Military strategies
Synopsis
We will introduce you to a lot of basic and advanced military tactics. For new allies it is almost always better to keep their attack and defence system simple, so it is easier to get it running.
This thread deals with similar concepts to the Fleet Strategy thread, however this is meant to be more of a guide, whereas the other is more focused on definition and examples for Terminology.
Basic attack strategy
At round start a new alliance should start with attacking only to get roids and grow. Order your members to build up the speed tree as fast as possible and order them to have their first ships ready at the end of protection.
The first attacks should start in the first night after protection ended or if you want to play aggressively, you start your first attacks in tick 73 when most people do not have ships and still a high travel time or (eta).
Also, before you start the first attack, make sure you collected all coordinates from your members and make sure they have applied in game. If you have alliances or NAP's make sure you exchange coordinates lists before you set up your first attack. Give your Military Officers arbiter access or a list of friendly and protected planets and gals, so you can prevent "friendly fire".
Before Round starts it is also necessary to select you alliance's scanner(s). These people will concentrate their research into scan tree and build many Wave Amplifiers. To avoid people making multi planets to get scans, you should offer your scanners benefits such as, they can claim their targets first in attacks. This job should be done preferably by Officers but also trustworthy members can do it.
First 72 ticks are over. You ordered your members to build ships and research the speed tree. Now we continue with organising your first attacks. Please read also read the How to Find a Target section from the BC Guide
Your Officer or you have chosen your first targets.
If you have an attackbot or a web based attack planner, set it up securely and add your scans. If you don’t have any of these, just create a secure channel and do claiming in topic. The scans you should put into a .txt file and upload them if you have any web space. There are websites with free web space available if you don't have this.
If you do not have any of this or find this too troublesome, post the scans on your forums. In game alliance forums can also be used for this purpose. Take care that your target gals are well covered. Give your members a set time (a few ticks before launch time) when claiming starts. Try to find an attack time when most of the other people are sleeping (experience showed good attack times are during the Europe night).
Make sure your members launch the attack all the same time. If attack participation is bad, you should make alliance rules about attack activity. Also needed for successful attacks is that scanners research ASAP the Jumpgate Probe scans and after they researched it, they also must have a fleet slot for this scan available so they can check to see if there is defence coming or not.
Advise your members to check their attacks and not to suicide. Defence fleets will usually only be sent in time of main attack fleet landing and you most likely can not check it before jumpgate probe scans are out. So take care that your scanner researches that ASAP.
Activity is the key to having successful attacks. In the command crew a clear responsibility assignment is needed. Make sure each evening an Officer is on duty for attacks. Make sure each day a scanner is on duty when attacks are set up. Most likely a row of test scans are needed before you can decide if it is a successful gal to attack or not.
Make a Military channel with only Military HC's and Military Officers invited. If you don’t have tools, add in topic what gals will be hit by your alliance so there are NOT 2 Officers organising an attack on the same target galaxy. Also if you control a galaxy that makes gal attacks and get targets from your alliance, book them also (in topic). If you have alliances or NAPs with military cooperation, make a shared military channel.
Advanced Attack Strategy
These strategies are mostly used in times of war with certain alliance(s). Try to keep these attacks as secret as possible. Involve only trusted members. If you control any gals which are doing consistent gal attacks, check which allies they have in the gal and if they can be trusted to join the attacks. This attack strategy SHOULD NOT be used before jumpgate scans are available.
Multi Wave Attacks
The most used attack strategy to take out a single planet or galaxy is the Multi Wave Attack. You attack the same planet / galaxy in waves again and again until that planet/gal's alliance is out of defence then you can raid and bash the planet / galaxy. If you plan this attack in a longer time, make sure all planets are covered in all waves. Advise your members to attack/fake attack planets that are not covered. If you setup a multi wave attack as counter or spontaneous attack, check before if you have enough members with free fleet available.
Fleet Catching
Through the changes during the last round one of the most challenging kinds of attacking was the Fleet Catching. This kind of attack means, you attack a planet at a certain time so your attacking fleets and the enemy's returning fleet are landing in the same tick at the enemy's planet. So they do not have any chance to send their fleet away (short: he can't run his fleet). This kind of attack can be planned ahead but is based on when you see a hostile planet landing on one of your members or you get info from your Intel that they landed on a planet. For fleet catches Fighter/Corvette fleets should be used because its hard to defend it, due to short travel time or ETA.
When is a fleet catch possible?
- Catching a hostile Fighter/Corvette fleet is only possible when you launch at them exactly in the tick they landed, countering with an attack fleet of Fighter/Corvette.
- Catching a hostile fleet with Frigates/Destroyer in is only possible when:
- You launch at them when they recall an attack anywhere at eta1
- They landed anywhere with such a defence fleet and you launch in the same tick
- You launch on their landing tick with Frigates/Destroyer fleet.
