There was already a Auphan-|TheR| war thread here so I am directing the discusion back to this one.
I have been thinking a bit about Auphans timed OP:s as it seems to be difficult to defend against (Just thinking out loud atm so feel free to correct me anytime if there is anything wrong with my way of reasoning here).. There is no way to just stack all villages getting attacked (which you are not supposed to either.. You cover the frontline and snipe incoming trains heading further back and those you can`t, you recap asap - common knowledge). Although if a mainly frontline account receives about 70-80 trains hitting at the same time, it`s kinda hard for the defending account to take care of those. It is hard enough when getting massnuked/faked continously and keeping troops from getting killed at home (..unless you aren`t a certain njc3).
As this is a game of teamwork both offensive and defensive, simply one or a few not too far and mainly backline account(s) needs to take care of the sniping by sending support trains . The distance is of importance so best to use is HC (good thing nobles are so damn slow so you can tag them and inform in advance). HC is covering more than one K distance with less than 24h. Making a almost full HC pop will take at most about one month.
I am just playing with the thought of having a total of approximately 120 HC villages not too far from frontline and those are being commited to t-train support to OP:ed villages. I don´t think this is an unreasonable idea. It is of high importance to prevent an OP to succeed and in my personal opinion, a couple of accounts co played and able to send t-train support should be able to cover most of the trains. If it`s about split nuke trains, 500 HC each should still prevent losses. I think it is also reasonable that every village should contain a minor amount of HC for sniping purposes.
The above are a mix of the larger |TheR| accounts (+ZIPS F. & Auphan F.). There are a couple of them suitable locationwise for the task (not telling who is where, anyone familiar may probably figure things out anyway as it is). Also as long as there isn`t a focused and well timed mass counter with as many participants as possible, only defending and split efforts of attacking will not gonna be enough. If I had to choose an area to counter on, it would be K47, focusing on one front at a time to exhaust the targets while trying to minimize losses on other fronts each time.
I am a neutral nub who isn`t even really playing anymore. I also actually cheer for Auphan for several reasons as an outside viewer. Just putting my opinion here as I am expecting a good show and wishing good luck to boths sides.
If the way I think is flawed, it would be nice to get some other opinion. This is after all a game and I think there is no harm in sharing opinions about strategies.