Best posts made by Tizkit

I’m happy with the direction this discussion has taken, but wanted to add my input. To help you understand my perspective here’s how I would describe myself:

• OOB only player – currently no intentions of branching out
• Hyper focused – I prefer to play 1 game at a time and analyze it to death, rather than keep multiple games going, resulting in:
• Roughly 3-4 games played per year

I’ve become disinterested in the league for two main reasons:

1. The focus on BM3 and PTV would mean historically that I have to force players to play OOB in the playoffs and create resentment (last year is case in point) – so I’d rather just not play
2. The 8 game minimum to compete in the higher playoff bracket means I’ll probably never get there, even if I did make the jump to BM3

I think the idea of multiple playoffs based on game version solves the most problems. It means no one has to acquiesce to a version in the playoffs that they don’t want to play. (In regular season they already don’t have to because they can just say “no thanks”)

My one caution is to be careful how high you put the minimum game thresholds for playoff participation.

I’d like to suggest that the playoffs are the most enticing part of the league, and that the higher you set the minimum game threshold, the more casual players like myself are likely to abandon it.

I understand that it’s easier to manipulate your PPG or have an inaccurate PPG with a low number of games. In fact I’m probably a great example of this in 2020. I have the second highest PPG, but I’m certainly not the 2nd best player.

It’s definitely true that BM3 and PTV are the most popular versions here, but the pipeline of new players is primarily full of OOB and casual players, and that needs to be considered.

My perspective comes from 1940 Global, but I think the ideas would generally transfer to other versions. Sorry for the length but hope it helps.

My answer is “it depends”. It’s a difficult decision and I’m glad it is. Easy decisions don’t make for a very good game and degenerate into a scripted play-style. Here are the relevant factors that I see:

1. Straight Up Expected Economic Value -> It’s fairly easy to calculate the expected economic gain/loss in terms of replacement cost of lost bombers and IPC damage to the factory. In G40 it works out to +2.58IPCs per bombing run.

2. Inefficiencies -> Part of the value in #1 is actually ineffective. The practical economic value is less depending on the situation for reasons such as:

• Factories have a damage maximum so any expected economic value above the max just evaporates. A straight up calculation doesn’t account for that. So, if you are sending 4 bombers at a major complex, that’s potentially 32 points of damage, 12 of which are superfluous. So more complicated math or a simulator is required if you want the real value.

• Minimal damage is inconsequential. Often the first several points of damage don’t hinder your opponent at all. A good example of this is the Calcutta factory in G40 (a major complex) which needs 10 damage before it’s completely inoperative. If you only achieve 7 damage, the other player can still produce 3 units without any consequence, and that’s all they usually have the cash for anyway.

• Some production facilities are redundant and your opponent can work around the damage you put on them. For Example, Germany and Italy have enough factories that they can sometimes ignore damage done in Europe if there isn’t any immediate danger to strategic objectives.

3. Current Opportunity Cost -> If a bomber is engaged in strategic bombing raid it’s not rolling at 4’s in another battle. There are many cases where adding a bomber to a battle will help the expected TUV (total unit value) swing by far more than the 2.58 of the bombing raid and often with little risk to the bomber.

4. Turnover Cost -> Sometimes the factory you are bombing is likely to turn over to you in the near future anyway and the damage you put on it just ends up hurting you instead of your opponent.

5. Imminent Critical Battle Implications -> Probably the most important factor. The value of an additional individual unit gets amplified in a large and somewhat even battle. (think Moscow) For example, negating the production of a single extra infantry can change the expected TUV swing of a Moscow battle by far more than the 3IPC value of the infantry and likewise for the 12IPC value of the bomber.
   If you see yourself attacking Moscow on the following turn and want to do a bombing raid now, remember that the bombing raid may have a much larger impact on the upcoming battle than you realize. Go find a Moscow battle from a random league game and run the battle calculator with 1 less infantry on the Russian side, and then 1 less bomber on the German side instead. It’s not hard to find an example where the TUV swing changes by as much as 50 IPCs.

6. Win Expectations -> You need to consider where you stand in upcoming major battles and the game in general. There’s a good chance a bombing raid will improve your situation, but if you’re already in great shape, a win is a win. You don’t get bonus points for winning extra. You might be creating a risk that will snowball and let your opponent back onto the game. On the other hand, if you’re behind, you should be looking for risks with big payoffs, and bombing raids can definitely be that in some circumstances.

