Actually we don't discourage Centurions. They're fine. We discourage Prefects. :wink:
But as lots of players of ACTA are fans of B5 as well as wargaming we tend to want fluffy fleets that have the feel of the show. As for broken ships and fleets, well I can't speak for the others but I like it when two fleets are about equal and thus allowing skill to play a role rather than "my ship is more broken than your ship". I've never really understood the desire for a broken fleet/army/etc as to me it kind of defeats the point of playing a game if you know you'll stomp your opponent. The value of the win is in outmaneuvering them. Fleet selection should play a role(your ships should work well together) but I don't like it when the game is pretty much decided by what ships you've chosen with tactics becoming a non-issue.
Which is why there's such hate towards the Tertius/Prefect/Corvan fleets fielded by the Centauri. The whole "tactic" for that fleet is use Corvans as initiative sinks, move forward as slowly as possible, and fire as many high AD, SAP, DD, Beams as possible with CAF(and use scout redirect for ships that can't CAF). Blow up the other fleet before it can even come into range of your fleet. What few survivors are left will find everything has Hull 6 in addition to higher than average firepower for it's cost. And in addition to all of this, we never actually see a beam weapon used by the Centauri in the show. They use bolts that explode. It's even specifically commented on in Season 5 as one of the distinguishing traits of their energy weapons. :lol:
This is also why awhile back there was such debate about the Minbari beam/stealth setup. They couldn't throw as many beams as the Centauri but stealth used to be a lot stronger than it was meaning a lot of times they could effectively fire without the opponent ever returning fire. In a way this was flavorful. Minbari stealth as shown on the show is extremely hard to break, but the problem was that it was causing havoc in the game. This one had a lot more debate than the Centauri beam team because in this case the power was supported by the fluff which isn't the case for the Centauri. In the end balance won out(which I approve of, as in the end ACTA is a game first which means that balance should have priority at least in my opinion. I can see where the ones who approved of powerful Minbari stealth are coming from though).
So now here we all are waiting for 2nd Edition which already shows signs that it's going to be more "fluffy"(Centauri Ion Cannons have been mentioned for example, the E-Mine becoming one shot but more destructive as another example) but everyone is still waiting with baited breath on the balance end(we've already seen debate about the new beam rules).
) but rather that the ACTA community is, by and large in it for fun rather than just to win win win at any cost 
