Xanadu
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General Info
Xanadu originally started out as an online gaming group, who were particularly active in the Half-Life mod CounterStrike. The group was founded by Weezer and Rashim. Unlike many CS groups, Xanadu did not consider itself to be a clan, but a team instead. The ideals were to simply enjoy the gaming experience without being disrespectful to anyone. Xanadu continues to be an online gaming community. Games that are currently being played by Xanadu are EVE-Online, EverQuest II and GuildWars. Our eyes are also focused on Pirates of the Burning Sea.
Xanadu were for many rounds the primary opponents of Fury. While they won very few rounds, they were easily considered a top tier alliance and are recognised as one of the PA superpowers from R4-7. Xanadu left Planetarion after Round 7, though their wing LDK kept playing as a full-fledged aliance, as did Ministry in Round 8 and Round 9.
Round 1: The Beginning
Xanadu's life in Planetarion started with a move from CounterStrike. The idea was to try out different games. Considering GrimReaper (Grim) was already playing Planetarion, it was decided to give it a try. After teaming up with the Free Worlds Alliance (FWA), which was partially lead by Grim, preparations were made for round 2. Improvements were necessary; using a newsgroup to organize attacks and defense didn't proof to be very effective. A larger memberbase was needed as well, so it was decided to accept a merger with the DPA and adopt Xanadu Foundation Alliance (XFA) as the name to fly under.
Round 2: The Struggle for Power
The start of round 2 looked promising, average scores were 'ok' and many people were recruited. At this time Xanadu started experimenting with different military setups. Xanadu's first 'wing' system was based on clusters. Clusters 1 to 4 were controlled by a military leader, cluster 5-8 as well, etc. After the merger with TheRand's United Federation of Planets (UFP), a more traditional squad based system was introduced. By then however the XFA had changed name to United Xanadu Federation (UXF). Aside from gaining more firepower, the merger also provided a good opportunity to get rid of some dead weight. During this time, a lot of people were recruited (some of them are still part of the Xanadu core, and it was a time that future Xanadu HC such as Zip and Sastul came to the forefront as squad leaders).
At its peak, the UXF reached a top5 place. With close to 800 members it was a giant and inefficient machine (much like other alliances of the time), which was shown to us the hard way during the war against WaC. The only thing UXF could be considered good at, was defence. B8S (cluster 8 alliance) learned this the hard way during one of their attacks. Towards the end of the round Grim and TheRand decided to reorganize the alliance, to weed out the inactives and to turn it into a more effective fighting group: the birth of ViruS.
Round 3: The New Dawn
A new round, a new name, a new website (built by DarkEvil) based on an early design of the present Xanadu one; and the hope to excel with a different system and less members. During the round, 2 members managed to get into the top10, between the Fury, ReBorn and Legion members and a few made their way into the top100.
The key to success was the military organization. Squads were the way to go. One of the squads in particular proved itself to be very valuable and made a real name for itself in the history of Xanadu and Virus. This squad was named Princes of the Universe (PotU), after its round 2 predecessor. PotU decided to run itself aside from, but still within the alliance. This eventually even lead to the ViruS HC wanting to participate in PotU attacks.
At the same time many good (PotU) players were lost to the bigger alliances, who went to join Fury (Charlie, Seduzer, Hjorten, Quozzy, StarC), Legion (Bully, sSsWwolf, TheDevil) and ReBorn (Addict, Overfiend (aka viPi/Gin)). Virus was a breeding ground for the bigger alliances. And this was put to good use, 'spies' managed to work their way up to the highest ranks of their new employers.
At this time Virus decided to, together with BlueTuba, launch an offensive against ReBorn. This 'war' ended with a nasty surprise: the deletion of an entire wing of ReBorn for using bots. After the war, ViruS's development stagnated and its situation became troublesome. ViPi, who was not in Virus at the time, proposed the idea to Grim to start over with a new and more elite alliance. It was decided the ideals of Xanadu would be used and so it was appropriate that that was to be its name. What was left of the PotU squad and a large proportion of the good players from Virus left with Grim, Sastul and Zip to help create the new Xanadu. Irvine took over command of Virus; practically the only person who could turn it around from the situation it was left in; and he did a marvellous job. Xanadu was joined by a small elite group commanded by Zaphod (ex-CpV group), it welcomed back the remnants of the wing that left RB, and also added a Lithuanian only wing called LDK.
Sastul, a Xanadu HC, had dual membership with Legion and this, as well as the aid given to Legion against Fury during the last weeks of the round, brought Xanadu closer and into a position that resulted in Xanadu being included in a triad with Novus Ordo Seclorum (NoS).
Round 4: The Tides of War
It was very obvious that round 4 would see a big war. Xanadu, Legion and NoS vs. Fury and its friends/allies. This round also saw something new, parallels. Entire parallels were forged into massive fortresses, controlled by one of the sides and thus making it nearly impossible to be attacked.
