Choose your DB well so your dice count less (calculate and pay the minimum ep you need to be successful on a 2-6 rather than 4-6 etc). A fraction of an ep can make a big difference. It is boring micro-management... but with dice as bad as yours it's worth it.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 06:53 am: Edit

To my astonishment, Paul has managed to put together about 120 uncrippled Klingon ships at Fed planet 2610. I didn't think the Klingons had enough uncrippled ships left to do that.

Additionally he has 3FRD there and a stack of crips that will repair next turn.

Alliance economies follow.

Hydran Economy Turn 9

Total from Previous Turn 0.3
Capital 12
Onmap majors 5
Onmap minors 4
Onmap Provinces 15
NZ 0.8
Offmap 23

Survey Roll 6
Survey Total 70
Total Income 59.8
Grand Total 60.1


Econ and Repair Phase Expenditures

Repair:
Hydrax repairs LC, HR, SC, HN 5.5

Build (sub base hulls for 4CV):
RN, DG 14
2TR, HR 15
LN 6
3CU, 2HN, SC (1HN at 1st SB) 16
Skipped: 2HN 0

Convert: DG -> LB (Hydrax) 2
Convert HN -> SC at 1st SB 1

Total E+R expenditures 59.5

Left at end of Econ Phase 0.6

Partial Grid: 0.2EP at 1112.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 06:55 am: Edit

With a little Fed help, the Kzinti have finally managed to [drum roll please] . . .

repair their fleet! They have only 3 crips after the repair phase. Of course, this is a little easier when one only has 50 ships.

They also finally resume work on their shipyard.

Kzinti Economy Turn 9

Total from Previous Turn -4.85
Capital
Onmap majors
Onmap minors
Onmap Provinces 5
1704 Treasury 0.6
NZ 0.6
Offmap 25

Survey Roll 13
Survey Total 94
Total Income 31.2
Grand Total 26.35

Expenditures:
EFF 3.5
Repairs 7.5
Shipyard (2 OF 6) 15

Total E+R expenditures 26

Left at end of Econ Phase 0.35

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Saturday, October 11, 2008 - 06:58 am: Edit

Federation economy Turn 9

Total from previous turn 0
Base 221
Lost to Coalition -35
Off-Map 8
Conquered by Feds 0.2

Survey Roll 27
Survey Total 85
Total Income 194.2
Grand Total 194.2


Econ and Repair phase expenditures:

DN+ 14
CA 8
5NCL 25
NCL DD 6
5FF 15
FF FFS 4

Activations 8

Conversions
Earth 2x (CA+DD+FF -> 3CVS) 20
Adjacent to Earth, 5th 2x(CA->CC) 4
2907 FF 1> FFS 1

Repairs:
Earth 15
Barony 4.5
4 Northern BATS 7
2905 4.5
2907 1
Survey area 4.5
3008 1.5

Command Point 5

Total Expenditures 148
Left at end of Economic Phase: 46.2

Command points available are:
Feds 4
Kzinti 3
Hydrans 2

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 07:31 pm: Edit

Wait, how many FFFs did the Hydrans use? I count 5 or the LN would be 2 EPs cheaper.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Sunday, October 12, 2008 - 07:46 pm: Edit

The line that says 2TR, HR should say 2HR, TR.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, October 13, 2008 - 04:13 am: Edit

Well, the battle over 1401 is finished.

I don't think it really mattered if I had left more there - the dice once more ensured no defence was possible.

Alliance average over 5 rounds was 4.4, and Coalition average was 3.4.

The killer round though was round 2, where the Coalition only did 15% damage to the Alliance 25%.

A roll of 2 or higher (BIR was 5) would have killed the only CR10 Alliance hull in the battle (DN on the line) - but BIR went down 2 and I rolled a 1 (and the Alliance got a 4...which would have still been enough to get the DN if I rolled it).

The dice the other way would probably have meant the hex would have held - or the Alliance would have had to self kill a lot more than just the 3 Fed FF's that died.

Good Coalition tactics are getting absolutely irrelevant, in the face of the dice rolls.

Hopefully the dice will get more sensible - although once more, the single major battle of the turn has gone the Alliance way.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Monday, October 13, 2008 - 06:24 am: Edit

Yes, it begins to get silly when the alliance are prepared to put CR10 hulls on the line because they know the coalition will screw up the roll..

I've had the opposite effect. Whenever I put a Zin DN on the line which has any chance of dying at all, the BIR goes up 2 and the coalition roll a 6.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Monday, October 13, 2008 - 07:40 am: Edit

Well, a carrier tug was in the Form box - but the point is taken, the dice are just allowing the Alliance to get away with taking risks - for 'no risk' at all.

That single roll annoyed me the most out of the 5 rounds we fought (2 drawn and 3 higher rolls for the Alliance) and my moral just sinks lower and lower and lower.

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Monday, October 13, 2008 - 05:58 pm: Edit

So you're getting nastier and nastier? Typical Coalition.

(Moral versus Morale)

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 12:12 am: Edit

Alliance turn 9 is done.

I'm sure you will all be astonished to learn that I outrolled Paul by a wide margin.

Kzinti have recaptured 1401, at least for the moment. They have no reserves.

Hydrans have 2 reserves of 5 ships each. They are occupying a fair bit of nearby Coalition space.

Feds have the cream of their fleet cowering on Earth, plus moderate forces in the North, at the Romulan border, and in Kzinti space. A good chunk of the latter group are crippled.

