Low Luck Dice

[SpartanJD01]

I played a game on TripleA last night - After my opponenet conceded after the annilation of Germany, he suggested that I should have used the LL feature (I had hosted the game).  I understand the concept of LL, but in practice, how does it effect the game?  What type of battles seem to favor the attacker/defender more?  My assuption would be that this would be particularly good for Germany holding out as its capital defense would be stacked with 2's 3's and 4's, insufficient numbers of each to get extra hits.  In smaller battles, 1 Fig, 1 inf v 1 inf, that advantage would be with the attacker as he gets 2d6 @3, essentially, while Defender odds unchanged.

[squirecam]

I played a game on TripleA last night - After my opponenet conceded after the annilation of Germany, he suggested that I should have used the LL feature (I had hosted the game).  I understand the concept of LL, but in practice, how does it effect the game?  What type of battles seem to favor the attacker/defender more?  My assuption would be that this would be particularly good for Germany holding out as its capital defense would be stacked with 2's 3's and 4's, insufficient numbers of each to get extra hits.  In smaller battles, 1 Fig, 1 inf v 1 inf, that advantage would be with the attacker as he gets 2d6 @3, essentially, while Defender odds unchanged.

Lowluck drastically changes the game. Battles, such as UKR 1, are now "givens" rather than "questions". In fact,  if you have a 55% chance to win a luck battle,  you now have a 98% chance to win,  ignoring the 45% chance to lose.

Some like that certainty. Some dont.

Squirecam

[JLord]

My experience is that the results of the battles will generally be the same.  The thing low luck does is prevent crazily one sided battles either way.  But the result will be similar to the expected result usi9ng regular dice.  It really changes your play in certain situations though.  Like you can often tell for certain that you can win a certain battle even though the odds using regular rolling would be around 60% or something.  This drastically changes your planning.  Also, consider the situation where an attacker can bring one inf. + planes against 3 inf.  In a regular rolling game you would not make this attack due to the risk of losing planes.  In LL though you know that the defending 3 inf. will only get one hit so oyu can bring 1 inf. and 6 figs and be assured of killing the 3 inf while only losing 1 inf yourself.  

I really like playing with both LL and regular dice.

[rjclayton]

In smaller battles, 1 Fig, 1 inf v 1 inf, that advantage would be with the attacker as he gets 2d6 @3, essentially, while Defender odds unchanged.

Attacked does not get 2d6 @3 (not even sure exactly what you mean by that).

Just to clarify how low luck works, add up the punch for all attacking units.  Divide by 6.  Whatever you get is automatic hits.  If there is a remainder after dividing roll the die.  If you get the remainder or less score 1 hit.  That's it.

eg 1 (your example): 1 fig 1 inf vs. 1 inf
Attacker punch = 4 (3 + 1)
Defender punch = 1

divide by 6 (attacker = 4/6, defender = 1/6).  No automatic hits.  roll the remainder (four or less for attacker, 1 or less for defender).  Low luck improves the odds on this attack slightly (because attacker can roll one die at 4 or less instead of a 3 or less or a 1 or less).

eg 2: 1 inf 1 art 1 arm vs. 2 inf
Attacker punch = 7 (2 + 2 + 3)
Defender punch = 4

Attacker gets 1 automatic hit and rolls a 1 or less for the remainder
Defender rolls 4 or less

With low luck, 2 fighters attacking will always kill a transport (a fighter will die 1/6 times, but that transport is always dead).  With low luck, 2 inf 1 bmb will always win vs. 1 inf.  3 inf 1 bmb will always win against 2 inf.  The automatic hits guarantee these combats.  With Pure Luck, none of these combats are guaranteed.

Advantage goes to the attacker with Low luck, because they can commit fewer units to a battle and yet be guaranteed a favourable result.  Strafing attacks are also easier to accomplish in low luck, because you can more accurately estimate the number of hits on attack and defense (especially for a 1 or 2 round strafe combat) so you can determine with certainty that you will not lose more units than your opponent (or you wouldn't do the attack) and you can also guarantee you won't get a huge number of hits and accidentally take the territory on a strafe attempt (has been known to happen in pure luck).

[DarthMaximus]

Deadzoning is also much more assured and lines could stay stagnant for an extra turn or two b/c strafing is much more exact and much more deadly, since the attacker can bring in the exact units needed to leave the defender with only 1 or 2 units then reatreat.  Likewise, the defender can always know exactly what he needs to either hold a territory or decide if he should just pull out.

