Just b/c LL may give you a better chance to win a series of battles does not make the strategy sound. For example If Germany has troops in Wrus and Japan has troops in Novo, and in LL Russia can attack the stack in Wrus with 90% success (say only 60% in ADS) that doesn’t make it a good attack since Japan will walk into Moscow on their next turn.
Likewise, I’m not convinced (even with a 60% chance to succeed on R1) that that triple attack (nor, wrus, ukr) is a good idea. Yes you may kill two fighters but you leave Russia incredibly thin. I think Germany can counter both Ukr and Wrus in that case and after Rd 1, Russia will only be left with the units that start out in Asia and its rd 1 buy. Considering Germany will still be out earning Russia by 12-15 ipc for the first few turns this isn’t necessarily a good strat for Russia.
And if you continue the LL playout you may see that the Axis will end up winning a greater % of these games b/c Russia hamstrung herself too early and didn’t have the units to counter a tank dash or German/Japan full court press.
In this case the LL (entire playout) may confirm what ADS would have told you right away (with the 40% success rate), don’t risk this early battle on R1.
I think the focus on individual battles or what happens in one round or turn isn’t as beneficial as being able to look long term in LL and being able to judge based on a move you do how much time you have should your opponent do this or that.
The best and most relevant example I can give is a G1 Naval buy. This is perfect for a LL test since you can easily test if Russia then goes hard for Germany you can accurately predict when Germany starts to miss those ground units that were spent on Navy. So at that point if you know you only have 4 rds you now know how much time you have as Japan to get your Asian war machine going (4 turns!).
Now while adapting this to ADS you know if Russia sends stuff to Asia you will have more than 4 turns or if you get good dice you’ll have more time, but if you get bad dice you better be johnny on the spot with Japan or else Berlin will fall.
LL is an extremely valuable tool for testing any strat and is very helpful in developing strats that work in well ADS, if for no other reason than it saves you tons of game time and playing excess games since you can get right down to a median result and then adjust from there.
Also, you know how this whole academic thing turns the ladies on. Ooo ya. :lol: Call me.
What’s your phone number <drool>j/k</drool>
Actually, DM, it may be worth Russia to take the 90% odds and give Moscow to Japan. Rationale being that England and America are most likely in W. Europe (since you said Japan could walk in, so I assumed no defense except Russia’s builds, if any, and trust me, if I was going to do this, I’d research Rockets with all available cash and pull my AA Guns) so they could be staging on Germany. By eliminating the German’s main battle army, you put them 100% on the defensive. This could give England and America odds of success while still preserving the Russian army from a 1-2 punch by the axis. Now Russia can trail infantry behind them annoying Japan and slowing them down 3 rounds before they can get armor to Germany to help defend.
True, there are plenty of other things to consider, but my main point was just because you have one battle (or one turn) with overwhelming odds (in either LL or ADS) it does not mean your overall game strategy is good.
A more extreme example would be if Japan spent the first two turns building trns and inf to attack Alaska. So on J3 they attack with LL odds of 100% (ADS with 70%) and they win. That does not mean the strategy of going after ALA or the US is good. It may not mean it is bad, but you shouldn’t be judging a strategy on one turn or battle, you have to look long term.
And I think LL provides a way to do this.
And in the Ala attack move if that means Russia runs wild and kicks Japan out of Asia it is irrelevant that in LL you had a 100% chance to take Ala, you end up losing the game. Just like possible Russian, German, etc. turns, it is irrelevant if LL gives you 100% chance (vs. 60, 70, 80) to take certain things in one particular rd if the consequences of those actions (given avg or LL dice) mean you end up losing the game.
But I don’t look at just one battle in a large set of battles.
Thing is, in LL if you can optimize each and every battle you can end up only a very slight bit off what ADS would give you (which is different because you have to account for extremes, not optimal, that usually means bringing more to the battle then you otherwise would if you want the land for sure or to protect your fighters for sure.) Compounding that glitch over hundreds of battles in a game and you can be so far off an ADS result as to make the LL result unrealistic.
DarthMaximus, neither of us is attempting to argue that a single good-odds battle is the penultimate goal of a LL or ADS strategy. The question is whether or not LL and ADS employ different strategies, and my answer to that is no. Your answer is yes (I believe).
Your stance, if I understand correctly, is that with LL, you employ the odds-on line, and with ADS, there’s some give and take, but the optimal strategy line still holds.
My stance, though, is that since LL allows you to employ the odds-on line, LL allows you to carry out attacks that would be ridiculous under ADS, and that therefore strategies that are ridiculous under ADS are viable under LL.
Allow me to refer to my earlier Norway-West Russia-Ukraine attack description. To wit, with ADS, the attacker has little control over bad outcomes, and probability distribution plays some role, so the strategy has a 60% chance of failure, of which a fair proportion is considered “disasteriffic” to use Rikku (Final Fantasy X) terminology. So the attack is simply unsound from the outset under ADS, this is obvious.
Under LL, however, the attacker has moderate control over bad outcomes, so has a 32% chance of moderate failure, but a 68% chance of outright success. So under LL, although this strategy MAY be countered in the long-term by Germany, it is NOT necessarily simply unsound as the ADS attack is.
So under ADS, you shoot yourself in the butt RIGHT AWAY, but under LL, who knows? I will say, though, that to say that Germany will in time find an efficient counter for this LL strategy simply because the strategy is immediately unviable in ADS is logically unsound!
If you can explain how it is INEVITABLE that the Norway-West Russia-Ukraine attack will inevitably fail under Low-Luck, and tie that to the fact that the Norway-West Russia-Ukraine attack is a bad-odds attack under ADS, then I feel that the position that LL and ADS strategies are analogous is sound.
