https://archiveofossus.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/the-fallacy-of-strategic-advisor/

Most people reading this will be confused by the title for as we all know Strategic Advisor is one of the greatest cards in the game, defining a meta everywhere. However, I would like to discuss whether there are hidden flaws with using this card that we aren’t observing.

So first up, lets take a look at the card:

Strategic Advisor has access to radar unlike the rest of the galaxy and as such offers forewarning of threats giving his fleet commander the option to stall an activation to trap the enemy. Its an extremely useful ability for just 4pts, the cost of an officer slot and forcing a large ship into your fleet.

So first up the Pro’s:

An activation for 4 points! Not since the unbridled flotillas have we seen such cheap activations. Sadly you cant add comms net for 2pts to Strategic Advisor and run six of them into a corner of the map. It is cute though and on the approach into a fight it lets you delay to force the enemy to come closer sooner than they would like letting you set up your positioning for the fight better. Throughout Armada’s history we have often spoken about last firsting as an important move for gaining an easy upper hand at the start of a fight or, if you are playing Tika Taka Armada, throughout the game.

What could possibly be a flaw with this? Well here are the cons:

The loss of an officer slot. This one has been spoken about a fair bit, no access to Intel Officers, Raymus, Lando, Tua, Brunson, Isard or any other high quality captain. These officers are able to turn a fight in their own right, however you have chosen to go without them in favour of an activation. So next time you lose a ship just remember that Lando or Tua ECM would have saved you but you wanted to pass an activation a couple of times. Truth be told this isnt always the biggest loss in the world and in most cases isnt that big a deal.

However, where this becomes more important is when Strategic Advisor is on your flagship. Of course, where else would your Admiral be other than on your large ship? Mon Mothma will not willingly travel on anything other than a cruise ship and who can blame her? So by taking Strategic Advisor you have chosen not to use one of the great defencive officers to keep your flagship alive making yourself a touch more vunerable. If Strategic Advisor didnt let you get more activations than your enemy was it worth it? Admirals are often clutch to a fleet and keeping your flagship alive is extremelly important to your fleet functioning. Anyone who has suffered the death of Vader will have felt the truly delibitating feeling when your dice go so so so cold.

To make this worse the large ship only constraint on Strategic Advisor is forming some specific meta styles forming, the Successor to 1+X fleets, SAd plus small ships in what is being described as LMSU or Large Multiple Small Units. Now I take great objection to this naming, an MSU is defined by the spreading of points across all the units which individually punch hard but the loss of any single unit is not great due to value being so spread. With a large ship in a high activation fleet the MSU definition just does not apply as a single unit incorporates a high amount of the threat and value of the fleet. Essentially what happens here is a big red target gets put above the SAd ship which says, “kill me and you win the game”. Is that really what you want? If we refer back to the previous paragraph we can remember that the SAd ship is by default less defensive than other larges, so in summary at this point we have created a high value target with a less than ideal robustness.

An ISD II with SAd is equivalent in pts to two stripped down Glads (Glad I, OE, ER 63pts), and an MC80 with SAd is equivalent in pts to a stripped down MC30 (Torp, OE, ER, 70pts) and a TRC90.

So next time you reach for that large because SAd is amazing, consider if thats really what you want to build?

Cons: The Strategic Advisor requires a special atmospheric composition in his room to take off his mask, and can hard to understand what he's saying like Bane. Not a problem for the Rebels but the Imperials have to suffer a non-human presence on the ship.

In all due honesty I dislike the card, I'd rather have another Officer but you always regret not having that cheap activation. Plus, I've never had Mon Mothma on anything bigger than an Assault Frigate... ?

Isard OP- you all heard it here first folks.

1 hour ago, BrobaFett said:

Isard OP- you all heard it here first folks.

Yeah... raised my eyebrows when I saw "Isard" and "high quality" in the same sentence.

Strategic adviser is the biggest reason I've been playing less armada lately. The activation system has always been a bummer to me (wish it had more finesse and planning to it like runewars), and introducing a stall mechanic has been not so great for game health imo.

I was just joking to my friend the other day about if anyone ever used isard.

