I recently realized something quite important about this game and other strategy games in general that i wanted to share with this community.

Al ot of times tactical depth and competitiveness gets confused with each other or get treated as correlated, when often (especially when taking Armadas long history of nerfs and errata into consideration) both contradict each other more often than not. Something that players should take more into consideration and something that i only recently really realized is to ask yourself from time to time why you got started playing the game. Was is because you wanted to win games? Was it because you wanted to proove yourselft to be a better strategist than other players? Or was it because you enjoy tactical and strategic thinking and being challenged at that? Was it simply because of the beautiful models? Because you just want to recreate your favourite scenes from the movies? Or was it maybe for an entirely different reason? All are valid reasons.

At least for me it was the models and because i like fair, strategic games where your have to be smarter than your opponent in order to win. I never really found myself enjoying winning games because of being a better optimizer or by simply bad matchups, i find those those 2 reasons of winning highly unstrategic. Finding out the mathematically best combinations is something everyone with a internet connection and a calculator can do, it requires no intuitiv tactical thinking, no crazy unorthodox plan to surprise your opponent.

Its interesting because the best strategy games in my opinion are the games where both players have the same assets (as in strenght, not in actually SAME UNITS) available to them and therefore have to try to beat the opponent intellectually, by being smarter with their usage.

Although i enjoy playing this game competitively (allthough mostly for the reason of meeting other players with different playstyles) i found myself to not enjoy those games as much, because there usually is less variety in ideas and fleet compositions than in "casual" games. That being said, this does not mean that i am more of a "casual" player and simply dislike competitive play. Its just that in my experience the strategic, have-to-think-smarter-than-your-opponent aspect of the game is trumped much more by factors such as matchups, initiative bid and current best meta-fleetcompositions. Or in other words, i find the strategic factor to be suffering due to factors of optimization and randomness (matchups, not dice).

Of course this is something deeply ingrained into Armadas competitive play and i dont want it to be changed or something, but me and im sure a lot of other players too tend to build their fleets with the competitiveness of their fleets in the current meta in mind instead of creating a fair, balanced and mostly strategic game for both players, where skill is the deciding factor rather than fleet composition, initiative bid or optimization. This is just something that i noticed during the last half year or so and something that is probably why i dont find myself enjoying games as much anymore.

I want to further expand on my point of tactical depth. Lets take for example the First Player/Second Player mechanic. While it is a interesting mechanic and the objectives provide a lot of fun scenarios the balance isnt always perfect especially since the introduction of strategic.

The idea that one players fleet always has the initiative even after the initial engagement is something i've always found both unrealistic and non-strategic. Especially the ability to "last-first" can create some quite mind-boggling situations where one player can acticate a ship twice without any repercussions, which is both frustrating and highly unrealistic from a strategic point of view. The alternating activations mechanic suggested as an alternative way to play the game at the end of the rulebook always seemed to me like it gave more depth to the decisionmaking during the game than the objectives do.

Also the idea that you have absolutely no clue against which type of fleet you will play is also quite unrealistic and a HUGE factor of randomness, especially since there are quite a lot of rock-paper-scissors mechanics in Armada (certain Commanders, upgrades, objectives). Now i know that a lot of players see strategic depth in the way you build your fleet with all these factors in mind, since you have to take into account all the current meta fleet types, current meta-tactics and predict possible matchups, objectives and commanders you might face off against. And while i completely agree that this is quite a strategic challenge, the strategic depth here lies more in the process of BUILDING a fleet, rather than FLYING a fleet. That can of course also be fun, but is that really what the focus should be on in a tactical miniatures TABLETOP GAME?

Ask yourselfes how many times has a game that you played been decided before you even started playing? And im not meaning "been decided" as in "I know i will loose this" but rather what were the deciding factors for victory/defeat in retrospect? Was it really that one perfect maneuver or surprising tactic? Or was it more often the good/bad matchup, someone's superior/inferior fleet composition and initiative bid?

Im not trying to talk bad about this game but with time i realized that in A LOT of games Armada is won or lost more by the strategy behind the fleet building rather than the strategy applied during the game. Most of the time fleets just seem to follow the strategy dictated by the design of the fleet, every player tries to optimize on his fleets design strenghts and whatever player had the better overall design to begin with and better accomplishes to use it during the game seems to win the game. And while there is SOME strategy required to fulfill your fleets design purpose its mostly a nobrainer in most situations, since the design process behind the fleet pretty much dictates how to play your fleet to benefit optimally.

Again, not saying the Armada competitive play is without strategy, on the contrary, but the strategy lies much more in the overall fleet building process rather than in smart decisions during the actual game.

