• I come from playing a lot of chess over the years and though I have played games that use dice (Monopoly, etc.) I haven’t had much experience in larger scale games that require so much from the “good roll factor.”

    After playing Axis and Allies for a few games, it has made me think that the dice play almost too big a roll. I can have a massive army that should win, but might not if I get bad rolls and my opponent gets good roles. I understand that can occur in real combat and that small units can destroy or withstand bigger one (Thermopylae, for example.) But the game still feels like too much dice and not enough strategy are involved. It seems that even the best strategy can fail.

    Not slamming the game. I like it a lot. Just hoping for comments.

    Thanks.


  • Your assessments are correct. I would argue it’s 90% luck and 10% skill, unless players are on completely different skill levels. The trick is to play the luck factor in your favor, pick the battles with the greater odds of success. The more luck you get early on the lower risk you need to take in subsequent battles, and vice versa for your opponent.

    I used to see it as a disadvantage that so much luck is involved. You risk ending a great winning statistic by losing to bad dice etc. If you are a competitive chess player, this probably isn’t your game. Now I see the luck factor as a good thing, it keeps games dynamic, opens up for a more fluid strategy where you rarely play the same game over. It gives newbies great odds of taking down the big shots, but also gives the big guns an excuse to point at for their loss. It’s like IQ tests, we all want to have the highest possible score but most of us are disappointed at the results we get. You might be better off not having a definite score set in stone, or having your “tactics” smashed to the ground.

    There are some aspects of the luck factor I dislike still. There is a too high chance of getting ridiculous results, I think someone on these forums managed to miss on 20-30 rolls on defense for one round. There are also too many smaller battles on the early rounds that if gone bad accumulate and screw the rest of the game over, unless they are equally divided by the opponents. LowLuck is not the answer(IMHO), it adds nothing to the smaller battles and practically removes the luck factor for the larger battles. (That are so exciting to roll!)

    If you play 100 games among peers and win more than 50% of them you’re doing something right in terms of strategy. Or are you in the category of Kasparov or Deep Blue?  :-)


  • In our face-to-face games, we play a version of Low Luck called a dice average.  “like” units can take their average hits, rolling any odd extras.  for example, I have 6 inf and 5 tanks attacking.  I can request a dice average and get 3 hits (1 for inf, 2 for tanks) and roll 1 die @3 for the odd tank.  The same works on defense.  Each country can take 1 dice average battle per turn.

    To offset this exact guranteed results/outcome, we allow an opponent 3 ‘must roll’ cards (and you get one additional card every 4 rounds, starting in round 6). They work in this fashion:

    Let’s say I have 9 Russia inf in ukraine. Germany has ample units to do a hit and run: 6 inf, 14 tanks.

    LL would say: 8 hits on offense, 3 hits on defense.

    Germany would w/d, gaining 5 inf in the exchange at no risk. In our face to face games, I could play a ‘must roll’ card and force germany to risk the chance of getting stuck if they roll more than 8 hits round 1.

    There are no guarentees in war. These must roll cards eliminate this problem with LL.


  • @Sankt:

    Your assessments are correct. I would argue it’s 90% luck and 10% skill, unless players are on completely different skill levels.

    Totally disagree. Part of the skill of this game is devising a strategy that will still win you games despite bad luck. At some point, too much bad luck cannot be overcome. But too many people are quick to blame bad dice when they lose, rather than bad strategy.

    Squirecam


  • @squirecam:

    @Sankt:

    Your assessments are correct. I would argue it’s 90% luck and 10% skill, unless players are on completely different skill levels.

    Totally disagree. Part of the skill of this game is devising a strategy that will still win you games despite bad luck. At some point, too much bad luck cannot be overcome. But too many people are quick to blame bad dice when they lose, rather than bad strategy.

