Feature request: true random dice

@DeathByDice Yeah, in ranked matches I still tend to play it out and see how well I can counter the situation but in other games I suggest just resetting the board so we can have a good game. The only thing that’s worked at all for me so far is having Russia pump out infantry and the other allies send as many fighters and tanks there as humanly possible along with a med or northern shuck.

I made a post for a house rule to eliminate this in live games. I’m sure this problem accounts for much of the 10% win discrepancy between the axis and allies. Personally I’m happy if Russia can at least take Ukraine with 1 unit and escape with the fighters. But still, I know I’m in for a tough game if that happens and west-russia doesn’t go fabulously and my opponent is strong. You have to do the west-russia battle first so you know if you need to retreat quickly out of Ukraine.

While I really appreciate the general balance improvement made by the Gencon 3.0 rules update the 9-12 opening situation feels like the most fragile part of the game. I think there’s still room here for a 4.0 setup of some kind. Gencon 3 feels like a patch (necessary but not perfect) when the setup probably could use a bigger update.

@TheDude-0 Thanks for excellent reply. Noted and agreed on all points.

Having played the classic edition back in the day, the wild swingyness of the dice mechanic was always a bone of contention. A lot of board wargamers dismissed it as a kids game because luck was such a big factor, I always appreciated the unpredictability.

There are basically two types of wargamer, or two ends of an axis we all lie on. Some treat these games as puzzles to solve, to find the ‘right’ tactic or the perfects strategy. Then there are those that like having to think on their feet and adapt to the situation as it unfolds.

A&A in all its forms has always been a game for the latter group. Yes you need to strategise, but you need to hedge your bets, have a backup plan, adapt creatively to unexpected reverses. That’s the fun of it.

As for randomness, if you randomly generate points on an x/y graph, you’ll quickly notice that the points tent to form clumps and little chains. Truly random distributions are not smooth or evenly distributed. Humans are hard wired to see and create patterns. We’re truly awful at generating random numbers ‘by hand’ and also terrible and judging whether a range of numbers are random or not. There’s been bags of research on this. I play role-playing games so Ive rolled huge numbers of dice and seen some amazing runs of luck, disastrous bad luck and just numerically weird looking results. That’s just randomness for you. I’ve had this argument with gamers ‘proving’ that particular outcomes were almost impossible. Yes. All the possible outcomes are almost impossible, when you roll enough dice. They’re all equally unlikely. That’s the point.

@Brian-Cannon Shocked response by the Devs

Yeah, the current system is pretty annoying. Even after having worked a management-level position in a game development company I’m still amazed by the odd UI quirks that end up in games. I’m always running across things that make me think ‘how did the developers themselves not find this immediately annoying and try to fix it’?, like having your ships decide to move to the ‘wrong’ (from your view) SZ by default.

One thing I keep doing is missing one or two units here or there. It would be nice if I could hit a checkbox when I complete a phase to preview the state of the board before I move on to the next step.

@Striker I like Global the best, possibly among all wargames. But 42.2 has a faster, chesslike appeal.

I try to play 5 games at once and very quickly, which improves my skills but also leaves plenty of room for me to make mistakes…like speed chess at the renfest where 1 member of the KC chess club takes on 15 all-comers at one time, one move after the next then back to the first game…