The game at that point feels more like a deck-building game than a tabletop wargame to me and that might be something that comes from FFGs long history of cardgames and deck-building games. You can also easily recognize this by looking at the games basic mechanics. Everything is build around cards and customization, every expansions tries to give you more options for possible fleet builds. You can clearly see FFGs focus to create strategic depth in the fleet construction process. While on the other hand, the basic game mechanics outside of all the upgrade cards and different ship cards are pretty simply. Overly simple some might say. You can only move forward, you cant stop without pretty much sacrificing your ship and you can only shoot twice although you have 4 different firearcs. The intent of FFG clearly was to create gameplay depth via the amount of customization options available rather than via the tactical options availabe during the actual game. (Speaking about the base mechanics like movement here)

This is all fine and well, thats Armada, but for the players like me who prefer the strategic depth more to be found in the actual decisions you make DURING the game (rather than before it) it might be a good idea to remember why you got started playing the game in the first place. Because one can easily be lost in all the options availabe and want to try out all the availabe combinations but the fun (the tactical aspect) might somewhat be lost if optimization and unknown matchups are such deciding factors.

Thats why for those who want more tactical freedom during your games and who want less limited-by-design choices removing those 2 factors mentioned above might be much more fun. Try to create fair, balanced matchups together with the focus rather on balance than on personal advantage or optimization.

You will find that a openly-constructed game of 5 Nebulons with Leia vs. 5 Arquitens with Vader might have much more tactical depth than most "competitive" games, since you dont limit yourself to the mathematically best options, but rather try to create a game where BOTH fleets are only competitive against each other, thus forcing you to gain the advantage through tactical thinking.

The main thing that i found players to find frustrating is loosing to factors they had no control over. It feels "unfair", since you didnt even got a chance to do something against it. When you didnt loose because you made a wrong decision or because your opponent was simply better but when you just loose to a game mechanic of randomness.

Unfortunately, not knowing the matchup in a game structured to some extent like rock-paper-scissors and not knowing the initiative bid can create a lot of those situations. Take that list from the winner of the north american championship for example, with the 16 point initiative bid and Pryce on the Quasar for a garantued last-first. What can you do against this fleet during the actual game if your fleet wasnt designed to deal with that archetype to begin with? Not much. That player won because he surprised everyone with a unusual, yet strong build. Props to him. But the deciding factor here was, again, fleet composition. Finding the best possible combination. Thats the character of the game.

But if you openly construct fleets in a game some players might call "casual" you can get actually far more interesting and tactical games, rather than a series of nobrainer decisions dictated by your fleet design. I would even say that those kind of games are the much more tactically challenging games compared to the standard games, because you put the focus less on the strategy behind the fleet building process and more on the actual decisions during the game.

This is why i often think a game with less options to customize and specialize your forces and instead with more options in base mechanics might make a better table top wargame, because it puts the focus more on flexible decision making during the game, rather than on armchair-building your fleet at home and then basically let it work by itself due to its overspecialized composition. (I know thats an exaggeration, but you get the point!)

But oh well, no hate towards Armada, its still my favourite game and i just wanted to give my thoughts on the tactical aspect of the game and why i think it suffers in competitive play.

I just think its worth it from time to time to step away from the competive approach of optimization and instead try to create more tactically challenging games with fleets build and balanced against each other. If thats not your cup of tea, then thats cool too! But for those who sometimes miss the tactical depth during the game i wanted to share my thoughts on this.

Enjoy your Armada games! ?

Holy wall of text batman!

I love the competive scene. I love the intricacies of fleet building. You have to have a solid plan for what you might face. I also love playing games that are bad matchups for me. I find that much more tactically challenging, thinking through how I can win a match that is difficult for me.

Also Pretty sure JJ won North America with our new fish face overlord Raddus...

12 minutes ago, themightyhedgehog said:

Also Pretty sure JJ won North America with our new fish face overlord Raddus...

I just heard about the fleet from another player and played against it, so i might be wrong on that part. But it was played successfully there i think?

I think you listed a bunch of reasons that armada is a deep and fair game. No fleet can contain all of the "unfair" things you talk about. You have to decide what strengths and weaknesses you want to incorporate into your fleet. It's all about risk vs reward.

The greatest part about Armada is that people who have played since wave 1 are still finding new and viable strategies to defeat other players.

