| dasir0 (White Giant) | Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - 12:51 am 
hi,
as i'm playing in secured mode with war level 0 it seems stupid to keep spending billions on unneeded army and supplies. I've already started selling ammo supplies, but still the cost is huge. |
| David Walker (Little Upsilon) | Friday, March 16, 2012 - 09:30 pm
Check to see if you have Garrisons stationed at your country targets. You may need to recall these weapons and soldiers to be able to deactivate, sell or destroy them. |
| a9fc8yt3kd1 (Fearless Blue) | Saturday, March 17, 2012 - 01:04 am
That's OK, just sell the rest of your defensive and offensive weapons. Once they're all gone, you shouldn't be spending hardly anything on defense. Remember though, the weapons don't disappear the instant you click "sell". They don't actually get sold until someone else BUYS them. Until then, they still cost you money to keep. If you are really desperate, you could try destroying weapons instead of selling them. That way, they will instantly stop costing you money. However, I wouldn't recommend that, because they money which you will eventually get when someone purchases your weapons will probably be far greater than the cost of maintaining those weapons in your stockpile until someone else buys them from you. What I would recommend is that you deactivate as many weapons as possible. This will reduce the cost of maintaining the weapons, without preventing you from selling them later. Also, don't purchase any defensive fortifications. They aren't very useful for defense, they require a lot of soldiers, and you can't sell them. If you deactivate as many weapons systems as possible as quickly as possible, and then sell as many weapons as possible at market price to whoever wants to buy them, this should cut your military expenses down as much as possible. Also, when you do decide to build your defensive military force, there are a lot of things you can do to get as much bang for your buck as possible:
Fist of all, I would recommend that you focus on your defensive air-force and defensive navy, rather than on your defensive land forces. You see, in order to protect all of the potential targets in your country, a defensive land force has to be divided up amongst all of said targets. In other words, if you want to protect every major city in your country, you have to station a separate, individual garrison at each of those cities. If you want to defend all of your towns, counties, factories and military bases, you must station separate garrisons at each of those as well. This means that you can only afford to station a very small number of weapons at any given target. Furthermore, in order to provide an adequate defense of any target, you need to station AT LEAST three different types of weapons there. You will need either defensive armored vehicles, defensive jeeps, light artillery or light tanks, to protect yourself from land attacks. You will also need defensive anti-aircraft batteries to protect yourself from air attacks. You will further need either missile interceptor batteries or defensive missile batteries to protect yourself from missile attacks. To defend your military bases, capital city and other major cities, you will also need nuclear defense batteries. Thus, not only can you only afford to station a very small number of weapons at each target, but also, you can only afford to station an EVEN SMALLER number of weapons of each type at any given target. If you are forced to divide your defense forces among dozens of different targets, and then to divide them again among several different weapon types to defend against several different types of attacks, this ultimately means that you will only have a very tiny number of weapons available to defend any given target against any given type of attack. This means that even if your defensive military is much larger than your attacker's offensive military, your attacker can still easily overwhelm your defenses, simply because your forces are so divided. However, let's say you focus on building your defensive navy and defensive air-force, instead of your defensive army. You will need a combination of interceptors and defensive helicopters. The interceptors will protect you from attacks from all types of aircraft, including strategic bombers, and the defensive helicopters will protect you from both land attacks and missile attacks, including attacks from nuclear, chemical and tactical missiles. Of course, you will also need defensive radar planes, in order to direct your interceptors and defensive helicopters to the proper locations. Also, although defensive helicopters are effective against land forces and land-based missile launchers, they are not very effective against navy ships, and they do nothing at all against nuclear submarines. Therefore, you should also maintain