No, its not. Although you never have 2 people of exactly equal skill, you can have 2 really good players. It is the player who is better at taking advantage of good dice and minimizing losses from bad dice that will win most of the games.
Some of the “skill” in this game is developing a strategy to deal with the dice. For some reason, many people cannot deal with the fact they are not as good. They want excuses as to why they lost. Which is why sports fans blame a “ref” rather than their teams fumble or bad plan. Same that people blame bad dice rather than bad strategy.
Take 2 equal players, only one is agressive and one conservative. The agressive player does fine when dice are in his favor. He can also “get lucky” with a big risky attack. But by being risky, he constantly gives his opponent a chance for the dice to turn around.
The conservative playe, OTHO, once he gets an edge, will do everything possibe to prevent the dice from switching back. Less risky attacks than his opponent.
They are both good players. But the better dice manager will win most of these matchups.
So in your mind the conservative player is the better dice handler? You are mistaken, in order to win the most games you need to play the odds where available considering the pay-offs. Some territories are worth more than others. That shifts throughout the game and also by what units are defending the territory. Egypt is a key area in the early rounds but may often lose its importance later on.
You see it as the losers blame the dice instead of their(presumed) bad tactics. It goes the other way too, the winner thinks he has a great strat and is a better player than his opponent when in fact he got lucky. I think most of the games are like this, a little shift in the luck and the game could have gone the other way. Hence luck playing a major role. And don’t get yourselves so worked up guys, I never said that was necessarily a bad thing. I agree with Craig above, a static game with an “über strategy” wouldn’t be very satisfying. The only thing I dislike are those rounds 1 and 2 dice fracks as they just leave you no room whatsoever to maneuver. (yeah, yeah, some of you are just so uber good you work around it anyway. I don’t buy it.)
And as you mention, this conservative player will be able to avoid mosts risks once he gets an advantage giving him a great chance of winning the game. You must take those early risks(attack Ukraine for instance or that lone uk BB) or you will never get that advantage. If you just roll with battles with 90% certainty you will not get that great win percentage of 80%. It’s definitely a strategy game, but between “equally skilled opponents” luck is the deciding factor by as much as 90%.