You're kinda touching on a subject I have been giving a lot of thought about, just phrasing it a bit differently. There is always a lot of discussion in wargaming circles about the supposed split between "competative" and "casual" players and I came to realize some time ago that the real difference between the types of players isn't HOW competitive they are, but rather WHEN they begin to compete. For the hard core competitive player, the competition begins well before the actual match starts, with list building, board set up, and so on. In games with greater modeling/hobby aspects, you even get people who "model for advantage" by converting figures in some way to provide a perceived in game benefit. Some players even decide what expansions to purchase based on understood power levels. Such players tend to be labeled "competitive", even if they aren't very good at the game and may not even care particularly if they win or loose.

By comparison, "casual" gamers, who (such as myself) may actually be very competitive, even cutthroat, when they are competing, don't actually start the competition until much later. They base their purchases and list building decisions on other criteria (coolness of the models, in universe fluff, particular fondness for a play style). Even terrain setup and placement, or even deployment can be considered part of setting up the game, a cooperative endeavor, not part of the competition. Those players tend to get labeled "casual" or narrative" players, even if they take the game super seriously and are absolutely vicious in finding every advantage of the rules once they start playing.

In regards to Armada specifically, I tend to agree with the OP that the game focuses too much on list building and finding the best combos of upgrades, but I don't necessarily blame the upgrade card release model for that, not entirely at least. X-Wing has the same type of sales model and has much, much more tactical thinking and planning during the game and isn't nearly as much about list building (when the upgrades are balanced, at least. Things badly got away from them the past year. 2.0 seems set to fix that). What I think it is is a combination of the upgrade card expansion model and the 6 round time limit on the game. 6 rounds isn't enough time for a battle plan to begin to be enacted, go sideways, analyze and adapt it, implement the revised strategy, see the effects of the revision, possibly do that again, and see who did it better. Especially with large ships, except for a few (rarely used) cards, your command dials for the last half of the game are set by the end of round 3, which is probably only the first significant exchange of fire in the game. Meaning there LITERALLY is no opportunity to change your overall strategy, just tweak your movement in the hope of getting your original plan back on track.

1 hour ago, Forgottenlore said:

In regards to Armada specifically, I tend to agree with the OP that the game focuses too much on list building and finding the best combos of upgrades, but I don't necessarily blame the upgrade card release model for that, not entirely at least. X-Wing has the same type of sales model and has much, much more tactical thinking and planning during the game and isn't nearly as much about list building (when the upgrades are balanced, at least. Things badly got away from them the past year. 2.0 seems set to fix that). What I think it is is a combination of the upgrade card expansion model and the 6 round time limit on the game. 6 rounds isn't enough time for a battle plan to begin to be enacted, go sideways, analyze and adapt it, implement the revised strategy, see the effects of the revision, possibly do that again, and see who did it better. Especially with large ships, except for a few (rarely used) cards, your command dials for the last half of the game are set by the end of round 3, which is probably only the first significant exchange of fire in the game. Meaning there LITERALLY is no opportunity to change your overall strategy, just tweak your movement in the hope of getting your original plan back on track.

Its much more about list building because it can be, nay has to be about list building. Commander cards just add an order of magnitude in complexity that X-Wing never had. The same thing for objectives. A successful Armada list exists in sync with those two dimensions.
And while you can loose a game in the deployment phase, I think that this is a good thing. You are forced to think ahead in Armada and that begins with the list building. This also means that you have to make the right calls while playing and failing that you might end up in a situation where you are locked into a result that you only can watch while it plays out. That is a difference in nature to X-Wing to me and in my eyes a good one.
Also the game is just twice as long as XWing, you just can't test around as much.

Honestly, this was difficult to read. It was long, disorganized, sometimes incoherent, and occasionally contradictory. Having said that, I much prefer discussions like this as opposed to the daily “What Legends/Clone Wars ship do you want to see in Armada?” threads that seen to be taking over this forum lately.

Let’s start out by acknowledging that there is no unbeatable fleet. While there is certainly combos that you would consider “optimized” (Dodonna and Luke Skywalker, a CR90 with TRCs, etc.), no internet fleet build alone is going to win you Worlds, or even a Store Championship for that matter. If this were the case, we would all be running Nathan’s fleet from Worlds. But we don’t, because he knows how to effectively fly it and we don’t. If you disagree with this, please post the unbeatable list in the fleet builds sub-forum, as we would all love to see it.

4 hours ago, >kkj said:

Its interesting because the best strategy games in my opinion are the games where both players have the same assets (as in strenght, not in actually SAME UNITS) available to them and therefore have to try to beat the opponent intellectually, by being smarter with their usage.

I love this line, because you just described exactly how Armada is played. Both players build the same 400-point fleet (strength) and then try to beat their opponent intellectually (through playing the objective and planning/using their command dials). In your next paragraph, you mention the strategy in the game suffers because of optimization and randomness in match-ups. What you are suggesting is that we not only build fleets that are not optimized, which to me generally means using upgrades that don’t sync well with the ship they are on (like using MC80Ls with Ackbar or having an ISD with Needa and TRCs), but that we do this after seeing what our opponent is bringing.

