his wrists? :-P
I would suspect that set of dice in that case. Unless yall are using random sets. But if yall are using the same sets each time for each player I would recommend everybody taking his dice and rolling them several times and see how they are rolling. I am saying this because we have a set of blue dice we bought back in our AAR days when we had 3 players. These dice will roll 5s and 6s consistently. Getting anything else out of this set is pretty rare no matter who rolls them or how. They would make some killer Yahtzee dice though, they can spit up a 5,6 full house all night long.
This issue is more about how it feels, rather than what is. For a series of games, luck will even out, for most people. But A&A is a game which can last several hours, and sometimes decided by a single dice roll. Thats why it sometimes feels very bad to lose dice games. I play both LL and ADS, but the most important factor is if it is funnier with LL or regular dice.
It’s not so much about skills vs luck, but in a single game, if both players are equally good then it is more difficult to win a game in LL than regular dice.
I am copying this from another post i made, but basically here are 4 standard opening with Germany (with dice). Now, if you are playing LL, then each % chance to win on each individual battle goes up to around 100%, giving you a total chance to win also closer to 100%, which makes Germany’s opening moves ridiculous, and also discourages more conservative, less risky, playing. Isn’t it odd that by supposedly eliminating luck and dice, you are actually encouraging people to play more risky? Interesting ah?
My Heavy without Karelia:
Seazone 2 (1sub,1bomb,1ftr): 95%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (1sub, 2ftr): 86%
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 3tank): 98%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 99%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 34% win + 7% no uk left = 41% (this attack is optional)
Chance of winning all without doing Egypt: 72% (<- a strong opening without NOs)
Chance of winning all with Egypt: 30%
My Risky with Egypt, without Karelia:
Seazone 2 (2sub,1ftr): 83%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (2ftr): 50% win + 15% no enemy left = 65% (optional attack)
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 3tank): 98%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 2tank): 99%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank, 1bomber): 75% win + 5% no uk left = 80%
Chance of winning all without doing sz12: 59% (<- a strong opening with NOs)
Chance of winning all with sz12: 38%
Super Risky with Egypt and Karelia:
Seazone 2 (2sub,1ftr): 83%
Seazone 6 (1sub): 40% win + 20% no units left = 60%
Karelia (1bombard, 3inf, 1art, 3ftrs) = 78% chance (ftrs: if you lose zero you have 89% chance winning, lose 1 ftr you have 68% chance winning, lose 2 ftr you have 35% chance)
Baltic States (4inf, 1art, 1tank): 98%
East Poland (1inf, 4tank): 99%
Ukraine (2inf, 1art, 1tank): 97%
Egypt (2inf, 1art, 2tank, 1bomber): 75% win + 5% no uk left = 80%
Chance of winning all without doing sz6: 49%
Chance of winning all with sz6: 29%
IL’s Not Risky without Karelia and Abandon Africa:
Seazone 2 (1sub,1bomb,1ftr): 95%
Seazone 6 (1sub, 1ftr): 92%
Seazone 12 (1sub, 2ftr): 86%
Baltic States (1bombard, 5inf, 2art, 1tank): 100%
East Poland (1inf, 4tank): 99%
Ukraine (pulling 1inf and 1tank from africa: 3inf, 1art, 2tank): 100%
Chance of winning all: 74% (<- Strong opening with or without NOs, though Italy will never get its NOs)
I believe that is pretty much all 4 different openings with Germany that people use, subject to slight modifications and subject to what you decide to buy as germany.
Since this is relevant to this discussion ill post it here.
Gnasape, when you gave me the LL rules on SBR i took them on blind faith that you got em from play tested and mathematically proficient sources. However it seems to me that base dmg for SBR’s should be 3 or 4 based on whether or not u hit on a d3, not a d1. If average SBR dmg was 3 1/6 then a d1 would be correct. But average SBR dmg is 3 3/6 so it seems to me that a d3, not a d1, should be rolled where a hit = 4 IPC dmg and a miss = 3 IPC dmg.
