Faction tactics and strategies and preferred loadouts

[Arturo Sanchez]

FYI tactics and strategies are different things.

A tactic is a mission to destroy a supply base using an armoured assault on a force ill prepared for it.

A strategy is destroy a supply base that is instrumental on maintaining the enemy front lines.


So if you were a factions commanders what tactics would you employ to rule the world and what kinds of counter measures do you think you would encounter?

inb4 merchantile likes flamers and mines. (mainly from that alliance video)

[HamsterIV]

Since the Angelean Republic is looking to capture prisoners and cargo I see their ships bringing blender/disable weapons. That way they can cripple a ship and force it to the ground rather than kill it in the high atmosphere. Prisoners are more valuable if they only had to survive a 5 foot fall instead of a 100 foot fall.

I see Ambush being one of the Angelean's favorite tactics. The major Angelean cities are underground so their pilots would be comfortable maneuvering in tight spaces. Standard tactics would involve lying in ambush in behind or under some piece of terrain along a major trading route. When a prospective target gets close enough the Angeleans would pounce with judicious use of helium and try to catch the target by surprise. Escorts would be destroyed or crippled in the initial attack. Followed by a more surgical take down of any airship containing valuable cargo or prisoners. One ship in a raiding fleet would be equipped with mines and tar to hinder pursuit should an ambush turn bad or a patrol show up an inopportune time.

Strategically the Republic's priority is to maintain its sovereignty against its more expansionist neighbors the Empire and the Barrony. It is in Republic's best interest to keep these factions in a constant state of war. It is conceivable that the Angeleans have a stockpile of captured ships from both sides that they use to run false flag attacks.

If invaded the Republic would use a Scorched Earth tactic similar to WW2 Russia. It is impossible for an invading army to live off the land in Angelea so keeping supplies from falling into enemy hands should be top priority. Any supplies the invaders try an import can be intercepted by raiders. This would force any invading army to split its force into many small garrisons to protect its supply lines. Once the invaders are over extended, Republic forces could be concentrate to wipe out these small garrisons.

Angelea's slave population could be abandoned without food in front of an invading army. The high minded Yeshans and Barony troops would feel obligated to feed the slaves especially since many of them would have been taken from their own populations. This would further exasperate the invader's supply situation.

[C r o w]

Since the Arashi Empire invented both the galleon and the pyra, and maybe even the goldfish, it can be deduced that they don't aim at ambushing the enemies, but engaging them with superior firepower, in fact, a combined fleet of multiple pyras and galleons could sustain a lot of raw damage while also dishing out as mush, if not even more.
The ships are perfectly in line with the Yeshan expansionistic thinking: big, bulky and imposing ship, that after eliminating enemy defenders, they themselves become an advanced armored (flying) outpost; as in fact they have this role as mobile fortresses also within the Yeshan border itself, acting as sentries.
Being the Empire situated in a very rocky and mountainous land, these ships surely are intended to fly at very high altitude during patrols and in case of attack, descend to the mountain passes to literally body block anyone that would be an enemy (the galleon in particular looks vary apt for this role.
The Yeshan favorite kind of battle tactics would be long and open engagements, where the sturdiness of their ship would be extremelyuseful and the little manouverability of the single vessel would be balanced by the combined firepower of the allies.
The favorite strategy would be to drown the enemy in the sheer amount of ships the are deployable, because, if you can have patrols all around the Empires border, having some more to deploy somewhere else wouldn't be a problem.

While this strategy and tactic would be effective against someone that have a similar approach to battle, against its neighboring countries, Yesha and Anglea, that rely on guerrilla tactics to defend their lands, it's not very effective as also the space available for battle either is too small for a large fleet engagement or is with such climate conditions that the fleet is forced to split in smaller groups.

To cut it short: the Empire attacks the same way it defends itself, with big fleets of big ships, that have an enormous firepower.

[Helios.]

i agree with you assessment of the yeshan empire (even though you said arashi empire once. )
i suspect that in fleet engagements the yeshans would post up half the galleons with long range heavy weapons to cripple enemy formations and allow their goldfish (as you correctly identified is a yeshan ship) to maneuver into position and disable the larger ships, either from ambush or after some skirmishing. Then the brawler galleons drive straight into the battle line and just start blasting  after the vanguard of pyramidions had punched a sizable enough hole, or sown the requisite amount of chaos.
that's how i imagine the yeshans themselves would imagine a perfect battle. also to remember that very few ships could hope to disengage from such an action, the goldfish are far too nimble to be shaken off by most enemy armies, so any heavy ships brought would likely be captured or destroyed in pursuing actions, and some light ones very likely as well.
the yeshans have HUUUUGE dockyards, and so have by a significant margin, as i understand it, the most powerful fleet in terms of numbers. another thing that we rarely discuss is the background of the yeshan empire lends itself to having very talented commanders taught by very clever teachers. the meritocratic attitude would likely add to their advantage over a aristocratic nation like the baronies. bad generals don't get put in command of large fleets because of what family they are from. (i don't think this is AS bad a problem as i'm making it out to be, as i might get into below, but if not, in another post i will)