Kzinti spent 8EP on CEDS; balance -7.65
Feds spent 7EP on field repairs and 1EP on strat; balance 38.2
Hydrans spent nothing; balance 0.6 at Hydrax and 0.2 at 1112.

Command points:
Feds 4
Hydrans 2
Kzinti 1

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 07:23 am: Edit

Dice for the Alliance Turn 9 (33 rolls in total) - average was 4.06 for the Alliance. and 2.9 for the Coalition.

Again though, the 'averages' don't show everything.

The most important battle for the turn had a huge difference - the 4 main battles rounds (before I had to run) - average was 5 for the Alliance v 3.75 for the Coalition.

So not only is the dice difference killing me - it's how they arrive. In the first 6 battle rounds, the Alliance rolled 3 points higher on the dice - and got 10% more damage. It took until the 7th roll for the Coalition to roll higher.

I thought I was getting some breaks on the Hydran front - but wasn't. The most annoying was a small battle where William rolled badly, and my crippled ship escaped - only to be caught on a roll of 1 for persuit (and died).

Or where I fighting retreated over a single Frigate, with a 43 compot force....and end result was we both suffered a cripple(2/3rd chance of killing the ship and a 2/3rd chance of taking no damage)!

Or in the battles where I had an EW advantage, and in all but 1 roll, the EW made no difference (William rolled the higher of the 2 same percentages)!

Other than not creating battles - any suggestions?

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 11:13 am: Edit

Other than not creating battles - any suggestions?

Rig the dice?

Seriously... if the dice are ruining your game are you and your opponent prepared not to use them for the remainder of it? Or maybe use a dice roller that guarantees a balanced average?

Otherwise you have very little choice (until you remove whatever curse you are under). :-(

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 01:50 pm: Edit

Anyone know of a different dice server?

As anyone used the Cyberboard dice roller?

By Matthew G. Smith (Mattsmith) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 01:53 pm: Edit

Yeah, the CB die roller is what has allowed Rob Padilla to roll 10 straight mauler shock rolls with 0 failures.

Maybe it has a coalition bias?

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 02:33 pm: Edit

That could be useful. ;)

Vassal also has an internal die-roller. My opinion on it is that it is fair, but occasionally seems a bit 'streaky'. But that is likely caused by selective memory (one doesn't recall the times where it seems truly random, one remembers when something unusual happens).

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 02:49 pm: Edit

Hey, be fair Matt. It's also handed out it's fair share of 6 to 1 dice rolls in the Alliance's favor. First round over Hydrax sounds familiar

But seriously on average it's been pretty consistent. Battle wise there have not been too many lopsided rolls. On the flip side there have been exactly two captures, again bucking the trend as LOTS of ships have died so far.

By Peter Hill (Corwin) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 02:51 pm: Edit

Paul:
Anyone know of a different dice server?

How does your current dice server work? Ie, is it part of a program (like Vassal) or is it on a web page?

If you wanted a special 'balancing' dice roller for your particular out-of-control game (ie, rolls D6 but if the average drifts too much from 3.5 for either side it would slowly start to bias it back) it wouldn't be too hard to make one!

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 05:14 pm: Edit

Well you can seed the die roller in Cyberboard, though I am not sure what it would do to the results.

By William E. Wood (Wxmanwill) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 08:07 pm: Edit

http://dice.evildm.net/

We use it for the Early Beginnings Total War thing Tom Losberg is running.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 09:09 pm: Edit

What one really wants is a java app. that puts the same rolls on the screen for both players. This avoids the cumbersome Email.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - 09:11 pm: Edit

How good is F&E over Vassal? The engine appears to hold the promise of being better than CB as it can be taught to do certain mundane tasks. But for some reason not many people seem to use it.

By Tony L Thomas (Scoutdad) on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 12:48 am: Edit

In my experience, VASSAL slows waaaaaay down when playing F&E. I have a fairly new computer and it the last time I tried VASSAL, it took 9+ minutes just to load the game file.
My opponent running a slightly older, P-III machine gave up and killed the program after waiting 15 minutes for it to load.
I've heard the newest version of VASSAL has fixed a lot of those issues, but with a full group of 7 face-to-face F&E players locally - I've been hesitant to try it to see.

By James Lowry (Rindis) on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 12:21 pm: Edit

Tony, the current Vassal 3.0.17 doesn't do a thing for performance. However, the 3.1 beta is wonderful. Well, at least it loads fast. In game, it bogs a bit on my early P4 (have to be a little deliberate while moving counters on the main map), but 3.1 is a wonderful improvement, and when they get a final release of 3.1 out the door, I'm going to be bugging them about the remaining performance issues for 3.2. They have some developers who seem pretty dedicated to the performance end, so I think I'll get some traction on the problem.

To quote my benchmarks from a few moons ago: From starting Vassal 3.0.17 to having the GW Start file loaded: 0:09:46. 3.1 beta1: 0:00:48.

The main 'helper' thing Vassal does at the moment is count SEs and ComPot and fighter factors. Sadly, for fleet markers, you have to go to the fleet box and count. I cannot (currently) have the marker proxy the totals for the box, and the inventory window that would let you look it up... has severe performance issues (definitely a bug for 3.2).

By Tony L Thomas (Scoutdad) on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 09:17 pm: Edit

Sounds like 3.1b may be he way to go.

The 9:46 benchmark is close to what I was getting on an early P4.