I'm angry because :

[champig]

as much as i like the i'm happy thread, which is great to share good news, i feel there is something missing on this forum.

a place to share our frustration, our anger, due to dice, bad moves or any other reason ...

i.e. : i've just lost any chance to win the far east big pot tourney due to a hazardous move of a player who tried to take my cards i guess hoping for some kind of miracle ...

he indeed failed and left me with 10 troops and absolutely no chance of come back while i was ahead and pretty much sure to win.

the reason he gave me was : once i'm out i don't care who win

well that wont be me due to that move :argh:

ps : no whitch hunting or name calling in this thread would be great !

 

[Robinette]

I'm angry because :

*begin rant*


I am sooooo very angry because I have lost several games to a good player that made a stooopid move that ended the game for me AND them... :banghead:

Just because you CAN take a player out, doesn't mean you SHOULD take a player out...


It is soooo easy to do the math and realize that certain kills are not worth taking, as they leave the 3rd player with a clean sweep of the board... now don't get me wrong, I EXPECT this kind of thing from the enlisted ranks, but NOT from an Officer!:hmmmm2:



*end rant*



Thanks champig... I feel much better now :goodjob:

 

[Sebrim]

I also had a similar experience yesterday, where one of the top twenty players of this site made a move that guaranteed the win of a third player. Such experiences make me sad, although I know I've made similar mistakes in the past....

 

[th-child]

I was in that game with champig, though i didn't see the board after my last turn, so i can't comment on the situation.

However - and sorry if i'm offtopic in the angry topic -, what do you think the acceptable odds is to start sweeping the board and (in case of failure) ruining the game?

Let's say I'm pretty sure there won't be another full round in the game. I have the cards, and I calculate, I have 80 percent to take the first player out and maybe go on a rampage. Should I try it? And if I have 60 percent? 40? 20? ... etc.

From a selfish point of view, the only rational thing to do is to have a try, even with 5% chance -- though this is quite rude to the other players.

What do you think?

 

[champig]

th-child - i don't really calculate the odds of grabing some cards, but the troops advantage i've got on the player i try to eliminate (and indeed the troops that separate me from him). if there are 50 troops to kill and i've got 50 ready to fight, i'll estimate my chances to 0% and will never try the kill, i'll position my troops to make it difficult for others to grab cards, eventually weaken them a little, but wont try to go for the kill out of respect for "the victim".

i play mostly escalate game and imo you've got to know when you don't stand a chance and just admit it and deal with it in an honorable way.

if i'm desperate i'll go with 25% more troops (62 to 50), but i wont consider it a safe move especially if my opponent got a lot of terts - it feels allways safer to go for a kill on someone with 3 terts and 50 units than on someone with 20 terts and the same 50 units.

with 50 % more troops i'll most likely try but i know it's kinda 50/50 and i'm ready to apologize to my victim

to feel confortable i'll need a 75% to 100 % superiority in troop count.

and there are many more factors that lowers the chances of kill :

- isolated territories : those terts with 3 units isolated from the rest of your opponent main group of terts, do you really think having 5 units to kill 3 is safe ? i don't ! i'll need a 6/7 at the very least to try take those out which make the troop advantage i need go through the roof

- ennemy territories not really chained : when your victim terts are all linked to each others but you still need to divide your attacking troops in 2 to take them all out. one of your attacking stack might be lucky and end up with spare troops and the other one suffer great losses and be unable to finish the job.
if you got to split you'll need extra troops for a safe kill.

don't know why i'm telling all that, but at the end, only go for the safe kill considering there are a lot of parameters to take in account that make kills unsafe.

and indeed as robinette mentioned it you've got to see a little further than the kill you can make, even if it's maybe the toughest thing in this game.

 

[bouttreefiddy]

I was in that game with champig, though i didn't see the board after my last turn, so i can't comment on the situation.

However - and sorry if i'm offtopic in the angry topic -, what do you think the acceptable odds is to start sweeping the board and (in case of failure) ruining the game?

