War Strategy

While there are many articles discussing different tactics and techniques to win specific battles (check out Amphibious Landing Tactics and Flanking for instance), there is in general a dearth of pages explaining overall strategy, to last entire wars and even games. That is what this article will attempt to remedy. Prepare for some interesting information and some pompous language!

## Overall Strategies

There are three basic game-plans that all other strategies and tactics feed into, which you typically choose between from the start of a game. These are rush, defensive and economic. Naturally you can forge a middle path between these strategies, and even the most militarised player should still focus somewhat on economy, but almost every decision you make will be a choice between objects related to these major strategies. Because of this, an explanation would probably be helpful, for those of you unfamiliar with these concepts.

### Principle Strategies

#### Rush

This is based around producing offensive units and invading new territory as quickly as possible. When using this strategy, the aim is to overwhelm opponents before they are ready to defend themselves, typically through massing armies and using intelligent tactics to expose the vulnerabilities of your foes. Although conquering a few nations at the start of a game with such as strategy is effective and often advisable, towards the middle of the game your expansion may begin to stagnate and put you at risk of invasion from more cautious and economic players.

#### Defensive

This is the primary counter to a rush-based strategy. Similarly to it, defensive strategy is also mostly military, focusing on the production of units. However, it calls instead for border defense and mass production of units that deal high defensive damage, such as Infantry. This is really the only way to survive an opponent rushing you at the start of the game - however, because it immediately places emphasis on military power it disregards economic concerns.

#### Economic

Economic strategy is my personal favourite. It neglects the proper development of an army early-game in exchange for complete domination later due to its unparalled ability to produce masses of troops late-game. This strategy emphasises the construction of Industries and Recruiting Stations in order to maximise resource production rates. This allows it to become incredibly, stupidly powerful later in the game because its unit production will be uncapped. However, economic players are vulnerable to rush strategies early-game due to a lack of a formal military force.

### The Middle Path

It will never be maximally effective to focus on only one principle strategy throughout the game, because they all have their weaknesses. Rushes run out of steam, defense is a waste if there's nothing to defend against, and economic players have no counter to a quick rush. Therefore, the optimal plan is to incorporate elements of two or all strategies into your gameplay. For instance, you might fuse a defensive and economic strategy by sacrificing a few buildings in order to maintain a functional armed force. Equally, you could combine defensive and rush strategies by researching high-level Infantry and Anti-tank units, and using them to defend your core provinces whilst your Motorised Infantry and Light Tanks blaze a trail through enemy territory. In short, no strategy is flawless in itself, so it is beneficial to combine multiple of them.

### Doctrines

Different doctrines can function more or less effectively when making use of different strategies. For the most part, the Axis and Pan-Asian doctrines favour rush strategies - Axis because its buffs don't get stronger over time, and Pan-Asian because its buffs beautifully encourage skirmish-y play. Defense is also very important, especially for Axis players. The Allied and Commintern doctrines both favour a mix of defensive and economic strategy, with Allied leaning towards defense and Commintern towards economy. For a more in-depth explanation of how to use different doctrines, see Doctrine Analysis.

### Research

It is essential to research units that synergise effectively with your strategy. For instance, rush players should aim to acquire Motorised Infantry as quickly as possible, because they deal more damage offensively than defensively. Planes such as Tactical Bombers can also be vital in a rush strategy. In contrast, defensive players ought to research regular Infantry to a high level because it is cheap and effective in defending against unarmoured units. They might also want to make use of Militia, Anti-air and Anti-tank units. For economic nations, the most important thing is simply to remember to research good units. Although the development of armies can be mostly neglected at the start of the game, all of the economic benefits are wiped away if you are fighting with obsolete units. Economic players absolutely should make sure to research units!

## Dimensions of Warfare

The dimensions are warfare are a real-world military concept that differentiates locations of battle into five categories. However, only four are relevant in Call of War.

