What's the consensus on a standard bid?

@Cmdr:

It’s like turning Chess into Checkers, IMHO.

That’s a terrible analogy

Checkers has automatic kills, just like chess.

LL does not make AA checkers become AA chess.

LL turns AA Vegas~{ADS}(predicatable but not assured returns) into AA Money Markets (guarenteed returns with minimal fluctations)

You answered it yourself.

Not attacking is one of the main differences between LL and ADS.

That simply separates the good players from the pseudo-good players. The pseudo-good players will avoid good battles because they are scared of the possibility of the 20% or lower happening.

In LL you can prosecute all the battles you want without fear of some of them going poorly and putting you in a bad position.

Even I did fully agree with that statement (which I don’t, because there is variability in small battles; Ukraine for instance still ranges from 2 arm surviving to 3 inf 1 art surviving, a humongous difference), does that benefit one side more than the other? Only if LL unbalances the game would I abandon it.

but then they must make choices as to whether they want to attack, continue to attack, or retreat based on the full range of possible outcomes that might occur with the use of dice.

Sounds fancy, but it does not happen as often as you would think. If you really do base your decision on LL counting, then your decision to attack or not is only influenced in strafing attacks. In ADS you simply have to decide to retreat once the battle has already started which doesn’t take much thought either, because you are still initiating the same attacks (minus precise strafes, but you should still strafe in ADS, just with a little more thought about what to send).

That keeps coming back as the argument in support of LL.  But it’s a flawed argument.  ADS is vastly superior because of the swings of the dice.  LL is just a good way to have a formulaic game with very little deviation from expected results.  There’s any number of attacks I would do in LL that I wouldn’t in ADS because the outcome is all but guaranteed.  Likewise, there’s chances I might take in ADS (defensively) that I wouldn’t in LL because I know the enemy WILL destroy my defensive force instead of the off chance that they might win, but get creamed by withering defensive fire (the same reason most GOOD players won’t attack if they only have a 52% chance to win in ADS but will in LL.)

LL is just a good way to have a formulaic game with very little deviation from expected results.

My argument from ground zero has been LL is a good strategic modeling tool. I do not think it is superior to ADS, I do not think LL should replace ADS. You, Switch, and Craig continue to misrepresent the argument.

In LL, no battle is outside the boundaries of reason. You do not lose 6 inf in China, you do not lose a Russian fig in Ukraine due to all defenders hitting. Therefore, there is no complaining of things happening to such an extent that the dice are the sole determining factor of the game. That is clearly why LL is a great strategic modeling tool to assess in the diagnostic of a strategy, because it attenuates out the polluting factor of great/bad dice. It is a diagnostic tool, not a replacement for the real thing.

It is not a perfect tool, but it is very useful, much more useful than having to play thousands of ADS games to get a good idea because half of ADS games you have to throw out because the dice went critically in favor of one side at a crucial battle.

I’m not misrepresenting the case.  I’m just trying to point out that tactics, decisions, game theory and the rest are different in LL then ADS making the game, essentially, a different game.

What thrill is there in attacking a capitol with 20% odds and losing in LL?  There’s immense thrill in ADS that you might win (after all, 1 in 5 odds of success, that’s way better then playing the lottery or going to Vegas!)

I’m not misrepresenting the case.  I’m just trying to point out that tactics, decisions, game theory and the rest are different in LL then ADS making the game, essentially, a different game.

What thrill is there in attacking a capitol with 20% odds and losing in LL?  There’s immense thrill in ADS that you might win (after all, 1 in 5 odds of success, that’s way better then playing the lottery or going to Vegas!)

You ARE misrepresenting the case. You argument right here is that the game is about the thrill and LL kills the thrill. That is the whole point - it is used to throw out the extreme dice to see the strategy.

LL is not representative of ADS on the whole - but the whole focus of LL is to throw out the dice that favors either side clearly, so we get to those middle games where it’s more about strategy than dice. LL is a diagnostic tool, not a replacement for ADS.

But LL is NOT good for strategic modeling.

Results within 1 standard deviation are to be EXPECTED.  LL basically removes that.

Good strategies allow for some sub-standard dice, which will happen in every single game.  If you model your strat based on “average” results for each battle, within 1 turn your available forces for any given battle will be significantly different in ADS than they are in LL.  One slightly above average here, one slightly below average there… and suddenly your planned move on your strategy test 3 turns from now is 100% impossible either because of a lack of available forces to even make the attempt at a given planned battle or advance, or that you are so much stronger at another point that you can capitalize on a huge advantage.

