World of Tanks cheat: the lemming train

This is part 3 of a series, see part 2 and 1 first.

"Great, I got a fail team again!" - this is something that many good players say when they look at the map, seeing a mindless zerg going somewhere. It has the infamous name "lemming train", as they are like the little rodents whose population suffer heavy losses during migrations. The lemming train can - and usually do - lose the match, totally out of your control. "Fail team" indeed.

But "I got a fail team" is also infamous for being a bad excuse. After all, in a random match the enemy has equal chance to get a bunch of scrubs whose mental capacity equals a furry vermin. It's not like the matchmaking giving you bad players to lose. I mean it could but why? The bad players are customers too, any cheated machmaking would want to give them wins, not losses, so they can't be used as a tool to make you lose. We have to accept that your average teammate isn't dumber than your average opponent. Then why do you often get mindless lemmings? One thing is for sure, the game systems can't control other players, right? Right?

This is the map of a Karelia Assault game, before it started. You can see 5 tanks on the left, 2 of them are scouts. 10 tanks on the right, only one scout. Would you be surprised if I tell that the game was lost with a lemming train going on the right while the left side was washed up?

Same map, but 7+6 tanks (scouts and arty are not combat tanks) on both sides instead of 3+9. We won, I wonder why?

Himmelsdorf, encounter. Capturing the hill is crucial in this game. The 3 tanks in our team that are best for that job are the only Tier 8 ones, the IS3 and the two AT15s. You can see that the AT15s are very far from the hill, facing away. We lost. Wouldn't this game be different if the AT15s were in the places of the Hummel and the VK 30.01 H?

In encounter and assault battles there is little time to relocate before contact with the enemy. The placement zones are often divided, like you can see on the Karelia maps. Initial placements have large effect on the outcome even if the players recognize the problem and react. I mean the proper action in case of the first Karelia match was to wait until 2 heavies move from right to left. During this time the enemy could advance and take positions. However this is theoretical as most players are equal with a lemming in terms of strategical planning. They go where they expect contact with the enemy sooner. They will not relocate, they will not think if their action makes sense, they go to "have some fun". Place them to left and they go left. Place them right and they go right. Your team isn't inherently worse than the enemy, but they are both controlled by initial placement. If the enemy is placed properly and your team is misplaced, you get a "fail lemming horde". If your team is well placed and the enemy is misplaced, you get a "GJ team we owned lol"!

After I recognized this, I wrote into the data if the map was a normal battle or an Encounter/Assault. The result shows that it's much harder to compensate for the initial placement in the latter case. In a normal map, you have much more time to yell to the lemmings and to reposition your own tank:
Thinking that switching off Assault and Encounter maps would increase your winrate is wrong. We did that with the Tortoise and it did little good to us. The game can give you losses on a normal map, it has just easier job on a fast-paced one. Below you can see some examples of obviously bad or good initial placements and their effect on the game:

Ensk, normal battle. Above you can see the initial placement and it doesn't take a genius to guess that a lemming train will go to the city. Below you can see it in action, 30 seconds into the battle. We lost with the enemy capturing the base while 7 lemmings still alive in the city.

Erlenberg normal, perfect placement. 4 tank destroyers defending the north bridge, all tanks placed for a South assault. 7 enemies marched to the north bridge where they were easily stopped losing only 2 TDs. Crossing the bridge under fire is hard.

Malinovka, near-perfect placement: tank destroyers on the left, heavy tanks as close to the hill as possible. On the right you can see it after 30 seconds. This game was won before it started.

Tomorrow we'll see the logic and purpose behind the cheat with further proof. We must understand "why" to be able to design the counter: the exploit that will crush it.