Just wondering what the general perception is of the larger groups and squadrons that play this game. Nova, mynock, Iowa, KC Chicago, Eastern Nebraska, New Mexico, and the countless others. What perception do you have of these players?

The same perspective I had in a 1A that got bumped up to 2A high school in Texas (a designation of UIL that allowed similar sized schools to compete against each other, ranging from B to 5A, which I think has been increased now to 6A in sporting and intellectual contests). Larger population areas had a lot more specialization and often a lot more money thrown at a given area, whether that was composition writing or football. Being in the smaller spectrum, with only 19 in my graduating class, we were often good to very good in a lot of areas, but we didn't have the excellent rating in anything. We didn't necessarily have the time / resources or guidance from someone that could push us to the next level.

In competitive play, when you have a larger group, you have a stronger skill that can become specialized. There may be pilots in some of those areas that have only flown a single subset of ships but can do it exceptionally well and can duplicate it on any given day. I have a lot of ships and will fly them against whoever I am lucky enough to be able to find to fill the other seat as often as possible. I buy enough ships so that I can provide ships for other people. I'm a generalist. There are people in small areas that can defy expectations, but you have to find another individual of similar temperament and drive to cause you to both continue to grow and become better. It has a higher frequency in larger populations than in smaller populations. I'm still hoping for an exception anywhere near me.

I guess I would see that we have different opportunities, but I also enjoy my 1 mile commute to work with only a single stop sign and no turns. I would daresay I could walk to work faster than most people in the large population centers could drive to work. There are good and bad tradeoffs to all of it. I choose to focus on the positives.

And, those guys can talk... and I don't mind listening...

Being in Fredericksburg and only an hour at most away from most of NoVA squadron, I have to agree heavily with Grayfax. We have a couple stores and each has their own level of developed Metagame. Here the Metagameseemss more diverse in builds and seems willing to experiment far more often. What I find interesting is that with exposure to the NoVA Sq. players the Fredericksburg group has developed in play level to the point that we can go up north and hold our own. So Yeah, I would say its like minor league baseball. Those guys are your AAA teams with localities around them likely having a good number of AA teams who have a number of players capable of playing against the AAA guys but too far away for constant exposure to allow them to reach their full potential.

Any advice from squad members would be appreciated here .. (insert good topic glory) ..

I am part of a group that plays every other week, and I would like to have us start thinking about having a squadron ( and agreeing on a name), with future ideas to get more in our region together ..

I understand why regionals are held in certain cities, but wouldn't mind trying to have our city host one at some point ... St. Louis area btw ..

Have they said where nationals will be with the changes coming to the tourney season?