My take on LL versus Dice

Yep strato is still going strong. You can now get the seasons on cards or cd-rom

wow i may have to look into getting into it again.  do you know where i can find it?

You can order online at strat-o-matic.com  They also have capability for online play. I think they are still located in Glen Head,  Long Island NY. When we were younger our league always made the Strato Review as we always purchased the first set of cards on their opening day in January

I am used to play LL in PBEM games, because playing dice rollers “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe” … Also palying f2f “extreme” results happens sometimes. I am able to survive to that however.

The problem is, IMHO, that LL do not resolve all problems. The opening move are still influenced by the dice. There are many small battles involving few units. As many said before small battles are less “scripted”, also with LL the single die has still a big impact on the game. LL is great in “stabilizing” big battles but less effective with few units involved. Strafing shines with LL.

The problem of the big battles however is not the principal problem, IMHO. I often hear people that speak of a match ruined by the dice. They say: I played a good game, victory was in my hands, I deserve to win, but he attacked Moscow (Berlin) with only 10% chanche to win and… he won! What a pity that no one was there to see those event to witness the defeat of a superior strategist to a inferior one in a single battle thanks to dice, after an uncountable number of defeats.

First of all how is it possible to lose to a single battle, in a decisive but single spot, if someone is winning all over the map? If one has a superior strategy/position/force balance and leave an opening to a 10% attack at least he has made one error. If that 10% defeat happens …that the error was a decisive one… Better was to sacrifice a little bit of materiel or position to avoid the possibility of that attack. An Error. Which error? Maybe all that superiority should have been used for ending the game before defeat. Or maybe all that supriority was only our opinion? It is more simple to whine for dice than to analyze our own errors. I am also a chess player, and usually when I play tournament, I take note of my moves and after the match I analyze critically my moves to understood why I have won or lost the match. With TripleA I analyze the game history: the moves, the attacks and the statistics of each round to identify my errors, looking at them critically. Often I have found bugs in my moves and I try to learn from my own errors.

Second: 10% is not 0%. There is a thing that many people do not consider of statistic. It is not like a vote in parliament where the majority is obtained with 50% + 1 votes and the motion is approved or rejected. Statistic have to do with “a priori” possibility (probability) and “a posteriori” observation of results (frequency). Playing A&A by 10 years is not substitute of a book of statistic. Having 10% probability of winning for my opponent, meaning 90% of probability of victory for me, does not mean that victory is the sure event (100% probability) but only that “it is really more likely to happen a victory”. Speaking of frequencies: repeating the same battle 100 times it will be won by me in about the 90 of the attempts end won by my opponent in only 10 cases. What a pity that statistic say nothing about the “order” in wich defeats and victory will happen. No one can grant that the first 90 attempts will be, or should be, my victories.

So where I see the utility of LL? In the ordinary battles. Trading of the frontline territories. In ordinary dicing you may lose a counter attack. With LL if you want to be sure of a winning then you can be sure of winning. Using the best allocation of attacking unit it is possible to have 100% win (sure event) if you want.

There is a problem also here, however, this may “consume” more materiel sometime, materiel that will be washed away in the enemy counter attack that will be done using LL and in wich our remaining units will be smashed without hope (to be themselves destroyed in my next turn). Usually I react to that palying as it was not LL: I trade frontline zones with minimal forces using about the same units used in ordinary dice. For example I use 2 inf and 1 fig againist a lonely inf and not 2 inf and 2 fig or 3 inf and 1 fig to achieve 100% victory chanches.

Concluding my opinion is that we have problem also with LL, that solves many issues but leave others open. The game with LL is different, is still A&A, but it is different, and sometimes requires different skills to be mastered. And requires also different skills to be accepted… Some weeks ago I was accused of being too much lucky in a TripleA LL games becuse my dice hits more than the expected average…

@Subotai:

Thats the problem with the dice in A&A, the dice does not simulate real battles, although it is meant to do this.

