Round 35
Dates and Times
Signups opened at 18:00 GMT on Friday, 1st January
Ticks started at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 8th January
Ticks finished at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 26th February
Pre-Round Announcement
Signup for Round 35 will open at 18:00 GMT on 1st January, with ticks starting at 20:00 GMT on 8th January.
Below are the major changes for Round 35:
- New alliance attack page
- Added new alliance scan request system
- Notifications now paid only
- Buddy pack limit now 3
- Single target ship statistics
- Allianceless planets get a reduced tax rate on the universal exchange (now up to 10% rather than up to 25%).
- 1 Selfexile every 3 ticks
- 1 Late join for gals with 3 BP members, 2 for gals with 2 BP members (exiling 1 out of a gal with 3 BP members does NOT give 2 late joins)
- Upgrade bonuses increased, base rates doubled, smaller increase of the per tick gain
For this round we are also trialling the following changes:
- A planet in an alliance can only be defended by other members of the alliance or his galaxy
- Cluster ETA bonus for defence removed.
Alliance limits will stay the same, 70 maximum with 60 counting towards the alliance score.
Beta testing for many of these changes are available at http://beta.planetarion.com, with the subsequent changes added soon.
Round Summary
Round 35 was pre-empted by the relative demise of the consistently high ranked alliances of the last 10 rounds, Ascendancy, with many of their members moving across to the winners of the previous round, Apprime, who expanded up to a full tag after playing the previous round somewhat under-strength. Facing off against Apprime was one of the more successful alliances of the previous round, Euphoria, who also recruited up to fill their tag. Considered by many to be a relatively balanced contest it quickly proved anything but as Apprime powered ahead. Despite changes to the exile formula in order to try and prevent the formation of fortress galaxies Apprime were able to form a number of these around the universe which quickly rose to the top of the rankings. Similarly to previous rounds it was now evident that unless action was taken the round would be over very quickly and Apprime would completely dominate the universe. A block was formed, to try and at least curtail Apprime's growth, which contained Euphoria, DLR, NewDawn and CT.
Unfortunately this block was relatively unsuccessful. Although attacking was now easier with the change back to single-targeting the block was unable to make their numerical advantage vis-a-vis Apprime count, taking less than 10% off them on the first night of their co-operation and Apprime returning to positive size growth within a few days. Equally damaging to the block's hopes was the fact that a number of other alliances refused to work with them, and in fact a number of these actively joined Apprime and worked together with them to some extent, these included p3nguins, VisioN, ODDR and VGN. Facing off against an alliance of superior quality in terms of activity and desire to win, and arguably even outnumbered by the other side, the block was unable to make any sort of a dent in Apprime's lead. This lead gradually grew, and with any chance of removing Apprime from the top spot pretty much gone the ND/CT/DLR/Euph block turned their attentions to the other alliances who had helped Apprime, severely damaging both p3nguins, and later on Vision.
The final couple of weeks of the round saw Apprime amass a large roid and score lead over their closest competitors, finishing the round virtually on automatic, with both the top galaxy being an Apprime core gal and owning the top 7 planets. Despite perhaps not functioning at their best during the round it had proved a very comfortable win. The Apprime core galaxies had proved too tough for the opposition to crack and this efficiency in defence meant that they never lost the roid lead and were therefore always able to build more value throughout the round. Galaxy wise 12.2 had been the clear leaders early on but with the defeat of the block opposing Apprime they found themselves roided down and passed out by one of Apprime's core galaxies, 2.6, which contained, among others, Apprime's main HC, Cardinal. The planet ranking contest early on had been close between value and xp planets but the xp planets dropped off as the round went on. Non-Apprime planets were removed from the race, the hostile ones by Apprime and their allies and the others by the block. Benneh, who had led for the last third of the round, finished as #1 planet, followed by Tronick and Hanzi.
Final Rankings
See Also
- Alliances in R35
- The Ship Stats for this round saw a return to single-targeting for the first time since Round 23.
- R35 EORC