You mentioned Russia specifically, but I’m going to assume you’re talking about a standard league rules bid.

I think it depends significantly on the skill/experience of the players. Here’s a breakdown I would suggest as a starting point for players of equal skill:

0 -> Complete Noobs – For players with little to no experience, especially when there hasn’t been outside influence of things like YouTube strategy videos.

16-24 -> Irregular Players – For players with some experience and a reasonable handle on general strategies, but lacklustre execution and minor mistakes.

24-30 -> Strong players – For players who play regularly, know how to win, have good execution and few to no mistakes.

30+ -> Expert – Mostly for higher tier league players with tons of experience and ability. (although most of them play balance mod instead of using a bid)

If you’re talking about team games I might consider an additional premium for the allies because they take significantly more coordination, which is harder when you have teammates.

I’m definitely on board with a change to the scoring system. The current system creates a large barrier to entry for new players and fragments an already small community.

I actually brought this up about 9 months ago with one potential solution. (hopefully links work as they are mid thread)
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/30807/league-general-discussion-thread/314
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/30807/league-general-discussion-thread/319

As a potential simpler solution, my suggestion was to allow games to be scored as a Tier 1 vs Tier 1 game if the players choose to play with a standardized handicap bid. (on top of the normal bid for choosing sides)

This would allow higher tier players to maintain their tier while playing against tier 2/3 players if they maintain a high enough win rate. The handicap bid going to the lower tier player would also help shrink the skill gap and hopefully make the game more interesting for the higher tier player.

Most importantly, this could be completely ignored by anyone who wants to just stick with the way things are and only applies to people who choose to play with the handicap. We want to encourage new players but not alienate people who are enjoying the league as it is now.

I’m not attempting to compete with the ELO system as an option, I’d be fine with that if it’s easy to implement. I’m just thinking this would be a less disruptive bolt-on to the existing system.

Apologies for the length.

Observation 1:
Germany is set up for a strong G2 DOW move into E. Poland, especially with leaving the possibility of a turn 2 Yugoslavia strafe of the France mechanized units.
I don’t think it’s worth trying to hard counter this. Sure, it can be dissuaded with a 6 tank purchase, but the reaction will be to stall until G3 and get a more lucrative fight later when Moscow has 6 less infantry than it otherwise would.
In the event of the G2, the Karelia/Vyborg infantry will not be with the main group and be in danger of taking an unfavourable trade.

Observation 2:
Germany going for Moscow on turn 5 is a consideration, but his most lucrative timing window starts at turn 6 with units in Germany, Bulgaria, and potentially the Finland infantry.

Priorities:

1. For the love of Pete, don’t lose Moscow on turn 5.
2. Try to get value out of the Karelia/Vyborg group in the event of the G2.
3. If possible, be able to stand up at Bryansk on G4 to retake the Ukraine factory on R5. This will depend significantly on how many planes Germany makes available, but that will at least pull them away from other purposes.
4. Tilt the TUV swing/winning odds for a G6/7+ as much as possible. Obviously Andrew is playing as the better player, meaning risk aversion… Anything below 80%, maybe even 90-95% he will likely balk at.

My proposed changes:

1. Forget about spreading communism and save communism first. Caucasus infantry should move north and keep the mechs/tanks home. You won’t gain enough money to offset the TUV you will lose in Moscow with a weak defense.
2. Mech/tank from Moscow should go to Belarus to help dissuade the Finnish infantry from moving forward on turn 2. This would put them on a G7 Moscow timing rather than G6.
3. The sub should go to 125, also to make the G2 more costly.
4. The best defense at Bryansk may be to attack, meaning I favour Farmboy’s buy of at least 3 artillery.
5. I would also consider 1 Mech purchase for Novgorod. (but wouldn’t build other units there) This will give the opportunity to counterattack the Finnish infantry if they move forward and leave the possibility of some mechanized units remaining to run to Norway… a reasonable headache for Germany.
6. Forget about the AA gun in Novgorod, it doesn’t look necessary. Pull it to Belarus. If necessary it can join the Karelia/Vyborg infantry in Archangel next turn, if not it will be with the main group.
7. Cruiser in 114, and Sub in 115 would be standard I think.

Here are some other wrinkles that come to mind that need to be wrestled with. #3 is probably the hardest to work around.

