What is LL?

If LL or ADS does not change the bid levels, then it does not change the balance. This is AAR though, it is possible that ADS or LL will be different in AA50.

Subotai:

I am only referring to the fact that Low Luck changes the odds, sometimes drastically, and not always in the defender’s advantage (actually it’s my personal belief that the changes are almost always in the favor of the attacker.)

I referred to the three Russian battles as an example because they are a standard opening for me, regardless of LL or not. (Because Russia can do serious damage to Germany at moderate risk in ADS and at little risk in LL.)  Those three battles have a huge shift in probabilities.

Of course, the Axis may decide to bid more, or bid those units in different places to negate that advantage to Russia.  But that does not change that the advantage is certainly in Russia’s favor there.

Functioneta:  Thanks, yes, I did mistakenly give the defender the carrier defense as well and they would not have that.

So 3 Submarines vs Carrier, 2 Fighters would be a loss of 1 Submarine and only a 33% chance of losing a second submarine.  Meanwhile, the carrier and the two fighters would be lost.  Attacker losses 8 IPC, Defender losses 36 IPC (or 34 IPC in AA50).

I’m a LL-player, and (for the most part) I agree with Jen about what she’s saying about LL. I would like to make a remark though:

CmdrJennifer is right when she says the odds change in LL. That’s true, since one cannot take away extreme dice rolls without changing some battle odds. What people should keep in mind though, is that this only affects a small portion of the game. The soul of this game isn’t gambling with dice, it’s about inventing neat strategies and outsmarting your opponent. And that’s a thing LL has anxiously preserved: the gameplay of A&A isn’t changed when playing LL. It’s not because a few tactical jokes or short term moves tend to be more predictive, the course and feel of an A&A game is changed. Ofcourse, there are those who like the occasional heroic victory against all odds (and the pathetic defeat when everything looked great), but for everyone else, there’s LL, preserving people from teeth grinding and head smashing, offering instead a smile on a resigning player’s face, since he knew his opponent simply had a better plan.

To summarize, LL doesn’t change the game drastically, and imho it makes it much better. Anyone who’s up for a game of A&A Anniversary-LL can pm me (or better, DY, since he’s got more spare time than I do ;) ).

@ Jennifer, you may be right about LL changes the odds, but this doesn’t change the game balance, at least not in AAR.

It does not change the bid levels, and it does not favor one side or the other. We should at least agree with this.

LL vs ADS does not change the reality of gaming in AAR. It’s a different state of mind when playing, it really is, but it does not change anything that makes it rather different, more than tech i.e.

I guess since we’re having this discussion, and this is also the AA50 subforum, then the question is if it changes anything in AA50. Its too soon to know for sure.

I think it’s possible but very unlikely.

Yea, I don’t remember saying that the bid itself changed, I even went back to look again briefly.  I don’t think the bid amount does change, I do think the placement of the extra units might change though.

Anyway, I don’t think there are many people who would make that Russia 1 attack in ADS that I listed, but I’m sure there are plenty who would attempt it in LL because the odds are significantly improved.  It’s something to take into consideration.  I’m not saying it is bad, but it’s different and requires different skills and tactics.

A more common issue:

2 Fighters will kill 1 Submarine 100% of the time.  So if you have an ally that can clear a submarine blocking your fleet with his two fighters, it’s not guaranteed to work, before it might not have worked.  So as the defender, you’re going to have to look at the board and assume that 2 fighters are going to clear your pickets at the worst possible time because it’s impossible for them to make the attack and not clear them.

The other thing you need to internalize is the fact that it no longer matters how many tanks you have, it only matters what your combined punch is.  In ADS you can look at your units and figure about half your tanks will hit on defense and about a third of your infantry.  That number might be higher than the number you get when you add up your units and run a LL game, or it might be lower.

