Sven's New War-guide

As he has expressed interest in writing an new one, here is the place to do it.

Sven’s Updated War Guide

This is a guide that focuses more on war strategies, tactics, and logistics while going into some depth on terminology. For a guide that addresses purely the war mechanics of this game, let me recommend Martbhell’s guide. This guide is not intended to be standing military orders, it is rather an explanation of concepts, some good advice, and my take on the war system.

I. Winning
II. Ranging
III. The Stagger
IV. Offensive Wars
V. Defensive Wars
VI. Fending off Raiders
VII. Buy Backs
VIII. War Costs; The Warchest
IX. Resources
X. Deterrence
XI. Spectrum Engagement
XII. Slotting
XIII. The Treaty Web
XIV. Fire Teams
XV. Coordination
XVI. Espionage
XVII. War Concepts
XVIII. The 1 v 1 War
XIX. The Desperation Gambit

I. So you want to win a war...

Wars are about 4 things. (Not in order)

1. Preparation- Have sufficient military to fight one.
2. Timing- When you strike is important.
3. Coordination- It's best to bring friends.
4. Money- Everything translates back to money.

1. We'll assume you've declared this war. Being first makes you the puncher and the opponent must assume the role of counterpuncher. You are leading the dance. There are basically four things you can do (ought to do) but you will only have the points to do two of them, depending on your chosen war policy.

A. Spying- no points. You can try to see what your opponent has, or what resource stockpiles you are up against. You can try killing his spies (a defensive measure). You can try to tilt the balance (tanks/planes) in pieces where you have similar totals. This is about money. Scrubbing 10 of his tanks that cost him 25k and paying 120k to do it isn't cost effective unless it facilitates a ground victory later. Killing his spies might be cost effective, but has less chance to work (depending on both spy totals). Information is always priceless. Under the current system, gathering info (once) won't count as your one daily spy attack.

B. Airstrike- 4 points. Does up to 12 resistance damage. Winning the air war limits the number of tanks your opponent can use against you. (-50%)

C. Naval attacks- 4 points. Does up to 14 resistance damage. Winning the sea war can blockade your enemy, thus cutting him off from getting war resources and outside money. Note: he can use spies to whack your navy, thus breaking the blockade. Planes too...

D. Ground assaults- 3 points. Does up to 10 resistance damage. Winning the ground battles can limit the number of planes he can use against you. (-33%) You may only loot money with ground assaults.

You can do A and B, A and C, or A and two D’s from the outset. You have to play to your military strengths. Military policy can affect your initial point total.

Don't buy military before you declare, buy it after. This has to do with war range. It's best to pick someone smaller than you (for the purposes of winning). Buying before can throw you out of their range. Example: Planes are .5 points each. You can declare on someone from 75% to 175% of your nation strength. If you buy after declaring you might being attacking someone only 50% of your NS. Just beware, because as your NS moves up, you might move into range of people above you, who may decide to assist their pal. Only a fool or a martyr picks a fair fight.

2. When you strike is important because it limits how your foe can respond. Never strike someone who is online, because he can buy back as you are working. If your odds are evenish on the first assault, they will be more favorable for the second because you can replace what was lost on the first...and he can't. Research your opponent. If you can find out where he lives, you might be able to divine when he must sleep or be at work/school. Two of you might hit him 4 times, decimating his ground forces....as he sits in a lecture on calculus.

3. Coordinating with battle buddies is a force multiplier. However, you must strike consecutively and in a tight time window. Piecemeal attacks only let your opponent respond and rebuild. Imagine three guys hitting while Joe Schmuckatelli is sleeping. One finds out what Joe has, two might cull Joe's spy totals. #One and #two might pop Joe four times on the ground (at full strength no less, with buy backs) and #three naval blockades him so he is cut off from the outside world. Poor Joe.

4.  Everything is money. Your military, your infra, your resources. If you are out of money, you are out of luck. Military can be replaced with resources and money (within buying limits). Infra is money stored in brick form, consider it armor and don't replace it until after the war. Resources can be replaced with money...provided you are not blockaded. Have money to work with or have generous friends.

5.   Remember every rule/situation has caveats.

II. Ranging.


When war was forced upon us (referencing war fought when we were the GPA against Mensa/Test/Arrgh/RozWei/Storm Division), I went and checked every nation that was in my war range in all 5 AA's (or maybe I am just OCD). Then I checked whose range I was in. Mensa 1, Arrgh 2, T-Est 0, Roz 3, Storm 4. Storm discovered we had 30 some odd nukes and developed a "problem" in their government and bowed out. We were authorized to counter Mensa, so I hit that one guy after he logged off. When he logged back in, he was blockaded and had been Ground assaulted, plus I controlled the skies. (11 points, 10 hours after initial declaration elapsed). Although Mensa had over 25k steel, he couldn't get any of it. The die was cast. He could not counter my rebuilds and went full turtle. I won and looted him and the Mensa bank. (Side story...he must have become disillusioned because he quit logging on after that...so when he came off beige, I popped him again and looted Mensa bank Inc. again). When Arrgh offensive attacks were authorized and I made ready, one had bought stuff and moved above my range, the other was on beige but 8 hours from gray. I bought nothing so I managed my range pocket (increasingly harder to do the bigger you get) as to isolate the beige guy. He came off beige at 4 AM my time. At 4:10 his tanks were destroyed, his army cut to one third its original strength. He had no navy or air force. The next day I was looting Arrgh's bank. One thing to be wary of, as your friends manage to beat enemies down they might push them into your/their range. This will be covered in a later installment called; Slots. Don't ever feel bad about hitting an inactive (legally during an alliance war), its like putting used furniture on the curb, you are literally giving or throwing it away and can't begrudge the taker. In three loots I collected over a million in resources and slightly less than that in cash.

Ranging exercise.

