A (mostly) Deterministic A&A (thought experiment)?

Hello. First, if this issue has already been addressed else where here or on the Internet please direct me to such. I’m fairly certain I’m not the first person to submit this idea.

Brief history: Played since orig MB version, Revised, skipped most of regional versions. Played a bunch of versions online: incl late 90’s Hasbro version but skipped WOTC late 2000’s version.

Very excited about the Beamdog version and played a lot. Despite a few minor interface issues (mainly a “final check” on the map before going to the next phase), they’ve done a very nice job.

OK, jumping to the issue of dice. Not going to comment on how much “luck” plays a factor, how early, etc. etc. Beating a dead horse. However, after a few hundred games with the Beamdog version and seeing how dice is still often brought up as an issue, it got me thinking, “What if A&A weren’t very random at all? How would it change the game, strategies, etc? Would it be even fun?”

I have a masters in Statistics so I have done a lot of analysis on things. I decided to come up with ground rules of how this system would “work”. Let’s assume for example NOTHING about the game changes in terms of map, placement, unit cost, etc. The ONLY thing that matters would be in terms of whenever dice would normally be allowed (AA deserves it own para addressed later down).

Second, I proposed using this system. Instead of dice determining hits, here is how it’s done. It follows 3 simple rules/algorithm:

1. Your “hits” are based SOLEY on your Expected Value[EV] (if you are not sure what that means, many others have posted on it and how it works. Simple example. A Tanks on off/def is supposed to get 0.5 “hits”. Thus 2 Tanks get an EV of 1 hit). So just calc your “roll” and BAM! It’s always “fair”.

2. If in any round of combat the value does not get to a value of 1, you get NOTHING, UNLESS THE OTHER SIDE ALSO DOES NOT GET TO A VALUE OF 1. Meaning, if one side has 2 Tanks and you only have 1 Plane, your plane dies and you don’t hit at all. If your value exceeds 1 but does not reach 2, you still only get 1 hit. Same with reaching 2 but not 3, etc.

(Yes, I could’ve made the algorithm different, offering to round anything above/including 0.5 as an extra hit. But that means that a single Plane by itself would ALWAYS get a hit guaranteed which I feel is too strong. If you want the Plane to hit you need to add something “extra” in your force to make it get that 1 hit such as a single Inf [if on Defense]. Meaning 1 Plane + 1 Inf by the formula [on Defense] will produce 1 hit guarenteed.)

3. Now, if BOTH SIDES do not produce an EV of at least one, the tie is broken by whoever has a greater EV. That side gets that 1 hit. For example, 1 Art + 1 Inf on Offense vs. 1 Tank on Defense. Normally it would be (2/6 + 2/6) vs (3/6) or 4/6 vs 3/6. Neither produced an EV of at least 1, so the 1 Art + 1 Inf would get the hit without the Tank getting a hit back.

   If neither produces a value of 1 and there is a tie, for example 1 Tank + 1 Inf on Offense vs 2 Inf on Defense (4/6 vs 4/6) THEN you would produce a “coin flip” random of who takes a single hit. Then repeat the process for a new round. This is the only time there is an element of randomness in battle.

This I know turns A&A on its head and of course if you were to implement such a system EVERYTHING would have to be reanalyzed and retooled. However, I can think of a few big things this would change if things stayed the same:

• No longer would people scream about losing a game simply because of one very bad dice roll with a lot of high value or high stakes battles (e.g. 40 vs 40 units) after the first roll (i.e. the dreaded snowball effect). Ok, they might about the “coin flip”. But I’d argue they could no longer say they “should’ve” won. Ok, that too is fantasy.

• Having “mass” would be much more important to have. No longer could one just put 1 Inf “stoppers” in places hoping they get lucky and kill a Tank or Plane. In this system, a single Tank/Plane/Bomber would ALWAYS kill a single Inf without getting hit back in return. But on the flipside, If you had 3 Inf in a group on Defense, you would ALWAYS score a single hit no matter what was thrown at you in the first volley.

(edit: adjusted parts about subs.)

• Naval battles would be much different. I could see Cruisers actually getting used more as a single Cruiser could take out anything 1 on 1 except for a BS or another Cruiser. The tricky part is subs. They were priced with that “first strike” in mind. I would say they keep the ability but you still need to keep the rules in tact. So yes, that would mean a single sub would die trying to take out a Cruiser by itself. A Carrier + 2 Planes generate 1/6 + 3/6 + 3/6 = 7/6 -> 1 hit on Offense and 2/6 + 4/6 + 4/6 = 10/6 -> 1 hit on Defense which is still not enough to reach an EV of 2. Thus you’d need to add something like a Destroyer to get to 12/6 generating 2 guarenteed hits. Yes, that seems like a low return on value, as we’re used to seeing 1 Carrier + 2 Planes generating at least 2 hits on its own.

AA deserves its own para as the aforementioned rule changes really make things out of wack. So by the RAW (Rules as Written), a single AA gun firing at 3 planes wouldn’t even hit anything (1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6). But 2 AA guns firing at 6 planes would guarantee to hit a single plane. The catch though is that the enemy would have to send 6 planes over. Anything short of that and the AA gun is utterly useless. The fix? Maybe increase it 2/6 times the number of Planes attacking. That way, if the enemy sent 2 Planes, you would never hit anything. But if the enemy sent 3, the AA would guarantee hit one. Yes, it means that as an attacker, you know beforehand you will lose planes before combat begins if you bring 3+.

And Strategic Bombing? That might be handled in a number of ways. The EV of a d6 is 3.5. And again, normally a 1/6 chance you shoot it down. Even if you made it so anti-Strat Bombing was a 2/6 that’d mean the enemy would need to bring 3 Bombers for you to hit anything. Thus they could be content just to send 2 Bombers each turn and do 7 dmg each run without any risk of getting shot down. Maybe if you made it so anti-Strat Bombing was 1/2. That way 1 Bomber would always get through (perhaps giving a guaranteed 3 IPC damage). But with 2 Bombers, you’d lose a Bomber, and the one which lived did 3 dmg. But that seems like a bum deal the way things are priced now. You’d never send 2 Bombers because one 12 IPC unit would guarentee to die and you’d only get 3 in damage return. You send one every turn, you’d get 3 through guarenteed. Thus you’d “pay” for the bomber in 4 turns assuming it did nothing else. This would hurt sides with multiple factories the most of course. Russia would get particularly hosed. All Germany would have to do is have 3 bombers at the ready and bomb Cau/Kar/Rus every turn doing 3 IPC damage. Conclusion: with this new system, Strat Bombing would have to be overhauled.

Again, I’m not commenting on how “fun” this would be to actually play. The more deterministic a game gets, the less variety there tends to be. And the game could just boil down to doing “coin flip” simulations on certain battles. But to me it’s an interesting take on how to minimize one of the biggest gripes of the game. And makes me wonder how one would retool the game to accommodate this to make it fair and fun.