The "Puncher" and The "Boxer": Power is Not the Only Approach

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    • “If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

      Sun Tzu, The Art of War



      “Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.”

      Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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    • Hancock wrote:

      I really like the analogy in this article. It was fun to read :)

      An addition. It depends on the online times, what is best. If you have really little time to play the game, be a puncher. You must kill your opponent in the first round immediately.
      On the other hand if you have more time and you can go all rounds, then be a boxer. It is not advisable to play with airforce e or artillery if you are hardly on. Every puncher could kill you, by rushing you in your off time, every boxer anyway ^^
      I woudl like to disagree. Artillery is the offline players friend. If used on defensive positions with a certain Defense bonus. Otherwise a boxer will just move his artillery close to your base and bomb your melee troops while you are offline...
      @Dorado If you Close the Forum and move everything to Discord you will lose my Feedback for sure.
    • kurtvonstein wrote:

      Hancock wrote:

      I really like the analogy in this article. It was fun to read :)

      An addition. It depends on the online times, what is best. If you have really little time to play the game, be a puncher. You must kill your opponent in the first round immediately.
      On the other hand if you have more time and you can go all rounds, then be a boxer. It is not advisable to play with airforce e or artillery if you are hardly on. Every puncher could kill you, by rushing you in your off time, every boxer anyway ^^
      I woudl like to disagree. Artillery is the offline players friend. If used on defensive positions with a certain Defense bonus.
      I played with artillery on a 4x speed and the opponent was a puncher. He had a lot of Max Level Mech Inf and Max Level AFV. It was a lot of work, so much HP. So it takes a lot of artillery to stop puncher stacks with a lot of HP during offline times before it reaches you. At least that's my assessment :D

      At least you need mountains or a stack in front of artilleryy for a worst case szenario^^

      kurtvonstein wrote:

      Otherwise a boxer will just move his artillery close to your base and bomb your melee troops while you are offline...
      True, but then it isnt a good puncher.
      A puncher stack has to rush. If he just stands around, he's a found victim for artillery, of course.With Artillery, on the other hand, you cannot really play aggressively when you are hardly online - it is hard to imagine playing successfully without a Security Council.

      With melee units you can just run into your opponent when you are hardly online. For sure that it is not successful every time (boxer will stop you anyway), but if you are not online it is a good option.

      The post was edited 3 times, last by Hancock ().

    • sometimes just let them go by then keep attacking from back and retake territory. fight them were they aint. First thought is to stand ground but if you know defeat is inevitable conceed ground attack from side or rear and fight another day imo. I had one dude send a huge stacking winding through my territory for like 1 plus days and just swept up behind him and following with art ... to pick at him hourly. kept trying to see what city he would actually be heading to and then move some forces and build bunkers and wait.

      Kind of like fighting a Bull.. the matador doesnt try to stop or kill the bull on first charge.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • Buckeyechamp wrote:

      sometimes just let them go by then keep attacking from back and retake territory. fight them were they aint. First thought is to stand ground but if you know defeat is inevitable conceed ground attack from side or rear and fight another day imo. I had one dude send a huge stacking winding through my territory for like 1 plus days and just swept up behind him and following with art ... to pick at him hourly. kept trying to see what city he would actually be heading to and then move some forces and build bunkers and wait.

      Kind of like fighting a Bull.. the matador doesnt try to stop or kill the bull on first charge.
      This is exactly what I'm talking about when I suggest that some people try to mixing in a little "boxing" instead of always just trying to "out-punch".
    • There is definitely a synergy to be found in optimizing both power and prowess in combat. I like to box well with a good punch if possible; I try to only send max stacks at enemy stacks, then apply the various principles of war to achieve success. In this way, good technique is combined with an incredibly strong punch. Prowess gets to the decisive point, power decides the point. For instance, in my Battle of Paris, I sent a max stack (very strong punch) in at the enemy in the city, while also concentrating my airpower there and preparing my elite air assault divisions to attack (very good strategy) because I knew Paris, being the capital, was the decisive point. It's a very complex issue that I'm composing a response to in the other thread, but it essentially is reducible to two of the "subskills" of overall skill.
    • In n act of irony of us boxers feeling all high and mighty... I was boxing Iraq .. picking off navy.. then air supp .. then choppers .. then a medium big stack he left just stuck in prov. Now the damn Puncher pulling a hail Mary .. with one last stack (like 300hp 4 td; 1 AA; 3 rcv and 8 inf). not sure how to stop him now without wrecking my troops as India is real threat in game.. he abandoned homeland and could just f$%ck up all of Mideast .. oh well hope he stops somewhere. just going to follow .. Whole Saudi peninsula may be a rouge nation soon...lol. My strike fighters are already dinged up taking up the normal big stack like 160 hp.. just have to let this play out as stack has a 70 hp hit ratio.. im not standing in front of that punch. .. guess desert warfare is my weakness.