AA XYZ AA HAHA

Nation Nation
1 2000 A 2200
2 1700 B 2000
3 1500 C 1800
4 1300 D 1600
5 1100 E 1400
6 1000 F 1200
7 800 G 900
8 600 H 700

On paper, HAHA is the stronger alliance (assuming they have relative militaries to their NS and weren't just busy builders...), here's who can hit whom.

1. can hit a,b,c,d but can be hit back by a-f.
2. can hit a,b,c,d,e but can be hit back by a-f
3. can hit a,b,c,d,e,f but can only be hit back by b-g
4. can hit a,b,c,d,e,f but can only be hit back by d-g
5. can hit c,d,e,f, but can only be hit back by e-g
6. can hit d,e,f,g but can only be hit back by f-h
7. can hit e,f,g,h but can only be hit back by g,h
8. can hit g,h but can only be hit back by h

As you can see, you have more room updeclaring than down. Is it smart? Maybe, if they are inactive, have no military, or your friends above your are doing the heavy lifting pounding away and your military might just tilt the balance enough to ensure victory.

Suppose nation G really wants to hit nation 8. How? Sell something down, by shedding down to 800 G can hit 8 and drops down out of 5's declare range. Or he can declare and buy back up to ensure 8 gets smashed real good. Is it cost effective? Debatable, depends how much he can get in loot for winning. This is a small example of managing your range pocket. If you are 4000 NS your range window is 7000 to 3000. You'll be busy. 5335 to 2286 can declare on you.

III. The Stagger


A war can last as little as 50 hours (31 MAPS-6 at start, 50 hours to generate the last 25), 7 Naval victories (immense doing 7x14 resistance) and one ground victory to loot (10 resistance). A war can be dragged out to 5 days, where it will end no matter who is winning. When your goal is to destroy infra, the longer your keep someone in war, the better, this is accomplished by staggering. Everyone has 3 defensive slots. One nations hits day one, one nation hits day two, one nation hits day three (the short stagger. Long stagger would be more like day 1,3,5), and no one goes past 10 Res. As you can see, so long as the attackee is never beiged, there is someone hitting him all the time. When the first war ends, someone else can jump in. The point is, the nation you are engaged with can't go into vacation mode (actually, he can, but he must spend two weeks without interacting with his nation, so he cannot fight back) to duck further damage. Every time one war drops off, a new one can take it's place.

IV. Offensive Alliance Wars.

Why?

1. You want to cull another AA's infra.
2. Boredom (I hope we don't do this)
3. Treaty activation (we are mostly likely to get in this way)
4. Giant cash raid (hopefully we don't do this…Arrgh)
5. Stats war (we don't really do this)
6. Legitimate political grievance (CB) (this could happen)

Examples:

1. TCW is too big, lets grind them down.
2. TCW has no defenses, let’s hit them for shits-n-grins.
3. TCW has hit the Gremlins alliance, we have a treaty with Gremlins, lets hit TCW. (or, now we have to hit TCW, depending on MDP/ODP). Gamma is hitting TCW, lets hit them too (MDOAP)
4. TCW has lots of money, let’s roll them.
5. We have fallen to #2 in nukes launched, let’s hit TCW.
6. TCW has spied on us. TCW has called us stupid. TCW is nefariously rigging the steel market. We have a Casus Belli, let’s hit them.

V. Defensive Alliance Wars.

Here is where I depart from usual alliance canon. If you are interested in punishing an attacking AA, you might stagger and try to not beige the attacking countries. The goal here is to make the war costly, time consuming, and boring. It also presumes you are able to sustain said war better than your foe. MONEY! I've said it before, everything in war is money insomuch as everything involved with the mechanics carries a price tag. Cash, spying, replacement units, resources, infra...et al. Realize the bottleneck to the war mechanics is replacement rate. Your population (infra) and number of each type of improvement will control how much you can rebuy each day. As you lose infra (and possibly improvements), it degrades your buy back totals. Let’s not even get into how silly it is that these wars are fought with mercenary troops on both sides, as recruitment doesn't come out of your population totals. Somewhere there is an invisible mega-giant country we draw our mercs from. Also pilots, ship crews, and tank crews don't seem to count as lost souls when they get scragged.

A Fully militarized 4000 NS hits a 3000 NS TCW nation. Who wins? If Mr. TCW isn't full up, my money is on the bad guy. Let’s say Mr. TCW was fully prepared. Now I'm keen to include who logs on the most and when, and who has the most cash and resources stockpiled. Two guys hit one guy? I'd say the two, even if they are slightly smaller, so long as they coordinate.

Example:

Sam and Joe jump on Tommy. Tommy is full up, so he feels pretty good about his defense. Sam and Joe get together on IRC/Discord/Slack to plan. Sam will hit twice on the ground...expecting to lose, but bleeds off some of Tommy's defense. Then Joe hits twice against the reduced defenses. And since they are both online, they can buy back to full strength before Tommy gets back to the dorm to login. Why? Sam and Joe picked someone who wasn't online. Tommy will likely spend the war on the defensive. So, you can see this is even worse if two cooperative bigger nations down declare on you. You wake up from your Scarlett Johanssen fantasy dream and login to find you have no military left. What's worse is that they have helped themselves to a hefty chunk of your cash warchest and you paid for their attack and rebuys. The mechanics favor the attacker.

Where does TCW fit into this morass? Well, generally we aren’t a mass raiding alliance. Until we tossed off the bondage of neutrality, we tended to find ourselves in "survival" wars. We can extend wars (the non-beiging school) for the purposes of making the war costly (MONEY) for the opponents, which by definition makes it costly for you or you can try to win. Wait, What? Sacrilege! No, hear me out. We know the mechanics favors the attacker. You can declare five offensive wars, but you only have three defensive slots.