Results within 1 standard deviation are to be EXPECTED.  LL basically removes that.

Good strategies allow for some sub-standard dice, which will happen in every single game.  If you model your strat based on “average” results for each battle, within 1 turn your available forces for any given battle will be significantly different in ADS than they are in LL.  One slightly above average here, one slightly below average there… and suddenly your planned move on your strategy test 3 turns from now is 100% impossible either because of a lack of available forces to even make the attempt at a given planned battle or advance, or that you are so much stronger at another point that you can capitalize on a huge advantage.

So what exactly are you saying? That is precisely what is trying to be avoided - either that you got diced, or you diced the opponent. Both clearly throw out the strategy. That is why LL is a great strategic modeling tool, because it better delineates the actual strategy.

I think what you are trying to say is that people with a LL mindset can’t handle ADS. That is a different argument. I am saying that LL shows the strategy rather than the dice dictating the strategy.

If you plan with the Bell curve in mind your going to do a much better game.

I see what you guys are really saying. You’re basically accusing LL players of sucking at ADS because of some fluffy arguments about not planning for changes in the dice. That’s simply not true, at least in my case. You’re not even trying to address LL as a valid strategic tool specifically designed to attenuate out swings in either direction, because swings in either direction show dice, not strategy.

And how would I do much better, Nix? I don’t even understand what you mean by that.

What we’re trying to say is that LL gives you almost identical results all the time in LL games, but those results are unrealistic in ADS games over a period of rounds.  ADS, on the other hand, forces you to build in redundancy into your strategies to make up for battles that go exceptionally good or bad.  That means if a strategy works in ADS, it will work in LL.  But if a strategy does not work in ADS, it may still work in LL.  And not all strategies that work in LL will work in ADS.

What we’re trying to say is that LL gives you almost identical results all the time in LL games, but those results are unrealistic in ADS games over a period of rounds.  ADS, on the other hand, forces you to build in redundancy into your strategies to make up for battles that go exceptionally good or bad.  That means if a strategy works in ADS, it will work in LL.  But if a strategy does not work in ADS, it may still work in LL.  And not all strategies that work in LL will work in ADS.

Darth Maximus claims the exact opposite, that all strategies that work in LL will work in ADS, not the other way around.

ADS does not force you to build redundancy into your attacks. It certainly gives the impression of doing so, but if you build redundancy into every attack based on the idea that it will always turn out bad, you will be overspending forces and losing the game that way, IMHO.

When you attack in ADS you generally make sure you have enough ground forces so that the defender cannot possibly hit your fighters.  In LL you don’t have to do that.

What I mean Bean is that in my experiance LL players are les good at “risk management”.  Ie they think a 70-ish% attack houkld always work, and when it don´t they get upset and in many cases don´t know what to do…

ADS players know thing like this happen, sure we will bitch and moan but we cn playe on better then a LL player.

Still this is in my experiance, it´s not writen in stone.

I admit, I bitch more then most when I get hit with bad dice.  Especially on critical moves.  But I’d still take ADS over LL any day and twice on Sundays.

@Cmdr:

What thrill is there in attacking a capitol with 20% odds and losing in LL?

It’s not uncommon to attack with a well over 50% on a capital, and still lose with  LL. Maybe it’s the TripleA BC which is flawed. ?? Or you win with less than 40% on a capital attack. Shit happens in LL  :wink:

@Bean:

Darth Maximus claims the exact opposite, that all strategies that work in LL will work in ADS, not the other way around.

ADS does not force you to build redundancy into your attacks. It certainly gives the impression of doing so, but if you build redundancy into every attack based on the idea that it will always turn out bad, you will be overspending forces and losing the game that way, IMHO.

@Cmdr:

When you attack in ADS you generally make sure you have enough ground forces so that the defender cannot possibly hit your fighters.  In LL you don’t have to do that.

But you don’t have to do that in ADS either.  You could, but if you are strickly playing odds, it is bad to get too carried away with the overkill aspect of ADS.  In LL you can plan your attack perfect to not lose ftrs, but you should also not lose thoes ftrs in ADS.  Now if you get bad rolls and lose the ftrs and then the game then just chalk it up to being one of those games you weren’t ment to win and move on.  So in LL if you know 100% you can’t lose a ftr in a battle then great, but if that translates to only 70% sure you won’t lose a ftr in ADS, that is still a good battle and still a good strat.  I’m sure there are plenty of players that would want that 70% win percentage in games (losing only the 30% due to you losing some ftrs in that key battle).