Change it up or prove me wrong friend. And hurry up with your turns! I swear u have the attention span of a gnat! Seems your only interested in a game for the first few turns then u wanna start another! GRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I told you when I researched LL in this forum, I found only a couple of games, and I requested multiple times to see if there is an official or a written rules for LL games. From the two or three games I was able to find, I put together the rules so we can play LL. As for SBR, I suggested changes but we had already played or playing four games!
It’s either 3 or 4 damage unless you want 1/2 IPC damage, I agree that d3 would work but I was looking at the damage 3 or 4 and missed d3 (which makes more sense: I admit I was wrong). I’m on vacation from this friday and won’t be coming back until 7/12/09. I have very limited connection, heck I have limited cell connection and no computer, this is from a borrowed computer and I don’t think they would appreciate me adding programs.
This is a great discussion on LL and I’ll ask again if there is any reference for conducting a LL game.
I can say with certainty that my friend Crispy does not have luck with dice (at least the server dice). It’s classic!
3 Russian inf vs. 2 inf, 1 art, 1 arm, 2 ftr, 1 bmb, 2 bb shot (Japan)
Russia holds, Japan retreats with 1 ftr, 1 bmb!
Those brave Russian souls!
Oh, and my earlier calculations got me interested in some more, so here are some opening Japanese moves:
Typical Japanese Naval Opening:
Seazone 56 (2ftrs): 95%
Seazone 53 (2ftrs, 1DD): 90%
Seazone 35 (2ftrs): 95%
Seazone 50 (1BB): 94% + 3% mutual destruction = 97%
East Indies (1or2inf): 100%
Chance to win all naval btls: 78.5%
Risky with Yunnan and Burma:
Philippines (2inf, 1tank): 81%
Yunnan (3inf, 2ftr): 98%
Burma (1Bombard, 3inf, 1art): 100%
Suiyang (4inf): 97%
Fukien (2inf, 1ftr): 98%
Chance to win all land btls: 75%
Chance to win all battles: 59%
Risky with Yunnan and Burma and most of China:
Philippines (2inf, 1tank): 81%
Yunnan (3inf, 2ftr): 98%
Burma (1Bombard, 3inf, 1art): 100%
Suiyang (3inf): 90%
Hupeh (2inf): 67%
Fukien (1inf, 1ftr): 90%
Chance to win all land btls: 43%
Chance to win all battles: 35%
Less Risk, Capture NOs first turn, India 3rd turn:
Philippines (3inf, 1tank): 94%
Yunnan (3inf, 2ftr): 98%
Kwangtung (1Bombard, 1inf, 1art): 100%
Borneo (2inf): 100%
Suiyang (4inf): 97%
Fukien (2inf, 1ftr): 98%
Chance to win all land btls: 87%
Chance to win all battles: 68.5%
IL’s AntiRussia:
Buryatia (5inf, 1art, 1tank, 1ftr): 73% (higher if there isn’t 7 russian inf there)
Yunnan (3inf, 2ftr): 98%
Burma (1Bombard, 3inf, 1art): 100%
Hupeh (3inf): 90%
Chance to win all land btls: 64%
Chance to win all battles: 51%
Using 59% chance for Japan, and using 62% for Germany (average), we come up with 36.5% chance that all axis t1 attacks will succeed (not including italy).
This isn’t great, but to be honest, the chance of either zero or just 1 attack failing, is pretty high. Japan can recover from failed attacks much much better than germany, so I prefer a riskier japan plus a less risky germany. However, if you are playing LL, you would be very much encouraged to run the most risky attacks you can for both Germany and Japan, and though I do not have time to run the percentages, I’d say you’d have a pretty high chance of winning all of them, like around 80% in total for axis. (resulting in a swing from 36.5% chance to 80% chance, which is why the game is so different with LL).
I got most of my LL info from here: http://www.daak.de/indexe.php3 It is a German language website, but also has an English version. My computer already has cookies set for English, so when you go there, you will have to look for the button to switch it to English. It is on the left side under the Dicey Server login. There is a large black button that says “Click Here For English Version”. Once you are in the English version, click on the Rules tab and you will find a lot of info.
We just started a game where we used both and chose the higher results value. I think it worked out well. What we decided to do was, if you didn’t have at least a total value of 6, then you had to pick one method. i.e.: if you attack with a tank and an infantry, you would either have to roll 1@3 and 1@1 OR 1@4. If you did both, then you are essentially doubling your chances at hitting something because due to LL rules, you aren’t guaranteed a hit anyways, you have to roll in both situations.
