Can anyone please help me find a Planned Strike Calculator so I can optimize my strikes, maximize my haul and minimize losses? Help would be much appreciated.

Use any calculator, multiply by 1.5

It is very easy. My suggestion is for you to make an excel spread sheet to do this for you (I like to be lazy). Then you just plug in the numbers and it tells you what to send.

Yup, what he said. Make an excel spreadsheet to calculate their defensive strength and your offensive strength.



A=Labels | B=#s | C=Calc
# Troops | # | B2 * 1
# Turrets | # | B3 * 2
# Tanks | # | B4 * 4
Weapons Tech % | % as decimal | % as decimal
Govt Bonus % | % as decimal | % as decimal

Bottom row = SUM(C2 + C3 + C4) * C5 * C6. This is their defensive strength (you can add ally #'s for more optimization)

Now find your offensive strength. It's the same calculation as above with the addition of x1.5. You should only send Jets in a PS, so put 0 for troops and tanks. To optimize try to get your # greater than their's, but not by much.

Below is a link to a battle calculator that I made in Excel and saved to my Google Drive space. You will need to go to "File > Download As > Microsoft Excel" in order to save your own copy and edit the values. The only cells you need to fill in are the ones highlighted in light orange, the rest are formulas that update based on the numbers you plug in.

The spreadsheet can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/...V5UUllQ09rTi0xME9aaUFLdnc

A few notes on how to use it:
1) Convert Government, Readiness, Def. Bonus, and Weapons Tech percents into a decimal numbers when entering into the excel.
2) If he has alliance expenses, make sure you spy alliances and get their information too, or send double his defensive strength.
3) The middle results row "P.S. Pwr." stands for Planned Strike Power, and should mostly be what you use to land grab.
4) To error on the safe side, in case my calculations were not 100% or to account for an extra luck bonus (ontop of the 110% sent), I added another multiplyer called "Chance" to the calculation which can be changed in the bottom left green box. I have mine set to 110% multiplier, which means if the rest of my calculations were correct without the Chance multiplyer, then I would be sending an extra 10% (or 120% total of their defense).

There are five copies of the same calculator so you can plan out five attacks at the same time. At some point I was going to test its accuracy in the express server, but I just haven't gotten the time recently. But so far it has worked 100% for me, the only attacks I failed were my own fault for forgetting to put something into the calculator.

The way I do it is spy on a guy, type his # of turrets into windows calculator, hit * (weap science) * (def bonus/gov factor) * 1.1 (random factor), then / 1.5 / (my weap science) / (gov factor) and bam. I never really felt the need to make a spreadsheet or anything..

if he's got def allies I just open a second calculator, add up their defense, then hit / 4, and then add that number to the target's defense after multiplying in his bonuses, but before the 1.1 random factor. Only takes seconds.

That's alot of work you guys go into getting people's breaks. I won't even say what I do lol

I have an Excel spreadsheet. I tend to go through the game so fast I needed a foolproof way to do it that was also fast. I was only playing Express for a while and failed too often with people running turns between my spyop and my hit. Now I'm in and out in seconds it's not even funny.

blid its the same thing as you do its just easier to do it once on a spread sheet save it then just plug in numbers.

You still have to type every one of those variables into the spreadsheet. Why not just type them into a calculator heh. I looked up some of my old countries and if I do 5 PS in a day there's usually 1-2 minutes between each hit and that includes the spying...

You just need a windows calculator.

Aha, h2o and I on the same team on this one :}

Maybe ur calc is better but its easier for me to type 3 numbers in: troops, turrets, tanks. Spread sheet does everything else. Faster for me than using a calculator each time.

I just enter it on my phones calculator and it tells me what to send.

Thanks guys! Will try these later. Much appreciated!

windows calculator ftw :)

People calculate? I just ask the mods to do it for me, no need for spies that way

hehe glad i caught this. so you mean to tell me the mighty crest failed grabs at one point? :p

I sure do, I still do. Though this days I fail due to my own errors (forget to look at defense bonus, forget to factor in govt bonus, or the bastards that have nothing but tanks and I input that number in thinking it was turrets **this one always gets me**) as my spreadsheet is now impeccable.

I just abuse the ability of programming languages to calculate the result for me.

Something like this at the command prompt:

python -c "print (1+2+3)*1.1/1.5/1.30"

or interactive command line mode in Lua:

lua> print((1+2+3)*1.1/1.5/1.30)

or mirc scripting language (type in any open mirc window)

//echo 4 $calc((1+2+3)*1.1/1.5/1.30)

or a number of other command line alternatives.

uhhh

crest23 has a sweet sheet :-)

i dont even do the attack/defense bonuses seperately. i add them up and multiply/divide the total to the break. cant remember a single failed grab doing it that way.

Don't worry blid now you know why Xin wins every set... he is a computer!!!!!!

I just send everything I got

I blind hit.. who needs spies

I used to send just 70/80% of the target's nw in jets on a PS. Didn't work out that badly actually. But the benefit of spying is that you lose less jets, thus you have more income and can grow faster.

I spy every hit I also spy allies.

BTW I love when I see alliance costs of $0 or when it is exactly $5 per acre if they are in GDI.

Yup agreed with Requiem. I spy every hit and use a calculator to send absolute minimum I have to, it's nice seeing the other guy lose more turrets than you do jets

+10, I've always kinda been obsessed with that myself. I send EXACT breaks.

Just calc and add the 10% mehul factor. That's 99% break rate. If you want 100%, add a bit more.

I do 10% plus whatever it takes to make it a round number. So say my break is 152,309. I'll just send 153,000. I guess I'm weird.

I would send 152300.

req and crest - do you guys not account for the pang/mehul effect?

Just curious, cause I've never not accounted for the mehul/pang factor.

Yeah I do Cloaked, thats what I mean by the 10%. Break + 10%. That should be effective 99% of the time.

I would send 152,309 =P

When I say BREAK, I mean with the Pang factor added (10%). I will actually send 152309 most times, but as I tested on the alpha server, when larger breaks units doesn't seem to matter. For example, the chance of failing a hit for someone with a 159 break (and you sent 150) is much higher than someone with a 1500009 break and you send 1500000. I go by feel, how much oil costs, how much jets cost. I like to ride on the edge without failing over, lol.

I'll send 165,000. I want to be really sure and it's not a big difference. And don't say it's for nothing because I STILL fail once in awhile.

I will send 138,463 because I just dont like pang. That is why I fail 1 out of 5 attacks. :)

ahahaha yea you showed him!

I did get panged on one FS I think. I oversend by 7%. Recalculated three times after I failed the grab. Even did another spyop to check for possible defense bonus.. but my calcs were right :(

I'm paranoid like most players i guess, or maybe a little more - always 110-115%

It's not a pang effect. It's a bell curve.

My first 20 attacks this set were blind. I only failed 3. At that point I would have been better off exploring if I had to spy. In hindsight I probably was better off exploring anyway (I only averaged a bit more land).

If you send the additional 10% for the pang factor, and you calculated properly. You should be at 99.9% success. You virtually shouldn't fail, ever.

Now if you screw up on your calculation or something then you might think you failed because the game hates you but in reality you goofed up.

Andrew if your first 20 attacks were as good as exploring you're not grabbing the right targets.

When I first started playing my methods were point shoot and pray. It didn't work very well lol

I used to spy on them and then just PS an amount of jets equal to their turrets. That was oversending to account for def allies. It usually worked out. Now I fear bouncing too much to do that even though it does save turns and spies.

gotta pray harder man

I never run out if turns and I spy everyone and all allies. I do try to find ppl with no allies.