    Squirecam

    It’s G1. You send 3 figs, 1 sub against the lone UK BB and attack Egypt with a number of units(varies depending on bid etc.). Only 1 of your figs hit, UK BB hits. Second round it is destroyed but scores another hit. Germany down 1 fig. Egypt battle goes sour, cleared but in UK hands. Or you can sacrifice a fig to take the territory. Both are considered good strategy, both have a good risk to fail. If either one or both fails do you really think you are going to win over a skilled opponent? Hate to break it to you, you’re going to lose.


  • @Sankt:

    If either one or both fails do you really think you are going to win over a skilled opponent? Hate to break it to you, you’re going to lose.

    I can not say I agree with you 100%.

    Are the odds now stacked against you?  Certainly.

    Is a loss inevitable… not necessarily so.

    What goes around comes around, and the same is true for the dice.

    You could get yourself into a position where another battle with about even odds leans greatly towards your side and now the game is back to even.  If you get behind, you should play differently, inviting a bit more risk into your moves…to give the dice a chance to come back to you.  You can do this as a general move or to set-up one big battle gambit.


  • I think it’s pretty close-minded and pessimistic to state that you’re going to lose the game because a battle or two at the start of the game goes sour.

    Luck goes both ways.  If you give up because things don’t go perfectly your way in round 1, that’s going to be an awfully short game every time, especially if your opponent feels the same way.  One of you is likely to feel that their battles were less than optimum in round 1…

    ~Josh


  • @OutsideLime:

    Luck goes both ways.  If you give up because things don’t go perfectly your way in round 1, that’s going to be an awfully short game every time, especially if your opponent feels the same way.  One of you is likely to feel that their battles were less than optimum in round 1…

    So then you agree luck is a deciding factor. Unless luck swings heavily the other way, and soon, it will be a losing game. Given average results for the remainder of the game Germany will lose.

    But you’re right, I am a pessimistic(realistic) person. I’ve given up games early that have no hope of getting back on track. I will keep playing for a while hoping for just those lucky breaks, but when they fail to appear why waste time on “tactics” you know can’t work.

    90% luck, 10% skill.


  • @Sankt:

    @OutsideLime:

    Luck goes both ways.  If you give up because things don’t go perfectly your way in round 1, that’s going to be an awfully short game every time, especially if your opponent feels the same way.  One of you is likely to feel that their battles were less than optimum in round 1…

    So then you agree luck is a deciding factor.

    90% luck, 10% skill.

    Sure, ANY game that involves dice affecting the outcome has an element of luck (or more realistically speaking, results outside 2 standard deviations)

    I do NOT agree it’s 90% luck though.  Among players of even skill/experience level (is that even possible?), I would say perhaps 60% luck, 40% skill.

    You need to properly:
    1).  Anticipate disaster:  CONTINGENCIES!  Don’t leave your air force out to dry if the 4% outcome occurs.
    2).  Alter your game plan to react to the dice: Be FLEXIBLE and think a bit out of the box when the dice do not cooperate.
                    This works BOTH ways:  taking advantage of the good dice as well as covering the bad dice.

    You are admittedly relatively new to the game, so have some faith in the veterans of this game.  Dice b*ing is common in this game… and I admit there are times when no matter what you do, the dice will not let you win.

    If this invariability is still too much for you to deal (with your chess background), I would suggest you either play Low Luck games or some other variant that relies more on strategy rather than dice roll…

    Like A&ARe (Enhanced).  See: http://boards.avalonhill.com/showthread.php?t=15339  if interested.


  • my strategies revolve around me ALWAYS rolling below average, so i am never suprised when it occurs (which is often  :-P) and if i do roll above average i am in a commanding position  :mrgreen:

    we have one guy in our group who always expects to roll BETTER than average, you can guess who usually wins/loses :wink:


  • So then you agree luck is a deciding factor.

    No, not at all.  I agree that luck is a factor, yes.  Not the deciding factor by a long-shot.  Advanced players at this game will beat inexperienced players (players familiar with all the rules and basic strategies) every time.  This is not because they are luckier or not, but because they are better at adapting strategies to the luck they get.

