Official Guide: Strategies, The How To

Official Guide: Strategies, The How To - Medium[]

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The Destroyer of Worlds

How to create Strategies[]

Hello there, for this guide what I’ll cover is a different take than usual. Instead of actually providing direct in-game information, I’ll be using Sun Tzu’s The Art of War concepts and how to apply them to create strategies in State of Survival. We will be covering the basic ideas and how they apply to State of Survival, followed by a few examples of how that can be done.

Section 1 Overview - Position:[]

The first concept we’ll be talking about is planning. This is related to the components of the competitive environments of the world around you, the framework to compare strengths and weaknesses to determine your strategic position, how to adapt to the larger environment surrounding you and which ones are dynamic and likely to change and which ones are secure.

The second concept is the most important topic of this section; information gathering. How to manage it and how in essence, all wars are at their core, information wars.

The third in this section is the resource management of conflicts and war, and why it is important to choose your battles wisely as well as “winning without conflict”. War is expensive, in life and in State of Survival resource management is key to victory and a healthy pathway to the future.

Planning[]

Planning is key in individual and team activities in State of Survival. Simple examples of that are how players save items for events to get a really high ranking, leave the last intel of the day active before plasma leakage, etc, but how do you plan efficiently?

It is important to have an objective perception and estimation of the world around you, this is usually achieved by a fundamental understanding of the key mechanics of the game, your play style and capabilities as well as your competition. It is not uncommon that perceptions are different from reality, and the most important aspect of planning is to distance yourself from those differences.

In group events like Capital Clash, State Warfare, Reservoir Raid and even Alliance Showdown, players that have inflated battle power, but lower stats can create an illusion of power. Which unless it is understood, cannot be planned around, or purposely lowering your score in Reservoir Raid can give you a lower perception of your actual power.

To plan in any strategy, the first step is to understand not only how the game works and what your current position is, to make yourself look weaker while others want to make themselves look stronger.

Information Gathering[]

This is why information gathering is essential in positioning yourself. Having spies in other states, other alliances and in some cases double agents can make or break a strategy. To know where the enemy is weak, especially in group events, and target those points is a way to demoralize and reduce the cost of a big win on what could be a challenging foe.

Spies can be used to sow false information on which your enemy plans can be based on, gather information like stats, internal conflicts in alliances and states, plans and strategies used, so you can counter them ahead of time and multiple other utilities.

While Stats play a big role in events like Capital Clash and SvS, knowing your enemy doesn’t know how to start a ghost rally or use wall destroyer properly can be leveraged in your strategy even if your stats are lower. At its core, those events are push and pull events and getting the enemy off guard with the proper and advanced usage of those strategies can make the difference.

On the other hand, assuming that the enemy is knowledgeable of those concepts, and they tend to use it frequently, strategies can be planned around that expecting it, like having a staggered ghost rally. If the state tends to be more casual, stealing spots with wall breakers or letting a rally lead steal yours so some of their members rallies cannot be filled on time or have to use speed-ups for the 8 hours of the event.

To summarize, using spies to gather good information and provide bad information and use that to plan appropriately gives you and your allies a much stronger position, with higher chances of winning.

Cost of War[]

There is however, a final concept to be covered in positioning, the cost of war. While some events with conflict are inevitable, most states tend to have minor conflicts among alliances. All direct conflicts and wars weaken your position, they cost troops, resources and political capital.

The best strategists win a war without having to send a single attack, as wars are essentially information and perception wars, as stated above. Shifting the perception can be key to win a conflict or even unify a state.

If the strongest alliance of the state tends to exert pressure over others with fear, removing that fear or perception of powerlessness with teamwork will work better than trying to fight them head on. Just like there is power in stats, there is also power in numbers when the difference in both cases is significant.

This means that to keep exerting pressure, it would require a huge amount of resources that would be spread around others, as well as constant pressure and friction that would include not a pleasant experience playing, which would discourage the alliance from behaviour.

Most players play the game to have fun, while fun is subjective, that is also something that can be leveraged in a strategy, make others have fun while following your strategy and your enemies not have fun while fighting you and your enemies will be more likely to lay down their arms, move on or in some cases join you.

Defensively, things like swapping players on tiles for tile hits among other situations that frustrate the players in conflict are good ways to discourage players, remember the less fun and harder it is to fight you, the less likely the enemy is willing to engage in conflict. Defending towers can also create a tactical advantage in losses, while being good ways to hide troops undetected.

To summarize, this topic the key is to limit your costs, be it resources, political capital or stress, while increasing your opponents. Winning with conflict may satisfy the ego, but will only make you weaker.

Section 2 Overview - Expansion:[]

Expansion here means to move your position from a defensive one to an offensive one. The first concept here is changing the current dynamic of the situation you’re in, although this doesn’t mean a battle or conflict, while being reactive is less expensive in the short term, playing only in that way undermines current positions and makes it easier to fail.

The second is after identifying how you use competitive positions, shifting from a defensive or reactive position to an offensive one is based on your position. Understanding those key points to move, how to create an opening in a complex environment is harder than already capitalizing in changes of the momentum without your influence.

The third is how imagination and human factors apply to strategy, while imagination and creativity are infinite this need to be tied to reality with proven methods, game mechanics and existing knowledge to be effective. If knowledge is only taken from one source and adapted and played in a single way it becomes stale and rigid. Understanding how to combine such knowledge with creativity is a way to create force, or momentum.

