Research Technology Dice

@midnight_reaper that’s a cool idea and I might have to try it. However I don’t like the idea of getting advancements for free, which is why I like some sort of facility to buy. Since the G40 R&D board seems to have the better advances on one side I’d say you have to roll a 1-4 to get the 1 column, and 5-6 to get the second. Maybe even through in an added cost to get 1-3 & 4-6. But again with that, I think countries should have to build the facilities in their capitol instead of anywhere and starting with them.

Research is super fun, but can seriously unbalance the game if a player gets lucky with their first couple rolls. Therefore, we play that the player chooses which tech to research, however better techs have a lower chance of being successfully researched.

The mechanism of researching is the same, you buy research tokens (dice rolls), roll for success, if none hit the tokens are banked for next turn and can roll again at no cost, if successful the tech is gained and the tokens are removed and must be rebought to do more research . The cost of each token (die roll) is increased to 8 IPC (normally is 5). But, tier 1 techs will be successfully researched with a roll of 3 or lower, tier 2 with roll of 2 or lower, and tier 3 with roll of 1:

(3/6 chance) 1. adv artillery, inc factory prod . || mech infantry, war bonds
(2/6 chance) 2. long-range aircraft, radar . . . . || paratroopers, rockets
(1/6 chance) 3. heavy bombers, super subs . . || jet fighters, improved shipyards

To balance out how multiple techs are gained, we separated complimentary tech into opposing groups to prevent them from easily being researched too quickly back-back and becoming OP. To research a tier 2 or 3 tech at least one tech from the tier below must be already obtained from WITHIN the branch. Note, the techs are separated into left and right branches.

So to get heavy bombers (left, tier 3), you could research adv artillery or factory prod (left, tier 1) then radar or long-range air (left, tier 2). Then, to get jet fighters (right, tier 3), you’d have to also research 2 corresponding lower tier techs in the right branch, because adv artillery/radar/etc. don’t count towards the necessary lower tier techs for the right branch.

Thoughts?

Some very excellent ideas here, thanks General for pointing me to this section!

@toblerone77:

@Uncrustable:

I almost exclusively play using low luck dice

What’s the formula for that? Do you play that F2F? I’m not totally familiar with low luck. I’m looking to get some F2F games going during the holidays.

Thanks.

I play F2F very rarely, but i do when i can. I mostly play online.

But LL is pretty simple, add up the combat values of your units, divide by 6, roll for the remainder. Battles involving submarines sometimes get a little interesting
Even AA rolls use LL. So if your attacking with 5 fighters roll one dice a hit of 5 or less one of the planes dies.
i prefer to remove some of the luck and rely more on long term strategy deciding the outcomes of games, rather than a few crazy rolls.

Of course a casual f2f game will almost always be with regular dice.

LL dice is played differently from regular dice though, different strategies, as you can actually look quite far ahead and predict outcomes. It comes down to efficiency and mistakes.

This is based on the assumption that if one nation gets an arms breakthrough, the odds are that it will be easier for other nations will get it too, by copying it. Â

We have done this before - at the start of the game pass out a “copy” card to each player.

Say your opponent gets something really good like heavy bombers, or the Atomic Bomb or some house rule thing that could wreck you. Roll for an arms breakthrough as normal. If you get a six, instead of rolling for which random breakthrough you get, you now have the option of playing your “copy” card and copying something that is already on the board.

This helps keep the game competitive and less luck driven. It also adds a bit of strategy. Do you want to use your card to copy those super subs now or hold onto it in case someone gets long range aircraft? Decisions, decisions…

For long lists of custom Arms Breakthroughs, pass out two cards each.   Â

NM found it:

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/HBG-Fuel-Markers-Acrylic-_p_804.html

Its very important that the prices are also different for each nation when you use D12.

@gamerman01:

Good, thoughtful post, Crit.  I just finished a game with neutered tech, and I didn’t like it.  We didn’t get much (probably because we didn’t invest as much, because there wasn’t any awesome tech) and it wasn’t a factor until I got paras with Germany (was not neutered) and took over the UK.

I must add in that game I has no other choice than letting UK poorly defended against paras or I would lose naval race! You also spent 3 dices on tech so I have no complains being paratrooped. I risked and I lost, nothing to complain