some defensive destroyers and a fleet command stationed in the waters off shore. This will protect you from navy attacks, including attacks from nuclear submarines. A combination of defensive radar planes, interceptors, defensive helicopters and defensive destroyers, will provide protection against just about any type of attack which you could face. Of course, you still have to divide your forces up amongst several different types of weapons. However, this is much more efficient than relying on a defensive land force. The reason is that interceptors, defensive helicopters and defensive destroyers, do not need to be stationed AT any particular target in order to defend it. Instead, you can simply station some interceptor wings and defensive helicopter wings at an offensive airport, and station your defensive destroyers at a fleet command off shore. This way, you don't have to divide your weapons up amongst all of the different targets. Instead, you can group your defensive air-force into a small number of comparatively large and powerful interceptor wings and defensive helicopter wings, and you can group your defensive destroyers into a single large fleet. If your enemy attacks from the air and one of your interceptor wings responds, your enemy will be faced with one-hundred-and-seventy interceptors, instead of merely twelve or thirteen defensive anti-aircraft missile batteries. Likewise, if your enemy attacks by land and one of your defensive helicopter wings responds, your enemy will be faced with one-hundred-and-seventy defensive helicopters, as opposed to merely a dozen or so defensive armored vehicles or other ground weapons. If your enemy attacks with missiles, they will again be faced with an entire wing of one-hundred-and-seventy defensive helicopters, as opposed to merely a dozen or so missile interceptor batteries and/or defensive missile batteries. Likewise, if your enemy attacks from the sea with navy fighters and navy helicopters, your enemy will again be faced with a very large number of interceptors rather than merely a tiny handful of anti-aircraft missile batteries. If your enemy attacks from the sea using missiles, your enemy will again be faced with a very large number of defensive helicopters rather than merely a tiny handful of missile interceptor batteries and defensive missile batteries. Likewise, if your enemy attacks from the sea using any weapon at all, your enemy will be faced with your defensive destroyer fleet. What is more, interceptors, defensive helicopters and defensive destroyers will also work against attacks with weapons of mass destruction. If your enemy uses nuclear missiles, chemical missiles or tactical missiles, the missile launchers will be attacked by your defensive helicopters. If your enemy uses nuclear missiles launched from nuclear submarines, the nuclear submarines will be attacked by your defensive destroyers, and if your enemy uses strategic bombers, the strategic bombers will be attacked by your interceptors. Thus, a combination of interceptors and defensive helicopters, both guided by defensive radar planes, together with defensive destroyers, will protect you against just about any type of attack you can imagine. What is more, because these weapons can protect all the different targets in your country without you having to divide them among all of those different targets, you can get the same amount of protection using a much smaller force than you would need if you were to rely on your land force. This defensive strategy will give you much greater protection while at the same time costing you much less money in operating costs. This is one very good way to save money on defense Also, don't buy large quantities of weapons. Instead, buy only a small number of weapons, but make sure that both the weapons and the ammunition which they use are of the highest possible quality. A small but very high quality military is just as effective as a large but very low quality military, yet it costs less to operate because it uses fewer soldiers. Also, once you have established a decent defensive air-force, you may want to consider creating a few stealth bomber wings to augment your defense. If you have stealth bomber wings and your country is attacked, the stealth bombers will automatically bomb military units in your attacker's country. They will do this no matter what weapons your enemy uses to attack you, and this will weaken your enemy's ability to carry out future attacks. I expect that the combination of defensive radar planes, interceptors, defensive helicopters, defensive destroyers, and eventually stealth bombers, should provide you with a reasonably good defense in proportion to the cost, provided that you don't build your defense until you can afford it economically. Also, no matter what sort of defensive force you choose to build, you should always keep a