Round 36
Dates and Times
Signups opened at 20:00 GMT on Monday 8th March 2010
Ticks started at 20:00 GMT on Friday 19th March 2010.
Ticks finished at 20:00 GMT on Friday 7th May 2010.
Pre-Round Announcement
This round sees several changes:
Galaxies
Private galaxies are made of up to 8 people that only contain buddy packed planets. Players create buddy packs as usual, and can have up to 8 players. Any buddy packs of 2-6 will be joined together, to make 8 planets. Any galaxies that have less than 8 planets after shuffle can get the remaining planets at a late signup. Planets that leave the galaxy after shuffle will not be replaceable by late signups. Normal planets and upgraded planets can both be members of a private galaxy.
Random galaxies are galaxies of 12 or more people. None of the people are in buddy packs. Upgraded planets are spread equally over all galaxies, as are normal planets. Random galaxies get 1 late join planet tick 336.
New signups are placed in random galaxies. Self exiles or galaxy exiles from private galaxies and random galaxies both land in random galaxies.
Alliances
Alliance limits have changed. The top 65 members by score count towards the alliance score. Alliances can contain up to 100 members.
Alliance relations have now been added. Alliance relationships are shown on the "Universe" page. When both alliances accept "Allied" status, the alliances cannot attack each other but can defend each other without an ETA advantage.
User Interface
The user interface has a slightly new layout. The Overview is now more streamlined, and much of the planet summary is available on the right hand side. Over the course of the 11 day signup period, we anticipate a greater selection of skins to become available.
Constructions
The construction setup has changed. The costs and construction units are now varied based on different types, with factories being the quickest to make, and amplifiers and distorters being the slowest to make.
Round Summary
After Apprime's success in Round 35 Round 36 saw the alliance shrink down from some 70 odd members to approximately 50 players. Ascendancy also returned to the field as a more powerful alliance, under the tag name THINLYVEILEDTHREAT, with most of the people who had left for the previous round to join Apprime coming back. With the raising of the tag limit to 100 ND recruited in the majority of the people who had made up Subh in the previous round. VisioN also recruited heavily, more than doubling in size between rounds. p3nguins and DLR rounded out the alliances who were considered to have a chance of winning the round but this round also saw the return of eXcessum, as well as angryduck returning to lead CT.
Initially ND took the lead, helped by their full tag. With both Ascendancy and Apprime viewed with suspicion by everyone, justifiably so considering their past histories, most alliances were reluctant to get committed to a protracted war. VisioN and p3nguins briefly skirmished during the first couple of hundred ticks but this conflict faded away relatively quickly. Some 2 weeks into the round ND made the first, and rather public, political move of the round, NAPing p3nguins and using the ingame NAP system to do so while also announcing it on the forums. Although at first this sparked concerns that these two alliances would co-operate further as regards attacking and such, possibly proving to be too large a force to not dominate the universe, events soon showed this belief to be in error as ND struggled to gain in roids over the following week. Both spread out across the universe and with core galaxies which sucked in a lot of defence when hit when other alliances began to increase their value relative to ND their grip on #1 began to loosen.
Meanwhile VsN had moved on and upwards into the #2 ranking, slightly ahead of DLR. Both Ascendancy and Apprime for the first few weeks were very much wild cards, Ascendancy in particular publicly announcing their sole intention was to hit as many fence galaxies as possible. At one point, just over a week into the round, this led to them hitting 8.3, galaxy of Apprime HC Cardinal, concentrating their fire primarily on the much larger Apprime planets in that gal. While this provoked a return salvo from Apprime hostilities did not last after these two nights. Both alliances began to accumulate roids and looked strong compared to their actual ranks, a cause for concern for many. A key point arrived when the two co-operated together one night to hit 8.2, a galaxy which contained a high number of DLR roids on 2 rather big planets, and DLR decided to move to forestall further co-operation between the two, understandable given the history between Asc and App up to that point. After agreeing a NAP some two and a half weeks into the round with Apprime DLR and App then moved on to target certain galaxies the two hadn't hit prior to this, notably a p3nguins core gal the night of the NAP followed by four Asc core gals being hit over two nights by the two.
Ascendancy, now under pressure and having lost 5k roids, decided to strike back against one of the two. Looking for allies around the universe they found that both eXcessum and ODDR were willing to hit DLR. Joining forces with them both for the first night and then working with ODDR the following night they achieved some success on the core DLR gals. Over the 3 days after Ascendancy began to hit back DLR lost 10k roids. Although on the third night Apprime stepped in a little bit to help, DLR were still losing roids, not helped by receiving incoming elsewhere, with ND co-operating with Ascendancy on the third night in attack, and any chance they had of a #1 rank seemed to be fast disappearing. However Ascendancy had little interest in a protracted war and the two were able to agree to stop targeting each other. At the same time as Ascendancy had struck back at DLR Vision had moved ahead of ND into the #1 spot, with DLR dropping out of the picture. Then, in a rather surprising move to some, as ND gradually lost ground on VsN over the next few days they decided to give up any ambitions they still held of a #1 ranking and NAPed VsN.
