[Jester's Trek] Quote of the Week: Attack Delve
Quote of the Week: Attack Delve
OK, I have to say that this quote is a little bit troubling:
The CFC will almost definitely attack Delve, either in a continuation of their full-scale invasion, or with prodding tests like we saw before 1-SMEB. It will give us an opportunity to put some strain on a rebuilt leadership structure and see how we function. I will be constantly reevaluating our position the entire time, but for now that?s the plan.That's from Boodabooda, leader of TEST. It's covered without comment on both TMC and EN24.
It's troubling because it signals (between the lines) that there was some kind of back-channel negotiated peace offered by TEST over the weekend... and the CFC rejected it out of hand. I said last week that Fountain has traditionally been the road to an invasion of Delve. Goons have about a 50/50 success rate at invading Delve.
But if the CFC invades again this time, I cannot realistically expect TEST to hold. There's no better reasons for them to hold on in Delve than they held on in Fountain. Matter of fact, the opposite is true: the CFC will be charged up by their victory, flush with new cash and (quite valuable) land prizes to hand out to their allies, and will come to Delve in even greater numbers. It's not like EVE has supply lines as such. You build your jump bridge network, you put up your staging structures, and you go.
In a traditional land-based war, a longer supply line hurts the attacker and benefits the defender. This is because the attacker has more territory to defend against guerrilla and flanking strikes and because the defender can implement a scorched earth policy as they fall back. It also helps in terms of "trading space for time": you fight a series of defensive actions until your industrial complex can spin up (more or less how the U.S. originally intended to fight Japan and how Russia fought Germany in WWII). But in EVE the opposite is true for all of these elements: the defenders can't follow any sort of scorched earth policy, flanking attacks in EVE are all but non-existent, guerrilla attacks are not possible, and industrial output in New Eden is all but unlimited all the time. So the traditional benefits of fighting a defensive fall-back war simply don't come into play in EVE.
The only benefits TEST gets from falling back are additional time to negotiate with their allies and time for the situation in the south to stabilize. But are TEST's traditional allies going to be interested in coming to their aid after one alreaady-lost lost war? I suppose it's possible. But is it realistic?
All in all, I hope the Goons do not attack Delve and instead allow the current status quo to stabilize for a while. Otherwise, I can't expect TEST to hold out more than another six weeks or so and we're going to go into EVE's traditional autumn doldrums facing a very dull null-sec game indeed.
Source: Quote of the Week: Attack Delve