small handful of LONG RANGE radar planes active at all times. You can use them to spy on other players, in order to see the size and strength of their military units, as well as the types of weapons which they are using in those units, and the quality of the weapons and ammunition in those units. This costs very little, and can help to give you some idea of the threats which you are likely to face if your are attacked by those players. Also, consider examining your neighbors' countries from time to time, to check up on their financial and economic situation. Certain things like the size of a country's population, education levels, employment levels, the number of corporations in that country, the profitability of those corporations, and other things, can give you a rough idea of how well that country is doing economically, and that in turn can give you a rough idea of how large of a military that country is likely able to sustain. Also, pay especially good attention to your neighbor's finances. A massive plunge into debt is probably the most certain indicator there is of a rapid military buildup. I don't know of much else which regularly causes countries to plunge so far into debt so fast as a large military buildup in preparation for war. If a country has no debt and one-trillion in cash one day, and the next day they have one-trillion in debt and no cash, that probably means that the president is buying a very large quantity of weapons and ammunition. There isn't much else which is likely to be that expensive. If you see something like this, it likely means that something is about to go down. Of course, just because another president is buying large quantities of weapons and ammunition, that certainly doesn't mean that they are intended to be used against your country specifically, but nonetheless, something like this is likely something you should pay attention to just in case. Lastly, you want to stop as much information about your country as possible from getting out. To do this, go to your country page, look at the menu bar at the top of the screen and go to "settings", "automation", "secrecy parameters", ensure that all five boxes are checked, and click "save changes". Now, go back to the menu bar and go to "settings", "show/hide news bar", and click on it. Now, check the box where it says "Hide News Bar". This turns off that continuously scrolling news bar at the top of your country page with all the economic information. That way, a potential attacker can't use the news bar to find out how your country is doing economically, or whether or not your country has the means to afford a decent military. By doing these things, you can help to cover your country in a cloak of secrecy which will tend to make other players a little bit more nervous about attacking you, because they won't know for certain what they are getting into. Also, when you are ready, you should consider joining a federation for protection. This doesn't cost you anything, and a large bundle of sticks together are much stronger that a single stick by itself. I hope I was helpful. |
| Herbert Jones (Kebir Blue) | Sunday, March 18, 2012 - 12:25 am
Lol... |
| Kitsune | Sunday, March 18, 2012 - 01:08 am
(Please use paragraphs)
In general air defense is more important than garrisons but you MUST have nuclear defense missile batteries in all nukeable targets (cities, bases, military airports, capital) or you'll be nuked to oblivion. Air defense will not prevent a nuclear attack. More valuable countries will also need proper garrisons in addition to air defense.
A garrison can have 1251 weapons in it now...the only weapons you need in a garrison are:
Defensive Missile Battery (retaliates against ground units, offensive missile batteries, ships)
Missile Interceptor Battery (shoots down offensive missiles)
Anti Aircraft Missile Battery (shoots down offensive aircraft)
and TWO nuclear defense batteries.
That's it. A popular strategy was to split them 1/3 into each battery type so that would be ~416 of each battery plus 2 NDB and appropriate ammunition. No tanks, jeeps, artillery, armored vehicles in garrisons. They're a waste of space because Defensive Missile Batteries can do the same stuff those do plus a lot more. |
| a9fc8yt3kd1 (Fearless Blue) | Sunday, March 18, 2012 - 09:39 pm
@Kitsune: The weapons and ammunition section of the game documentation clearly states that interceptors are effective against strategic bombers; that defensive helicopters are effective against nuclear and chemical missile batteries; and that destroyers are effective against nuclear submarines. Why then would you need a separate defensive weapon specifically for nuclear attacks? |
| a9fc8yt3kd1 (Fearless Blue) | Sunday, March 18, 2012 - 10:50 pm
