Alliance Conquest, Match 2: 4TR vs SPL

After a successful first round, we are continuing this Alliance Conquest season. Since we are competing in the A League this season, I am already expecting strong opponents, especially since we recorded an easy victory with a large margin in the first round. The good thing about the first match being so easy for us is that we saved up heal and speed up items for future matches, starting with today's match. Small alliances like us have a hard time collecting alliance chests, so we are doomed to spend only our personal supplies of these items in each match, which is why after a few close matches we can very quickly run out of them. However, as good as it is that we saved up those items - we would rather play close matches than the ones we had in that first round. But it all depends on who our opponent will be...

We got the SPL! When I saw the opponent's name I froze for a moment... If I remember correctly, the SPL used to be an extremely strong alliance, they regularly played in the Super League and were among the 20 strongest alliances in the entire game! Is it possible that we got them as opponents?? However, when the initial shock wore off and I looked a little closer, I realized that there had been very big changes in that alliance, which made me suspicious if it was the same alliance or not. It seems incredible to me that the Top 20 alliance once fell to less than 50 players and that their base power is slightly above 26b!

Whether it's about that alliance, or whether this is a completely new alliance, it doesn't matter much to us - it will definitely be a tough match! When you look at their players, you can clearly see that they have more strong players than us, which definitely puts them in the role of favorites in this match. But one more, very important thing should be highlighted, which reveals a lot about this alliance - in their first match in this Alliance Conquest season, they won, just like us, but they had a completely different match from us - SPL is played that match with only 9 players, and they managed to win against an alliance that is similar in strength and entered the match with 23 players!!

That's definitely something that tells us that we're in for a very tough match. Who knows, maybe the reason they played with such a small number of players was the timing of the match, just as I believe our opponent from the first match had the same problem. In any case, I knew that we would have to play another good match to get the win.

Preparations for the match went as usual - I gave assignments, i.e. who goes to which Castle and we could wait for the start of the match to see how many players SPL will bring to the match. And the situation was not good... There were only a little more than 10 minutes left until the start of the match and they didn't have a single player on the field! I couldn't believe that we can experience something like this in the A League! It is clear to me that in the weakest league in which there are a large number of alliances with only a few active players, this can be quite a common occurrence, however, in the A league there are much more serious and stronger alliances and this kind of thing should not happen... And just when we started to lose hope that we won't have a match at all - they started arriving! In the end, 12 of them came to the match, and considering that we had the usual 24 players, that meant that we were the favorites in the match! However, we should not forget the fact that in the last match they played with an even smaller number of players against an alliance similar to ours and they won, as well as the fact that almost all of their strongest players entered the match, so I knew that we were in for a tough match...

As in almost all matches, at the very beginning of the match our focus was on Temple of the Mother and Tower of the Warrior, and we especially need the Tower. Because of this I assigned Paul once again to try to occupy it, he as our only player who has T5 might be able to survive their attacks. And it proved to be a great decision once again - Paul once again demonstrated his speed and he won the race for the Tower! In fact, we won 3 out of 4 races! However, not everything was perfect - we lost the race for Temple... But it was the perfect opportunity to test our opponents - as soon as the truce period for Temple was over I told one of our strongest player to try to attack with a solo attack, which turned out to be an excellent decision, since with that one solo attack we managed to remove quite a large number of troops from that Castle, only to be able to gain possession with the second attack!

A fantastic start to the match! In addition to occupying all four Castles, two of our three strongest players were free to continue the match, meaning they didn't have Castles under their control! So I was left waiting for Casterly Rock, while Lord Lola waited for the Ports to open. And we didn't have to wait long!

We did only half the job again - we won the race for Targaryen Port but lost the race for Lannister Port... This development of the situation worked in our favor since we had 5 out of 6 Castles under our control! The other good news was that Lord Lola was free to attack Lannister Port! But, I wanted to make the situation as easy as possible for us, encouraged by the situation that happened with the Temple, so I changed the original plan a little and decided to attack Lannister Port with a few solo attacks, just enough to reduce the number of troops that the opponents have in that Castle so that my teammates, namely Lord Lola, can take it more easily.

And it worked perfectly!

At this point, the situation was perfect for us! Just like in the previous match, we were once again in possession of all the Castles and could calmly wait for Casterly Rock to open. And just like in the previous match - I was able to calmly wait for that fight again, which gave us a big advantage. When I saw who our opponent was, I expected a much, much harder match, but that didn't happen. However, what surprised me the most was the fact that a lot of time had already passed in the match, we were in possession of all the Castles and our opponents hadn't even tried to attack us! It's clear to me that they have fewer players than us and maybe they've decided to only fight for some Castles, after which they'll wait for the Mines to open and try to win that way. But they could at least try to attack any of our Castles. Either way, we had a race and a battle for Casterly Rock!

