Each map in World of Tanks has some optimal places for tanks to go. No strategy is perfect and often times player skill rules, but a good strategy followed by a platoon can often times swing things in your favor. This series will hopefully lay out some ground work and give ideas on how best to tackle a map by analyzing the standard game play for each map.
An isolated mountain valley on one flank, and city blocks on the other allow you to thrust close enough to the enemy. A large lake in the middle gives long-range weapons a clear field of fire.
Lakeville has several different terrain features that make choosing a path with which to attack and defend from a difficult process. This guide will focus more on the lanes and how different they are rather than the tanks that will typically traffic the areas. One of the more complex maps in terms of terrain effects leads itself to be favored as a map requiring sound strategy. Too few members in any one section can easily lead to a loss, but certain areas can successfully be held by bottlenecking the area long enough by a couple of key tanks to allow a disproportionate sized force pull off a successful attack.
The first area to cover is the town that the map is named after, Lakeville. The town proper is fairly dense with buildings and rubble blocking lines of sight to prevent one from taking shots from one end of a street to another as in other city maps. With several ways to flank the other force, from the center of town around the church, to the lake side street, and even the 0 column road, any tank can successfully navigate behind an enemy force if they are focused on other targets without being seen until it is too late.
The center of the map is the equivilent to a two lane county highway in the backwoods of South Cackalacky, twists and turns everywhere provide cover from enemy tanks coming down the center, but there is very little room to maneuver at all. The center and the town both have decent view lines at each other, with the center being significantly exposed to tanks peeking between rooftops, save for the occasional rock outcropping. Most tanks avoid this road except for a handful on occasion, and so this road can become fairly vital if ignored as it allows quick access into the center of the capture zones. One tank in this area can make the difference between a win or loss, there is no way around this statement as this area is far too valuable to be completely ignored.
The valley is a very difficult approach, but a necessary one. There is a choke-point at the crest of the hill in the center where any team crossing becomes exposed with little hope of concealment. This of course being in addition to all tanks suffering a movement penalty as the valley is considered to be soft ground. Most SPGs watch this area as it is the easiest to hit targets in, and it will typically see TDs using concealed elevated positions to cover the crest of the hill mentioned earlier. Without a sufficient push in this area, tanks can slowly be picked off one by one, or worse, without any tanks in this area it can easily allow for a large force to advance through unchallenged.
Lakeville is a tricky map to distribute tanks for as a lot of it requires luck of having the right forces in right area at the right time; or having skilled players be able to hold their ground at the key choke-points while the rest of the force is able to capture the base. With sight line penalties in one area, movement penalties in another, one must choose the area they feel they can best help their team based on how they know they can perform in different terrain.
Effectively plan around this analysis, use the route to your advantage to best take on what tanks to expect in each area, and always support where areas are lightly defended but be ready to reenforce as needed. With a good platoon at your side, and now knowing this map better, lake side property has never been so valuable until now.