4 hours ago, >kkj said:

Of course this is something deeply ingrained into Armadas competitive play and i dont want it to be changed or something, but me and im sure a lot of other players too tend to build their fleets with the competitiveness of their fleets in the current meta in mind instead of creating a fair, balanced and mostly strategic game for both players, where skill is the deciding factor rather than fleet composition, initiative bid or optimization.

This line tells me that you aren’t actually reading what you are typing. Fleet composition, initiative bid, and (upgrade) optimization, within the player’s local, regional, or national meta, are part of the strategy in Armada. If a player cannot effectively fly his fleet, then his net-list means nothing. If a player has a 30-point bid and comes across a player with an opponent with a 400-point list that doesn’t care about going first or second, they just wasted 30 points. And if a player brings their fully optimized Demolisher without squadron support up against a swarm of TIE bombers, optimization means nothing if it dies in Round 2 and they just lost 90 points. If you want to talk about the last/first mechanic, I think that there may be more people that are willing to consider errata options in the future. Having said that, if you are expecting your opponent to last/first every turn by out-activating you, consider running an MSU. But if you do that, beware of an ISD-II/Cymoon with Gunnery Teams, where that fleet will likely not be able to last/first you. Everything in Armada has a counter and everything has a risk/reward associated with it, which is great.

The “randomness” of your opponent’s fleet isn’t as random as you think, especially in tournaments, and I think it very accurately depicts what can be expected in a fleet battle. As a military intelligence officer, if my unit goes into battle, I will not know with 100% certainty what they will be facing. Having said that, depending on the location and the enemy, I can have a pretty good idea. This is exactly the same as your local meta in Armada. Consider UK Nationals (or Birmingham Regionals), where three of the top five lists had dual ISDs. Pretty sure that people knew going into this tournament that this was a probability, so they should have been prepared for it. In the same paragraph, you reiterate that the game comes down to fleet building rather than flying it. As an example, I played a gentlemen in a SC a few weeks again. He had a Thrawn bombers list that he told me he got of the internet and then made an adjustment or two. After I popped Dengar in Round 2, leaving all of his TIE bombers engaged and in my fleet’s exhaust, fleet-building didn’t seem to do him a lot of good; it was how both him and I flew our fleets that mattered.

Games are never decided before you start playing. Even if you take away player skill, you cannot get a good idea of possible outcomes until the start of the ship phase in Round 1. The player with the initiative bid must choose to go first or second, the first player must pick from the second player’s objectives, obstacles must be placed, and ships/squadrons must be deployed. Only then, after seeing how the board looks and what objective is being played can you truly begin to get an idea on how the game is going to play out.

5 hours ago, >kkj said:

The main thing that i found players to find frustrating is loosing to factors they had no control over. It feels "unfair", since you didnt even got a chance to do something against it. When you didnt loose because you made a wrong decision or because your opponent was simply better but when you just loose to a game mechanic of randomness.

What factors are these? You can’t label them as unfair if you can’t define them. You mention a game mechanic of randomness, so I can only assume that you meant out-deployment/out-activation, dice rolls, or face-up damage cards. Run more squadrons or an MSU for increased deployments and activations. Or include upgrades with dice modification or ships with contain and damage control officer. I have not found any mechanic in Armada that benefits my opponent yet I have absolutely no control over.

5 hours ago, >kkj said:

I just think its worth it from time to time to step away from the competive approach of optimization and instead try to create more tactically challenging games with fleets build and balanced against each other. If thats not your cup of tea, then thats cool too! But for those who sometimes miss the tactical depth during the game i wanted to share my thoughts on this.

This is the best line in your entire rant, as it seems to elude that we should sometimes focus on having fun instead of winning, which is a pretty good concept that most of us can get on board with. But it still suffers from one of your favorite words, in that it is unrealistic. Unless both play a perfect mirror match, the fleets are going to have subtle differences that may not be “balanced.” Even an un-optimized Imperial fleet versus an un-optimized Rebel fleet is going to have significant issues in the “balance” that you hope to achieve.