### Land

The most complex and arguably most important dimension, land warfare is what permits a nation to capture territory; other dimensions exist simply to get an edge in land warfare. Unarmored units, tanks and ordnance all play important roles. Land warfare has a number of crucial traits that it is important to know:

* It is slow. The fastest land units are Motorised Infantry, which at level 1 have a speed of 60. In contrast, the *slowest* naval units, Battleships and Carriers, have a speed of 55 at level 1, and the slowest level 1 aircraft (several types of bomber) have a speed of 350! This makes land warfare easily the slowest type, especially as most terrain types reduce unit speed (plains increases the speed of tanks, but it is unique in that aspect). This means that surprise attacks on land are more difficult (more time within view range) and rush strategies can be difficult to pull off without support.
* Terrain exists. All air and sea territory is considered to be a single type of terrain; in contrast, there are 5 major land terrain types (plains, hills, forest, mountains, urban). This leads to a lot more opportunity for tactical and intelligent play. It also means that there is a greater emphasis on stealth units.
* Territory exists. The seas and the sky are no man's land, but on land there are clearly delineated borders. This places a greater restriction on where units can travel (units cannot travel on peaceful territory without instigating a war, and speed is reduced by 50% on enemy territory).
* There is a great variety of different unit types. Typically land warfare engages just unamoured, lightly armoured and heavily armoured units; however, it is common for planes and ships to also become involved, especially bombers and Battleships.

In order to effectively fight on land territory, it is necessary to use infantry, artillery and tanks to their fullest extent, so as to gain the upper hand. Some tactics will be discussed later, but other tactical pages exist (such as Counterattack and Flanking).

### Sea

Naval warfare is generally less crucial than land warfare, and against inexperienced players it is generally possible to emerge victorious with little to no navy (I won as Sweden recently and built a total of 3 ships throughout the entire game). However, more seasoned players will be able to exploit such vulnerabilities, making sea a necessary dimension of warfare to understand. The most critical features of naval warfare are as follows:

* It is faster than land warfare, but considerably slower than aerial warfare. The fastest naval unit is the Destroyer, with a speed of 86 at level 1. This is over 40% faster than the fastest land unit, the Motorised Infantry. Even Carriers and Battleships travel at a speed of 55, as fast as an Armoured Car. In addition, there is no terrain on the oceans, which would overall slow units further.
* It is spread out across a large area. The seas are massive and there are very few bottlenecks. Even the range of Battleships pales in comparision to the distances travelled across the ocean. This leads to naval warfare being a mostly defensive pursuit to prevent convoys landing, or to protect said convoys. Fights between ships on the open ocean are rare, although nonetheless existent.
* It is (relatively) simplistic. For the most part, each unit has only one or two designed in counters to it - for instance, Destroyers beat Submarines and Submarines and Battleships beat Cruisers. Aircraft Carriers and convoys are vulnerable to all naval unit types, but some moreso than others - Carriers are pretty evenly matched with Destroyers in most scenarios.
* It exists to support land warfare. If one nation can succeed in demolishing its foe's navy, then it has free rein to bombard that country's coastal provinces with Battleships. This can vastly weaken that country's land forces, or at the very least put a sizeable dent in its economy and production.

Naval units are not entirely immune to attack from land troops - artillery units can bombard them from the same range as a Cruiser, and Railroadguns outrange Battleships by 33%. All naval units also need Cruiser support in order to defend from Naval Bombers, which pose an enormous threat due to being cheap to produce and possessing a massive range.

### Air

Similarly to sea warfare, air warfare is typically less important than land advances and it is wholly possible to win a game without investing in any powerful aircraft. However, veteran players who make use of aerial units effectively can shred through almost any land-based army. Thus, in order to reliably come out on top in CoW, it is important to understand at least the basics of this dimension of warfare. The major properties of aerial warfare are as follows:

* It is **very** fast: the slowest air units (most bombers) have a speed of 350 at level 1: this is 4 times faster than the fastest naval unit, and almost 6 times faster than the fastest land unit! The fastest standard aircraft is the Interceptor, with a speed of 480: eight times faster than Motorised Infantry. And this is ignoring Rocket Fighters which have a comparatively short range, but travel at a blistering speed of ~950, over 10 times faster than the fastest naval unit. Furthermore, similaraly to naval warfare, there is no slowing terrain in the air. All of this demonstrates that air warfare is by far the fastest and most volatile form of combat.
* It is limited in location. Planes can only travel within a certain distance from an Aircraft Factory or Airstrip (or a Carrier if carriable), which greatly limits where it can take place. It also means that a nation with more airstrips/factories has an advantage in aerial warfare, even if it does not have a remarkable airforce.
* It is (relatively) simplistic. All planes are countered by Interceptors and Rocket Fighters, while bombers are used to damage units and buildings on land. Paratroopers add a degree of complexity that will be examined later.
* It exists to support land warfare. If one country can destroy another's airforce through crafty use of fighters, then it has free rein to wreck its land army unless the defending nation can produce anti-air guns. Strategic Bombers are also enormously valuable in reducing the ability of a nation to produce units and resources.