Example:
Two 10 nation AA's go to war. KillerClownz attacks ZenBuddhists. They can declare 50 wars, but Zen only has 30 slots to fill, so Killers uses 6 nations (at 5 each) to blanket Zen in a tight 4 hour stagger. Zen wasn't sitting at the keyboards expecting to get hit and they are disadvantaged by being on the defense. They have their hands full with three wars each, many of them having been hit with 6 GA's before they could even respond. They are in a war of survival. They are likely disinterested and or unable to hit Killers 4 unused nations. When the five days is up and Killers 4 fresh nations roll in with the stagger window, Zen is screwed. Let's say Zen can win some of these wars, but don't try to because they are making it "costly" for Killers. Wouldn't it make sense to go ahead and win, knowing each victory puts out a Killer who then can't declare on anyone for two days? You might save a Zen brother from getting declared on. Plus, you'll loot the Clown bank. Can Mr. Killer retool and came back later? Certainly, but in the meanwhile it's been a "less than 10" on ten war, unless some Zen's got beiged, in which case they should have been retooling too. At that point it comes down to who has the greater will to fight and who had the bigger warchest to start with, plus one additional factor...who had a plan in place to mitigate bank loot losses.

In a 1v1 war, I'd say try to beige your opponent. If you don't succeed, it will be like you weren't trying to in the first place, insofar as the results go. If you do win, the other guy goes away for 2 days and you take his stuff. If he comes back because he is mad, well, you should have retooled at the same rate (or better, because after all you did win and loot), so given equal warchests, you should win again.

VI. Raiders

If you are raided, likely one of four things has happened.

A. You are inactive. Deserve what you get.
B. You are militarily weak. You partially deserve it.
C. You are involved in several wars and stretched thin.
D. It's personal.

Raiders select victims they think they can beat or they think won't fight back. Some will hit you twice and demand a payment for peace, some will go for the 0 Res and loot you. As I've said, wars are about money, raiders are businessmen. If you make his raid not cost effective generally they will try to get out of the war. If your military looks suspect, expect to get hit. It’s like putting gold bars or your front porch and leaving the front door open. If you have no military and aren't on beige, you will stand out like a turd in a punchbowl, expect them to stand in line to hit you. Generally raiders don't spy on you, why? Its business and the expense can't be justified for the return. Say he spends 100k to see what you have and you are dirt poor, that is a loss, not profit. One trick you might try is to have military improvements that you haven't bought against.

Example: BarryBadass is looking for his next meal ticket. He has 50k troops and 2000 tanks. PennyPixel has 30k troops and 1000 tanks. Barry says, “I can take her”. Many raiders don't use planes and ships because, again, it isn't cost effective to lose them. (Some do, but in an attempt to win and loot, not just for doing specious damage) Barry cares about troop/tank totals. What Barry might not check for is improvement counts...after all his time is money too. Penny has 10 full barracks and 4 full factories, but has 5 and 3 more of each for emergencies. Suddenly she can have 45k and 1750, now the raid may be costly and drawn out for Barry's tastes. Why does Penny have 8 fallow improvements? She is lurking, looking smaller than she could be. She is also managing her range pocket because without those troops/tanks on hand, nations close to her potential size might not be able to declare on her. (This is why government tells you to count your enemy's improvements)

If raided, put up maximum resistance, make him defend himself expensively. Call a friend...raiders typically don't have friends, they have exit strategies. Raiders generally don't care about destroying your infra, because pushing you to ZI puts not one dime in his pocket.
If your military is full, you won't see many raids. If its not, login very often so you can counterpunch. After your first GA loss, Mr. Raider will know roughly how much cash you are sitting on (certainly by order of magnitude anyway because cash losses on the battlefield are a random percentage in a fixed range of your cash on hand. Below 100k, you can't lose money). Let’s say you have less than 110k, his GA loot will be around 5K. Now if he even uses tanks (gas/munitions), much less loses any, he is in the red.

Can I hide stuff? Yes, its a bit of a gray area though. The rules say stuff can't transferred between players if one is deleting. It doesn't say alliance banks can't receive full dumps. It also doesn't say you can't sell stuff and then buy it right back.

Example: You are losing to Pirateguy, he's is one GA from looting your 20 million in cash and 5000 steel. Your pal Biggerdenyou sends you an offer of 10 food for 20 million. WHAT!!?? That's robbery! No, its money laundering. Then you sell him 5000 steel for a dollar each. Pirateguy loots you...is mad, gets 0 cash, 0 steel, and .05 food. A few days later, you reverse the transactions. Helps to pick someone you trust, someone unlikely to be raided, and someone not thinking of deleting.

VII. Buybacks

Buybacks are actually a function of a percentage of your population, but for the purposes of this lesson, I'll use my nation as an example. Barracks give you the capacity to house 3000 troops (each), but I can only replace 10,000 (1000 each) per day, total, due to population percentage (for all barracks). Factories give you the capacity to have 250 tanks, but I can only replace 50 per day (each). Air bases give me the capacity to hangar 18 planes, but only build three per day (each). It pays for your military to be full up before you are in a war, because you can't replace it as fast as you can lose it (unless you are a lurker). I keep 10 barracks, 3 factories, and 3 air bases during peacetime. I add 2 more factories and 2 more air bases during wars. Peacetime military totals allow me to control my range pocket. During war, I have a theoretical capacity for 30k troops, 1250 tanks, and 90 planes. In any given day (buyback), I can get 10,000 troops, 250 tanks, and 15 planes. Wars become a matter of attrition management. If I lose 12,000 troops, 400 tanks, and 20 planes in a typical round of battles, I will start dwindling, not due to capacity, but due to buyback restrictions. BUT SO WILL YOUR OPPONENT. Buybacks are cycled on the 24 hour game day, for me that is 8 pm eastern seaboard time. At 8:01 I can buyback 10k/250/15. If I get hit a bunch of times in the first 12 hours of the game day, I can't do much about it, but wait for 8 pm again. This is where coordinating and timing your responses is so important.