1. Japan Air Units: For air units to hit India on J3, you need to take and hold one of Yunnan or Shan State on J1 and keep it until J2. This isn’t realistic since China can overwhelm Yunnan on C1 and UK can overwhelm Shan State on UK1. (you could bypass this with an airbase on FIC/Kwangsi on J2, but that will cost you 2 transports headed for Hawaii.)
2. India Blockers: To get the 3 transports purchased on J1 to India on J3 requires SZ37 be open and one of SZ38/SZ41 be open. It will be tricky for your stripped-down southern fleet to hold two sea zones from getting cleared and a blocker slipping in. You need to survive potentially:
   • UK -> 2 destroyers, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters, 1 tactical
   • ANZAC -> 3 fighters, 1 destroyer, 1 cruiser
   • France -> 1 destroyer
3. West India UK2 Retreat: The UK player can stall by retreating to West India on UK2. Assuming the UK1 purchase was 3 infantry and 2 artillery (not uncommon) UK could easily have 12 infantry, 3 artillery, 2 fighters and 1 tactical on West India without even talking about transported units or planes from the Med. That’s more than enough to re-take India on UK3 from the 12 ground units landing there.

@simon33

Philosophically I think that everything in the turn order prior to the active player declaring their combat moves to be over should all be revisable.

During this portion there is zero new information available to the active player. By arbitrarily forcing them to decide purchases first you just force them to do their combat moves in their head for live games and in a separate Triple A file for online play. Both of which just tend to waste time rather than add any game dynamic.

I think the ideal scenario would be for the buy window to be available for revisions until the player clicks the button to lock in their combat moves. That way they can enter the purchases either before or after combat moves depending on personal preference.

I don’t really have any suggestions about closing TripleA, but I’m wondering if you know about the game history feature within TripleA?

Within TripleA go to Game -> Show History (or Ctrl+H and Ctrl+G to get back to current).

Rather than opening a new instance of TripleA for each turn of a game you can just open up the most recent file and navigate back through the entire game history to whichever point you want using the side bar.

If you want to have multiple games open, that’s another story, but I can’t think of a reason why you would need multiple instances open for a single game if you’re making use of the history feature.

I’m also in the “it depends” camp.

The math here is pretty simple. Artillery are superior to tanks in terms of pure economics. Artillery are just as good or better whether you’re talking about attack power, defense power or hits you can absorb. This is especially true if you have existing excess infantry to pair them with, which you often do at the beginning of the game. If you do have extra infantry than adding an artillery adds as much extra attack power as a tank (2/6 for the artillery and 1/6 for the infantry).

It’s safe to say that artillery are better value in any battle that they are actually present, the question is if they will be. Artillery are a bit like a superstar athlete who gets injured repeatedly. Sure, their stats per game are great, but you can’t help the team win the championship from the sideline. Tanks are more likely to be in the battle, and be in multiple battles through their life.

Tanks create value on utility and re-usability. It’s difficult to put it in numerical terms, but here are some situational examples:

1. Can-Openers -> The ability to abuse the turn order by having a friendly power clear blocking units from a territory so the second power can move through and wreck vulnerable units two spaces away.
2. Axis Timing Push -> The axis usually need rapid expansion to close the income gap with the allies. Tanks are more helpful in getting the job done before the initiative is lost and Allied help arrives. Tanks can catch up to your forward army without it having to pause.
3. Recycling Units -> Tanks can get to the next objective where artillery are often stranded for a long time. (e.g. after a Moscow battle the remaining tanks can re-task to the Middle East or Scandinavia)
4. Limited Production Slots -> If you think of production slots as a resource, then it’s one resource where tanks are cheaper. If you a starved for production tanks can get you more kick on the ground with less production used.
5. American Production on Eurasia -> Getting an American production facility on the continent where the fight is happening is quite helpful. On the periphery this can be done without a tank, but if you want to try to pick up a territory in the Middle East it can happen far sooner with a tank rolling through North Africa than an artillery.
6. Island Hopping -> When trading islands you’re sometimes less concerned with the cost efficiency and more concerned with win probability. (often sending 7IPC transports to be killed for free) Tanks can help edge the win percentage up, especially if you can’t get naval or air support because it will take your fleet out of position.
7. Blitzing Empty Territories -> Obviously.

It’s helpful to envision what the whole life of the unit or group of units might look like. If the purpose is a one-way march to a probable death, then go with the artillery if it can make it in time. If you foresee more variability than that, you might want to favor the tank.

Of course many of these principles apply to mechanized infantry, so if you’re playing G40 that’s another option. In fact, there’s good reason to favor mechanized infantry if you don’t really need additional attack strength, you just need something cheap and mobile to absorb hits.

