We are all cheating…

[frood]

I just did one battle at a time though and found it easier to keep track and more fun, so I may do this anyway.

[ajgundam5]

Does it even makes a difference because if you roll one battle completely and it does bad you can still retreat from another battle early just as you would be able to do if you did them all at the same time?

[frimmel]

Most of those decisions have been made when you made your combat moves. It can make a difference but I don’t think it does very often.

[Baghdaddy]

Sequential combat resolution rather than parrallel combat resolution is the rule.

Knowing this, a skilled player will use his option to choose combats as the attacker to minimize risk.

For example, allow combats A  and B to be set up.
Combat A, even if wildly successful will still leave units badly exposed if Combat B does not succeed.
Obviously doing Combat B first will help the decision on whether Combat A should be pushed.

Another example is G1.
2 FTR in the combat against the British BB and 2 FTR in the combat into AE.  Both need to succeed if the Med is to be locked down.  Doing the higher risk one first allows you to chose not to push the other one if the first goes badly.  If the first goes well with minimal loses, taking more losses in the second is acceptable.

Now with the in house dicey and “tradition” of all round 1 at once, the above legal decisions are not as readily available.

Lets try a different example:
Combat D, E and F all need to succeed in order for any of them to be of value due to unit count, position, Victory cities, etc.  By rolling all in parrallel, the attacker can call of all three if any single one starts to go bad.

As for those of you who don’t normally retreat as the attacker if things go bad, songs are written about decisions like that.

[frimmel]

The question is if you should be allowed knowledge of the first round of combat A before combat B (the critical one) is completed or vice versa. Frankly I don’t think it is a problem. The proverbial mountain out of a mole hill. You have to go for 1 round in all of your combats.

[Nukchebi0]

@Baghdaddy:

Sequential combat resolution rather than parrallel combat resolution is the rule.

Knowing this, a skilled player will use his option to choose combats as the attacker to minimize risk.

For example, allow combats A  and B to be set up.
Combat A, even if wildly successful will still leave units badly exposed if Combat B does not succeed.
Obviously doing Combat B first will help the decision on whether Combat A should be pushed.

Another example is G1.
2 FTR in the combat against the British BB and 2 FTR in the combat into AE.  Both need to succeed if the Med is to be locked down.  Doing the higher risk one first allows you to chose not to push the other one if the first goes badly.  If the first goes well with minimal loses, taking more losses in the second is acceptable.

Now with the in house dicey and “tradition” of all round 1 at once, the above legal decisions are not as readily available.

Lets try a different example:
Combat D, E and F all need to succeed in order for any of them to be of value due to unit count, position, Victory cities, etc.  By rolling all in parrallel, the attacker can call of all three if any single one starts to go bad.

As for those of you who don’t normally retreat as the attacker if things go bad, songs are written about decisions like that.

Charge of the Light Brigade, yep.

[frood]

If anything, sequential combat is an advantage - you can see how one battle turns out completely before even beginning another one, rather than only realizing after two or three rounds of combat in each battle that you are in trouble. After two rounds it might be too late to retreat, it would be better after one round.

So I’d say forget this rule - if people want to shoot themselves in the foot by blindly rushing through all their combat at once rather than first seeing how the critical ones turn out, let them.

[Baghdaddy]

As long as both players are in agreement, it works.

If one player is expecting combat to be sequential and the other expects it to be parrallel - series, there is a problem.

[akreider2]

I think rolling one battle at a time makes the most sense.  It is a lot easier to follow what is going on.

[newpaintbrush]

@froodster:

I was looking through the LHTR rules for something else and came across this little gem - separate combats must be resolved sequentially. IE. you must completely finish one battle before moving on to the next.

Now, custom here seems to be (at least using the inhouse roller) to roll round 1 of all your battles at once, and then decide which ones to continue.

Either we have a house rule at A&A.org that this is allowed, or players could legitimately object in tournament play and potentially force a re-roll of a whole round of combat.

A house rule it be.

NAUGHTY BOYS!  AND GIRLS!

Cheating earns you PUNNISHMENT!  (agh, the pun pain!)