i like a lot how you bridged the cramped quarters of the anglean (if only mostly) underground cities through the skill of very precise flying to hiding from ambush. i always assumed that the angleans would have hidden behind mountains, or in clouds or something, but hiding on the ground, i had not thought of. they might also hide in any suitably large tunnels out of which no one would imagine a ship could easily maneuver, but lo and behold you are getting ambushed.
the forums have made a huge to-do about the angleans taking captives, mostly based on someone saying they were like the vikings (kind of) once. everyone got excited talking about thralls and it kind of got away from us. later the devs came back and were like... yeah not like vikings REALLY. the angleans are a tough and hardy people but ultimately a republic, and ultimately the smartest (in terms of archeotech at least) people around, they dont NEED anyone else. capturing people and letting them hang around their super special magic tech (which is everywhere, remember) and then potentially losing them to escape would be worse than an anglean citizen themselves, who have some loyalty to the republic to prevent them from spilling the secrets they might know. compunctions a captured yeshan would not have (especially if they escaped back to the empire)

[C r o w]

( Only now that you made me notice, I found my error in using names )

NOW! Onto my thoughts about another faction!
The Order of Chaladon

Chaladonians are not known to be either a very raid-loving, attack-provoking, mercenary-hiring faction, rather, as merchants.

They were presented by Muse to have a cultural behavior like colonial India, but with more ecology and less multi-religious nonsense. Chaladon is an island with steep coasts, separated from the mainland by a sea 2-3 times larger than the Chill Sea, it's the most self sufficient region in the entire world, as it's the only place where there is a vegetal life capable of producing fruits and crops. Their belief is that nature is sacred and must not damaged. For now, it hasn't been presented any downside to being a chaladonian, there is a King as head of government, and there is a semi-utopian situation.

They were the last region of the World to be found via airship but eventually, probably due to the fact that their territory has remained mostly intact since THE War, they developed a kind of ship that has become very popular for "blitzkriegs": the Squid, that sports many unique characteristics that suggests that it was not merely a reverse-engineered ship, but that was an entirely new model invented from scratch.
The other ship presumed to be invented by Chaladon is the Mobula: first being a common merchant air-barge, by the will of the daughter of a nobleman, it was refitted to have a very different design, that later was converted to be combat-ready.

Chaladonian tactics are mainly defensive, but make large use of every quality of their ship: the fast and nimble squids are very capable of ambush any ship coming from overseas, (even more if we take into account that the airships must traverse a very BIG sea, with random storms), moving up, down and around cliffs. A small fleet of well piloted squids could easily disable many ships, making them fall to their death into the sea. Or even approach them and start boarding actions.
While Mobulas, on the other hand, are far less fast and maneuverable, yet they can increase and decrease their height extremely fast, making them ships very able to use "peek-a-boo" tactics to hide behind the coastal cliffs and do surprise attacks. Being very frail, but capable of a forward fire power comparable only to the one of a spire, they mainly sport a long-range setup, where are very present deadly guns like the Mercury field guns and Hades light cannons; a full volley from a flotilla of mobulas equipped with such a setup could melt the armor and destroy the hull of almost any ship in a matter of seconds.
Probably attack tactics would rely a lot on the combination between Squids and Mobulas, where the first disable enemy vessels that may harm the mobulas, while the former snipe them from afar.

-A problem about Chaladonians is that they prefer looks above functionality in some cases, the mobula, a ship they are very proud of, has 4/5 gunslots slightly offset taking away a bit of its forward fire power possibilities and making so that "special guns" like the good ol' Merc can't shoot more than one at a time, the usually use lotus shaped formations, that while being surrounded could be a good idea, they are pure trash when attacking, the wheel of the Squid is offset without any particular reason, making you rely on crew communications to know exactly what''s on your blind side- a mercenary guard talking about Chaladon air forces

Given the average behavior of a chaladonian citizen, the most probable attack strategy would be,
"Invade-Eliminate Defense Forces-Befriend Population" so that they wouldn't have to care about eventual uprisings from the locals and may even give them a strong beachhead in

Still, this is only speculation, since the Order has never invaded any other country, nor any other has tried to invade Chaladon, being it situated between the strong armies of the Baronies and in the dangerous Merchant's Guild

To be noted is that, unlike the Yeshan Empire, neither of the countries near Chaladon are hostile towards it, as its vegetables are highly profitable and appreciated both in the Fjordlands and in the Guild, being them unique and not produced anywhere else.

[Helios.]

again, i love that you are engaging with the lore a lot, but again a few things:
the mobula is a merchantile guild ship, so most of what you get from trying to square that circle is weird, but ultimately not a problem, because your assessment of what the mobula is and means sounds good to me!
some stuff we know about chaledon that affects your intuitions a bit: the creation of the first airships by chaledonians themselves and their isolationist/utopian attitudes. i will address them in that order, for simplicity's sake
the first airship on chaledon was a baronies vessel that arrived there and it changed EVERYTHING. the chaledonians had a scientificly sophisticated culture, but just hadnt seen THAT before. one man reverse engineered the ship while the crew was asleep and the next day was able to begin correctly recreating the ship. for this feat of ingenuity, he was knighted. since that day they have quickly turned some of their sophisticated scientific institutions to the creation and refinement of airships, since then many have appeared, one is the squid.
their fleet is largely their buffer from invasion, much like the RAF in WW2.  you cant sail to or from Chaledon safely, however so airships are even MORE important. we have seen a few ships, and they all seem to be variously sized interceptor kinds of ships. the duty of the fleet is to maintain control over the skies, rather than attacking static targets.
the utopia:
the land of the isle of chaledon is so undamaged by the great ecological destruction of the mainland that they DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE. when they started flying their own ships and started bringing news back from the mainland the Chaledonians were horrified at the callous destruction of the precious natural world. this outrage fuels their expansionistic attitude.

[Helios.]

also important to note is thtat the world isnt TOTTALY destroyed, the world is recovering, if slowly. there are crops being grown in teh baronies, they grow grains and cereals and the like as well as cold climate root vegetables as well, very likely. they even have honey bees! (chaledon has some kind of bee, but it isn't the kind that yo can get honey from apparently) the yeshans have rice plantations and teh like as well. teh world isnt so bad anymore, and is recovering even in some places.

[C r o w]

ONTO THE NEXT FACTION!

This faction is at the edge of death, the climate is harsh, the resources are few, their cities are a nightmare to reach, they are surrounded by pre-war technology both above and under ground, they are stubbor, strong, adaptable and everyone around them want them dead.
NO, they are not the Angleans, they are... The Arashi!

A ragtag of tribes and ships, the Arashi live in the desert that bears their name, for the fact that they are its only inhabitants!
Blocked to the north and to the west by the huge Yeshan fleets, and to the east by the Guild's mercenaries, in the Arashi wasteland is kill and scavenge or be killed and scavenged.
You know the description of the elite {level 45} engineer, "could repair a ship from scratch using only kitchen tools"? Well, the Arashi are that kind of people.
Taking as example the basic airship technology they built from scratch the Junker vessel, from, you guessed it, junk.
The Junker is a multirole vessel, capable of being either scout, attacker and tank, they are deadly in the hands of veteran crews. The Junker only lacks aft guns, and having two per side plus a front one, it is very unlikely that without planning an ambush you could get behind one of them.
A little group of these ships could easily wage guerrilla warfare for a very extended period of time.
The attack tactics that Arashi fleets could use are many: frontal assaults, flyby attacks, etc.
The Junker, while being the more used and most easily produced ship of Yesha, is not the only one that they use.

If an Arashi pillager has enough money they can buy from the Guild a good new vessel, new weapons, and even commodities.

In terms of tactics the Arashi rely mainly of the people's capability and will to survive, and could use the same tactics for both attack and defense.

In terms of strategy, they would lose almost immediately if they were to engage an all out war, since they are few, not very rich and have few resources. But their capability in raiding and sneaking past border guards makes them one of the most dangerous factions to wage guerrilla wars against.

-They pillage our villages at the eastern borders, they raid our merchants traveling to the Guild territories and Guild's merchants traveling towards ours, they behave like rats, they attack in groups, kill what they can, and then, after the battle is over, they come down from the skies like carrion birds to pillage whatever they can, wasn't for the sandstorms protecting them, the Empire would have killed them all a long time ago.- Zhang Shinkai, airship captain, southern border guard

[C r o w]

Replying to Helios, yes, I know quite a few things you said, but since we are talking tactics and strategies here, I tried to cut a bit the lore.
And about the interceptor ships of Chaladon, a new one will be released with the Alliance DLC, the Mogante {hope I got the name right} that relies on broadsides and can carry even heavy guns.

[Helios.]

the magnate, if that is what yo are thinking of, is a merchantile guild ship as well

[C r o w]

THE GUILD IS DESTROYING MY BELIEVES! I'LL WAGE WAR AGAINST IT!

Is the Crusader a ship from the Baronies? The design would suggest so...

[Helios.]

i adore the arashi, but thats probably because of how lovingly and often i have read Dune.

i imagined that the arashi's main military assets were these: people, tech, land

the human advantage: as you mentioned, the people are tough as a coffin nail, every single one of them down to the oldest grandmother or the youngest granddaughter. they live on the edge of death at all times and that has distilled in them a diligence and discipline that is unrivaled in even the vast armies of the yeshan empire. they have found and even understood the amazing archeo-tech of the old world and have reproduced some of its wonders
the tech advantage: the inhospitabe nature of the land ensured that the fallen behemoths of the old world lay undisturbed untill a people resilient enough to live in teh forbidding deserts arrived. as such they (similarly to the angleans in many ways for the same reason) have found tech in much better repair, and therefore much easier to understand. the more they understood, the more the could repair, the more they learned.
the land advantage: this is where it all comes together. the land is SO harsh adn the arashi know it SO well and it has sharpened them to such a keen edge that any given arashi is a warrior of the highest caliber even before they put them through the rigors of military training. it has also preserved the tech that has now brought the arashi, though small in number, onto the playing field with much larger (softer, weaker, lazier) nations.
i always imagined that any invasion of arashi territory would be either harried by ambushes of fireteams of people on the ground. the desert is a large and flat featureless place. you can bet there are no better sharpshooters in the whole place. we know it is no easy thing to shoot a massive galleon at a kilometer and a half, a five man team would be all but invisible even standing on teh open desert. a dozen five man teams covered by sand colored blankets disguised as dunes could easily destroy an enemy patrol, or a retaliatory expedition from the merchant fleets or a yehsan border governor, and never be seen except by the few seriously wounded survivors who survived the crashes of their mighty ships, lying bleeding and prostrate on the sands.
some ships of the arashi's we know about, and what it says about the culture and tactics they use:
luckily, the arashi are one of the three factions that are already in the alliance mode prototype in the dev app, so we know a little bit more about them than the others we have discussed.
their boss ship is called the raider, and its a sleek long arrowhead of a ship with a massive lazer beam weapon on the nose (as of 1.4.5) which is likely to have been stolen either in idea or in whole from a merchantile ship (as that is where the apollo lens is created. it might be that in its final iteration it has a totally different weapon, but its likely to be brutal whatever it is!)  its threatening profile weapons and nose gun is reminiscent of a junker in that way, but i havnt seen it really hustle, so i dont know how fast or maneuverable it is.
the fleet hunter is a sniper ship, in one version with three long range weapons facing forward, it was not something you could ignore at range. sadly it was hard to approach due to the screening forces of...
the raider! its basically a sniper ships worst nightmare: tough, intimate armament, ram-happy. these little terrors are designed for close combat in mind. they disrupt, disable and ultimately kill ships who would rather be in a sniper duel with the fleet hunters.

IF YOU DECIDED THIS WAS ALL TL:DR START BACK HERE

these ships and the cultural importance on individual strength and collective discipline leads in my imagination to a long range sniping skill that is unparalleled and used against larger forces to cripple adn destroy them before they can return coordinated fire. if they ever could, they ground troops can disappear into the shifting sands. if an enemy is so strong this wont be enough the fleet is these two philosophies in spades: intimate ram/board raiders supported by crack sharpshooting from small fleet hunters. boarding actions i imagine are decisively in the favor the the arashi, both because they get to decide the terms of the engagement, and because their people train to kill from the moment they can walk.

one thing, the junker isnt a yeshan ship stolen by the arashi, they designed it themselves and build them themselves. the reason they dont look 'finished' is because they dont use more resources to build a thing than it absolutely needs.

[Helios.]

yes, the crusader is a baronies ship. the corsair is anglean, actually its the first anglean ship we have seen, as they dont have a ship represented in the game currently

[C r o w]

{...}
one thing, the junker isnt a yeshan ship stolen by the arashi, they designed it themselves and build them themselves. the reason they dont look 'finished' is because they dont use more resources to build a thing than it absolutely needs.

Seeing you saying this, a question comes to my mind
DID I MISTAKE ARASHI AND YESHAN AGAIN?!?!?
This is annoying
But I think that I said it correctly "The Junker, made with war hevea that could find, was made 100% by the arashi people

[C r o w]

yes, the crusader is a baronies ship. the corsair is anglean, actually its the first anglean ship we have seen, as they dont have a ship represented in the game currently

So, if you pre-order the DLC, does it make you able to play it?