    Don’t get me wrong - I too have found myself staring in horror at three out of three bombers exploding suddenly over the skies of Berlin before they had a chance to drop their payloads.  But I have also cheered when my single unescorted transport knocked down two fighters and lived to continue service.  Luck is a big part of the emotional heart of the game.  I wouldn’t ever play low-luck or no-luck, but that’s just me.

    And you can’t ever say “given average results for the remainder of the game”.  There is no such thing.  Averages are an artificial construction used to help make predictions, that’s it.  Let’s say we are flipping four coins.  The average result of the series, if you were to run 1000 series (the accepted minimum standard for generating statistical averages) will be two heads, two tails.  That’s easy enough to calculate.  Now try it.  There is actually only a 37.5% chance that you will get two heads and two tails.  (6 permutations out of 16 possibilities.) You are almost twice as likely to get a result that defies the predicted average, than the predicted average itself.

    And this is in a simple game with only four coins with two states each.  Now apply it to a complex game with hundreds or thousands of dice rolls, with six states each.  All of a sudden, the “average” result becomes an entirely impossible thing to actually achieve.  It is good as a guideline for determining general strategy, but we are not playing 1000 games and determining the average.  We are playing one game.  We have the entire range of possible outcomes to potentially occur.

    There will always be variations in any game of any complexity that deviate from the projected average.  It is the task of the player to manage the non-luck-related aspects at his command in order to benefit more, or suffer less, from the impacts of that variety.

    Adaptibility, flexibility, fluidity.  This stuff wins wars, my friend!

    ~Josh


  • @Sankt:

    @squirecam:

    @Sankt:

    Your assessments are correct. I would argue it’s 90% luck and 10% skill, unless players are on completely different skill levels.

    Totally disagree. Part of the skill of this game is devising a strategy that will still win you games despite bad luck. At some point, too much bad luck cannot be overcome. But too many people are quick to blame bad dice when they lose, rather than bad strategy.

    Squirecam

    It’s G1. You send 3 figs, 1 sub against the lone UK BB and attack Egypt with a number of units(varies depending on bid etc.). Only 1 of your figs hit, UK BB hits. Second round it is destroyed but scores another hit. Germany down 1 fig. Egypt battle goes sour, cleared but in UK hands. Or you can sacrifice a fig to take the territory. Both are considered good strategy, both have a good risk to fail. If either one or both fails do you really think you are going to win over a skilled opponent? Hate to break it to you, you’re going to lose.

    It’s still G1. I’ve had much worse done to me, against skilled tournament opponents, and still won.

    Perhaps you should not give up so easily.

  • Moderator

    I don’t think luck is the deciding factor or even plays that big of a roll.

    I tend to follow this philosophy (I think it was Agent who mentioned it to me), That no matter what you are going to do you will lose 20-25% due to dice, your goal should be to maximize the 75-80% of the games you can win.

    This is why the best players in most clubs tend to have about 70-80% win ratios.  Given enough games I don’t think there are too many 90% winners out there.  Yes here and there maybe, but overall, if you win ~75%  (even 70%+) of your games you’re pretty darn good NOT lucky.

    The key is to recognize that you simply aren’t going to win every game, you certainly try to, but if you lose the 4 ftr, 1 sub vs. bb battle, hey you lost, but that doesn’t make the attack a bad move.  And given enough games you are going to win that battle waaaay more than you’ll lose it.

    Personally, this is where I like LowLuck, as I’ve used it to develop strats that I know work consistantly and will work in ADS, but a good ADS strat will not necessarily work in LL.

    I don’t play a lot of LL anymore (esp since moving to Revised), but have used it as a vital learning tool.

    So, if I had to put numbers on it, I’d say the game is 80% skill and 20% luck (or dice).