On the other side if you aren’t comfortable with the 70% in ADS, and wait until you get more overkill to bring it up to 80-90%, you are going to run into trouble when you run across more efficient players who will recognize that no matter what they do they’ll lose 20-30% of games due to dice, so they are going to take the 70% shot against you (before you can get up to 80-90%), thus when you play them over and over and over again 3 out of 10 times they may get screwed on dice and lose those ftrs in the ADS battle, but they are still going end up with a 7-3 record against you.

LL is great for trying out strats and working on efficiency.

However, with ADS you never really know if the strategy is good or did you get a favorable position b/c you rolled up in both Wrus and Ukr on R1.

For example, if you wanted to (using LL) you could test the various Russia 1 openings and pin point exactly when Germany has enough forces to move an stack Ukr and then determine exactly how long the UK/US have to get their shuck shuck going.  So if the opening of Belo/Wrus means Germany can stack Ukr in Rd 4 (buying all land), but the opening of Ukr/Wrus means Germany can’t stack Ukr until Rd 5 then the Ukr/Wrus opening is better in terms of all land buys by Germany, and infact it will be better in ADS as well even though you tested it in LL.  You could not say that if you just did ADS battles.

@Nix:

What I mean Bean is that in my experiance LL players are les good at “risk management”.  Ie they think a 70-ish% attack houkld always work, and when it don´t they get upset and in many cases don´t know what to do…

ADS players know thing like this happen, sure we will b**** and moan but we cn playe on better then a LL player.

Still this is in my experiance, it´s not writen in stone.

True.  Yes they’ll complain about that battle and maybe they can’t handle the after effects but they sould really focus on their overall win % which in this case will still end up to be about 70%.

Maybe the ADS player can comeback and win a game that they had bad dice in, but I’m guessing if you lose a crucial battle agains good players where the odds were so much in your favor that your probably going to lose the game anyway regardless of ADS or LL.  I say this b/c a good ADS player should recognize that they just caught a huge break and thus not do anything to give the other player a chance to get back into the game, at that point you can probably wait and make sure that any future crucial battles are now 90-95% in your favor and not just 70.

I’m not advocated one over the other, I tend to prefer ADS it jsut seems a bit more fun, but I’ll certainly play LL.  Although, I do find it extremely helpful to test any moves I make or possible strats in LL first.

Bean and DM are right, here. LL provides a good baseline from which to work and allows you to see where you may need to add or subtract forces in certain areas to reliably obtain your objectives in ADS without having to worry about your data being corrupted by radical dice swings.

Personally, I think people dislike LL less because it is inferior to ADS and more because they just aren’t very good at it. Some things in ADS don’t translate over and they just aren’t willing to learn the differences. They try to plug ADS strategy into LL and when it fails, they throw up their hands and scream “LL sucks!”.

LL is simply a variant of the game that focuses on strategy over the possibility of wild dice, nothing more. And I am going to reiterate myself. You can hate LL all you want. I don’t really care. But, all you are doing is limiting yourself. And that seems ironic seeing as how there has been an increase of people looking for more variety by playing FFA’s, Enhanced, and games with tech and NA’s.

@DarthMaximus:

LL is great for trying out strats and working on efficiency.

Word!

lol
its just what you call strategy

@Bean:

That is the whole point - it is used to throw out the extreme dice to see the strategy.

Bean is saying LL gets rid of most of the luck, hence shows strategy.

@ncscswitch:

But LL is NOT good for strategic modeling.

Results within 1 standard deviation are to be EXPECTED.  LL basically removes that.

switch is saying LL gets rid of the luck hence its strategies are not necessarily relevant for a real game.

@Bean:

LL is not representative of ADS on the whole

Bean actually agrees too.

@Bean:

You’re basically accusing LL players of sucking at ADS because of some fluffy arguments about not planning for changes in the dice.

Bean refers to  “strategy against luck” as just luck. Switch refers to it as strategy.

@Bean:

Average dice + good dice happens more often than bad dice. If either average or good happens, you’re in good shape. Therefore, if you bank on the average, you are in good shape in the long run.

Depending on the curve “average dice + good dice” could be anyway between 50-100%.
Can’t bank on the “long run”. One failure could cost you the game.

LL strategies does not work for ADS games.
Analogy. Poker.