VIII. War Costs

Let's look at a couple rounds of an average war. Let's say Baconistan is attacking Porkhaven, both have five cities. They both have a theoretical capacity to have 25 barracks, 25 factories, 25 air bases, and 15 drydocks. For the sake of the demonstration, let's say each has a NS of 1200. Bacon/pork are fully militarized, 75k troops, 6250 tanks, 450 planes, and 75 ships. (Plus, 50 spies). That's 150NS of ships, 225NS of planes, 312.5NS of tanks, and 30NS in troops. That's 717.5 NS in military. At, let's say 1500 infra per city, that's 150 improvement slots, 90 of which are tied up with military. Further, let's credit Bacon with 100% economy, which then ties up 40 more slots. Five for power, then he uses his last 15 with farms, mines, mills, etc. In the first wave of the war he does one airstrike (dogfight), one naval battle, one spy op (info), and one ground attack. Four simple and prudent actions which costs him 11 MAPS, 6 he starts with, 5 more he gets in the following 10 hours after declaration. What does it cost him? 150 food, 325 gas, and 752.5 munitions. Assuming market values were 90, 2000, and 1000 respectively, it costs Mr. Bacon $1,416,000 to launch the war, plus another 200k in a spy op. Bacon loses 28,500 troops, 980 tanks, 53 aircraft, and 17 ships (used in-game battle calculator). That's $1,146,625 in raw unit costs, plus 1405 steel and 159 aluminum (let's just say 2500 each) which is $3,910,000. So, Bacon has lost/spent $6,672,625 and has destroyed just shy of 30 infra, about 450k in replacement cost. Granted Pork has lost similar unit totals, but let those totals sink in...

Now they both need to buy back. They can get 25k troops back (1000 per barracks), all their tanks (50 per factory- max of 1250), all their planes (3 per air base- max of 75), and 15 ships (1 per drydock- max of 15). Another 5 million. Bacon looted $500k.

It's an expensive proposition and I didn't even factor in daily upkeep costs on units. As improvements are destroyed, buy back totals shrink, as infra is destroyed population shrinks and can affect troop buy back. I certainly hope both were prudent enough to stockpile steel, alum, gas, and munis in prodigious quantities. Evenly matched, with similar warchests, they can expect to spend anywhere from 20-50 million, depending on who starts winning. Remember, our simulation went 10 hours into a five day war.

Now suppose Porky is a pacifist, with zero military, for the same 10 hour period. He loses 110 infra in the GA (+ 500k in cash), 173 infra to the planes, and 183 infra to the ships. Which at replacement cost is just shy of 7.5 million. Ouch. But wait, Porky has 15 steel mills, and 15 refineries (plus associated mines...after all, Porky has 90 slots to work with that Bacon doesn't) and 25 farms. That's 135 steel per day, 90 gas, and maybe 1600 food (depending on season). Market totals put that around $670k a day, which he could sell, provided he wasn't blockaded.

Both scenarios are extremes at opposite ends of the spectrum, I hope this helps you to think of wars in terms of money. If Porky had 100 million banked up, he could damn near afford to lose, the quicker the better. If he had 100 million and full military, while Bacon had 50 million, I'd bet on Porky...even defending.

How big is your nation? How much in resources do you have banked up? How big is your warchest? Do you feel like full militarization is prudent? Just food for thought.

IX. Resources


What do you need for buybacks and operational supplies to prosecute a war?

1. Steel. That is if you would like to buyback tanks and ships.
2. Aluminum. That is if you would like to buyback aircraft.
3. Munitions. That is if you want your military to be effective, otherwise your troops will be attacking with swords and nothing else will roll.
4. Gasoline. That is if you want to actually use your ships, tanks, and planes.

Secondarily,

5. Food. Your troops get hungrier fighting and you may wish to convert farms to military improvements to give yourself an advantage against your attacker. The other aspect to the importance of food is that during large wars, as nukes get slung around the global radiation index goes up, which degrades food production. This will jack up the cost of food on the market. It's best that you have it stockpiled for just such an event.
6. Coal/uranium. You need to keep your cities powered to keep your military improvements in play.

The time to have these resources stockpiled is BEFORE you are attacked, because if you are short of cash (grrrr, didn't you read this guide!!!) or you get blockaded, then you aren't going to be getting anymore than you already have.

X. Deterrence.

Why do people join an alliance?

Protection. Just like wildebeests, lone animals are subject to being hunted down and eaten. In herds, there can be safety in numbers.

Protection from what?

Raiding and wars. Raiders may be dissuaded from attacking an alliance member when the threat of many AA members reciprocating in defense exists. Where that fear is not instilled, raids will be perpetuated. In general AA wars, that protection will be somewhat watered down as most everyone else will have the same problems. Most wars will be conflicts in ideology (who am I kidding? It's boredom, lulz, and cash grabs here) and usually not fully resolved in one round.

How to prevent raiding and be ready for wars...for nations under 1000 nation strength.

1. Go to your nation page, scroll down to your nation strength pie chart (bottom right). If military is 1/3 (or more) of your nation strength, you're ok, good job. If it isn't, get to buying military. If you don't, hope you don't mind raids. That's all.

Methods of Deterrence.

