Technology

[gamerman01]

Ah, interesting.  Thanks for explaining the LL AA rules a bit.  I have never played LL.

[Lucifer]

I’ve said it before in another thread, if a game is pretty even, and no side has an obvious advantage, it may be rnd 1-3, or even later in a game. The only way to deal with the situation that the opponent gets a very powerful tech is to get an equal powerful tech! Plain and simple. And that has nothing to do with strats or tactics, even if you have to know what tech chart to choose when rolling for tech.

Tech has very very little to do with strats and tactics, and even if there is much randomness in a reg.dice - no-tech game, it is as much about strats and tactics as a LL (no-tech) game. Reg.dice or LL doesn’t alter the fact that A&A is mainly about strategy. But tech…. you just roll a dice… tech is not related to buying smart, making clever combat moves, making good non combat moves etc. thats why I dislike tech even more than reg.dice.

So it is not only the increased randomness when using tech, it is also the lack of strategic elements in the A&A tech system.

[Lucifer]

Now tech is not a problem in AA50, b/c it is optional, but if it wasn’t I would be using the same house rules that ca. 90% of the TripleA players used in Revised: no tech, and that is included the reg.dice players not only the LL players.

[Bardoly]

@Subotai:

I’ve said it before in another thread, if a game is pretty even, and no side has an obvious advantage, it may be rnd 1-3, or even later in a game. The only way to deal with the situation that the opponent gets a very powerful tech is to get an equal powerful tech! Plain and simple. And that has nothing to do with strats or tactics, even if you have to know what tech chart to choose when rolling for tech.

Tech has very very little to do with strats and tactics, and even if there is much randomness in a reg.dice - no-tech game, it is as much about strats and tactics as a LL (no-tech) game. Reg.dice or LL doesn’t alter the fact that A&A is mainly about strategy. But tech…. you just roll a dice… tech is not related to buying smart, making clever combat moves, making good non combat moves etc. thats why I dislike tech even more than reg.dice.

So it is not only the increased randomness when using tech, it is also the lack of strategic elements in the A&A tech system.

Don’t forget that choosing to roll for tech means that one’s opponent will have more units as opposed to the tech roller’s potientially better units, so if I’m rolling tech, and you’re not, then that means that you should have more IPCs worth of units on the board to offset my possible techs.  This already gives you an advantage, so my getting a tech would not necessarily force you to also roll for tech.  I would agree though, that if I always paid 5-10 IPCs per tech and always got the techs on the first turn in which I rolled for them (which has happened in one of my many AA50 games - Germany had 5 techs by turn 7 and 8 techs by turn 13, and the first 4 techs were gotten with either 5 or 10 IPCs.), then yes, I would have to say that this is overpoweringly good for me, but on the other hand, if I were playing against you in a LL game, and you always hit on the 1 die roll per battle round, and I always missed, then I would have to say those 2 situations are equally unlikely to occur, and when/if they ever do happen, then that’s just tough luck and a nearly automatic win or loss as the case may be.

[Lucifer]

@Bardoly, you’re not entirely wrong, but you’re entirely correct either.

One issue is if a power or a side gets a tech at a price of $5 or $10 in one rnd, that’s a cheap and lucky tech even if the tech is not powerful. If you spend $10 and get a tech after 3 rnds, or $15 and get a tech after 2 rnds, or if you pay $30 and get a tech instantly, this is not luck, it is average dice when rolling for tech. In this cases tech won’t matter much for deciding the outcome of the game if no powerful techs are gained.

What I’m talking about is the 3-4 very powerful techs, regardless if you spend $5 or $30 to get this techs.

If you get one of the 3-4 most powerful techs, the only way not losing is to get and equal powerful tech. This is much more important than if you get a practically useless tech for $5 or $10. And this is if the game is pretty even at the time one side gets a powerful tech, not if i.e. I got 14 VCs and I need only one additional VC to win the game, b/c in this instance, you already lost.

But it is not the situations where you pay less than $30 for a tech, it is 3-4 most powerful techs that are gamebreaking that causes the tech system to be (imo) useless in a strategy game where players decisions should decide the outcome of the game and not a lucky dice roll.