If the Vietnam war was fought with ADS, you could have up to 500.000 dead American soldiers (worst case) instead of 60.000. 200.000 causalities is what you could risk if you were playing regular dice (war) game. This is the extreme variation which happens in dice games.

The nam war was lost mainly b/c political factors, not military failures. In A&A there is (still) no option for political factors, just plain simple military units, land sea and air forces fighting against each other. Or in the Gulf war, we could have 50.000 dead allied soldiers instead of 1000(?). In the Iraq war, coalition forces could very well loose 10.000 troops instad of 1000-2000. If NATO was playing with ADS setting in Afghanistan, the political risk would be too high to send ground troops at all. As some battles in real life goes horribly wrong, you don’t loose the whole war b/c of bad luck, which happens in A&A from 1% to 40% of all games played with ADS setting.

No, they aren’t real battles, because they are little plastic battles, but they do abstractly simulate the war.  where 1 INF division could defeat 4 enemy INF divisions, or 300 Spartans could defeat thousands of Persians, or like in the Nam war, where Mel Gibson and half a dozen platoons could rout 3,000 Viet Cong troops in the middle of a field.  LL just won’t allow that.  That battle could never have happened in LL, but in reality yup…  The Bulge saw the Axis with a massive advantage, as did Stalingrad, and LL would have allowed victory there, but that’s not how it really happened.

Sure, the numbers can be run and tell you that 4INF will lose to 1INF 1.16 % of the time, but anyone ever seen it happen in LL?  doubtful.  Sometimes you do loose wars because of bad luck and sometimes you win them in spite of it.

The poker analogy earlier rings truth–you can outplay your opponent and loose.  I was at a tournament this past weekend and teams were competing and good teams were shooting themselves in the foot and loosing because they didn’t perform up to their ability.  If it had been LL, they’d have all made it into finals because of their initial seeding, but as it turned out, 3 of the top four all dropped the ball and missed out even reaching the semis.

If someone likes LL, sure play LL.  If not, play with each dice roll, ADS or whatever you want to call it.  But the fundamentals is that you are playing a different game

In real wars they don’t use dice…. :roll:  neither LL or ADS is used in real wars. Soldiers use guns not dice…

Real battles are often won b/c of better training, tech, heavy weapons, more weapons, communications, survilance, spying missions in some battles, logistics, terrain, better motivation, defenders advantage, attackers advantage b/c of surprise attack, etc. etc…

ADS do not in any way relate to reality anymore than LL does.

LL or ADS wouldn’t matter if all games I played was in a league/ladder system. But this isn’t the case atm.
By reducing randomness in single games, there’s less chance that the better player will lose in single game in LL than in ADS. But for series of games, 20 or more, the better player will win more games regardless of ADS or LL.

I will repeat my statements about “different game”, bids are not mentioned in official rules, like OOB or LHTR, neither is playing w/o tech in revised. So those choices would also make it a “different game”.

@ Romulus,

it was a very good post, however, some of my problems with ADS is not that I don’t win every 90% battle, I shouldn’t, thats why it’s 90% not 100%.
It’s that some battles I should be left with 7-8 units, and my opponents wins with 5-8 units left…

For capitals, they should probably be stacked to 99% in ADS, 100% in LL.

For smaller battles, I have experienced 4 ftrs vs 1 BB, 1 ftr left, BB not damaged…if BB was damaged I probably would not have retreated the ftr.

I like the football (soccer) comparison, sometimes a level 1 team (Serie A) loses to level 3 team, not often, but it happens. For a level 1 team to lose against a level 2 team is not very uncommon b/c the skills are not very different. In basketball this doesn’t happen as often as in football. Handball is also less “random” than football, for it’s more difficult for a basketball team or handball team in level 2 to win against a level 1 team, this happens more often in football then basket/handball. Still there are no denial in that both football, basket and handball (single) games are both about skill and luck, in the long run it’s definitely most about skills.

