Always Allies?

[Armuss]

Chance of victory:

Allies (good player) - Axis (good player)

90% - 10%

How this change?

Undo "USSR Siberian Reserves" & "USSR Urals Fabric"?

[n0kn0k]

Terif (Axis) 100% - Anyone (Allies) 0%

Axis is a bit harder to master, but it's not impossible.

[Liam]

Axis are definitely weaker but not if you know what you're doing, then they are possibly as strong

[Armuss]

My games with AI: (inter.+1) AI Allies - Allies win, I Allies - Allies win...

[Liam]

Originally posted by Armuss:

My games with AI: (inter.+1) AI Allies - Allies win, I Allies - Allies win...

vs AI if you know MP strategy you will probably have 50 and 0 unless you play 1944 D-day strategy as Axis and even then it shouldn't be that hard to figure out what to do to win...

[Blashy]

Terif vs. Terif , I say Axis wins everytime.

As for vs. the AI, time and practice will get you there. I play it on the hardest settings and can win with either side using different strategies.

[SeaMonkey]

I'll chime in on the other side, Terif vs Terif Allies 60%, Axis 40% win percentages.

My thoughts are the winner is decided by the luck of tech and diplomacy if both opponents are exactly equal in abilities.

That leads me to conclude the game is balanced.

It is very easy to examine individual games and assess an apparent bias, but in actuality it was usually a crucial hit of diplomacy or tech, or a number of them in succession that has caused one side to gain the upperhand.

Occassionally timing of tech/diplo can look like a game is completely skewed to one side or the other if an experienced player knows how to make full use of the opportunity. While the other player subjected to the extreme duress of being behind makes a crucial error.

Hence we see many games end early.

[Liam]

eloquently put

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

I'll chime in on the other side, Terif vs Terif Allies 60%, Axis 40% win percentages.

My thoughts are the winner is decided by the luck of tech and diplomacy if both opponents are exactly equal in abilities.

That leads me to conclude the game is balanced.

It is very easy to examine individual games and assess an apparent bias, but in actuality it was usually a crucial hit of diplomacy or tech, or a number of them in succession that has caused one side to gain the upperhand.

Occassionally timing of tech/diplo can look like a game is completely skewed to one side or the other if an experienced player knows how to make full use of the opportunity. While the other player subjected to the extreme duress of being behind makes a crucial error.

Hence we see many games end early.

[SeaMonkey]

Thank you Liam....just an opinion............and you do know what they're worth.

[TaoJah]

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

Occassionally timing of tech/diplo can look like a game is completely skewed to one side or the other if an experienced player knows how to make full use of the opportunity.

Experienced or not, when you got the REALLY bad luck in research, there is nothing you can do, you lose the game.

That's why I think that with two players of the same experience, the luckiest one wins with the current research system.

Like now... I am playing as Allied in one game and the opponent has infantry level 3 when he invades France. In the other game I am Axis and I have infantry level 2 when invading Russia.

It's pure luck. We might just as well throw a dice at the start of the game to see who wins and don't bother playing.

I am all for a optional research system that garantees a certain advancement in research, so that you can actually have a say in the outcome of the game. But Hubert is against it

[Terif]

So far and with V1.06 I have to say that luck fortunately plays no role in SC2 except if you role the dice by your own free will .

Terif vs Terif: Chances to win with either side is 50/50 - it only depends on the strategies employed and if they are the right counter to the opponents currently used strategy .

Especially research and having Infantry Weapons level 3 is not a matter of luck but of investing the proper amount of chits into it. Yes, if you only invest the minimum chits necessary (= 2 chits), then luck will decide if you get level 3 in time or not. But if you invest right (= don´t trust/hope for luck ) and buy enough chits (my standard investment is e.g. for Germany 3 chits as the first thing in 1939 and if it is not at level 3 end of 1940 then adding more chits (up to researching with 5 in the extreme), so you will nearly always have level 3 at the start of Barbarossa and so far in 99,9% of the games till end of 1941...

For Russia the same: you will get a certain amount of research advances till Barbarossa, some players prefer to invest into economic techs first, but then they don´t have to wonder if they don´t have full combat techs at Barbarossas start - you can´t have both usually . As long as Russia goes IW and AT first and don´t try to save mpps by underinvesting into them (and trying luck...), it will also get the necessary techs in time.

