HatWalk ~ The Virtual Kingdom, Age 76 ~

[StratOcastle]

Zone Position vs Unbreakables

One of the greatest misunderstandings in zone tactics is how it positions the core vs chain alignment. The problem with typical chain alignment is that it leaves formidable offenses in constant jeopardy of total collapse. Until enemies are rendered to low gains per tap we can't expect to engage unbeakables in a telling fashion within a minimum WD period.

Essentially what we're approaching is a max gains initiative with select focus where enemy hard targets present difficulties. This is akin to a military sweep across enemy mobile forces which isolates hardened pockets. Oftentimes a classic clamp strategy by enemies involves making a choice between high loss engagement of enemy "unbreakables" aka hard to break targets, or taking on the core. The classic result is the enemy reinvigorating and salvaging high offense in the core while honor farming and increasing the unbreakability of the t/ms.

In division tactics we are honoring both, but the overall strategy is maintaing a higher overall logistical health. Max gains, run properly, mimic chaining on a wider scale. There will always be chained provinces on both sides, but the philosophy differs in that we are attempting to retain a higher ratio of resouce rich provinces than the enemy. In war we know offenses will dissipate and wpa/tpa will be strained. We know the high retain enemy attackers will raze from the bottom. This is why it's important to understand how and why the ops(amnesia/nightmare etc.) spread is an augmentation to quelling enemy core effect. Decent kingdoms are too whiley to go into war with vulnerability to the prevailing t/m compliment. Thus, the siege of unbreakables in war has to be by design.

We perfect strategic practices by blending zone, max, cross-chaining, damage and fading ops. The zone will self regulate gains so that holding enemy core provinces down is similar to wackamole. The reason we cast and sabotage in the round is because we already know that the enemy bottom clamp is designed to make the enemy t/ms job easier. Self regulating gains through zone tactics byproduct is a matter of stabilizing wpa and tpa in our core. It isn't t/m proof, but dampens enemy farm efforts while consolidating our provinces to make spearhead pushes into the enemy t/m compliment.

When our provinces are chained we clamp(clamp & clear the low nw/acre zone) the enemy bottom core. We should endeavor to "give" the enemy the clamp they desire but force nw/acre spread as far as possible from their t/m top. While these tactics may seem unduly cruel in war, I'm a believer in total war. The fundemental is based in what we know about the TVK template: we can't muster the number of top t/m provinces as a purpose built kingdom. By abiding the zone we continuously reestablish the middle hold. The exceptions to the rule is the purpose of the division micro tactics.

To understand this, the enemy bottom will retain offense which will be used to raze our bigger provinces. It's difficult to render attacker offenses inert, so this has to be honored as the go-to tactic of enemy chained. Our core is attempting a similar objective with the target being the enemy t/ms. What we're doing is preserving a higher overall economy to withstand the incursions of the enemy core without catastrophic losses that result in the enemy establishing total unbreakability. By gathering a higher yield of in range provinces we can engage enemy t/ms through numerical superiority. The clock is always ticking so the essential strategy is economy based vs enemies with superior combative macro.

Honor gnip gnop(it's a game) is important to the overall strategy. The way it works in Utopia is a flow from low defense to high defense provinces. In predictably fast wars, say warring a land whoring kingdom, the exchanges must be forecast sooner than later. This can be demonstrated by example. Enemy orc hits one of our avians, we hit the orc with a dwarf(a higher defense province). The enemy hits our dwarf with a human etc and we hit the human with a dark elf/bocan/halfer etc. Thus, the honor exchange now becomes a t/m battle. We can turn to our higher damage lower penetration t/ms to compete while consolidating the zone. This doesn't amount to winning, it is how the competition plays out. Our spearhead provinces are fewer than a classic war kingdom so we have to expect a concentration by the enemy against these provinces.