VIKTORY II Expansion Rule - Determining Hits with Dice
After rolling the appropriate number of dice, the sum is calculated, and divided by 5. The result, rounded down, is the number of hits. Tactical Victory selective hits are on a “6″.
Example: A player gets to roll four dice, and rolls a 1, 3, 4, 6. That adds up to 14. 14/5 = 2.8, which rounds down to 2 hits. Since a six was rolled, one of those two hits is a Tactical Victory selective hit.
This reduces the bloodiness of smaller battles, increases the bloodiness of bigger battles, and reduces the variability of outcomes. If you roll five dice, you’re guaranteed at least one hit by summing the dice.
This also reduces the number of Tactical Victory selective hits in the game. Hits were previously made on a 1, 2, or 3, and selective hits were on a 1, which meant that selective hits represented 1/3 of all hits or 33%. Now only approximately 24% or so of all hits are selective hits. Since fewer cities in the game has reduced the number of elite units, it’s appropriate that the kill ratio of elite units would be reduced as well.
When different types of rolls are made (bombard attacks, battle attacks), they may be made collectively. If two Frigates are bombarding the same hex, the player may choose to roll both bombard dice at the same time.
Posted: February 10th, 2007 under Expansion Rules.
Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from Peter
Time: February 10, 2007, 11:33 am
Background behind Determing Hits with Dice change:
This was originally proposed to me months ago. It has the benefit of reducing variability in outcomes. A common complaint about VIKTORY II is that it is a dicefest, and while I don’t think there’s anything wrong with dice, reducing some of the dice variability isn’t a bad idea.
Before if you rolled 4 four’s, they would all be misses. Now that would give you 4+4+4+4 = 16, 16/5 = 3.2 ~ 3 hits.
It changes the desired roll, from a “1″ to a “6″. This was something I went back and forth on initially with VIKTORY II. Is it better to want to roll high, and roll 6’s, or is it better to want to roll low, and roll 1’s. My background was weighted by my Axis & Allies experience, and so I went with rolling low as being better. It’s somewhat trivial, but this change would flip the desired roll to being a high roll, for what that’s worth.
This also reduces the desirability of making small 1 infantry unit suicide attacks, as you’ll still only get to roll 1 die, but now you only have a 1/3 chance of getting a hit, as opposed to 1/2 chance of getting a hit now. It increases the desirability in massing your forces, to get to roll the max # of dice, because the # of hits you’ll get is not just a linear correlation to the # of dice you’re rolling, but you get proportionally even more hits by having lots of dice.
Before if you made four attacks with one die each, you’d get on average 2 hits in the first rounds of battle. Now you would only get 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1-1/3 hits. However, if you combine all 4 dice in a single attack, you’ll roll a 3.5 on average with each die, giving you 4*3.5 = 14, 14/5 = 2.8 ~ 2 hits (but almost 3 hits). So you’re much better off consolidating your forces. That was something I didn’t like about Axis & Allies - I called it clumping at the time, but VIKTORY II’s zero sum game environment is completely different, and concentration of force which has historically been a good thing should be rewarded in VIKTORY II as well.
Comment from Alan Emrich
Time: February 16, 2007, 5:37 pm
Be careful here. For the type of player this game will introduce to our hobby, it’s a lot easier for them to “read tea leafs” (i.e., look for 4s, 5s, and 6s) then to do math…
If this rule gets published, make sure that it’s an ADVANCED game rule variant of some sort. Don’t lose the simplicity of the current system. In fact, it would be really cool of you could “do dice” like Days of Wonder does for their Memoir ‘44 or Battlelore series. Those are slick.
AE
Comment from Peter
Time: February 17, 2007, 9:57 am
At least you’re not usually rolling a lot of dice. With a typical roll of only 2-3 dice, it shouldn’t be too hard to sum them, should it?
Comment from Arcadious
Time: March 28, 2007, 2:56 pm
The adding isn’t the problem, it’s the dividing by 5. If you were dividing by 2, there would be no problem. It’s not that it is hard, it is very easy, but there are many people that would reach for a calculator for dividing anything more then 2.
Comment from Peter
Time: March 29, 2007, 8:02 am
Perhaps there could be a table:
0-4 = 0 hits
5-9 = 1 hit
10-14 = 2 hits
15-19 = 3 hits
20-24 = 4 hits
25-29 = 5 hits
30-34 = 6 hits
35-39 = 7 hits
Comment from Arcadious
Time: April 17, 2007, 8:36 pm
That might work. I see about testing this along with several other of the expansion rules, and see how they work out.
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