View source for Round 29

==Dates and Times==
* Round 29 Signups: Monday 13th October 2008
* Round 29 Start: Friday 31st October 2008
* Round 29 End: Friday 19th December 2008

==Round Information==

Some of the main changes for Round 29:

*Basic (free) accounts now have unlimited population, government, journal/history and buddy pack abilities.<br>
*Premium (paid) accounts will have no adverts, more skins, and a one off boost to resources or asteroids as well as constructions or researches, to be selected at some time after upgrade.<br>
*Covert ops agents and security guards now give value<br>
*There is now a new Core Resource technology, and the last 3 give a bigger resource bonus<br>
*Guards / security agents in production can be canceled for a partial refund<br>
*The Technology and Surface Scans have been merged into the 'Development Scan', and a 'Landing Scan' replaces the Surface Scan. The Landing Scan can be used at ETA 1 to a target planet and lists the number of attacking and defending fleets, but not the co-ords or number of ships.

==Round Summary==

After the rather one-sided [[Round 28]], [[Denial]] returned as an alliance for '''Round 29''', with the same [[HC]] and a similar memberbase to that they finished [[Round 27]] with. A new alliance entered the fray in the form of [[Audentes]], with a core from [[Jenova]] and a number of players recruited from other alliances. The other alliances viewed as possible contenders were [[CT]], [[ND]] and [[Ascendancy]], who started off with a smaller tag than the previous round. With both Ascendancy looking less powerful and Denial entering fully into the round this looked initially like it would be a closely contested round.

At first ND took an early lead ahead of CT, albeit primarily based on the fact that Denial delayed tagging their full complement of players. When Audentes tagged fully about a week into the round they jumped into second place but Ascendancy, lacking sufficient numbers, lagged well behind the others. With the initial post-[[protection]] roiding over Denial's military began to swing into gear. Steadily gaining more roids than any other alliance each night by the time two weeks of the round had elapsed Denial were in the #1 spot with a small but significant lead over the chasing pack and a 20% roid lead over ND, who had the second highest roid count. It was clear to the other alliances at this point that anyone wishing to challenge for the top spot had to go through Denial first. ND, then #2, Audentes, in #3, and Ascendancy, the previous round winners, came together to form a loose [[block]] with the goal of knocking down Denial.

Denial, for their part, were [[NAP]]ed with [[ROCK]], with whom they had arrangements with from pre-round. However the block was able to inflict losses on Denial and, despite not working together every night, dropped Denial by some 15% of their roids and were able to keep them non-[[roid fat]] over the next week. ND and Ascendancy both benefited from this and were able to gain significantly and close the gap to the top spot. Ascendancy, in particular, grew massively from having a large number of [[late signup]]s in top galaxies, most of which were already dominated by Ascendancy anyways. This led to Ascendancy taking the #1 size ranking off CT shortly over 3 weeks into the round, CT having replaced Denial after the block began hitting them. 

Conversely Audentes suffered due to their participation in the block. Viewed by Denial as the weakest link in the group they had experienced heavy incs from Denial, aided by Rock. Ascendancy and ND, having only been targeted infrequently, were in much better shape than Audentes. Aud, seeing their chance of #1 fade, and wanting to regroup to avoid any chance of the alliance collapsing, pulled out of targeting Denial and went back to galaxy raiding. ND, now looking at a potential block of only themselves and Ascendancy, were reluctant to continue. Despite being close to #1 themselves ND pulled out, citing tiredness in their members and [[officer]]s. Although every alliance was now back in a politically neutral state the overall picture had changed in the previous ten days or so. Audentes were effectively finished as a competitor for #1, ND had faded somewhat, and while Denial had retained the top spot Ascendancy had come on strong and with their roid lead were favourites to take the lead within the next few days.