There is no decisions you can make to stop a player from winning when he got more powerful techs than you, if the game is not already decided, b/c you are not guaranteed to get an equal powerful tech, as opposed to most reg.dice games the dice rolls will even out through the several rnds of a game. There is a problem with reg.dice in the very first rnd of AA50, b/c there so much at stake, but generally most reg.dice games are won by the best player.

Playing with reg.dice and tech is the same as making a dice roll system with even more randomness than A&A, like i.e. Risk, even if there are no techs in Risk, there is more randomness than in a reg.dice no-tech game of A&A.

If 2 players are equally experienced, in a reg.dice no-tech game there is a lot of randomness, but you wouldn’t win a Revised game as axis with no bids even with reg.dice. Well maybe 1 of 20…
There is more than enough randomness in reg.dice already, there is no point in making A&A like yhatzee, a game where there is 99% luck and 1% skills and experience.

[gamerman01]

@Subotai:

a strategy game where players decisions should decide the outcome of the game and not a lucky dice roll.

Doesn’t this happen even in LL?  Sounds like you should be sticking to chess, if you can’t handle getting beat by dice.

There is no decisions you can make to stop a player from winning when he got more powerful techs than you, if the game is not already decided, b/c you are not guaranteed to get an equal powerful tech, as opposed to most reg.dice games the dice rolls will even out through the several rnds of a game.

I’m sure most players who play with tech will totally disagree with you here.

There is more than enough randomness in reg.dice already, there is no point in making A&A like yhatzee, a game where there is 99% luck and 1% skills and experience.

Even yahtzee is not 99% luck and 1% skill and experience.
And saying a regular game of A&A (because regular dice and tech is a regular game of A&A - out of the box) is 99% luck and 1% skill is ludicrous.

Wow.  Your passion against tech makes me think you’ve been beat by them a few times, and you can’t handle it!  Is this not true?

[Lucifer]

In LL it happens not so often that one side lose b/c of dice compared to reg.dice and/or tech games.
I’m sticking to LL and no-tech in A&A b/c it is more fun than chess.
LL is a system in which both sides gets close to equal number of hits.

OOB rules state that tech is an optional rule, so no-tech is as official OOB as tech is.

I can’t recall to be beaten by tech, seriously, it’s probably b/c I have only played very very few games with tech.
I can only recall one tech game I lost b/c I was rolling for tech but didn’t get any useful techs, while the opponent didn’t roll for tech and won b/c he got more units on the board.

What I can’t handle is losing b/c the opponent was lucky. What is hard to handle is that in a reg.dice and tech games the opponent can make a winning dice roll every rnd, as opposed to a clever winning move.

I can handle very well to lose against better opponents. That’s why losing a LL no-tech game doesn’t make me sad, the best player won. It is ofc much better to win than lose, but if I win a reg.dice and tech game, it doesn’t feel like a real victory b/c I didn’t win b/c of better skills&experience, the win would be caused mostly by luck.

I’m not waging a crusade against tech and/or randomness in reg.dice games, I’m only stating the fact that randomness = luck. If players want to play with high randomness it’s not my problem. But I have a hard time understanding why so many A&A players prefers increased randomness in a strategy game.

For me, it’s a waste of time spending 2-8 hours playing a game in which the players decisions have little impact due to random dice rolls.

Even Krieghund said that his playgroup used a system with reduced randomness, not LL, but reduced randomness nonetheless.

[Funcioneta]

I see LL as an easy mode: if I don’t want think much, I play LL (usually never). The same goes for non-tech: easy mode. Both cases you have less possible results (LL and no tech), so it’s more easy see the right approach

That you cannot see is that both non tech and LL alters the whole game in a dramatic way: no tech cancels many possible strats that need some specific techs. LL is even worst because trading territories changes totally: I’d never, never risk tanks in a unclear strafe because they can get stuck if roll too good, however in LL I have done that because you can know the exact amount of units needed for a desired result. Naval battles and SBRs are also altered in dramatic ways: you can send 6 bombers and ensure you only lose one, so buy one each round to replace: lame

If you didn’t saw many tech games in Revised was because tech in Revised was crap and usually never rolled even in tech games, so there was no point for us tech supporters trying convince tech haters to play with tech. In AA50, techs are a viable tactic and so there is a great point of convincing others play with tech

LL no tech is sudoku, making numbers and favoring gamey scripted strats as ignore Japan

[Zhukov44]

In the end the problem with tech is the same problem as in previous versions.  Some techs unbalance the game so much that getting them makes the gaming experience less fun.  I was in a multi the other day, where Germany spent 5$ on tech G1 and then hit Mech Inf G2.  Russia’s position was so desperate by the end of G3 that Russia resigned, and the game was over.  Without tech it might have been a decent game for everyone.  In hindsight, we should have restarted on G2 as soon as the 6 was rolled.