OK, I looked it up in the game documentation, and it says that an interceptor has a 15% chance of hitting a strategic bomber, and that any hit from an interceptor will destroy a strategic bomber completely. If an interceptor has a 15% chance of hitting a strategic bomber, that means that it has an 85% chance of missing the strategic bomber. That may seem like a lot, but you need to take into account that you can currently place up to 150 interceptors in each interceptor wing. The odds of any individual interceptor missing is 0.85/1.00, which is quite high. However, the odds of all 150 interceptors missing simultaneously is only 0.85^150/1.00. In other words, only 0.000000000025872527494775213704234462245696 out of one. Those are extremely small odds. The odds of a wing of 150 defensive helicopters failing to destroy a nuclear or chemical missile battery are only 0.000000000000011629419588729710248789180926208 out of one. Those are pretty small odds too. Furthermore, if you have 40 defensive destroyers, the odds of them failing to destroy a nuclear submarine are only 0.000050282925808187483845691485683508 out of one. Those are still very small odds, although not nearly as small as the odds mentioned previously. How can you say that a good defensive air-force and defensive navy won't protect you from nuclear attack? |
| a9fc8yt3kd1 (Fearless Blue) | Sunday, March 18, 2012 - 11:47 pm
Oh, here's another thing you can do to improve your defense without spending a lot of money: If you have several active military units of the same type, give them each a different number, but DON'T number them in order. Instead, try skipping a few numbers here and there. For instance, if you have three interceptor wings, rather than naming them "Interceptors 1", "Interceptors 2" and "Interceptors 3", try naming them "Interceptors 2", "Interceptors 5" and "Interceptors 6". The same goes for every other type of unit. If you have three defensive helicopter wings, rather than naming them "Helicopters 1", "Helicopters 2" and "Helicopters 3", try naming them "Helicopters 1", "Helicopters 4" and "Helicopters 5". This makes your military look much bigger than it really is. Also, when you look at someone's country page and they have a large number of military units clustered together, it is difficult to see each of their military units individually, because they frequently overlap one-another. Thus, even if someone suspects that you are bluffing, they can never be sure; because for all they know, those non-existent military units might simply be hidden beneath the military units which they can see on your country page. Even if they know for a fact that you are bluffing, they can't tell for sure exactly HOW MUCH of your defense is for real and how much is only a bluff. This makes it much harder for a potential attacker to know if you are an easy target or not, and it doesn't cost you anything extra once you already have several active military units at the ready. |
| DuGalle (Fearless Blue) | Monday, March 19, 2012 - 01:30 am
I don't think he has to know any of that since he's not going to be attacking other players... And you still need the nuclear defense batteries because they destroy the missiles/bombs while the interceptors and helicopters can only destroy the launching devices. If you take a look at the attack details documentation, in each "mini round" only 1/16 of the defense attacks so there's a significant chance that the bomber/missile launcher will get through during the first mini round and if you don't have nuclear defense batteries, you are in for a surprise |
| a9fc8yt3kd1 (Fearless Blue) | Monday, March 19, 2012 - 02:19 am
@DuGalle: OK, I see your point about nuclear defense batteries. Of course, you also have to take into account that interceptors, defensive helicopters and defensive destroyers, fire multiple shots in each fighting round. Therefore, I expect that the majority of nuclear attacks would still be stopped by a good air-force & navy, but I guess it couldn't hurt to be protected against the few nuclear attacks which could find their way through as well. |
| Jo Salkilld (White Giant) | Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 04:02 am
@ a9fc8yt3kd1
Firstly ... PLEASE get a name that others can type easily.
Secondly ... have you ever fought a PvP war? Air defence is nothing. In fact, defence is very little use, unless you are able to attack in return.
With only garrisons and airwings, you will fall. With only airwings, you will fall faster. Without any defence, you will fall even faster.
With garrisons and airwings and offence, you may be able to take out the other country's offence and either come to a deadlock (if you're lucky), or take a country in return for losing yours.
Please serve the time before you advise other players.
@ dasir0: you are in secured mode and at a low war level so you can't be attacked ... twice over. Get rid of defensive weapons. You don't need them and they are just costing you money each month.
