Lepton
Strategy:
1) the science and art of employing all the resources of a (nation or group of nations) to carry out agreed policies in peace and war
2) The science of art and military command exercised to meet the enemy in combat under advantageous positions
3) the art of employing plans toward achieving a goal.
Definitions from OED
I can say with hand on heart that every campaign I commanded would have been lost without two things, strategy and tactics. To make strategy work you have to have a force willing to achieve that strategy and not flinch from its goal, with above all high morale.
Now from AF onward through CW2-6 and all the servers in between the Kzin, in the form of the KATs NEVER had a numerical advantage of any sort. Whether that was straight Alliance v Coalition or more exotic alliances. IN AF itself we were the least numerous race, The Gorn had twice our numbers, we were seen as an irrelevance and at best a nuisance, the Feds, Klinks and Rommies were the powers in those days followed by the ISC, Hydrans, Lyrans and Gorn with the Kzin last. BY the end of that server we had driven broken the Lyran morale so only Kzinbane and Skyapawa were left, we had created the Farstar county in Gorn territory and were the only race to be threatening 2 capitals simultaneously and thereby being the closest of any race to victory. The Fred's who outnumbered all by a significant margin were forced to stop fighting the Klinks and organise a massive redeployment of forces to deal with the threat. We didn't run more missions, we had slow drones, we had the fewest people but what we had we used well. We chose where to attack and when. We deployed our limited forces to our best advantage and when we got to within striking distance we got organised. We had a cab rank system for taking down hexes and when PvP happened our small ships swarmed all over the "Big Guns" sent to hunt us down. We had no way of running more missions than the Feds or the Klinks.
Rogue Jedi. Smaller numbers of Kzin again, but buoyed up in morale after AF. Morale of the Feds was broken and many left the server. Earth and Lyra Fell to the Kzin.
CW3 the Kzin were out numbered 16-1 not only were the great fleets of ISC forced back, but allies who tried to help them, (Rommies , Lyrans and Klinks) were all forced back, this was done because of high morale, sheer bloody mindedness and having a plan.
CW4 only lasted 48 hours, by which time with less numbers we had got in a position to split the Lyrans and the Klinks from each other and were close to a link up with the Hydrans. Forces were used to block and delay while others pursued strategic goals (Hydran link up and Klingon/Lyran decoupling). No extra missions were flown, we just had a plan.
CW5 the pacification war. Still inferior numbers we were targeted by the Klinks (ISC were junior partners despite being "lead race") We got hammered buts stalled the pacifiers for long enough the Feds and Rommies could get themselves together. We Lost Mraa, and got it back again. The Lyrans were lost after ferocious battles in which different strategies were used by both. The Hydrans fell to a suprise attack by Squiggy leading the 69th, who with 2 other pilots took Hydraxx and shifted the BoP. The whole server was seesaw and only when the decision was taken to attack the ISC homeworld and take the battle to enemy (a strategic decision) did the non pacified eventually win. The Gorn were saved en route, and like it or not espionage played a big part with Rommies infiltrating the Klinks and leaking their plans, I still have those plans all of which fit the definitions given above.
CW5.5, CW5.75, CW5.775, Frigate hell, Feds v klinks CW, CW5.9, CW5.995 and many more. All were won and lost not by number of missions run, but by how those missions were run, and more importantly than everything else, the morale of the people who ran them. They didn't fall apart when the going got tough, they dug in and fought harder.
CW6 probably the height of EAW, two sides very experienced, still a big player base, Strategic battles over Pinky Gen, Kang, Patriach 1 in the west and Musashi, Asgard and Letac in the East. These battles were not fought because people liked the names, but because they were strategic pieces of real estate. The battles in the Cluster were not just because the stars had fancy names, but because of its position on the map, its economic advantages and the VCs. When the final drive on earth came it was to have two prongs, this was found to be inefficient so a strategic decision to move all Kzin forces to the Klink attack route was taken to hasten the end.
In the last game GW2 I have mentioned altready in the thread, the Coalition chose a better strategy than the Alliance and always fought on Alliance territory, so their gains always meant something. The last day Hail Mary, followed a conscious decision by the Alliance to undertake an attack at complete odds with previous strategy (hold the line). To this end they ensured a thourough recon was made, and an attack route was selected. The evening before H Hour missions were run to weaken advance hexes, covered by heavy fighting on the normal front which the coalition were pressing heavily on. They did not notice the weakening and if they did they ignored it as a feint and made the conscious strategic decision to press on with their plan to Hydraxx. The Alliance having recon, and prep just needed suprise which they achieved with a dawn start time. The aim was to reach the Feds, there was an 89 DV shift which had to be made (the hexes to the border), decisions were made about how high to bump hexes and how we went about the strategic aim, on a tactical level. The Coalition made strategic errors (probably unwittingly rather than consciously) by not placing details of what we were up to on Taldren when they realised what it was (comms break down leading to strategic setback) but more importantly chose to attack the line not from their space, but from the Hydran end, unwilling it seems to throw full force at the line and pull off Hydraxx. Even with small forces they could have stopped the attempt as we had to go round a 20DV base we didn't have time to reduce by siege. 3 hexes were continually exposed to this threat, but whether by luck or judgement the real show stopper was not spotted, probably because not many Alliance players even knew there was a base that far south and east to help them. Result 89(ish) well chosen missions netted 76 VCs or many more times the number of VCs achieved through 2 weeks of Intense PvP including capital ship VCs.
So in conclusion its not numbers or missions run, its strategy and Morale that wins a decent Dyna.
I know you disagree, but I disagree with you
Topic: Gw2 Post-Mortem (Read 12289 times)