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Producing useful 2v1

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2012 6:05 pm
by Sirion
The original thread is http://www.sea-of-sorrows.com/home/m/859...de-2v1-you but you need to be registered to view it.

So, anyway, here is his post:

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Ever heard this?

"[Red] and [Blue] are 2v1ing us, they are allying against us!" "You are right next to [Red], why are you not attacking them!" "Why attack [Red], they are in last!" "Why are we not attacking [Blue], they are in second place!"

Odd are, yes, you have. Sometimes this can be the result of poor planning, or one step thinking. Sometimes you can accidently get something to happen, and then there is the chess style thinking about diplomacy that I will post here. This is a work in progress, and I would love input and questions by other commanders!

DIPLOMACY

This is going to be a long guide, so if you are not interested in macro map strats, or would like to just keep WvW light, fun, and pew pew, feel free to stop here. This is a guide to outline how you can effectively use map diplomacy to dominate matches and destroy our enemies.

First off, a note on 2v1. There are some that feel that a server should be able to kill both opposing servers completely. This is the case of HoD in their prime. They were able to take on the other 2 servers with no diplomacy, and no quarter. With a more balanced server setup, those days are over. SoS is good, but if SBI and JQ were to truly ally, we would come in dead last, guaranteed. This is where moving from pew pew to a chess style of thinking will benefit our server effectiveness. Let's give a small example...



Green is fighting a 2v1 scenario against both Red and Blue. Both Red and Blue have ignored each other for the last 30 min, and continue to hammer Green. What should Green do?

In this case, Green needs to initiate what I have coined Hard Target Protocol. This means Green falls back to Its lands, hunkers down, masses It's entire standing army, and DEFENDS ONLY. This causes two things to happen simultaneously. First Green keeps Its holdings in their own lands, preventing a cascade loss effect from the 2v1 by appearing weak to the other two servers. Second, and almost at the same time, the enemy militia not guilded, die a lot. This causes the next logical thing to happen, they hit something else. Hard Target Protocol causes the enemy colors to find each other a softer target than Green, starting them to poke at each other. In this case, Green should initiate HTP and hold in their lands until Red and Blue are in full combat with each other.

Here is where most commanders make the wrong move. In a simple 1 step strategy (or checkers strategy), you want to immediately take the easiest tower or camp, and start pushing into an enemy the second they stop pushing you. I'm going to explain this in cause and effect, walking you down the path to where this leads, then show you an alternative.

CHECKERS STRATEGY - ACT, REACT



Blue and Red just started fighting on their side. Green's Hard Target Protocol has resulted in them attacking each other, giving their lands a reprieve. As a checkers commander, Green now goes on the offensive, assaulting Reds supply camp, and starts siege immediately on Anzalias. The next logical step would be for Red, win or lose against the blue forces in Ograch, to head over and wipe up the Green siege on Anzalias. Blue now has no opposition, and depending on how things shaped up in their hit with Red, may choose to continue to push them, or, and most dangerously, decide to go back to Green and hit them. At best, you just lost a supply camp, at worst you forced the 2v1 back on you, and a full force hit on your lands. Now let's look at this from a different POV.

CHESS STRATEGY - 3+ MOVES AHEAD THINKING



Using the same scenario above, we instead hold our lands, hit nothing of the enemy, and maintain HTP. Use this time to upgrade camps, repair walls, build some siege, and cap some PVE objectives to keep the ADD of your militia sated. You instead hold for 30 min, and the map then looks like this.



Blue has capped Ogrewatch and the supply camp. Red is fighting furiously to remove blue, and blue is fighting furiously to hold Its ground it made in Red's land. Which would be the right target for Green to hit?

Blue is deep in enemy lands, preventing them from easily responding to any hIt's at their rear. This would make Quentens an easy target to hit, and would probably cause it to flip Green. Lets walk that path for a few steps. If blue gets an incursion into Its lands, what do you think they will chose, a newly capped paper gate tower in enemy lands that is being trebbed and assaulted, or It's fully upgraded tower green is sieging? It will pull off enough to defend Quenten, probably resulting in Ogrewatch being lost. The map is now back to the way it was before Blues hit, and you now risk Blue, pissed off at your attack to hit you. Red is now the wild card, and if Red hIt's you as well, you just forced the 2v1 on yourself.

Let's see what happens if Green hit's Red. It is at this time, when you blitz Anzalias or Mendons Gap (possibly both). Blue is invested in Red, Red is occupied by Blue trying to force them out and keep their remaining land. This allows you to leave a skeleton defense for small group hit's at your now upgraded supply camps, and hit a probably defenseless tower or two in Reds land. Red, distracted by an already encroaching Blue, cannot fight both armies at the same time, and will lose land.



