Chapter 401: Alliance War Strategy
During this large-scale battle, Zheng Hongxi quickly understood how alliance wars should be fought in "Rate the Land's Shores."
Because the game mechanics are completely different from other games, every player in "Rate the Land's Shores" can play a role. Even a completely free-to-play player, as long as they log in and play every day, is a valuable asset to an alliance.
In this kind of large-scale alliance war, players also organize at least three armies: one main force, one siege force, and one scouting/road-building force.
Unlike attacking NPC cities, when attacking players, the siege force doesn't need to bring troops. This is because the siege force can never defeat the enemy's main force; they can only avoid the main force to demolish land and forts. These low-level lands and player forts can be destroyed without troops.
During an alliance war, a player's main tasks include the following:
First, inflict casualties on the enemy's effective strength. This is the main force's job. Find the enemy's main force position, attack them, cripple their main force, and clear the way for your own siege force.
Of course, whether you inflict casualties or suffer them depends on how strong your main force is. To judge the enemy's strength, you first need to send a suicide squad to probe. Once you confirm you can win, sending in the main force is the safer approach.
Second, garrison strategic locations. This is also the main force's job. After capturing key points (such as neutral forts in the wild, gaps in the enemy's fort cluster, etc.), stationing your main force to garrison that tile allows you to use it as a springboard to continue attacking surrounding tiles.
Obviously, the enemy will also attack this tile. At that point, a main force must be garrisoned to ensure the tile remains occupied and cannot be retaken.
Moreover, if you want to push forward, you must build a cluster of forts at regular intervals. While these forts are under construction, they are very fragile—any siege force can destroy them. So they also need main force protection.
Third, flip land and destroy enemy buildings. This is mainly the siege force's job. In alliance wars, any army with a siege value greater than 100 can be considered a siege force.
(Because every tile occupied by a player has at least 100 defense points. Only if an army's siege value exceeds 100 can it capture an enemy-occupied tile in one go; otherwise, it takes two attacks.)
Since both sides fight based on their fort clusters, once a player's frontline fort is destroyed, their army has nowhere to stay. They either have to garrison the frontline without moving, becoming easy prey, or retreat in disgrace.
Fourth, scout the path. This is mainly the suicide squad's job. Every player must form a suicide squad—fast cavalry with no troops—solely for scouting, to see how strong the enemy's forces are. After confirming, the main force can be sent to attack.
Of course, during actual combat, the commander must also make a series of strategic decisions.
For example, where is the best place to build a fort cluster? Too close to the frontline and it's easily destroyed; too far and troop movement becomes inconvenient. When should you defend? When should you attack? How many main forces does the enemy have, and which of your own forces should be used to take them out?
If a decision goes wrong and the enemy exploits a weakness, losing a fort cluster can lead to defeat in a critical battle, severely damaging morale.
Moreover, Zheng Hongxi quickly realized that in "Rate the Land's Shores," while wealthy players are important, ordinary players are also very important. They play completely different roles, and neither can be omitted.
Obviously, as a pay-to-win game, "Rate the Land's Shores" cannot and should not make every player equal. But it uses another method to allow ordinary players to contribute to the battlefield.
The only difference between paying and non-paying players in "Rate the Land's Shores" is how strong your generals are. For example, a wealthy player with a full Grand Commander lineup can defeat a dozen ordinary players' armies—that's normal. But this doesn't mean the wealthy player can do whatever they want.
Resources cannot be bought, troop recruitment cannot be sped up, and march times are fixed—no items can accelerate them.
In critical point battles, wealthy players can indeed play a decisive role. For instance, if you want to defend a key pass and garrison a dozen armies, but a wealthy player comes alone and wipes out all of them, the battle is as good as lost.
Or if you must capture a certain pass, but a wealthy player is garrisoning it, and even a dozen ordinary armies can't break through—that's extremely frustrating.
However, no matter how strong a wealthy player's combat power is, their generals only have 100 stamina, allowing only five actions. Moreover, army movements take time, and everyone can clearly see the army's trajectory and arrival time. So ordinary players can simply avoid them, letting the wealthy player attack empty air.
If a wealthy player is garrisoning somewhere, it doesn't matter—we can go around and avoid a direct confrontation.
Aside from killing enemies and garrisoning, where wealthy players have absolute advantages, flipping land, sieging, scouting, and building roads are equally important tasks that everyone can do. If ordinary players are willing to spend time and are clever, they can completely lead wealthy players around by the nose.
Furthermore, as the game progresses, many lucky ordinary players can also assemble a decent lineup. As the game advances, the gap between ordinary and wealthy players gradually narrows.
Add in troop type counters: a wealthy player might form a very strong Wei Cavalry lineup, but if an ordinary player happens to assemble a full Wu Archer lineup, the two sides might at best fight to a draw. The wealthy player can't possibly pull off a one-versus-many sweep.
As you play further, you'll find that an alliance with a clear-thinking, tactically diverse commander and a group of skilled, time-rich ordinary players is far more important than having a single wealthy player.
...
The alliance war between [Dragon Battle] and [How Could We Be Without Clothes] gradually intensified.
[Dragon Battle] had more people, plus a wealthy player like Cloud Deep Unknown. They quickly demolished all the enemy forts around their alliance leader's city and gradually pushed the battlefield toward the location of [How Could We Be Without Clothes]'s alliance leader.
Unlike inter-state wars, civil wars within the same state focus on the two alliance leaders' cities. Only capturing the alliance leader matters—whichever alliance leader falls first loses.
Moreover, players from both alliances were spread across the entire Liang Province. Everyone could borrow allies' land as a springboard to fly anywhere. So [Dragon Battle]'s members quickly opened a second battlefield near [How Could We Be Without Clothes]'s alliance leader, turning defense into offense.
Learning from this lesson, [Dragon Battle]'s alliance leader also got smarter. He kept the fort clusters that others had built around his main city, activated the "Hold Fast" skill every night before sleeping, and began building a sub-city. In case of an emergency, he could directly relocate his main city and escape.