My take on this in regard to team ballgames related to ADS vs LL, is that it seems that some battles is like i.e. Inter loses to A.S.D. Pianella…

I should add that even if I’m not that interested in football anymore, I was a huuuge fan of Liverpool (you’ll never walk alone) and still watches most matches in every World Cup and European Football Championship.
For strange reasons, watching football, with more randomness than many other team sports, is/was much more exciting for me than watching other team sports with less randomness.

It’s totally ok that once in a while a level 1 team loses against a level 3 team, and every 10 years during a cup competition, a level 1 team lose against a level 4 team. But any further than that?

For me, the randomness can only go so far, then it’s not strategy, then it’s not about players decisions, we’re closing in on Yahtzee, or Hazard…

The real issue for me is really about the numbers of games played and recorded, just like football. Regardless of what game or competition we’re talking about, usually, the better player(s) wins.
With casual games not recorded, this is a major reason why I prefer LL before dice games.

@Subotai:

@ Romulus,

it was a very good post, however, some of my problems with ADS is not that I don’t win every 90% battle, I shouldn’t, thats why it’s 90% not 100%.
It’s that some battles I should be left with 7-8 units, and my opponents wins with 5-8 units left…

For capitals, they should probably be stacked to 99% in ADS, 100% in LL.

For smaller battles, I have experienced 4 ftrs vs 1 BB, 1 ftr left, BB not damaged…if BB was damaged I probably would not have retreated the ftr.

I like the football (soccer) comparison, sometimes a level 1 team (Serie A) loses to level 3 team, not often, but it happens. For a level 1 team to lose against a level 2 team is not very uncommon b/c the skills are not very different. In basketball this doesn’t happen as often as in football. Handball is also less “random” than football, for it’s more difficult for a basketball team or handball team in level 2 to win against a level 1 team, this happens more often in football then basket/handball. Still there are no denial in that both football, basket and handball (single) games are both about skill and luck, in the long run it’s definitely most about skills.

My take on this in regard to team ballgames related to ADS vs LL, is that it seems that some battles is like i.e. Inter loses to A.S.D. Pianella…

I should add that even if I’m not that interested in football anymore, I was a huuuge fan of Liverpool (you’ll never walk alone) and still watches most matches in every World Cup and European Football Championship.
For strange reasons, watching football, with more randomness than many other team sports, is/was much more exciting for me than watching other team sports with less randomness.

It’s totally ok that once in a while a level 1 team loses against a level 3 team, and every 10 years during a cup competition, a level 1 team lose against a level 4 team. But any further than that?

For me, the randomness can only go so far, then it’s not strategy, then it’s not about players decisions, we’re closing in on Yahtzee, or Hazard…

The real issue for me is really about the numbers of games played and recorded, just like football. Regardless of what game or competition we’re talking about, usually, the better player(s) wins.
With casual games not recorded, this is a major reason why I prefer LL before dice games.

Well said, I agree.

The point I tried to made is that even LL has its drawback. Assessing pros and cons of ADS and LL also I prefer LL. We should agree, however, that LL is kind different from ADS A&A. Not so much, but there are slightly differences.

I like your football basketball comparison. My idea is that in basktball every action may bring points to a team while in football scoring a goal in an action is a great reward. Many good or even otpimum moves in football may only bring a near miss… that brings 0 points. So I believe greater uncertainity of football matches is due to this fact.

Maybe basketball is more similar to A&A with LL because we may, and we should, maximize the “gain” of each move “increasing the score” every time we go to the attack. This is quite impossible in ADS where a couple of infantry on defense may ruin your day or a single BB may shoot out of the sky 3 of four fighters and remain unscratched or only damaged. This are unlikely, and disturbing, results that LL allows to avoid.

I have made the following reasoning about that. In LL I may send 2 fig against a BB (relying on luck to win) and in ADS I may send 2 fig against a BB (still relying on luck to win). In LL, however, I may send 4 fig against a BB and I have to win because the math say that. In ADS sending 4 fig against a BB is still relying on luck to win (well less luck than in the preceding case but losses may be still heavy).
This is a tactical aspect. A&A is made also of Strategy and Logistics, above all, but the “battle resolving methodology” influences all the aspects of the game bringing tactical aspects to strategic level. Making a Computer Science comparison it is like implementation defines the interface of class… while should be the opposite. This problem is greater with ADS than with LL.