Even if you wouldn´t get the necessary techs or invest in the wrong order - lower combat techs also means cheaper units which offsets partially the disadvantage. But more important: if you are too inferior in tech, then simply don´t attack during this time ! If you do it despite, your fault . In SC2 both sides have enough space available to trade for time if necessary, so they can research, built up etc whatever necessary.

From my observations research/diplo/combat luck makes no objective difference in the game as you can compensate everything by changing your plans accordingly. The main effect of such things is the psychological effect on the player - too many then just throw in the towel (either directly by quiting or by starting kamikaze moves respectively desperate, suicidal attacks). But this would not be necessary if they would just adapt to the situation and look for a way to compensate a certain disadvantage - but usually all random things even out in the long run anyway.

E.g. without sufficient tech you only need to play for some time a bit more defensively so you can catch up, or swarm the enemy with your low tech but cheap units...look for the weak spots and attack there instead of getting slaughtered by silly attacks against the strong points, or use numerical superiority to offset the lower attack values...lots of possibilities .

Lastly in SC2 a tech level difference makes no real difference in the game - supply, HQ command and readiness have a far greater influence on a battle and the right battle order and strategic decissions where to use your units and ressources determines who will win the game .

[Liam]

I have to agree with Terif, I recall my first 3 or 4 games vs Rambo this was version 1.0. I wanted Axis so bad my first few games and I learned quickly. He let me have them, I researched whatever, not really checking combat values and what not. I had in the end, IW1... he researched IW3 as USSR. I built a truckload of units having Slowplayed my Axis, despite losing 2 or 3 units to his 1 unit... I managed for the most part to stay alive as I had a couple experiences vs Iron Ranger in using my units a bit more effectively than him. Our first game I believed ended in 1944 and I had just achieved IW2 for Germany, Motors2 for Italy... I just never realized the power of IW in that game and what I needed to kick his butt. Took me a few games to actually realize by getting my butt kicked!!!

vs Terif, on several occassions I have had very inflexible strategies. Most of this I put to SC1 experience and history. We all want to play the game as History played out rather than to adapt to a WW2 game with a Real Map and other logistics involved. It's not WW2... I am a very inflexible player I get too used to one style, in Axis & Allies I recall that was luck now but still 2 out of 3 Xs the winner was the guy who had the best strategy.

In my education vs Terif

I as Allies had heavily researched IT, but it never payed off 4 chits!!!, luck!!!, I felt he had doomed me! He was in Stalingrad and I was just getting IW1, I finished the game with IW2 and never achieved much else and get this, just 1 advance in IT. If you calculated the odds over 2 or 3 years of gameplay with that many chits I think you'll find it's very very rare you get such bad dice. Actually in this game I still lasted a ways and I should've retreated further back!

In several other games vs him I had gotten very lucky but found inflexible strategies just do not work in SC2, you cannot always defend a position and you cannot always take a position. In this game when you GO after your goals, you go all the way. Lots of Units lots of combination, and the right ones... You need to outnumber your opponent to win on any front not just have Tech!

I just have began grasping some of this, in SC1 you could often hold a front with much less, just your airfleets and a few Minor Corps. In SC2 it is required you think way ahead and prepare to be flexible if neccessary, abandon a front even if it's ahistorical. Have 3 or 5 to 1 if you wish to take a position early. bring in the right combination of Forces, say 2 airfleet strikes, 1 battleship hit, 1 cruiser, then 3 or 4 land strikes... All this taken for granted!

The Map, Recon, overall strategy is very very important. If the Axis preserve and the Allies preserve, by '43 or '44 there can be a real even fistfight and there is no luck there so long as neither side continually blundered early. Small Blunders out of boredom are the #1 cause of a decent players losses...

Some dice count, if Terif was facing himself the luckier one would win, this is not Poker. Probably 5-10% once you understand the game dynamics, but playing himself he might draw quite often!

I am still going to beat him, he cannot win every game, he just knows that much more strategy and counter strategy and nuances

We do not play that much nor devote that much energy...

