[Renegade 13]

I suppose it is possible for someone to win even in a disadvantaged starting position, but it's not very likely. Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often that such a situation occurs. I've played 9 KOTH games now (I think...) and on my 3rd game I ended up starting right next to my enemy, and had barely any room whatsoever to expand. In that spot, the only choice you really have is an immediate assault on your opponents homeworld, hoping that they're focussing less on defense, and more on expansion. Didn't work for me, but then again, I didn't expect it to! But I've only had a bad starting position 1 time out of 9, so that's not too bad.

What the balance mod does is basically kills all variety in the map. Every system has a single medium sized planet for every possible combination of rock/ice/gas and atmosphere type, thereby putting no player at a disadvantage. There's also (I think) no black holes, etc. It removes all advantages/disadvantages the map can provide, but also (in my opinion) kills anything that could make the map interesting, since every system is identical except for where the planet is in the system.

Congratulation�s Renegade, though I don�t understand how your mother board failure could cause Rand to get off to a bad start??? (Did you throw it at him?). I�m looking forward to our game!

I'm not quite THAT evil! Nah, I'm not sure why the delay hurt him, but that's what he said in his surrender message so that's what I'm going on. At least, it was something like that, I may be misinterpreting (a likely possibility with me!).

I too am looking forward to our game, and good luck!