1. A bristling, full up military. Not looking like a soft target.
2. Being in vacation mode or on beige.
3. Nuclear weapons.
4. Ultimate turtling. No military, no lootable cash or commodities and you wait for your opponent's boredom to set in. For this you must be patient, not attached to your infra, and cognizant that raiders will be drawn to your yard.
5. Military stratification. Most open alliances have a wider range distribution of nation strengths. You might see 100NS to 4500NS (Wide Spectrum). This allows them to hit the spectrum of a similarly stratified AA. In a closed alliance you may be more likely to see a core group that started at the same time, which share more homogeneous NS. Let's say 1800NS to 2200NS as an example (Tight Spectrum). There are also elite NS AA's (average strength over 2500. Upper Tier Spectrum) and starter AA's (average NS under 750. Lower Tier Spectrum). How are they suited in fighting each other? Obviously, each is geared to fighting the same paradigm alliances, but against each other...

XI. Spectrum Engagement

1. Wide spectrum engaging:

A. Tight spectrum-will be decimated in the tight spectrum, hardly touched above it, and only effected below it by nations getting beat down into lower ranges.
B. Upper tier-will be decimated in the upper tier, somewhat effected in mid range, and untouched on the lower tier.
C. Lower tier-top and mid range hardly touched, low tier decimated.
D. Wide spectrum-most alliance wars. Damage up and down the tables, usually worst on mid range countries as mad formerly upper tier nations with nukes and projects roll down into their laps.

2. Tight spectrum engaging:

A. Wide spectrum-see 1A, but more damage to the wide range AA.
B. Upper/lower tier-depends a lot on where the median of the tight spectrum is. A median 2000NS can't do anything to a median 800NS Alliance, and vice versa. If the tight spectrum is in the middle of the upper tier...yikes, mass casualty situation.
C. Tight spectrum-matching tights are going to be ugly, the more diverse the stratigraphy levels, the less likely the war will be intense.

3. Upper tier engaging:

A. Wide spectrum-see 1B but more damage to the wide range AA.
B. Tight spectrum-see 2B.
C. Lower tier-just a war of words, they can't even strike each other.
D. Upper tier-slugfest of epic proportion, I smell nukes.

4. Lower tier engaging:

A. Wide spectrum-see 1C, but wide taking more damage.
B. Tight spectrum-see 2B.
C. Upper tier-see 3C.
D. Lower tier-a low tech free-for-all where they can ride each other down to the bottom of the infra well.


Where can we be Sven?

Welp, it's too late to be a lower tier. We have already settled in at wide spectrum, after all, we accept nations of any strength. High tier? We will never have peace long enough to achieve this. A tight spectrum makes the most sense from a defense standpoint. It limits who can hit you. Some AA's no one can hit you, some only a slice can engage you. Will this ever happen at the TCW? Doubtful.

XII. Slotting.

It would be easy to be safe during war, we'd all declare on each other and not attack. Then no one but the few first hitters could get a war slot. And we'd have a bunch of offensive slots to punish them. Alas, this is against the game rules. "War slot filling". Hiring someone to hit you from outside your AA? Against rules... Treatying another AA to fill up your defensive slots in a war. Same...

How many wars can you be in a one time? 8, Five offensive, three defensive. Hold up? Who has the time, resources, and money to fight 8 wars? Raiders. You have to remember the five offensive wars he picked will be against inactives, paper tigers, and pacifists. They won't require much of his time, resources, or money. He won't need massive buy backs. The three angry guys hitting him (provided they weren't, in turn, counter-declared) would seem to have the advantage. Only, Captain Pirate has 5 other nations paying for his defense, through ground victories and bank loots.

Are offensive slots smart? Welp, if you are the aggressor AA, yes. If you are the defending AA.? If you don't counter declare at all, you can limit your wars to three. Of course these were three people who thought they could beat you, not guys you picked out. And then there are the cries for help as you are burning down and you try to encourage your brethren to counter-declare to take some of the heat off of you. Then they get counter-declared on... It's a snowballing proposition. Choose wisely.

XIII. The Tangled Treaty Web.

Everyone with a treaty can trace a line to everyone else in the T-web. Let's discuss some treaty types.

MAP- Mandatory Aggression Pact. This one is very rare. If your pal AA attacks someone, you hafta join in (and vice-versa). This is for exceptionally close, war-like, alliances. (assholes mostly)

MDP- Mandatory Defense Pact. Pretty common. If your pal is declared on, you declare on the aggressor. Problem here is, now you are the "offender" and anyone he has MDP/ODP with will likely be hitting you. Anyone else you have a treaty with, will need to hit those guys. This is called "Chaining". Sooner or later, you hafta hit someone you have a treaty with, or who is treatied to one of your friends. Messy.

MDOAP- Mandatory Defense/Optional Aggression Pact. Very common. You hafta defend me, but if I'm pounding on someone you don't like, you can legally join in without a CB.

ODP- Optional Defense Pact. Fairly common, but a mark of tepid friendship. If you are attacked, we may come to your defense...depends on who is attacking you. This pact serves to cut out bits of the web, where you can stop from having conflicting treaties come into play. Or its cowardice...take your pick. Example: XYZ (80K NS) is attacked by MegaCorp (180K NS). Umm, yah, we're kind of friendly with Mega...so we'll pass this time.
XYZ (80K NS) attacked by IKEA (25K NS). Those SONS O' BITCHES! We will rain fire down on them!

ODOAP- Optional Defense/Optional Aggression. Confusing. You could defend us...if you wanted to and/or your can jump in with us on this other AA, if you wanted to.

NAP- Non Aggression Pact. Worthless. Did not GPA have an unwritten NAP with everyone? 100% unreciprocated too. But anyway, this is I won't attack you, you don't attack me. Bleh.

Many treaties incorporate intelligence sharing. Also, there are actually economic treaties. Now ask yourself why this is just in the footnotes. (Answer: Because that's not how this game rolls...)

XIV. Fire Teams.

As a microcosm of this concept, I'll use an example of an AA I'll call Nemesis. Nemesis has 30 nations in six tight NS groupings.

