I watched about 40 minutes, which was more than enough.
First of all this was a 4s on a 5s map, which means take all the worst features of random 5s (and there are many), and add a couple more. Had the teams been balanced, the modders side would still have struggled. Draak had a poor position against Auqia, with Auqia having 2 roids to start him off and Draak's roid being on the wrong side of his home. Krdax was in a better position but somewhat exposed and isolated between Auqia and How, with How just able to take a chain to planets straight to him. Goa had the best position, though there were a few volcanics around. Sparda was cramped by the pirates and had a heavily defended desert as his best option after his roid. Star and How had many good planets and no conceivable threat.
The eco figures when i stopped watching were 200+ for Star, 100+ for How and Mecha, and 18 for Auq. Goa had 40+ while the other modders had 20, Krdax still having his home at that point. However, the only feed in the game came from the modders, as Krdax had given up. Sparda seemed desperately to want to consider himself an eco slot and fed as well. Draak was the modder to profit. I doubt that it is fair to Goa to suggest that he failed to participate, as the game was more or less over before he had a chance to, and he did attempt to attack Mecha with the few ships he had, losing a cap in the process, but buying Sparda enough time to colonise the volcanic next to his home.
The more glaring of the flaws in the modders game:
-Kols are just not useful capitals in this version and the modders had two. The ship need a rework, as does the Radiance. At least the Radiance has a 'tanking' ability though it lacks the ability to tank when it uses it and it is vulnerable to strike craft. The Kol can be ignored, even Flak Burst has a very limited range. Neither ship does any damage. The Vasari have the only half-decent battleship and noone uses that either.
-The modders failed to colonise in a 'skilled' manner- that is to destroy siege, take the planet and build turrets to destroy militia. I hate it, it is a huge hole in the game that the devs have never corrected. The militia are supposed to be so clueless that they cannot fire on the constructor ships to prevent them building turrets, and as soon as the turrets are built they obligingly concentrate on them rather than anything else in the gravwell. Mecha had one desert where he had three trade ports and there was still a militia heavy cruiser attacking turrets. Colonisation is possibly the most important element in the game and yet it is so irrational as to be just plain wrong. The entire mechanic should be reconsidered. A swift change would be to prevent colonisation if there are any hostile ships (or hostile militia, perhaps) still in the gravwell.
-Goa knew he was eco and Sparda wrongly considered himself eco because his hostile flank was choked by the pirates (which only starts to work if you have colonised all the planets on your side and Sparda wasnt fast enough). However there was a three-extractor neutral next to Goa's roid and Sparda's home. The extractors were eventually taken by Goa _thirty minutes_ into the game. Sparda, on a roid and his home twenty minutes in, was supposedly ready to feed, or so he claimed in chat. If you can't take easy neutral extractors no amount of theorycraft on trade ports will help you.
-Krdax's starbase, upgraded at least once. Krdax complained that How was spamming Assailants, but this starbase took up a great deal of Krdax's limited funds. Early starbases are dubious because they dont yet have the armour and shield upgrades, which makes a TEC starbase much like an immobile first level capital which gets no experience in combat- and you wouldn't build one of those, would you? They also have very limited firepower. If you really must use one, you need repair bays to help the health and turrets to augmennt the firepower, and Krdax had neither. Also, the position it was in wouldn't have prevented How taking the roid, if that was what it was for. Finally, there was nothing to stop How ignoring it and going straight to Krdax's home. It would have meant damage to his fleet, but Krdax had insufficient ships to make anything from it. Had Krdax spent all that money on LRF and left them at the roid, it would have been more of a deterrent and would have done more damage... about twenty LRF, roughly the same as the number How brought at first to destroy the starbase.
-Capital hunting is a classic AI error, but at least the AI tend not to chase supposedly damaged capitals over more than one gravwell. Auqia was 'fortunate' to retain a capital with about 100 hull, but there was nothing fortunate about the manner in which Draaks fleet was then destroyed, which would have happened even had the Halcyon been destroyed. When you attack capitals and the enemy attacks your fleet, the enemy capitals often level in the process. If you are not motivated to try to save your capital, like Krdax, this won't hold true though.
-When you say it was 4 vs 3, Star did nothing in the game to help his team at all up to when I stopped watching on 40 minutes, when it had been over for some time, other than to comment on it. Another basic error is the failure to surrender. ICO has always been unstable and prolonging games risks drops for the winning team. Try to GG in good time.
I'm not sure what this game was supposed to prove but why not play a modders vs ICO 'regulars' game next, rather than another game like this? I'm sure that some of the often derided and sometimes last-picked regular 5s players would like a chance to demonstrate their skills too.