Although generally bombers have an advantage over land units, since most are very specifically directed at a particular armour class they must always be vigilant for land-based counters. Even basic Infantry can wreck a single bomber (besides a Tactical Bomber) but Anti-air and SP Anti-air especially are threats that can never be taken lightly.

### Combinations

Pairing together units that are based in different dimensions is known as a combination, or combo. Doing this allows for the units to exploit each others' strengths and compensate for each others' weaknesses. An example of this is the use of a Battleship and a Carrier with Interceptors together - the Battleship provides naval protection for the Carrier, the Carrier allows the Interceptors to fly and the Interceptors protect the Battleship and the Carrier from Bombers. Similarly, SP Anti-air travelling with a Medium Tank and a Tactical Bomber is effective because the SP Anti-air can dissaude offensive aircraft (protecting the Tactical Bomber) and the Medium Tank and Tactical Bomber work together to protect the SP Anti-air from ground threats such as Infantry and Light Tanks.

Normally, the attacks of a particular unit are designed to be especially effective against units that operate on a particular dimension: Naval Bombers target sea units, Medium Tanks target land units and Anti-air targets air units (the exception to this rule is ranged units, such as Artillery, which can be effective both against land units and coastal ships). This is why combos are so important - without them, units are often vulnerable to attack from a particular dimension. For example, Artillery is especially vulnerable to aircraft (particularly Tactical Bombers) since it deals so little defensive damage and is slow, whilst Bombers are vulnerable to Interceptors and Rocket Fighters, which are vulnerable to Anti-air, which are vulnerable to most land units etc.. The point is, without the use of combos troops are often exposed to threats that they cannot counter.

### Crossovers

Often, units that operate on a particular dimension of warfare are able to, and are even designed to, attack a different dimesion. Examples of this are Anti-air, Attack Bombers and (to an extent) Battleships. These are known as crossover units, and they play a vital role in many tactical manouevres. This is demonstrated in three ways: air/ground, sea/ground and air/sea.

#### Air/ground warfare

This is carried out mostly by Tactical, Attack and Strategic Bombers. In air/ground warfare, the majority of instigation is by planes, since land units cannot directly attack aircraft; instead they must capture the province containing the airfield that the plane is reliant on. This places land units in a defensive role. The standard land units in this warfare are Anti-air and Infantry/Militia. The former is specifically targeted to defend against aerial attacks and deals massive damage to planes - 6.3 defensive damage at level 1. However the disadvantage is that they are very vulnerable to all land units, especially unarmoured units. Infantry and Militia are cheap and fast to produce, and deal a respectable 1.6 defensive damage to planes, which can add up significantly when stacked. They are also much more capable of defending against other land units. A combination of Anti-air and Infantry/Militia is generally recommended when an opponent makes use of both land offensives and bomber raids. Anti-air should also be used to protect cities from Strategic Bombers, which can rupture a nation's economy.

#### Sea/ground warfare

This is much simpler than air/ground warfare, mostly because only two naval units can (directly) attack ground units, and only five ground units can return fire. In this type of warfare, again the land units are typically placed in the role of the defender, as ships typically have much more room to manouevre and are faster. Cruisers can damage land units from a range of 50, but the damage is small and this value is equal to the range of most Artillery units, including SP Artillery and Rocket Artillery. This means that Cruisers can attack land units if and only if artillery units in the army can attack them back. More of a threat to ground troops are Battleships, which outrange conventional artillery by 50%, and have considerably more health. The only true land counter to these is the Railroadgun, which has double the range of most artillery, but is very slow and provides naval units with an easy opportunity to retreat.