The fourth is to understand the flow of competitive environments. Everything tends to balance, voids are filled and excesses are emptied. The balance shifts constantly, as well as human desire, a state in constant conflict will desire peace, a completely peaceful state will become too docile and bored, in both cases it will lead to a weaker position. This means that it is possible to wait for this shift and tap the flow between them to direct the change in your favour.

The final one for this section is conflict. Ego and misguided perceptions may tempt you to create conflict, it is best avoided. Although in some cases that is not possible and for those, it is important how the balance can be shifted to your favour.

Stance Changes[]

For the first point we can use reservoir raid as a good example. When in a position where you cannot take buildings will put you in a defensive position, but a series of strikes to joiners can change the balance and being able to slowly throughout the hour shift the position from only defending buildings and gathering, to take those buildings back and turn the tables in a match. If we were only to stay defending, the defeat in this case is most likely assured.

Competitive Positions[]

While fighting in a complex event like capital clash or SvS, the second point becomes clear, as those events are push and pull.

Understanding when a mistake was made and moving to make more time on top of that mistake is a great example of a second point.

When playing in those events it’s best not to focus on winning, but to go with the flow and not make mistakes while capitalizing on your opponent's mistakes, so winning becomes a consequence.

Human Factors[]

To think outside the box sometimes is required to think on how events and timings work with each other. If you have a stronger alliance with less members fighting an alliance weaker but close enough with power with more members, a good way to create an advantage is to not consider just the capital clash, using a bunker on the day before with the members not available to fight on the CC day is a way to weaken your opponent or hitting their morale for not fighting for it the following day. Thinking of not only one single event but how all of them interact, creates momentum in your favour.

Flow[]

All alliances and all states have moments of prosperity and moments of crisis, it is important to understand this ebb and flow while strategizing and adapt accordingly. If a state is divided it is important to act in ways in an SvS to not push the state to fight as one. This also applies to an alliance in SvS, while these ebb and flow shifts are natural, we can cause them to accelerate especially with our actions in events, this needs to be taken in consideration. Hitting a Rally Lead in a tower that could be a force to help push capital even if he can be kicked out, can be a mistake as an example.

Finally, attrition in most cases is inevitable, but if an enemy is in a destructive path, avoiding conflict, so others have to handle it and see for themselves the cause of the conflict is a great way to gather allies. If a group of players or an alliance regardless of the reason are the constant source of issues with multiple players, others will detach from them and with time they will be alone and isolated, this means that conflict can be avoided, and a war can be won without a single attack.

To summarize this topic, it is important to be knowledgeable and flexible, adapt your strategies to each momentum and play around factors outside your control instead of only reacting to them or trying to force situations to be under your control.

Section 3 Overview - Situations:[]

This section starts with how to find parallel scenarios. Every situation is unique, but it can be broken down to a combination of familiar elements. The first topic is how you can evaluate intentions and use that as a way to shift your strategy. The second of interest in this case is to evaluate areas of resistance, have an idea of what responses can be used to those and be able to plan how to defend, advance future positions or pivot the strategy.

The third one is how to use indirect and environmental attacks and responses to weaken a position, as well as some appropriate responses to those. Finally, we cover the last topic of the guide with common situations or stages of a competitive campaign divided in early, middle and late-stage conditions with different responses to each.

Familiarity[]

State of Survival is an evolving game, as such every challenge you’ll face will be different than previous ones as well as ones that happened in other states. That being said experience from other events, be it yours or other players, can give you a framework to work with. The key here however is parallel, it is not uncommon that players assume their situation is the same as previous ones and lose perspective on the differences to adapt with them.

A single factor can change the entire outcome of an event. For example, a hero like Joker can change the flow of a battle, changes in the battle engine can affect your performance, changes in state leadership can make play styles in SvS change drastically. So make sure to understand the similarities and differences to draw from experience without being blinded by it.

Areas of resistance[]

No strategy or challenge is impossible to overcome, while the odds may be stacked against you, there are multiple points of strength and weakness in every scenario. It is important here to understand those and mitigate the damages on the positions your enemy is stronger in and try to exploit where they are weak.

In a Reservoir Raid if your enemies are stronger than you but in a lower number, using the safe zone and spreading out is a good example, the enemy is a compact wall if they spread thin they can put themselves at risk and with larger numbers gathering and fighting for multiple buildings is better than focusing only in a few key buildings. Always keep in mind where you and the enemy stand, so you can use your current resources in the best way possible.

Environmental Attacks[]

Finally, as the Art of War ends with the most devastating strategies, which we will cover to end this guide of how some of those apply here. State of Survival is a social game, where most players are in for the long run, the most important resource of the game is active players, so the most devastating strategy for that position is to cause friction in a state who has a weakened position on that.

Examples[]

In a SvS, pressuring players that are not in the capital can pull some of the rally leads or alliance leads back to protect them. Pressuring enemy alliances in kill events or having smaller conflicts can discourage leadership from keeping their leader positions. Strategies that focus on the players within your range, to hit unreachable opponents work more often than not.

There is however the risk that this may generate a response in kind, so before using strategies that may create friction and discourage players on keeping their current position, be aware that may also be done to you in response and take measures to prevent those from happening.

In most cases, the best response for attacks like that vary, in a SvS keeping your rally leads in place and moving powerful joiners could be an option, cutting off supplies by targeting events like bunkers or hoarding to respond to events that alliances targeting you is also an option and so on, the idea for cases like this is to slowly weaken your opponent's position, so they cannot keep it up.

Official Guide: Strategies, The How To - Medium (2024)