I do not know how to state my idea well: I would like have a “battle resolving system” that should avoid the “very unlikely results” to happen, but should still leave a little bit of uncertainity. A Wargames (even a Light Wargame as A&A is) should not be a mathematichally exact game IMHO. Chess is a Strategy Game not a Wargame. As it is possible to read in my signature:

“Something must be left to chance; nothing is sure in a sea fight above all.” – Admiral Nelson.

Real Generals and Admirals face uncertinity on the battlefield. No division of the attacking punch by six to have the number of casualites inflicted etc. ADS gives this additional problem to the player. LL allows the player to remove this.

Concluding, IMHO is better to play LL than ADS but it is not the perfect solution. We should have a little bit more uncertainity still reducing the frequence of “unlikely” events happening too often.

Good posts and well written, Romulus.  +1 Karma  :-)

I agree with you in that NO battle is ever certain, or should ever be certain.

•No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. — Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke

So, I feel that ADS is better than LL because of this reason, but I agree that the battle system should take the upper and lower 5% of probabilities out of the mix.  (i.e. in a big battle, where you have a 90% chance of winning, you could still lose the battle, but not with the defender completely unscathed - 1 example Germany should NEVER be able to capture Egypt on G1 with only 2 inf, 2 art, 1 arm with NO LOSSES!  This happpened in one of my games recently.  I don’t know exactly how to implement this idea of removing these extemes though, maybe if the extremes could be calculated, then when the extreme combat result happens, then either just re-roll the entire battle as if the first combat had never happened (It happened in an anternate universe.  :-P) or lower the result to the lowest acceptable result.  (i.e. possible in the 4 fighters vs 1 battleship scenario, if you completely lost, then the default would be that you at least destroy the battleship as well)

How about this house rule?
Every player gets a “re-roll ticket” If at any moment, they feel something extreme is happening, they can ask opponent to re-roll the dice
(IE, if my opponent attacks with 10@1 and rolls 10 ones. I should have the right to ask him to reroll :P)

i dont think i agree with that though.  i have rolled 4 out of 4 on AA shots before, and man would it p*ss me off if my opponet said “ahh, reroll those please”. maybe a half-reroll?  the dice is part of it…

@Bardoly:

Good posts and well written, Romulus.  +1 Karma   :-)

I agree with you in that NO battle is ever certain, or should ever be certain.

•No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. — Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke

So, I feel that ADS is better than LL because of this reason, but I agree that the battle system should take the upper and lower 5% of probabilities out of the mix.  (i.e. in a big battle, where you have a 90% chance of winning, you could still lose the battle, but not with the defender completely unscathed - 1 example Germany should NEVER be able to capture Egypt on G1 with only 2 inf, 2 art, 1 arm with NO LOSSES!  This happpened in one of my games recently.  I don’t know exactly how to implement this idea of removing these extemes though, maybe if the extremes could be calculated, then when the extreme combat result happens, then either just re-roll the entire battle as if the first combat had never happened (It happened in an anternate universe.  :-P) or lower the result to the lowest acceptable result.  (i.e. possible in the 4 fighters vs 1 battleship scenario, if you completely lost, then the default would be that you at least destroy the battleship as well)

Thanks!

I completely agree with your point. What we need is “uncertainity”. What we do not want is uncertainity obtained by means of complete randomness.

I don not know how to define a dice based  battle resolving system with such features. Maybe other systems than the die should be considered.

@HolKann:

Why would risk management be the aspect that defines A&A? Imho, it is not. To me, A&A is defined by its strategic character, giving you the feeling like you are a WW2 general trying to outwit the enemy.

A WWII general had less reliable means of predicting battle outcomes than in standard A&A.  LL, being more reliably predictable, is less like being a real general.