[jsp4563]

It is cheating, the RULES stipulate each battle must be resolved before you move to the next battle.  It never really use to be an issue because almost all combat was handled through a 3rd party dice roller.  Now that the in-house dice roller is becoming more widely used, it’s become an issue.  When I use in-house dice, I always resolve combat before moving onto the next battle.  I think that should be the standard policy.  Just as it is standard policy that you post your Buys and Combat Moves before you move on to combat resolution.  In a FTF game would you allow your opponent to roll round 1 combat for every battle before moving onto round 2 combat?

[frood]

Even though it is against the rules, it does not really confer any advantage to roll combat this way.

Obviously, for certain battles, it is helpful to know how another one will turn out before you decide whether to push the current battle. However, one must also keep in mind that the attacker can choose the order in which to resolve their battles. When you have one battle that depends on another, clearly it is best to know completely how one turned out before even starting the other. So the attacker gets a bigger advantage from resolving their battles sequentially in an order of their own choosing, as the rules allow.

Now personally I like to roll one battle at a time anyway, it’s more excitement and easier to keep track of what’s happening. Anywho, is there a “House Rules Committee” that can pronounce on this? I think it was that if both players agree, you can do it either way.

[Guest]

Each method confers a slightly different advantage, though the actual LHTR/OM rule of comepleting each combat before going to the next actually confers MORE of an advantage than rolling the combat all in one mass (as you could if you made multiple combat entries using the in-site dicey).

I agree with Dan.  There is no real advantage conveyed when rolling every combat at once (afterall, combat is simultaneous under the rules…)

I think it should be left up to the players in a given game if they want to to one combat at a time (such as occurs with DAAK, Frood, or can be done with the in-site), or if they want to allow all of the combat to be entered and the coding for various battles keyed in to a single post with the in-site dicey.

If players cannot agree, then the default position should be one battle at a time.

[Wazzup]

The other thing I noticed is that it states that Attacker/Defender is considered simultaneous.

Thus, order of loss would only apply for opening fire, then, after both attacking and defending dice have been rolled.

I know that it’s been a practice to roll attacker only first (units other than opening fire), then ask for ool, then roll defender.  I will have to remember this.

[rjclayton]

I think the way you’ve been doing it is correct, rolling attacker’s dice, selecting defender casualties, then rolling defender’s dice.

[jsp4563]

@Wazzup:

The other thing I noticed is that it states that Attacker/Defender is considered simultaneous.

Thus, order of loss would only apply for opening fire, then, after both attacking and defending dice have been rolled.

I know that it’s been a practice to roll attacker only first (units other than opening fire), then ask for ool, then roll defender.  I will have to remember this.

Actually the rules stipulate that after opening fire, the attacker rolls, defender declares their casualties, the defender roles, Attacker declares casualites, all declared casualties are removed then move on to the next round.

[Guest]

JSP is correct here, for both OM and LHTR

[dezrtfish]

You guys are killin me, I suppose there is some small advantage but damn games already take forever in the forums.

[frood]

@jsp4563:

@Wazzup:

The other thing I noticed is that it states that Attacker/Defender is considered simultaneous.

Thus, order of loss would only apply for opening fire, then, after both attacking and defending dice have been rolled.

I know that it’s been a practice to roll attacker only first (units other than opening fire), then ask for ool, then roll defender.  I will have to remember this.

Actually the rules stipulate that after opening fire, the attacker rolls, defender declares their casualties, the defender roles, Attacker declares casualites, all declared casualties are removed then move on to the next round.

Hadn’t thought about this from the defenders perspective. If I want to insist on my right to declare casualties round-by-round, do I want to have seen the other battles fully concluded first?

[jsp4563]

The rules seem pretty straight forward.

All combat takes place at the same time, but each affected territory or sea zone is resolved separately and completely before beginning to resolve another combat. The attacker decides the order. No new units may enter as reinforcements once combat has begun.

While I haven’t been over to the Harris site to research this, I doubt that it is merely an “Ease of play” issue.  That fact that it’s spelled out in the rules would seem to indicate that it was a deliberate choice as an intregal part of the game mechanics.

Prehaps one of the Harris guys will drop by and “wax elleoquent” on the background of this particular part of the rules.