4 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

...The loss of an officer slot....

The whole 'slots' system has always felt very weird for a capital-ship-scale game.

I mean, okay, a TIE Phantom has only one crew slot besides the pilot in X-Wing. That makes sense...you can only fit two people in the ship. A B-Wing can only take one 'cannon' upgrade. I mean, yeah...it's a starfighter, it's only got so many hardpoints and the power system can only do so much, so...sure.

An Imperial Star Destroyer can only take one officer? WTF? I mean, even if the intent is to suggest the 'officer slot' is in a command position or something...a ship is going to have more than one person able to do that role in combat. Limitations on the turbolaser, ion, missile, etc upgrades make even less sense.

How broken does the game get if you just uncork that genie? Let a ship take...as much of whatever it wants. Has to pay for it all, of course. And you could maybe assume some surcharge from fleet HQ for over-customizing a ship (maybe, I dunno, +5pts on each upgrade of a type for all of them? So you take one turbolaser, you pay its base cost. But if you took 2, each costs +5 pts. You take 3, each costs +10 pts, etc?)

1 hour ago, xanderf said:

The whole 'slots' system has always felt very weird for a capital-ship-scale game.

This I agree with. Like there's not enough room on the bridge of Home One for Adar Talon and Toryn Farr... although I could believe that a CR90 only has room for one...

However, I understand this from a game perspective The combo I listed above could be used for some potentially game breaking combos. It's not like it couldn't be done if the game designers wanted. We already see ships with multiple other upgrade slots (MC80 dual defensive, ISD dual offensive, etc.). We also have a couple of upgrades that add an additional slot of some kind (Minister Tua, Chimera). Maybe a ship title allowing this, or a commander that allows it. Although that should be a pretty expensive commander... The game is balanced around the limits currently set.

I'm just trying to imagine the hassle of managing a 300pt Cymoon build. Remembering all the upgrades that are on it, using them in the optimal order and making sure that they are affecting each other the right way. It could take an hour just to activate that one ship, although it's probably the only one you have on the table...

Who is the captain standing on the bridge of that ship?

That's your officer.

7 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Who is the captain standing on the bridge of that ship?

That's your officer.

But what happens when Yelling Hat Man stops yelling?

49 minutes ago, geek19 said:

But what happens when Yelling Hat Man stops yelling?

He takes some cough drops and sits down.

Kinda like how Lando has his moment and suddenly he's gone after saving the ship.

1 hour ago, Norsehound said:

Who is the captain standing on the bridge of that ship?

That's your officer.

For real? Somebody gave him command of an Imperial Star Destroyer??

...nor can I say that I recall her ever commanding, well... anything ...

Keep in mind these things are designed for gameplay first and foremost.

1 hour ago, xanderf said:

For real? Somebody gave him command of an Imperial Star Destroyer??

He has a brilliant plan. Just trust him.

Also, jokes' on you for expecting more than just two command tokens and a benefit for your opponent. ...where did he go?

Quote

...nor can I say that I recall her ever commanding, well... anything ...

She's a capable commander, Ex-Jedi, and veteran of the clone wars. The only reason we don't see her commanding anything is because when she's around, the Rebels main characters are there to hog the spotlight!

And the relevance to the topic of this thread is......?

Xanderf start your own thread

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

And the relevance to the topic of this thread is......?

Xanderf start your own thread

You should pass your chance to start this until he did, but you didn't bring SAd.

One officer feels good for not just balance and streamlined gameplay, but also immersion imo. Could Lando and Raymus and Hondo all be on the same Hammerhead? Sure. Does it feel likely? No. It’s a big galaxy, and not everyone is in one place. Asking Mon Mothma if you can have all three is like trying to book Beyoncé, Paul McCartney and Kanye West in the same show.

3 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

One officer feels good for not just balance and streamlined gameplay, but also immersion imo. Could Lando and Raymus and Hondo all be on the same Hammerhead? Sure. Does it feel likely? No. It’s a big galaxy, and not everyone is in one place. Asking Mon Mothma if you can have all three is like trying to book Beyoncé, Paul McCartney and Kanye West in the same show.