  • 2007 AAR League

    If you have two players of equal skill, the game is mostly luck. But a novice player won’t beat an expert player with dice alone - the expert player will avoid situations where he is vulnerable to the result of a few bad dice. For instance, he won’t leave Germany under-defended esp. with the Jap bomber parked there (fond memory for DarthMaximus I’m sure - he blowed me up good that time)


  • @froodster:

    If you have two players of equal skill, the game is mostly luck.

    No, its not. Although you never have 2 people of exactly equal skill, you can have 2 really good players. It is the player who is better at taking advantage of good dice and minimizing losses from bad dice that will win most of the games.

    Some of the “skill” in this game is developing a strategy to deal with the dice. For some reason, many people cannot deal with the fact they are not as good. They want excuses as to why they lost. Which is why sports fans blame a “ref” rather than their teams fumble or bad plan. Same that people blame bad dice rather than bad strategy.

    Take 2 equal players, only one is agressive and one conservative. The agressive player does fine when dice are in his favor. He can also “get lucky” with a big risky attack. But by being risky, he constantly gives his opponent a chance for the dice to turn around.

    The conservative playe, OTHO, once he gets an edge, will do everything possibe to prevent the dice from switching back. Less risky attacks than his opponent.

    They are both good players. But the better dice manager will win most of these matchups.

  • 2007 AAR League

    Equal skill means equal skill at managing the dice.

    Assume I played myself. Both sides played by virtually identical players. Or better yet, the computer plays itself. The winner will be determined purely by luck, as there is no other difference between the players.

    Of course, the game may not be perfectly balanced, or the AI’s strategy may be more suited to one side or the other.

    Assume two players with 95% win records. When they play each other, it’s hard to say who will win - it will mostly depend on luck, and they can expect to win/lose 50% of the games they play against each other.


  • @axis_roll:

    You are admittedly relatively new to the game, so have some faith in the veterans of this game.  Dice b*ing is common in this game… and I admit there are times when no matter what you do, the dice will not let you win.

    If this invariability is still too much for you to deal (with your chess background), I would suggest you either play Low Luck games or some other variant that relies more on strategy rather than dice roll…

    Haha, you are wonderfully arrogant! I know I’m relatively new to the game, but winning that doubles tournament has got to count for something? And getting to the bronze final in last year’s singles? (Though I withdrew prior to the match)

    Regretfully I have no chess background and I dislike LowLuck in its current form. Something called MediumLuck or something would be more my thing, but I’m settled with luck being a big part of the game. 90% to be precise!  :-D


  • @froodster:

    Equal skill means equal skill at managing the dice.

    Assume I played myself. Both sides played by virtually identical players. Or better yet, the computer plays itself. The winner will be determined purely by luck, as there is no other difference between the players.

    If “you” played “yourself”, eventually one of you will make a tactical/strategic mistake. Mistakes happen in every game. [Dont tell me you never make a mistake] You may put too few pieces in a territory to block, or have some units out of position, or fail to take a key territory.

    Therefore, the “other you” will take advantage of this mistake.

    When you throw two INT and go 3/15 on third down, it was not a referee call that lost the game. It was “you”.
    Similarly, when you make tactical mistake, and your opponent capitalizes, it was “you”.

    As for a “computer”, the Axis & Allies AI has always been piss poor. So that argument fails too. If ever a great AI is developed (wont ever happen in my lifetime) let me know.


  • @squirecam:

    No, its not. Although you never have 2 people of exactly equal skill, you can have 2 really good players. It is the player who is better at taking advantage of good dice and minimizing losses from bad dice that will win most of the games.

    Some of the “skill” in this game is developing a strategy to deal with the dice. For some reason, many people cannot deal with the fact they are not as good. They want excuses as to why they lost. Which is why sports fans blame a “ref” rather than their teams fumble or bad plan. Same that people blame bad dice rather than bad strategy.

    Take 2 equal players, only one is agressive and one conservative. The agressive player does fine when dice are in his favor. He can also “get lucky” with a big risky attack. But by being risky, he constantly gives his opponent a chance for the dice to turn around.

