Round 19
Dates and Times
Signups started on the 25th of September 2006 at 20:00 GMT.
Ticks began on the 6th of October 2006 at 20:00 GMT.
Ticks ended on the 8th of December 2006 @ 20:00 GMT.
Round Summary
Round 19 saw the changing of the guard in Planetarion. Prior to the round, and after their exertions over the previous eight rounds 1up HC decided to call time on their alliance's existence in PA. eXilition announced in the R18 EORC that they would be playing with a smaller group, without the intention of winning the round. To fill the void a number of alliances stepped up to fill the void. Angels announced that they would be playing Round 19, and took in BGs from both gosu and some ex-1up. TGV re-emerged from Omen to play as a separate alliance, and both VisioN and SiN returned as well. A new alliance, Post Mortum, formed, mainly from ex-Subh members and LCH announced that they would be returning to the game as a full alliance.
The early days of the round saw most alliances galaxy-raiding in order to build roids. Without a clear #1 alliance as in most of the previous rounds it was questionable as to which direction the round would go politically however within the first 3 weeks it was quite clear who the contenders were. Angels, ND and Omen were the top 3 alliances, with ToF (joined by the db battlegoup) close behind. Angels initially held the top spot but as Omen tagged up fully they took over from Angels, who had received more incoming early on due to their prominent position in the #1 spot, with ND back in third. ND, who had boosted themselves pre-round with the recruitment of a number of ex-1up players, targeted Omen on the same night they fully tagged and in response to Omen's lead went looking for help. After talking to LCH, who were sitting outside the top ten in contrast to their earlier rounds of competing with 1up, ND clinched a deal with them concerning targeting Omen. In response to this Omen talked to Angels and discussed a deal whereby they would both target ND and LCH galaxies. Two nights of this proved of little impact on the overall scheme of things however, and when Omen looked for more help Angels, seeing a good option to back out of a conflict they were not being targeted in moved on from hitting ND to more roid-fat targets.
Responding to this perceived betrayal, and after a breakdown in further talks, Omen targeted Angels. As a result of this Angels returned the favour, targeting Omen along with VisioN and ToF, with whom they had signed a NAP agreement leading to Omen losing a serious amount of roids. In the meantime eXi, on the back of solid value playing and an average roid lead over the top 3, had risen up from outside the top 10 into seventh position in the alliance rankings. Further down the universe rankings SiN had merged into TGV, an omen of things to come in the round. Dropping further off the pace and with Angels now firmly in command of the #1 spot Omen, ND, LCH and eXilition, now nearly four weeks into the round, all agreed to avoid each other in order to concentrate on hitting Angels. A key factor in this side forming as it did was Angel's decision to target eXi, having realised the danger of such a value-heavy alliance in the latter stages of the round. Coming under heavy fire Angels dropped roids all over, with arguments springing up internally due to problems over whose roids to defend. Unfortunately for Omen they were beset with internal problems, and despite the opportunity to seize back the top spot sitting in front of them they were unable to take it. With Angels losing roids fast and eXi still sitting too far back it seemed that that the most likely winner now was ND.
Shortly before this sustained period of targeting Post|Mortum decided to merge into VisioN, a move which boosted VsN into the top five alliances, and strengthened Angel's allies. However they were unable to cope with the numbers arranged against them and with some 3 weeks left in the round ND had taken over as #1, a significant part of this being the fact that Angels HC decided to kick a number of gosu members, who then moved across to join eXilition. With Omen having also kicked out some of their members both alliances were somewhat off the pace, 10 million score behind ND at this point. Angels and Omen HC began to discuss a merger, with both of them suffering problems internally, and kicked enough of their members from tag in order for 30 planets in each alliance to merge (60 being the max number of planets allowable after a merger ingame). This new alliance, Furious Omen, took the #1 spot from ND, with some two and a half weeks left in the round. Carry over from events just prior to this merger seriously impacted upon the direction politics took at this point. The day before the merger had seen Angels agree an avoidance deal with eXi in exchange for Angels hitting ND, who also came under pressure from ToF and VsN. Furious Omen, carrying through on the Angels vs eXi deal, hit ND again the next night, albeit via galaxy raids in an attempt to avoid full hostilities. ND, angered by the Furious Omen merger and the perceived "stealing" of their first place, targeted Furious Omen back fully. With matters escalating rapidly Furious Omen planet-targeted ND back, only to receive massive eXilition incoming the next day, with eXi HC declaring that they had no agreements with Furious Omen, only Angels.