[hellraiser]

From my experience with strategy games (where certain luck factors are involved) if you get lucky at the EXACT moment you need to be lucky, you win...or at least increase your chances tremenduosly. It is not something related only to the gaming world, it's just life -> remember those great battles/wars from history - almost every time luck (which is, in other words, one or a streak of favourable and unexpected events) and randomness played quite a role. A good and able commander was indeed great if the gods favoured him as well (gods = luck ofc ).

I know Terif's theory about luck from the days of SC1, which I didn't agree to back then, as I don't agree to it right now. SC2 indeed reduces the effect of luck because, as Terif correctly noticed, there is far more real estate to trade for time. But it only reduces the effect not eliminate it.

A thing that I fully agree is that the more you play an opponent, the less luck will matter as far as the aggreggate score is concerned. Because one side get lucky now, perhaps the next game the other side has the luck - so indeed it kinda cancels out and after some games you can draw a conclusion: X is a better player than Y.

The phrase 'luck don't matter in the long run' doesn't hold -> what long run if one side gets uber techs and rape you in 2 years? OTOH, if you reached 1943-44-45 and things are balanced, it maybe because luck has evened out and perhaps the skill of the players are pretty close (the 'happy' scenario).

What Terif does, and everyone should do if it is needed, is to try to compensate the effect of his bad luck (overinvesting if the techs don't come, for example) - which is basically common sense, a feature that mr. Yoda was born with

Everything matters in this game: common sense, knowledge of the mechanics, strategy, tactics, luck >>> a blend which makes this game so enjoyable after all

[Blashy]

Hence why I prefer to have chit limits invested.

This way tech progression is more linear and historical. BUT luck can still happen.

My mods have 1 chit limits on anything of tech 3 and under and still it has occured that I start the French campaign with L3 IW, that is luck.

I limit to 3 chits for L5 techs and with 3 chits I`ve had bad luck and stayed with L3 IT for USA for a whole game.

But in 90% of the games I play, tech is more linear and makes for a longer game and excitement. As well as not having a bunch of techs maxed out be the end of 1941. There is nothing more exciting then getting your L3 IW by the end of 1943 or a big sigh of relief and the game is often far from over.

[Terif]

If you make a custom mod and limit chits to 1, then you really have the luck factor back in the game as then it is in deed pure luck if you get your techs at the right time - only 3% chance for this chit to reach lv 3...simply luck when or if it fires .

But in the standard Fall Weiss game you can compensate by increasing your investments. Together with the many turns and lots of random small events, luck nearly always evens out during the course of a game.

The problem is only the psychological effect...or the regrettable fact that a lot of players just quit or go kamikaze if things don´t go in their favour instead of continuing to fight...where they would notice that it all evens out. In SC2 (same as SC1) there will always be ups and downs - luck only plays a role if someone just surrenders during the first down - otherwise it would even out later .

In any case, compared to the effects of strategic decissions and therefore won/lost battles, the random effects influence on a game is nearly neglectable. It only changes the necessary strategies, but has no real influence on the outcome. Pretty much the same as surrendering because of loosing one or two units (like some players unfortunately did and do...) when in the game are units involved worth tens of thousands of mpps...compared to the overall forces such a loss is objectively more than unimportant, but often the psychological impact is devastating and leads to a (unnecessary) surrender - same as with luck: neglectable objective impact, only a huge psychological influence .

A pretty good example/comparison for this psychological effect is waiting in a line before the cash point...you always seem to be unlucky and the lines left and right of you are always moving faster forward than yours...so in the end you leave your line to get into one of the faster moving ones...(=quitting the game to start a new one where you will have more "luck")...only to notice that now your old line is moving faster forward...

..even if the line is objectively not moving slower, it seems so because of selective perception - humans usually notice and remember the bad things much better than the good things - which was necessary in evolution to improve the learning curve, but is bad when playing a strategy game... .

[ April 05, 2007, 10:03 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[TaoJah]

If a player invests 5 chits in IT for Russia and doesn't get a single hit in four years of play time, you can twist it around all you want, but that player will lose.

This happened to me TWICE, once with Allied and one with Axis : taking 5 chits in IT ASAP and not getting a single breakthrough in four years. Not. One. Single. Succes.