Instead of trying to get others to be less competitive in order to have a more “balanced” game, I would suggest that you try to be the guy that gives relegated commanders and ships more play time. See if you can make some of those less seen upgrades work in your fleet. And try to be the anti-meta in your area (Squadron-less fleets won out at GENCON and NOVA. How long until the pendulum swings back to heavy squadrons lists to counter?). This is extremely important because when you use less popular ships, squadrons, and upgrades, people forget what they do and how effective they can be. In my previously mentioned SC, after taking down a Kuat ISD with my HH gunline before it got in close range, my opponent asked to see my Sato and ACM cards (no one played Sato and everyone used APTs). Another opponent brazenly attacked Shara with a generic TIE fighter. A scattered attack, counter, and a dead TIE later, he asked to see the card, as he had never played against her and did not know her unique ability.

I love this game too, but I am enjoying it too much (win or lose) to dig deep to find problems with it.

33 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Instead  of trying to get others to be less competitive in order  to have a more “balanced” ga  m  e, I would suggest that you try to be the  guy that giv  es relegated commanders and ships more play  tim  e.      

Make tagge great again!

55 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Honestly, this was difficult to read. It was long, disorganized, sometimes incoherent, and occasionally contradictory. Having said that, I much prefer discussions like this as opposed to the daily “What Legends/Clone Wars ship do you want to see in Armada?” threads that seen to be taking over this forum lately.

Here, Here

This post does a really good job of highlighting what I was talking about

57 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

What you are suggesting is that we not only build fleets that are not optimized, which to me generally means using upgrades that don’t sync well with the ship they are on (like using MC80Ls with Ackbar or having an ISD with Needa and TRCs), but that we do this after seeing what our opponent is bringing.

No, what he is suggesting (and he isn't really suggesting, just discussing) is that we build fleets without worrying about optimization, not actively avoiding it.

59 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Fleet composition, initiative bid, and (upgrade) optimization, within the player’s local, regional, or national meta, are part of the strategy in Armada.

And all of that is accomplished before the game even begins

1 hour ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Everything in Armada has a counter and everything has a risk/reward associated with it, which is great. 

It is only great if you want to list building and setup a competition

1 hour ago, Admiral Calkins said:

The player with the initiative bid must choose to go first or second, the first player must pick from the second player’s objectives, obstacles must be placed, and ships/squadrons must be deployed. Only then, after seeing how the board looks and what objective is being played can you truly begin to get an idea on how the game is going to play out.

1 hour ago, Admiral Calkins said:

cannot get a good idea of possible outcomes until the start of the ship phase in Round 1.

Which implies you CAN get a good idea of possible outcomes at the start of the ship phase in Round 1. Which is the point at which you start playing, meaning games can be decided before someone starts playing, because all that (bid, objectives, deployment, etc...) occurs before that someone (myself, I assume the OP) starts playing.

1 hour ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Instead of trying to get others to be less competitive in order to have a more “balanced” game,

Now, instead of phrasing this in this way, try thinking about it like

"Instead of trying to get others to stop making a competition out of pre-game setup"

I agree with you that the OP's post is a bit disorganized and rambling, but try rereading it with the lens of "he doesn't want to be competing until the start of round 1", I think you'll find his remarks make a lot more sense in that context.

Now, whether that is a good way to approach the game, wargames in general or Armada specifically, is another question, but I'm pretty sure that is the thrust of his argument.

3 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

It is only great if you want to list building and setup a competition

The alternative is some things not having a counter or risk/reward. Under what circumstances would that be anything other than a problem? Even in casual games that hurts play experience.

I enjoy making list just to see if they actually work (usually they don't but that isn't the point). I have made some fantastic and fascinating lists. **** I never actually expected my Imperial snipers to work but it did

1 hour ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Honestly, this was difficult to read. It was long, disorganized, sometimes incoherent, and occasionally contradictory. Having said that, I much prefer discussions like this as opposed to the daily “What Legends/Clone Wars ship do you want to see in Armada?” threads that seen to be taking over this forum lately.

Let’s start out by acknowledging that there is no unbeatable fleet. While there is certainly combos that you would consider “optimized” (Dodonna and Luke Skywalker, a CR90 with TRCs, etc.), no internet fleet build alone is going to win you Worlds, or even a Store Championship for that matter. If this were the case, we would all be running Nathan’s fleet from Worlds. But we don’t, because he knows how to effectively fly it and we don’t. If you disagree with this, please post the unbeatable list in the fleet builds sub-forum, as we would all love to see it.

I love this line, because you just described exactly how Armada is played. Both players build the same 400-point fleet (strength) and then try to beat their opponent intellectually (through playing the objective and planning/using their command dials). In your next paragraph, you mention the strategy in the game suffers because of optimization and randomness in match-ups. What you are suggesting is that we not only build fleets that are not optimized, which to me generally means using upgrades that don’t sync well with the ship they are on (like using MC80Ls with Ackbar or having an ISD with Needa and TRCs), but that we do this after seeing what our opponent is bringing.

