GAC Attacking First

"TheUnchosenOne;c-1902610" wrote:
That's why you attack 23h 59m after the phase starts.

Never let your enemies know your next step

Actually had an opponent try something like that a few GAs back. Didn't start his attack until about 20 mins before the end of the attack phase and wound up fumbling around, desperately attacking as the timer ran out. The truly dumb part was that he had the firepower to beat me and I had attacked hours earlier. Was fun to watch. :D

"Rath_Tarr;c-1902654" wrote:

"TheUnchosenOne;c-1902610" wrote:
That's why you attack 23h 59m after the phase starts.

Never let your enemies know your next step

Actually had an opponent try something like that a few GAs back. Didn't start his attack until about 20 mins before the end of the attack phase and wound up fumbling around, desperately attacking as the timer ran out. The truly dumb part was that he had the firepower to beat me and I had attacked hours earlier. Was fun to watch. :D

I always worry something will come up and I'll be toast with that strategy. Real life happens (a lot). I just play without over thinking the whole thing.

"Bweeks122;c-1902746" wrote:
Yeah, I just do the best I can do, and that is that. I attack when/if I have enough time to actually check out the enemy teams and see what I need to max my score.

This series, I lost the first by 40 banners, and won the second by over 80. If someone can score 40 banner better on my defense than I can on theirs, it doesn't matter when I attack. Some really close ones though, I would love to know what I need to do on the last couple battles to win.

True, it may help in a few cases. But with everyone trying to do the undersized squad feat, is there even any room to squeeze out another point?

"Bweeks122;c-1902746" wrote:


Some really close ones though, I would love to know what I need to do on the last couple battles to win.

If you are trying to maximize your score in all cases it doesn't matter? This only becomes important if you plan on letting up a little just to be safe.

The most important thing is can you beat the meta without the meta. Doesn't matter if that occurs in the first 5 or the last 5, you dictate your defense based on this.

"Vos_Landeck;c-1902601" wrote:

That's always been the case....if someone goes first and clears the map or clearly can't clear any further teams, then the other person can just do the math to see how many banners they'd need to get to win. Nothing has changed there.

Well, something has changed a little bit. I mean now it's always good to defeat the most possible teams/clear the territories as those all give you championship points for advancing to the next league. I lost my second fight by 60 or so points, but as I cleared all of my opponent's territories, I was promoted to bronzium league after the figths. (Even without the 1000 point reward for winning the round.) So the change is that it's more beneficial now to attack as much as possible.

"CCyrilS;c-1902658" wrote:

I always worry something will come up and I'll be toast with that strategy. Real life happens (a lot). I just play without over thinking the whole thing.

This seems to be the main thing people do wrong, imo. I see so many people talking about how GA takes 5+ hours because they have to inspect their opponent's entire roster and compare speeds and factor in crit chance and check what time zone they're in and check if Mercury is going to be in retrograde and and and and and and and

In my financial sales desk days they called this "analysis paralysis." The potential client gets so terrified of making the "wrong" choice that they lose the ability to choose at all and just end up wasting tons of time (yours and theirs). Meanwhile, each combined defense/attack takes me like, 10-15 minutes tops, 95% of which is attacking. I use the same defenses for 99% of opponents. My entire defense-setting checklist goes like this:

1: If they have Darth Revan, save mine for attack because they'll probably put theirs on defense. Put Jedi Revan on frontline defense with another decent team, and fill the rest with "meh" teams.
2: If they don't, put Darth Revan on frontline defense alongside another decent team, and fill the rest with "meh" teams.

That's it. Most people are terrified of losing territories and thus play way too conservatively, putting up huge defenses and leaving themselves like two good teams and some G9-G10 scraps to attack with. Putting down one "S" and one "A" team and a bunch of B-squads is usually enough to limit them to clearing half the board (sometimes not even, as they leave themselves so little that my trashy g8 zJyn team sometimes gets a W), and leaves me with almost all my good stuff to plow through their defenses and get the full clear with no losses. Even if they do manage to break through and clear, they're usually sloppy and take multiple losses, so I still win.

Also, most people are SO BAD at modding. I've seen numerous teams where no member had more than 10 added speed from mods.

Yes, obviously having both Revans and Malak gives me a distinct advantage, but my strategy was always the same, just with different teams. And I'm perfectly fine with announcing my winning strategy to everyone, because I know most will read this and go "Nonsense! My meticulously thought out strategy works just fine, I just lose because my opponents all paid to win!"

Don't overthink it. You'll only end up beating yourself.

