I watched the 5v5 replay and I was happy to find it was the game we played together dirty 
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I enjoyed cutting pirates off, he should have fought hard for that volcanic at the start. I knew I had a hard row to hoe on my front because we had a 3v2 situation, less worrisome once I had blocked pirates. Through Juggling skills and a lucky drop of the red player the opposing advantage was turned around. The key to victory on my front was the two pronged assault I made on both pirates and the enemy pink eco players production world(that volc with 4 factories on it), forcing pirates to flee, pink losing his only hope of opening a winning front, and allowing me to plunge deep into pinks worlds to end his economy. New players pay special attention to the two small occupation fleets of one carrier + a planet bomber, these extra distractions work wonders in killing your opponents micro and effective defense and force him to defend his WHOLE empire, not just a single planet. When he has to defend everything, he will lose! Plus those carriers both took out a starbase apiece on their world, quite a large investment lost for that pink eco player.
Hopefully some of my (carpetbomb) skills will show the newbies a thing or two about how to manipulate your opponent. All in all a GG.