Alpha: 3800-3900-4000-4000-4100

Bravo: 2700-2750-2800-2900-3000

Charlie: 1800-1900-2000-2050-2100

Delta: 1000-1050-1100-115-1200

Echo: 500-550-600-650-700

Foxtrot: 160-175-190-200-210

The spread on A,B,C is 300 NS.
D,E is 200 NS.
F is 50 NS.

Rather than discussing the declare ranges of each nation I'm going to use the group median to show the range windows.

Alpha’s median is 3950, which makes its declare range about 2960 to 6910.

Beta is 2850. Range 2835 to 4990.
Charlie is 1950. Range 1460 to 3410.
Delta is 1100. Range 825 to 1925.
Echo is 600. Range is 450 to 1030.
Foxtrot is 185. Range is 139 to 324.

I rounded some, so don't gig me for the math. Anyway, you can see there is some overlap in all but the lowest tier. The defensive strength here is that any war declared in any range, will have the attacker immediately in four wars. Three of the other four declare offensively. One is free for a second round declaration or to pick up on an upper tier attacker getting pushed down or a down declare on an attacker on the tier below it. One would think that if we employed this strategy it would act as something of a deterrent. Obviously this requires activity and timing. How do others match up against you? Upper tier will ravage yours, leaving 60-80% of the AA untouched. Tight spectrum will ravage the group matching the spectrum, possibly some higher and lower, but 50% remain untouched. Wide spectrum will engage every group, but may have a difficult time unraveling a tight defense. Lower tier would likely ravage ours, but leave 60-80% of the rest untouched.

Let's try another. I'll call this AA LoSS (a League of Small Superpowers) Say they have 25 nations ranging in size from 3910-4500. Semi-tight. But only nations over 2230 NS (and those not effectively, till 3900) can even hit them. They are an upper tier.

Another. Imagine an AA called Mediocrity Inc. They have 25 nations and have structured themselves to all keep between 1800-2000 NS. They can declare in a window (using 1900 as a median) from 1425 to 3325. But only 1085 to 2535 can declare on them. So when attacked, they can run wild on the middle tiers of an attacking alliance and completely ignore the big guys and the little guys. My money is on Mediocrity getting reps.

XV. Coordinating.

Suddenly you are attacked, what do you do first?

1. First, you report it in a war thread under the Dept. of Defense forum. Why? Because fellow members, now notified, can come to your aid, whether that be militarily or buy sending money or resources, plus it gives government a chance to contact the govt. of the attacking AA to maybe get a truce. Since YOU are part of the brotherhood (or sisterhood if you prefer) I would hope you are checking that forum often so you can help others too. "Ask not what your alliance can do for you, but what can you do for your alliance". Check the thread first to see if someone else has seen and reported the war, that way there aren't multiple threads on the same conflict.

2. Secondly, buyback to your maximum military totals. This is why you keep cash and war resources on hand.

3. Coordinate with anyone else your attacker is attacking. Timing your counterattacks is critical, so you don't fritter away your units piecemeal.

A recent Example:

A pirate attacked 4 GPA nations. Why? Because he thought he could beat them all and steal a bunch of easy money. Three had beatable militaries, one looked inactive. He was also attacking a nation (militarily weak) in another AA. I converted my farms to military improvements and counterattacked him. I reviewed all five wars to see where they stood and contacted the one guy from the other AA because he had established a naval blockade, I told him to keep that blockade up no matter what else happened. Then I coordinated with the one GPA nation that bothered to report the war. It's more important that you whittle your enemy down, than you win individual battles. This all goes back to buyback totals. Eventually numbers will win. Always resist, which means you should be checking your nation every day.



Group Coordination.

For this exercise, let's assume a raider has selected five nations to raid. If you've read any of this thread, you now know why these nations were selected. (Put simply, he believes he can beat them all individually). Remember however, buybacks are not based on a 1v1 war basis, but on time. Working together, it is possible for these five nations to lose every battle for three days and still win the wars. Because the five, operating together, can buyback way more than he can.

We'll call the attacker Blackbeard; the five defending nations Alpha, Beta, Ceta, Delta, and Epsilon. The reality is someone will be asleep and not login to even know they are under attack. (Let's say Epsilon). The infuriating part for the rest, is that all the cash BB is stealing from Eps is going to funding his buybacks against the nations that are actually fighting him.

How it starts:

Nation/troops/tanks/planes/ships

BB    45000/1500/108/2

A    12000/250/28/2
B    9000/150/10/1
C    8000/500/35/2
D    12000/450/18/3
E    5000/200/15/0

1-vs-1, BB should able to paste any of these nations. And he will devastate Eps, because he won't be participating. As far as totals go, if these five nations were one country, it would be a pretty even fight. Their advantage lays in coordination and a collective superior buyback total. How? let's look at the more important stat, improvements..

Nation/barracks/factories/air bases/dry docks

BB/15/6/6/1

A/4/1/2/1
B/3/1/1/1
C/6/2/2/1
D/4/2/1/1
E/2/1/1/0
(ABCD)/17/6/6/4

BB can replace 15,000 troops, 300 tanks, 18 planes, and 1 ship each game day. BB can attack a total of ten times, but only twice each.
Team Greek can replace 17,000 troops, 300 tanks, 18 planes, and 4 ships each day. Each Team Greek nation can only attack two times, but for a total of ten times on BB.

