Round 33
Dates and Times
Signups opened at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 21st August
Ticks started at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 28th August
Ticks finished at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 16th October
Round Summary
Round 33 opened with two alliances viewed as the main contenders for the round, Apprime, the victors of last round, and Ascendancy, the winners of the four rounds prior to that. This round also saw the return of one of Planetarion's older alliances in VisioN and Evolution emerge from a brief one round hiatus. The remaining significant alliances to start the round were p3nguins and Conspiracy Theory, who both lost a number of players to Evo, NewDawn and DLR. EC also began the round with a higher number of members than they had in the previous two rounds but were unable to run the alliance as effectively as they did in the past and soon disbanded.
This round was dominated by the race and ship class strategies picked by the various alliances. The majority of alliances went for cr/bs, the exception being Evo who went for fi/co fleets. Ascendancy went for perhaps the strongest individual fleet of the round, Xan cr, also building peacekeepers and ghosts for anti-fi/co, with a small number of planets going for other races. As part of this strategy they used the exile system to place nearly all of their planets in six core galaxies, a virtual necessity if using fr versus fi/co incoming. Apprime went for a slightly more diverse strategy with Zik and Etd cr/bs as well as Xan and a lesser emphasis on core galaxies.
As the round got under way p3nguins initially held a small lead but they were quickly overtaken by Apprime as they tagged up fully. Ascendancy sat slightly further back behind Evo in fourth before overtaking them a little over a week into the round. Initially, despite the widespread belief that the only two realistic challengers for the #1 spot were Ascendancy and Apprime, the two avoided each other, perhaps partly due to the friendly relations between sections of the various memberbases. This informal NAP held for a considerable length of time, despite Apprime targeting an Ascendancy galaxy, 10.2, on one night hoping for, and getting, very little defence due to another Asc gal, 9.7, coming under attack earlier in the night.
Eventually however, as Ascendancy closed in slowly on Apprime, war became inevitable. Apprime lost their roid lead primarily due to the differences in strategy between the two alliances. With Apprime more spread out they lost more roids on incidental raids, whereas it was extremely rare for more than one Ascendancy galaxy to have incoming at a time, and with their level of concentration they were better able to cope with these sorts of raids. Apprime went looking for allies to help them hit Ascendancy, and found one in VsN, with whom they agreed a NAP. Together the two alliances launched on the top Ascendancy galaxy on the first night of the war. Although they were able to take nearly 25% of this galaxy's roids a large number of fleets were crashed in this raid and the first night was fairly inconclusive. Ascendancy had closed the last of the score and roid gaps on this night by adding their remaining planets which were out of tag, but as the war continued over the next number of days neither alliance was able to gain a significant advantage over the other.
Both sides made different tactical choices during the conflict. Apprime focused their fleets massively towards roiding, and defending versus, Ascendancy. This in turn meant that they were comparatively weaker versus incoming from other alliances, which both still received as the war went on. Ascendancy were forced to adjust their tactics as well, building fi/co to combat Apprime's use of no-prelaunch fi/co attacks, which rendered their out of gal fr fleets irrelevant. Both alliances launched on each other around the clock but with a little over a week elapsed since the war kicked off Ascendancy appeared to be gaining a slight upper hand. In this conflict both alliances co-operated with others on different nights, Apprime co-operating mostly with VsN and Ascendancy with p3nguins, and Evolution on one night. With Ascendancy moving head Apprime switched back to the biggest Ascendancy galaxy, 9.7, and attacked them with the help of VsN once more. Again this attack was inconclusive with 20% of their roids taken for a number of lost fleets. At this point Ascendancy were beginning to look dangerous to other alliances and, following talks between Apprime and Evolution, Evo agreed to enter the war on Apprime's side the following night.
That same night Apprime, dissatisfied with failing to roid Ascendancy's top planet in 9.7, Benneh, launched massive waves on him. Although this took one wave of roids off him it also resulted in Apprime crashing huge amounts of value. Due primarily to this Cardinal, Apprime HC, decided to kick the planets who crashed and later on a number of others as well for what he viewed as sub-par performance. All of this combined to increase the score gap between Ascendancy and Apprime to nearly 25 million, effectively removing Apprime from the race for #1 alliance. Evolution, dissatisfied with the actions taken by Apprime, pulled out of their agreement and NAPed Ascendancy. If the contest for top alliance hadn't been ended before this it certainly was afterwards. Apprime now decided to target Evo, "revenge" for this perceived betrayal.
With the assistance of both VisioN and p3nguins at times Apprime successfully targeted Evolution over the next week. In this they were aided by internal problems which cropped up in Evolution. Their top galaxy, 1.10, attempted to NAP Apprime and avoid the heavy incomings which most of the rest of the alliance faced. Another one of their galaxies, upon discovering this and the unlikelihood that these planets would defend them versus Apprime, went into vacation mode. This in turn meant that any possibility of Evolution successfully holding their own was pretty much zero and they lost ~15% of their roids over the course of a week.
The last meaningful actions of the round concerned the races for #1 planet and galaxy. The main galaxies at the top were the Evolution galaxy, 1.10, the biggest Ascendancy galaxy, 9.7, a primarily Apprime/Asc galaxy, 9.6, and a mixed non-Ascendancy galaxy, 5.1. Of these the first to drop was 1.10, who eventually came under attack from Apprime and others, losing most of their roids in a single night. Next to fall was 9.7, which was hit by almost every alliance bar Evolution in one night, resulting in some 500 fleets incoming and the loss of any chance of #1. At this point 5.1 was clear favourite and despite their being roided by Evo and Asc with a week to go in the round they were able to hold onto the top spot, with 9.6 coming closest but unable to pass them out, being attacked by Apprime and others on the final day of the round.
The race for top planet was closely intertwined with the galaxy race. Benneh, who had looked to be one of the favourites for #1 planet, saw his chances disappear when his galaxy came under attack, with his planet receiving over 200 hostile fleets. This left the remaining competitors as ATRO and agar3s of p3nguins, tezuro of ND and Reese of Asc. tezuro, lacking in roids compared to the others, was unable to come close in the end. The penultimate day of the round saw both ATRO and agar3s come under attack with both being roided. agar3s and Reese entered the final day without a massive difference in score between them. However the last attacks of the round on Reese were a failure and although she lost over half her roids she was boosted dramatically by salvage and finished well clear of agar3s.
