On xp, red defense, and alliances...

[Memtok]

Strategy:

1 a : the science and art of military command exercised to meet the enemy in combat under advantageous conditions b : a variety of or instance of the use of strategy
2 a : a careful plan or method : a clever stratagem b : the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems toward a goal
3 : an adaptation or complex of adaptations (as of behavior, metabolism, or structure) that serves or appears to serve an important function in achieving evolutionary success

Tactics:

1 : a device for accomplishing an end
2 : a method of employing forces in combat

We all are aware of the importance of employing sound tactical concepts when developing our pa planets; fleet composition, research/contructions, roids, defense, attack methods all follow well worn paths known to all. so tactics are relatively simple, and have not changed over much since I last played this game in round 11...

Strategy though, the guiding principles behind the most effective use of well known tactics to acheive the ultimate goal of "winning the game", has changed VASTLY since my last sojourn in the pa universe. It is only tonight that I have come to truly realize how much these new rules have changed the game...

First there is the new concept (for me) of "planet value". At first it seemed to be a wonderful way of easing the ages old problem of small planet bashing, but the pendulum may have swung too far the other way. A truly well organized lemming run (a hirr specialty in the old days) not only can overwhelm a planet with a large fleet, but it can also do so in the sure knowledge that xp will see an overall rise in the alliance score all out of proportion to the real effect of sending 5 or more small planets to attack a single large one has on relative alliance war fighting capacity. The large planet has simply to run his ships and the small value guys have acheived nothing of damage beyond a minor theft of easily replaced roids. Where is the "real value" to warrant such a score boost for the lemming attackers? Where is the possibility for just and proper retaliation by the large planet against his tormentors? In essence pa is REWARDING planets for remaining "small" with the current xp/planet value rule set up.

As for "red defense"...

This is a concept that will weaken the strength of large and well organized alliances. In the past, back in the days when roid cap was limited by fleet value relative to target size, red defense was only a semi-viable and not often employed concept. As a last ditch effort, you could send a swarm of fi to attack a mate, and deny a roider all his due haul. The resultant roid loss reduction was not necessarily great, and it was far better to organize "real" defense to protect roids. With the advent of roid cap division amongst all fleets sent REGARDLESS of whether or not pods are present,
red defense becomes a much more effective tactic. Add to this the xp point boost these false attacks give, and red defense becomes the only sensible course to stop excessive roiding. Unfortunately, since allies cannot attack allies, AND since alliances are limited to a near crippling 55 member max (a more suitable number for a past BG than for an entire alliance), these rules may well lead to vast numbers of "undeclared allies" spread throughout the universe, and only at the very end of the round will the top 55 planets join up in hopes of acheiving top alliance ranking.

How does all this effect alliances?

Well to my way of thinking, alliances as tagged groups are obsolete. The 55 planet limit is a farce, as the new rules greatly support untagged/non-conjoined membershhip bases, and the 55 planet maximum has done nothing except greatly hamper "legitmate" defense of alliance mates. In the past, some of the most bonding experiences in this game come through the relief you feel when an ally cares enough to send his ships into harm's way to protect you- and you do the same for him- to remove this and replace it with the specious and counter-intuitive primacy of "red defense" will undermine much of what has been good and right about the team work of pa. I regret the passing of legimate defense greatly...

But what can you do?

For next round, assuming the rules stay significantly the same, I intend to urge my alliance to employ an entirely differant out look than in rounds past:

1) We will aggresively seek to BP our most active members only. This will provide a measure of inter-dependant fleet swapping capability on the advantageous in gal eta's, and should be good enough to def our members against at least 1 wave of inc per night with "real" def.

2) We will NOT tag our members until round's end, and will then only tag the top 55. This will allow us to circumvent the 55 member maximum in terms of real alliance capability AND will give us the advantages inherent in red defense.

3) We will aggressively seek to recruit new members, especially small planets, and those new to the game. This will give us a base from which to mount lemming runs on large enemy planets, and give us the commensurate boost to our overall alliance score. Also, recruitment above the 55 member max will give us a large and ready pool for the vital red defense.

