Alliance AOE 2 War Participation (part 1)

**Ideally, we would love for EVERY team member to participate in wars!**

We are not a play to win team. We do not expect that you spent any money for the team. Spending is not a requirement to participate in war.

We typically start wars back to back, and we do understand that some team members may want to participate all the time, some want to participate from time to time, and some may not want to participate at all.

We value and appreciate that your personal goals are the highest priority for you. Our highest priority as a team is to enjoy the time we spent with Dominations Game, which includes participation in wars with the desire to win. We all started at the same point and improved from there. It does not matter which age or level you are, if you embrace our team values (Alliance AOE 2 Team Values), you are likely to be a great addition to our team and you will enjoy it as much as we do.

**Are your personal objectives aligned with war participation?**

If your personal objective is to rush through ages and upgrade your base as soon as possible, war participation is likely NOT for you.

If your personal objective is to climb the league ladder and maximize your medals, war participation is likely NOT for you.

If you are willing to align team goals and balance your above objectives with our team objective, war participation MAY be for you.

If you value team spirit, have the desire to win and to improve your skills, support your teammates, share your experience and learn, war is definitely FOR you!

**Why some personal objectives conflict with war participation objectives**

The war matching algorithm in combination with game rules are designed to advantage offensive capabilities over defensive capabilities. You can look at it this way; the maximum stars you can "gain" over an opponent are five stars. The maximum stars you can gain using your attacks is 10 stars. When you rush through age upgrades you need to reach a minimum level through gaining experience points (XP). The fastest way to achieve this is to build and upgrade building. This is weigh heavily towards the defensive and economic capabilities. Your offensive capabilities predominantly grow through troop upgrades (including coalitions), library skills, university skills, museum cards leverage (see below for more details). This disadvantages you and the team since you will not be able to attack opponents of equal age and level resulting in 4 or 5 star victories.

In addition, you will not be able to acquire attack skills, which develop over time and those skills, including troop composition (see below), differ by age.

If you prioritize league advancement, your higher league level will result in loosing your ability to "easily" win National Trade Goods, which will impact your ability to deploy coalition troops for wars. We have also experienced that players with that objectives are less likely to contribute their "fair share" in troop donations since it impacts their speed of personal advancement in the league and to rush to the next age.

We have seen many players that rush through ages AND have very high league levels. Especially at higher age levels (global age and up), it most likely results in an unsurmountable misalignment with the prime team objectives, and war participation is not the right choice.

If you happen to be someone with personal objectives league and age rush, not hard feelings, but war participation is not for you. If you come to a point where we you find that team participation is more fun for you, let us know, and we can find a path to build up your attack capabilities.

**General War Participation requirements**

If you participate in war, we have the following expectations:

- You will always use both attacks, even if your targets are too strong for you to be victorious. Two attacks benefit the team (AXP), it benefits you (Victory or Combatant Chest, resources, rubies), and it demonstrates that you care about the team.

- If you have an emergency or some other important event that prohibits you from attacking twice, please let us know upfront as soon as you know about it. We do understand that things can come up and we support family and work. We only ask for a heads up as soon as you know so the team can plan accordingly.

- Please read and observe the war guidelines (Alliance AOE 2 War Guidelines).

- Please donate to war bases and to Alliance troop request to the best of your abilities.

- Demonstrate the desire to become better at attacking. Attacking is a skill that requires experience and constant desire to improve

- Participate and read chats about war strategy, techniques, and communicate about war targets as applicable

- Team members that attack twice in a war will likely participate in the next war

- Team members that miss an attack (without providing notice of an unforeseen situation that did not allow them to attack twice), may not participate in the next war

- Team members that miss two attacks (without providing notice of an unforeseen situation that did not allow them to attack twice), may not participate in the next 2 wars

**War Participation Offensive Attack Capabilities**

We observed and experienced ourselves the negative impact of rushed age upgrade. If you rush through ages, you will quickly get to a point where your defensive and offensive capabilities are out of balance. If these capabilities are materially out of balance, you will not be able to successfully attack peers (similar age and similar game level). The result is that you will likely get 0-3 stars from your attack. This impacts the team negatively. The game is structured in a way that distinguishing offensive capabilities are generally harder to obtain than defensive capabilities.

Teams with rushed bases will typically be matched with opponents that will beat them the majority of the time. Since our objective is to win and increase glory points, we are preferring team members with well established attack capabilities over members with less offensive capabilities for war participation.

Offensive capabilities generally come from the following the following components

**1. Permanently developed and acquired capabilities**

- Number of barracks and barrack upgrades (troop space capacity)

- Armory troop upgrades for your barrack troops

- Armory upgrades for generals

- Armory upgrades for coalition troops

- Armory upgrades for tactics

- Factory and factory troop upgrades for your factory troops

- Number of airstrips and air troops upgrades

- Offensive Library skills

- Offensive University skills

- Offensive War Hall museum cards leverage

**2. Temporary offensive capabilities**

- Offensive coalition troops acquired using National Trade Goods

- Number of barracks, factory, airstrips troops ready for war

- Number of tactics ready for war

- Number of generals ready for war

- Number of alliance troops requested (through Alliance Gate) and filled by team members

- Number and quality of alliance troops donated by war participating team members during war planning phase (town/city center and stronghold)

- Number and quality of troop tactics ready for war

- Mercenaries quantity and quality

**3. Your personal attack capabilities** (do not underestimate the material impact your personal attack capabilities have on the outcome of the attack)

Troop composition

War troop composition can look very different from looting/raiding troop composition.

While there are general rules of best practices, troop composition changes quite substantially as you progress through the ages.

Troop composition should be adjusted based on the base design, age and level of the opponent's base you intend to attack (you may need to add air support,

slower moving heavy troops or faster moving lighter troops, commandos, etc.

Tactics composition should be adjusted accordingly.

Troop Tactics composition should also be adjusted accordingly.

Troop deployment strategy

Troop deployment can be critical to the success of an attack. Study the base first and thoroughly plan the attack. What are your mission critical milestones?

How do you reach those in time?

Is your troop composition, tactics, troop tactics, and coalition partner composition set up for success?

Where do you deploy the troops. tactics, troop tactics?

When do you deploy the troops. tactics, troop tactics?

What is the deployment sequence?

END OF WAR PARTICIPATION PART 1