I think that question might be a bit flawed, or at least a tad misleading for newer players. What you soon find out as you gain A&A experience is that a naval force has a high level of inter-dependency between units. Even if you could determine a unit with the highest individual value, you’ll quickly find out that spamming that unit doesn’t necessarily maximize the value of your navy as a whole. The whole can be greater than the sum of the parts, and sometimes the worst individual unit adds the most value to the group.

Take transports as an example. Transports are arguably the worst individual unit, but even a single transport changes the threat level of a navy completely. All of a sudden it’s capable of sniping a capital, taking away a national objective, or grabbing an under-defended area where a new factory can be set up and create an endless headache for your opponent.

I’m actually going to split my answer into two categories. Also, I should point out that I’m talking from a G40 perspective.

1. What’s the best value naval unit?

Subs, definitely. Subs provide some of the best utility in the game. Let’s talk about some reasons why:

• Attack Value -> Cheapest IPC cost per unit or cost per attack value in naval attacks.
• Defense Value -> Cheapest cost for absorbing an additional hit.
• Convoy Raids -> Can be spread out alone or in groups to get good value from convoy raids.
• Destroyer Trade -> Lone subs require a destroyer to kill, so if you are trading 1 for 1 on alternating turns you are getting better value than your opponent. Same for if you’re clearing out blockers.
• Precarious Placement -> It’s often difficult to build new naval units because your opponent has air coverage over your placement area. Subs are immune to the air coverage if there are no destroyers in range allowing you to squeeze them out in tense situations.
• Deny Offloading -> A single sub will deny offloading for an amphibious assault unless there’s a warship escort. This can increase your value in a situation where your opponent just wants to suicide a transport for a high value territory. Now they have to send an extra unit with the transport.
• Create Kamikaze Opportunities -> Following on the above point, this is especially important in a kamikaze zone since any surface warships accompanying a transport in order to ignore a sub are subject to kamikaze strikes. If the escort dies the amphibious assault will fail.
• Ignore Kamikaze Strikes -> Subs can’t be hit by kamikazes, so they can be utilized with air units to take out targets in kamikaze zones with immunity.

It’s still possible to over-build subs, but probably the hardest unit to over-build since you can usually find a primary or secondary use for them. Remember that subs provide no help if your opponent can strike the rest of your navy with an air-only attack. You’re still going to need some carriers, destroyers and fighters to protect those transports.

2. What’s the best strategic/game winning naval unit?

The aircraft carrier. Aircraft carrier usage in conjunction with aircraft really separate the “men from the boys” in terms of experience and skill level. This is probably worthy of its own topic/video, but understanding the barely-legal and obscure attacks that become available with aircraft carriers is where a more experienced player can exploit one with less experience.

Aircraft carriers really expand your threat projection and generate mistakes out of your opponent because they increase the number and complexity of problems to keep track of. Here are some examples of carrier plays that can change the game:

• Using newly purchased carriers as unexpected landing zones
• Deliberately failing to clear a path for your carrier so that you can suicide planes into high value targets (e.g. undefended transports)
• Using the turn order to create an unexpected landing area by parking an empty carrier for allied planes to land on
• Using the turn order to extend the range of onboard allied aircraft (carrier moves first and then allied planes move on their own turn)
• Intentionally killing off planes that require an aircraft carrier to land first so that the carrier doesn’t have to move into danger during non-combat moves
• The land/carrier switch, AKA “Yard Sale” explained below

The biggest threat I see get overlooked is what I like to call the “Yard Sale”. Where I come from we played a lot of ice hockey and called it a “yard sale” when substituting all of the active players at once. In ice hockey you can substitute players while play is ongoing. The rules on this are a bit loose, so while you’re limited to 5 (6 with goaltender) players on the ice at any time, for a fleeting moment you can have up to 10 players on the ice during the exchange. In A&A you can have a similar situation where your carrier-based aircraft can participate in a battle and land elsewhere, while land-based aircraft also participate in the same battle with intentions of landing on the now empty carriers. So, for example, if the setup is right you can send 12 aircraft into a battle when you’ve only got 3 carriers and many players will slip up and forget to account for this.

So, to make a long story short, if you want to make an incremental change to your usual navy mix, probably get more subs. If you want to up your strategic game, study how great players use their aircraft carriers. Apologies for how long this got.