Due to the perceived negativity of this decision it was widely unpopular throughout the community outside these two alliances. ND and VsN both turned towards other targets, with somewhat contrasting levels of success. VsN, helped somewhat by eXcessum, targeted DLR, who had regained most of their roids, and took ~9k roids off them over the next five days. Dissatisfied with levels of activity and commitment from some within their alliance DLR proceeded to kick 12 members out, signaling a total end to any chance they had of a #1 spot. ND, having taken heavy incoming from Apprime over the previous while decided to hit back. This proved easier conceived of than executed though. With the exception of 10.8, a galaxy containing 7 apprime planets, the rest of Apprime was spread thinly across the universe and was therefore rather difficult to efficiently target. Although ND attempted to hit these gals, their size and large defence pool meant they had little success to begin with. Ascendancy then joined in, having had cordial relations with ND since an early round core-galaxy avoidance agreement, but the number of roids taken off Apprime planets was still fairly minimal.
In the meantime the top galaxy ranks had turned into a contest between a number of public galaxies, who had up to 25 members, and private galaxies, with more individually higher ranked players but limited by their size being capped at 8 planets. The two main contestants seemed to be 8.9, a public galaxy into which many CT players had successfully exiled, and 8.3, the aforementioned Apprime HC galaxy also containing high ranked planets from other alliances. With less than two weeks left in the round CT began to look for help in targeting 8.3. Either not having bothered to target this galaxy or not having succeeded in roiding it, almost every other alliance expressed interest in this. On the second last sunday of the round Ascendancy, ND, CT, p3nguins, VsN and ODDR all agreed to hit 8.3 that night. Facing the probable loss of a huge number of roids 8.3 and hoping to either break up the coalition arranged against them, or at least to annoy it, the whole of 8.3 went into vacation mode. This move had limited success, even in the most immediate terms, as one planet, having been kicked from ND and launched on opportunistically by eXcessum early in the night, failed to safely secure his fleet before entering vacation mode and lost over 1.5 million value when his attackers landed.
The loose coalition which had joined up to hit 8.3 then faced a decision over what to do over the next few days until 8.3 re-emerged. CT, seeing little point to anything bar hitting 8.3, left the group but the others all agreed to take the chance to hit a weakened Apprime over the next couple of days. A number of the HC and players within Apprime were perceived as extremely arrogant at this point over what they had said regarding other alliances and their respective abilities over the previous few days, an "arrogance" perhaps justified given the domination of the high ranks by Apprime, and they also held a huge number of roids over a small number of planets, which seemed as good a reason to hit them as any to some. Apprime, who had risen to #3 by this time, lost massive amounts of roids over the next few days, and although VsN almost pulled out after one night they agreed on a NAP with Ascendancy, effectively securing their last vulnerable spot and rejoining the joint effort fully. Massively outnumbered, to the point where any attempt to hold roids was virtually hopeless, Apprime had lost nearly 20k roids by the time 8.3 left vacation mode. ND/p3nguins/Ascendancy and VsN then hit the galaxy that night, dropping them down ~50% in roids. Apprime, with little else to do, fleetcaught a couple of ND and Ascendancy planets returning from their attacks on 8.3.
By now there was less than a week to go in the round. With VsN NAPed to Ascendancy and ND there was no final contest for the #1 ranking. Instead the last week was far more about planet and galaxy ranks. With 8.3 out of the picture the only other contestants with a vague chance to pass 8.9 were 11.3, a bigger public galaxy, and 12.3, a private galaxy which, despite having 2 large Apprime planets, had managed to avoid the worst of the war. Ascendancy, along with p3nguins for one night and p3nguins and ND the second, hit 12.3. Although few roids were lost by the gal this ended any slim chances they had of #1. 11.3 were hit by CT and VsN, who agreed to help CT in their quest for top galaxy, and lost enough roids to ensure they couldn't pass 8.9. The top planet contest was between dedin of Ascendancy and Dmnts of VsN. As neither of these two alliances could hit each other this was an affair dominated by the decisions of Apprime, who first roided dedin and then, two days later, Dmnts. With the gap between the two down to less than 200k score Ascendancy decided to mass leave tag on the final tick possible to launch an attack on Dmnts, a move they mistakenly believed they needed to make to bypass the ingame NAP mechanics. As Apprime were attacking Dmnts already this move was virtually impossible to stop and dedin finished #1, a position he may well have accomplished regardless.
In the end this was one of the stranger rounds of PA, with no contest for #1 in the final couple of weeks, despite the gap being relatively close, and a comparatively small alliance ganged up against. VsN were worthy winners for most people though, and as they announced that they would discontinue as an alliance after the round, finished on a high note with their first round victory.
Final Rankings
See Also
- Alliances in R36
- The Ship Stats for this round saw a return to multi-targeting.
- EORC log