After a time of tension between Legion and Nos, NoS decided to leave the triad. Legion and Xanadu then invited Elysium to fill up the empty spot. At this point Fury was by far the strongest side but failed to take advantage of this. A big morale boost for VeX came in the form of a massive Xanadu attack on Fury's flagship galaxy Thieves & Pirates, the winners of round 3. This 8-wave attack was eventually stopped out of respect for players in the target-galaxy, who did everything within their power to survive the onslaught. After this attack many more attacks were organized against entire parallels. Starting in the weaker, but slowly working our way up to the parallel 11 stronghold.
When the war came to an end, Legion and Elysium decided to go after NoS and Cell. Xanadu stayed out of this because of political agreements with NoS/Cell for round 5. Legion and Elysium received help from their former enemies: WTF (WolfPack, BlueTuba, Fury).
At the end of the round, Xanadu had the nr. 1 and 2 ranked players as well as the nr. 1 galaxy, 3 pure Xanadu top10 galaxies and players in 2 other top10 galaxies as well as a large proportion of pure or mixed galaxies in the top 100. Undoubtedly Xanadu in its current shape turned into a top alliance in only 1 round. Not many alliances can claim to have achieved that. It was a great example of the synergy between the core of Xanadu and the wings LDK and Section.
Round 5: The Price for Freedom
Inbetween round 4 and round 5 NoCeX came to the conclusion that the numbers were not in their favour and decided to NAP 3 smaller alliances; G-II, Mi and Tsunami. However, very early on NoS saw pretty half their memberbase leaving to create a new alliance called LuX. LuX turned out to be non-friendly, along with BlueTuba, Elysium, FA, Fury, Legion, Quha, ToT, ViruS and WolfPack.
And so it became a dreadful round for the relatively small NoCeX. It became even worse when the whole coordinates list was released (through questionable means). After a few nights of the start of the war it became apparent that it was impossible to last throughout the round, with nearly all members and galaxies being beaten out of the top200. The last Xanadu galaxy to leave the top100 was the Red Bull galaxy. The universe quickly fell into boredom. Some members of the high ranking alliances even started complaining about us not putting up a fight (hey, 3:1 odds..). Xanadu then simply refused to fight those alliances, hoping they would eventually start fighting eachother. In the meantime Xanadu had decided to step away from NoCeX to "save" itself. Some members turned out to be mere glory-seekers and left Xanadu to join one of the winning alliances. This made the people who stayed even more determined in bringing success to Xanadu once again.
Eventually a war started between the top alliances. Elysium felt betrayed by Legion and started talking with Xanadu. Both knew that their only chance to get even with Legion and Fury was to work together, and so 2 alliances had found eachother for the next round. Together with Silver and TFD they prepared for the new war to come.
Round 6: First Encounters
Going into Round 6, with Elysium TFD and Silver, Xanadu formed the Xeta block. With Titans choosing to side with Furgion over new boys Deus the FoS block arose. Almost all of FoS and Xeta felt angry towards Furgion for stagnating r5 and a determination to give them a tough time this round existed throughout both blocks. Teaming up early on and massively outnumbering FLTV Xeta and FoS slowly picked apart their galaxies, removing the mid-ranked ones from contention before destroying their top gals over a number of nights. In this war the Bull and LDK galaxies were particularly effective, often picking the toughest targets.
With FLTV resoundingly beaten tension arose between the Xeta and FoS blocks, particularly between the two leading alliances in both, Deus and Xanadu. Xanadu, concerned by reports that Deus were talking to FLTV about working together to target Xeta, declared war on Deus. Initial hopes that Deus could be taken on alone did not pan out and before long Xanadu was under heavy fire from both FoS and a resurgent FLTV.
Outnumbered in turn Xeta galaxies began to drop down the rankings. Staring defeat in the face LDK mounted a memorable rearguard action on their top planet, Sliekas, defending him at all costs from the FLTV/FoS onslaught and eventually securing him the #1 spot. As the round came to a close thoughts of FoS and Xeta reuniting to kill off FLTV again abounded but the round ended before anything substantial came to pass. Xanadu had proven their status as a superpower in PA throughout this round and even though they were not successful in the end they had helped bring about one of the most exciting rounds of PA to date.
Round 7: Critical Diplomacy
Round 7 saw Xanadu and previous round allies Elysium, who had integrated Silver during r6, team-up with NoS and Wolfpack, with whom they had had friendly relations with towards the end of the round. They announced the creation of the Newx block on Alliance Discussions, which led to widespread resentment in a community tired of powerblocking.
As the round began the NewX block saw many internal difficulties, with NoS not joining the server with the rest of the block. These problems mounted up and although they were initially in a superior situation tactically in many clusters NewX lost ground and eventually dropped down under sustained targeting from FFLTTVR. A few LDK galaxies managed to survive relatively intact but were unable to mount any sort of offensive until the breakup of the block when they began to work together with Titans against Furgion. Nevertheless r7 was a definite defeat for Xanadu. After the end of R7 Xanadu moved on to other games as an alliance, albeit with many of their wings continuing on in PA.
