Pack's "Strategy and tactics" guide
Tactics and strategy at Mist of War.
One thing which makes this server distinctly different from others out there on the Net is that it’s not just the skill and determination of individual pilots that defines the victory in battle. In order to win, a team also must be better at determining its targets and facilitating cooperation between its members.
Let’s take a look at the list of targets there can be any mission, which are reconnaissance, supply convoys, storehouses, attacking strike groups, defensive positions, and factories. How are these objectives prioritised by most common pilots? “First, strike the enemy’s defensive positions, then wipe out their attack groups, then try to provide cover for your own strike groups and defences; bombings of enemy storehouses are of secondary importance, and supply convoys are even lower on the list (anyway, they’re usually too far away). The reconnaissance will probably occur by itself in the process, though no big deal if it doesn’t. As for the factory, it is usually left alone – there’s no point wasting time assaulting it, as it will have no immediate effect on the following mission.”
Personally, I think,
that the reconnaissance is by far the most important one here. Not just because you won’t have to search for targets and guess which of them should be your primary ones. What is much more important is that reconnaissance has a major effect on the actions and activity of the ‘virtual general’. If an enemy town has been reconnoitred, it is likely that an attack against it can be carried out successfully. If an enemy town hasn’t been reconnoitred, and there’s a strike group coming from it against one of your own cities, it is likely that our defence will be inadequate, and the enemy won’t have much trouble weakening them sufficiently. Another benefit you get from carrying out reconnaissance regularly is that it increases the coefficient of reconnaissance, which means, basically, that if we didn’t perform reconnaissance on one of the enemy cities, it may still turn out as surveyed the next mission. This happens randomly, but the chances of it depend directly on the coefficient of reconnaissance.
While carrying out reconnaissance missions, you should keep in mind the ‘reconnaissance minimum threshold’, which is always stated in the briefing. If it stands at 10 per cent or more, don’t expect the reconnaissance to be carried out successfully by dropping a single bomb at a large storehouse. Instead, try to find small a small ‘reconnaissance target’ (a building, an AA gun, and a few cars) which are put on the map somewhere near the ‘flag’ of the city specifically for this purpose. Alternatively, you can try destroying a few static aircraft on an airfield which ‘belongs’ to the city, though this is much more risky.
Additionally, the reconnaissance must be performed not only in cities that are front ones in this mission, but also in those which are expected to be front ones in the following mission.
Supply convoys – destroying them is your second most important objective. In theory, it is possible to win a war solely by destroying supply convoys (although you’d have to destroy every single enemy convoy, keeping yours intact). However, it may take a while to get to them, and they create a lot of fuss when being destroyed, so you won’t have to wait long for their defenders to appear. There’s also usually plenty of them every mission, so you’ve got to single out the most valuable ones. For instance, if you wipe out a convoy headed for a city with few resources, this town probably won’t even be able to put up much of a defensive force when attacked. If you destroy a convoy headed for a city with a medium amount of resources, this town won’t be able to form a strike group next mission. The same rules apply to our own supply convoys: a convoy reaching a city with a ‘big’ amount of resources will nearly guarantee a strike group spawned next mission, so it is within our best interests to keep it intact. Destroying enemy supplies regularly lowers its coefficient of the supplies, which influences not only the possibility and amount of the convoys formed, but also the supply of enemy aircraft – which, in turn, means they’ll have less fighters and bombers available every mission.
Storehouses – it’s safer and easier to attacks these rather than supply convoys, but it is also somewhat less effective. Even if you wipe out the storehouse entirely, it will not guarantee the absence of a strike force next mission if a supply convoy has reached the city mostly intact, it will only decrease the possibility of an attack. Unlike supply convoys, strikes against storehouses give you reconnaissance. Destroying a storehouse with a big amount of resources is an effective way of stopping a yet non-existing attack, and it is easier to do rather than destroying an actual strike group, when resources and cars have turned into tanks and AAAs. Frequently leveling storehouses decreases the coefficient of the storage. That means that a storehouse can have fewer resources, which decreases the activity of an enemy general. Additionally, the amount of aircraft in storage is also decreased.