- Catching a fleet with Battleships/Cruiser works similar to catching a Frigates/Destroyer fleet, only here you have the hostile fleet eta +2 so you have some more possible options. Summarising, the best chance for a fleet catch is to attack with Fighter/Corvettes on the hostile planet, just make sure you land at the same tick when their fleet returns. We have given you some examples of how to find out that, to name all possible ways in detail, its not the place for here.
When you have enough members with enough fleet and ships available, order them to tell you their complete fleet. Calculate the battle. Make sure you will kill their entire fleet not only the returning fleet. Send massive overkill fleets to avoid defence or to kill hostile defence fleets. Order your scanners to make jumpgate probe scan when the target can not receive anymore defence in time and also unit scan the defenders. Calculate the worst case scenario that could happen. If in this calculation you still lose less then the enemy, order your members to land. Also include the salvage donations to the defenders in your decision. Also make sure you still have enough defence at home to defend any counters.
Counter attacks
This strategy to attempt to force defenders or attackers against your alliance to recall. If you have not completely covered your incomings , get a counter attacker. This might make the attacker recall when they can not receive enough defence. In the same way you can try this when anyone is defending against your attacks. Attack the defender also so they may recall their defence to prevent their own asteroid loses.
Killing a hostile top ranked planet & Leeching defence
Now we come to the final point in attack strategy. You need to destroy a big top ranked hostile planet or galaxy. That means your enemy is active. It also means you need to find a special strategy to beat them. We can give you only some examples here, no perfect solution because a perfect solution does not exist, but lets check what ways you can try to get it arranged.
First of all you need to know what alliance your target is. Therefore you also need good Intel so check the other parts of this manual on how to get a working Intel. Then you need to know some other top ranked planets of the same alliance or some HC / Officer coordinates.
When you want to destroy a certain planet, the best strategy is still the fleet catch we have introduced you already. Here it is helpful to leech enemy defence before. When you expect that the target will land anywhere at a time you know, send fake attacks to top planets or HCs of the same alliance. So they have to send a lot defence out that isn't available for the real attack anymore. That's called "leeching defence". Then do a fleet catch attack like we told you before.
If you are not able to fleet catch them, do the same "defence leech" attacks and send some ticks later a massive overkill attack to the enemy planet. But this is very risky because if they don't have enough defence available, they will run all fleets from the planet before you land. In this case you would be still the winner by roiding the planet and it would raise the moral in your alliance. But the enemy fleet would be still alive.
The real risk in it is, you send an attack that is defended which you can't calculate completely. Now you have to decide if you land or not. Mostly its better to recall if they don't run because also your enemies are mostly skilled and active players that know what fight they can win. Instead of this you should think about Multi Wave Attacks this case, we previously introduced you to. These are mostly much more effective. Also here you can try to "leech defence" as before.
What to do with not attacking members?
If anyone doesn't attack with their alliance or doesn't launch on their claimed target regularly, contact the member and find out the reasons for their behaviour. Give them a warning they have to attack with their alliance regularly and/or they have to launch at their claimed target. If this warning doesn't help, think about excluding such members from attacks or about kicking them from your alliance.
Getting additional fleet power
There are 2 major ways to get additional attack power. The first one is organising battle groups (BG). If your Officers have good friends in other alliances, it may be a good idea to create BGs where you put members of your own alliance and members of other alliances into 1 attack group. For example you could make BGs that attack only big targets and do kill attacks of hostile top planets. These BGs should be led by a trusted officer. To attract other people to join your BGs you could offer them protection from your alliance, but recruitment of such BGs should not be done by public announcements, it's always better to keep them secret and invite friends of your members and Officers.
The other major way is to include galaxies into your attacks. If your members control a galaxy and this galaxy is doing gal attacks, try to make them attack with your alliance. That means they get targets from you and respect your arbiter (protect your members in attacks). This galaxy should get gal protection in reward. If they are attacking with you, but you do not protect them, they will leave your side very soon.
A friendly advice at the end, try to avoid attacking galaxies with members in. It won't help your alliance to destroy the galaxy where your members are. Galaxies can send defence to your member, galaxies will report incomings of your members to your alliance. You simply need the galaxies. If there are hostile top players or HC's in the galaxy, it won't be possible to protect the whole galaxy all the time, but "normal" galaxies should be protected.
Basic Defence Strategies
Having an organised defence is much easier then organising in attacks. But that's only the theory, don't expect your members to defend voluntary all the time. Players normally prefer attacking and try to gain more asteroids instead of defending anywhere voluntarily. So you will need strict rules and a strong organisation. First of all you need Defence Commanders (short: DC). For defence organisation they are essential. When you promote your DC crew, check their online times first. At least 1 DC has to be on duty all the time. Tell your DC crew to make plans who is on duty at what time. The best is when DC crew makes a daily meeting where the duty times are fixed. If it doesn't work, change inactive DC's. At any time after tick start you will receive your first incomings. But before this happens you have to make some decisions and rules. First of all, you have to decide where you organise defence.