There are always those occasions where tech plays a role in balancing the game in that the side that is losing or getting unlucky with dice gets the lucky tech.  And there are occasions where both sides will get a decent tech which maintains a rough equality.  But these are exceptions to the majority rule…which is that when playing with tech the likeliest outcome is one side will get luckier with tech than the other, and this will frequently determine the game outcome.  In such cases one can only hope that the dice favor the other side, otherwise the game is not really fair, and thus (for me) not nearly as fun.

In Revised, both heavies and rockets were unbalanced.  In AA50, I’d say heavies, mech inf, paras, rockets…and LRA at the right time…all convey too deadly an advantage to whoever gets them, as long as the relevant power is in position to use these techs.

[Lucifer]

@Funcioneta:

I see LL as an easy mode: if I don’t want think much, I play LL (usually never). The same goes for non-tech: easy mode. Both cases you have less possible results (LL and no tech), so it’s more easy see the right approach

You’re objectively wrong! It is not easier to play LL and no-tech, unless you’re playing against a rookie. A few weeks ago I played against a player who once bought an IC with Russia and placed it in Novo….go figure. Even if he didn’t do it in our game, these players will lose almost all games until they learn the basics of A&A.

It’s not easier to play with whatever setting or house rule is being used, b/c the one and only factor is how good is the opponent!!!
Except that for a single game, not leagues or ladders, it is easier to win a single game against a better opponent if the game settings used does involve a high level of randomness. And that is a formal mathematical truth!

Also, LL is less forgiving on mistakes than reg.dice, so how can LL be easier when it is easier in LL to lose b/c of mistakes???

I can win a single deal/hand of poker against the best pokers players in the world, even if I hardly plays poker, b/c it would be only a single deal. But if we played many deals, an experienced player will win against a newbie in the long run. Same goes for A&A.

You cannot use number crunching in real wars, or in the real world the same way as in A&A, b/c A&A is not a real war, it is not reality. It is a game of numbers, which can be calculated mathematically.

What is subjective is how fun or boring it is to play with different settings, what is scientific is the factors of numbers and dice rolls, and these elements are according to mathematics, not human feelings.

Fact: chess is less about luck and randomness than A&A, it is more about skills and experience. If this sentence is true, then it must also be true that LL+no-tech (which means less randomness) is more about skills and experience than reg.dice+tech.

Try to read some philosophy, and focus on the logic issues.

[Vareel]

Comparing the randomness to tech option and dice/LL option are so far apart it is insane.

Yes, UK getting a lucky roll with there bb has a large effect on the game after G1, but no where near the effect that UK getting HBs does on turn 1.  Same with G getting a lucky roll in egypt and clearing it without looses, compared to them getting LRA turn 1.

Luck is one thing that doesn’t bother me, and LL does not mean no luck, it means low luck.  Tech though, that can dramatically change the course of a game.  The problem is the game breaking tech, heavys, LRA, paras.  If tech just had fun things like improved art, rockets, radar, etc, then it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

[Funcioneta]

@Subotai:

Also, LL is less forgiving on mistakes than reg.dice, so how can LL be easier when it is easier in LL to lose b/c of mistakes???

Because LL no tech has less possible results than can happen. And that is a mathematical fact. Less possible results, less possible positions you have to take into account, so is more easy to play. And you cannot have a 100% certain result with official rules: in LL house rule, you know what is the exact amount needed to a desired effect, you have to send that units and no more, no less. It favors scripted strats and I find lame that you can strafe with tanks with 0% risk of being stucked because a too good roll  :-P

[Vareel]

@Funcioneta:

@Subotai:

Also, LL is less forgiving on mistakes than reg.dice, so how can LL be easier when it is easier in LL to lose b/c of mistakes???

