Lessons from a War

Day 2,137, 05:14 • Published in Belgium USA • by MaryamQ

On day 2115 of the new world, the eUK started a war against eBelgium. The causes of this war have already been discussed at some length in our media and on the forum, but I would like to take a look at the lessons we can learn from the war itself. Details can be found here, on the Battle Watcher site. and resistance wars here.

The initial war consisted of 7 campaigns:

Flanders, day 2115, won by Belgium 83-5
East of England, day 2116-2117, won by UK 88-0
Flanders, day 2120, won by Belgium 88-0
Southeast of England, day 2120-2121, won by UK 83-0
Flanders, day 2122-2123, won by UK 91-52
Brussels, day 2123-2124, won by UK 85-8
Wallonia, day 2125-2126, won by UK 88-66

Resistance wars were:

Brussels, day 2125-2126, won by UK 90-17
Wallonia, day 2128-2129, won by Belgium 85-36
Brussels, day 2129-2130, won by UK 89-43
Flanders, day 2131-2132, won by Belgium 83-71
Brussels, day 2132-2133, won by Belgium 83-60

So, what can we learn from these battles that might serve us in the future?

Shields can win battles.
The ping-pong between Belgium and UK in the first days of the war was entirely due to the shield. There were some instances where a single, rather small fighter won a division, not because of his damages, but because of the shield advantage to the defender.

It isn’t easy, but shields can be overcome by enough determined fighters.
Belgium won division 4 numerous times in spite of the shield because of fighters who just kept hitting against it consistently.

You can’t win a war with division 4 alone.
A division 4 victory earns 5 points, division 3, 3 points, division 2, 2 points, and division 1, 1 point. Belgium consistently won division 4 in several campaigns, but was losing the war as long as UK was winning the lower 3 divisions. The shield was certainly a factor in this, but we also need to develop our lower divisions and teach them when and how to fight.


Points in Brussels RW, showing that all divisions are needed

Sometimes it pays to know when to back down.
There were multiple instances where damages were wasted in battles we had no hope of winning. Blind nationalism is no substitute for smart fighting and conservation of your resources to be used when they really count. On the other hand, sometimes a fighter can motivate someone to push the wall by competing for a BH. There was more than one D4 fighter that I know about who won a battle while losing the BH, simply by pushing the person in BH position to fight harder. Incidentally, Cotarius made a new friend out of this.


Losing a medal, but winning a battle

It really pays to build and support your top fighters.
As much as some people may dislike hearing this, many of the top fighters in campaigns were former paras. An example is the RW in Wallonia, where the top 4 positions for the campaign were held by former paras. It is to be noted that this investment paid off in other ways. The damages done by these fighters were largely paid for from their own resources, as there was often no CO available, no supplies, and some did not even get BNA level supplies. We really need to look at similar support and building of the lower divisions, as well.


Top fighters, Wallonia RW


Top fighters, Flanders RW


Top fighters, Brussels RW

We do have friends, and we don’t always recognize them.
We did get support from fighters in CoT, but I also observe that there was a lot of damage done by eIrish fighters. In addition, we got a lot of help from UK fighters, particularly in the last two RWs. In addition to Nohjis, Mittekemuis and Viridi, all of whom were in top 5 in their divisions fighting for us on more than one occasion, I also observed such well known UK players as Max Blue and rfeist hitting on our side. In addition, I personally know of help offered by mittekemuis to me in the form of tanks when I was out, and food to Nohjis when he was fighting on our side.

We need to utilize the new CO feature more often and better.
There are multiple ways to set this feature to pay citizens of a particular country or members of a particular MU, or open to all, with different levels and for different divisions, and with an automatic stop when the wall reaches a predetermined level. This saves huge amounts of man-hours in supply channels, is self-checking, allows the fighters to use the cash the way that meets their particular needs, and sometimes motivates fighters to join who otherwise would not pay attention to a particular battle. I observed it to turn the tide of battle in this war. It is something we need to learn to use better.

Losing is not as easy as you might think.
Despite many shouts for the eUK’s leaders that the regions were being given back, despite quite a few eBritish citizens fighting on our side, despite hard fighting by our citizens and friends, the RWs were very tough for us to win, and in fact, we did lose the first two attempts in Brussels. The shield was a factor, but also a huge factor was a large number of medal hunters who didn’t know or didn’t care who was supposed to win, as well as some people who did not inform themselves about battle orders or chose to fight for the UK side anyway. Governments really do not have as much control over damages as some people might imagine.


Shout to eUK citizens and friends – one of many

It is important to have a well-organized army, and we should work at doing this better, but we should not overlook the place of private MUs.
I cannot close this without mentioning how proud I am of Green Militia. Our members were in the top 5 in several campaigns, and in numerous battles. Cotarius was campaign hero for the RW in Brussels, and several of us won BH and TP medals, and we did it without state support. We couldn’t do it without BNA, of course, but for our size, we did well, and I offer a big salut[e (and cookies) to all our members.


eBelgian MUs, day 2131


GM, day 2131


GM history


Keep learning and fighting!

MaryamQ