Is my dice-based upgrade system better than roll-by-roll attack math?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

So for attacks, Workers use an 8-sided dice and all other units use one or more 10-sided dice. If you get infantry attack upgrades, workers then use a 10-sided dice, and all other infantry use a 12-sided dice. The same pattern repeats for Vehicles and Aircraft. This makes less tedious math than adding a bonus to each individual die roll, so hopefully will alienate fewer players. It also means Attack upgrades aren't an automatic win.

What do you think of this?

[msc545]

I think this is a very strong design direction for the kind of game you are building.

You are solving several problems simultaneously:

avoiding arithmetic slowdown,
keeping upgrades meaningful,
preventing runaway scaling,
and making technology feel impactful.
That last point matters a lot.

Players psychologically experience:

“my weapons improved”
much more strongly when:
the actual dice physically change.
Moving from:

d8 → d10 → d12
feels tangible and exciting in a way that:

“+1 attack”
often does not.
It also reduces cognitive fatigue dramatically in tabletop play.

Instead of:

“This unit rolls 3d10 plus 2, except against armor…”
you get:

“These are upgraded infantry, so they use d12s.”
That is cleaner.

Your system also naturally limits power creep because dice-step progression is nonlinear but controlled.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

I still have armor and armor upgrades, but with this system, armor upgrades will be less effective than in other strategy games.

[msc545]

That's very good.