Socky posted this in the Klink and Kzin Boards around CW5/6.
Many will hate it and violently disagree.
I agree with most of it unpalatable as it may be to many. The thing is whether your fillet is slugfest or hex flip you ought to see what the other guy may be doing. As It seems many have lost or forgotten the art of winning a Dyna, it may interest some, I already know who will hate it
THE ART OF THE CAMPAIGN
by
SOCKFOOT
I have been campaigning in the Dynaverse for about a year now. During that time I have developed a few simple guidelines I go by when planning a campaign. I have espoused many ideas but never in a cogent and logical manner. This manual is my attempt to lay down these guidelines in one place for all who are interested.
In my opinion there are just a few keys to conducting a successful campaign in the Dynaverse. These are all hinged on the one great truth of campaigning:
A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN REQUIRES THAT YOU KILL THE OPPOSING SIDE?S AI BEFORE HE KILLS YOUR AI.
This must be the center of any campaigning strategy in the Dynaverse. I?m sorry if you don?t like hearing it, but no race has ever won a campaign playing player v. player missions. Somehow the term ?AI Killer? has gotten to be a derogatory term in the Dynaverse. You must rid yourself of that mentality to wage successful campaigns on ANY server. More about this later, but for now know that any other central tenet of a campaign will result in failure. So bearing this in mind, here are what I believe to be the keys of a successful campaign. BEFORE YOU PLAN YOUR CAMPAIGN you must begin with the three buzzwords.
I. THE BUZZWORDS OF CAMPAIGNING
A. ORGANIZATION
This is a ?buzzword? that gets thrown around a lot at the beginning of a campaign, but few people actually understand it. It means everyone has a place and there is ONE LEADER. This leader may have advisors but there must be one person that says this is what we are doing. The other people, however they are organized, must then achieve whatever the leader orders. I have always believed that a leader should only set objectives. How those objectives are achieved is up to the individual commanders in the field and the troops. Committee leadership invariably winds up as a mess.
B. COMMUNICATION
The second ?buzzword.? The most successful plan is successfully communicated from the planner to the people who will execute it. A commander MUST maintain contact with his field troops. This is done on several levels but the most successful communication is done through 1) Roger Wilco 2) Race Chat and 3) Posts on the Starfleetcomms race forums. While all these are subject to enemy penetration, it is more important to communicate than to maintain security. Espionage can be countered in other ways, which we will not discuss here.
C. PREPARATION
The final ?buzzword.? I have a simple little rule I follow. Have ANY plan, EVEN A BAD ONE, and you are one vital step ahead of 99% of the rest of the people. I saw a show on the Discovery Channel about how people react in a crisis situation. One of the topics was airplane crashes. They talked to people who were one of the few to survive cataclysmic airplane crashes where over 90% of the passengers had survived the initial impact but less than 10% of the passengers survived the post crash fires etc. All of the survivors reported that instead of running for the exits, most people got up from their seats and began to go through the overhead luggage compartments to get their luggage out. This caused the aisles to clog up, a stampede resulted, and people got jammed in the aisles and tangled up with each other and these people all burned to death. The survivors forgot about everything else (including the human lives around them) and did nothing else but make for the exit any way possible as soon as possible. Some even reported climbing over seats and the bodies of other passengers to get out. These people felt a little guilty BUT THEY WERE ALIVE! It turns out EVERY SINGLE ONE of these people had said to themselves as they got on the airplane something as simple as ?if this thing crashes, the nearest exit is right there and I?m going out that exit at all costs.? A plan that simple had saved their lives.
The upshot of the show was that people who didn?t plan when they got in a situation they hadn?t anticipated reverted to an ?automatic pilot? mode and did things that they would ordinarily do; i.e. get luggage out of the overhead compartments before getting off the airplane. You can?t get a more powerful illustration than this. It doesn?t have to be much. In fact, later on I?ll recommend SIMPLICITY as a hallmark of a good plan, however, there must be something tangible there for your troops to sink their teeth into and execute.