If you are able to wait for the very last 1-2 hours that IS an advantage as you can see if your opponent has already moved and how efficient he was. He screwed up on one of your teams and just beat it on the 2nd go? Just send in full 5 char squads and clear everything in 1st try. Your opponent cleared everything 1st try? Clear up the first territories with your strong 5 char squads and then open up excel for the calculations on what you need to get on average in the last battles and use undersized squads.
I don't think there's anything that CG can do regarding this time zone problem.

"Legend91;c-1903129" wrote:
If you are able to wait for the very last 1-2 hours that IS an advantage as you can see if your opponent has already moved and how efficient he was. He screwed up on one of your teams and just beat it on the 2nd go? Just send in full 5 char squads and clear everything in 1st try. Your opponent cleared everything 1st try? Clear up the first territories with your strong 5 char squads and then open up excel for the calculations on what you need to get on average in the last battles and use undersized squads.
I don't think there's anything that CG can do regarding this time zone problem.

This goes both ways, though. Even if you aren't going for max medals (which you should be, especially now that championship standing is a thing), going first and being extremely efficient can throw your opponent off balance. If he logs in and sees that you blew through his teams all on the first shot with a score of 1560+, now you're in their head about needing to be efficient as possible.

They may take risks they wouldn't ordinarily take: trying to win with junky teams so they can save their good ones in case you have a strong team in the back, trying to underman matches they ordinarily wouldn't, etc. And that can cause them to throw up an L. Sometimes people just give up and don't bother trying to attack at all. Obviously not everyone can be rattled this way, but most can.

If you play smart and well, it doesn't matter who goes first.

"Hawk_Eye;d-207908" wrote:
With top characters being more equal, attacking first becomes a disadvantage. The opponent knows what they have to do to win. Especially if they go with a defensive strategy of posting weak to middle teams. Is there a way since not everyone can wait til the last minute to attack to not have your opponents see what you have done during the round.

Agreed, it should be just like setup, don't see anything until the round ends.

"Jarvind;c-1903066" wrote:

"CCyrilS;c-1902658" wrote:

I always worry something will come up and I'll be toast with that strategy. Real life happens (a lot). I just play without over thinking the whole thing.

This seems to be the main thing people do wrong, imo. I see so many people talking about how GA takes 5+ hours because they have to inspect their opponent's entire roster and compare speeds and factor in crit chance and check what time zone they're in and check if Mercury is going to be in retrograde and and and and and and and

In my financial sales desk days they called this "analysis paralysis." The potential client gets so terrified of making the "wrong" choice that they lose the ability to choose at all and just end up wasting tons of time (yours and theirs). Meanwhile, each combined defense/attack takes me like, 10-15 minutes tops, 95% of which is attacking. I use the same defenses for 99% of opponents. My entire defense-setting checklist goes like this:

1: If they have Darth Revan, save mine for attack because they'll probably put theirs on defense. Put Jedi Revan on frontline defense with another decent team, and fill the rest with "meh" teams.
2: If they don't, put Darth Revan on frontline defense alongside another decent team, and fill the rest with "meh" teams.

That's it. Most people are terrified of losing territories and thus play way too conservatively, putting up huge defenses and leaving themselves like two good teams and some G9-G10 scraps to attack with. Putting down one "S" and one "A" team and a bunch of B-squads is usually enough to limit them to clearing half the board (sometimes not even, as they leave themselves so little that my trashy g8 zJyn team sometimes gets a W), and leaves me with almost all my good stuff to plow through their defenses and get the full clear with no losses. Even if they do manage to break through and clear, they're usually sloppy and take multiple losses, so I still win.

Also, most people are SO BAD at modding. I've seen numerous teams where no member had more than 10 added speed from mods.

Yes, obviously having both Revans and Malak gives me a distinct advantage, but my strategy was always the same, just with different teams. And I'm perfectly fine with announcing my winning strategy to everyone, because I know most will read this and go "Nonsense! My meticulously thought out strategy works just fine, I just lose because my opponents all paid to win!"

Don't overthink it. You'll only end up beating yourself.

I agree. I mean it would be foolish not to check out roster and make some informed decisions, or perhaps check the speed on a key toon. Past that, there are too many unknowns to really warrant more in-depth analysis.

The biggest unkown is your opponent themselves. You might assume they're going to do something because it's smart, but instead they do something bone headed (or is it?)

In my first 2 rounds I ended up saving my Padme squad in fear they placed something like DRevan in the back...both times they were weak squads, and I would have grabbed a couple extra points using her vs their front line. This makes things really interesting and fun to me, but there isn't much you can actually do...it's waiting to see what happens that's exciting.