@Arthur-Bomber-Harris said in Tutor game: AndrewAAGamer (X) vs trulpen [and everyone else] (A+50) OOB:

Additional: you can leave the planes in Moscow and still reach everywhere on the Western front. It allows you to land in Yunnan if there is some miracle and you can support Yunnan on turn 2. Sometimes I rush a mech and tank to Sikang on R1 and then return them back to Moscow if the dice are not looking good for China.

I would tend to agree if the G2 possibility was weaker. The downside of keeping the planes at Moscow is that it wrecks the efficiency of the possible Karelia/Vyborg retaliation. Sure, you can still do it, but your planes must land in Novgorod. This means they will require babysitting by ground units which may subsequently be poorly traded. It could possibly be pulled off with mechanized units, but the planes at Novgorod seems more reliable to me.

@Trulpen

Are you familiar with exporting the game stats from TripleA? (Go to Export -> Export Short Game Stats / Export Full Game Stats)

If you are handy with spreadsheets you can set one up to calculate the units-only TUV from the stats output (short game stats are probably easiest).

It’s certainly tedious to set up, but you only have to do it once and going forward you can just drop the new Triple-A stats into the sheet and have it calculate for you. The output seems to have the same format every time provided you are using the same map version, but you might need to re-create if you want it for multiple version (i.e. Out of Box, Balance Mod, etc.)

@pondweed

Here are a few other suggestions to add:

• US and Russia play simultaneously -> For the first several turns there’s little to no interaction between these two nations and you can have both of these players going at once. (later you might have to slow it down if the timing is going to matter, but this could easily save an hour in the first 4 turns)
• Set up table before players arrive
• Get hit dice -> Hit dice have only hit symbols and blank faces, no pips, and are organized by color according to unit strength. (e.g. the lowest tier would have a hit symbol on only one side corresponding to @1 units, 2nd tier would have 2 hit symbols for @2 units, etc.) These allow you to roll all units at once.
• Decide buys before your turn -> Sounds like you’re doing this already.
• Allow modifying a nation’s purchases until combat moves have been locked in -> If you do have players still trying to decide their buys when their turn arrives, this helps relieve the analysis paralysis of trying to imagine what their combat moves will look like before locking in purchases. They can just set a tentative purchase and get right into moving pieces, then review the purchases at the end once they can see all the moves made.

Anecdotally, I would say that 60+ seems a bit high for a bid for Global 1940 2nd Edition. Unfortunately there isn’t much hard data to go on. The forum league provides a pretty good sample of top tier players (the best in the world as far as I can tell) however they predominantly play the Balance Mod set of house rules, so it’s an apples/oranges comparison.

I believe the highest I’ve seen in the league for Out Of Box was a mid-40’s bid for a finals game a couple of years ago.

On the other hand though, I think it’s legitimate for their to be a bid premium for live games. Playing as the allies in a live game is much harder to plan and coordinate because you have time pressure and allies to coordinate with. When you play a TripleA game you have as much time as you want, and no allies with differing priorities.

Long story short, 60+ seems high, but could be legitimate if you’re group is very skilled and you also factor in a live game premium. However I suspect the allied play might have room to improve.

One thing you could do is download TripleA and take a look at how some top tier league players are playing to see if you can find some improvements for the allies. Or you could try some league games and intentionally take the axis to see how you do against allied players you haven’t played before.

I suppose you could also try to set up a live game against some experience players outside of your group, but that might be harder to make happen.

I was thinking about how to make this process a bit more fluid/timely while keeping interest up since it is a great idea. The most obvious downside is that it’s hard to consolidate so many people’s opinions, especially considering it’s all coming through in text. Kudos to @trulpen for being willing to try.

Here’s my proposal for the ‘World’ side. After each turn @AndrewAAGamer makes:

• 24+ hours for anyone to submit a TripleA file of what they suggest the best completed Allied turn is. (perhaps @trulpen can issue a cut-off notice at any point after the 24 hour mark)
• 24 hours for anyone to vote/rank their top 3 choices. (perhaps 3 points top choice, then 2 points, then 1 point) Must use all votes, can’t just say 3 points to your own proposal. :p
• Trulpen uses his best judgement to execute the proposal with the most points.

Text-only input would still be welcome and obviously it would be helpful to explain why you think your submission is good, but I think submitting a TripleA file with the proposed turn and then voting would consolidate and narrow down the decision making. Plus it makes sure everyone’s input is counted in some form.