4) We will not mount full gal attacks at heretofore "typical" pa attack times. Instead we will rely on retal hits versus our incoming to restore lost roids, thus increasing the net benefit of reduced roid caps through red defense. For all planets wihtout inc, and not on red defense, we will seek to target the same planets over and over again. thse are planets we have proven ourselves successful against, and we will continue to return to the cow that gives us milk. This tactic does NOT mean we will be "bashing", as you can shear a sheep over and over but can only butcher him once, but planets which have prven to be easily roided will get repeated visits in 1 and 2 wave lots.

5) Lastly, we will seek out a large and well organized alliance with whom to team, one which sees the simple and effective implementation of these plans as the way to truly succeed in this game, and we will own the universe next round...

...except possibly for those who have already seen the effacacy of these plans and are implementing them now.

Much Kudos to your alliance, and the alliance of whom I speak knows exactly what they are doing. Good job to them, and thanks to them for opening my eyes!

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Memtok

5) Lastly, we will seek out a large and well organized alliance with whom to team, one which sees the simple and effective implementation of these plans as the way to truly succeed in this game, and we will own the universe next round...

Why?

...except possibly for those who have already seen the effacacy of these plans and are implementing them now.

Much Kudos to your alliance, and the alliance of whom I speak knows exactly what they are doing. Good job to them, and thanks to them for opening my eyes!

What alliance is it you speak of?

[Europatriot]

Originally Posted by Memtok

Add to this the xp point boost these false attacks give, and red defense becomes the only sensible course to stop excessive roiding.

Without capping roids, the attacks will not give you any xp... with capping roids, this would qualify as farming?

[furball]

Regarding red defence, consensual attacking is a bannable offence.

[ChipZ^]

Originally Posted by furball

Regarding red defence, consensual attacking is a bannable offence.

Consensual roiding/ship farming is a bannable offense not consensual attacking. Red defence is more effective over the past few round cause u dont need to send pods because a fleet without pods still "caps" a % of the roids.

One problem is that you can't attack your own ally, and the only really organised out of alliance defence over the past few rounds have been for fleetcatchs so u dont see it very often.

[furball]

Ah, I stand corrected, thanks. I was treating his red defence post as one of consensual roiding, not mere attacking.

[Monroe]

Interesting set of strategum. I think you are right, if the current set of rules is applied to next round your strategy may in fact work. I am doubtful the current XP system will be applied to next round without modification, and I would wait and see how any modifications might impact your tactics before I would suggest implementing them.

[x-dANGEr]

A very nice strategic game over their. With a dedicated set of members, it would have grabed victory this round :P

[NitinA]

Originally Posted by ChipZ^

Red defence is more effective over the past few round cause u dont need to send pods because a fleet without pods still "caps" a % of the roids.

That's incorrect. You need at least 1 pod in a fleet, in addition to another attacker with more pods, to cap roids based on fleet value total %. If you send 1 pod, and the other attack sends enough pods to cap full, then the distribution of the capped roids is based on fleet value. If you send 1 pod, and the other attacker sends 1 pod, you'll split (based on fleet value) the total amount of roids that the pods could cap. Finally, If you send no pods at all, and the other person sends pods, you get no roids and the other person gets full cap capable of his pods--despite fleet value.

-NitinA

[XelNaga]

And there goes the whole strategy. He.

[Memtok]

If there are others attacking the same planet as you at the same time then the available roids will be divided between ALL the fleets, by fleet value, regardless of if they have ships capable of capturing asteroids or not. If one fleet does not have enough ships to capture the 'roids then their share of the 'roids is essentially lost, even if this fleet is from the same planet . They will capture roughly as many as they can - see the formula page for information on how asteroid capture is worked out.

To clarify: When one or more of the attacking fleets does not have astropods present, the overall loss of asteroids from the target planet will be dropped by the percentage fleet of the fleet(s) that do not have asteroid capturing abilities.

That's from the manual.

NitinA may want to read it.

[NitinA]

Must be a change recently, I was quite sure it was the other way around. Guess not...

-NitinA

[Memtok]

My stance on red defense still holds, but I DO stand corrected on the matter of xp derived from red defense ATTACKS...

Experience ( XP )
This is a hidden field in the database which increases from (among other things) scans and covert ops. The major source of XP is generally from capping asteroids. You do not get XP for killing ships!