@Cmdr:

The other thing you need to internalize is the fact that it no longer matters how many tanks you have, it only matters what your combined punch is.  In ADS you can look at your units and figure about half your tanks will hit on defense and about a third of your infantry.  That number might be higher than the number you get when you add up your units and run a LL game, or it might be lower.

That is not true. LL attack: 10 infantry vs 3 ftrs. Attack punch = 10 Defence punch = 12

First rnd of battle, infs will hit one for sure, lets say they miss @4. Ftrs will hit 2 for sure. Next rnd, 8 infs will hit one for sure, lets say they miss @2, ftrs get one hit + roll @2. Even if the ftrs hit @2, the infantry is left with 6 units for the last rnd of attack. Even better if it was 2 art + 6 infs. The attacker and defender got the same punch, but the infantry + artillery guys are gonna win this over the airforce.

With tanks it would be 4 tanks vs 3 ftrs. Or 3 bmrs vs 4 tanks. Tanks will win this battles because of numbers. Attack punch is the same as defense punch. More numbers = better odds for winning the battle.

That’s what I said, Subotai.

It no longer matters how many tanks you have, you cannot count on your tanks scoring slightly better than expected in LL like you can in ADS.

For instance, in LL it does not matter a lick if you attack with 1 Infantry and 1 Armor or if you attack with 1 Infantry and 1 Artillery; either way you have a punch of 4.  So how needed is the extra 1 IPC blown on the tank?

You still need some tanks, but the importance of the stack of armor is pretty much gone in LL.  It’s been replaced with Infantry and a handful of Artillery as your main defense since they are more cost effective and the tanks are not needed to trade anymore, they’ve been replaced with an artillery unit for 1 IPC less and 100% effectiveness.

@Cmdr:

It no longer matters how many tanks you have, you cannot count on your tanks scoring slightly better than expected in LL like you can in ADS.

For instance, in LL it does not matter a lick if you attack with 1 Infantry and 1 Armor or if you attack with 1 Infantry and 1 Artillery; either way you have a punch of 4.  So how needed is the extra 1 IPC blown on the tank?

After the first rnd of attack, then the tanks matters because we will pick infs as casualties first, and the tanks do matter both in LL and ADS. Tanks can move 2, that matters.

In LL it will matter as much as in ADS if you attack with inf + art or inf + tanks, because tanks still attack and defend @3.

And if you are counting on your tanks scoring slightly better then average then you’re counting of Lady Luck.

And what does “expected” really mean, is it average dice rolls, or better?

The reason why it matters for me with tanks + infs, is that my infs tend to attack and be attacked, so my infs dies, sadly. The extra ipc for the tanks is needed because tanks defends and attacks @3. Artillery attacks and defends @2.
Thats why, + tanks move 2 spaces.

It’s an interesting tradeoff.  As an attacker you gain from never having a 90% battle blow up in your face, but you lose because you’ll also never have a successful attack that leaves you with “bonus” units that should’ve died had the defender rolled better.  I imagine you’d be perfectly happy with that.

I’d like to try the variant sometime.  It doesn’t strike me as Low Luck so much as Low Frustration.  :-D

Nah, plenty of battles are still perfectly frustrating, I’d even wager most of them in any given game are since you’re probably doing what I do:  Inf + Fig vs Inf for most of your battles.

What you are trading is the ability to reduce a strafe to a matter of pure formula in exchange for those battles where you’d get virtually wiped out or virtually unscathed.

Part of the problem some people have is it allows you to measure, to the last tank, the exact amount of units needed to win a battle for a capitol.  I can’t really see as I blame them considering I normally go into those kinds of battles with 150% of the units I need in a dice game. (I always seem to get fragged in round 1, I dunno, I think the global warming gods hate me or something. /shrug.)  So I over compensate.  But if I could measure it out, EXACTLY, I know, beyond a doubt, that I would not get fragged in any given round, then I could possibly go into those battles with 103% of what I need (the 3% to make up for the tiny fluctuation in major battles given by LL vs ADS where I’d need 50% to cover my arse, so to speak.)