Do you like luck in strategy games?

Personally, I reduce luck to zero in all games I set up because for me it's about the strategy and working out the best moves, not randomness. I can't stand it when nasty luck loses me a game!

I realise many board games have a luck element but wouldn't they be better without? I mean, can you imagine introducing a luck element to chess?

I can't stand luck as well.

Sliding luck to 0 is the one big reason I bought membership.

I personally enjoy standard luck games, probably because it takes away some of the need for micromanagement. But I play plenty of games at low luck nowadays, too. The ladder has had a lot to do with that.

Zero luck still involves remainder rolls, which is more than a sufficient luck element to satisfy me. I don't even like losing a 70% or 80% remainder roll, but I can live with it after losing 7x4 and 5x3 rolls with the default 16%.

I like low luck.. with default luck thoe outrageous losses happen too often imho.. but every soldier isn't the same.. there are times when your 7 will lose to that 4.. hence why most of my games lately are around 15-20% luck.. to add in that slight bit of unpredictability that is a part of actual war.

"slight bit of unpredictability that is a part of actual war"

Seriously? There's probably stronger arguments for a moderate luck setting than it more closely approximates actual warfare. WL is hardly going for realism. People like the unpredictability. The deemphasis on math and overly technical turn analysis and the arguably greater simplicity that brings (It's arguable because low luck doesn't necessitate using math or technical analysis and higher luck doesn't negate its importance). The leveling of the playing field to a degree. A better player will be handicapped about half the time and will win even more decisively the other half. Etc.

i like high luck. then i can blame my losses on it.

naturally, i take all the credit for my wins.

Succinctly put Emp.

Actually higher luck makes math both more important and harder. Even a simple question like how many armies do I need to use to kill X defenders if luck is 16% is a pain to calculate. First you need the expected result, then the range of possible results, then the portion of that range that could result in a remainder roll which could cause the attack to fail, then the percentage of that portion against the total range of possibilities (initial probability), then the probability of the remainder roll going against you (second probability), then multiply the two probabilities.

A simple 10x6 attack with 16% luck has a 23% chance of suceeding.

expected result = 6
Range of possible results = 5.04 - 6.96 or 1.92
Portion of that range that could result in a remainder roll = .96
Initial probability = .96/1.92 = .5 or 50% odds
Second probability = .45/.96 = .4687 or 46.87%
Final probability = .23435 or 23.435%

This was a relatively easy one as the initial probability is a given and the number of attackers/defenders were low.

If you absolutely need to take out the defenders that turn, you would then have to determine the minimum number of attackers that yields an initial probability of 100%.

I'm sure most players wing it. But having played on a small map with no reinforcement cards, each army became crucial to winning and these kind of excercises became du rigour. I didn't find it fun.

With zero luck all you have is expected result and remainder divided by 100 to calculate the plus or minus. Minimum armies necessary to defend or attack is also very easy to calculate in your head.

What I think would help the situation out and balance Fizz's desire to deemphasize math, with a gamer's need to play efficiently and not make preventable mistakes is to have WL do each of these calculations for you automatically. So when I roll over an attack order I'd see (i) the final probability and (ii) the minimum number of armies necessary to have 100% odds of taking the defender out.

I know Fizz has tried this before but I don't think it worked right. I would get 100% odds of success and then end up failing occassionally. Adding this feature would speed up the game and level the playing field for those not interested in doing the math several times a game.

i generally calculate the odds of victory more when planning defensive actions then offensive.. since I generally presume in my offensive actions that they have more then i can generally predict for safety, so calculate it out as if at 0% luck with them putting full reinforcements, then add or drop a slight bit depending on how my armies/turn are looking, and generally in several spots if possible, knowing that they won't have the theoretical armies I have deducted they will have...


defensively however, i calculate it out, presuming they place all armies where they can attack me, and find out according to 0 luck, and depending how important the luck is to me, actually calculate the remaining luck possibilities.

but as i said before, i presume 0% luck as actual average combat results, the luck variant is exceptions that may or may not occur in the field by my field generals/soldiers. \*in my mentality* so i try not to really calculate that into my gameplay as it's supposed to be a surprise.. which is partially why i am about average in 1v1 strategic.. I can micromanage, but I don't find it enjoy it, so rarely do it to that degree..

I would actually enjoy the option to implement a random luck factor. say put in a range \*10-25%* and then the game will pick some integer in that range for the luck factor of the game, possibly to be shown at the games conclusion..

|>"What I think would help the situation out and balance Fizz's desire to deemphasize math, with a gamer's need to play efficiently and not make preventable mistakes is to have WL do each of these calculations for you automatically. So when I roll over an attack order I'd see (i) the final probability and (ii) the minimum number of armies necessary to have 100% odds of taking the defender out.

|>I know Fizz has tried this before but I don't think it worked right. I would get 100% odds of success and then end up failing occassionally. Adding this feature would speed up the game and level the playing field for those not interested in doing the math several times a game."


Isn't that what the analyze window does? And yes, the analyze window does occasionally report 100% when it should say less than that, but that's probably just a matter of Fizzer increasing the precision (it's being rounded off).

I think it's more than a rounding problem, I don't think it calculates probability the way I described (does anyone actually know?). It defeinitely does not tell you the minimum attack to kill the defenders 100% of the time with the given luck settings.