XP=asteroids capped*bravery factor
bravey factor=10*(target value/your value)
bravey factor is capped at 20

XP is a function of capped 'roids, so I guess non-cap missions have no benefit to score. My bad, but overall I stand by the strategy laid out here.

The value of red defense cannot be denied, especially when coupled with aggressive multi-wave counter attacks by the target planet. Think about it:

The targetted planet MUST run his ships anyway, due to the plethora of incoming ships, both hostile attackers AND "friendly" attackers. If he must run, go at the planet sending ships to attack.

You know a certain % of those ships are gone. And if the counter attack is timed to arrive AFTER the original attack lands, the combination of lower roid loss AND re-capture can easily result in a net roid gain.

I am currently thinking about ways to counter this strategy now, and will post those thoughts soon...

[Memtok]

NP NitinA, we all make mis-reads and assumptions. See my post directly above this one...

:-)

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by NitinA

That's incorrect. You need at least 1 pod in a fleet, in addition to another attacker with more pods, to cap roids based on fleet value total %. If you send 1 pod, and the other attack sends enough pods to cap full, then the distribution of the capped roids is based on fleet value. If you send 1 pod, and the other attacker sends 1 pod, you'll split (based on fleet value) the total amount of roids that the pods could cap. Finally, If you send no pods at all, and the other person sends pods, you get no roids and the other person gets full cap capable of his pods--despite fleet value.

-NitinA

NitinA is correct on his first point, and I have the battle reports to prove it. His second point I am unsure about though.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Memtok

That's from the manual.

NitinA may want to read it.

You trust the manual?!

[ChipZ^]

Originally Posted by NitinA

Must be a change recently, I was quite sure it was the other way around. Guess not...

-NitinA

lol its been like that for atleast 3 rounds

[Willzzz]

Originally Posted by Memtok

Strategy:


For next round, assuming the rules stay significantly the same, I intend to urge my alliance to employ an entirely differant out look than in rounds past:

1) We will aggresively seek to BP our most active members only. This will provide a measure of inter-dependant fleet swapping capability on the advantageous in gal eta's, and should be good enough to def our members against at least 1 wave of inc per night with "real" def.

2) We will NOT tag our members until round's end, and will then only tag the top 55. This will allow us to circumvent the 55 member maximum in terms of real alliance capability AND will give us the advantages inherent in red defense.

3) We will aggressively seek to recruit new members, especially small planets, and those new to the game. This will give us a base from which to mount lemming runs on large enemy planets, and give us the commensurate boost to our overall alliance score. Also, recruitment above the 55 member max will give us a large and ready pool for the vital red defense.

4) We will not mount full gal attacks at heretofore "typical" pa attack times. Instead we will rely on retal hits versus our incoming to restore lost roids, thus increasing the net benefit of reduced roid caps through red defense. For all planets wihtout inc, and not on red defense, we will seek to target the same planets over and over again. thse are planets we have proven ourselves successful against, and we will continue to return to the cow that gives us milk. This tactic does NOT mean we will be "bashing", as you can shear a sheep over and over but can only butcher him once, but planets which have prven to be easily roided will get repeated visits in 1 and 2 wave lots.

5) Lastly, we will seek out a large and well organized alliance with whom to team, one which sees the simple and effective implementation of these plans as the way to truly succeed in this game, and we will own the universe next round...

...except possibly for those who have already seen the effacacy of these plans and are implementing them now.

Much Kudos to your alliance, and the alliance of whom I speak knows exactly what they are doing. Good job to them, and thanks to them for opening my eyes!

This seems to be a very well thought out stratergy. Only thing is which might be question from is, point 3. Regarding the lemming runs you mentioned. Couldnt they be closed before landing as they are saw as farming ships to the people they are hitting? I have saw a lot of people doing this, especially this round. They land on purpose to top planets, loose all there fleet to ziks for instance and then get there friends to report the top planet they just hit for farming. Well surely if 2 planets can be closed for farming where as ships are given via consent, then a planet thats simply suiciding on a top planet (say a zik) would loose all there fleet that would be saw as farming? ( just my point of view but i am unsure)

And also this:

2) We will NOT tag our members until round's end, and will then only tag the top 55. This will allow us to circumvent the 55 member maximum in terms of real alliance capability AND will give us the advantages inherent in red defense.

