What percentage is luck involved in a games outcome?

@Jennifer:

Any player with atrocious luck vs any player with stellar luck will lose.  I don’t care how well you manage your assets, if all you roll are box cars, you are going to lose.

A profound truth.

How often does this happen?  That is the real question.

The answer is not 1/6th of the time and that would be 16% of the games.

If a game consisted of two dice roles for both players, it would be the odds of 6, 6, not6, not6.

That is 1/6 * 1/6 * 5/6 * 5/6 = 1.9%

If it is three dice rolls …

1/6 * 1/6 * 1/6 * 5/6 * 5/6 * 5/6 =  0.27 % of the time.

I’m estimating 1000 rolls of the dice in a typical game.  For your case of “all box cars” and my case of the other guy never getting 6’s we have =>

(1/6)^500 * (5/6)^500 = really freaking small !!

Very profound indeed.

:-)

The odds of that happening are inverse proportional to how serious the player is about the game at hand.  If it’s a tournament (especially last round) it seems to happen 100% of the time. :)  If it’s just a blow off game, like a League Game here, then it probably will never happen.

Jen, if you EVER got hooked on “No Luck”, what would you complain about???  :evil:

I say 20% luck.

LOL, I registered my vote when teh poll first came up at 20%.

Glad to know I am not alone :-)

LOL!  :-D

This again?

By definition, if skill is equal, then luck constitutes 100% of the difference between the players.

Two equally skilled players will always tie each other - luck is the only factor that will let one get ahead of the other, if they are otherwise equally matched. And don’t statr talking about “but one will make a mistake first” - then that player is worse, and they are not equally matched.

There are two things that can help you win - skill and luck. If skill is equal, luck makes 100% of the difference.

Of course you never have truly equal skill, so skill is a factor too. How big a factor depends on how big the difference in skill is.

I put 50% because without luck you will have a tough game and without skill you won’t do good anyway

@froodster:

Two equally skilled players will always tie each other - luck is the only factor that will let one get ahead of the other, if they are otherwise equally matched. And don’t statr talking about “but one will make a mistake first” - then that player is worse, and they are not equally matched.

So an equal or better player never ever ever makes a critical mistake???

Of course they do. Thats usually the difference, not luck.

Crying about luck is many times a crutch/excuse.

No one understands what I am saying, even when I say it three times in slightly different ways…  :cry:

If one player makes a mistake, then in that game they are the less skilled player, and they are not EQUAL and thus you are not addressing the question as it has been defined.

Two EQUAL F***ING players. EQUAL. Neither makes a mistake, or they both make equal amounts of mistakes. So they are EQUAL. Neither one gets ahead because they are EQUAL. unless you bring in another factor in which they are NOT EQUAL. Then that factor constitutes 100% of the difference that exists between them, because in other respects they are EQUAL.

EQUAL. as in NOT DIFFERENT. They play THE SAME with EQUALLY good strategy.

But then one will have different amounts of luck.

“I can’t see the difference - can you see the difference?” “Price is the difference.”

Can you see the point? I can’t see the point. Unless it is about EQUAL and DIFFERENT.

It’s 90% attitude and 10% aptitude that determines your altitude. if you have a string of crappy dice even though you may still be winning then you are more likely to surrender. so luck determines your morale(attitude) in a sense. i put 40% luck.

@axis_roll:

I might react differntly to a battle outcome in which the odds differed from the outcome (I have more units left than I anticipated, or I have less than anticipated).

These type of outcomes are outside the players level of skill.

Anglo-Egypt sudan on G1 is a PERFECT example of this.  Most players have a GO-NO GO number for UK1 to counter.  To a great exent, the Geman player can not control this number… it’s up to the dice.  Here DICE outcome (‘luck’ if you will) will help determine UK’s response to Germanys outcome.

Do you see the point we’re trying to make that you can not seperate the skill of a player from the variability of outcome of battles in the game?

I think you prove my point - that outcome in Anglo-Egypt is 100% luck (since both players, being equal, would have committed the same forces for that attack and defended the same way), and that’s the point at which (perhaps) that one equally skilled player gets the upper hand and keeps building it through the game.

As you say, it is outside your level of skill - it is luck that makes the difference there.

I also agree that you cannot, in one way, separate skill and luck - the importance of each depends on the size of the other factor - I don’t think you can say, in a vacuum, how important luck is. Luck will be a significant factor between two PERFECTLY EQUALLY skilled opponents (I know that’s only theoretical). Between a very good player and a very bad player however, luck is unimportant - one will simply outplay the other, in addition to managing their risks, and the bad player will lose no matter how good their dice are unless they roll nothing higher than a 3 the entire game.

You can also see this when players blame the dice for a loss - what they are saying is “I’m just as good as my opponent, it was just bad luck that made the difference.”

Suppose I play an equally skilled player 1000 times, and we each win 500 games - you’d have to say we are pretty equal. In that case, each game is essentially a coin toss, which as we know is determined by “luck”. Winning that next game will certainly not prove that I am better than my opponent.

Or did you win game# 1001 because he made a mistake before you did, and you capitalized on it?  It doesn’t mean you are not equally matched, but rather in that one game you managed your resources better than he did.

Does this mean that you are not equally matched?  Even though you both had a 500-500 record?  Does this mean it was pure luck that caused him to forget that my transport was within range of his undefended capital?  At the end of the game will he blame the dice for the loss?

I don’t think so.  I voted 20%

Well depending how you interpret it, it was either a skill difference that resulted in the win, or it was “luck” that you caught your opponent on a bad day. Depends how you define skill and luck I guess.

@froodster:

Well depending how you interpret it, it was either a skill difference that resulted in the win, or it was “luck” that you caught your opponent on a bad day. Depends how you define skill and luck I guess.

skill is how well you make use of your luck.

@froodster:

Two EQUAL F***ING players. EQUAL. Neither makes a mistake, or they both make equal amounts of mistakes. So they are EQUAL. Neither one gets ahead because they are EQUAL. unless you bring in another factor in which they are NOT EQUAL. Then that factor constitutes 100% of the difference that exists between them, because in other respects they are EQUAL.

EQUAL. as in NOT DIFFERENT. They play THE SAME with EQUALLY good strategy.

Nothing about the game is equal.  Imbalanced forces, imbalanced distribution, imbalanced resources, necessary imbalance of strategy.  One player gets to go first and set the stage for coming turns based on what he does.  The game state changes completely from round to round.

Lots of inequalities besides the luck of the dice in A&A that can determine the difference between two players of equal skill.

It’s a silly argument, of course.

~Josh

if there is an equality of skill, then all that is left is the luck of the roll.

Good/Bad dice early on magnifies the “Luck” effect.

Let me pose this hypothetical related to the discussion.

Let’s say you could clone yourself perfectly, an exact double of you with all the same memories, experiences, behaviour, intelligence, everything.

Now sit down to play games of chess with your clone.

Do you think that every game will result in a draw?

Not rhetorical, honestly asking the question.

~Josh