Hey Bros. I'm back playing a little Kdice. Here's some pro tips from a veteran for anyone wanting to win more games.

Ok noobs after much begging from Ship here is Dude's Rules

1. Don't suicide your islands.

The object of the game is to own every land on every square with 8 dice. By suiciding your islands you are taking away that opportunity. The only reason you should be suiciding is to let an ally pass.

2. Don't fight grey.

I have seen many people lose by attacking grey. With few exceptions (like you need an early connect to stay in the game or you have +3 or +4 on the grey stack) it is better not to fight grey as you can never win and the disadvantage of losing dice is often greater than the advantage of taking a grey land. Example If your only major stack is a 6 stack attacking a grey 3 stack is still generally a bad idea.

3. Use the mini/max strategy when fighting, connecting and 8v8 battles.

Everyone always claims I have insane luck that is because often I employ the strategy where I keep attacking until I lose a roll. This maximizes my gains and minimizes my losses. If I stop as soon as I lose a roll I can only lose one roll per turn. If I keep going when I win I can often look insanely lucky. The major exception to this is sometimes when it's a close 8v8 fight it is good to do a second attack when you both have around 11 or 12 lands even if you fail the first attack.

4. Use 2v3

The odds of winning 2v3 is 15.3% so you have a fairly good chance (1 in approximately 6.5) of winning this roll. A lot of critical moves and games have been won by doing 2v3. The other advantage of 2v3 over 3v4 or 4v5 is that you are only risking 1 dice to often win 2 or more dice from connecting and you can kill 3 dice.

5. Take big risks to win

Often people flag or give up to early but the gains from first place over 2nd or 3rd is often 5 times or greater. So if you have a 25% chance of winning first you should go for it because statistically you will end up with more points in the long run. Also if you are in a 5 player game with only 3 players left the 2nd and 3rd place guy should always gang up on the guy who is winning because there is no reward for 2nd and 3rd and a big reward for first.

6. Take out all the small stacks and leave the big stack.

Often it is a better strategy to completely destroy your enemies lands and leave a big stack than to take a risk of attacking 8v7 and losing. That way you get more lands to stack more dice and you dont risk the fairly high chance that you lose a +1 attack.

7. Never flag before you stack.

You can get some pretty wild restacks and you never know. Never flag on your own turn before you stack if you are worried about being creamed just tell the player who could kill you that you will flag them if you stack poorly instead of flagging.

8. When you are fully stacked in an 8v8 fight and the other player isn't always take their easiest to win stacks like 8v3 instead of 8v7 this leaves you less likely to lose due to bad luck.

9. Use cuts to your advantage and be patient.

It is tempting when you cut someone to take their lands so you can build more but often it is more advantageous to leave them cut. Read the board and decide using your judgement. Also if you are early in the game and have medium sized stacks and only 2 or 3 lands it is often better to wait a few rounds and stack until you can take a lot of lands than to spread out your dice and weaken your position.

10. Re-position your enemies by killing their one base and making them someone elses problem.

Often a situation arises where you can damage or destroy a base enough that the player you just killed is rebasing where you are not and is now the problem of your enemies. Use this to your advantage to give your base space and to make your opponents fight each other more because you are now out of reach.

11. Bully but don't be bullied

Use psychology of having large stacks and good odds of being able to kill your opponents and bully them into flagging. But never let yourself be bullied as it develops a reputation that you are weak and encourages it in the future.

12. Unwinnable situations are often winnable.

Don't give up so easily! Ally, be patient and stack. Don't suicide out of frustration. I have gone from having a single stack where other players have 4 or 5 and ended up taking over the whole board and winning. If you are patient and look weaker then people will often leave you alone allowing you to rebuild enough so you can kill them all.

13. Read the board

The best way I find to read the board is go around the table in the order people are playing and look at what you would do if you were them. This gives you an idea of where they want to connect and where they will attack. Create paths of resistance so they attack your enemies and stay out of areas they dominate you and will definitely go through.

14. Change your strategy every roll.

People get an idea in their head of what they want to do but the situation changes every time you win or lose a roll. Figure out after every roll if the win or loss changes what you should do and adjust your play accordingly.

15. Know your odds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDice#Dice_Roll_Probabilities

Review the odds table and figure out what makes sense to do statistically. If you want to know the odds of multiple rolls multiply them. Eg if chance of winning 4v2 is 90% then you take .9 X .9 which is .81 or 9 times 9 is 81. So you know your odds of winning 4v2 twice in a row is approximately 80%. This gives you a quick idea of what is a good path to take or the likely hood of succeeding.

I think that's a good primer for anyone who wants to learn how to succeed in Kdice if requested I will add strategy for tournies later.