Now thats a very good tactic that you have left till the end of the round to tag, how ever the planets outside of it would surely come under the support planet rule? If planets are there, out of tag, to soly send red defence then wouldnt this be exactly the same as a support planet, being out of tag, to send normal defence?

But again a good tactic which again can be exploited around the rules.

[Bromcrysal]

Originally Posted by sniborp

NitinA is correct on his first point, and I have the battle reports to prove it. His second point I am unsure about though.

Hmm... I'd like to see those battlereports, 'casue if it is true that you have to have a pod in your fleet to claim your share of the 'roids, then Redfleet Def is Dead. If you send a pod, you're farming.

[Shyne]

This basically exploits an illogical flaw in the combat engine.

I assume this red defence will not be possible in PAN.

[Memtok]

This seems to be a very well thought out stratergy. Only thing is which might be question from is, point 3. Regarding the lemming runs you mentioned. Couldnt they be closed before landing as they are saw as farming ships to the people they are hitting? I have saw a lot of people doing this, especially this round. They land on purpose to top planets, loose all there fleet to ziks for instance and then get there friends to report the top planet they just hit for farming. Well surely if 2 planets can be closed for farming where as ships are given via consent, then a planet thats simply suiciding on a top planet (say a zik) would loose all there fleet that would be saw as farming? ( just my point of view but i am unsure)

Care will be needed to avoid inadvertant claims of farming, certainly, but I cannot really see the pa creators closing the plaents of a lemming run for farming when the target will purposefully have no ships at home to target the incoming. If there are no ships to cap other ships, there can be no farming. If there are no pods to cap roids, again, there can be no farming. See?

And also this:

2) We will NOT tag our members until round's end, and will then only tag the top 55. This will allow us to circumvent the 55 member maximum in terms of real alliance capability AND will give us the advantages inherent in red defense.

Now thats a very good tactic that you have left till the end of the round to tag, how ever the planets outside of it would surely come under the support planet rule? If planets are there, out of tag, to soly send red defence then wouldnt this be exactly the same as a support planet, being out of tag, to send normal defence?

As for your point here, I may not have been entirely clear...

the "extra" non-tagged planets, especially the small planets, will not SOLELY be in the group for use as red def. Obviously they will also take part in other aspects of the alliance activity- retal hits, counter strikes, and other raids. Of course one pre-condition of inclusion would be the willingness to use their planet for red def. But since that would be a standard requirement for ALL group participants, there can be no serious claim of support planets.

...and we certainly will NOT use multi's for this!

[Memtok]

The fact is Willzzz, red def acts as a "force multiplier" as it can take otherwise unused ships, and employ them to reduce roid loss...

Your statement re: out of tag "real" def fails to take into account the fact that the loss of even the small advantage of a 1 tick allied speed boost makes "real" def all but impossible against large ship attacks.

for example:

Say a Ter launches a BS strike vs a Xan with a start eta of 10, appearing on the Xan's status at eta 9. What can you use to defend? since your TAGGED planets are limited to a very small number, you may well not be able to muster enough Dragons/Broadsword to cover the inc. and even if you DO find those ships laying around, you significantly cut into your tagged Ter's ability to roid with a significant portion of his attack fleet out defending. this means your only REAL option to avoid reducing your alliance's ability to attack that night are Broadswords...can you be sure you will find enough to cover the inc inside a 55 member tag limit? Even if you do have plenty of allied Xans, you still must catch the inc on its tick of appearence to get the "real" def there in time. Althogther this is a tough thing to do...

What you must not forget about "real" def this round is the fact that it takes a MUCH higher kill % to force a recall when value loss can be offeset by score boost via xp. when I last played (rd 11), it was a common site to see a 50% coverage force a recall. It just wasnt cost effective to trade ships for roids back then. but the current rules can actually cause a score boost AND make you less likely to be attacked! Just at my own planet, last night I lost almost 110 frigs, capped 399 roids, saw my value DROP about 250k overall (when ship production was factored in) AND my score rose over 300k! As long as I still have enough ships to raid at, or near my value why should I fear these losses! that is a real killer for "real" def...

Take for instance...

