One of the new members asked what the best strategy would be to amass a strong army: purchase many inexpensive units with relatively low attack and defense stats, or buy a few stronger units. To really answer this question, you have to dive into the different strategies that people use to play and discuss some of the idiosyncrasies of the game.
Unlike most games, MW seems to "punish" you for leveling up too quickly. For example, if you have 500 allies, but are only level 10 in the game, you open yourself up to attack by much stronger players with a similar number of allies. Likewise, as you progress through the game different events such as "defeat the boss" become more difficult as you level up. Meaning, if you level up without gaining significant attack/defense stats, you will have a more difficult time completing these events, as opposed to when you were a lower level player. Lastly, like the boss events, your ability to score high points against opposing factions in the World Domination events, is related to your level in the game. For example, if you are level 25 and are able to defeat an opposing faction member at level 40, you will score many more points than if you were level 40 attacking someone who is level 25. This effect is even more pronounced if your enemy has more allies than you. So again, there is a pressure to remain low level with high stats in order to maximize how well you can do in the game.
All these things consider, many will conclude that it is more in your interest to collect stronger units, even if it means you can purchase fewer of them. This strategy will ONLY work if you carefully monitor how many allies you have. For example: If you have 20 allies, you will be able to bring 80 units into battle. If you only have 60 strong units, you will be bringing 20 low level units into each battle. In this case, it would make sense to reduce your number of allies to 15, so you are only bringing your strong units into battle.
SIDE BAR - WHICH UNITS ARE THE BEST TO PURCHASE?
One aspect of the game which is often overlooked is that your attack and defense armies can be completely independent. What this means is that you should collect the best defense units for your "defense army" and collect a group of separate attack units for your "attack army". For example, The military ambulance is relatively inexpensive, and offers 18 defense. In comparison, it only offers 2 attack. If you had 10 allies and had an army consisting entirely of 40 ambulances, you would have a defense score of 720, and an attack score of 80. This is bad for obvious reasons, but it also means you are bringing your defensive units into battle when you attack, exposing them to casualty not only when used for defense, but also when they are used for attack. To avoid this, you could purchase 40 inflatables, which have an attack of 6 and a defense of 1. Now you have two separate armies, one that you bring into battle when attacking and one that you bring into battle while defending. Your defense stats would remain at 720, but you would have increased your attack to 240. There are a number of low or very low casualty units that can be purchased even be low level players that will ensure you have the strongest attack/defense armies available to you. Some of these "good buys" can be found listed below. END SIDEBAR
While it is difficult to argue with the logic listed above, I'm not convinced this strategy will allow you to improve as quickly as possible. I personally chose to amass a high number of allies (without going over 499. You can only bring additional units into battle with up to 500 allies, so it doesn't make sense to carry more than 500 allies at any point. In addition, the final Force of Degradation Operations ask you to defeat members with 499 or more allies. If you carry 499 allies or more, you expose yourself to being attack by all the strong players looking to complete these operations.) while building my armies with less expensive units. For my defense army, I began by purchasing ~1000 medics. My initial attack army, I purchased ~1000 fighter jets. As a subsequent step, I replaced those medics with military ambulances and the fighter jets with frigates (I opted for frigates over inflatables due to their much lower casualty rates). You can argue that I've wasted money on units that I have simply replaced, but I have been able to be much more active in the game and maintain a reasonably high attack/defense stats. I continue to move forward with this strategy, and am now purchasing Titan Attack boats.
One consideration not yet address are the valor units. They typically offer stronger stats and are a great way to strengthen your armies. Keep an eye on the valor units with the lowest casualty rates. Unlike the cash units, I would suggest purchasing the strongest valor units possible at your current level, since valor is more difficult to collect and you don't want to have a bunch of low stat valor units sitting around not being used in battle. In fact, you may even consider waiting until later in the game to use your valor, as you can purchase stronger units at that point.
Lastly, the best way to obtain strong units is to participate in the Limited Time Quests (LTQs). So much so, that many of the cash units are become obsolete as member armies begin to consist entirely of indestructible units. I would therefore urge all members to participate in these events when possible, as they allow you to increase your attack and defense scores in the most rapid manner possible.
Great post
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