Once again, I have to draw comparisons between this match and the previous match. Once again, very early in the match, we reached perhaps even a crucial moment - in case we win Casterly Rock, it could give the last blow to the ambitions of our todays opponents, since then we would have all the Castles under our control, a big point advantage and also an advantage in the number of players! But, there was one big difference between those two matches - in that already mentioned previous match, the opponents attacked, they took the Castles from us and did not give up until there was some hope that they could win, while in this match, the opponents did not attack us even once! And they are even stronger than those from the first round! However, it is too early to draw conclusions, many alliances are actually waiting for all the races for Castles to pass and only then take concrete actions. Personally, I don't like that way of playing at all, but if they decided on that tactic, that's entirely their business. That's why it was important that we occupy Casterly Rock and perhaps secure victory now!

And I failed... Miserably...

Again, some anxiety began to increase within me. Instead of occupying Casterly Rock and perhaps resolving the question of the winner - I once again allowed my opponents some kind of chance! I could only silently watch as they sent troops to reinforce CR. What worried me even more was the fact that their strongest player was in that Castle! That's how things can change in a split second - if I had been faster just a fraction of a second, we might have started celebrating another victory now. Instead, we offered our opponents a chance to get back into the match! Of course, we were still in a big lead, by now we had already created a very nice points advantage and despite losing CR we generate more points than our opponents, but we could have already decided the match... I impatiently waited for the truce period to end so that I could try to correct my mistake...

That's exactly what I was afraid of! Suddenly things weren't so simple anymore - if they defend CR, they take one of the Ports, maybe even the Lannister Outpost that's close to their base, and capture Mines and they'll beat us, despite our fantastic start to the match! The anxiety was getting bigger and bigger! I can't achieve anything with solo attacks, we have to try rallies! However, here we come to a problem. For several AC and SOW seasons, I've been mentioning the fact that we have a small number of players in matches and that this is the most important thing we need to fix. In matches like this, this problem is especially pronounced. It's about the following: almost all of our strongest players, of which we don't have many, already have Castles under their control, which means they can't attack other Castles or do rallies on them! So, I'm the only one of our strongest players who can rally CR! An additional problem was that all of our players had already sent all their troops to reinforce our Castles, so we lost some time to fill my rally. It was really frustrating waiting for the troops to join the rally... And we could have already celebrated the victory, if only I had been a split second faster... Finally the troops arrived in my city so I could send the rally off with the hope that it would be enough...

The rally was a success! Even though we didn't manage to retake CR, I still saw that we could fight for it! They didn't have many troops left in the reinforcement, so I quickly brought my troops back, healed them, and tried another solo attack!

I DID IT!!

I believed that this was the moment that would definitely decide this match! We had all the Castles under our control, our strongest players were deployed on the most important Castles (although of course all Castles are important), we also had a large number of troops in all the Castles, which made it impossible for our opponents to try anything with solo attacks, they had to try with rallies! And we didn't have to wait long for their reaction - they started a rally on the Lannister Outpost, which I deliberately left with a small number of troops. As I already mentioned, regardless of the fact that all the Castles are important, they are still our priority - Temple of the Mother, Tower of the Warriors, CR and both Ports are a priority! Therefore, I ordered my teammates that, if they don't have enough troops to send them to reinforce those Castles, to withdraw their troops from the Outposts and send them to where we have the least number of troops. That's why we didn't have many troops left in the Lannister Outpost...

A strong blow... Luckily for us, there were enough troops left that they couldn't take it back with a solo attack, so they needed another rally! That gave us enough time to send our troops back... I have to commend my teammates who did a really good job at this point, they were really quick with healing the troops and sending them back to the reinforce, which in previous seasons, especially those of our first seasons together when we were still getting to know each other - used to be a big problem for us, which is why we used to lose Castles. This time everything worked very quickly so we were ready for the second rally!

Another tough defense... And once again we excelled, quickly healing the wounded troops and sending them back. We were ready for the next rally! However, there was no rally in sight...

Finally, after these two rallies, or rather their only two attempts to take the Castle from us - they gave up! Even though we were only halfway through the match, they had already created several rallies to hide their troops and by the end of the match they didn't even try to fight anymore!

By the end of the match, we had no choice but to occupy all the Castles, wait until we reached 80k points, after which we pulled our troops back and let them win some rewards and record another big victory!

And so we came to another victory in this Alliance Conquest season! It should be noted that we played another very good match, everyone listened to orders again, and I was especially impressed by the fact that we were quick to react when it came to sending troops to reinforce. As I already mentioned, this used to be a problem for us in the past, but it is clearly behind us now. Although this match was not as difficult as I thought it would be, I should definitely congratulate my team on a very well-played match! On the other hand, the opponents did not play a very good match. I have the impression that from the very beginning they set themselves up to lose this match for sure and that they wanted to end it as soon as possible, with as few losses as possible. I cannot understand that in the entire match they only organized two rallies on our Castles, which showed that they could fight us - both rallies were almost strong enough to take over the Castles! If they had started with that much earlier, before the match was decided - who knows what could have happened in the match... This is how they allowed us to come to victory relatively safely. Sometimes you just have to have faith in yourself, regardless of the current situation. They didn't have that faith in themselves in this match, which made our job much easier. In any case, I wish them luck in the rest of the season! And now we turn to the next challenges! A new KVK match starts tomorrow, and a few days after that this AC season continues, so there's not much time to relax!