Sea/ground warfare is especially curious because generally both parties can retreat whenever they choose. The only exception to this is when a naval unit is blockaded into a small space by enemy troops, or when land units are on an island territory. This means that the goal is rarely to outright destroy an army, but more force it away from a coastal province so that it can be bombarded at will, destroying buildings and providing a safe landing zone for convoys. Conversely, the goal of the defender is to force the ships away, protecting the province and its infrastructure.

##### Carriers

Aircraft Carriers thow a slight curveball into sea/ground warfare by providing aerial opportunities as well. Ordinarily Carriers will bring Tactical, Attack and Strategic Bombers to counter any enemy ranged units on land, but Carriers providing Naval Bombers are also common as a way of protecting ships from the opponent's vessels. In order to counter Carriers, Anti-air units can be used to destroy bombers attacking land, and Cruisers can fight against both invading ships and Naval Bombers.

#### Air/sea warfare

This is the simplest crossover warfare by far, since both air and sea warfare are much less complex compared to land. The main aerial unit to use on ships is naturally the Naval Bomber, although in a pinch an Attack Bomber can be used as they deal over half the damage to ships that Naval Bombers do. Cruisers are the best naval defense against bombers, but actually deal less damage to naval bombers than naval bomber deal to them at equal levels. The rationale behind this is that Cruisers have considerably more hit points. Destroyers and Carriers also deal acceptable damage to aircraft, but definitely could not take an equally levelled Naval Bomber alone. In air/sea warfare, the planes are typically the aggressors (as in air/ground warfare) due to their faster movement speed and airborne untouchability. However, Cruisers and Battleships could potentially be used to bombard a coastal province where an airfield that a plane relies on is constructed. Alternatively, Carriers could provide air support in the form of Interceptors.

### The elusive 5th - Information

"But wait, Qweifomapsvoiams!" I hear you cry. "You said that there were four dimensions of warfare that applied to Call of War, but you've only mentioned three!" Well, hold onto your hats, because it's time to tackle information warfare. This was only classed as a dimension of warfare real-world as recently as 1995 by US military, but strategists had been aware of its existence for millenia beforehand. The core tenet of an information war is the value that information holds - where an opponent's troops are located, who they are allied to, what their plans are, how they fight an so on and so forth. The following mechanics are key to the successful manipulation of information in your favour.

#### Stealth and Scout units

A number of units have the "stealth" property - this includes Submarines, Militia and Commandos. This makes them invisible to both enemy and neutral nations until they engage in combat, even if part of a larger stack. This is an invaluable ability in some situations as it allows these units to escape dangerous situations, initiate ambushes and scout territory without being caught. Stealth units are also incredibly powerful when defending against an attacker - by making large, well-supplied armies look as if they contain just a single damaged infantry unit, an attacking nation can be tricked into letting its guard down and spreading out its troops or directly attacking a powerful stack, allowing you to pick off its forces.

Some units, such as Tank Destroyers and Paratroopers, have "partial stealth" - this means that their stealth properties only function when they are on a particular type of terrain (generally forest and/or urban). This makes them more useful in a defensive campaign, where you have more control over where troops are placed, than in an assault.

Stealth units also come with a pre-packaged kryptonite - scout units. Including Motorised Infantry, Interceptors and Destroyers, these units have a unique ability - they can see stealth units of the same or lower level that are within their view range and are of a particular dimension. This makes them perfect for locating and hunting down troublesome stealth units, as well as finding traps before they can be sprung. Scout units are also generally well-designed to engage in combat with the units they can track down: Destroyers and Naval Bombers can tear apart Submarines, and Motorised Infantry is a great counter to Militia. Overall, this makes them extremely valuable both in information warfare and in actual combat, and a player should always aim to have one high-levelled scout units for each of sea and land.

#### Espionage

Espionage is an easy way to obtain information at the cost of some money. Spies can be placed in provinces and set to provide information on diplomatic and economic procedures in the country - this can even apply to nations that you are not at war with. However, there are also a number of limitations and risks: the spy might be caught, especially if counter espionage has been set up, and this could instigate a war. Equally the spy might end up providing no useful information whatsoever and simply be a drain on resources. You should also make sure to use counter espionage to your advantage: any random damage to buildings, morale or units is a hint that malicious spies are stationed in that province. In this way, you can even make use of the "infomation" that is the damage you have sustained!