Preparation also includes getting your troops in the right equipment, getting them in the right position and having enough resources to pull it off. The best plan in the world is worthless if you are not prepared to pull it off. Think about the airplane crash survivors. You can say ?I?ll climb over that old lady to get out of this thing? but if you are not fully prepared to actually climb over her, your plan is crap.
II. BUILDING A PLAN
Ok, you?ve done the buzzwords. Now how do you go about building a plan? Here are six simple guidelines.
A. THINK
That sounds real simple and obvious doesn?t it? Well, you?ll be surprised how many times people forget to do simple and obvious things JUST BECAUSE they are simple and obvious. What do you think about? Get out your scratch paper and think about the following.
1. Resources
List your assets and liabilities. How many captains do you have? What are their experience levels? Can they be counted on? When are most of them on line? What ships are available to your captains? Are there any special server rules that will hamper you? Who are your allies? What is their track record? Think about the same things for your enemy and list them as well.
2. Objectives
List your objectives. What are you trying to achieve? What will you focus on? What will you ignore? Again try and think like your enemy and list his possible objectives.
3. Contingencies
List the best and worse case scenarios for yourself and your enemies. What is the absolute worst that can happen? What is the absolute best? What is likely to happen?
4. What you know/don?t know
List all of the ?given? facts you know about the campaign. List all of the ?given? facts your enemy knows about the campaign. (Example ? Alliances and relative starting positions). Do the same for the ?mysteries? of the campaign.
By the way, its is important to think like your opponent and try and discern his plan as it is for you to come up with your own plan. I can?t tell you how many plans I?ve seen go right in the dumper because one side failed to anticipate what the other side would do. This puts you back to square one without a plan and we all know what happens to people without a plan. They become crispy critters. I?m NOT saying build your plan to counter his plan or mold your plan around his, but you MUST take these things into account when making your plan.
B. LOOK AT THE MAP
You NEED to know the ground you fight on. Choose ground that maximizes your assets and strengths while minimizing the relative strengths of your opponent. Many times the ground will dictate your objectives. You?ll also have an easier time anticipating your enemy?s moves by looking at the map. Think like this ?If I were that guy, I would just HAVE to do something about ?.?
C. REVIEW
Get together with your people and talk with everyone about what they see. EVERYONE IS GOING TO SEE SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Take advantage of many opinions before you plan. Then go back and look at what you have done above.
D. BE PREPARED TO START OVER
Never get ?married? to your ideas to the point you can?t scrap them. Heck, you could be completely wrong after all. Scrap any plan that becomes not feasible.
E. GIVE YOURSELF PLENTY OF TIME
A plan that has time to mature will automatically be better than one slapped together at the last minute, so start making your plan as soon as possible.
F. DOCUMENT IT
Write it all down in a clear concise manner and distribute the plan to the people who will be in charge of executing the plan. I have one suggestion here. If you can?t write your plan out on a single page, you don?t understand your plan and cannot communicate it effectively. Therefore it isn?t ready for execution. Speaking of which ?
III. IS MY PLAN ANY GOOD/READY FOR EXECUTION?
How do you tell if you?re ready to roll? Well, in my opinion a good plan has three hallmarks.
A. SIMPLICITY
Keep it as simple and clear as possible. It really ought to fit on a single page. If an idiot could do it the way you?ve written it, write it again and make it simple enough a retarded chimp could do it.
B. FLEXIBILITY
Campaigning is a dynamic art. Your plan must be able to change as the situation changes yet maintain its general flow. Also, tell your captains to seize any golden opportunities they come across, even if they are out side of the ?plan.?
C. FEASABILITY
Your overall plan should be within your logistic capabilities.
If your plan meets these criteria, you?ve done a good job of planning. For me personally, the best plans I?ve ever come up with have been just lists of objectives. They are not listed in any particular order. My troops would pick one and do it in whatever method they saw fit and in whatever order seemed to best fit the situation. Deadlines are bad unless imposed upon you externally. A deadline implies you are prioritizing a target. Only set deadlines if that is your intention and you simply MUST HAVE IT!
IV. GENERAL NOTES
This section is full of tips and ideas for execution of your plans and just general thoughts on campaigning. All are tried and tested by yours truly. They work. Don?t be shy about using them.