Defensive positions and attacking strike groups – these are the least desirable targets which only affect the next mission. The rarer you are forced to engage this kind of targets, the better. In a perfect war, the enemy shouldn’t even have the resources to create defensive positions when attacked, not to mention forming strike groups himself. It may be difficult to accept the idea, but sometimes it is much more effective to give up an attack or a defense, continuing to eat away at enemy’s supplies and storage, rather than try to save the resources which are already spent (an attack or a defense is just that); however, this kind of situations comes up often enough, and leaving the strike groups and defenses to their fate can be beneficial not only when heavily outnumbered or when your targets are located near an enemy airfield. To win, it is always important to think two-three missions ahead of the current one.
A few closing words on the subject of strike groups and defenses. Defensive positions, if intact, can always withstand an attack, and if the defenses are in ‘good’ condition – than even a double attack (from two enemy cities).
The factory – this is the most complicated target. Not only because of its sheer size and the power of AAA cover, but also because of the way it affects the course of war. Working on this target doesn’t give you any immediate results – neither this mission, nor during a couple of following ones. That is the reason many pilots don’t bother working on it. However, if you destroy the plant entirely for five missions in a row, the production coefficient will go down to 50%, which will halve the length of all columns, be they supply convoys or attack groups. This effect will persist for several consecutive missions. If you continue to keep your enemy’s production low, while yours is sufficiently high, you will have a much easier time at war.
Now, let’s talk about interaction with your fellow pilots. There are a few simple but effective lines to follow. If you are concerned about winning the war, not just your statistics, it is necessary to study not only the map, but also the briefing and the economy pages. Only after harnessing all the available information you can define your primary targets and determine your course of actions. If your network connection and hardware allow for it - use Teamspeak, at least as a radio receiver: obtaining updates on the situation in time is a must.
When moving out to attack a target, do not be lazy – type the info about your intended target into your team’s chat (there are still pilots not on TS, as well as those who occupy a different room); likewise, report the results of your strike afterwards. This will give others a chance either to help you, or to pick a different target. This kind of information is important to fighters as well as bombers – if an attack is not backed up by a strike against defenses, it’s no use trying to provide cover for it against enemy ground-attack planes and bombers. And above all, this information is vital to the person who took on the role of the team coordinator.
If you take on the role of coordinator, make list of objectives for the current mission and read it out in TS (preferably in descending order). That will make effective cooperation easier both for you and for other pilots. Do not insist that a particular pilot must perform a specific mission if he doesn’t want to, it’d be easier and more convenient to learn of his intentions and then adjust your plans for those who are willing to work under your guidance. But in any case, you must be aware of what everyone is doing.
Level bombers do not always need fighter cover, or don’t need to have it throughout their whole route, but if ground attack planes move in without adequate cover, they definitely will be decimated.
You should let go an enemy bomber which has already dropped its bomb load; an ideal solution would be to cripple it beforehand, in such a way which won’t kill it but will make its road home longer and more taxiing. Except in the end of the mission, when he won’t have the time to make another sortie – shoot it down then.
Complete destruction of enemy defenses and attack groups isn’t always necessary - it all depends on the condition of your appropriate targets.
Let’s now talk about strategy. The server has been designed in such a way to make destroying all targets during a mission near-impossible. Which means that nearly all the time, you’ve got to choose some objectives you’ll struggle to achieve, and some which you’ll ignore entirely. Therefore, one must understand the war’s mechanics in order to make right decisions. When planning your tasks for a mission, you should take into account not only the map and the briefing, but also the quantity and quality (in all senses there are) of pilots on both sides. Therefore, it is impossible to develop one universal algorithm for all possible situations. However, some common rules and guidelines can still be singled out.
The number of front-line cities each side has is of crucial importance. A team should try to increase the number of its front-line cities and decrease the number of enemy front-line cities – provided that there are enough rear cities, of course. However sometimes, when an enemy doesn’t have enough rear cities, it is beneficial to make this disparity even larger and stretch its forces thinner by increasing the number of front-line cities an enemy has. It will have an effect similar to destroying several of the enemy’s supply convoys.
If we consider this in context of the ‘node' cities (those connected with many other cities by roads), it becomes clear that our ‘node’ city (surrounded by a large number of our cities) should not be kept – moreover, it is beneficial to give it up to the enemy – only if that doesn’t make you fall drastically short on rear cities, of course. Conversely, do not waste time and forces trying to take enemy ‘node’ cities, except when you have a significant numerical superiority for several missions. Node cities should be captured by encircling them, gradually decreasing the number of enemy cities it’s connected to.
Naturally, each situation should be assessed individually. Later I’ll offer a few examples of effective solutions for several typical missions.
