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.
written by Pack, 2011
translated by RUS66, SDPG_SPAD, 2013