Let's say I'm pretty sure there won't be another full round in the game. I have the cards, and I calculate, I have 80 percent to take the first player out and maybe go on a rampage. Should I try it? And if I have 60 percent? 40? 20? ... etc.

From a selfish point of view, the only rational thing to do is to have a try, even with 5% chance -- though this is quite rude to the other players.

What do you think?

I only attempt if the attempt has a 50% or better success rate. If I see that the game could end before my next turn, but don't have the numbers to end things, I usually just hope that the opponent's who could end it screw up. However, I don't think it's rude to attempt for a win in any situation. Understanding the situation you're putting your opponent's in, and the options you leave them with, is a part of Risk's strategy.

 

[Dalinar]

Interesting, I guess I'll post in counterpoint to you guys.
I'll go for the 20% kill if I'm 95% sure I won't around the next round. My only objective in most all escalate games is to (honorably) maximize my points. If it's a 5% chance, I probably wouldn't because I'd rarely put my chances of the game ending as that low. People frequently fail on their chain kills so I can be the lucky one to clean things up. I don't need anywhere near the margin Champig mentions to go for the chain kill. I also do actually compute fairly accurate probabilities of making the kills and combine them to come up with a total probability of taking the game. I will try to make it so I don't give the game away when I fail, but I'm not afraid to if that's my only option.

All that said, I'm much more a duelist anyway

Edit: Since I'm already here, I'm pissed off because losing about 15 to 3 cost me a 1v1 today.

 

[stone123]

There Seems to be a pattern of select few players who should seriously know better and to actually attack the player who is CLEARLY in the lead, with troop count AND coming troop bonus but OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO They attack someone else....me

Guys, back to basics PLEASE.

EDIT... oh yeah....whats with the f###### ####### dice. 10 troops v 1 troop loose loose loose loose loose loose every single game.

I create 8 games of 10 and 12 players every week /2 weeks.....i go last in 2 games and in more than half the total games i am in the last half ...i mean am i the unluckiest player on this site or what. it really grinds my gears.

 

[th-child]

Interesting answers so far, but:

if there are 50 troops to kill and i've got 50 ready to fight, i'll estimate my chances to 0% and will never try the kill

??

Indeed there a lot of parameters to consider, just as you say, but to win 50 v 50, if the enemy has only 1 tert, is about 70%.
50 v 50, if the enemy has five 10-troop terts is about still an amazing 55-60%.
50 v 50, if the enemy has ten 5-troops terts is about 40 %.
And of course, 50 v 49 on 49 consecutive 1-troop tert is minuscule.

Anyway, I usually start out if have about 30-40% chance, though in these cases I stop immediately if the dice is just average.

However, if I calculate my chances to be about 70% or over, I step on the gas till sweet victory or bitter defeat -- which means that in about 30% of the time I just ruin the game.

I guess it really just comes down to being polite and to etiquette --- then again, in my mind, almost everything does, so don't listen to me.

I also do actually compute fairly accurate probabilities of making the kills and combine them to come up with a total probability of taking the game.

Yes, you definitely seem to be someone who does that. May I ask if you do these calculations by yourself? Or did you write a little script or macro?

I use http://diceroll.stritar.net/risk.html... I'm not extremely happy about it, but it's the best I've found so far.

What about you, guys? Do you use any artificial help to compute probabilities?

 

[Dalinar]

I definitely use help - http://gamesbyemail.com/games/gambit/battleodds is best I found. It lets you put in multiple territories, you can calculate the median loss, you can simulate to find the optimal defensive distribution of troops. A lot of stuff.

 

[champig]

Interesting answers so far, but:



??

Indeed there a lot of parameters to consider, just as you say, but to win 50 v 50, if the enemy has only 1 tert, is about 70%.
50 v 50, if the enemy has five 10-troop terts is about still an amazing 55-60%.
50 v 50, if the enemy has ten 5-troops terts is about 40 %.
And of course, 50 v 49 on 49 consecutive 1-troop tert is minuscule.