Evaluation of operation paces on Mist of War.
A standard definition of the strategic or operational pace is as follows:
A won pace is a set of free resources which has been gained by one of the parties as a result of its conscious activity.
However, for our convenience, I suppose we modify this definition a bit and introduce the concept of an expended pace: let’s call an ‘expended pace’ (later on just ‘a pace’) a set of free resources required to perform reconnaissance of one city. Which is, in other words, 1 sortie of 1 pilot of average skill level piloting a typical 1-engined fighter, plus the destruction of a single unit in a reconnaissance target, considering the average probability of losing an aircraft and a pilot. This allows us to use paces as a unit of measurement: an increase in one of the parameters (sortie duration, required number of pilots, probability of death) leads an increase in the number of expended paces.
I’ll also be using two more specific terms: "pierced targets" (those which have been damaged beyond the 30% threshold) and "leveled targets" (those which have been completely destroyed).
Then: 1) To pierce a column (attack or supply), the same number of paces is required both for Red and Blue (with Blue having a slight advantage at piercing an attack, while Red has an advantage at piercing supply). 2) To level a column, Blue requires a lot more paces than Red does (especially if it’s an attack group). 3) To pierce a storehouse or a defense, the same number of paces is required both for Red and Blue (with Blue having a slight advantage at piercing defenses, while Red has an advantage at piercing storehouses). 4) To level a storehouse or a defense, Red requires a lot more paces than Blue does.
I will try to prove these statements below:
1) Options for Blue: two Ju-88 armed with 50 kg bombs, flown by pilots of average skill level, will yield approximately 24-28 ground units in bombing run, leaving immediately after that. When engaging an attack column, try to hit the tanks – you’ll surely ‘pierce’ it then. A supply convoy is a little more difficult since you may have trouble locating the most ‘valuable’ units. Probability of survival of both pilots and aircraft is quite high. Options for Red: two IL-2s with any suitable loadout. It will probably take more time than a strike by Ju-88s, if you want to keep the chances of being hit by AAA to a minimum. But, generally speaking, we can assume it to take a roughly equal amount of time.
I suggest evaluating piercing an attack group as four paces worth (considering the necessary minimum fighter cover, and the lower speed of JUs/ILs than that of a fighter), and evaluating piercing a supply convoy as six paces worth (considering the remoteness of the target and a higher chance of being intercepted).
2) Options for Blue: leveling a column is usually done by Bf-110, or IAR, or FW-190 (Ju-87 is effective only if your target is very close to your airfield). Generally speaking, while wiping out a supply convoy is very much possible nearly always, the same can’t be said about attack groups. My pace assessment: 10 for a supply column and 20 for an attacking one. Options for Red: IL-2 again. Leveling a column completely takes more time, but otherwise is no different from piercing it. Assessment of paces: five for an attack, eight for supply.
3) Options for Blue: one sortie of a single Ju-87 or He-111 or Ju-88. Assessment: Three paces. Options for Red: two sorties of a single Pe-2. Three paces again.
4) Blue need two additional sorties to level a defense, or three in case it’s a storehouse (resp. six and nine paces) with the same probability of interception. Red: two initial sorties with Pe-2 (three paces), plus finishing off the target with IL-2s (no less than 8 paces for a defense and 12 for a storehouse) with a higher probability of IL-2s being intercepted. This probability is included in the calculation of paces. Overall it’s 11 paces for a defense and 15 paces for a storehouse for the Red.
A strategic target for every single mission can be formulated very simply: your goal is to obtain the most favorable operative situation next mission. And what is this most favorable situation? It is a situation with the least necessary number of paces we, and the greatest possible number of paces our opponents are required to do. For instance, if we’re in a situation when we need to spend four paces, and the enemy needs to spend seventy paces, then we will win this mission, even if we have only two pilots, while the enemy has twenty. Therefore, the list of targets each mission should be formed according to the following principle: do what we can so that the next mission our enemy will have to spend more paces, and we will have to spend less. Naturally, these targets should be attainable with the forces we currently have.
Let’s now take a look at things that reduce or increase the required paces. The more frontline cities we have, the more storehouses and convoys the enemy has to destroy – some probably will make it through the mission. The fewer frontline cities the enemy has, the lesser number of our pilots will have to participate in the destruction of enemy convoys and storehouses. And if the enemy has no rear cities left, it’ll be much easier for us to cut their supplies – we’ll only have to take out the airfields with bonus supplies (which have a lot less units than a supply convoy does).
