Could this actually work in the framework of planetside?

[foam]

I've been researching a lot of Sun Tzu (author of "The Art of War") lately and one of the tenets I got from it is to always exploit your enemy's weakness or confusion.

I was then reading the thread "the rich get richer" asking how SOE is going to combat one team owning most of the territories.

I was then thinking if you were one of the factions with say only 1 or 2 territories left on the whole continent, what would you do?

In planetsides framework, would this work?
You and your faction get organized into appropriate groups and teams and agree to launch a massive campaign to retake the continent. The plan would go as following:

A substantial force divided into two groups would attack head on to the strongest two bases on the front lines. They will keep the pressure up and fool the overconfident enemy faction into all flying/driving/spawning near there to take part in the battle. This will undoubtedly drive most of the enemy away from the outer bases.

After you give it about an hour phase 2 of the plan executes. Infiltrator teams that were already in place around all outlying bases move in while cloaked and capture bases all the way up the continent big or small. Before the enemy forces (now concentrated in a small area) can react you will have captured a lot of bases. While that's happening you could even send in a team of galaxies filled with combat squads and light air cover to fly into enemy territory and capture bases that are inland.

The entire thing would basically play out like the Tet Offensive in the vietnam war.

One of the other thing Sun Tzu teaches it never squander momentum in a battle, so if you maintained your factions momentum it could have devastating impacts on a generally unorganized and overconfident enemy.


Could this strategy work in PS?

[Vancha]

Well we know enemy hexes that aren't beside yours will take longer to capture, and you'd need a hell of a lot of organization...but it might work, sort of.

[Duddy]

Indeed, there is nothing to say that it couldn't work.

Whether it would work, however, would depends on a variety of things including if it is a 2v1 against the holder of the territories and the empire population balance.

By which I mean to say, in a single empire vs empire situation it probably wouldn;t work, likewise if they have a significant advantage in populations in either scenario then it is also unlikely.

[Boomzor]

Also, when it comes to Planetside, remember Murphy and his law.

[Thoreaux]

Depends what percentage of your team will go along with this plan vs. the percentage of the enemy team that will respond rapidly to it. The enemy may over-commit to re-securing 1 or 2 bases with ease, but allow you to pull off 5-6 captures almost unopposed. Also, the lower the population the more likely you are to pull this off, I think.

In PS1, currently, even with low pops this doesn't really work because everybody has air-cav/hacking etc and can rapid respond. In PS2, however, with the hex system allowing hacks anywhere, and particularly if a losing empire is given a backhack-bonus to encourage this behavior, I think it would work well.

If you can't win a front-line battle, force the enemy to play whack-a-mole. They'll miss a few moles, and you'll expand your territory. It's the rational move in a tough situation.

[ringring]

Anotyher thing to consider is that everyone in ps1/ps2 is a human and has human failings. Many people will automatically attack the nearest and most convenient target.

Those infiltration group target you mentioned are the types of thing you would need the organised outfits to do. Another reason for joining an outfit

Even in ps1, although the capture mechanic is different you are often faced with a similar situation and the winning tactic is similar to the one you proposed, of course with differences.

[ThirdCross]

I could see this working and as Thoreaux said if you have enough backhacks there is a good chance some will go through.

To expand on the idea though, I would set up the backhacks in pairs of two but spread out across their territory. In this case if any pair of two go through you have significantly reduced hacking times on any territories adjacent to both of them.

[basti]

Yes, the basic idea of "The art of War" applys in Planetside. It comes down to finding the best way of attack, and exploit the hell out of it.