Because LL no tech has less possible results than can happen. And that is a mathematical fact. Less possible results, less possible positions you have to take into account, so is more easy to play. And you cannot have a 100% certain result with official rules: in LL house rule, you know what is the exact amount needed to a desired effect, you have to send that units and no more, no less. It favors scripted strats and I find lame that you can strafe with tanks with 0% risk of being stucked because a too good roll  :-P

There is no doubt that LL does reduce the possible results, which has a few interesting effects.  I makes axis turn 1 much more devistating, it makes planes a bit more powerful, makes it easier to defend transports, and makes trading predictable.  But, the difference in results between LL to dice is much lower than tech or no tech.

[Lucifer]

@Funcioneta:

Because LL no tech has less possible results than can happen. And that is a mathematical fact. Less possible results, less possible positions you have to take into account, so is more easy to play.

Your statement is wrong, b/c it is not easy to play against good players, unless you’re planning to lose.

If your statement was true, it would also be true that in chess it is easy to play and win against grandmasters and world champions. There is currently about 565 chess grandmasters in world.

Good luck in beating them in an easy game with no randomness  :roll:

[Zhukov44]

I can agree the idea that in dice there are more variables so it’s tougher to plan ahead with precision.  In that sense it is “harder”.  But I wouldn’t say adding more variables is an argument for tech bettering the game…dice variables are one thing, tech variables are another.  Dice already adds enough variation that the best player won’t always win.  But dice also swings back and forth.

Tech means that in a typical game, one side or another will gain a built-in advantage.  If one can use a big tech properly, it’s frequently a decisive advantage.

Again, it’s a matter of taste.  I enjoy both dice and low luck.  I guess I feel that reacting to abnormal dice outcomes is part of the skill in Axis and Allies.  But tech is different…the skill involved is knowing how to use the tech properly.  For the reasons outlined previously, I don’t think the variation introduced by tech is worth the risk of an unbalanced, lopsided contest.

[Lucifer]

What the reg.dice+tech proponents seem to forget is that one side will get more or less hits than the opponent. And the chances for this to happen are much bigger than LL+no-tech.
Now, over 50% of all games are won by the best player, but to get more or less hits than the opponent is the same as getting a unit or cash bid which is much higher than needed to balance the game.

Players can’t control dice rolls, so hits allocated by dice rolls are not controlled by players, and players decisions, it is not controlled at all, it is pure randomness…!

What we all know is that we must use more overkill in both defense and attack in reg.dice, compared to LL. But if both players chose the same level of overkill, same amount of units, and same amount of attack points vs defense points, then battles will not be decided by the players, but by randomness. This means that players decisions have less impact than in a LL setting, b/c in LL setting there will be much less TUV tradings which are not decided by the players.

This again means that in games with high randomness, there will be a lot of TUV which changes sides which is not controlled by the players. And TUV (used efficiently) is the factor which decides which side wins the game.

In some games with high randomness settings, this means that one side will lose much more TUV than the other side, and if both players are fairly experienced and on the same level, this means that factors outside human control will decide game outcomes far often than in games with low randomness game-settings.

As for tech, if one player pays X amount of ipc for tech rolls, and gets HBs, or other power tech, then the other players should also have the option to buy that tech for the same amount of money that the first player used to get the tech.

HBs is the same as buying 1 bomber for 6 ipc, but with the current tech system you can’t make decisions for which techs to buy, actually you can’t buy them at all, you have to win techs in the tech lottery…!

It is a lottery system which decides when techs are achieved, and which ones. Getting a power tech early is exact the same as giving one side a bid which is much higher than needed to balance the game. And yet again, it is not the players decisions which decides if rolling for tech will pay of. Paying $120 in total tech rolls, and getting HBs in the 4th rnd is not worth it.
Same goes for getting a power tech early for little money. All this situations will heavy influence and decide who wins the game, assuming fairly experienced players. And yet again, players decisions have little impact on the outcome of the game.

How it is fun to play with game settings where randomness decides outcomes of games and not players decisions, based on skills and experience?

A lottery game is not a strategy game.

[Funcioneta]

@Subotai:

Your statement is wrong, b/c it is not easy to play against good players, unless you’re planning to lose.

If your statement was true, it would also be true that in chess it is easy to play and win against grandmasters and world champions. There is currently about 565 chess grandmasters in world.

