The Tribute War

This is a special guest post by Willam Crane (featured image by /u/Cymek):

“As of writing this article the new war between NC/PL and Pandemic Horde against CO2 and TEST is around a week old and has already invoked a response from the EVE community which can only be compared to World War Bee. However, while World War Bee had the good guys versus the bad guys, this war does not seem to be based on the same noble principles. In reality, it is a plain old land grab by an expansionist party, which in this case is a newbie organisation.

The announcement to the general public came from a Reddit post outlining the plans which Pandemic Horde CEO Gobbins has for his alliance. This announcement came after Northern Coalition. [NC.] had just staged its supercapital fleet near CO2’s border in the system of KQK1-2, while PL had already been attacking CO2 from Venal for a while.

In the announcement, Gobbins states that he believes CO2 would lose the war versus NC. and PL regardless of PH’s involvement. He goes on to say that if that was the case, he would rather have Pandemic Horde take the region of Tribute than letting a new entity take the space. Conclusively, Gobbins states that he is not attacking the other entities in Tribute, like Omega Security Syndicate, Mercenary Coalition and Shadow Cartel.

As to why PanFam are attacking CO2? It really just is a question of content. CO2 and its allies are one of the few groups who can give these giants the challenge they need to keep them interested. But maybe PanFam has bitten off more than they can chew.

To explain this we must take a look at the both sides of this war. First of all, on the offense you have what is often referred to as PanFam. PanFam is a complicated quasi-coalition. Leading the war you have NC. and Pandemic Horde. Pandemic Legion, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t play a leading role in the war. Instead it opts to be a reinforcement to NC./PH. However, there’s more to it.

Pandemic Horde always had other blues to bolster their numbers. These are Spaceship Samurai and V.O.I.D. Interestingly, at the time of writing this article neither of these two groups are blue to other members of PanFam. It is also interesting to note that under normal conditions Pandemic Horde and NC. do not have blue standings set for each other and regularly engage in skirmishes.

Moving on, we have Circle-of-TEST – The coalition spearheaded by Circle-Of-Two and Test Alliance Please Ignore is a lot more like a normal coalition, as most alliances were already blue to each other when the war broke out. Backing up CO2 and TEST are many smaller alliances, most notably Drone Walkers and MOA. CO2 also has several notable groups which are only blue to them, for example, Out Of Sight and Shadow Cartel.

the odds are stacked heavily in PanFam’s favour

Now that you know who’s with who, it may become clear why this war is going to be more interesting than World War Bee. When it comes to the numbers, the odds are stacked heavily in PanFam’s favour. However, the numbers don’t tell you everything. Though Pandemic Horde has a very active playerbase, the nature of a new player alliance means that is limited in which doctrines it can field. Pairing that with two alliances which make use of a lot of capital alts and you will may begin to see the problem.

This makes it that the 2100 active pilots of Circle-of-TEST are more capable in the sub-capital fights than the 2500 from PanFam. After a week of fighting this has become quite apparent as PanFam has only managed to effectively contest a single IHub.

This means something has to happen, something has to change. To win this war PanFam will have to employ new tactics. They will have to find a way to use their capital strength to overcome what they can’t overcome with N+1, the idea that you can bring more people to the field to win the battle.

PanFam have attempted to employ force auxiliaries with T2 Entosis links to provide a platform that can survive long enough for its support fleets to arrive. CO2 counters this by putting T2 Entosis Rapiers on the same node. The Rapiers finish their warm-up cycle and defensive Entosis cycle before the FAX, with its increased cycle time, can finish its first warm-up cycle.

the lack of numbers means that trying to chase off the Rapiers is a lost cause

This puts PanFam in a difficult situation. While they can win straight up subcap brawls (sometimes with super support), when they have to commit Entosis on field the lack of numbers means that trying to chase off the Rapiers is a lost cause. Other than Entosis Rapiers, CO2 have also onlined system-wide Cynosural Field Jammers. This means NC. cannot bring its super fleet into the constellation with their jumpdrives and are instead forced to travel by gate, leaving them vulnerable to ganks.

In conclusion, CO2 have been defending themselves quite well. They have adapted to their enemy by forcing them to spread thin and this has resulted in what can only be described as a good defence of their space. PanFam will have to adapt their game plan and it will have to be quick, lest they risk losing support for the war from their members and forfeit entirely. This is why this war may be more interesting and influential than World War Bee was in terms of gameplay. The outcome will not just produce a winner, but may define the tactics used in Entosis Sov for the coming years.”

~Freelance article provided to us by the esteemed

Willam Crane

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