[TomChick]

Bruce: Can you believe no one at Ironclad Games has read Larry Niven? They seem to think that you can’t colonize gas giants. That’s all fine, until some kinds of scary aliens show up. It’s like Brad Wardell has never heard of a Crazy Eddie probe. Anyway, that’s the excuse I have for not attacking the Moties guarding Oriani.

Tom: I've got Trade Ports set up at all three of my planets, so now I have lots of spacebucks to pay the pirates to attack Bruce. Which they do. One of my Seeker vessels watches the pirate fleet pass through Oriani on the way to Bruce's planets. Figuring they'll keep Bruce busy, I jump in with my small fleet, consisting of the Halcyon carrier, a few Disciple vessels, and some Aeria Drone Host carriers. I'm going bomber squadron heavy.

Bruce: Pirates are like creeps. But unlike in Warcraft III, they come to you, which is actually a disadvantage in that you have to keep your fleet back in home waters. So as soon as I see that pirates are attacking, I back off my forces to get the maximum experience. Which is fine, except for the “backing off” part.

Tom: The better the planet, the tougher the defenders. So by the time I've ousted the creeps at Oriani, I'm left with little more than a bunch of depleted bomber squadrons. I withdraw to Hoth II to park at my repair bay. Meanwhile, the Missionary vessel that's been patiently waiting at the gas giant jumps into Oriani to offload a bunch of colonists eager to live someplace that isn't an asteroid or an ice world.

Bruce: There is a real skill to evaluating how much of a challenge creeps will be. If your forces pass a threshold, you are all set, and will take minimal losses. If they don’t, you can take a real beating, and this difference is actually a small one – it could be a couple of units. So how did Tom fare at Oriani? Who knows. Do I look like some sort of sci-fi Vegas oddsmaker? Here’s my bet: battleships are scary, and if I attack with them, Tom will become scared. So off go two Kol battleships to Oriani. The rest of my fleet is massing just behind them.

Tom: Isn't that just like Bruce? As my Missionary vessel arrives at Oriani, so too do two (2!) Kol battleships. Firstly, who builds two capital ships this early in the game? He's playing wrong! Secondly, I go to all the trouble of securing the planet and now Bruce won't even let me have it. This terran planet is the fruit of my labor! What kind of Communist doesn't let me have it? Yep, that's right. I just called Bruce Geryk a communist. Over my shoulder, as I was fleeing in my Missionary vessel.

Bruce: Remember all that stuff about how Panzer Schwerpunkt in Afrika is a winning strategy in this game? Watch me disregard everything I just told you about that to fly right by that gas giant to hit Tom at Hoth II, where he's probably all heavily dug in, using “dug in” here as a space metaphor. Why? Because every time I play Tom in a real-time strategy game, I make the crucial mistake of not being aggressive enough, and thus lose. So even though all my instincts say “back off,” I am going to just send my fleet as far as it can possibly go. TEC Empire über alles.

Tom: While I'm rebuilding up my fleet at Hoth II, bringing in some new heavy cruisers, extra Drone Hosts, and my own battlecruiser to counter Bruce's second capital ship, I get a warning courtesy of the Advent Forewarning ability. Three (3!) Kol battleships and a Sova carrier are jumping out from the gas giant towards Hoth II. Has Bruce lost his mind? You're not supposed to build so many capital ships! Does he know how hard those things are to kill? Maybe he doesn't, because as soon as they arrive at Hoth II, where I've gathered my fleet, they slowly wheel around to leave while my bombers pounce on them. Not so fast, mister.

Bruce: Here is a lesson that will never be disproven by history: military lessons learned from Tom Chick will never be as valuable as those learned from Erwin Rommel. What did I find at Hoth II in my deep space version of the “race to the wire?” A whole bunch of Tom’s spaceships. What’s more, they are the kind of spaceships that have these crazy bombers and whatnot that can fly faster than I can run away. This is just like the delaying action Rommel had to fight after Crusader.

Tom: As Bruce's ships continue fleeing back towards Oriani, making their way across the gas giant's gravity well, my bombers easily keep pace, savaging the Sova carrier and stripping the shields from one of the Kols. I continue giving chase all the way back to Oriani where Bruce's capital ships finally turn around to fight. But by that point, the Sova has been destroyed and one of the Kol's is nearly dead. After a short battle in which I take no casualties, Bruce flees with a single surviving Kol. Oriani is mine again. I bring in the colonists and line up my fleet at the edge of the gravity well, waiting for Bruce to return.

Bruce: The TEC Empire is now reduced to taking lessons from Kofi Annan in that you can always pay people off to get what you want. In this case, I pay the pirates to attack Tom, since that’s pretty much my only chance of getting anyone to deal with the emergency crisis of Tom’s sneaky sneak-attack aircraft carriers and their bombing squadrons. Who would have thought that in a reliability contest between nationally renowned sports columnist Mike Lupica and a band of intergalactic space criminals, I’d end up having to rely on the criminals.

Tom: Pish, another pirate attack. I'm not about to be tricked into withdrawing, so I build defenses at Chickworld, where the pirates are guaranteed to attack. Pirates are so predictable.

Bruce: Thanks to superior TEC Empire shipbuilding, I have a new set of capital ships, minus the experience that the old ones earned before they sank. How valuable can experience be, anyway?

Tom: Umm, the pirates were supposed to attack my homeworld. Instead, they're attacking my asteroid, where I don't have any defenses. But I don't care, because Bruce obviously thinks this is the best time for a counterattack. He jumps into Oriani with a whole new set of capital ships, but my entire fleet is waiting for him, arrayed on his right flank. Before his ships can even bring their weapons to bear, I've destroyed yet another Kol battleship. In the ensuing battle, he flees back towards his homeworld and I give chase, smashing his fleet at a bordering asteroid and bring up Purge vessels to destroy his asteroid.

Bruce: This is interesting: the battle is back at my homeworld. And while this isn’t exactly what I meant before when I said you want the enemy to come to you, the fact is that I have a lot of defenses here, and a ton of fighters and bombers thanks to the many hangar decks I’ve built. It’s my own Battle of Midway, except we’re nowhere near midway to Tom’s home planet. Still, this will do.

Tom: Throughout the game, Green has been whining about needing help with enemy attacks. These are usually instances of her sighting a lone scout ship, so I've adopted of a policy of ignoring her. Which explains how I didn't notice a substantial Lupina Colonist fleet smashing its way through one of Green's systems and arriving at Oriani, bringing a whole mess of siege frigates to bombard my colonists. I'm two jumps away, about to savage Bruce's homeworld. By the time I get back to Oriani, it's been bombed back into neutrality.

Bruce: I’ve built some anti-fighter frigates as well as a new carrier, and the reinforcements tip the balance against Tom. Now it’s my turn to rack up some big experience points of my own. I’ll save up for +1 Dexterity!

Tom: And now the pirates arrive at Chickworld. Most of them line up to attack the Trade Port, just as I expected they would. My carefully placed Beam Defense Platforms open fire. But what I didn't expect was the arrival of pirate pillager ships, which merrily drift past my defenses and belly up to the side of the planet, where they start unloading bombs. I watch the bulk of my population slowly dwindle. At this point, Hoth II is my only untouched planet. I've lost Oriani. Chickworld and my asteroid have been devastated. I have only minimal resources for reinforcements while Bruce and his AI teammate gradually beat down my fleet.

Bruce: While Lupica’s Colonists got me started, the fact is that victory is not assured until I show up with my reconstituted fleet. I think the lesson I’ve learned is that famous people aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, especially as video gamers. Pirates, on the other hand, are the best things ever.

Bruce wins