Vel's SMP

Vel's SMP was a small Minecraft geopolitical server, existing almost exclusively during the early-to-mid Imperial phase of the Zhene, featuring two major factions - being the Zhene and the Tsventai - and several other smaller factions both guerrilla and state-like in form, including a wide variety of political incidents both hostile and peaceful in nature such as border skirmishes, raids, invasions, several cease-fires and one major post-war peace negotiation. It occupied a historical timeframe after the end of the colloquially-named 'Train Man Server' or 'Paypal Server' and before the start of the first Zhenistan iteration, 'Iteration 0.0'. The server is also generally considered to be the true start of major Zhenish history, as it was there the faction for the first time grew rapidly in size, organization, and ability.

## Strategies

For the few instances of major conflict that occurred the various factions, though mostly two the most major states, formed various strategies - ranging from material, intra-political, conflict-wise to diplomatic - to gain supremacy over their rivals in a constant tug of war that played out over significant periods, even sometimes during timespans that saw no actual combat. The actual effectiveness or genuine usage of many of these strategies are debatable, with some known to be clearly advantageous but most generally playing little role and having been products of misguided predictions. In no particular order:

### Military tactical strategies

So far, the only known documents and manuals on military affairs, doctrine and tactics all come out of the Zhene. The current list of rediscovered documents is as follows:

* 'Standard Company Layout', a document written by ArkySaw, detailing the composition and tactics of a theoretical Army company unit supposed to contain fifteen personnel, of which three were labelled 'engineers';
* 'Officer Doctrine', an uncompleted document by an unknown author, seemingly planned to be a manual for officer tactics;
* 'Anti-Tsventai Doctrine', a document written apparently by Tsarobomba, created in the aftermath of the Tsventai War and the battle of Gratland in prediction of a future conflict with the Tsventai, detailing combined usage of defensive sniper teams and a considerably larger, stealth assault force in conjunction to cause chaos in Tsventai forces, rout their defenders, and cripple their military, economic and political power.

There also exists some notion of a fourth document that detailed infantry tactics, written by some currently unknown commander or high ranker, but this has yet to be discovered.

### Vehicular strategies

As far as evidence indicates, it were only the Spaniards and to a lesser extent the Zhenish that attempted to construct aerial redstone flying vehicles. Several designs were put forth as suggestions in the alliance between these two factions, only some being seriously considered and most being ditched or scrapped. Of those that were seriously considered, all were 6-dimensional movers, and we only know of a concept infantry transport craft and some attempt at an air supremacy fighter. It is likely that none of these concepts were ever actually built in the server, and even if they were it is known for certain that they did not come into play in warfare or were even deployed and manned.

### Material military defense strategies

Fortifications were prevalent on the server, and effectively dominated the central landscape, especially in the conflict-prone zone between the Zhene and the Tsventai, both states being having concerted the most effort out of any other faction on the server towards the construction of military defense. The most common types of fortification, used by both the Zhene and the Tsventai, were star fortresses, bunkers, and trenches. There exists two recorded instances of usage of underground or semi-underground structures as fortification. One was not man-made, but rather a ravine that an unknown non-Gabian insurgent group was operating out of somewhere north or north-east of Gratland, the other being a part of Gratland's Citadel, that had been built into the mountain immediately north-west of the city. Despite no other known cases of underground spaces being used as garrison points existing, it is likely the Tsventai would have at some point built underground bunkers. No recorded instance of the usage of Attrition trenches at any time in Vel's SMP has been discovered so far, but this does not necessarily mean they were not used.

### Material economic strategies

Out of all of the factions on the server, the Zhene by far was the most economically complex, as a result of highly spread and high population, and sophisticated political machinery. Though this gave some advantages, it also presented some issues, namely financial cost to upkeep the bureaucracy and an occasionally volatile economy. As a result, the Zhene had to establish various plans to combat these obstacles, and several high ranking Zhenish officials set up debates and argued for specific policies to be implemented.

In addition, one economic document has been found dating to this era. Named simply 'Italiazhene Factories', it details the construction of a military factory in the mountains west of Gratland that would have been built for the purpose of taking raw materials and producing infantry weapons, body armour, ammunition, infantry tools, banners, and strangely enough also food. This planned military factory was seemingly meant to supply the majority of the equipment to the Army, including outposts - outdoing traditional sources which usually came from trade deals or private craftsmen -, and was apparently deemed strategically important enough by the document's author as to require the placement of a new Army base in overwatch of the industrial plant. It also brought up a plan for the construction of a civilian factory, though did not describe this factory as thoroughly and simply mentioned that raw materials would have been constructed into products intended for civilian use at the site, leaving the site's location up to reader interpretation. The document's author is unknown.