Why Asset Raiders Have the Advantage (Little Upsilon)

1. They know you long before you know them. They peruse the "Country History Sheets" and know what you got. There is so much information on those History sheets that the Secrecy Parameters are a joke. They scout your defenses.

2.To adequately defend a country takes 10's of 1000's of weapons and millions of units of ammo, and your garrison will not last long enough to even come close to using up all of the ammo that it has stored. The ammo for garrisons in the average 25-35 million pop slave will run about 100T with a DI of about 500, but for all of that cash you are only gaining hours against a coordinated attacker(s).

3. Raiders have the advantage of first strike. They know when and where they are going to attack and can coordinate the first few hours when the d air is taken out and the navy chews up the garrisons. Your slave may be gone before you log in for the day.

4. The sole purpose of defense in this game is to slow down your opponent enough that your offensive weapons will take his offensive countries down.

5. The attacker has most of the advantages, especially in a surprise attack, and in the air. D Wings respond in units of 400 fighters + 400 Fed air support if any, with no drones to take the losses. The defensive units/garrisons have NO strike capability and must wait passively for annihilation.

Make sure that you have a lot of D Air for them to burn through and hope that you can hold on and strike back while your friends get the word and organize a response, but you may be on your own a day or two.

I read the the docs in detail again, and then again to figure a few things out. Plato this was good analysis of how it is near impossible to defend just about anything in this game if you are set up on. The docs, though well outdated, are a beautiful thing. There are subtle hints in every move you do even when taking a c3. It is easy to pay attention to what you do or don't lose, as most people including myself almost always do. But if you keep your eyes open. There are things you can exploit in the War engine that will certainly not win you a war, but will certainly cost a warlord most his take.

Even if you get your country taken, the way the defenses are setup for the people I will be fighting. It will be easy to exploit some key factors they cant control. My goal will not be to take anything. My goal will be to have the enemy expend as much ammo as possible. They will counter with sneak attacks on bases and passive defense letting air cover and batts do the work. This will be their failure. By all accounts it will show that I will lose every weapon I use to attack them, but by losing so much, they will lose so much more. What they will lose will not be reported in the paper when you follow the war. And lets not get started on when a garrison gets exhausted. I can take a very simple method of calculation and see that I will lose something almost entirely expendable but the cost of destroying it will far outwiegh the cost for me to throw it at them.

The Docs are far outdated, but man they sure are a beautiful thing. People just need to stop being afraid to lose something. If you wait for them in a corner, will that stop them from coming? No. But meeting them in the center and giving them a fight they cannot plan for then you can cost a fortune for what it will cost you to challenge that kind of play style.

That last bit just blows it up. Blap, Blap, Blap

Not that it's got much to do with what Plato's saying.

#I'm thinking that I'm glad I'm not the one who's rattled Wendys cage#

Plato. We need a Security Council Armed Wing

I agree that a strong defense doesn't work anyway, plus it makes a country unprofitable.

I've said for years that absolutely any country can be conquered, regardless of defense or federation. Apparently that vulnerability is intentional to make the game fun for the warriors.

Fortunately, war protection boosters provide relatively cheap defense. War protection, unlike weapons-based defense, can allow a country to be profitable. Secure mode is even cheaper defense.

I suppose what your saying is, don't get to big for your boots.

WP only costs a 115B/month, which is way cheaper than a conventional defense, especially when you consider the cash that would be tied up in ammo. And a conventional defense still is totally inadequate given the advantages the a coordinated surprise attack has.

The game favors the first strike and that is a hard advantage to overcome.

I am starting a Simcountry organization called Asshat Patrol. I got this idea from Crafty Cockney he had something like this but it was a joke but was a good idea so I am starting a real one. I like many am sick of all the asshats and was a main target before. This will not be a fed, just run here on the forum. We will stop all asshats from terorizing simcountry.

CC, why encourage the lad.

Hey, nothing to do with me, blame Dragooon.

/me passes the buck.

Attackers have a big advantage in picking the time and day of the start of the war. It's realistic, but demands a commitment to the game that's a little, uh, unrealistic.

I think the best defense short of 24/7 war protection consists of having unattractive countries to start with, the ability to bring in lots of defense on short notice, the ability and willingness to abandon a lost cause and quickly move out everything not tied down, and best of all the credible threat of massive and prolonged counter-offensives.

I agree with Jojo, the element of surprise is the biggest advantage given to so called 'raiders' or the attacking party. I'm not sure I understand exactly what a 'raider' is as I mentioned in another post, but I'll just call it the attacking party.

I think the best way to mitigate this advantage (I said mitigate not fix completely as I don't believe that is possible) is my suggestion in the other thread about giving the defending country some choice in the time that war will begin. We'd all love to have a week or two or a month to prepare but that is just not realistic, I think it is a good compromise.

As far as defending your country, an entire empire made up of 20 mil pop countries would be quite unattractive to 'raiders' and the other tactics Jojo mentioned would be good as well. EO and I have talked about offense as defense many times, it really is important.

I think in general that there is so much knowledge out there that is not shared enough, in many ways we are a fractured community with 'warriors' separating themselves from 'econ' players...if SC were politics I think that would be the two major political parties and they wouldn't agree on much. I think we could all do better to assist new players and share the knowledge that we have gained through the time we've been here...I know that I am extremely grateful to certain people who have helped me and without them I probably would have quit playing a long time ago.