League General Discussion Thread

@axis-dominion what is the importance of a few ELO points when your pretty much guaranteed to be a top 3 ranked playoff qualifier every year? And those bad odds battles will go in your favor more often than not.

@gamerman01 said in Post League Game Results Here:

You did the community a service, Peirce’s rating is leaping to it’s rightful level faster, and others are getting a clearer picture of what they’re up against.

And when I beat him, I’ll get more points

LOL, yes i did you and others currently against him a favor, assuming you don’t get as f/lucked as i did.

from his moves i think he is a decently good player, i don’t doubt that. but luck very much decided our game unfortunately, and there were enough weaknesses in his play that if it were not for that level of luck, i’m confident the outcome would be very different. i would agree with you if going forward he did not depend on luck so much but played the odds and positioning as any other top player does.

in lobby play, you swing and hit, and you swing and miss, and then you miss miss hit miss, it doesn’t matter, you just come back the next day and play for fun. your results are not recorded.

in league play, it’s not the same. you quickly learn that swinging might get you a quick boost with an occasional lucky shot against a top tier player, but eventually, like ME, pacifier, and ABH who like to take those swings found out, you’ll rarely get near the top and stick around there. most likely the best you’ll get to is tier E, if you have some skill to go along with all that swinging.

don’t get me wrong, players like these guys are super fun to play against, just sucks that the league structure/rating is such that it’s very punishing if you’re a top player and get caught in their lucky swing.

Throwing in my 2 cents here, even though it is not my game, since this is being discussed in an open forum.

As I said in my thesis, the less experienced player should play more risky to beat top opponents. Since @axis-dominion you are so good, your opponent really has to go for that low risk battle to beat you so you should not be surprised or upset when he does go for it and gets lucky. If he does not play risky he is probably going to lose 100% of the time so going for a 30% battle to win the game is way more than he could win if he didn’t play risky.

BTW, I will point out that a 30% battle is not that risky. You are barely winning more than 2 times to every 1 times he wins.

Also, that -32 is the AVERAGE TUV result. Therefore, it is assuming you win 7 times to his 3 times. For a more accurate view of the possible ramifications if your opponent gets lucky, as @Stucifer referred to, you should look at when he wins the number of units he has left over. Then compare his TUV loss without losing those units versus you losing all your units and you will see the result is vastly different than the average TUV loss.

Finally, in my opinion, if you two do decide to play on and change any results it should only be for fun. The game should absolutely be recorded as a win for @peirce as far as League Play is concerned. He took the risk and it paid off. He should not be punished by being a nice guy and having his good luck reversed. I doubt anyone would be asking for any changes if it failed miserably.

@AndrewAAGamer said in Post League Game Results Here:

Throwing in my 2 cents here, even though it is not my game, since this is being discussed in an open forum.

Also, that -32 is the AVERAGE TUV result. Therefore, it is assuming you win 7 times to his 3 times. For a more accurate view of the possible ramifications if your opponent gets lucky, as @Stucifer referred to, you should look at when he wins the number of units he has left over. Then compare his TUV loss without losing those units versus you losing all your units and you will see the result is vastly different than the average TUV loss.

understood. i understand what an average is. but to instead get 138? i think chatgpt said it best:

and that’s on top of all the luck he got earlier in the game, which was quite substantial. as i said, in all my vast number of games played in the league thus far, i don’t think i’ve had a game where my opponent had as much luck against me as in this one.

Yeah, I get it, dice suck and it hurts when it goes against you.

Perhaps you could put it in the Hall of Shame to try and lessen your pain?

I have one posted there that cost me the yearly Admiral’s Title playoffs on Days of Infamy for the original Pacific game. Where I had 2 infantry and 2 artillery attacking a single infantry on the last battle of the game to win the game. I rolled 10 2’s in a row, all missing, and my opponent rolled 4 hits in a row.