    The conservative playe, OTHO, once he gets an edge, will do everything possibe to prevent the dice from switching back. Less risky attacks than his opponent.

    They are both good players. But the better dice manager will win most of these matchups.

    So in your mind the conservative player is the better dice handler? You are mistaken, in order to win the most games you need to play the odds where available considering the pay-offs. Some territories are worth more than others. That shifts throughout the game and also by what units are defending the territory. Egypt is a key area in the early rounds but may often lose its importance later on.

    You see it as the losers blame the dice instead of their(presumed) bad tactics. It goes the other way too, the winner thinks he has a great strat and is a better player than his opponent when in fact he got lucky. I think most of the games are like this, a little shift in the luck and the game could have gone the other way. Hence luck playing a major role. And don’t get yourselves so worked up guys, I never said that was necessarily a bad thing. I agree with Craig above, a static game with an “über strategy” wouldn’t be very satisfying. The only thing I dislike are those rounds 1 and 2 dice fracks as they just leave you no room whatsoever to maneuver. (yeah, yeah, some of you are just so uber good you work around it anyway. I don’t buy it.)

    And as you mention, this conservative player will be able to avoid mosts risks once he gets an advantage giving him a great chance of winning the game. You must take those early risks(attack Ukraine for instance or that lone uk BB) or you will never get that advantage. If you just roll with battles with 90% certainty you will not get that great win percentage of 80%. It’s definitely a strategy game, but between “equally skilled opponents” luck is the deciding factor by as much as 90%.


  • @Sankt:

    So in your mind the conservative player is the better dice handler? You are mistaken, in order to win the most games you need to play the odds where available considering the pay-offs. Some territories are worth more than others. That shifts throughout the game and also by what units are defending the territory. Egypt is a key area in the early rounds but may often lose its importance later on.

    That is NOT what I said. I said the better dice handler would win. An agressive player can use a good run of dice just like a conservative player can recover better from a bad run. It could be either of the 2. But between them, that person will win most games.

    You see it as the losers blame the dice instead of their(presumed) bad tactics. It goes the other way too, the winner thinks he has a great strat and is a better player than his opponent when in fact he got lucky. I think most of the games are like this, a little shift in the luck and the game could have gone the other way.

    Rarely have I seen this at tournaments. Players can have a close game, but mostly one party is clearly ahead.

    The only thing I dislike are those rounds 1 and 2 dice fracks as they just leave you no room whatsoever to maneuver. (yeah, yeah, some of you are just so uber good you work around it anyway. I don’t buy it.)

    I could care less whether you “buy” it. It happens. From personal experience, an Origins opponent took Ukraine with USSR, AFTER I added 2 inf as a bid, with NO GERMAN HITS. The German counter into Ukraine was REPULSED. Egypt was empty and Germany had no fleet due to the forced UKR counter attack.

    I won that game. Not because the dice magically turned, but because I was better. Sorry that you quit instead of taking the opportunity to treat it as a challenge, “how well can I do given these conditions”.

    And as you mention, this conservative player will be able to avoid mosts risks once he gets an advantage giving him a great chance of winning the game.

    I agree once a conservative player has a lead, he has an advantage.

    You must take those early risks(attack Ukraine for instance or that lone uk BB) or you will never get that advantage. If you just roll with battles with 90% certainty you will not get that great win percentage of 80%. It’s definitely a strategy game, but between “equally skilled opponents” luck is the deciding factor by as much as 90%.

    Disagree. Attacking UKR, (especially with a bid, but even without) is a risky move. You do so, you run the risk of losing or the dice going badly. However, had you moved all your troops into west russia, you have an overwhelming chance to kill the Germans in ONE ROUND, and REDUCE the hits coming back at you.

    I say that the WR only strategy is better. Therefore, why people who use it probably win more than you do.

    Similarly, attacking the BB wth 3 Fighters + sub is MUCH different than attacking with the BB+trans+sub+fighters and taking Gibraltar. Again, a better strategy.

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