This line tells me that you aren’t actually reading what you are typing. Fleet composition, initiative bid, and (upgrade) optimization, within the player’s local, regional, or national meta, are part of the strategy in Armada. If a player cannot effectively fly his fleet, then his net-list means nothing. If a player has a 30-point bid and comes across a player with an opponent with a 400-point list that doesn’t care about going first or second, they just wasted 30 points. And if a player brings their fully optimized Demolisher without squadron support up against a swarm of TIE bombers, optimization means nothing if it dies in Round 2 and they just lost 90 points. If you want to talk about the last/first mechanic, I think that there may be more people that are willing to consider errata options in the future. Having said that, if you are expecting your opponent to last/first every turn by out-activating you, consider running an MSU. But if you do that, beware of an ISD-II/Cymoon with Gunnery Teams, where that fleet will likely not be able to last/first you. Everything in Armada has a counter and everything has a risk/reward associated with it, which is great.

The “randomness” of your opponent’s fleet isn’t as random as you think, especially in tournaments, and I think it very accurately depicts what can be expected in a fleet battle. As a military intelligence officer, if my unit goes into battle, I will not know with 100% certainty what they will be facing. Having said that, depending on the location and the enemy, I can have a pretty good idea. This is exactly the same as your local meta in Armada. Consider UK Nationals (or Birmingham Regionals), where three of the top five lists had dual ISDs. Pretty sure that people knew going into this tournament that this was a probability, so they should have been prepared for it. In the same paragraph, you reiterate that the game comes down to fleet building rather than flying it. As an example, I played a gentlemen in a SC a few weeks again. He had a Thrawn bombers list that he told me he got of the internet and then made an adjustment or two. After I popped Dengar in Round 2, leaving all of his TIE bombers engaged and in my fleet’s exhaust, fleet-building didn’t seem to do him a lot of good; it was how both him and I flew our fleets that mattered.

Games are never decided before you start playing. Even if you take away player skill, you cannot get a good idea of possible outcomes until the start of the ship phase in Round 1. The player with the initiative bid must choose to go first or second, the first player must pick from the second player’s objectives, obstacles must be placed, and ships/squadrons must be deployed. Only then, after seeing how the board looks and what objective is being played can you truly begin to get an idea on how the game is going to play out.

What factors are these? You can’t label them as unfair if you can’t define them. You mention a game mechanic of randomness, so I can only assume that you meant out-deployment/out-activation, dice rolls, or face-up damage cards. Run more squadrons or an MSU for increased deployments and activations. Or include upgrades with dice modification or ships with contain and damage control officer. I have not found any mechanic in Armada that benefits my opponent yet I have absolutely no control over.

This is the best line in your entire rant, as it seems to elude that we should sometimes focus on having fun instead of winning, which is a pretty good concept that most of us can get on board with. But it still suffers from one of your favorite words, in that it is unrealistic. Unless both play a perfect mirror match, the fleets are going to have subtle differences that may not be “balanced.” Even an un-optimized Imperial fleet versus an un-optimized Rebel fleet is going to have significant issues in the “balance” that you hope to achieve.

Instead of trying to get others to be less competitive in order to have a more “balanced” game, I would suggest that you try to be the guy that gives relegated commanders and ships more play time. See if you can make some of those less seen upgrades work in your fleet. And try to be the anti-meta in your area (Squadron-less fleets won out at GENCON and NOVA. How long until the pendulum swings back to heavy squadrons lists to counter?). This is extremely important because when you use less popular ships, squadrons, and upgrades, people forget what they do and how effective they can be. In my previously mentioned SC, after taking down a Kuat ISD with my HH gunline before it got in close range, my opponent asked to see my Sato and ACM cards (no one played Sato and everyone used APTs). Another opponent brazenly attacked Shara with a generic TIE fighter. A scattered attack, counter, and a dead TIE later, he asked to see the card, as he had never played against her and did not know her unique ability.

I love this game too, but I am enjoying it too much (win or lose) to dig deep to find problems with it.

I have to agree 100% to Admiral Calkins.
It is difficult to read ?

24 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

And all of that is accomplished before the game even begins 

The OP mentioned that there was no strategy in Armada anymore I was just stating that list-building, including choosing objectives, and an initiative bid is part of the strategy. This particular portion wasn't meant to counter his notion that the game is decided before it starts, just that he doesn't seem to give any credit to the strategy involved prior to arriving at a table across from an opponent.

13 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

Which implies you CAN get a good idea of possible outcomes at the start of the ship phase in  Round 1. Which is the point at which you start playing, meaning  games can be decided before someone starts playing, because all that (bid, objectives, deployment, etc...) occurs before that someone (myself, I assume the OP) starts playing  .