And you can say that "luck evens out", but it doesn't. With 500 MPPs wasted and low level German or Russian infantry in 40, 41, 42 and 43 the game is over, plain and simple.

[Terif]

First: 5 chits in IT instead of IW is certainly not the best choice

Second: Chance for this to happen once (5 chits, 4 years, no success) would be 0.00000319 % = 1 game out of 31 million 356 thousand and 256 games

Chance for it to happen twice: astronomically low...

Sorry, but this only proves the selected awareness of humans concerning luck - I am pretty sure this event never really happened as described, only a result of selective memory :cool: - and if it did, it won´t happen again the next few million years in your games = you can now neglect this luck factor...

[Terif]

I know, if you don´t get the expected results or the results you hoped for, it is quite natural to be angry at first - happens to me too when I have a streak of bad luck with tech or diplo...but as long as you don´t throw the towel in you always have the possibility to compensate for it and usually it will even out anyway later. Just take a step back, breath deep and continue to fight - main mistake many player do is starting to do crazy or desperate things and later to blame bad luck for the loss of the war while in reality their following decissions were the real cause .

[jon_j_rambo]

Yodl

[TaoJah]

Originally posted by Terif:

Chance for this to happen once (5 chits, 4 years, no success) would be 0.00000319 % = 1 game out of 31 million 356 thousand and 256 games

Chance for it to happen twice: astronomically low...

Sorry, but this only proves the selected awareness of humans concerning luck - I am pretty sure this event never really happened as described, only a result of selective memory

I fully agree with you. The odds for this happening is -what we statistians call- "infinitismal little", meaning so little that you don't have to take it into account. And yet it happened. Twice.

In all my games of AI plays, I never had this, ever : I always bought 5 chits in IT and usually got it before going to France with Germany and before Barbarossa with Russia. In my first four or five HvH games I did the same, twice with the results mentioned. Three - four years and nothing.

I mailed Hubert when it happened AGAIN with only 2 chits (end 42 and no hit). He insisted that it was not a bug. I have no choice but believe him, but it's hard with my old statistic degree on the wall.

I would REALLY like a non-luck research system, shouldn't be too hard to implement, me thinks, but Hubert doesn't want it so it won't happen Too bad, it's a good game for the rest.

[Konigs]

Question for the experts, Terif and guys,

DO you take chits already invested the current techs, example, Soviets have like 1 chit invested in several techs, do you wait it out for tech hits and as more come available then put them all in say IW or wahtever, or do you cash chits in so you can max invest in one particular tech? ...

[Terif]

@TaoJah:

Yep, a less luck based research system could be useful - on the other side this would take away those emotional moments when you want to throw your computer out of the window because of getting no breakthrough or biting into your pillow...

@Konigs:

My Russia always sells in turn one rocket and intel research (useless for them) and so can already invest 2 chits into something more useful. Depending on the research advances Infrastructure also gets sold later if it didn´t hit so Russia can buy another IW chit instead .

This way you get level 3 nearly guaranteed latest in 1941 - but even if you don´t have much techs till Barbarossa, Russia has enough cheap corps and space that it can trade for time .

[n0kn0k]

Imho luck with research shouldn't be in a game.

The opponent should be the main random factor in the game.

That way there's no one but yourself to blame if you lose

[Retributar]

Sometimes intensive research was never brought to completion. Other times, it was a hit & miss affair!.

Just because you invest heavily in it does not mean that you will derive benefits from research within a guaranteed time frame.

Im all for randomizing result's for research, as it should not be an event that is guaranteed to expedite results within a predetermined time-frame!.

[Liam]

All in all, I think that luck with Dice when you're attacking or defending, weather, and getting that perfect tech advantage at the right time can make the campaign go smoother and thus the game. Not just luck with these things as Terif says, if you're tired you can make mistakes and get fed up...

You need to be refreshed and not play when you're unprepared and when you feel that not so well come back later, save! I lose lots due to playing tired,, err meant not playing when your on tilt like in poker, you make hasty decisions and throw away your chances at evening the score.

[ April 06, 2007, 12:36 AM: Message edited by: Liam ]