Yeah, if there's one thing that takes intelligence, it's the ability to loiter over the HQ on the off chance someone might attack it.
Wiley.
No need to loiter.
They flashed towns on the way in on every mission at least a sector away from hq........most of the time 2 sectors away.
Easy to up even an I16 and intercept them.
I had no problem reading what was going on, I announced it, killed a single lanc on one mission, got killed by lancs on the second, and watched another observant guy kill lancs on the third......... and hq stood until the next attempt where I decided to do something else.
Gameplay here boils down to very simple things.
You want to take a field?.........Satisfy the minimum requirement of town down and white flag before wasting your ord on wirbs on the field or ord.
You want to win the war?........Make sure you defend your ammo, ack, and city strats instead of watching them flash for the 20 minutes it takes the enemy to down them to nothing.
You want to furball........Boing!......Wish granted.
I don't need dar to find my fun whether upping under enemy cap at a field, hunting enemy tanks at our strats, or catching b29s at 30k feet in a plane much slower.
It's not the game that's eroding but the collective skills and awareness of our player base.