Conquer Club

There are many who think the dice is not fair. Finally I realized what might be obvious to some; it’s not that the dice are not fair, but that the costs of combat can be too high.

If you do the math, on a 3 against 2 combat, there is a 37% chance that you will win both dice. This sounds like a good thing right? But consider the average combat at the start of the combat. You start out with 3 units and get an additional 3 units and need to go against 3 opponents. You have 6 units but you need 4 in order to maintain a 3:2 combat ratio. You have a 29% chance right off the bat to loose 2 units on the first attack, and you can actually wind up with an 8% chance of loosing 4 units after the second attack and loosing the 3:2 advantage.

If you go below the 3:2 you have a major disadvantage. 2:2 is on the average a loosing proposition. 2:1 is nearly 50/50. On the average 3:2 gives you a 0.15 unit advantage, but in order to get this advantage, you need the numbers. The larger the battles the more that the advantage takes place.

The result of this is that in order to take advantage of the law of averages you need enough troops so that you don’t go below 3:2. But in the start of the game a simple round can leave you with no new territories and one unit less than before the round began. This is important because you can be so blinded by trying to win the battle that you loose the war.

Well when people claim in a fit of rage that the dice are unfair the last thing they're thinking about is math, and usually they're just on an unlucky streak.

That's something I've integrated into my strategy, actually. For example if I've got two places bordering a territory I need to take, let's say at the beginning of the game, I add one to each so I have a 3v2 on both ends.

The problem with the "unlucky" streak is that people don't really look at the dice, they look at the yellow outlines around the dice; who looses. Once you start with low numbers and you get a bad roll you have a tendency to press on the attack even though the odds are now significantly not in your favor. You are not "unlucky" you are "stupid."

None the less, attacking 6 v3 is hardly a risky endeavor.

You have a 1 in 4 chance of losing nobody at all (not really all that bad really).

You have a nearly 50/50 chance (45%) of losing only one and you have a 62% chance of ending up with a total of 4 guys left over after the attack, after having gained whatever it was you were trying to gain, be it a card, positional advantage, a bonus area, what have you.

These are not bad odds at all. Frankly, I'd even advocate swinging again if you lose your first two. Attackers dice still favor defenders dice in that situation. Assuming that your opponent wants your territory as badly as you want his, your odds are still better of winning 4v3 (47%) than you are of surviving the counter attack of 6v4 (attacker wins 63% of the time).

Now, this assumes a lot things regarding the importance of the territory, but I think dogmatically avoiding 6v3 attacks is just as bad as wasting yourself 3v3 or worse in some vain attempt to get a card. Well, maybe not as bad because attacking 3v3 unless it's hugely important is just plain stupid.

Ah... I get it.

It's not that the Dice are unfair... it's that "Math" is unfair.

Thanks for the clarification!

what are the odds off, me as a defender, losing a 5 to a 3 with no loss, coz some guy just attacked a 5 of mine with a 3 and lost none....... on a doodle earth game that costs the game

NOHIBBERTNO wrote:what are the odds off, me as a defender, losing a 5 to a 3 with no loss, coz some guy just attacked a 5 of mine with a 3 and lost none....... on a doodle earth game that costs the game

Not so small - almost 3%

Zemljanin wrote: Not so small - almost 3%

See... math IS unfair.

I mean COME ON!

3% is almost like ZERO!

That should like NEVER happen.

I don't care that there are hundreds (more?) of games going on at any given time... nor should it matter that those game cause thousands of "roles" per hour. That's just wrong!


Honestly though... maybe there's some way for CC Mathematicians to cut the top and bottom (most favorable/least favorable) 5% probabilities from potential dice roles. Taking only data from the "meat" of the curve would avoid the extreme cases of "math unfairness" that everyone gripes about. Statisticians (sp?) often exclude the extremes from their calculation. Just a thought... maybe not original, but I hadn't heard it on here before.

It would be boring if you won every battle through sheer force of numbers.

detlef, I would never suggest that a 6 v 3 ratio is a "risky" endeavor. A lot has to do with the goals of the battle and the situation sourrounding both the terriroty you have and the terriroty you want to obtain. If you are in a position where if you can take the territory you don't need to fully defend the territory you are attacking from you are in a better position than if you have to capture and protect both territories.

You need to consider how many units you need to retain, how many units you need to advance and how many units you could possibly loose. In a given combat against two units you could loose 2 of them. That's still good odds. The problem is that we start off with the mentality "it's 6 v 3 ... I MUST WIN" and proceed to commit tactical suicide.

A 4 v 3 ratio (the result of loosing the first die) is not risky but it is the edge of being unwise. You could win without a loss but then you have 4 armies to divide beween two territories. You could divide the units 2 & 2 but now you have two territories that have a 1/3 chance to fall to a single dice roll of the opponent. You also have a 1/3 chance of having it fall to a 2 v 3 ratio and allowing the opponent to get an advantage when he has his turn. It all depends on the situation.

When I was in college I played a role playing game that had percentile dice. The laws of averages being what they are and the laws of human nature those things that happened only when you managed to roll a pair of 0's on ten sided (0-9) dice still were unnerving. When you roll a lot of dice, even one percent happens. So 3% is actually quite HUGE!

True it is not the dice that are unfair. It is instead the attitude of the attack button!!!

If I push it just one more time I can win, just once more just once morejust once morejust once more