Team coordination: Alpha contacts B, C, D, and tries in vain to reach E. (Let's just look at ground assaults for this). BB can hit each country twice (6 M.A.P.s) He will win every battle (although C will give him the most resistance) and he will be aflush with stolen cash, which he uses to replace everything he lost. He logs off happy and looks forward to milking the five cows again when he wakes up. Alpha sees BB has logged off and starts the counter. The four nations all hit BB twice with GAs, (buying back after each hit) and all losing (C going last-more in a minute). Although all lost, BB was unable to replace anything, because he is sleeping. So, he is winning but losing a couple thousand troops and let's say, 75 tanks every GA. When C goes last (put your strongest attacker against your enemy when he is weakest) maybe BB now only has 33k troops and 1050 tanks left. C will also lose, but now BB loses 4k troops and 200 tanks. BB is down to 29k troops and 850 tanks. Remember BB already bought back after attacking the first round, lets say he only collectively lost 12k troops and 300 tanks. After he logs back in, because of the coordinated counter attacks, for the rest of the game day BB can only buyback 3000 troops and 0 tanks. And so it goes... I hope you can see that the Greek Squad can win this fight with attrition, buybacks, and coordination.

Strategic Planning:

For this simulation, we'll assume a raider has selected three under-militarized nations to raid. Goliath is raiding Larry, Curly, and Moe. What do the three stooges do against the giant? 1. Coordinate. All strike together when Goliath can't respond. Goliath has 6 MAPs to use on each target, the Stooges have 18 MAPs to use on one target. What should the stooges do? 2. Larry uses 4 MAPs to hopefully win a naval battle to establish a blockade. This cuts Goliath off from the outside world (no trading). Curly uses 4 MAPs to air strike the giant to pare down his air force. Moe does two GAs to whittle down Goliath's troops and tanks. Two hours later after picking up one MAP, Larry and Curly can also do one GA each against Goliath. If, eventually, you can get an immense victory in the three phases of battle (land, sea, and air) it will have an effect on the opponent. Sea will blockade Goliath from getting trades and assistance from his AA's bank, this will help everyone. Land will reduce the number of planes he can sortie against the country that got the I.V. against him, by 33.3%. Air will reduce the combat effectiveness of his tanks, again versus the country that won that I.V. The Stooges three-headed hydra approach can win this war, if they work together.

Again, I recommend checking out Martbhell's military guide.

XVI. Espionage.

Espionage, the shadowy component of war mechanics:

Spies are expensive to buy (50,000 each) and maintain (2,400 a day, EACH). You can have up to 50 without the Intelligence Agency National project, which lets you have 60. If you ever get to use them, you will find out they are expensive to send on ops too. Their chances of success are entirely predicated on your total against your target's spy total. Oh what a joy it is to be raided by a guy with no spies. Here is an overview of some of the things spies can do.

1. Gather information. The  most  important. If successful, you find out how many spies your foe has, how much money he has, exactly how many resources he is sitting on. Say you blockaded your enemy...with spies you can see how much steel he has and therefore how many tanks he can buyback (warning, he may have steel mills...) You can check out his gas and muni stockpiles, etc.

2. Sabotage Tanks. You can destroy up to 5% of enemy tanks, depending on how many spies you have.

3. Sabotage planes. Up to 5%, depending on how many spies you have.

4. Sabotage ships. Up to 5%, depending on how many spies you have.

5. Sabotage troops. Up to 5%, depending on how many spies you have.

6. Assassinate spies. Up to 30% of enemy spy total, depending on how many spies you have.

7. Sabotage missiles.  One, depending on how many spies you have.

8. Sabotage nuclear warheads. One, depending on how many spies you have.

9. Terrorizing civilians is another option, but more for lulz than a tactical option. Last time this spy attack was used on me, I lost one infra...at the cost of about $90,000 to my attacker.

All of these are expensive, I've seen them range from 40,000 to well over a million. Your chance of success, besides numbers, is the safety level you send the op as. 1. Quick n dirty 2. Normal precautions. 3. Extremely covert. It also controls the cost.

For formula mechanics, read this..

http://politicsandwar.wikia.com/wiki/Spies

Are they worth it? Maybe, depends on what your aim is. Let's cover the 9 listed in order.

1. Yes...unless someone else you are coordinating with has already done it.
2. Maybe, if your totals are so close that it tilts the balance in your favor (remember a tank is worth 40 troops).
3. Maybe, Same^^
4. Maybe, if you are blockaded, I'd say hell yes.
5. Probably not, unless this is two <100 NS nations fighting. Really? You want to spend 40k to kill what cost me $100?
6. Maybe, depends on how many he has, can you tilt the success balance enough for it to be worth it? Wicked expensive.
7. Probably. Wicked expensive.
8. Yes. Double wicked expensive.
9. If bored, but no.

You get one spy op once per game day (but now you get one "free" information gathering per day as well). Unless you have the IA project, then you get two. Make your one choice count. Any nation may only have three spy ops done against them in a given game day. I recommend 5 spies per city, I have more, but I like to know what the other guy has

XVII. War Concepts

1.Nukes.

Nukes take away 25 resistance. They do a hell of a lot of damage and they add to the global radiation index.

2. Zero infra.
Not practiced here (yet), but explanations anyway.

ZI=You beat someone down to zero infra.
PZI=you continue to beat someone after you notice they built back some infra (permanent ZI)
EZI= You PZI a player and they quit. Then you realize they have made another country (likely different name...but let's say you find out) and you PZI that country (Eternal ZI).

ZI is against a nation/AA
PZI is a nation/AA death sentence
EZI is a player death sentence

3.Casus Belli (CB)- Cause for war, implied to be valid/justified/legal, but I wouldn’t count on that being true in every case.

4.AA- shorthand for an “Alliance”. A voluntary grouping of nations who band together for support/defense/friendship, etc.

5. Global Radiation Index-When many nukes are set off, index goes up and global food production goes down. It is a reason to stockpile food. Dissipates over time.

6. Reparations- (reps) this is what is paid to a war winning AA by the loser. Note: It will not be fair, nor will it necessarily be the initiator of the hostilities.

7. Discord- A chat module used for real time communication. Slack and IRC are two other examples. Discord is used by TCW.

