@Nucker
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. A lot of your comments had to do with how the dice might be improved (as opposed to understanding them as they are currently) but there were a couple things you said that really got me thinking and I'd like to expand on those.
First, I'll say quickly that I looked into Hasbro's online Risk game. I wasn't able to find anything on a "no dice" option (unless maybe you were talking about some other online Risk based website?) but I did see they have something called a "balanced blitz" dice option. Although, everything I read about "balanced blitz" on Reddit and elsewhere, it was no more liked than the "normal" dice option. Now I'm no expert on algorithms or statistics and I have no idea what "balanced blitz" entails but as Dukasaur mentioned
Dukasaur wrote:To the average player, it [true randomness] doesn't feel random. Most people "feel" that the dice should be balanced: if you get some really bad rolls, you are due for some really good rolls soon. Truly random sequences have long streaks of "more of the same".
So is that part of the problem some people have with the dice? Do they go into games with false expectations about dice luck simply out of ignorance? And if those expectations don't pan out the way they had expected, might they perceive the random number generator to be faulty or rigged? May be. As I said, I'm no expert.
Moving forward, there's two things you said that I'd like to share my thoughts on.
First
Nucker wrote:There are far too many luck variables and no way to mitigate them.
So basically CC is a game of dice luck primarily. A LOT of games are over in the first two rounds of dice and drop luck.
I partially agree with you here. I don't think that there are too many luck variables or no way to mitigate them. I think CC is evenly split between luck and strategy. However, I do agree that a lot of games are over in the first few rounds of dice and to a lesser extent drop luck. Let me explain at least one reason why I think this is by sharing a small life story with you. I started playing Parker Brothers 1980 version of Risk when I was a kid. It was handed down to me from my older brothers. I immediately took a liking to it. I got as many of my friends and family to play it with me as I could, as often as I could. In 2011, with years of Risk experience now under my belt, I joined CC. I immediately took a liking to it as well. But in those early days that I was on this site, I kept feeling like it was much more difficult than the real life game. And I was even playing the most basic map and settings that you can play here. Five players, Classic map, escalating, chained, no fog. I thought I was already a pretty good Risk player, but it took quite some time before I felt that I was up to par with the average CC player. Which is the point I want to make here. The people that play on this website are probably some of the best Risk players in the world. I can't imagine anybody that plays here would have anyone they know IRL that could out-strategize them in a game of Risk. Unless of course they play on this site as well. But what I'm saying is, this website is extremely competitive. When you surround yourself with people who are just as good at a game as you are, people who literally have their strategy down to a science, the game, in a very broad and oversimplified sense, becomes a giant stalemate. Let me explain further with another example from my life. About a year ago, I started teaching a friend how to play Risk. For a while we had a lot of fun. I won most of the games simply because I was way better than he was but that didn't matter. We were both fighting to conquer the world and it was enjoyable for both of us. But the more we played, the more I taught him and the better he got, our enjoyment of the game began to decrease until it was no fun anymore and we stopped playing. Why? Because our skill levels began to equalize. It got to the point where we could barely get through two rounds before one of us raised the white flag. We could see that early on who was going to win and it just became pointless to play it out. And I think it's kind of a similar situation on CC. When everybody is so good, and when everybody plays a perfect strategy every time, there's nothing left to decide a game except luck. Which I think raises our awareness to the luck factor and hence also our awareness of bad luck which we tend to remember more both because we're human and that's what humans do and also because we know that we did everything else right. Now obviously this is a gross oversimplification, there are so many more factors at play here, especially on CC where we have much more complicated maps and settings. But I think in really luck dependent games, like a 1v1 on a small map, this will ring true for many players. So to summarize, CC is NOT primarily a dice luck game. It is just as much strategy as it is luck. It may just seem like it's primarily a dice luck game because we're all such good players. There's just as many strategic variables to the game as there are luck variables. In the regular game of Risk there may not be a way to mitigate the luck factor, but with all that CC has to offer, there are lots of ways to mitigate luck if that's what you want in your games.
Second
Nucker wrote:Wining by dice luck is as unsatisfactory for strategy lovers as losing due to dice luck.
I think that's true. But I've never been able to think of a way to play Risk without any luck factor in it that still sounded fun. Luck is an integral park of Risk. Does it get upsetting sometimes? Yes! But I'd rather play a game of Risk that was fun and had wild swings of luck in it rather than to play a boring game of Risk that that didn't have a luck factor. Because ultimately, to have fun is what we're here to do.