I think this is a difference of opinion when the playing starts. The way this reads is that "the game" starts once you start set your command dials for Round 1. I see the game starting as soon as you are paired with an opponent. Anyone that thinks choosing first or second player, choosing an objective, obstacle placement, and deployment isn't part of the game is fooling themselves.

18 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

Now, instead of phrasing this in this way, try thinking about it like

"Instead of trying to get others to stop making a competition out of pre-game setup" 

I agree with you that the OP's post is a bit disorganized and rambling, but try rereading it with the lens of "he doesn't want to be competing until the start of round 1", I think you'll find his remarks make a lot more sense in that context.  

Again, are placement of obstacles pre-game setup or part of the game? Because if they are part of the set-up that you want to remove from the competition, then he is implying that they should either be removed from the game or not placed in a way to affect the game. The problem is that this affects deployment, as well as gives large ships an advantage. Small ships usually have the maneuverability to avoid obstacles, making an MSU more appealing. On the other side, you have just removed the viability of upgrade cards like Captain Brunson, Jaina's Light, or Grav Shift Reroute, if obstacles are not meant to be a factor.

If he doesn't want to compete until the start of Round 1, I don't know what to tell him. I do have an idea from the Comms Noise podcast of how to not compete until you are across from an opponent. They had the idea for a tournament where everyone brings a list and then you pick from those lists out of a hat, and then you play with the list that you drew. You may not build a terrible list (because you could still draw it), but you wouldn't want to build a great list either. Adds a bit more randomness to it, which may be what the OP is looking for.

56 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

The alternative is some things not having a counter or risk/reward. Under what circumstances would that be anything other than a problem? Even in casual games that hurts play experience.

I would argue that the alternative is that the "thing" doesn't have a counter or risk/reward in and of itself, but how you USE things that have counters. Again, the difference is between the counter being decided before you sit down across from the other player, or is it decided after you see what the other player is DOING with the things he has.

Sorry if my post was hard to read, yeah its kind of a mess, i just wrote down what came to my head, i dont sit down and script these things. Yeah my point is basically that i think Armada has to much competition before the game even starts and there are a lot of factors that play into deciding the match, most of them being in place before the actual game starts. As i said, i think Armada is mostly a deck-building game and it really shows when compared to other strategy games that do not put as much emphasis on customization and specialization. My intent was not to rant on this game since i really like it, but just to express what i find lacking in the gameplay from a strategic and tactical perspective. Maybe its just because i prefer tactical thinking during the game and not so much strategic thinking (involving fleet building, obeserving your meta scene, set up, obstacles, etc, etc)? Its kinda hard to pinpoint for me but i feel that once a fleet is build they way you play that fleet is also pretty much settled, at least on a basic level. Even your commands are pretty much predefined.

5 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

I would argue that the alternative is that the "thing" doesn't have a counter or risk/reward, but how you USE things that have counters. Again, the difference is between the counter being decided before you sit down across from the other player, or is it decided after you see what the other player is DOING with the things he has.

^This.

23 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

The OP mentioned that there was no strategy in Armada anymore I was just stating that list-building, including choosing objectives, and an initiative bid is part of the strategy.

And my supposition (and I am making assumptions about the OP and his thought processes here) is that he is just now trying to put into words how he thinks about the game and that what he really means is that he doesn't perceive there being much strategy (I think we can all agree that true absolutes don't apply) because he doesn't think of those things AS strategy, to him they are part of set up, no different than choosing what game to play, opening the box, unrolling the mat, and so on.

23 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

I think this is a difference of opinion when the playing starts.

That is EXACTLY what I am trying to say. In the past 20 years I have seen hundreds of these kinds of arguments, and they are NEVER really productive and I think it is because nobody realizes that this right here "a difference of opinion when the playing starts" is the root difference between different types of players.

23 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

The way this reads is that "the game" starts once you start set your command dials for Round 1.

Many people view games in this way

23 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

I see the game starting as soon as you are paired with an opponent.

Many other people view games this way. In fact, consider how you go about building a list, are you actually competing in the game by builing a certain kind of list before you even know who specifically you will be playing? Does the game start actually BEFORE you are paired with an opponent?

23 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Anyone that thinks choosing first or second player, choosing an objective, obstacle placement, and deployment isn't part of the game is fooling themselves.