#### Newspaper

The newspaper is an amazing source of information and it amounts to something of a sin within the game world not to take full advantage of it. You can use it to track who is winning a war unit-wise and province-wise, what casualties your friends, foes and potential targets have sustained, who has an army too large to handle, who you will gain a poor reputation for invading... you get the picture. There are two main valuable sources of information - casualty reports and statistics. Casualty reports can be used to check what sort of units a country has available, and how many they have lost recently. Statistics provide a vast range of information, from the comparative resource production and military power of countries to a popularity list, which can essentially be seen as a list of who not to fight. Although province captures and losses can be tracked simply by looking at the map, C/L reports are also useful for determining the composition of armies of a nation who has not lost many troops, as well as checking which stacks seem to be able to handle the most hits. Essentially, the newspaper can provide an astonishing variety of valuable information about any countries involved in wars and should be exploited to its fullest potential.

#### Relations - Share Map

Another source of military and economic information is the Share Map relation. This automatically allows the receiver to see all of the armies, troop movements, productions and constructions of the giver. Naturally, this is not to be taken lightly, so it is typically given and received in pairs as a form of allying. Members of a coalition all automatically Share Map with one another. The main value of this information is it makes is abundantly clear when an ally is too weak to fight back - this is an excellent opportunity to send troops to protect them or... ahem... declare war on them and steamroll through their country. Just remember that it is a double-edged sword: if an "ally" can also see your map, you are just as much at threat from them. For this reason building geniuine human diplomatic relations is also very important, even between allies.

#### Habit Tracking

This is the point at which information warfare becomes paramount to stalking... just kidding! However, in all seriousness, it can be invaluable to be able to predict how a country is going to act or react, and this can generally only be learned by observing how the country behaves for a period of time. When threatened, do they send troops outwards to their borders or inwards to their core provinces? Do they perhaps try to offer ceasefires and peace treaties (information which can be obtained from the newspaper)? And when on the offensive, do they adopt a blitzkrieg playstyle - capturing provinces as quickly as possible and mowing down resistance - or perhaps a stealthy, targeted attack on key locations such as cities and airfields? Do they focus more on land, sea or air warfare? A lot of this information can be obtained through a combination of watching the newspaper like a hawk and making use of the scouting abilities of aircraft, or just through a Share Map relation. Once you have it available, you can search for patterns, attempt to find weaknesses and learn how to avoid strengths. Habit-tracking is the culmination of information warfare, as it makes use of any gathered information to gain the upper hand in a war. And because doing it right is so important, I shall now present a couple of examples.

##### Example 1: Defending

The scenario is this: you are playing as France on a Europe: Clash of Nations map, choosing to focus mainly on ground units (both offensive and defensive) with Naval Bombers to defend your coastline, and Germany has decided to instigate a war against you on day 7. Since you were allies at the start of the game, and have been observing their behaviour after you disbanded your coalition through aerial scouts and the newspaper, you know that they prefer a fast-paced, destruction-driven blitzkrieg approach to war and typically make use of aerial bombardment to weaken defenses before sending in ground units for the kill. By reading about their recent war with Poland in the newspaper, you can see that they get a majority of kills through the use of Tactical and Attack Bombers, as well as Mechanised Infantry - furthermore, the lack of deaths of these units implies that they are quite high-levelled. As far as you can tell, their navy is negligible. What do you do? See if you can think of a few counters to this before reading ahead.