Anyway, I usually start out if have about 30-40% chance, though in these cases I stop immediately if the dice is just average.

However, if I calculate my chances to be about 70% or over, I step on the gas till sweet victory or bitter defeat -- which means that in about 30% of the time I just ruin the game.

I guess it really just comes down to being polite and to etiquette --- then again, in my mind, almost everything does, so don't listen to me.




Yes, you definitely seem to be someone who does that. May I ask if you do these calculations by yourself? Or did you write a little script or macro?

I use http://diceroll.stritar.net/risk.html... I'm not extremely happy about it, but it's the best I've found so far.

What about you, guys? Do you use any artificial help to compute probabilities?

i had my mind set on situations where the ennemy has quite a few terts. and i'm not really into the math of risk, it's more about feelings.

it might be a trick of my memory (i bet we allways remember our bad dice more than our good ones), but i'd say i've failed most of the time when i've tried to kill with only 25 % troop advantage. in a recent classic massive game, quite desperate i tried to make a kill ; my ennemy had a few stacks of troops but i had some troops near each stack and a small number advantage (25% more or less). ; i wasn't surprised when i lost a 7 v 5, it didn't seems like something irational to me. maybe because i know that in the same turn i can kill a 10 with a 15 losing only 3 ...

i've got the feeling that introducing too much math into a few launch of dice is ignoring the fact that you have or will launch them a few thousands times and reach a balance over all those launches.

therefore the need to be extra cautious

 

[Cagey]

Every game is different so you can't make hard and fast rules. From what others have said i guess I tend to play it pretty fast and loose. For instance in a 10 player game if I see a chance to pull a winning move but it only has a guesstimated 30% chance of success then i'd be tempted - I would in effect have tripled my chances of winning. As the number of players goes down so the odds I'd require to trigger a move goes up. There's also the desperation factor: if I calculate that I won't get another move because someone will wipe me out then I might as well go out with a bang and hope for miraculous dice.

 

[BeanZ]

I probably try the take out with less difference (if the reserves are worth the take out) i.e. if somebody has 50 troops in 10 regions, and I have 60 I'd try that... don't look at percentages or anything like that, but you guys might like this website as well.

http://recreationalmath.com/Risk/

 

[Robinette]

I AM ANGRY BECAUSE:

This THREAD has become a MATHS Thread...
Nothing wrong with that, BUT NOT HERE...
THIS IS THE ANGRY THREAD !!!

START A MATHS THREAD (and put a link here so we don't miss it) AND LETS GET THIS BACK ON ANGRY TOPIC

GRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr

 

[Chilly]

...Robinette is only a Grunt and gracing only a select few with her points (err...I mean presents....I mean presence).

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

I'm angry because this thread is getting more attention then the "I'M HAPPY" thread!

:elefant: :ridinghorse: We need more HAPPY THREADS! :elefant: :ridinghorse:

 

[champig]

totally agree with you robinette on the math debate

sheriff, i've lost 800 points in a week, needed somewhere to share my frustration, but as soon as i'll get my shield back i'll be all over the i'm happy thread again !

 

[Robinette]

...Robinette is only a Grunt and gracing only a select few with her PERSONA

*fixed*

 

[Robinette]

I AM ANGRY BECAUSE:

This THREAD has become a MATHS Thread...
Nothing wrong with that, BUT NOT HERE...
THIS IS THE ANGRY THREAD !!!

START A MATHS THREAD (and put a link here so we don't miss it) AND LETS GET THIS BACK ON ANGRY TOPIC

http://www.majorcommand.com/forums/threads/6667-The-MATHS-Thread


*done*

 

[Robinette]

awww... now Sheriff, we was just having some fun...
there was no need for nixing those other clever posts from cards and me and others...

it was just some on topic angry fluff, it was no where NEAR close to turning into a riot