However, my little brain cannot right now comprehend how that would be possible, so I will leave it to wiser minds to explain. (Platonic gloating ensues :-D)
NPB:
He said the tri-lateral attack (the Hat Trick) with Russia is much better in LL then in ADS, so much better, it’s actually a viable move for Russia in LL while it’s utter suicide in LL.
@Cmdr:
NPB:
He said the tri-lateral attack (the Hat Trick) with Russia is much better in LL then in ADS, so much better, it’s actually a viable move for Russia in LL while it’s utter suicide in (edit)ADS(/edit).
I thought that’s what I said . . . :wink:
@Cmdr:
NPB:
He said the tri-lateral attack (the Hat Trick) with Russia is much better in LL then in ADS, so much better, it’s actually a viable move for Russia in LL while it’s utter suicide in LL.
For what reasons do you say this? Mazer Rakham does the Russian Triple in ADS. The odds aren’t much better, in fact there’s almost 0 change for the total numbers. It’s simply that it can go way way better than normal, or slightly worse (then just retreat). You only need W. Russia + Ukraine to succeed which is 80% or so, and Belorussia is just a bonus. You can retreat if the dice go bad, but if they go normal or better….ouch Germany!
I said it is a bad move in BOTH. :-)
Russia ends up losing about the same amount of units worth about the same IPC (in LL) as Germany and this is just bad tactics, esp in Rd 1.
When you attack someone you want to do A LOT BETTER than a 1-1 trade.
Edit:
I’m refering to the hypothetical triple attack of Nor/Wrus/Ukr.
I agree it’s a bad move in both; I was simply asking Jen why she thinks it’s so much better in LL than it is in ADS. The dice goes both ways, you could easily overpower all 3 territories and then Germany’s in a mess. That happens just as often as disaster does.
I said it is a bad move in BOTH. :-)
So are you saying that the Norway-Wrus-Ukr attack is bad for LL and for ADS for the SAME REASONS? No, of course not. See my last post. Would you like to expound on the idea that what is good for ADS is good for LL and vice versa? For I disagree.
Russia ends up losing about the same amount of units worth about the same IPC (in LL) as Germany and this is just bad tactics, esp in Rd 1.
Why is it inherently bad for Russia to lose the same number of units in its initial attacks as Germany? True, Germany has superiority of force, but Germany has the logistic problem of moving units from Germany/Europe to Russia. Furthermore, let me point out that I will readily trade Russian tanks for German fighters.
When you attack someone you want to do A LOT BETTER than a 1-1 trade.
I would say that is a fair rule of thumb, but that there are exceptions to that rule, and I’m sure that on reflection, you will agree with me.
Edit:
I’m refering to the hypothetical triple attack of Nor/Wrus/Ukr.
@Bean:
I agree it’s a bad move in both; I was simply asking Jen why she thinks it’s so much better in LL than it is in ADS. The dice goes both ways, you could easily overpower all 3 territories and then Germany’s in a mess. That happens just as often as disaster does.
I posted all the odds in an earlier post . . . it just IS better in LL than it is in ADS. You don’t “easily overpower” all 3 territories unless you are hella lucky, and the chance everything goes well is MUCH smaller than the chance that something important will go wrong.
Because in LL you are all but guaranteed to get a certain result while in ADS you arn’t even guaranteed to have a unit left after the first round nor do any damage to the enemy.
So are you saying that the Norway-Wrus-Ukr attack is bad for LL and for ADS for the SAME REASONS? No, of course not. See my last post. Would you like to expound on the idea that what is good for ADS is good for LL and vice versa? For I disagree.
My contention is that what is good in LL is good in ADS HOWEVER what is good in ADS may not be good in LL.
My point about the nor/wrus/ukr battle is that just b/c you may succeed in certian battles (either individual battles here and there or a few battles taken in the same turn) in LL way way way more in ADS does not make it a sound strategy for the entire game. And I laid out just a couple of example where you could have high odds battles but it hurts you in the long run (the Moscow scenerio and the crazy ala move etc.)
It is much easier to translate LL strats to ADS.
I don’t think I said this triple would “inevitablely” fail in LL, I believe I said it “may” fail which in a way would confirm what the ADS odds told you in rd 1.
I certainly think there could be a coerrelation between LL odds and ADS odds.
Due to the nature of LL we know you can have a battle of a 100% success, which in ADS may be 90-95%. I don’t think it is then unreasonable to think that multiple battles in LL where you have 80% success awould translate to maybe 65% in ADS. Thus it isn’t unreasonable to think a LL battle with 60% success rate may then indeed be 40% in ADS (per your triple example).
So when playing a game in ADS if you have a threshold to actually go through with most battles (say you would like a 60-70% chance to succeed in ADS) that does not mean you’d have 60-70 in LL, the LL odds would probably be much closer to 80. So when you see a battle at 40% success in ADS it should probably tell you that you have maybe 60% or so in LL BUT those AREN’T great odds for LL, considering you can be much more efficient in your attacks in LL.
60% odds are not that great for LL, considering the best LL players probably should win about 75-80% of their games. Why lower your standards to 60%? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe it is a good opening and causes enough damage to Germany, but I think it can leave Russia a bit too thin.
And yes there are times where 1-1 is a good trade and even times where you come out on the low end but the battle can still be deemed a success, but I don’t think Russia 1 is that time esp since the Axis can usually make an Africa push and Japan can make early gains in Asia, and it still takes the UK/US a few turns to get their shuck going.
Edit:
I should also say that by strat, I mean a series of moves (or buys) that take place over several turns not something a player may do in only one move or one turn.
