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No idea why people like to stack - Easy wins are so boring.
Why not just watch television, or jack off?

Same meaningless endorphin release.

Fight the stack, fight the power, fight the good fight!

The three commanders who routinely command PUGs also strive to keep things relatively balanced.

Personally I like flying with and for my squadmates above all else.

But yes, the big problem in PUGs is that we accommodate people like TenForward, Starfire, and Jaca to let them play even though we, the commanders, know they aren't going to listen. As much as it upsets game balance, Starfire has as much a right to play as anyone else. The way you can balance it out is by letting me (the commander) do my job and command

http://youtu.be/PAi3Zcb27fk

I did a thing guys. You can watch it. Sorry it's just another win and nothing really went wrong.

But mostly what I want to show you is how having a plan can change the course of the game. Even though my plan went through several stages, the outline was pretty clear. I knew where I wanted to send my cons before the game even launched. I knew what my mining path would be. I knew how I would get the money for end-game tech.

The rest of the specifics will mutate throughout the game. Originally I wanted to go exp, then I found a good sup rock and wanted to go sup, btu then my opponent took that sector with an op and I didn't want to get bbrs that early (it's a 10k investment and just BLOWS team discipline the $#@! up) so I went for the other sup rock. Then I saw my opponent plant their tac and shrugged and built my own tac and decided to put my eggs in the spec mine basket. But I knew from the start of the game and seeing rock placements that, were I to go a spec-heavy game, I'd have 3 easy to defend silicon spec options.

While I accept that a lot of Allegiance is instinctual, commanding without a plan is suicide.

Look for another game to be uploaded tomorrow where I went Belts on Polished Diamond with some strange money settings: 1.25/.75.

P1, the video is private, not unlisted.

should be fixed now.

That last game went to @#(! after 16 minutes

A SINGLE TECHNOLOGY JASSIM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l8XBkU ... O90pnWc4SA

Another video from last night. No commentary this time so I'll do a more traditional write up:

-I send my tp high and my op low
-I send a carrier low
-Op low encounters resistance, I and another pilot rip in to save it
-TP high encounters their OP, enemy TP builds short to secure a C rock
-I decide to push my sup forward figuring that we'll have time to see any bomb runs and react
-Jaca/Deathrender (not sure which is com at this point) buys bbrs, goes from their sup
-We don't even see the aleph and lose our sup along with all the tasty cash I had dumped into it, but get 2 miners
-I put a carrier in our old sup sector to secure it from enemy mining
-They threaten our op that's holding an empty sector low and only threatens empty sectors or sectors I control
-I order a redirect to go take out the cons the enemy pushes to our old sup sector and rebuild our sup
-We get enh fighters, other team resigns

I think the most important thing to grasp about this game is this: before you launch make sure you know and understand the settings. I love dual-teching as Belters (especially sup-spansion because I love hvy int bombing with hvy bbrs and ab3 and sup GAs) but on low total money you can't afford to do that. Similarly, bbrs are pretty expensive: 10k represents half a sector's worth of cash on these settings. Two miners + bbrs = 17k, which is a big chunk of change to trade for a sup (8k for belts) and all the GAs. Trading 17k for 20k is normally fine but this was an example of that tempo thing I was talking about before hand. He had no map so he wasn't bombing to mask his mining, he was bombing to get a place to mine. I had map so every second he wasted bombing was a second I had steady income. The game was basically over from the first wave of constructors.

I commed that game, so I'll comment that I didn't decide the faction or the settings. I mutinied Jaca in the first two minutes. I enjoyed that game, though. I learned a little more about comming when my back is against the wall.

That game also sums up why Belts make a great counter to giga. I don't personally enjoy comming giga, but even under belts pressure, I learned how little it costs for them to blindly expand. They're still not my style.

The thing is, Belters and Giga, when played optimally, have very similar playstyles. Their major differences are basically that Belters have a strong mid game versus Giga's strong end game. One of the problems many commanders have with Belters in particular is they fixate on the bombing game. You'll find me pick Giga into Belters a lot because I know that the vast majority of Belters comms are going to $#@! up, buy bbrs, and waste three hours trying to kill a couple of lt ops that I shoved to their techbase and garrison as afterthoughts while my team murdered their miners.

Giga shouldn't ever win this matchup though for two reasons: first, Giga can never win the carrier duel. Belters carriers have 2100 HP and 80 energy recharge. Giga carriers have 1275 HP and 60 recharge, basically meaning that belters carriers are almost twice as tough as giga, giga can only rip in about 3/4ths as many doodz as belters, and also: Giga needs to rip in a mix of scouts and patties. Belts gets to rip in only figs because figs carry nans. It might seem like a small thing but the gulf of disparity between Belts carriers and Giga carriers makes it relatively easy for Belts to reach past the "line" and swat at enemy miners.

The second problem Giga faces is that while belts can't QUITE match Giga con for con, Belts does a better job than most factions. Except that Belts can dis down giga bases for free upon getting enh figs. Which are incredibly cheap for Belts.

So basically what ends up playing out in good belts vs good giga games is this: first, both factions spread like syphilis. Where the two faction's carriers and/or cons meet, Belts wins almost by default (this is balanced because Giga will generally get there first). Then the tech goes up and Belts pushes the crap out of giga while easily gobbling up territory behind an advancing wave of teleports and carriers.

What ends up playing out in the majority of belts vs giga games that I command giga in is this:

I spread like syphilis across the map, my opponent partials bombers and buys five refs at once. I put my carriers in their backsectors and my team murders miners while their team runs around trying to kill the carriers. They try to bomb an outpost and eat a caltrop/tower. They wisen up and try to bomb the outpost from a different angle and succeed while losing another miner. They try to bomb a TP and succeed. They try to put an op where my old op was only to find out that I have a new TP in there. So they bomb it. Then they fail because it's 25 minutes into the game and my entire team is cruising in gat3 lxy figs. We sologalv some refs for the lulz and they rageresign complaining that giga's op and unbeatable and "omg u stacker stacked the settings and stacked the map and stacked the factions and omg."

And what happens when I play belts against giga:

We both spread like syphilis across the map. Someone asks for me to buy bombers. I boot matic and the team kills miners. Then someone asks for me to buy bombers. I boot starfire and the team disses miners. Finally, someone asks me to buy bombers. I shrug, consent, and an AC3/AB3 belters hvy bbr with full adv fignan escort ends the game. Redgi then says, "see, I TOLD you we needed bombers."