A. MORALE
Ten motivated players are worth thirty clueless ones. Guys who have a plan and are visibly achieving even small objectives have high morale. Guys who are floundering in big packs will quit you mid-campaign. You can do many things to improve morale, but nothing does it like success. I insist my guys maintain a ?can do, will do? attitude. Every victory makes them more confident in you and themselves. If you?ve got a bad attitude among your group, get rid of it. And use positive language (Example : WHEN we capture target X we WILL move on to capture target Y.) Before you can win, you must tell yourself and your guys that you will win. And stay loose. Its fun after all.
B. INITIATIVE
Don?t sit around and react to what the other guy is doing. Make him react to what you?re doing. If he doesn?t react, DO IT HARDER! If you can take him out of his game plan and make him react to your game plan, you are winning.
C. A WORD ABOUT PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER
Ok. Here is the AWFUL TRUTH AGAIN! If you want to win a campaign, you MUST KILL THE OTHER GUY?S AI BEFORE HE KILLS YOUR AI. You kill his AI and flip his hexes to gut his economy and cripple his empire. The ultimate goal of any campaign is to make your enemy too weak to wage war. If your enemy starts with ten economy producing planets and you take 5 away from him, you have effectively cut his production capacity in half. This will make him more and more reluctant to directly engage your players because if he loses that dreadnought, he cannot replace it. To that end, player versus player combat is only valid in the Dynaverse in one of three situations;
1. You are drafted by your enemy;
2. Player v. Player missions further your objective; and/or
3. You have achieved your objectives and you are ?mopping up.?
I know this offends the heck out of people, but Player v Player FOR ANY OTHER REASON on the Dynaverse is just a dick-measuring contest and MUST BE AVOIDED. To all of you who sit around thumping your chest and counting ?kills? I say you have done NOTHING to help the cause. You have not flipped a hex and you have a) probably set your enemy back to a more ?campaign orientated? ship thereby making the enemy stronger for campaign (read hex flipping/econ ruining ships) purposes and b) let other enemies run defensive or offensive missions in your area of operations while you were clowning around for 45 minutes trying to prove your manhood. Any half way decent player with a half way decent ship can engage you and keep you busy for at least 20 minutes. You want player v player? Go play Gamespy. YOU?RE NOT HELPING! YOU ARE A WASTE OF RESOURCES! The average Dynaverse mission is around 7 minutes. That means your enemies, running AVERAGE missions, have run 6 + missions while you were ?winning? that 45 minute player v player mission. Think about what that equals out to if they are running fast two-minute missions! You cannot kill all of the bad guys in that one mission and they will ultimately just replace the ship you blow up anyway unless you wreck their capacity to make war. And that?s assuming you are lucky enough to score a knockout. Remember that you might fight for 40 minutes, land a telling blow and then watch your wounded prey warp out over the border. Now you have COMPLETELY wasted 40 minutes! Oh, so he has to leave the area for 10 minutes? So what? He?ll be back running missions before you finish your next 45 minute player v. player mission.
Ever hear of winning the battle but losing the war? Well, the ?player v player? testosterone crowd are the living embodiment of this principal in the Dynaverse. Sorry guys, but you know its true. I?m going to ruin your economy and then, and only then, I?m going to blow your ass out of that dreadnought. Then you can sit there on your empire?s one remaining planet hex in that frigate you get as a replacement with a giant mound of prestige you can?t buy a thing with and wait for me to shoot you again or log off and wait for the next campaign. Either way, I win because you lost sight of the big picture. So get over yourself! Player v. player is NOT the point in the Dynaverse.
Sorry about the rant, but I have a real burr under my saddle about these morons. They have no concept of team play and that really burns my ass.
D. SPEED
Faster missions flip hexes faster and gut economies faster. It comes down to basic mathematics here. Four 2-minute patrols are 4 times more effective for campaign purposes (read Defense Value of Hex Purposes) than a single 8-minute patrol. Whatever you are up to do it fast.
Topic: Socky's campaign guide VERY LONG (Read 34908 times)