If you had anticipated Germany's plans (which you might well have, given their aggressive nature and terminiation of alliance) you might have researched units that would effectively counter their greatest threats. High-levelled anti-air could defend against their bombers, as is quick and cheap to produce. Alternatively, by taking the war to the skies with Interceptors or even newly-research Rocket Fighters could be an option. Their lack of naval development could be exploited by using Battleships to bombard coastal provinces, destroying infrastructure and troops - this would force them to divert their attentions. However, assuming that the attack came as a surprise (perhaps you had agreed not to go to war with each other, or you expected them to be too weak to fight due to their recent war) you would be forced to make do with what you had. The optimal strategy at this point is to frustrate and lay traps using stealth units, while preparing an amphibious counter-invasion. The use of stealth units would render Germany's bombers near-worthless, especially if you positioned them away from the centre of provinces, and the repeated reconquest of provinces would force them to hold off on proceeding as quickly as they would like to your inner provinces. The next step would be the counter-invasion: you could take control of a city such as Hamburg across the water with a sufficiently large contingent. This would leave Germany in an awkward position: split their forces to take care of your troops, leaving both fronts vulnerable, or continue with the full-on invasion, allowing you to capture their core provinces. Eventually the loss of resources and production would force them to turn back - the later the better, from your perspective, as they would have further to cover through Militia- and Anti-tank-ridden provinces. This would give you a chance to ready yourself against the next assult.

The important takeaway here is that knowing your opponent's playstyle is vital to successfully winning a war. If they were a more cautious, navally-inclined player, the amphibious invasion would fail practically before it even began. If they made more use of advanced scout units, the guerilla stealth plan would be worthless. But such decisions on their side would create other vulnerabilities - it's a matter of personality and preference. But what do you do when you're the one on the offensive?

##### Example 2: Attacking

As a continuation of the previous example, assume that your counterattack and defensive stealth strategies successfully drew the enemy out of your territory but you lost the counterattacking units in the process: this is to be expected given the suggested strategy. You now want to get revenge and take over Germany - how do you advance into enemy territory whilst risking minimal losses? Again, given the resources available to you (moderate but reduced production rates due to recent enemy occupation, and an army consisting mostly of somewhat advanced infantry and ordnance units), try to come up with an effective strategy based on their behaviour and troops.

Again, too much direct fighting will probably lead to destruction from Germany's bombers, which would stall your momentum and probably lose you the war. When dealing with a blitzkrieg player, victory is mostly a matter of attrition. Therefore you should slowly advance stacks either defended by Anti-air guns, or composed entirely of stealth units (ideally Commandos), into their territory. This ensures that they cannot make full use of their bombers. Another way to undermine their airforce is to place particular emphasis on capturing and destroying provinces with Aircraft Factories or Airstrips constructed in them. Once the aerial threat is dealt with, conquering their territory should be fairly smooth sailing as long as you are vigilant, avoid confrontations you can't win and continuously restock your front lines from your core provinces. Most players who favour an offensive strategy have little experience playing defense, so hopefully they will be a pushover. However, if they are a more seasoned player you may require cunning tactics. One obvious option is to send small targeted groups of Commandos to scout ahead and take out Mechanised Infantry before they can become too much of a threat. Alternatively, they are unlikely to have a significant ground-to-air combat force as an offensive player, so you could spend a couple of hours researching basic bombers. Strategic Bombers can be especially powerful for destroying real-life morale; nothing makes you feel quite so desperate as seeing the buildings you spent hours and thousands of resources constructing obliterated.

### ...

This... no, what is this? There are five dimensions to warfare, it clearly states so on the Wikipedia page. So why is there another subheading? It's impossible unless... ah. Now we encounter what I like to call the great curveball in CoW warfare. It takes place over a period of time from day 16-18 onwards, and completely changes one of the fundamental principles the applies to all combat. As I am sure you've guessed by now, this great change is nuclear weaponry. Until day 18, which is the first day allied nations are likely to have nukes at their disposal, one core tenet of combat is: more units is better. If you can have more units in a stack, then it is solely beneficial, at least for the stack, even if it is less efficient overall. Small quantities of large stacks will mow down many smaller stacks with ease, even those that they are vulnerable to, purely by quantity. This not only reduces time spent in combat, it reduces how many units are destroyed and how much health, and by extension damage output, units lose in combat.

The advent of nuclear weaponry changes this. Units travelling in stacks of 10 are no longer safe, because they will be nuked if they become too much of a threat. This creates a catch-22 situation: if units are spread out, they can't be efficiently nuked but they are easier to destroy through conventional warfare, and vice versa if they are clumped. This is why obtaining nuclear weaponry as early as possible is so important - against an opponent who does not have it available, you force them to either lose vast quantities of units in a single blow, or through gradual attrition.