SBR were conducted in the same way. If I did a SBR in Germany with two planes, the defending player could roll 2@1 OR 1@2, but not both. This does change strategy a little as you probably don’t want to go in with more than two bombers, but maybe I am less experienced and you never go in with more than two anyways. Also, another house rule we used was to calculate the SBR damage. We would roll two dice, add the total, then divide by two, rounding down. We liked this method a lot better as we felt it was more fair.
Preliminary Assessment: you can’t really play as if you were playing LL because there are some pretty good dice rolls. But no one really got upset at the dice rolls this time, because there was a minimum set on the number of casualties. For the most part, the results were the same with LL or dice. Only a few of the small battles were there any differences, and it was never more than +1. We haven’t had any MAJOR battles with massive stacks, but we will come back to it soon enough. Thank you EVERYONE for your input. The game is now more enjoyable for my group of friends, and I hope that someone gets something out of this thread that helps them make it more enjoyable as well.
This isn’t exactly on-topic, but I’ll throw it out anyway, in case it’s helpful to someone:
Here’s an approach to reducing the effects of luck that I’ve been using for years:
Roll each set of attack and defense dice twice and average the results, rounding toward the statistical average number of hits if there’s a fractional result.
Example: 2 tanks and 6 infantry attack, rolling “3”, “1”, “4”, “1”, “2”, “1” (infantry), “2” and “3” (tanks) the first time (5 hits), and “5”, “5”, “4”, “3”, “2”, “1” (infantry), “3” and “6” (tanks) the second time (2 hits). This averages out to 3.5 hits, rounded down (since the average result is 2) to 3.
Combat rounds in which either side has less than 4 total combat points or only one unit are rolled normally.
The result of this is skewing battle results more to the center of the bell curve. It cuts down on the influence of luck without eliminating it entirely, and it doesn’t add as much time to the game as one might think. You do have to roll most combat rounds twice, but you only have to calculate average results for rounding about half the time.
I can understand your friends annoyance at bad dice. I feel the same when after spending hours of play a major battle is so skewed by good/bad luck that the dice decide the game rather than the player. I’d considered reroll tokens as well but have also come up with these 2 ideas as LL hybrids. Neither of these methods interfere with SBR which i like too.
1. Since most of the time it’s the major battles that are more game changing, any battle involving 10 or more units per side is determined by LL, all other battles are rolled. Once the LL battle is less than 10 units per side rolling dice decides the remainder of the battle.
2. Which i like better is that each player gets 3 LL tokens to use per game. When dice are rolled if either player feel unjustly done by the dice they can call LL to be used on that set of dice rolls. So if your opponent has rolled way too well or you have rolled really badly you get to call LL. The remainder of the battle is then rolled out as normal.
I think someone said something about rolling each set twice. Anyway, here is another idea.
Any time there are more than X dice being rolled (you decide X for yourself, but I would say at least 4 dice [you can’t average 1 roll, and it would get absurd if you roll twice for 2 dice, perhaps absurd for 3]), then the person rolling them rolls them two times, then takes the Average number of hits between the two rolls. In case of decimal, round in the direction of the first roll.
For example, I am attacking with 3 inf and 3 tanks against you with 3 inf. I would roll twice, lets say the first roll I get 2 hits, and the second roll I get 5 hits. The average of this would be 7/2= 3.5 hits. Because the first roll was lower, you round down, so that is 3 hits now. You would not get to roll twice because you are only rolling 3 dice.
Or another example, I attack with 3 inf 2 art, against you with 3 inf. I roll twice and get 2 hits the first time, and 1 hit the second time. The average is 1.5, but you round up because the first roll was higher. You again would not roll twice because you have less than X=4 dice to roll. You get lucky and roll 3 hits. Now it is 2 art against 1 inf. Neither of us would roll twice because we are now both less than 4.
Or another way to do this, would be to use a certain number of “roll twice for an average” chips / tokens. Lets say you get 5 total for each team, and are allowed to purchase more for 4 ipcs each. You may use one of them up to do exactly what I just described above.
