[jw] Lessons from the air strike
Hell The Great
In this article I want to look at what happened when we decided to use our air strike. As you can see, we are out of Southern Asia / Australasia now - with the RW of Kalimentan being lost after heavy CoT assistance for Indonesia there, and our TWO allies busy elsewhere.
I want to make it clear that from the beginning, I was certain we would face an uphill battle to make a real contribution to freeing Australia - precisely because any regions we won, we would need to keep and defend against RWs (as we failed to do) to ensure we had borders with Indonesia. Without these borders, we would be (as we are now) removed from the vicinity, and the war would close.
A government release on the subject of the AS can be found here. It's made clear that the first proposal for the AS, was defeated in Congress, I'd suspect for most of the reasons I will bring up about how much of a bad idea this was.
First and foremost, the cost of an Air Strike is astronomical. Over 700 GOLD alone worth of currency, and 20 million units of energy. At most, we would have had a few weeks of war with this, and even then, this plan would have required constant spending to keep the inevitable resistance down. Everyone is well aware of the game mechanics - if you do not border a region, you cannot attack it. Thus, the first week of an Air Strike is the hardest part; because with few regions, you face hard resistance in keeping your new regions, precisely because if you only have a few, it is relatively quicker and cheaper to tank or fight heavily against you, and remove you from the war.
This is common sense: why wait for us to pick up half of Indonesia before fighting us? CoT focused on removing us, not fighting Australia. And in doing so, ensured that we wasted a huge amount of GBP, and with 20 million units of food, enough energy to feed our entire population with a weeks worth of food (roughly 8-9,000 each at 1,000-1,5000 per day, would have ensured all of our MUs had a great shot at the competition).
To conclude, this Air Strike cost us a huge amount of currency and food that would have been much better spent elsewhere. Admittedly a lot came from donations, but we could have asked for donations for other projects, some sort of 'get involved' drive, rewards for using IRC, completing daily orders, the forums, joining an MU or a party, take your pick, 750 gold goes a hell of a long way.
My next issue is with geography. First and foremost, Boh basically hit a regino which is the furthest away from Australian territory: the very thing we're trying to free. Sabah was 3 regions away from Australia, (W Australia / N Territories) by the route shown below. Sabah -> Kalimantan -> Lesser Sunda Islands. Instead of Lesser Sunda, we hit Sulawesi.
Red; the route Boh took. Blue; the quickest route to Australian regions using Boh's first 2 choice of regions. Burgundy; where we should have aimed for to begin with
By avoiding Australian territories, which is what we were doing given the route Boh chose, it becomes apparant that in reality, we were simply draining CoT in other fronts. If this is the case, why not choose a TWO/ACT nation with a much smaller population; their AS would be much cheaper than ours. Or, why not hit Indonesia in regions actually close to Australia. If we are interested in freeing Australia, its much more tactical, from a warfare perspective, to have more than 1 country involved in the regions you're trying to fight with. By timing attacks, we can ensure Indonesia is always on the defensive, or at least, always having to endure must win battles. For example:
Day 1 - Australia hits South Australia
- UK declares Air Strike
- Australia loses
Day 2 - Indonesia hits Tasmania
- UK hits South Australia
- RW started in Queensland
Indonesia, in this situation, will have 3 active fronts that it has to focus upon. It cannot lose to Australia, because they will then be able to hit again, and should they lose to us, they'll then be faced with another actor in the campaign. As they're focused on winning these direct wars, the RW in this case should be relatively easy to win with supplying. This could continue on indefinitely, through the use of the 'queue'. Instead of the UK and Australia both hitting at the same time, we would then move towards a 'tiered' approach. EITHER Australia or the UK would attack, and open a RW. The other country would then 'queue' their attack on either region, ensuring no bottle necks (this would mean Australia would hit a region, or start a RW in a region, that the UK also bordered. The UK would then also attempt to attack that region, resorting in the attack being put in the 'queue' - it would only be activated should the attack fail.
This gives Indonesia and CoT a headache. Either way, they'll have to lose regions or ignore battles, to focus on the tactically most important battle. Australia hitting a region, and then a RW starting elsewhere, with a UK attack queued on either, means that even if Indonesia win, they still have to face another attack. In 'epic battles' there is usually a period of 'rest/recovery' in the following days, where tanks and MUs and Governments rebuild supplies; by removing this period, we keep constant pressure on CoT. We chose to not do this, and instead just hit willy nilly; meaning CoT ignored UK battles at first, then focused on RW'ing battles later; because we gave them the option of doing so. By ignoring Australia and focusing on UK battles, they could direct more damage, and ultimately removed us from the area; now they are free to face Australia 1 vs 1, which history shows us, ends badly for Australia.