There is one way - and I mean it when I say **one** way - to counter this double threat. Nuclear bombers are unable to get in even a single strike if the target stack deals more anti-air damage than their total health. Therefore, one way to nuke-proof a stack is to include large number of high level Anti-Air (or SP Anti-Air). Although this can be an effective way to deal with such a threat, the simplest rebuttal is simply to attack with a 2- or 3-Nuclear Bomber stack. Furthermore, the sheer vastness of the health of Nuclear Bombers means that the number of Anti-Air needed to defend the stack may force the size of the stack over 10, reducing the SBDE - it might still be worth it, though, if it allows for large armies to fight safe from Nuclear Bombers.

This works beautifully (read: fine, with some caveats) until another 8-10 days pass, and Nuclear Rockets become available. They are incredibly, painfully expensive to produce, but you know our lone counter? It doesn't work anymore, since rockets cannot be shot down. At this point, pretty much the only solution is just to outproduce the enemy - producing Nuclear Rockets is, as mentioned, a huge drain on resources and they cannot be recalled after launch. Therefore, in order to fight a Nuclear Rocketed-out enemy, you should try to trick them into firing their nukes into stacks that cost less in total to produce than the Rockets. This brings us back to economic warfare, which you can read about in my guide Economic Strategy. In short, if you can get your enemy to use up their supply of Nuclear Rockets destroying less manpower (because that is the limiting factor on unit production late-game in general), their than ~15000 (which is how much they cost to produce), then you should eventually be able to win by attrition. However, if you are fighting a nuclear foe and you have no nukes yourself, you are probably lost because they can destroy all of the infrastructure which allows you to gain resources at the unreasonable rates required for late-game dominance.

## Managing Diplomatic Relations

In war, the greatest generals are not those who are most skilled at obliterating their enemies - they are rather the ones who are most skilled at making friends. This suggests that it is very important to pay attention to diplomacy in Call of War, and that is indeed the case. It's time to investigate the complicated psychology and tactics that go with the existence of other human beings.

Quick note: I often refer to "allies" or "alliances". In this case I mean an agreement between two (or more) players to assist each other, or at the very least remain neutral. If I refer to Allies the doctrine, I shall make it clear. Likewise if I refer to the round-external Alliance system, which I don't believe many people make much use of anyway.

### Relations and how to use them

#### Share Map/Share Information

This can provide valuable information as to the troop demographics, positions and movements of a nation. Makes it near-impossible for them to surprise attack you, and can be used to scout for weaknesses so that you can surprise attack them. Because of its incredibly useful nature, this relation is often used as a trade to secure alliances. It offers both members of the alliance a measure of protection against each other, but vigilance is absolutely vital - stabbing someone in the back is much easier when you can see if they are turned around.

#### Right of Way

A less powerful but still useful relation, this can potentially allow you to flank opponents who border your ally in a rather dangerous way. Overall the greater mobility makes many aspects of war much easier, and this is generally used to show somebody that you like them, but don't quite trust them with Share Map. It might also be used to forge an alliance if you feel uncomfortable about any other players being able to see your troops - i.e. if you have a secret weapon of some sort.

#### Peace

No special features either beneficial or detrimental for the recipient. This is the default relation between any two nations, and basically represents the people who you don't particularly like or dislike.

#### Ceasefire

This is a nice stepping stone on the road to peace from war. You should never offer a ceasefire if you think you can't win a war - all this will do is make your opponent aware that you are desperate. It is more useful if, after a few days of fighting, neither side is making much progress and both are incurring heavy casualties - at this point both nations may have other threats to worry about, but still don't entirely trust each other. Ceasefire is a nice inbetween.

#### Trade Embargo

One of the weirdest relations in the game. It literally has basically no consequence - how many deals have you ever created on the stock market anyway? Embargoing a nation is tantamount to a declaration of hostility, and is only likely to encourage violence. It can be useful in this way in provoking a potential enemy if you don't want your popularity to take as much of a hit, but equally they might just ignore it.

#### War

This is what most strategy and tactics guides explain!

