Since two people asked:

Logic behind “how winning stack is exhausted”: You “loose” 1 (being the one left behind on the territory you moved away from, so in fact you loose nothing, but neither gain anything, other than the new territory of course). If you “win” when attacked, you also neither loose nor gain anything, rather your stack remains as it is (while the attackers stack is reduced to 1).

For reference:

Logic behind “reinforcements” (getting more dice at end of turn): You get 1 dice for each territory in your largest contigous (connected) group of territories (so it is rarely wise to move stacks which you can’t connect with your currently largest group, or a group that would then become the largest - The exception to this rule is when such a move would part an oppenents territories, thus reducing the opponents largest group). Note that the size of each surviving players largest group is shown below the game board.

Oh, and by the way:

The game AI “cheats”, in that it consistently rolls above-average (or possibly, you consistently roll below average?) Notice for instance how the AI will beat you more than 50% of the time, when it attacks and the two stacks are equal (when, in fact, you should have a slight advantage, since a draw will go to the defender = you). Compare this with how hard it is to just break even when you attack, even if you only attack stacks that are 1 lower than yours (which should give you a slight advantage, even as attacker). I’m guessing the reason for this cheat is to compensate for the ultra-poor AI (it moves in a near-random manner, without regard for any kind of strategy, and it more or less commits “strategic suicide” as soon as you have any kind of advantage, by being FAR to agressive, which is good at the beginning but not at the end). I find this rather sad, since it is frustrating to know that you aren’t “playing on a level field”. It shouldn’t be too hard to implement a much better AI, which could stand its ground without having to cheat, even against experienced players (the “optimal strategy” for dicewars is quite simple, and should be no problem to code in a likewise simple manner).

For those who seek a greater Dicewars challenge:

Google “kdice” for a link to an online multi-player version of Dicewars, where you can play against 8 other people (which is VERY difficult, compared to the AI - Prepare to play ultra-defensive or loose…)

Regards,

A-)

You can easily use successful strategies from Risk to win in this game. I have presented many strategies in my book Risk (Total Diplomacy: The Art of Winning Risk) and there is a dedicated website for the book and risk strategies (www.totaldiplomacy.com). It is sometimes amazing how certain tactics are universal and can be applied to games that look completely different and even have different rules. Strategy after all can be timeless. This is beautify demonstrated by the success of Sun Tzu’s Art of War after so many years.

[Declaration: I am the author of the book and the website]