The Psychology of the Conduct Combat Phase


  • Punk is not a man.


  • Punk is not a man.


  • @Zhukov44:

    One criticism I have is the “good dice face” section is insignificant….eg how you react visually to bad dice does not have much bearing on the outcome of the game.  It’s true that if you stay confident and upbeat about winning (even if you’re losing) and your opponent senses this then it might have some bearing, but the main way being confident helps you is by keeping you from making rash or bad decisions when things go awry.  But in general, your emotive reactions to dicings are not likely to give your opponent any info as to your strategy.  In this particular respect, A&A is more like chess than poker.

    Interesting stuff overall.  Staying calm when you get bad dice is a really important factor in competitive A&A play.  A dicing or an unexpected tech outcome can have a way of ‘rattling’ players.

    As the OP discusses, it’s easy to fall into various mental traps

    -'He just got lucky so I should take a risk and it should even out" (wrong–don’t take the risk unless it’s the smart play from an objective standpoint)
    -‘I’m in really desperate shape so i need to take this risk’ (maybe, but you have to make sure you are making the assessment with a clear head)

    You get the idea–avoid mysticism and fatalism.  Stick to logic and technique.

    It’s common sense really.  Just like it’s important for real life generals to stay calm and objective when unexpected things happen, it’s important for A&A players to keep a clear head and not make battle decisions based on the heat of the moment.

    Like!  :-)


  • neat stuff…… one day, me and my uncle were playing a game of global, and he pointed out that whenever we were about to roll dice for something i really wanted, i would crack my back. i had never realized this before, and realized later, that this was true. my subconscious had me do a signal that gave all of my plans away to my uncle… ive been working to stop myself from doing this since then


  • @thatonekid:

    neat stuff…… one day, me and my uncle were playing a game of global, and he pointed out that whenever we were about to roll dice for something i really wanted, i would crack my back. i had never realized this before, and realized later, that this was true. my subconscious had me do a signal that gave all of my plans away to my uncle… ive been working to stop myself from doing this since then

    Or like Make_It_Round said, crack your back when it’s not something you really want.  Give out enough false signals, and he won’t know when you really want it anymore?


  • yeah, i do that sometimes, and sometimes i crack my back puporsely when its something i really want, but i make it extremely obvious. im like “oh ready, there goes, just cracked my back. wink wink


  • Great article. When I’m in a ‘gotta-win’ or ‘I’m the best’ mood, the dice (bad luck) will usually get to me and definitely throw me off my game, I call it the black dog. From my experience, it’s very hard to get rid of it once it’s there, you can only witness the damage (panic, forget things, bad decision making, etc.). So, I try to adjust the attitude at the start of the game, try to be humble and expect bad rolls and see it as part of the game, the fog of war. With that said, it doesn’t hurt to show a little emotion to make it fun, it’s still a game after all.

    As far as the comparison to poker or chess, I too think that it’s more like chess, everything is there for everybody to see. I try not to read too much into my opponent’s ‘habits’ and concentrate on the board. The reading mind game can be a distraction in itself.

  • Sponsor

    I want to read it because it looks compelling, however, can we get rid of all the black question blemishes?


  • @Young:

    I want to read it because it looks compelling, however, can we get rid of all the black question blemishes?

    This has been accomplished.

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  • '15 '14

    Sorry for bumping old articles but I know stumbled across this forum.

    In the end I can just second Zhukov. I guess this article is nicely written and an interesting read, but I am afraid in the end it  kind of bloats the psychological aspects of the game which I think just as simple as Zhukov already explained.

    One could probably highlight that I think there is a tendency of “bringing a battle to the end” especially when dices roll very bad which one could fight against.

    Example: You try to wipe of Chines units with air only. You have a horrible first round losing a lot of air and making way less hits than expected.
    –> Many people might be tempted to think “Cmon, I either have a great next round or the game is over”
    One tends to force a fatal decision: Either I am back on track or I can resign the entire game and cut any suffering from being in a bad position.

    The thing is: I think in the heat of the moment one tends to evaluate the overall situation after a retreat worse then it is in reality.

    Often the winning chances are still better be accepting bad dices, retreat from the battles and find the best (often still risky) ways to equalize compared to choosing to continue hoping for extremely good dices which imo often as a worse expected value.

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