At this point, with 2 weeks to go, eXi finally made their move. In reality their HC had decided before the round that even with a reduced playerbase it was possible for them to win. As the round progressed, with eX able to hold a massive roid lead over the other alliances for significant portions of the round, they had built up their value and were now stronger than any other alliance. Further to this they had formed a small separate tag, named Nihilum, which had contained 7 eX players who built up their scores steadily. As these two merged eXi jumped into first place and with their roid and value lead were not unquestionably the strongest contenders. It was clear that the universe would have to target eXi if they were to have any chance of taking the round away from them but ND had retained a NAP with eXi since the first period of targeting Angels. This NAP had a 72 hour expiration deal in place which meant that even if it was canceled instantly it would be 3 days before ND could hit eX. A full scale eX versus FO war was by now under way with Furious Omen taking heavy losses. ND meanwhile were now in third and still angry over the FO merger. Deciding that they could not accept hitting eXi if it only meant that FO would win ND HC posted this thread on Alliance Discussions asking for FO to kick enough members from their tag on the last day that they would finish below ND. Furious Omen HC, who had asked for ND to break their agreement in order to hit eXi, refused and for 24 hours nothing was done by the two alliances.
Realising that this stalemate left both of them out in the cold ND and FO eventually agreed to target eXi together once ND's NAP expired. ND, for reasons variously ascribed to a mix-up in communications, foolish HC or devious underhanded behaviour, ended up hitting eXi some 2 days later. ND and FO slammed, quite literally, into various eXi planets over the next few days with ND, in particular, crashing away millions in value in various battles. One of these "crashes" became legendary in the community as Barrow, ND HC, calculated that an attack on Greenhills, of eXilition, should land, supposing that his ship production would arrive one tick too late. Unfortunately for Barrow Greenhills held the production Golden Roid and ND lost millions in a battle they thought they would win. Although eXi saw the next few days tear chunks out of their roid lead, 11% roid loss on the night ND entered the war alone, the score gap in fact increased, primarily due to the number of crashes. FO had lost huge numbers of roids already and when ND entered the war eX were able to turn their attention towards them. With ND's lack of value, due to the early wars, and propensity towards crashing, losing them even more value, they were unable to catch up to eXi. Despite massive amounts of incoming eX's defence held firm, saving roids where they could and killing fleets if possible. Some smaller alliances, TGV and LCH among them, attempted to help ND and FO versus eX but they were unable to put a meaningful dent in their score, even if they were able to cap roids off many smaller eX planets.
By now FO, well off the pace, were losing the motivation to hit eX and although they continued targeting them their activity was dropping off. Attempts to knock eX off the top spot continued unabated though and up until the last days of the round eX came under immense pressure. In the end this was simply not enough. A combination of intelligent value play and political timing from eXilition, combined with continuous and drainings wars for ND, Angels and Omen on the other side, simply left the universe incapable of taking down eX. The political mistakes made by the various non-eXi HC showed that, even under-strength, eX were a far superior alliance. The winning gal this round was an Ascendancy dominated one, with 9 in-tag members in their galaxy, 9.10. Ascendancy, going almost totally Zikonian, gained hugely from various crashes and fleetcatches during the round and their galaxy rose from well outside the Top 50 towards the start of the round to overtake the leaders for most of the round, 2.6, in the final days. As Ascendancy played with only 20 planets, many of whom were inactive, almost all their strength was concentrated in this galaxy, which worked with eXi throughout the round on mutually beneficial fleetcatches and raids. This type of galaxy play was to foreshadow the methods with which Ascendancy would later go on to dominate many of the later rounds of Planetarion. The final #1 planet was the aforementioned Greenhills, who eventually comfortably won what was, at times, a fairly close contest with two of his fellow alliance mates, Desse and pdmaster, who had led during much of the early part of the round. Would Round 20 see eXi take the field again, or would the contest for #1 alliance take place between other alliances?