@HolKann:

The method of getting battles resolved is simply less important to me. I would even be fine with a no luck system since this would not take away the strategic aspect of the game.

Extrapolating the likely results of combat is at the heart of A&A strategy - LL or otherwise.

@HolKann:

If you really think risk management is the “soul” of A&A, go poker.

The key element in Poker is hidden information, not randomness.  Psychology is the soul of that game.  This means the ability to interpret your opponents’ bets, check, and raises as well as to predict how they will interpret and respond to yours.

There is no secret information in A&A, and hence nothing like the above elements.  Poker is better likened to bridge.

@HolKann:

Change the word “strategy” by “tactics” and I’ll agree. The strategies in LL are EXACTLY the same as in ADS. Only some tactical tricks are not.

In regular A&A, it is often the right strategy to make a battle when you are a slight underdog.  And not only when you are losing and need a break to catch up! (Though those situations have interesting and valid strategic repercussions too).

You could also be strategically correct to enter two battles both as underdogs when it is only important for you to win one of those battles.  If you are a forty per cent underdog in two battles, you are actually a sixty four per cent favorite to win at least one of those.  In LL you will lose both every time.  It is fair to say that strategy is affected.

Tactical effects would be such as this:

An attacker does not generally need as favorable odds for the battle as the defender, because the attacker can pull out if things go bad.  In this way a 50/50 battle  actually favours the attacker, as may even a battle which would slightly favour the defender were it a fight to the death.  In LL this is less a factor.

The tactics of strafe attacks becomes stronger in LL.  (I don’t think this is an improvement though, as strafing used to be a hard decision.  With the risk removed, it is an easier decision).

@bugoo:

Ok here is the thing, it all depends what you want out of the game.

Dice players want a more ‘beer and pretzels’ type game, where the chaotic elements are seen as a positive as it keeps the game ‘interesting’ and more ‘fun’.  Kind of a casual serious game.

LL players want the pure competition, minimized chaotic elements, where risk management is a factor, but luck does not win the game.  They want the satisfaction of winning or loosing based soley upon there decisions, not the dice.

This is why Robin started this thread.  Not to say he prefers regular A&A, or to say it’s better.  Rather to defend it against the attitude that LL is somehow a more strategic game.

His main point is what he calls risk management.  In A&A, you must carefully weigh the desire to protect yourself from disaster (by playing cautiously) with the benefits you can achieve by stretching or even skimping (such benefits include efficiency, accomplishing more, and causing disaster for your enemies).

This element arises constantly in your A&A decisions.  Finding the acceptable success rate for a battle is a very tricky, highly strategic activity.  You must decide how bad it will be if it goes wrong vs how good it will be to scrimp and save forces (which cannot be perfectly quantified, btw) and compare that ratio to the actual success rate, and contrast that result with the same analysis for a more or less risky alternative.  Not a lot of people can make these decisions well.

Also the correct strategy in LL is often very different than in standard.  See my post directly above.  This is contrary to another common misconception regarding LL.

@Romulus:

Some weeks ago I was accused of being too much lucky in a TripleA LL games becuse my dice hits more than the expected average…

Ironically LL can be more luck because fewer dice are tossed.  Standard deviation is higher in a smaller sized sample.  :P

I personally don’t view either as the ‘correct’ way to play, LL is my preferred way to play, as knowing the outcome of the game by the time of UK1 annoys me, as does loosing moscow to an attack with 8% odds, but neither is the ‘correct’ way to play.  Just pick one.  I just hate when people think there is no luck in LL, or that it takes away strategy, it is like debating whither an RTS or TBS has more strategy, there just different is all. (RTS=real time strategy game, like Starcraft, TBS=turn based strategy game, like civilization).

@zooooma:

@Romulus:

Some weeks ago I was accused of being too much lucky in a TripleA LL games becuse my dice hits more than the expected average…

Ironically LL can be more luck because fewer dice are tossed.  Standard deviation is higher in a smaller sized sample.  :P

I agree!
Moreover a small sized sample is not “statistically meaninguful” in the sense that statisctics laws can not apply to a set of too feew elements. So for being correct we can even not speak of standard deviation if we have too few results to consider.