### Coalitions

One of the most difficult things in the entire game is ensuring that your "allies" don't stab you in the back - their knowledge of your troop makeup and positions (given you have the Share Map relation) provides a powerful incentive to betray. Coalitions alleviate this issue to an extent through a variety of methods. Firstly, members of a coalition can only have the Share Map or Share Intelligence (but High Command has no right to exist, so let's ignore it) relation with each other; therefore, in order to instigate fighting against one of your coalition members you have to leave first, giving a certain amount of warning. Furthermore, there is a two day timer after leaving a coalition before you can join another coalition (or rejoin the same one) - this deincentivises leaving.

The safest possible position regarding coalitions is to be the leader of a three-player coaltion. Even if one of the two other member chooses to leave, they will have to fight a 2v1 and so will probably lose as long as you and your other ally are fairly skilled and developed. In addition, you can force-kick a weak member out, retaining the knowledge of their troop positions and movements (screenshots are surprisingly useful here) and staying in the coalition yourself - you can then annex their lands. In theory, you could also actually gain more resources by threatening them with such a possibility, assuming you would have complete military dominance over them, and forcing them to trade you resources for free. However, most people would try to find a way out of the situation, either by sneak-attacking your core provinces or finding a new ally to help them - or worse still, persuading the other member of your coalition to leave and declare war. As a rule, don't create enemies you don't intend to destroy.

### Types of Allies

In any alliance, the players in it are likely to fall into one of three categories (or a mixture) - I affectionately term them the loner, the beggar and the friend. The loner basically ignores the alliance, never sending messages, asking for or offering resources or moving troops through your territory. This might indicate that they are planning to launch an attack on you, but more likely it means that they don't want to engage in conversation, which is fine. More problematic is when they ignore conflicts that you are involved in without explaining themselves. Your allies do not necessarily have a responsibility to get involved in every war that you take part in, but they should at least state why they can't or don't want to. If this happens, they are probably either going to betray you, or just ignore the alliance.

In contrast, the beggar is constantly asking for resources, possibly trying to befriend you in order to get what they want. It is not unusual for a beggar to threaten to leave an alliance and declare war if you do not provide them with the materials or even provinces they want. Any alliance with a full-on beggar is likely to turn pretty sour and toxic rather quickly, as they are nothing but a parasite trying to use you to their advantage. However, many potential allies with have a certain amount of begging in their nature, and that is fine, as long as they try to make fair trades and also provide you with the resources you need.

The friend might be considered the ideal ally. They typically get involved in diplomacy because they genuinely like people and want to make a few friends, however temporary. Their behaviour is generous, helpful and they are generally enjoyable to talk to. However, picking out friends from "false friends", or people who try to gain your trust just in order to backstab you, is difficult to say the least. Friends also might be liabilities, as they may have less self-interest and as a result make dangerous alliances or be exploited by more cunning individuals.

## Conclusion

So what have we learned? Here is a handy TL;DR of the points made in the article:

* You should have an overall plan in terms of how you are going to organise your nation on day 1, involving a mixture of the principle strategies of Rush, Defense and Economy. This can be updated as the game continues, but you should try to avoid indecision and mediocrity.
* Consider every dimension of warfare when you engage in war with a nation. An attack from the skies will be faster but won't impact territory. A naval bombardment is hard to counter with land units but can be ripped apart with enough Naval Bombers, Battleships and Destroyers. A basic land assault might be vulnerable to aircraft and Battleships.
* Consider the information available to both you and your enemy, and try to use it to gain the upper hand. Use deceptive tactics to distract them, station spies in their provinces or scout their defense with stealth units. Make frequent use of the newspaper as a way to check for strenghts and weaknesses.
* Be ready for the time when nuclear warfare comes online. Be prepared to change up basic combat gameplay in order to avoid vulnerabilities, and ensure that you obtain a nuclear arsenal as soon as is feasible given your conventional warfare requirements.
* Create or join alliances, and put effort into forming geniuine human bonds with your allies. This will make them less likely to betray you, and will make betraying them easier if you ever choose to do so.

It's surprisingly short, isn't it? Of course a lot is simplified, but CoW is in all honesty a much less complex game than it is often made out to be. Don't be intimidated by the length of this guide - a reasonable amount of it is pretty obvious anyway, and a little more is repetitive or redundant. Also - play some games! Guides can only get you so far; experience will be a much more significant benefit. With that said, farewell. It has been an honour.

-Article by Qweifomapsvoiams