Friday, April 17, 2009

Strategy Tips: Dice Rolling

I'm still working on Game 1, Part 2, please be patient.
Let me take a minute to discuss an interesting part of Risk strategy: chance.
Now, how can something like chance be part of your strategy? In the game of Risk there are many things that rely on chance. You cannot control them, but there are several things that you can at least attempt to predict. The focus here is to manipulate the chance into working for you, not against you. Be an informed player... know everything there is to know about the game. One of the most useful things to know is the chances you have of winning a battle.
I found a fun little website that calculates the probability of winning a battle based on how many armies (mods in our case) each player has. This calculator is based on classic Risk, though, which means it does not take into consideration 8-sided dice, but it is still very useful to know the basic probabilities. Also, the calculator assumes that each player always rolls with the maximum amount of dice allowed for each roll.
Here's the link for the calculator itself: http://bartell.org/risk/riskodds.shtml
Here's a chart. The numbers in the center represent the chance (by percent) that the attacker will win:
                           Defender Mods
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
-------------------------------------------------
1 | 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 | 42 11 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 | 75 36 21 9 5 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 | 92 66 47 31 21 13 8 5 3 2 1 1 0
5 | 97 79 64 48 36 25 18 12 9 6 4 3 2
6 | 99 89 77 64 51 40 30 22 16 12 8 6 4
7 | 100 93 86 74 64 52 42 33 26 19 15 11 8
8 | 100 97 91 83 74 64 54 45 36 29 22 17 13
9 | 100 98 95 89 82 73 64 55 46 38 31 25 20
10 | 100 99 97 93 87 81 73 65 56 48 40 33 27
11 | 100 99 98 95 92 86 80 72 65 57 49 42 35
Attak12 | 100 100 99 97 94 91 85 79 72 65 58 51 43
Mods 13 | 100 100 99 98 96 93 90 84 79 72 66 58 52
14 | 100 100 100 99 98 96 93 89 84 79 72 66 59
15 | 100 100 100 99 98 97 95 92 88 83 78 72 67
16 | 100 100 100 100 99 98 96 94 91 88 83 78 73
17 | 100 100 100 100 99 99 98 96 94 91 87 83 78
18 | 100 100 100 100 100 99 98 97 95 93 90 87 83
19 | 100 100 100 100 100 99 99 98 97 95 93 90 87
20 | 100 100 100 100 100 100 99 99 98 97 95 92 89

As you can see by the chart... in a battle between an even number of mods (4 on 4, 8 on 8, etc.) the attacker has a chance of winning above 50% once the battle reaches 12 on 12 or higher.
Also, the attacker usually only needs to have 1 more mod than the defender to top a 50% chance in battles where the defender has less than 12.
What all of this means for me is that the defender does not necessarily have the superior advantage that I had once thought. The fact that the defender wins in the event of a tie helps alot, but the fact that the attacker gets 3 dice also helps. According to this calculator, the odds are very even. So, when playing our version of Risk, you will need to rely on only 2 things (asside from cards) to give you an advantage when in battle: superior numbers and 8-sided dice.
Remember... 8-sided dice come from commanders and bases. So, if you want to defend a territory well, get a base or a diplomat there... and if you want to successfully take over others' land, get the appropriate offensive commander (remember the Nuke Commander works everywhere). If the statistics are correct, the 8-sided dice should be an integral part of your strategy.








5 comments:

  1. Small thing. The defender can choose how many dice they want to roll with. Say someone attacks a territory with a diplomat and 2 MODs. It may not be advantageous to defend on two dice (You only get 1d8 in this case). what I have done in the past is roll on just the d8 and it hedges defense a little better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In response to the Anonymous comment above, the probability of successfully defending your territory with fewer dice than you're allowed to roll is ALWAYS WORSE than if you roll the maximum number. ALWAYS. It's a fact. There's NEVER a reason to defend with fewer dice, unless, of course, you're actually trying to loose the territory, in which case you can just GIVE the mods to another player (allowed by the rules).

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is acutally a reason you would want to roll one. imaging a situation where the attacker rolls 2 6's. then you roll one die so you can only lose one man to their awesome attack. also you are more likely to roll one six and not lose anyone than roll 2 sixes and not lose anyone

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rolls happen at the same time, it's in the rules. So you can't choose how many dice to defend with based on the result of the attack dice.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You should say 99> instead of 100
    It is possible to lose a 7 against 1 battle.

    ReplyDelete