      I was caught off guard as he barely had moved out of homeland on day 18.. damn im 2/3rd way to victory. he could have taken all mid east with what he had.

      Well have Missiles in works but about 1.5 days away from cruise as half way through ballistics research.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp

      The post was edited 1 time, last by The Pale Rider ().

    • just hitting with strike fighters .. found a glitch in new radar. which I dont like btw... but now with limited radar but patrol is about same as rada circle. so instead of attack.. patrol on edge of radius. so plane is still like 5 away but soon as hits patrol mode auto attacks.. so you attack before AA fires. and actual you cut sevela minutes to and from target. 4 waves of 3 strike/1 air supp and knock almost 4 of 18 units out... going on 2nd pass. once get the AA out and some INF will be smooth sailing as TD no air defense.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • but now the wider attack to radar ratio makes it more pronounced. like attack off patrol like 90 pct of radar range; which basically have no radar now ;( used to like to fly over troops and not engage... heck used to be able to see stuff just ferrying over countries. Just takes some getting used to and adjustments to style. Now almost impossible to scout with srtike as they will engage almost anything they pick up. I guesse this increase value of uav and awacs which never really use as had gotten by with my strike/air supp and coastal navy radar"scouting" to at least give me ballpark of opponent
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • And if anyone is curious you can take out a 300 hp stack (4 TD; 1 AA; 8 Inf; 3 RCV) with 12 lvl 4 strike fighters/ 3 lvl1 air supp (just used to absorb damage as if you have 1 air supp/ 4 strike and get 10 hp damage like half goes to the low value air supp and other half divided by the 4 planes I care about). Damn If I had cruise missiles (still 2 days out) this would have been a lot easier.

      Took patience and 16 hrs (took break/slept and healed at my 3 hp heal Airbase)in end only lost 1 strike fighter (not paying attention to HP on a bigger stack) and took out 16 enemy units.. that's why i love Strike fighters and air warfare in general as you can control what you do and do not lose and not locked down in a 300 hp v 300 hp battle. Now this punchers mistake is he had no plan .. first he was heading one way across desert for hrs towards Suez canal and thought would wreck the 6 - 7 cities I was trying to hold as still smoking; I have my airbase with hosp 2 setup north of Cairo so hit him hard on first wave with 3 stacks of 1 air supp/4 Strike.

      This caused him to turn around back across desert then he deciding to make long run to Oil refinery.. actually didn't think id get him via air so anticipated and moved whatever spare inf could rally without losing cities tonight. had AFV around but being him TD heavy would wreck my armor and wouldn't hurt Inf as bad. Then as went on had to drop to 1 Air supp/3 strike stacks(if 4 strike if go below 75 pct lose 1.. 3 gives you down to 66 pct) and to valuable to lose (one I lost as miscalculated). This am thinking getting through split off beat up air supp to hospital and had to drop down to 5 stacks of 2 Airstrike (now can go to 50 pct and not lose) but was making good progress once got AA out of way and RCVs .. his inf was doing little air damage and TDs none.

      Finally finished stack off like 1 prov away from secondary airfield/refinery. so lost zero ground troops or cities. If he would have split that stack into 3 and went in 3 different directions he could have forced maybe 2 dozen cities back to have to recapture or let go to caliphed. And him not ever being entrenched or in a city resulted in him taking more damage and less damage to me as he basically go zero bonuses in desert with his stck. (Know your terrain and bonus both you and opponent get/lose on offense/defensive)

      Now my planes are limping back for some R&R at the hospital but 15 planes stacked heal fairly quick with 3hp x 15 = 45 hp in 1 day.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp

      The post was edited 1 time, last by The Pale Rider ().

    • Kalrakh wrote:

      The biggest mistake of this puncher was to have no decent amount of anti air or air superiority, and also that he overstacked, which weakened his AA-defence.
      He had 3 or 4 Air supp early but left them grounded so before this stack battle went down I Strike Fighter bombed his airbase (actually thought he only had choppers) but he eded up having 4 air supp parked in bagdad his choppers were out somewhere else (but once his air supp gone took them out with my fighters). Lesson: never leave planes on ground if away for extended time unless extremely confident you have no one that can reasonably reach you. If he would have had those it would have changed the whole battle.

      And surprisingly that huge stack still had like a 86 pct efficiency. Ive noticed if you mix in 4 or 5 types of units the game lets you get away with more. Put in Air no matter the mix on air or navy above 5 you get dinged. I never overstack unless forced to defending a big stack then even then need to do math to see if benefits out weigh penalties.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • Kalrakh wrote:

      It depends a lot on the types of unit you use, how much overstacking you will receive, that is true.

      Though I would add: Never leave them on the ground and never leave them anywhere on patrol, where AA could get them. Took down 3-4 stack of golden strikers with just four SAMs.
      yeb also if u could sneak an air unit to the patrol range boom they go back to refuel on land. Used it once in conjunction with missile hitting the city. Sadly didn't have chemicals researched else would have been super effective