Idiotic combat rolls

[Kuniworth]

Sea-lion. My 6 veteran airfleets jets level 0 in good supply and hq attached(3 chits no tech for 1 1/2 years) attacks Manchester and gets no real hits against the free french army in there. Meanwhile 3 army´s, 2 pz korps and a italian army attacks in alternate turns to keep up supply level.

So do I get Manchester? Nope of course not. Well Ok for 1 turn. But for 3 consecutive ones?????? Cant barely scratch the bastard.

This luck is so ****in annoying. I almost threw the game out the window. Something very fishy about combat results sometimes. The game seems to favor the side thats losing.

:mad:

[Iron Ranger]

There are alot of factors that can effect combat results. And attacking a fully entrenced unit in a capital with poorly supplied units will take 2-3 turns to destroy.

On tech is all luck - I;ve had games and seen games where one side just can't get and incresse in jets. One, two years with 3-4 chits and on incresses is very had to take, but it can be overcome untill Russia enters the game, then you need to develop air control or at least air neutral to keep in the game.

It's all Luck in the tech department. I've played several games where there was a HR against inversting in any tech, makes for a very good game as battle tactics rule the game and not who can get luckest with the jet and LR tech advances.

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by Iron Ranger:

It's all Luck in the tech department. I've played several games where there was a HR against inversting in any tech, makes for a very good game as battle tactics rule the game and not who can get luckest with the jet and LR tech advances.

Should luck be such a great factor in

getting tech?

Think about it: when a country in WWII invested

in a tech it usually got what it is trying to

get, in a quasi-reasonable time frame. Think

about it:

1. The Germans lost the Battle of the Atlantic

because Doenitz and Hitler pooh-poohed innovative

sub designs [until after the battle had already

been lost] and also fell behind the curve in the

electronics dept.

2. The Germans also lagged in the jet arena too

until it was too late [tho part of that was the

fragility of the alloys used for the turbines].

3. On the other hand, the Germans quickly caught

up to the Russians in heavy tanks once they

realized that their existing tanks were outclassed.

4. The Americans put a lot of effort into long-

range drop tanks [despite the bleatings of some

brass who thought that the bombers could make it

all on their own-proved wrong of course in the

fall of '43], and it paid off in 1944. The

Germans didn't in 1940, and paid the price...

My point was: I seriously doubt that there

were huge lags in investment as compared to

outcome: it seems to me when a country put the

resources into something, they got something

solid and useful out of it fairly quickly; likewise

half-hearted efforts tended to pay off way down

the line [if they paid off at all]. But usually,

heavy efforts rarely were completely futile, nor

did weak investments pay off quickly and

spectacularly [with rare exceptions].

I would, then, put in the game (SC2) reasonable

time frames for success:

Chits........Time to payoff (1 advance)

----------------------------------------

1............18-36 months

2............15-30 months

3............12-24 months

4............10-20 months

5.............8-16 months

Thus, if you have 3 chits in Jets, you aren't

going to get an advance at all until a year later,

but will be guaranteed something 2 years later at

the latest. This will avoid (to a certain extent)

seeing your opponent get lucky with one chit 3

times in a year, while your 3 chits languish for

30 months with not one advance. Luck is still a

factor of course: this just cuts out the outliers.

John DiFool

[Tigleth Pilisar]

If you don't want chance, play Global Diplomacy. PBEM Games - Global Diplomacy

Otherwise, luck is part of a game. In a normal length game, it goes both ways. I like luck because it forces you to change strategy.

Agree its frusterating not to get the combat results you want. I don't believe the second air assault has a cumulative effect with the first. So if there is a chance for zero damage 6 times it can happen. And there is the same chance that a seventh would be zero too. I bet the first few attacks had a high chance of zero damage.

Maybe he has at least +1 anti-air compared to you (which he almost certainly does). Maybe he was entrenched. Maybe he was in supply. Maybe your fleets weren't full strength or had a 6 commander. Maybe his unit had experience and better command... Maybe Winston was in town

[Tigleth Pilisar]

Johnny D::

I think two revamps should happen with tech:

1) Your probability of success increases the longer you invest in something. Perhaps reset when an advance comes.

2) Tech investment has both a maintenance and initiation cost.

I think chance should remain so that players can not be certain of advancement (in the "real world" you can't be certain of innovation from a specific expenditure - some go bust and the so-called developer bankrupted), but that the chance gets better of breakthrough the longer you have been researching.

The maintenance cost is a dubious proposition in SC because nothing else has a maintenance cost.

[Shaka of Carthage]

The only change required to tech is that once you achieve a tech advance, a R&D chit is consumed.

The current system works just fine. Its not predictable, there is enough of a variance to make the decision between investing one or three chits in a single tech a major decision and the catch up feature actually gives you some strategic options.