Hugs and respect
Jo |
| a9fc8yt3kd1 (Fearless Blue) | Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 07:49 am
@ Jo Salkilld: I know perfectly well that you need a good offense as well as a good defense. I always keep an attack and bombing wing at the ready to destroy a potential attacker's weapons. If you read what I first posted here, you'll notice that I also suggested using stealth-bomber wings to automatically counter-attack against an attacking enemy, in case an attack occurs when you are unavailable to play the game. I know that both air-defense AND garrisons get ripped to shreds very easily in war. That's why I use the aforementioned attack wing and stealth-bomber wings. I simply did not mention offense very much previously because the initial question was about defense rather than offense. Also, although defensive air wings and defensive garrisons are both extremely easy to destroy in war, from what I have seen, the garrisons are actually much easier to destroy than are the defensive air wings. That's because the weapons in the garrisons have to be divided up among so many different targets that you can only afford, economically, to place a very tiny number of weapons at any given target. This makes the garrisons far easier than the air defense wings, to pick off one by one. Ultimately, neither air defense nor land defense stands much chance against a sustained attack. However, I believe that defense is vital in order to slow down an attack and provide you with enough time to counter-attack. Also, from what I have seen, an enemy's air defense is simply, dollar for dollar, a more challenging obstacle to destroy than is an enemy's land defense. I also find that I can always afford to concentrate a much larger number of weapons in a defensive air wing than I can in an average defensive garrison, unless, that is, I only garrison one or two targets. (I don't think that would do much good.) Also, if you are attacking a target in another country and you don't want to take serious losses, you have to destroy the forces defending that target before you attack the target itself. When destroying the garrison, you only have to destroy the garrison at that particular target before attacking the target. A different garrison in a different location won't defend the target which you are attacking. However, because defensive air units automatically respond to attacks to any target in their country, irrespective of where in that country the defensive air units are stationed, you can't simply destroy one or two defensive air units in a country before you can begin attacking other targets in the country. In order to attack any other target in an enemy country safely, you must first destroy not only one or two defensive air units, but every single one of them. You can't safely attack any other target in an enemy country until you have first destroyed the entire defensive air-force. Of course, even destroying the entire defensive air-force of a country usually doesn't take very long or cost very much: You simply have to destroy each of the interceptor wings with fighter planes, using drones as decoys, and then destroy the helicopter wings in the same way. However, that still tends to cost a lot more than destroying any individual garrison, or even destroying all of the garrisons together. That's why I think air defense makes a better defense than ground defense. |
| Jo Salkilld (Golden Rainbow) | Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 11:50 pm
There is no reason why you can't fully garrison every target in your country. I have two countries with over 100M population, and every target is garrisoned with more than the maximum-allowed high-quality weapons and ammunition. That's over 250 fully-armed garrisons in each country.
Yes, you are correct. All defence will ever do is to slow up the enemy. But 250+ garrisons and well-over 100 airwings is quite a lot of slowing-up.
As for offence: one attack and bombing wing and a few stealth bombers is not going to get you very far at all. I doubt it would even make a dent in my defence.
And I'm afraid an attacker can ignore defensive airwings completely if they choose the right offensive weapons. Believe it or not, there are some very effective weapons which are completely impervious to defensive airwings.
a9fc8yt3kd1, I suggest you fight a few PvP wars before you offer advice to new players. The advice you have given in this thread is both wrong and irrelevant.
Hugs and respect
Jo |
| Crafty (Fearless Blue) | Saturday, March 31, 2012 - 06:02 pm
Lol, indeed Jo.
And NEVER label your units as obviously as 'int x,y and z' or 'LRD 1'. That is seriously bad advice, I love it when I see that, it saves me loads of time locating the unit types I'm after destroying.
2nd: If you dont believe about nuclear defence, try without. I'ld have no problem illustrating to you the need for NDBs.
Honestly, trying to help you here, there are not many people around now that have fought real serious wars against other players and you should heed what they try to tell you. We made the mistakes so you can learn by them, lol. |
| Marshal Ney | Sunday, May 13, 2012 - 10:57 pm
+1 to all the above posters. Definitely going to help me out.
Many thanks,
Marshal Ney
Prince of Marshall, duc l'Elchingen. |