Economics is also a bigger factor in LL.  While you can still do well with superior position, the cumulative effects of one side consistantly getting more units on the board with more hit points will eventually win out.
Once one side has the lead it is much harder for the trailing side to come back since there is no chance the dice might even things up later.

[SpartanJD01]

Apparently I did not know what LL was.  I thought I had read that with LL, if you attacked with 6 inf, 6 Arm., you roll 12 dice.  If you got 3 - 1's, 3 - 2's, 2-3's & 4-4's, you would count the 1's as hits by the Inf's, 2's & 3's as hits by the Tanks - 8 hits total, where those roles could have resulted in as few as 3 hits total. 

Did I dream this up myself, or am I confusing terms?

[rjclayton]

Never heard of your version of it

[SpartanJD01]

Never heard of your version of it

I probably shouldn't have read these boards after smoking crack. 

[U-505]

Spartan,

Low Luck requires that you pay very close attention to everything on the board. I would recommend that you not play Low Luck until you are familiar with the more advanced techniques in the game. You can sometimes get away with mistakes using ADS but Low Luck is far less forgiving. You either have to play mistake free or you will lose a lot.

[Magister]

There are still situations with enough luck left in LowLuck. Especially naval battles, where 1-2 submarines roll dice separately from the rest of ships/air. Your 2 subs missing (2/6 chance) and opponent 1 sub hitting (2/6) also with victims removed before normal fire, can cascade seriously into a disaster in further rounds of firing, not far from 'regular' dice.
Obviously, battles between lone units (DD vs tra in Kwantung, sub vs tra) are exactly the same risk.

4 German fighters guarantee killing the Med BB (but not 1 sub, 3 fighters !).

With Low Luck, the 3-area Russian attack (UKR-WRU-BEL) is also assured of working (but with not a few casualties).

Leaving medium-sized forces (say 5 units) is a blunder now, as enemy can bring a raid force to take out certainly 4 units (e.g. 3inf,3art,4tnk) then retreat. With Regular Luck, that defender was protected by the cloud of uncertainty, and the raider could not bring too much offensive power for the risk of doing "too well" (!) killing all defenders and being stuck with expensive units in a dead zone.

Small deadzone swapping is more effective. Either 1inf+1ftr or 1inf+1tnk hit at one 4/6 ~ 67% instead of separate 1/6 and 3/6 (overall chance of at least one hit 21/36 ~ 58%). 1inf+1art is still 4/6 while with Regular dice it would have been 20/36 ~ 56%).

Grouped transport ships (3-4) are a better deterrent against lone fighters or bombers. The average is the same, but with Low Luck it's concentrated into getting 1 hit, while with regular dice some of the hits were "wasted" by overkills of 2, 3... hits.

Other significant differences in strategies, openings etc. ?

[Crazy Ivan]

 
  All that has been stated is true. I can only add that what it boils down to is economics of your resources/units. By reducing unneccesary wasteage, you can use spare units in other battles, thereby increasing the amount of damage that can be done to your opponents, and roll more die! 
  LL lets you know if you are using a sound strategy or not. I can't cry, "bad dice", as easily when I lose.
   C.I. 

[Bunnies P Wrath]

Never heard of your version of it

I probably shouldn't have read these boards after smoking crack. 

Silence, foo!  Wat you should do is smoke MORE crack then read the boards.

[Bunnies P Wrath]

All Low Luck does is change the game to be more predictable. 
Being a Low Luck player has nothing to do with using sound strategies or not.

I dunno, some players say they are SUPERIOR tacticians because they play Low Luck.  I think the opposite.   

[axis_roll]

All Low Luck does is change the game to be more predictable. 
Being a Low Luck player has nothing to do with using sound strategies or not.

I dunno, some players say they are SUPERIOR tacticians because they play Low Luck.  I think the opposite.   

I agree.  Good players can adapt to bad (good) dice.

Rarely do battles in war go EXACTLY to plan as Low Luck implements.

[ncscswitch]

You guys are doing an excellent job of posting the perspective I was advocating when I had many arguments with Agent Smith over low luck lat year.

GOOD players can adapt, unless the dice go completely rancid (two back to back force decimations in Ukraine on R1 and G1 comes to mind...)