What percentage is luck involved in a games outcome?

That’s why under Caspian Sub and tripleA ladder rules you can’t attack an enemy capital with ground troops in your first turn.

Like you mentioned, it turns a wonderful game into a coin flip and spoils the fun.

@The:

I’d say hit the Solomans with maybe as much air as you can send (if it reaches), but if it can’t reach safely, hit that area with everything you got. Those are the closets transports. The WUS ones are 2 turns away. Hit Solomans, but buy more air for a) defence and b) hitting power because when you go south, he’ll move north/northeast into your path to block you, really putting a cramp in your plans to come back to the defence of Japan.

And if you could post a map or something of what you face, that would be great. But kill transports. Battleships can’t transport men anyway!  :lol: :-D

GL

Thanks, that’s what I was thinking. My focus is Russia while they’re super weak. I can hit his loaded carrier, and trans with 2 BB’s, an AC and four planes. That should do it, and I can take two hits and won’t mind losing a couple planes.

I anticapted his blocking move too and was considering buying planes. I think I’ll buy 1 plane and all land forces.

Thankyou folks. I’ve just purchased a secondgand A & A Europe.

Tristy

I can;t take credit for all of those.

I think my main suggestion was a small bid for the Allies, and then it is a 5 turn max game (Axis wins in 5, or they lose)

Or just add an INF to India.  That should be enough to make 8 VC a bit harder for the Axis…

@Mr:

I saw some of the expansions of A&A have cards.  Do they offset the luck factor of the dice?

I’ve played a many of card-driven military board games and the luck factor is just a high as dice only games.

Ahem, if you are drawings cards, how is that any less random (barring cheating) than rolling dice?

I agree with critmonster – the bizarre results make the game more interesting.  Think of it this way – if every game played out the exact same way, then how interesting is that?  Chess is a bad comparison in some ways because, except for the fact White moves first, the players are perfectly evenly matched.  Not so in A&A.  The game is carefully balanced, but the Allies and Axis clearly don’t have all the same pieces or all the same advantages.  Their positions, pieces, economies and opportunities are all different.

A great example is a recent game I played where, as Japan, I DID NOT GET A SINGLE HIT IN PEARL HARBOR!  Lost 5 pieces (yes, probably should have pulled back) and then proceeded to lose my transport fleet on the U.S.'s turn.  Talk about your big holes, but it was great fun figuring out how to dig out of that situation.  I probably won’t face that again for another 50 games, but you bet I’ll always remember THAT battle!

So my point is, the bizarrely random results are the stuff of which great war stories are made!  That’s why we all spend our time on a forum dedicated to a dice game instead of being hunched over our chess boards.  :wink:

Indeed

Swell!

How things can go totally nuts :-)

the morale of the story?
NEVER GIVE UP TOO EASILY  8-)

Weapons development is a viable option now since you can choose what you get instead of spending a lot of $ and getting super subs.

Even though it’s six times as easy to get the tech you want, the risk associated with it doesn’t translate well into consistent strategies. If you roll 9 die of tech (45 IPCs) you have an almost 20% chance of NOT achieving the tech. That sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? Ironically super subs is the only tech that I try for, and only if I’m the US and gunning after Japan. Rockets are pretty good for Germany but I really can’t find space in my economy to throw away 30+ IPCs for an uncertain tech. If you’re a habitual gambler or feel like you’re playing against  superior player so you need to take your chances, then I would say tech. Otherwise, it isn’t going to win you a whole lot of games unless you are already winning.

One part of the game that I have not explored is the option of the US going into the pacific in a big way.  Of course, the pressure off Germany is a huge reason not to do it, and it was hardly ever done in the old game.  But the increased value of the islands make it more attractive.

This is pretty fun to do if you have all the Allies cooperating against Japan. You can really make Japan squirm if the US is dumping all cash into a navy while Russia/UK swipe the Asian territories away. If the US smartly maneuvers the navy and researches super subs right before a big battle, likely Japan is going to be staring at an 8 IPC paycheck and squatting on his capital for the rest of the game. But yeah, taking pressure off Germany is a pretty big no-no. You’re leaving 10 IPCs in Africa alone to Germany (couple more in trans-jordan/persia as well) and letting him hammer Russia with full strength, which is much harder to defend against than a Japanese attempt. I admit I’m not an expert though; I haven’t taken that many games to conclusion in a real bonafide KJF strategy. It’s hard to say if the Allies can recover or not once Germany kills Russia; perhaps taking the Japanese mainland gives the Allies too good of a position to retake, but then again maybe Germany takes too many IPCs and can overrun the UK in short order and then the US.