Round 16
http://www.mpogd.com/images/games/408/gotm.jpg
Dates and Times
Ticks started at 21:00 GMT on Friday 27th January, with a shuffle at tick 36 (9:00 GMT Sunday 29th January),
and continued until 21:00 GMT on the 25th March, due to some server stoppages late on.
Round Details
Round 16 was the 18th round of Planetarion (there was a Round 9.5 and a Round 10.5) and in an attempt to draw more players to the game, accounts are free. The round was named 'The End Of An Era', a name submitted by KingAlan. This name is a reference to the end of the PAX system. The next round was to be based on the PAN engine, although the changes to Round 17 were eventually too subtle to say that the game engine had been changed.
Round Summary
Round 16 began with 1up, NewDawn, Angels looking like the most dangerous alliances. The absence of eXilition from the round meant that these three alliances were the ones most people expected to be in the mix for the #1 rank at the end. A number of other alliances also either returned to the fold, Elysium, or were started up from scratch, Ascendancy, the ex-ND BG DLR and the short-lived DoS, who barely lasted the first week of the round. After 1up managed to build a lead after skirmishes between NewDawn and Angels in the first couple of weeks, the universe began to realise the danger of another 1up-dominated round. First off Subh attempted to take the fight to 1up along with Angels but were knocked back down. Angels kicked a large number of members that they felt weren't contributing sufficiently to the alliance and this dropped them back down the rankings as well, enabling 1up to focus on Subh. With 1up looking more and more dangerous LCH and then ND joined the fight.
With some 4 weeks gone in the round ND began hitting 1up full force, after spending much of the early round roiding targets of opportunity while 1up dealt with Subh and Angels. This war led to immense roid losses on both sides, with 1up and ND notably both dropping over 15% of their roids on the night the war broke out fully. ND, assisted by DLR among others who concentrated their incoming on 1up, were able to stagnate 1up's growth but they were unable to close the gap in the rankings. ND's assistance from DLR provoked some concern, thanks to the recently introduced support planet's rule, and in fact a DLR member, and previously ND HC, Gate, left to return to ND to help them in their war against 1up. The nature of the round leant towards XP growth and roid-swapping and this made any war extremely difficult for either side to win. Despite these problems though 1up's activity and discipline were superior and they appeared to be edging away with the round.
It was at this point that Ascendancy entered the mix. Many of their planets had focused on XP throughout the round, aided by the favourable nature of Terran and Zikonian planets for gaining XP, and they held a large chunk of the top planet ranks. Initially undersized they eventually, via recruitment, rose up to the #3 ranking. On top of this, due to the nature of XP play meaning that defending wasn't required, they were able to hide 8 planets out of tag, disguising the true score of the alliance. With two weeks left in the round these members were added to tag and Ascendancy jumped ahead of 1up, taking a score lead of some 40 million over them. Most Ascendancy planets were at this stage under the bash limit of the much more value-heavy 1up planets. Impossible to stop them gaining score, given that they primarily attacked much smaller planets, and too small to fleetcatch 1up attempted to catch back up to them by XP-whoring themselves. Unfortunately for 1up the long wars they had been engaged in with Angels and ND had taken their toll. Many of their members, seeing Ascendancy shoot past them to take up a position they had not put in as much work as 1up for, lost heart and stopped attacking. Ascendancy were able to maintain and even stretch their lead over the rest and finished the round as the #1 alliance.
3:9 won the galaxy race having led for large chunks of the round, with their closest competitors being an, at least initially, more value-heavy galaxy, 10.4. The eventual winner of the #1 planet was the moderator of Alliance Discussions, JonnyBGood. Long time leader from the early weeks of the round the last 2 saw rain, a Zik dist-whore close in on him and look likely to overtake him with his more consistent value gains. However rain, as part of Daous Dava, lacked alliance support and a combination of other large 1up and Angels planets raided his gal, knocking both rain and his galaxy out of contention. As Round 16 drew to its conclusion the question on everyone's lips was what would PAteam do to deal with the dominance of XP in the game.
Final Rankings
See Also
- Alliances Playing R16
- The Ship Stats featured the return of several classic ship names, including the 'Interceptor' (now a Zik FI-FI ship) and were made by Jester.
- R16 EORC
