Wave Management Expanded
In the previous post we gleaned upon the steward as wave manager. Wave management is a fairly involved strategic exercise involving not just a breadth of mechanical and intel knowledge but fast thinking and adaptation on the fly. Here I'll attempt to offer what I've seen, organizationally.
We'll approach this demonstration from the often used chain wave. Certain aspects will be simplified to assist mental digestion and you can use your imagination to add your own flavor. The wave is organized via com system; the com system we used was the old irc utilizing 3 private channels - 1. leadership, 2. wave channel, 3. finishing/left overs.
Players are instructed to keep to answering instruction only in the wave channel.
Targets are chosen. In our case we'll imagine the enemy kingdom largest heavy attackers. We are running a Nightmare wave in this instance.
1. Highest modified wpa is instructed to cast Mystic Vortex on the first target. Once the prefered defensive spells are eliminated the Nightmare run begins.
2. Nightmare capable provinces are instructed to cast; in our case, till the target troop yield drops just below 100 per cast. Once achieved the ops stop with spare runes/mana saved for the next target.
3. Sabotage begins. The type of sabotage depends. Let's assume our target is heavy in Guard Stations. Rogues will use Greater Arson to eliminate Guard Stations while non-rogues may be instructed to Nightstrike additional troops, Watch Towers may also be targeted to reduce thief loss during the sabotage run.
4. Our attackers have already been instructed to declare nw/acres and modified offense. Immediately after the Nighmare ops/Sabotage package the attackers are instructed to attack in nw/acres highest modified offense order. In our scenario we will use Cross Chaining. Cross Chsining is the practice of having the highest nw/acre mod offense to hit first and last. I'll illustrate how this is organized. For speed and efficiency the wave manager will already have the relevant intel and will instruct how much offense to send on each tap of each attacker. In this example we will imagine 3 attackers for simplicity sake, thus:
Highest nw/acres mod offense - attacks 1st for highest gains
2nd highest nw/acres mod offense - attacks for 2nd highest gains
3rd highest nw/acres mod offense - attacks for 3rd highest gains
3rd highest nw/acres mod offense - repeats for 4th highest gains
2nd highest nw/acres mod offense - attacks for 5th highest gains
Highest nw/acres mod offense - attacks 6th for lowest gains
The reason we Cross Chain is multifold. First, we have relative gains across the chain alignment so that all attackers maintain chain alignment. Second, the target is faced with ambush possibilities that offer meager gains on the initial ambush. Because the gains are relative, the choice of enemy counter measures are reduced to pick'em rather than provinces with low incoming acres. The system is easy to remember and we each get a portion of our army out ASAP rather than waiting for any number of attackers to complete taps. This results in higher offensive sustain.
* In this demonstration you should note that 2 generals were used on the 1st target. The exercise is repeated from the highest wpa Mystic Vortex cast down to the last general of the highest nw/acres mod offense on the 2nd wave target.
The finsh/leftovers channel is where t/m commence marches against the chained targets.
This concludes my recollection of a Nightmare Cross Chain wave. There are several ways to approach waving. My hope is to offer perspective on what some of the more polished kingdoms might do. Not only are we studying how to attack but also offer perspective. There are ways to derail waves through proper micro, if you use your intuition on how certain waves are implemented.