Out of tag, your only options are PeaceKeepers and BW because you do not have even the small 1 tick advantage tagged enjoy. PK's require 11.33 ships on avg for each Ter BS kill in an equally proportioned fleet(levs=12.5 Wyv=10.25 Dra=11.25), so that means roughly 3400 PK to full stop a 300 ter bs strike, and about 1700 to make it a 50% kill. BW are MUCH better anti-BS ships (6-5 BW per Ter BS freeze), but because they only freeze you must find enough for full cover to prevent roid loss- you will not get a recall with just cath def. Any cath with a significant amount of BW is probably relying on FR for raids, and unless he has a lot of Recluse/spiders for hitting xans, 1800 or so BW will put a large crimp in a cath's ability to roid vs Zik. so you basically need to find 2-3k PK or 1800 BW to stop "just" a 300 Ter BS hit...not an easy thing to do!

So as you see, out of tag "real" def is a pretty hopeless thing vs big ships...

counter this with the benefit of red def.

keep in mind, ANY ship may be used for red def, so long as it is not a pod, and gets there in time. any decent sized xan has about 10k or more Vsharrak laying around his planet doing nothing but self-defending. Most caths have 1 or 2k co, and possibly a few thousand uneeded spiders (provided the cath prefers CR hits). Ters usually have 1-2k harpies and about the same number of phoe/gryphs. Let's not even talk about the large number of non-attack capped small ships a Zik will have available! ANY of these ships can be sent as red def, AND will give you a 2 tick speed advantage over those Ter bs. Thus these ships are far easier to collect, far less damaging on your group's ability to go roiding, and when you factor in resource hoarding by the target planet for the purpose of directed building to stop incoming from landing, even these easily collected and useless small ships are just as likely to make a Ter bs hit an unprofitable strike.

So quite frankly, beyond some minor concerns regarding increased activity levels by group members needed to enact a truly effective red def strategy, I can see no real down side...

[Memtok]

#note: I lost 1100 frigs, not 110

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Memtok

when I last played (rd 11), it was a common site to see a 50% coverage force a recall. It just wasnt cost effective to trade ships for roids back then. but the current rules can actually cause a score boost AND make you less likely to be attacked! Just at my own planet, last night I lost almost 110 frigs, capped 399 roids, saw my value DROP about 250k overall (when ship production was factored in) AND my score rose over 300k! As long as I still have enough ships to raid at, or near my value why should I fear these losses! that is a real killer for "real" def...

The rules for XP haven't changed since r11. If you could cap with similar losses back then, you'd have earned as much.

As for your red def, you can send any ship, but you're tying up more fleets for more ticks (as the attacker will doubtless land unless you send more than 5x his fleet value, at which point you'd probably have been better off defending).

[Memtok]

You forget another important part of the strategy, the counter attack.

The idea isnt to prevent a lands, merely to reduce a roid cap so you end up with a net roid gain, instead of a roid loss.

Example: you have 1k roids and get attacked by someone with 700. A counter attack by you does not return a net profit to you, since you have a max cap of 25%. Even if your counter lands AFTER your attacker has nicked your roids, you will still show a small net loss.

BUT...

with the addition of red def to lower the original roid cap, you CAN see a net roid GAIN on a counter strike, even if you prevent as little as 25% to 30% of the 250 roid loss. save as few as 50 roids, and it can result in a net gain on the counter attack.

I think you are concentrating too much on red def as a sole determiner of success in this strategy. you must not forget that I also advocate non-standard attack methods. I will not set up any more full gal strikes for my alliance, but will rather seek to let our attackers serve themselves up to us.

the thing to remember that in addition to red def, we will also see counter strikes by the targetted planet. if those strikes get in gal def, we will strike as hard as possible at those defenders too. I will grant you, implementation of this will take much more on line activity than normal launch and forget til jgp gal strikes, but our alliance is gearing up to do this already...

we jsut await the changes in the next round.

[furball]

I don't care if this has been said already:

Launch later to cap target's stolen roids

Basically: Launch later to let them cap their roids at other targets, then go and steal theirs. I'm doing it as we speak.

[Ultimate Newbie]

But the question is, is it working?

[furball]

Yup

Landed yesterday after my target landed 2 attacks. He went from 700 to 1200 roids, I capped 300 roids instead of ~220.