P.S. Uploading the TripleA file only rather than the entire game turn summary might make it less spammy and clearer what the proposed turns VS actual turns are.

I think the issue arises because of the grey area between fairness and sportsmanship. Strictly speaking it’s not a fairness issue. Everyone can look up the game rules and posted league rules and unless otherwise agreed before the game begins then you’re working with regular dice and shouldn’t feel obligated to offer a re-roll under any circumstances unless you agree on the circumstances pre-game.

As far as sportsmanship goes, you’ve got to remember that everyone plays with different objectives in mind, such as:

• Having an evenly matched and engaging game
• Testing your best strategy against your opponent’s best
• Winning

Allowing a re-roll might make sense for the first two objectives, but not the last one.

There’s also a spectrum of gaming situations that complicate matters:

• League playoffs
• Live tournaments
• League high tier play
• League lower tier play
• Online non-league play
• Live friendly games

I think everyone is going to have a different point on the spectrum as to where sportsmanship trumps fairness. For me the line is below league play. Non-league games and live games are primarily for fun, so allowing a re-roll makes sense to me. In the league it’s perfectly acceptable to be playing for points and positioning (i.e. wins) so no one should feel obligated or entitled to a re-roll.

Of course if you’re playing a league game and you personally place a fun game ahead of winning, then by all means offer a re-roll, I’m just saying that in the league you shouldn’t expect it, and the other player shouldn’t feel bad about declining.

Managing the risk of extreme dice outcomes is a big part of what makes great players great.

@AndrewAAGamer said in Current 2020 Global 1940 2nd Edition Bid?:

I would be very interested in seeing how to look at other bids via TripleA as you mention and even other games for study purposes too. While I have used TripleA for PBEM I have never used it online and do not know how to do what you mention. Would you mind taking the time to explain it to me? Thank you in advance for your time and effort.

Investigating league games is fairly straight forward if you already have TripleA. The first thing you need is to navigate to the league thread which you can find here:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/category/29/league

There are many ongoing games, so just click on one and find the most recent post. Sometimes there will be conversations but for the most part there will be TripleA system generated turn summaries. At the bottom of the summary will be a file link that says “Savegame”

Clicking will download the TripleA file associated with that particular summary. Once open you can see the entire game history. (In TripleA: Game -> Show History) You might have to download the Balance Mod map TripleA to make sure you don’t get an error.

As for the bid of that particular game, most players include it in the title of the thread, but you can also go back to the first turn of the game, find where the units have been edited in and count up the value.

Interestingly, the 2019 Championship game for the top tier of the league is ongoing right now. I’m sure several people are keeping an eye on that game. Here are a couple of other helpful links as well.

League game results thread, where players post links to completed games:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/30808/post-league-game-results-here

League Standings Spreadsheet, so you can see what tier the players are in:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhOB4pSke42ydEhlX0RfbGxmM3RMSHJQd083TV9JUGc#gid=10

Out of curiosity, if you don’t mind saying, where is your group located?

The one nice thing about having the watched games/posts in the previous location was that it’s much easier to find on a mobile device by clicking the menu.

The other links box shows up nicely on a computer but on a mobile device it usually ends up near the bottom of the page after all of the posts.

Obviously if you have limited spots on the menu then you have to prioritize, but just thought I’d mention.

@aequitas-et-veritas

Good game, and likewise all the best on your future games.

Yes, being able to re-take Morocco definitely gave the Germans some breathing room.

I don’t play a ton of games, but hopefully we meet up again.

@djensen

I think there are two main concerns here:

• “Tail Risk”
• Simplicity of Application

I know what you’re thinking, and no, tail risk has nothing to do with the ladies. It’s about hitting the extreme ends of the probability distribution. Of course the bigger concern is hitting exceptionally bad dice rather than exceptionally good dice. People rarely complain about exceptionally good dice.

Here’s my proposal:

    1. Calculate the expected number of hits for each side similar to low luck
    2. Roll the dice OOB style and find the actual number of hits
    3. If the actual hits are below the expected hits by X, re-roll X dice that missed and incorporate the additional hits to your total

For simplicity you could say that the re-rolled dice will always be @3 or @4, or alternatively you could select from the actual dice that missed. (Easier if you are playing with hit dice)

This approach would leave the positive side of the probability distribution alone, but would condense the negative side. There would still be negative results, but far less game changingly bad results.

I think it also has the advantage of simplicity. It’s roughly the same difficulty to apply as low luck.