If we have an attacking strike group, that means a big loss of paces for the enemy, and if there’s also no defenses at the enemy city, the loss paces becomes catastrophic. If we prevented an emergence of an enemy’s attack – we’ve saved ourselves a lot of trouble and gained many paces for the next mission. If reconnaissance has been conducted everywhere, not only have we saved the time our bombers and attack craft would’ve spent searching for targets, but we’ve also have improved the "attacking mood" of our generals. If we prevented our enemy from conducting reconnaissance, we’ve made the work of his pilots more complicated, and have also "frightened" his general.
All these things are pretty obvious, and have been known for long, however, you might’ve never considered some of the implications they produce.
One. Don’t struggle over control of ‘node’ cities. By taking a ‘node' city’ surrounded by enemy territory we raise the number of enemy frontline cities drastically, by taking a node city surrounded mostly by our territory – we considerably reduce the number of our own front-line cities. In any case this does nothing to improve the operative situation. Do not waste paces for these cities – later on they will fall by themselves after being nearly surrounded. Taking and keeping neighboring cities with few connections to other cities, on the other hand, is of vital importance . Two. You shouldn’t try to make all of our attacks successful, even if you can. A city which has just been captured will never produce an attack, because it has no resources. However, it’s very probable there will be a counter-attack on that city next mission. This way, by successfully capturing several cities in a mission, next mission we may well find ourselves in a situation when we’ve got several attacks on our hands with no means to fight off all of them. It would’ve been much better to provide air support for just one (or two) attacks and make sure we keep the captured cities next mission, while spending the remaining paces to ‘work’ on the enemy’s production and supply. I’m not saying that taking the cities generally isn’t worth it: surely we aim to conquer all of the cities on the map, but there’s no need to cling to each and every attack - remember that our attack, even if it has no fighter cover at all, is several paces worth, paces that can be spent to tear though enemy supplies and storage. So, working to make more than one attack successful in one mission should be a relatively rare occurrence.
Three. Conversely, it is unnecessary to protect all of our defenses. It is often advantageous to surrender a city to gain the initiative next mission. Again, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t defend our cities - sometimes we have to, but, if you think about it, much less than we do now.
Taking all of these factors into account requires a fairly good knowledge of the mechanism of the project and the desire to use that knowledge. To compensate for the lack of both I’ve sketched a template of actions for inexperienced players, Red and Blue both. There are some primary objectives for every missions, listed by their priority. Of course, these patterns won’t always fit, but in large number of cases they will do.
A template of objectives for inexperienced Blue pilots.
Fighters: Objective one: reconnaissance. When first connecting to server, a fighter pilot should ask in chat and, if possible, in TS: "Where have you done reconnaissance already?" (not "where should I do reconnaissance?"). If you get an answer - conduct reconnaissance where they haven’t done it yet (and don’t plan to do so on their own, i.e. a bomber who’s intending to attack an enemy storehouse or defensive positions will also simultaneously carry out reconnaissance of that city – that is, if he makes it to his target). If there’s no response but silence, conduct reconnaissance on your own on all of the frontline cities. Try to figure out which cities can become enemy front-line ones, and do reconnaissance there as well by destroying 2-3 units on an adjacent airfield. Only then you may respond to calls for help, cover etc. Objective two: providing cover for ground attack planes. If the number one task is complete, ask in chat and, if possible, in TS whether there are any ground attack planes rallying for an assault. If there are - cover them. Objective three: protection of supplies. If previous tasks are complete, take a look at the list of enemy aircraft in the air. If there are IL-2s, LaGGs, I-16s, Yak-9Ts, or P-40s, - move out to protect our supply convoys. And first of all, provide cover for a convoy heading to a city with few or no resources. Objective four: protection of storehouses. If previous tasks are completed, protect the storehouses with ‘a lot’ of resources, (if there are any enemy bombers in the air, of course). Do not finish off bombers which have already dropped their bomb load! Hit them a couple of times and let them go (except in the end of a mission). Objective five: reconnaissance (if there are no friendly bombers in the air – it’s task number one!). Find out which cities have already been reconnoitered, and scout all the rest. It isn’t recommended to do reconnaissance via storehouses. Objective six: level bombers escort. If the previous tasks are complete or they are being carried out by someone else, ask in chat and, if possible, in TS, whether there are any level bombers in need of protection.