I think the fact that you mentioned Radar on the card art as a remark in your OP set the tone for this kind of discussion.

Also, I don't know what there is to discuss. Flagship heavies I don't think are going to miss much by taking a SA and if they aren't designed to get into the opponent's face. Certainly plenty of commonly taken heavies are going to have their own Defensive Retro slot, so they won't need an officer card like Lando/Tua to fill that gap. Also;

Quote

Of course, where else would your Admiral be other than on your large ship?

Plenty of times. Am I sticking Raddus on the MC75? No, he's going on the hammerhead on the very edge of the map while I allow the 75 to teleport in from any of my flotillas or corvette. Is Jerjerrod on the ISD-I? No, he's on my ARQ at the very edge of battle while I throw my ISD-I into the thick of things with Tua onboard (or SA, to allow that ISD-I the hit it wants for much cheaper than Pryce).

Certainly we can discuss the use for SA after combat has begun, likely as the first player is abusing it to force the second player into range first, but that's not strictly talking about SA on flagships.

SAd are onto the greater scam in the galaxy: those aliens have found a way to get jobs in fleet for both sides, and once they have, they counter each other in opposing fleets!

Thats right: SAds create their own work. By exsisting fleets everywhere consider hiring one just so as to not be left behind, even though when they work everywhere they essentially do nothing

a true inspiring story in a struggling galactic job market.

9 hours ago, xanderf said:

The whole 'slots' system has always felt very weird for a capital-ship-scale game.

I mean, okay, a TIE Phantom has only one crew slot besides the pilot in X-Wing. That makes sense...you can only fit two people in the ship. A B-Wing can only take one 'cannon' upgrade. I mean, yeah...it's a starfighter, it's only got so many hardpoints and the power system can only do so much, so...sure.

An Imperial Star Destroyer can only take one officer? WTF? I mean, even if the intent is to suggest the 'officer slot' is in a command position or something...a ship is going to have more than one person able to do that role in combat. Limitations on the turbolaser, ion, missile, etc upgrades make even less sense.

How broken does the game get if you just uncork that genie? Let a ship take...as much of whatever it wants. Has to pay for it all, of course. And you could maybe assume some surcharge from fleet HQ for over-customizing a ship (maybe, I dunno, +5pts on each upgrade of a type for all of them? So you take one turbolaser, you pay its base cost. But if you took 2, each costs +5 pts. You take 3, each costs +10 pts, etc?)

You need a different imagnation. The officer slot represents not the space but the possibilty. A military does not put ALL their best officers on one ship because YOU use it (in this battle/game). You will never encounter a single Star Destroyer with Daala, Thrawn, Yularen, and 15 other great captains even though there is enough space. They are needed on their own ships. So the slots represent the "common military sense" restriction.

4 hours ago, Norsehound said:

Who is the captain standing on the bridge of that ship?

That's your officer.

The Officer slot is not the Captain slot. The officer slot is just an officer that stands out or is more than average gifted, that could be the captain, but also just a supporting officer or commander.

2 hours ago, Norsehound said:

Is Jerjerrod on the ISD-K? No, he's on my ARQ at the very edge of battle while I throw my ISD-K into the thick of things with Tua onboard

You should probably go take a second look at those cards (Kuat and Tua)...

both the text and the upgrade slots

Clearly the only reasonable response is to run two star destroyers.

8 minutes ago, Ophion said:

Clearly the only reasonable response is to run two star destroyers.

See UK Nationals

2 hours ago, DScipio said:

The Officer slot is not the Captain slot. The officer slot is just an officer that stands out or is more than average gifted, that could be the captain, but also just a supporting officer or commander.

And as evidence to that... we have the Skilled First Officer. The FO is the #2 to the captain. So unless the cap't has gotten dead, the SFO is *not* the acting captain.

Edit: Though now that I think on it... Perhaps the intent is that the cap't gets injured or mentally unstable in command, and the SFO steps in and is like "ignore what he was saying, THIS is what we're doing!" and is so skillful that he works the crew into a frenzy to right the ship quickly.