This is a tactic which is not new, nor is it particularly clever. I have used this many times as CP, most successfully when we retook 11 out of 13 regions from Canada, with the aide of France, despite our alliance at the time losing other wars across the globe. Its not big, its not clever, but its better than just blindly mashing around.
Either way you look at it, this AS was a mess. It was either poorly planned, or just not planned at all. Regardless of the 'reasons' Government gave us, and congress, it wasn't needed, thought through, or properly assessed. If we did this Air Strike for fun; we could have made use of our Natural Enemy for free. Hell, do a Canada and Declare War if you wanted to waste gold. That would've saved us over 200g and 20,000,000 units of energy.
If it was to bring real war to Indonesia, there are already TWO friendly nations that can help with that. Australia and New Zealand, with more MPPs, would be much better placed to fight them. Taiwan is around that region too. Other nations with stronger damage would also have been better placed to Air Strike; they would be able to hold onto the regions despite the onslaught of RWs.
If it was to distract CoT and Indonesia whilst Australia freed itself; you can use the world on fire approach that I used in Terra, and EDEN used so successfully too; start up wars anywhere, and everywhere - but wars which don't require 700 gold just to get to the battle page. Wars with, you know, nations you actually border. As I mentioned earlier, if this was just about draining and distracting CoT, get the smallest TWO aligned nations to AS - we may only have 2,000+ citizens, but there are plenty of nations who have much less than we do.
If it was for fun, then even BigAnt's Portugal invasion achieved more. When we have news that our reserves have dropped so drastically, to then go and commit 700 gold to a war half way across the world is dumbfounding, if its just for fun. The 'fun' in this game comes from clicking 'fight'. I refuse to believe clicking this button to win a region which we haven't had before, and is halfway across the world, is any more entertaining, than clicking this button on a European region we are near. Or better yet, sponsor Resistance Wars of Irish regions, or our recently lost Danish one, and have specific MUs fight on specific sides. For example, Legion vs British Army - both sides having to fight and find support from other British MUs themselves. A resurgent France is on the map: that 700 gold could have gone a pretty long way to supply some epic wars with them. The same could be said for Canada, and the USA in their constantly released New York region.
To conclude, this war wasted our money, our damage, and had outrageously underestimated the resistance we would face. Even ignoring all of this, why we chose to invade a nation we were allied with for 80% of our time on this game, a nation which countless times fought above and beyond others, helped defend our shores, is absolutely astounding. Yes, Australia are our new allies. If we want to help them, why don't we first consider MPPing them, so that, you know, we can fight in each others wars. This is of course, ignoring the fact that for on and off the last 3 years, we've been helping Indonesia occupy them.
But not to worry, a few Australians live here, and a few brits live there; so obviously now we're the bestest of friends. A great use of 700 gold; a new friend that is even worse of geographically than we are, and bound to face constant invasion! Hurrah!
My final reflection, however, would not be that this is all Boh's fault. Our Government as a whole, if they didn't know what I brought up here, are not fit to govern. Our Congress as a whole, if they didn't know this, are not fit for purpose. Nothing I have written here is spectacularly insightful, clever, or special. Its basically common sense, and taking the time to look at the map, and actually think things through. TWO has for some time faced a resurgent CoT. Chile invaded Romania and has been doing pretty well for some time, RWs were starting to trouble Poland. How we thought we could rely on them to win our battles for us, instead of their own, is beyond me. However you look at this, at some point, somewhere, the people who either agreed with or made this decision, have gone done goof'd.
Its nothing personal, and I am not doing this purely to baww or moan; I am not BigAnt'ing here by just saying YOU ARE BAD, THIS IS BAD, BAW BAW BAW. I've brought up alternatives we could have used. Highlighted the mistakes we've made, so at the very least, we can chalk this AS as a lesson for future Governments. Admittedly, a lesson that cost 700 Gold and 20,000,000 Energy. But if nothing else, we needn't just take 3 days of clicking 'fight' in a war with the UK's flag; for jeebus sake lets try not to repeat this.