8. OWF- Off World (off game) Forums. Term actually comes from CyberNations, but basically the location for alliance announcements like declarations of wars, existence (new AA's starting up), etc. Also contains guides, RP sections, Sheepy announcements, et al. Link is found at bottom left section of game page.

9. Resistance- In wars, each nation starts with 100 "resistance". Think of it in terms of hit points. As attacks are made, resistance goes down. Amount is dependent on level of victory. Immense victory subtracts 14 for naval, 12 for air, and 10 for ground. (Moderate and Pyrrhic do less, but the ratios remain the same). Nukes do 25 and are no longer instant beige.

10. Fortify- This "combat" option costs 3 MAPs and has the effect of raising your resistance by 10. There is no upper limit per se, as I have taken resistance to 180 in war as an experiment. It is essentially a tactic used when you are losing, ostensibly to stave off being beiged. One good thing is while you are fortified, your attacker will take 10% more casualties attacking you, until you attack him, then you lose the 10% buff, but you do keep the resistance points.

11. Beige- "Being beiged". This is what happens when your resistance goes to zero and you lose the war. Your color is automatically set to beige and you stay there 2 days for every war you lose, cumulatively. Lose three wars at the same time, you are beige for 6 days. While you are on beige no new wars may be declared on you. When beiged you will lose 20% of your cash, 10% of your resources, and approximately you will lose 10% of your infra in each of your cities. Plus your alliance's bank will be looted as well. You can change your color back, but then you will not have declare protection.

12. White Peace- This is a truce where there are no reparations paid, nor asked for.

XVIII. The 1v1 War.

Suppose it's mano-a-mano. Who will win? This will of course depend on a great number of factors. (Not in any order of precedence)

1. Who has the most money. (Everything is money. Units, resources, infra, improvements)

2. Who has the bigger military. (Numerical superiority is an important factor in the game war mechanics)

3. Who has the most resources. (Literally controls your unit usage and your buyback capability)

4. Who struck first. (Game mechanics favors the aggressor. Plus it dictates who will control the strike-buyback cycle)

5. Who better timed their strikes. (Being able to get in successive attacks without your opponent responding. Also can mitigate how buybacks go down)

6. Who has bigger buyback capacity. (Military improvements)

You'll notice all but two of these are predicated on your pre-war preparation. That's why it's so important. This is all mostly review, I am trying to hammer these points in.

Some 1v1 specifics: (My opinions here...) I'd say it's rather pointless to attack a few hours before the game day ends. This let's your foe buyback and then wait a couple hours and buyback more on a fresh buyback cycle. I'd say it's best to hit a guy right after buyback, so you can continue to hit throughout the day, without him being able to replenish. Hopeless attacks: If you are in a coordinating coalition, it can be tactically advantageous to attack where you have no chance of winning. In an attrition war, somebody is "gonna hafta take one for the team". In a 1v1, hopeless attacks just waste your units for very little return. It would be better to spend your MAPs on attacks that you have better chances on (maybe air or naval). On your nation page, bottom left, there is tab called "helpful tools". There you will find a battle calculator (and all sorts of other calculators too) that will give you a pretty good idea of how any particular single attack will play out. If you can find a way to keep your resistance above zero (see fortify, possibly), then you can make the war end on the fifth day in a stalemate.

XIX. The Desperation Gambit

Sven, I am desperate to win but I'm getting slaughtered. Fear not, there is away. Expensive, very. Risky, very. But you can win. Here's how...

Leatherface is attacking Pilsner. Both have 5 cities. Leather has 60k troops, 2000 tanks, 216 planes, and 10 ships. Leather is a raider, so he doesn't carry a 100% economy, he cares very little about pollution, disease rate, crime rate, or population approval. He just wants to raid and make his money that way. His war improvement breakout is 20 barracks, 8 factories, 12 bases, and 2 drydocks. (42 slots or 4/<2/<3/<1 per city) Much of the rest is powerplants, mines, and mills to feed his war machine. (Raiders tend to have smaller cities, because they don't need extraneous slots and more of their NS is carried in military). Pilsner has 45k troops, 1000 tanks, 126 planes, and 5 ships. (only 27 slots or 3/<1/<2/<1 per city). Pilsner's slots are tied up with a 100% economy (8 slots per city), farms, mines, mills, municipal improvements, etc. Pilsner's THEORETICAL capacity is 75k troops, 6250 tanks, 450 planes, and 75 ships. WUT!?!? Each city can carry a max on military improvements of 5/5/5/3. Pilsner's problem is he is doing the right things and doesn't have the slots.
Leather starts out kicking Pilsner's ass, but Pilsner decides he must win whatever the cost. If Pilsner has money and resources (or unfettered access to them) I tell you Pilsner will win. Plow under damn near everything that isn't powerplants or military improvements...eat the cost. Build military improvements, when you go 5/5/5/3 or close towards it, your military will devastate Leatherface. Will you make money? No. Population approval? No. Generate raw or manufactured goods to sell? No. Cost you millions? Likely. Win? Oh hell, yes. After that, you may wish to return to peacetime normal improvement slotting and converting back will be expensive too, but you won. Here is the risk...Pilsner starts with 145.5 of his NS as military. He probably has an overall NS of about 400-500. Maxing out his military adds 579.5 to his nation strength. (Soldier .0005 each, tanks .05, planes .5, ships 2) So now he is well over 1000, if one of Leatherface's much bigger buddies, who was way out of range before, suddenly wants to help the now crushed shell of Leatherface, Pilsner has moved up into his range. Pil might have an epic military, but is likely not set up to deal with someone who has twice as many cities (and missiles/nukes). In summation, if you have great gobs of money and a burning desire to be victorious...here's the way. Just don't say I recommended it or that I didn't warn you about possible consequences.

Me personally, I'd rather lose all my money and win, rather than lose and have left something on the playing field.

Updated War Guide to reflect new combat system.