- In your private main channel. Advantage: All people who are online, can see the defence call.
- In a permanently defence channel. Advantage: This channel is only used for defence and nobody talks about other issues there.
- In a temporary defence channel, means you open for each defence call a channel were defence is sorted. Advantage: Only people with available fleet will/should join the channel. You see within some minutes how much people have defence available.
Decide yourself what kind you prefer. It doesn't make that big difference. After your first decision, you need to know how to organise it. Most helpful are highlights or channel notices for that.
- Alliance highlights: Order all members to set a special highlight with a smart sound or music on it, e.g. you could take "hostile" or "!defence" as such highlight words.
- Channel highlights: The DC on duty use a notice to wake up all people and tell your members the orders, e.g. /notice #UsedChannel
Make sure your DC work is secure. They should only give the needed information to the members, to give 2 examples:
- /notice #UsedChannel Anti Fi/Co fleet needed " eta 7 " PM me your defence ships!!
- !defence Anti FR/DE needed " eta 8 " PM me your defence ships!!
Then the member should parse their available fleet into query of DC. He will order them where to send their fleets. This also to prevent a spy from collecting all coordinates of your members within a short time. Give your DC crew arbiter access or a coordinate list, so they know who is a really a member and who not. Some people always try to fake incomings so you send defence fleets to wrong planets.
Advanced Defence Strategies
This part will show you how to protect yourself from incomings especially at times when the member with incomings isn't online and what to do against not defending members.
Make sure you notice all incomings
This round 5 people can make a so called buddy group. Means 5 people can join 1 galaxy together. Advise your members to make sure at least 1 of this 3 people / member is checking gal status regularly. Each buddy group should make plans as to who is checking for incomings and at what time. Advise to your members to do it, but even 5 people wont be able to check it each tick during a 3 month period. So it's necessary your members cooperate with their gals. They should tell their galaxies which alliances they are in, what your public channel is and how to report incomings to your alliances. Therefore your DC on duty will have to be in your public all the time. Advise people also in topic of your public channel how to report incomings of your members. DCs should have op, halfop or voice in your public channel so non-members also see that this officer relates to your alliance.
With regards to the composition of those buddy packs, it might be best to create a "mixed" pack with people who you know are active but are NOT in the same alliance as you. This is because it is possible that two of your alliance's buddypacks can land in the same galaxy - and if you have six people in the same galaxy and that galaxy is attacked (particularly with multiple waves), it places a massive strain on your alliance's defence ability. On the other hand, if there is only one alliance member per pack, then it is unlikely that more than two people from your alliance are in the same galaxy - so when that galaxy is attacked your alliance isnt strained anywhere near as much. Good, active people from different alliances are typically hard to find - however the best source is from a previous galaxy of yours. For example, your GC and your MoC might have been active and made friends with you during the round - ask them whether they want to form a buddypack for the next round for the reasons above.
Make sure you have always enough defence available
That's for sure the most difficult part. Therefore you need to give out some clear rules. First of all you should count the defence activity of each member. This can be done in web based tools, IRC bots and on normal text files, Excel files or in your Officer forums. Additionally, you should advise your members to have always a certain part of their fleet at home for defence, of course always a fleet slot open for defence. So your members shouldn't be allowed to attack with 3 fleets if you want to have a working defence. For offensive attacking alliances members should be ordered to have 10-25% of their fleet as defence fleet available, defensive and counter strategies should order their members to keep 25-50% of their whole fleet at home for defence and counters. It may happen that you run completely out of defence and there are still members with incomings. Order these not covered people to counter their attackers if there isn't another possibility left. Read also the manual part where you get introduced into cluster strategies, also cluster can be a possibility for your members to receive defence.
If you notice most of your members are weak against a special ship class and most the defence calls against this ship class can't be covered, advise them to build a certain amount of ships that target this ship class. Last but not least, check regularly your list for defence activity. When you see inactive member (in defending), exclude them from receiving defence and give them a last warning to change. If the retribution shows success, stop it again. If the retribution doesn't show any success, you should kick that member.
How to protect top ranked planets?
Well, at the start there is not much you can do about except the same things you advised with your other members. This changes when jumpgate probe scans are out. Advise your officer and scanners to scan all top100 or top250 (whatever you see as top ranked) planets of your alliance when they and nobody of their buddy group is in IRC. If there is anybody you want to push or keep in top ranks till the end (e.g. top50 or top10) you should always keep some defence on standby only for these top players.