~jw
Comments
inb4BAWWWWWWWWWyourjustBA
good analysis....now... shall we impeach Bohemond ?or just we keep supporting him ?
To replace him with an MoD who was equally a part of the process? That would certainly change a lot of things.
Impeaching him would change a lot of things.
Suggest run for TUP PP, that old chestnut always works
its eIndo MoD and his brothers across nation make this happen 😛
inafterinb4
Miaupodio
Great article o/
I'll agree to disagree. Yes the AS could have been planned better...so could Iran's if we are perfectly honest...but it achieved what we needed in eAustralia. It gave us our regions and gives us a better chance at retaining young players because as the eUK knows- when you are occupied young players dont grasp the concept and become bored with the game.
Allies go above and beyond the call of duty and i can give examples of Poland and Hugary to name but a few of countrys that have done exactly that for the eUK when they didnt have to. So please dont look at this AS as a reason to never try again because you will never know how much it was appreciated by us.
As for this AS and Big Ants trip to Portugal...why not? yeah it cost but my God it was new and fresh instead of the same old boring scuffles with Ireland, France, Canada...rinse, lather, repeat etc etc and yes I will praise both CP's for doing something original in my eLifetime.
You say it failed, it may not have achieved what we wanted 100% but to eAustralia...well we got all but one of our regions and if you look on the map you'll see why we aren't in too much of a rush to get that back.
I'm not saying helping Australia is a waste, as I point out, there were various methods which would have been cheaper, or better, to do so.
No I know mate, like I said it could have been organised better (even Iran cocked up their location for their AS) but end of the day it kinda worked ; )
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JAME4CP
nice thought! jamesw.
i never knew you could be this smart.
bah, you are simply accostumed to TUP level...
jamesw is in ESO. lol
you're best to just ignore Alphabethis
good article, but i'll tell you that your biggest mistake was not cooperating with iran when AS us \O/
devajr, you're lucky that our president is boh now, if our CP was jamesw.
we could retain your region for more than a week or even month and still continue to attack you.
not at all luke, because usually, good idea came after the event, with serbia and ploand got mass rw, do you still you will win 1vs1 in rw at kalimantan?
i don't talk about RW in kalimantan, dude.
i mean, by using this strategy when we were going to AS indo, we could give you more war.
you should thank boh for using wrong strategy...
To conclude, this Air Strike cost us a huge amount of currency and food that would have been much better spent elsewhere
True words
Wall of text. Wall of text everywhere.
in those wars, went a saying...
"Saudi, Iran and UK are being used.
send em home and hit em hard.
then get the real looser who freeloaded.
Aussie who manipulates their allies like a coward."
Iran and UK fought and cost themselves admirably, for that we respect you.
you guys did a major help for a country that did little efforts in the battlefields.
well, if the cost of the AS was funded by Aussie, then i have nothing to say.
but if it's funded by yourself, then you're really something.
eAustralia have a saying too - He who acts brave and occupies a vastly smaller nation while avoiding equally powerful country's is a coward himself....as well as throw another dingo on the barbie or something like that.
That vastly smaller nation is actually quite profitable to occupy since it has several resources that we don't have. Rather than cowardice, I'd argue to call it a strategic move...
then beg admin to remove your precious resources region so we wont have any reason to occupy your nation 😛
"for that we respect you.
you guys did a major help for a country that did little efforts in the battlefields."
Yes, billions of damage from Aussies you idiot. Look at the campaign hero top 5 you moron. They dropped tons of damage.
I'm sure eAus greatly appreciates and loves the eUK for helping take the fight to Indo, just look at the PM of Australia's recent newsletter. He had thank you written all over the damn place.
Stahp the bullshit you dirty Indo bastard.
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for "freeing Aussie": UK spent around 690 G + 18 mil units of energy just to launch AS. Iran spent around 370 G +17 mil units of energy just to launch AS. Not to mention Saudi.
on the last day UK set foot on Kalimantan, the MU tourn stats shows: top 5 UK's MUs did around 7 trillion damages, top 5 Iran's MUs did around 5 trillion damage, while top 5 Aussie's MUs did around 2 trillion damage.
you're USA citizenship, Indo allies on that war. but even if you're Aussie in real, your top damage wasn't on that war.
so yea, little efforts.