Good luck in beating them in an easy game with no randomness  :roll:

Your comparison of LL and chess continues being wrong: chess is a non-dice game, its variance is based in multiple game positions, not in dices. Chess is difficult to master because has gazillions of possible positions but not due dice. Axis and allies is a dice based game, designed to have a inherent luck factor. That luck factor prevents scripted gamey strategies as ignore Japan and adds variance and difficulty to the game

Add dice to chess and you killed chess. Rest dice to A&A and you killed A&A. Another thing you cannot compare chess and A&A is that in chess a side with less material or even position can hope win the game or at least draw, so there is a point playing to the end. In A&A there is no draw and Larry quit the only timer game had in AAP40, so no sense of continue playing if one side has too big advantage

The main issue for LL, no tech fanboys is they fear dice destroy their scripted strats. A really good player will prevent abisal dice, even for tech, and if decides take the risk and lose he will assume it instead of complaining. You don’t want or know face the risk, OK, play LL, but still LL no tech is easier than advanced game (normal dice with tech) because it has less possible results

[Lucifer]

A&A has way more possible positions than chess, also in LL and no-tech. This is a mathematical fact. This is why it is not possible to code AI in A&A the same way as in chess, with even the most powerful computers in the world it takes months or years to calculate A&A positions that takes perhaps 5 minutes in chess.

A&A is still diced based even in LL and no-tech. Sometimes games are lost b/c of dice in LL-no-tech, but not as often as in reg.dice and/or tech.

The comparison with chess and A&A is not wrong, even if it is two different games. Sports analysts and lay men often compare different sports with each other, like soccer vs handball. Some factors are similar and other factors are very different.

I don’t fear dice destroying my scripted strats, and I have no scripted strats in any A&A game, I only got some first rnd standard opening moves. But after the very first rnd, every game is very different from each other. And it is not possible to predict dice outcomes in reg.dice or LL, b/c you don’t know what the opponent do, before after he has made his moves. Except for some obvious overall (superficials) strats that almost all players use, I always play according the opponents moves and buys etc.
The problem with reg.dice is not that they destroy my strats, if the opponent gets more hits than I, he will have a TUV advantage, and vice versa.

The only way to prevent bad dice, meaning the opponent gets more TUV b/c of randomness, is to use dice cheats.
There is no other way to prevent bad dice, resulting in one side gets more TUV b/c of dice rolls, not decisions.
This is also a formal mathematical truth. Just ask a mathematician.

Less or more possible results is totally irrelevant compared to how good or bad the opponent is. You don’t play against yourself, you play against an opponent.

It is a formal mathematical truth that the TUV changes between sides, are more random in a reg.dice and/or tech games than in a LL+no-tech game. The variations of dice rolls will result in change of TUV. With less variations, there is less TUV changing hands that is not caused by randomness, but by players decisions.

[gamerman01]

@Subotai:

HBs is the same as buying 1 bomber for 6 ipc

No it’s not.  If I could buy bombers for 6 IPC’s, for 12 IPC’s I could buy 2 bombers and send them to different places.  Also, 2 6 IPC bombers take two hits to destroy.  A 12 IPC heavy bomber takes one hit to destroy.

Heavy bombers are not effectively 6 IPC bombers, they would be some cost more than that.

Sub, you talk about tech like someone who hasn’t played it very much, and you even admitted that fact earlier.  Until you have played several games of A&A with regular dice and tech, I don’t think you can make accurate, informed conclusions.

[Lucifer]

@gamerman, tech is (increased) randomness…

As for the record, I practically quit playing with tech in Classic. And tech has not been fixed since, apart from AA42, b/c tech is removed :-)))

How hard is it to understand the difference between players decisions/moves and randomness?

Also for the record, I have been playing many games with reg.dice, before moving on to LL. Kinda same “concept” as I played mostly multiplayer before I moved on to playing one side by myself.

The reason for this was that I saw that when I played against players who were at my level of experience, (reasonable decent…?) that dice rolls played such a huge part of deciding the winner and loser that it was no longer fun to play with reg.dice.
This happens mostly in 1vs1 (experienced players) settings, you don’t have to be among the 5 best A&A players in the world to figure out that dice rolls have an enormous impact if both players have close to the same skills and experience level.

And gamerman, you talk like someone who doesn’t know what randomness means…  :roll: