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Wheel planning guide

Content:

Introduction

This is an extensive guide on strike force planning. It is primarily aimed at the people who plan SFs, not at those who join them. It starts with the basics: what are SFs, how do they work, etc. Most of you will not find anything there that you do not already know, but I included it because it should be a nice start for new players who want to learn more on the topic. People with some more experience will find the ‘General notes’ part most interesting.

Disclaimer: this guide is written for mTLK. Use on KnC at your own risk.

Basics

You have a main army (which all people in your country are in, ideally) and several strike forces (SFs). These SFs are armies to take enemy cities, and there are only online players in them. A wheel is a series of SFs to take a lot of cities from one spot.

Your main army is in the city that is the basis for your wheel. Several high ranked players are the SF leaders and set up SFs. Usually, these are numbered (“SF #1”, “SF #2”, etc), so people know which ones to join first. Sometimes, additional instructions will be in the SF name (I will get back to this later).

Taxi back

After an SF has hit, everyone in it who had moves is now in another city (and people with 0 moves stay in the same city as the main). If they had 2 or 3 moves, they can walk back to the main army on their own. If they had 1 move, they are ‘stuck’ in the target city. The SF leader will have to set up a taxi to bring them back to the main. Important: ALWAYS merge such taxis to the main, NOT to an SF! People show ‘online’ for at least five minutes after they have left, so there is no way of telling if everyone in the taxi is actually online.

Villages

Villages don’t have a castle, so you can not join armies in them. People who end up there will be stuck. This is why there should be NO people with 1 move in an SF for a village. Put this in the SF name, e.g. “SF #3 NO 1mp” or “SF #3 0/2/3 mp only”.

Burning

It is possible to burn (remove) someone’s moves. This is very useful if you need a 0mp SF for any reason or if you have a lot of people with 1 move and SFs for villages. It is easiest and safest to stay in the same city as the main while burning (as opposed to having someone move people with moves back and forth so they lose their moves). This means that you will use:
2ic-burning: if someone with 0 moves gives 2ic (second in command) to someone else, that person will have 0 moves as well.
2ic-burning A: Someone (high ranked) with 0 moves sets up a burner, and gives everyone in it 2ic (usually merges them to SF afterwards).
2ic-burning B: If there are only a few players who need to be burnt, you can do it inside the SF (or any other army) as well. The SF leader gives 2ic to someone with 0 moves, who passes it on. The SF leader keeps giving him/her 2ic, until all are burnt.

Blueprints: 2mp wheel

Most players know how this one works, because it is very common (one could argue too common). Your main is in one city, and you take all bordering cities with SFs. After you take the last one, main moves after it (not immediately, people need to rejoin the main first). The same SF leader does another SF, main follows (when everyone is in), and everyone is at the destination with 0mp.

Example: 2mp wheel from Budapest to Minsk

Blueprints: 3mp wheel

This way, you do not just take all cities that border your main, but also (ideally) all cities that border those. You need 3 moves for this. A 3mp wheel works with extensions: One SF takes a city, the next SFs will hit from that city to take all the cities it borders. The one who did the initial SF sets up a holding army, usually called “holding army” or (better) “Taxi back after SF #6”. This might be best illustrated by an example:

Example: 3mp wheel from Bergen to Dublin

3mp notes

There are a lot of things you have to take into account with SF planning, and these are some attention points specifically for 3mp SFs.

NOTE 1 (starting time)

You need 3 moves for this wheel, but that does not mean you can not start before you have 3 moves. In the above example at least SF 1 can hit before tick, and if you like, 2-3-4 as well. This is especially useful if you fear you will not have it all done in time. So if you have 3 moves at 12.00, your wheel usually starts between 11.40 and 11.50, depending on the amount of SFs that are supposed to hit before the tick.

NOTE 2 (where to set up)

ALWAYS take into account the number of moves that the bulk of your joiners has. Later in the wheel, this will usually be 0. This means that people will need to be taxied to wherever they need to be. In the above example, people will have moves when SF #2 hits, so they will be transported to Arendal without any trouble. SFs #3 and #4 set up in Arendal, and afterwards, the SF #2 leader taxies everyone back. SF #5 takes Alesund, and sets up the taxi back after SF #6 there. Nearly everyone has 0mp when it hits, though, so people will still be in Bergen. SF #6 will have to set up in Bergen to collect people, move to Alesund, and hit. Everyone will be in Alesund then. If there would be another SF from Alesund (which there is not), people could join it (so that one could be set up in Alesund). In this case, they just join the taxi back.

NOTE 3 (2 or 3 moves?)

Even though it is much easier, you do not actually need everyone to be at 3 moves. Only the SF leaders who have extended SFs and the one that does the main-follows SFs need 3 moves. In the above example, that means that SF #1, #2 and #5 can be done by people with only 2 moves if necessary.

NOTE 4 (ranks)

This might seem a bit obvious, but make sure that the taxis back to the main can actually hold the SF leaders that it needs to taxi. In the above example, SF #2 leader will have to be higher ranked than the people who lead SF #3 and #4. (Also, make sure they do not promote in their SF and then can not be taxied back anymore. People should watch out for this themselves, but they do not always do so. If you can, check if they are about to promote.)

General notes

Goal

Your GOAL is to take the cities you need as efficiently as possible. There are useful blueprints for some ‘standard’ moves that I have discussed above, that will work just fine in 90% of the cases, because they often are the most efficient way to deal with city-taking. However, it is very important that you KEEP AN OPEN MIND for other options. You do not follow a 3mp wheel schedule because that is how it is done, you follow such a schedule because it is the BEST way. And if it is not, use something else.

Speed

This is one of my personal pet peeves. In any wheel with more than 8 or 9 SFs, speed is incredibly important. This is also something that a lot of planners experience problems with, which leads to wheels that are not done in time, and thereby to delay and inefficiency in general. There are a few aspects of this issue:
1) “People rejoin too slow!” Sometimes, they do. Especially when they are not used to big or fast wheels. The best way to solve this is to build it up a bit (start with relatively easy 8-SF wheels, build up to 15/20 if you have the opportunity). People are easily conditioned: when they know an SF will hit when you said it will, they will pay attention to rejoin.
2) “Bigger SFs are better!” No, they are not. When you are taking empty cities, an SF of 30 people means you were too slow. Make sure SF leaders know that they are expected to pay attention, and tell them to hit the second they have enough people in. You might want to wait for an SF to get a bit bigger when there are commanders to be kicked at the border, but bigger is NOT better. You do not need all 44 onliners in every SF, you just need enough to take the cities without casualties.
3) “What difference does one minute make? We have time!” It is important that people (both SF leaders and joiners) know that they can count on an SF to hit as soon as possible. If an SF is up and slowly getting huge, people start wondering what is wrong, they assume that there has been some holdup, and walk away to get coffee. Which, in turn, causes them to rejoin way too late. With the risk to repeat myself: when people KNOW that the SF they join will hit within 30 seconds, hardly anyone will rejoin late.
4) “I have no choice, there is one person who hasn’t rejoined yet!” If someone is really holding things up, leave him or her behind. Do all you can to get that officer back in the main as soon as possible, and respond politely to any messages about it, but do not crash the entire wheel because one person is simply too slow. Bad luck, try again next time. If messages urging to rejoin fast do not do the job, they will have to learn the hard way.

Passing a village

It will happen that your main wil need to move through a village to reach its destination for the next wheel (both for 2mp and 3mp wheels). If the village is the one right before the final destination, that poses no problem if you know how to handle it. A lot of people use the “move before tick, hit after” approach. This means that both the SF and the main will move to said village right before the tick (at .28/.29/.58/.59). At the tick, everyone gets a move (the SF joiners had 0 before), the SF hits, and everyone is moved to the target city (main follows). This has the advantage that no one gets stuck in the village. It also has a considerable disadvantage: your SF leaders from this wheel will have one move less than the main. They have 0 moves after doing their SF, they join the main, move to the village, get a new move at the tick, and lose it again when the main follows the SF. Having the bulk of your SF leaders on less moves than the main is very annoying, and it greatly limits your possible moves without losing moves on the main sooner or later.
Very often, it is better to have the SF hit before the tick, and main follows before the tick as well. The SF leaders in the main will get their new move when they already are in the destination city. The people IN the last SF will be stuck in the village after the SF hits. But since it usually hits at .28/.29/.58/.59, they get a new move one minute later and can move to the main and rejoin. Note that they will have 1 move less than the rest: you can not use them to lead 3mp SFs in your next wheel. This is why it is often a good idea to keep high ranks out of this last SF (either by putting extra instructions in the SF name “SF #14 NO Baron or higher!”, or by making it physically impossible by just having a Marshal or Baron lead the SF).

Who takes what and when?

You will be dealing with different city sizes (three different empty city sizes, and possibly cities with commanders in them) and with different ranks as SF leaders. As a general rule of thumb, you go from smaller to bigger. Take the villages first, then the medium cities (black squares), then the big cities (purple squares). Make sure that you know the correct city sizes! If a village or a medium city is the last city a country possesses, it turns into a big city (all capitals are big cities) and it will stay like that for the rest of the age. On the map, you can see the correct city size by reading the mouse-over (NOT by looking at the circle or square). It happens every age that people are surprised by a ‘village’ that turns out to have a castle.
The same goes for ranks: start with the lowest ranked SF leaders, work your way up to the highest ranked ones. As to all rules, there are a lot of exceptions to these. Sometimes, you will want the main-follows SFs (the very last ones) to be done by a lower rank, because you expect to be in a hurry to make it before the tick. If the last SFs are led by a low rank, all the high ranks (that is, nearly all your future SF leaders) will be in the main. If the main reaches its destination before the tick, you will have secured moves for your SF leaders for the next wheel, even if some of the people who were in the SFs need to be taxied in later (and will not have full moves). There are several other reasons to switch ranks around, and if you think it would be better that way, do not hesitate. It is not an iron rule, even though some people seem to think it is.

What if something goes wrong?

As the Guide tells us, “DON’T PANIC”. It is usually a good idea to check which SFs can be dropped if necessary, and which cities you definitely need to take. Also, at least one back-up SF leader can save your behind several times (if you are the right rank, it is usually advisable to keep yourself as back-up SF leader). And whatever you do: ALWAYS keep at least one SF leader around with the same moves as the main.
When something goes wrong, people tend to start being very chaotic. It is essential that there is ONE person who hands out the orders. If four HC members start ordering people around in a desperate attempt to save The Plan, you have a guaranteed disaster. When you are planning a wheel, you are in charge. If someone refuses to do what you say or keeps questioning the general plans (even after you have explained why it is very important), take it up with him or her and make clear that during a wheel, orders should be followed. They can flame you on the Country Talk all they want, they can question the SFs before they start, they can think you should rot in hell, but they will have to suck it up until the wheel is over.

Enemy closing in!

Wheeling is easiest (and some also find it most fun) when there is no enemy main nearby. If there is, you definitely have to take it into account. Getting an extension of 15-20 people SFed back to your capital can be fatal. Around enemy mains, you will have to try to keep everyone in one city as much as possible (you can plan extensions, but do so with care, and not on the ‘risky side’ of your main). 0mp SFs can be especially useful in this, even if the cities you take are ordinary cities with a castle. People who do not move out of the city where the main is, are not at risk to get a CSF (counter strike force) on their heads. On the other side of this: interrupting a wheel of your enemy by kicking people to their capital is great fun (and does considerable damage). Try to anticipate their moves, and have a CSF up well before they hit (if you see an enemy SF on your border and then start gathering people, you will be too late).

Communication.

Start planning well before the actual wheel starts (right after the previous one ends is usually a good time), ask for SF leaders in time, so you have your planning done early. Then, make sure all SF leaders AND the main driver know exactly what to do. You can usually send them the schedule with all the names in it, add possible extra instructions, and urge them to ask if anything is unclear. Ideally, your SF leaders are on IRC, because that gives you near-immediate control, but it is no problem if they are not on IRC, as long as they make sure to pay attention closely. Then, there is communication to all players in your country. First of all: the HC message is an incredibly useful tool, use it! Plan ahead enough to put the next wheel time in the HC message as soon as the SFs are over. Do NOT put “SFs TBA”, unless there really is no other option. And even then, explain why you can not give an exact time. Furthermore, people usually appreciate it if you let them know the general idea of what is going to happen. Just a little more than “Join SF!” is advised. Just tell them that there will be a lot of SFs (so join and rejoin fast!), or that there will be PvP at the end, or that SF #7 will be a capital kicker, or that there will only be 4 SFs now, but a lot next wheel, etc. It is your job to keep everyone informed, make sure everyone knows what to do (where to move, what to join) at all times!