A simple thing rooks and bish do to take bases that knights don't.
Bish and rooks up a second or third mission into a stalled base take and just flatten everything if the first master piece of strategery stalls.
The knights give it one go. When any tiny unaccounted thing goes wrong. It either destabilizes into a furball with possibly a base take "maybe". Or, you are suddenly green and all alone. But, not to say the knights aren't still at it. You can watch the second or even third knight mission starting on a new field and the same thing happens one or two sectors away. I can only think the mission leader means well to either sneak an undefended base or draw cons away from the first stalled mission. At least the second wave could take down ack that most knights seem to avoid like sunlight to a vampire to save their ammo for vulching. Lately I watch too many knight missions regret not de-acking.
Bish and rook seem to be able to convince two or three players to fly bomber boxes a few minutes behind the initial base attack who subsequently flatten everything missed, stopping any defense in it's tracks. It works and absolutely pisses off and demoralizes the defenders. About 35-40% of the time the knights defeat the first wave well enough that the bombers can't shut down the field. The rest of the time knights are off somewhere furballing or playing tank commander while 3 or 4 guys try to defend.
The character of each country and how missions are run, may more be a reflection of the resident squads and what about this game motivates them as organized groups. I watched squads leave the knights over the last 2 years for the bish and rooks to be with friend squads they felt were more motivated and organized. Earlier this month a knight announced on country text he was going rook because he couldn't take the disorganization and lack of motivation. Kind of what white flight left behind it in the cities with a few recent exceptions where the inner cities are being reclaimed and rebuilt into Hitech meccas, high end shopping, great night life, and upscale housing.
The bish and rook make for good fights because they are organized. A handful of squads moving back to knights would find many knights would follow them in their missions because winning missions have become so rare for the knights. Especially well organized missions. Even the best of friends eventually want to know who the better man is from time to time. Anyway, you already know how to beat up on the knights because they mostly want to furball and can't seem to keep their CV's off the bottom for very long. Competing against your friends might make for a more interesting game.