Not to mention the fronts and regions that UK and Iran lost during the AS, while Aussie get 3 regions. Let's see will Aussie launch AS to help UK or Iran, or at least, will the top 5 Aussie's MUs give 2 trillion damage for UK or Iran.
That isn't hard to guess that the UK and Iran would deal more damage. They have more than double the population of Australia dumbshite. >.> Compare Aus' damage before the strike and during and you'll see that they did make a great effort so once again stfu and gtfo.
Nothing of what you said in your comment has any relevance nor does it discredit anything I have said. Indo fag.
"you guys did a major help for a country that did little efforts in the battlefields"
UK and Iran did double the damage even after spent themselves highly cost AS, and you wont admit their efforts is major compared to Aussie's little efforts to free their own land.
yeah, rite. kthxbye.
You really are the biggest moron I've ever seen on this game. Nowhere did I say that Australia did more damage than Iran or the UK. And I never said that the UK or Iran made less of an effort than Australia. I said that it is obvious that the UK and Iran would have the ability to do more damage, much more damage, than Australia. But just because Iran and the UK can do more damage doesn't mean that Australia didn't try at all. ALL OF THEM DID THE BEST THEY COULD WITH THE AMOUNT OF CITIZENS THEY EACH HAVE. DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS CONCEPT YOU DUMBF***?? You, sir, are a f***ing idiot and a troll. Go suck more Indo d***. You may want to pretend and lie and try to imply that Australia does not appreciate the help they received, but nobody is going to believe you.
TL😉R Learn English or shut the f*** up.
Cry little Indo b****! Cry like the little baby you are! 🙂
The negotiations with congress were farcical to say the least.
The original plan and what actually happened were markedly different and it almost boiled down to searching for a reason to use it.
The fact it went through with the information we had is ridiculous.
Hmmm...Chaz you bitch just remember that if Hugary, Spain and Poland had of had the same thoughts of campaigns of liberation being too costly then you guys would still be wiped.
You receive and sometimes as allies you have to give. Grated eAustralia is new to TWO but it is acts like this that will cement friendships and as Poland show - friendships arent judged by damage...just actions.
How is it bitching? The plan that we were originally given was nothing like the one that happened.
No i said you were a bitch, not that you wee bitching...
...you bitch
I don't think either JW or Chaz is arguing that we should never have helped Australia, their point is that there were cheaper and more logical ways to provide assistance and build a closer relationship than dumping 750 gold down the drain for a bungled campaign.
"If it was for fun, then even BigAnt's Portugal invasion achieved more. When we have news that our reserves have dropped so drastically, to then go and commit 700 gold to a war half way across the world is dumbfounding, if its just for fun."
2x
WORST DECISION I'VE SEEN A UK GOVERNMENT MAKE
Good comment 3 points awarded to Gryffindor
best moralfag article you've done in a long time jimmyw, me old cocker. As Chaz pointed out. The Government were looking to use it and trying to justify a reason. Speaking with TWO HQ members it was made clear to me, at the time, that help would be given if available but this wasn't a TWO priority.
First of all, BA, KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THE FRIGGING CAPS LOCK - it's really annoying.
Second, apart from it being a total waste of resources I had two other problems with this airstrike:
1. A nation that not long ago was barely able to keep its own island sets out to free a nation halfway across the globe not only sounds silly, it is silly.
2. I've nothing against eAustralia, but other than a handful of eBrits having emigrated there and some rl historical connection - what exactly were the strategic resonings behind all this? And couldn't we have lent a helping hand via MPPs? The result would have probably been the same, but it would have cost a fraction.
Just to add to this superb article,
ask yourself this, if I was CP and made this balls up. Would you impeach me?
You would... so why not boh 😉
YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN SKINNED !
I say this deserves an impeachment from the moment he pressed the button...
A fair point BA - if I were in Congress I would be starting that vote right now
Well, to think that you guys will AS eIndo just to help eAus in current TWO's condition is beyond me. It was a poorly planned attack and as the saying goes; he who fail to plan, plan to fail.
Btw, it's kinda late but just a short comment for this article http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-mofa-on-the-airstrike--2296296/1/20. The reason why eIndo did AS to eIran is not the same with why you did AS to us. One of the reasons for our AS is to help eMacedonia, who have been a great help for us in many recent wars. What have eAus, who is not even your MPP ally, done to eUK?
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the route is wrong , that not sabah but sarawak .