According to Chatgbt that is a 1 in 5,000 occurance.

except that is not my main point.

instead

1. a top player gains almost nothing from winning against a much lower ranked player whereas the lower ranked player loses almost nothing from losing, so they have every incentive to swing and occasionally hit it big, and for the top player it’s just a poor exchange, win or lose.
2. a decently skilled player coming in new should reconsider going for lucky swings if they really want to attain and sustain a top tier ranking. i’ve seen this time and again, they end up being middle tier at best.

that’s it. simple.

i lost fair and square in a dice game, thanks to dice more so than skill.

i’m not asking for another chance or to reverse the record. it stands. i refused the LL and stand by what i said, that we live and die by the dice. i was just saying that if they feel strongly about their argument justifying the calculated risk, then i’m happy to challenge that.

That dice was tough, but I would say that Pierce made the right decision. About a 20% of a game-ending outcome, another 30% where he loses a bunch of ground units but retreats his air without a massive game-affecting outcome, and 50% where he loses a bunch of ground units and is now in big trouble. I would take that gamble against a top player like Axis-Dominion (which is why he doesn’t play me any more).

If a top player is going against a much weaker opponent and doesn’t want to have a negative expected change of ELO ranking, low-luck is the best choice. I would bet that Axis-Dominion would have won more than 95% of the time in a LL game and have a slightly positive expected ELO boost. Very slight.

This game has made me superstitious. I am happy to build up karma by getting diced during a non-playoff match. Andrew has been crushing me in 50/50 attacks on Moscow. I am thrilled because that means I will get lucky in the playoffs. Well, maybe not but such thoughts are the only way I stay sane after diligently playing for dozens of hours only to have bad dice hand me the L.

Oh, I absolutely agree with your main point. I think that was discussed when we were thinking about going to an ELO based system.

ELO for a chess type game is all about skill level. A highly ranked player will never lose to a much lower ranked opponent. But in our case, the ELO is accounting for both skill and luck. And since luck is variable ELO really does not paint a perfectly accurate picture of skill. It is fairly accurate since the higher skilled player is usually going to win but the luck factor is in there too messing up the perfection. In general it is accurate.

Axis Dominion is a fantastic Axis and Allies player.

But he played the league POORLY. Que India Jones and the holy grail scene.

What a failure! (rubs it in with glee - this might sting a little… or a lot)

That is where he lacked the -skill- to make a good decision. Selecting his opponent. 0% luck was invovled in that bad, horrible read, and look at him now! blaming dice!

I encourage you all to have NO sympathies for any man who was clearly, and caculatingly preying on the weak, and the deseperate. No sympathies for a man who was looking for low homework and easy wins… but who took his eye off the ball and VWHAP. Allowed a circumstance to exist where a Toddler with a gun got him.

The more I think about it, luck was not involved. And more Skill was involved in having the balls to roll for moscow, and well as seduce a power player into a false sense of security, in order to extract a 30% chance at their failure.

AD being a power player, -never should have allowed a circumstance- to exist on the board as it did, where his opponent could pop him in the jaw in such a way.

That has nothign to do with luck folks, and no one ever loses due to “dice”.

Yes. This is how it is.

i think LL might be the only way forward for me to play lower ranked players in the league who are fairly skilled but like to take the big swings; otherwise i should just enjoy non-league matches with them.

top tier players will almost never take such big swings, and that is why they’re at the top. they are able to win fairly consistently through patient positional play and maximizing odds.

losing to a lower-ranked risk-taker is just too punishing when you’re at the top playing with a very different kind of meta.

I’m not a fan of LL but it might be the only way forward in this case.

@axis-dominion I do wish “medium” luck was playable over the forum.

Its great F2F. Basically, each battle you can choose LL or dice for the duration of that specific battle (as attacker and defender independently)

Making some outcomes obvious and controlled, but others, occassionally wild when you need a chance to cause some pain!

@Gargantua said in Post League Game Results Here:

Axis Dominion is a fantastic Axis and Allies player.

But he played the league POORLY. Que India Jones and the holy grail scene.

What a failure! (rubs it in with glee - this might sting a little… or a lot)

That is where he lacked the -skill- to make a good decision. Selecting his opponent. 0% luck was invovled in that bad, horrible read, and look at him now! blaming dice!

I encourage you all to have NO sympathies for any man who was clearly, and caculatingly preying on the weak, and the deseperate. No sympathies for a man who was looking for low homework and easy wins… but who took his eye off the ball and VWHAP. Allowed a circumstance to exist where a Toddler with a gun got him.