With the top alliances all gal-raiding Ascendancy hit the top spot without facing heavy incoming. As they began to pull away on the back of their roid-lead Denial made a move to attempt to restore parity. After talking to a number of different alliances they were able to get [[VGN]], ROCK and ND to agree to target Ascendancy with them. The first night of attacks saw Ascendancy take heavy roid losses, although not as high as may have been expected. Ascendancy had, again, set up their planets very defensively, going heavily [[Xan]] and for [[Ship_Class#Fighter_.28FI.29|fi]]/[[Ship_Class#Corvette_.28CO.29|co]] fleets and the associated low [[travel time]]s. The involved alliances also [[crashing|crashed]] away a large amount of [[value]] on various high ranking Ascendancy planets in these attacks. After the block kept up the pressure the next couple of nights Ascendancy, looking for [[ally|allies]] agreed on a [[NAP]] with CT, who had also been approached by others with a view to targeting Ascendancy. Previously approached by Ascendancy with a view to targeting Denial CT had responded by offering an end-of-round NAP. This in turn was taken up by Ascendancy when the odds seemed heavily weighted against them. 

The effective climax of alliance warfare that round arrived on the fourth day of the attacks against Ascendancy. 3.2, home to [[elviz]], at that stage a #1 planet contender, as well as a number of other high ranked Ascendancy planets, was heavily waved by the opposing alliances. With the earlier waves on elviz all covered a large [[Ship_Class#Cruiser_.28CR.29|cr]]/[[Ship_Class#Battleship_.28BA_or_BS.29|bs]] wave from Denial was launched late in the day. Ascendancy, defending with virtually all the anti-cr/bs left in the ally, as well as borrowing def fleets from people in Ascendancy galaxies, covered this final wave. Despite this Denial landed, hoping enough of the defence was fake and lost some 5 million value to Ascendancy's 1 million, increasing the score gap between the alliances even further. As Ascendancy had been targeting back Denial during this war they had been unable to decrease the roid gap by a genuinely meaningful amount. Deciding that their chances of #1 were gone Denial approached Ascendancy and the two agreed to cease planet-targeting each other.

With Denial pulling out any opposition to Ascendancy effectively collapsed. Ascendancy, along with CT, were able to pick off high ranking planets at will. Although every galaxy and almost every top non-Asc/CT planet was roided two particularly notable sequences of events transpired around the same time, within a few days of the end of the war. [[LukeyLove]] of ND, 4.7.7, was #1 planet with a substantial roid lead, secured during the war, at this time. Ascendancy, looking to put one of their own planets on top, targeted him and took 50% of his roids off him over the space of a few days, as well as roiding a number of other hostile planets in his galaxy, which was split between Ascendancy, Denial and ND primarily. Ascendancy and CT also hit 5.3 at this time, who were the #1 galaxy at that stage. In an attempt to avoid losing roids, [[Reese]], Denial [[HC]], got herself exiled out of the galaxy, although as it transpired she was not on the target list for either alliance due to a breakdown in communications. With the loss of score from this and the roids lost in the following raid 5.3 dropped out of contention for top galaxy. The three remaining contenders for top galaxy were 1.10, dominated by Ascendancy, and 7.8 and 4.7, with a number of Ascendancy planets in each. 1.10, with its higher number of Ascendancy planets, received less incs than the other galaxies, and were able to pull away in the last week of the round.

After lukeylove was roided there were 3 planets, all Ascendancy, remaining in the race for #1 planet. [[Cardinal]] effectively abandoned his chances by going on vacation for the final week of the round, leaving [[Sunny]], 4.7.9, and [[Achi]], 1.10.7, competing against each other. With both gaining nearly 3k roids in the last 10 days of the round this was a remarkably intense contest. In the closest race for top planet in the history of the game Sunny pipped Achi on the finishing line, winning by less than 50k score. As the round finished Ascendancy again dominated the top planet and galaxy ranks and finished #1 alliance by a convincing margin over CT. Their victory this round moved them into an elite group of alliances to have won twice in a row and the challenge was now up to the rest of the universe to defeat them in [[Round 30]].

=Final Rankings=

* [[Round_29:Planet_Ranks|Final Planet Rankings]]
* [[Round_29:Galaxy_Ranks|Final Galaxy Rankings]]
* [[Round_29:Alliance Ranks|Final Alliance Rankings]]
* [[Round_29:Miscellaneous Ranks|Miscellaneous Rankings]]

==See Also==

* [[Round 29:End of Round Ceremony|R29 EORC]]
* [[:Category:Alliances:Round 29|Alliances in R29]]
* [[Round 29:Ship Stats|Ship Stats]]