Moreover, opening moves, which involve battles with few units, are influenced by the variance of the dice rolling. In such battles the balancing effects of the “average hits” are less important than the single die rolled so missing the hit with the die may still causing problem. In the same way battling on the front line and achieving 1 hit more than the average (scoring with the die) is still “disturbing” to some player.

I found interesting your consideration about the “underdog” concept.

I said that I think of ADS and LL as different in the skills required.

IMHO, ADS requires a greater effort in strategic planning for handling also adverse results and call for a strong risk management in making strategic and tactic decision. Also the logistic of the game is indirectly influenced by the battle resolving method, losses in battle and reinforcement needed are not simple to foresee, so a player have to plan is logistic not knowing all the variables.
(By the way risk management is a discipline, for example in handling software development projects, so it is not a contradiction speaking of trying to handle risks.)

In LL my idea is that the great skills a player should have, in addition to strategic ability, are the ability to make optimal forces allocation, in minimizing risks (not managing or handling but “minimizing” i.e. avoiding it at all, trying to avoid them being a factor). Strategic decision are still hard to do but logistic is simplified, because a player think in advance to force allocations, it is quite mathematic to know what he is going to lose in the battle, wich will be the position and wich kind of reinforcement will be needed and where.

@zooooma:

A WWII general had less reliable means of predicting battle outcomes than in standard A&A.  LL, being more reliably predictable, is less like being a real general.

If you use the realism argument in A&A, you are delusional. No pun intended…
I don’t remember if I have been guilty of this myself in some of my previous posts, but we should agree on this matter about reality and the lack realism.

“better training, tech, heavy weapons, more weapons, communications, surveillance, spying missions in some battles, logistics, terrain, better motivation, defenders advantage, attackers advantage b/c of surprise attack, etc. etc…”

A&A has very little to do with reality. It’s a fun and exciting game. If want realism, or close to realism, you have to step out of the A&A world and play games which are completely different.

LL or ADS is nowhere near the reality of which WW2 generals had to make decisions. Its not enough to make a more complex game which can have LL or ADS, it must be completely and totally different.

Also, for me it’s about winning the war, not the battles, but I also want to win some battles along the way, but this is nowhere near as important as winning the war.

I don’t see myself (when playing AA50) as Rommel, Patton, Eisenhower, Zhukov, or Yamamato, but as Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, FDR and Hirohito.

And for some of us who prefer LL, I always play 1vs1, I could play against 2 or more players, but I never play on a team, it’s not mostly about skills, like I couldn’t play with people who are not as experienced as me, it’s rather b/c I have this medical and mental condition  :evil:, so It’s not good for my health to play with other people if they make decisions which I disagree with. My blood pressure can’t handle it, and this could go both ways, as playing multiplayer other players would disagree with my decisions and so I could cause not only my own defeat, but also my teammates.
This is why A&A is better played with 1vs1.

My friend and I are considerint playing a LL F2F game this Friday - does anyone have thoughts on this?  Is there any difference playing LL F2F vs. online?  Does anyone else do this?  Also, how are subs/bombardments/anti-aircraft calculated?
Thanks.

When we play A&A ADS/LL online, it’s the program who does all the work, the players do all the thinking.

I don’t know if I’d bother with LL in a f2f game, if we’re not playing it through TripleA in local mode.
The core of the LL system is very easy, add the attacking points, divide with 6 and roll the remaining dice, same goes for defender.
SBR attacks in TripleA are not handled like some others are doing it.
But AA guns fire same way as other combat.
If you attack with 3 air units, the AA gun fire 1 die @3 instead of 3 dice @1.

For bmrs doing SBR, someone prefer to set each bmr doing $3,5 in damage, in TripleA the dice are rolled as usual also for bmrs doing SBR.