The more I think about it, luck was not involved. And more Skill was involved in having the balls to roll for moscow, and well as seduce a power player into a false sense of security, in order to extract a 30% chance at their failure.

AD being a power player, -never should have allowed a circumstance- to exist on the board as it did, where his opponent could pop him in the jaw in such a way.

That has nothign to do with luck folks, and no one ever loses due to “dice”.

Yes. This is how it is.

garg, where did you come from, or crawl out of lol. not sure you made any sense but yeah i mean when the opponent is fairly skilled as peirce is, you can’t rely on not giving them any odds at all. that’s just not realistic… at some point, practically speaking, they will have a 1/3rd chance with maybe poor avg tuv and then they’ll take that swing. unavoidable.

@axis-dominion my phone has this thread on notice.

and it started blowing up so I was -summoned- lol

in looking at the yugo battle.

This isnt so much just look. Look at the debrief

Battle in Yugoslavia
Germans attack with 12 armour, 16 artilleries, 1 bomber, 6 fighters, 25 infantry, 5 mech_infantrys and 4 tactical_bombers
British defend with 1 fighter; Americans defend with 2 armour, 1 bomber, 11 fighters, 3 infantry, 4 marines, 2 mech_infantrys and 1 tactical_bomber; Russians defend with 3 aaGuns, 1 airfield, 12 armour, 3 artilleries, 8 infantry and 12 mech_infantrys
Russians AA 2/9 hits, 1.50 expected hits
Germans roll dice 28/67 hits, 25.00 expected hits (+3)
Russians roll dice 26/60 hits, 28.67 expected hits (+2)
Germans roll dice 22/41 hits, 17.83 expected hits (+4)
Russians roll dice 19/35 hits, 19.50 expected hits (nil)
Germans roll dice 11/22 hits, 11.50 expected hits (nil)
Russians roll dice 9/13 hits, 8.50 expected hits (+.5)
Germans roll dice 10/13 hits, 7.17 expected hits(+3)
Russians roll dice for 2 fighters in Yugoslavia, round 5 : 1/2 hits, 1.33 expected hits(nil)
Battle score for attacker is 138

Germans plus 10 hits over 4 rounds of battle.
Russians pls 4 hits over 4 rounds of battle.

Italian preamble strike was plus 2.5 hits.

yes, the axis benefitted by -some- luck factor, but in a certain context it doesnt actually seem that crazy? ?? $138 loss seems more a reflection of the defense composition (expensive units?) than any other factor.

Painful, agreed. but when you factor how both sides were over par for hits, he only got 8 more hits on 150 dice total dice than the opponent, spread over 5 rounds of total combat.

it seems plausibly in the realm of expectability.

Am I missing something??

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris said in Post League Game Results Here:

That dice was tough, but I would say that Pierce made the right decision. About a 20% of a game-ending outcome, another 30% where he loses a bunch of ground units but retreats his air without a massive game-affecting outcome, and 50% where he loses a bunch of ground units and is now in big trouble. I would take that gamble against a top player like Axis-Dominion (which is why he doesn’t play me any more).

made the right decision for the short term, to potentially strike a win against the top player. yes.

but on average, unless he really is a master of luck, this will not get him the kind of consistent results which makes for a top tier player. it takes being a top tier player to know what makes one, i guess.

50% chance i lose a bunch of ground units and am in big trouble? no thanks every time.

@Gargantua It was a 15%-outcome for the Axis. Certainly not an unlikely outcome.

We all have had far worse dice beatdowns in pivotal battles. Those 1% outcomes in Paris on G1 are awful, and all of us have had 0.1% results that just seem implausible.

it’s not just this battle lol the entire game was a luckfest for the axis, starting from g1.

If I may speak in the assembly of the greats, I did mention earlier somewhere that players who are keeping an eye on the numbers would conclude that it is not worth it to risk play lower-level players. However, if one benefited by x, x being a positive number that was calculated by both level difference and the size of the bid, it might actually incentivize such play. And breathe life into the league.

Another incentive for creativity and daring would be an allied and an axis ranking. They do this on 42 online. Top Allied players, top Axis players. Not sure how to do that.