1. Side imbalance is a common think to happen. The numbers shift around every once in a while. Some times Rooks are dominant, some times Bish seem to spawn like termites in an old home, and some times Knits march on like the Golden Horde.
2. Side balancing doesn't work. HT hates people saying that they might know what he was thinking, so under that premise (we don't know what the hell he was thinking when he implemented the side balancer mechanism into the game),one thing we now know, is that essentially the side balancer system does not actually balance sides, but merely takes away the overused rides from the dominant country so the other two can at least take some consolation from the fact that many of the horde pilots will be grumbling about how they can't fly their 380mph-at-deck Lgay7s.
3. There is no 'tactics' nor 'strategy' in the MA. To have tactics and strategy you need at least some kind of basic organization and structure that can coordinate all the pilots and their purpose of flight. However, the folks in MA have proved over and over again that they will never, ever join up to something. There is no system in the MA that guarantees any kind of basic structure. Besides, the MA maps and terrains system is devoid of basic strategical factors. It doesn't have any kind of 'strategic' targets. All it has is the basic "get up from one field and immediately go attack the next" type of arrangement.
4. Therefore, in the MA, there is only impulse and instinct. People instinctively flock together to form the locust storm. They all fly from one spot to the other on impulse. Naturally, when the locusts are coming, rather than forming up defenses people just avoid it, form their own horde, and go hit other undefended areas of the map in turn. So what we have is an arena made for the people to fight in, where people rarely fight anything at all but ground objects, steamroll everything in a straight line, while the enemy steamrolls their own land in some other corner of the map, and then pats each other on the back for taking part in some wonderful 'strategical maneuvering' which in reality is nothing but instinct, impulse, and the urge to take the path of least resistance.
5. You can find people who actually think about strategy in places where your own team is losing. Those are the pitiful fools who actually try to fight in the face of the enemy horde, since they realize that no matter how much our own steamroller will drive into enemy territories, that piece of land will ultimately worth nothing, since at some point they'll all have to come back and defend their own land because the enemy piledriver has come within 50 miles of the HQ. So basically, what people do in the MA is flock together, follow the horde around, look for piece of scraps to claim as their own in the midst of a 30 to 1 odds turkeyshoot, drive hundreds of miles into enemy lands, and then just turn back, and become forced to defend the mainland.
6. What the self-proclaimed 'vets' do under these circumstances, is they agitate the horde, rack up large amount of kills, and then just disappear when things go bad. There are a lot of 'vets' on these boards whom you'd never, ever see in places where their skills are needed the most. It's the guys I like to call "people you never see out of the horde". They call the whole gig "SA". I mean, when's the last time you've ever seen a 'famous guy' taking part as one of the pitifully thin defenses that actually tries to stand up against the enemy steamroller, fighting against 30 to 1 odds? In the MA, in each country, there is an area where the 'steamroller' is advancing, and an area that is being 'steamrolled' by the enemy. If you want to meet celebrities, play around the 'steamrollers are advancing' part of the world. You'll meet most of the guys that you can see in the boards. In the 'we're getting creamed' parts of the world, you can usually see me.