I almost agree with what roy mah said.
the rewards are capped so why would you play all positions unless you are playing for points? if you want a payout that is worth having pick a range lets say 175-180 then only play those positions and nothing else until you get payout.
I don't calculate resources as I play you can calculate it better by power used and power given back. so lets say you want the 28k mounted pelts on level 180. that for me it is close to 40 mil in strength. if I am going for this reward then I know I will need to knock out at least 10-15 positions in this range. but instead of resources I attack like this
https://gyazo.com/a3f964c6acbb8e4cf1ca8b847870ce2d
https://gyazo.com/e96362ba56d81941c1255a6c6ca7b67b
https://gyazo.com/e135dcfe144df67f9d0ff1733a2cc995
https://gyazo.com/ad21df2b4cc20344d28823168d022186
these are offensive positions, but you can see that even at the level 179 it cost less than 5 mil phalanx power to knock out the position.
if you conserve you troops down to the last man then you will be able to knock out more positions.
so if you have 20 mil def and 20 mil off then you can easily turn your reward into a big split pay. use your troops where they are best only attack when you are ready to knock out 10-20 positions that you can scout. hopefully no farther apart than 10 levels. this will give you big reward.
when you were supposed to get a reward and you didn't you can try to wait a day or two and then go back to same range and try two more positions if they don't pay your army is lost. but it is ok. now it is time to play all positions and collect your 20mil power-30 mil power in reward. then you can wait a few weeks rebuild take what is now 45 mil in power and try again. when you over exceed what pp pays out, they will steal your army. so it is best to calculate everything and use as little as possible to take down as many positions as you are able to.