Certainly in Armada, and a lot of FFG's other wargames, this is, in fact the case. They (and, I have noticed many other companies these days) are explicitly defining the beginning of the competition much earlier than it used to be. But in the old days, choosing terrain, setting up the battlefield, even deciding what kinds (if not the specific details) of army lists you would be playing was expected to be a cooperative endeavor by you and your opponent. You would get together and decide what kinds of armies you wanted to play, what terrain would make for an interesting fight, and where to place it, THEN you would sit down and try and cream each other.

23 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Again, are placement of obstacles pre-game setup or part of the game?

And I am not really arguing that one way or the other is better. Certainly in Armada, you have to start thinking competitively for these elements in the standard game format.

What I am trying to do is explain (as I see it) where the disconnect is between players like you and players like (I assume) him. Once both of you actually understand where the other is coming from the discussion has a chance of actually being useful, instead of another 20 page thread of "GIT GUD" - "WAAC" - "GIT GUD" - "WAAC" - "GIT GUD" - "WAAC" - "GIT GUD" - "WAAC"

And btw i DO acknowledge that there is a lot of strategy involved in list building and other pre-game factors. Its just that i wonder, is that really how a strategy table top game should play out? It might be a weird comparison but if you play a match in Empire at War you basically have a dozen ship options available per side and thats it. You arent able to customize them in any way but yet the game has much tactical depth during the actual matches. They way you fly your ships decides the game (assuming both fleets are of the same size and strenght). In Armada it feels much more narrowed down and each fleet is predefined in the way to fly it by the way you build your fleet. Thats also why some matchups straight up counter each other or at least put you in a huge disadvantage/advantage. In a match of Empire at war you can still react during the actual game and apply a new strategy. Again, im comparing a video game to a table top, so destroy me for that but i think the comparison isnt too far off.

4 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

Many other people view games this way. In fact, consider how you go about building a list, are you actually competing in the game before you even know who specifically you will be playing? Does the game start actually BEFORE you are paired with an opponent?

I don't think I'm competing in a game until I'm across from an opponent. This is because I can build and tests fleets all night, but they don't mean anything until I bring them to a table. And even then, my thoughts on how I want to run my fleet could completely change upon seeing my opponent's list.

I hope these discussion are useful too, as I really like these posts that promote positive discussion of the game. That's why I tried to offer some sort of positive suggestion or way forward at the end of my posts on how to fix some of the issues that the OP described in his initial post, such as the blind draw for fleets or by choosing ships, squadrons, and upgrades that have fallen out of favor.

10 minutes ago, >kkj said:

It might be a weird comparison but if you play a match in Empire at War you basically have a dozen ships options available per side and thats it. You arent able to customize them in any way but yet the game has much tactical depth during the actual matches. They way you fly your ships decides the game (assuming both fleets are of the same size and strenght). In Armada it feels much more narrowed down and each fleet ispredefined in the way to fly it by the way you build your fleet. Thats also why some matchups straight up counter each other or at least put you in a huge disadvantage/advantage. In a match of Empire at war you can still react during the actual game and apply a new strategy. Again, im comparing a video game to a table top, so destroy me for that but i think the comparison isnt too far off.

This is actually a good comparison because, at least to me, shows a better alternative of how you would prefer to play. To get closer to what you are describing in EaW, I would suggest trying to modify the Corellian Conflict, making your initial fleets smaller and with no upgrades. Allow one upgrade to be added to each of your ships during the refit and expanded fleets, somewhat replicating the smaller increase in upgrades available to your ships/squadrons when you upgrade your station in EaW. Not perfect, but maybe an acceptable alternative.

9 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

The alternative is some things not having a counter or risk/reward. Under what circumstances would that be anything other than a problem? Even in casual games that hurts play experience.

In a pay-to-win game and only if you can pay ?

8 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

I would argue that the alternative is that the "thing" doesn't have a counter or risk/reward in and of itself, but how you USE things that have counters. Again, the difference is between the counter being decided before you sit down across from the other player, or is it decided after you see what the other player is DOING with the things he has.

Let's blame Ben's family, those who introduced swords, shields, armor, cavalry, siege weapons and walls, gunpowder, artillery, tanks, airplanes and missiles.

Deceitful bastards!

?

2 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Let's blame Ben's family, those who introduced swords, shields, armor, cavalry, siege weapons and walls, gunpowder, artillery, tanks, airplanes and missiles.

Deceitful bastards!

?

BENNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I think the problem is with armada just like in x wing. We are years into three game. There exist alot of ships, cards and combos. Eventually players whats Good, bad and must have and then it's about trying to counter a meta and not being countered.

It's why I gravitate more and more towards casual in all my games. I played alot of tournaments 2014-16 and won quite a few both in x wing and armada. Nowdays I agree that building a strong meta countering list and matchups is more important than choices during the game.