I have intentionally omitted the tasks of protecting defenses and attack groups from the list; there are many reasons for it. First, the tasks listed above are always more important. Second, if there are any independent single pilots in the server, they will probably carry out these tasks anyway. Third, if the pilot is forced to resort to using this template, then it is likely that enemies have a numeric superiority, there is no coordinator in our team, and consequently, protection of our defenses and attacks will be very ineffective strategically.
Bombers and ground attack planes: Objective one: destruction of enemy supplies. If you are skilled at wiping out convoys, then the first priority is a convoy that is headed for a city with ‘little’ or ‘no’ resources. Objective two: storehouses with ‘a lot’ of resources. Objective three: the factory.
Naturally, all of this should be discussed more thoroughly in chat and, if possible, over Teamspeak - whether these some of these objectives are being carried out already, and if some of the targets have already been damaged - to what degree. Important targets should be destroyed at least at 70%. There are no tasks concerning attacks or defenses for the same reasons as there are none for fighter pilots (additionally, a proper attack on defenses or strike groups makes coordinated fighter cover almost a mandatory requirement).
A similar template for inexperienced Red players.
Fighter: Objective one: providing cover for ground attack planes. Ask in chat and, if possible, in TS, whether there are any ground attack planes rallying for an assault. If there are, provide cover for them. Objective two: protection of supplies. If the number one task is complete, look at the list of enemy aircraft in the air - if there are Ju-87s, Ju-88s, Bf-110s, FW-190s, I.A.R.s, then move out to protect our supply convoys. And first of all, provide cover for a convoy heading to a city with few or no resources. Objective three: protection of storehouses. If previous tasks are complete, protect the warehouses with ‘a lot’ of resources (if there are any enemy bombers, of course). Do not finish off bombers which have already dropped their bomb load! Hit them a couple of times and let them go (except in the end of a mission). Objective four: level bombers escort. If the previous tasks are complete or they are being carried out by someone else, ask in chat and, if possible, in TS, whether there are any level bombers in need of protection
I have intentionally omitted the tasks of protecting defenses and attack groups from the list; there are many reasons for it. First, the tasks listed above are always more important. Second, if there are any independent single pilots in the server, they will probably carry out these tasks anyway. Third, if the pilot is forced to resort to using this template, then it is likely that enemies have a numeric superiority, there is no coordinator in our team, and consequently, protection of our defenses and attacks will be very ineffective strategically.
Bombers and ground attack planes: Objective one: reconnaissance. When first connecting to server, a Pe-2 pilot should ask in chat and, if possible, in TS: "Where have you done reconnaissance already?" (not "where should I do reconnaissance?"). If you get an answer - conduct reconnaissance where they haven’t done it yet (and don’t plan to do so on their own, i.e. a bomber who’s intending to attack an enemy storehouse or defensive positions will also simultaneously carry out reconnaissance of that city – that is, if he makes it to his target). If there’s no response but silence, conduct reconnaissance on your own on all of the frontline cities. Try to figure out which cities can become enemy front-line ones, and do reconnaissance there as well by destroying 2-3 units on an adjacent airfield Objective two: destruction of enemy supplies. If you are skilled at wiping out convoys, then the first priority is a convoy that is headed for a city with ‘little’ or ‘no’ resources. Objective three: storehouses with ‘a lot’ of resources. Objective four: the factory.
Naturally, all of this should be discussed more thoroughly in chat and, if possible, over Teamspeak - whether these some of these objectives are being carried out already, and if some of the targets have already been damaged - to what degree. Important targets should be destroyed at least at 70%. There are no tasks concerning attacks or defenses for the same reasons as there are none for fighter pilots (additionally, a proper attack on defenses or strike groups makes coordinated fighter cover almost a mandatory requirement).
If you have an understanding of the mechanics of the process and willing to think, you can get the best results by calculating the paces. This can be done the following way: estimate the abilities of friendly pilots currently online, and then estimate the variants of spending available paces and the effects your actions will have the next mission. Suggest the most advantageous variant to your team, or, if you’re not the kind of person to take on the commander’s baton, or you can’t achieve an understanding with fellow pilots - estimate the most advantageous course of your actions in the current situation (considering the intended actions of your teammates), and stick to it on your own.
written by Pack, 2011 translated by RUS66, SDPG_SPAD, 2013