Awesome, you now have caused Red to lose more land to you, but look at Red and Blue. Red is Sieging Blue, and is close to forcing them out. Good for Green right? The more Green's enemies fight, the less they can focus on them! What's better is Red hasn't even touched Green's force, they are so focused on Blue! This is actually a very bad scenario for Green, and one that needs Immediate response.

Assume for a second that Green continues to push into reds land, maybe starts putting down siege at the keep. While this happens, Red finally forces Blue out of Ogrewatch. 2 things happen now. First, Blue is no longer invested in Reds lands, and is free to do whatever. If they chose to, they can re-siege Ogrewatch, or they could push SM (owned by Green) or worse, into Green's lands! Green, not wanting to lose It's lands, will probably have to spare unIt's to defend against Blue. While this happens, Red is going to want It's land back, and starts hitting the paper gates of your new towers! Where did it all go wrong!?!? Here is where.

When Red started trying to push Blue out, the best move for Green would have been to help defend Blue's tower by wiping the siege! Seems ludicrous right? Let's see. If Green helps defend Blues stake in Red, Red will start to get more pressure by Blue. Blue can now continue to feed troops into red, distracting them from your forces. If followed further, Blue will then continue to push into Red, starting to siege one of the hardest towers in the entire game, Veloka. Here is where things get crazy.



What the hell is Green doing! Diplomacy at Its finest right here. 2 things that make Veloka almost untakable is It's distance from Reds spawn, and It's proximity to the keep for countersieging. By placing the Green army in between Veloka and Red Spawn, you accomplish 2 things. First, you cause Veloka to flip and go paper gates. Never a bad thing, considering Green may want to take it in the future, and paper gates on enemy towers is never a bad thing. The second consequence to this action is actually one of the most favorable, the psychological effect of this act. Imagine you are Red, and you have a Green army blockading your spawn in an obvious effort to protect Blue from assault while they capture a tower. Anger, rage, sadness, more anger, and eventual loss of hope. This can cause a cascade effect making all but the most coordinated and seasoned teams bail on the map for something a little less "BS" on another map. All to Green's Benefit!

From here, it's just a hop and a skip away from pushing Red off the map completely! Notice I never said anything about who was winning, who was favored, who was a bigger rival? Because It's all beneficial to your server. Just because it immediately benefit's a second server does not make it unfavorable to yours! Think about it this way, before your little Diplomatic move, each color had 75 PPT with SM giving one color an additional 35. At the end of this Green and Blue had 100, and SM giving 35 and the keep in between giving 25 to whoever can hold it at the time. More PPT, enemy towers and keeps being reset for upgrades, not many downsides!

BAIT AND BLEED - HOW TO START A WAR

Now, let's go back to the beginning of it all. Assume now that Red is in fact the point lead, and Green would like orchestrate this cascade of diplomacy takes. This will mean that It's main PPT rival will lose the most amount of points, allowing them to gain the lead. Not all that hard to be honest, as simple as proper army placement.



What the hell?!?! I thought we wanted RED to lose. Why are we attacking BLUE!!!!! Simple map manipulation. Assume Green brings Its entire army into blue lands, captures It's supply camp, then lays siege on Durios. What will be Blue's response to this? That is the core of this strategy. You need to force Blue to gather every single soldier to force you out. Once they do this, they will hit your army and force you off the siege. Here is where the tricky part comes in. Rather than fight to the death to defend your siege, you back off to the camp. A good number of your army will probably die at the tower, a few more at the camp, but don't lose sight of the goal here. Once the army moves to the camp, back your team towards Ograth Uplands. Think of it like dropping Reese's Pieces for Blue to follow, but instead of candy, It's badges, your badges to be exact.



Once Green has lead Blue into the north, Blue now has a massive force deep in Red's Land! Once the pesky Green's are finished, What do you think they will do? Odds are, Camp, then Tower siege! At this time, Green will push Red, forcing them to split forces to fight both colors, and probably earning Blue a shiny new tower. Once the flip happens, Green should push hard, and BAM, you have yourself an alliance of mutual benefit!

This can be used in MANY different scenarios, but easiest to show in a map like EB where there is no natural 2v1. In a map like a BL, do the same thing, bring your army to the potential ally, attack them, then drag the response force into your other enemy. Once completed, hit them from the other side, causing the 2v1 to be complete!

That concludes this episode, if you guys have any questions, critiques, complaints, or suggestions, reply to this post and I will get to it ASAP!
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Update by Coron
BTW< im going to post this on the main forums, seeing as ive had both JQ and SBI commanders grats me on the write up. Was never really sensitive information in the first place, and weve already seen counter moves to offset this tactically! Time we stepped our strats past this, and start working on 2v1 countermeasures!