Round 13

Dates and Times

Tick start 30th March 21:00 GMT.
Shuffle 1st April 09:00 GMT.

The round ended on the 8th of June 2005 with the last tick at 21:00 GMT as planned. Havoc began on the 9th of June, and 'Capture the Flag' havoc began on the 10th.

Round Details

Changes From R12

Here is a list of changes since R12.

Announcements

Various announcements posted by Kal.

Round Summary

Round 13 marked the arrival of the second true powerhouse alliance of the PAX era, eXilition. A group of ex-Planetia players joined up with members scattered throughout a number of alliances over the previous few rounds to create a group designed to challenge the dominance of 1up. In order to accomplish this goal eXi entered the round as part of a block consisting of themselves, LCH and a returning ToT. On the other side 1up continued to work with ND, carrying on from Round 12, and picked up SiN as allies as well.

Within the first few days of the round it was readily apparent that eXi, with a very high average score and roid rank, were capable of achieving the goals that they had set themselves pre-round. Similarly to 1up in the previous round their alliance was well under the tag limit, numbering only some 60-70 planets throughout the round. Initially Wolfpack, having rebuilt between rounds and added the hydra BG to the alliance, and their nearly full tag took the lead but the real war was between the 1up and eXi blocks. Both alliances hovered around the bottom of the top five alliances and hammered each other almost relentlessly for the first 5-600 ticks of the round.

Racial choice played a large part in the direction of this round. Many players, 1up in particular, had gone for the race picked by most of the top planets in the previous round, Cathaar. Unfortunately for them Cath was distinctly underpowered this round. The Zikonian race, newly changed back from subversion to stealing, was extremely powerful, mainly thanks to the value gains from stealing, as well as improving the ability to fake with the possibility of Ziks having more than two classes of pods. 1up, having recruited back up closer to the tag limit suffered perhaps from a certain level of hubris after the alliance's back-to-back #1s, and certainly took on board some members who thought the round would be a cake-walk to victory.

Nonetheless this was still the much vaunted 1up military machine and the damage it caused to the eX block, and vice versa, in the early part of the round was immense. Continuous hostiles would fly 24/7, although sometimes to little avail as in-galaxy defence diluted the efficiency of targeting. Angels, continuing to play as a full alliance after their high average scores and roids in round 12, agreed a NAP with eXi and joined their block. Upon hearing of this the 1up block, after Angels had hit 1up, targeted Angels intensively for one night, leading to a massive 20% roid loss across the alliance. The blocks expanded somewhat, with ToF joining in on 1up's side, and Veneratio on occasion. Roids were swapped back and forth, with different alliances suffering losses on both sides of the block from night to night. Eventually though eXilition's superior activity and dedication, and the quality of their block, led to them pulling ahead of 1up, moving closer behind Wolfpack.

At this point Wolfpack, who had largely avoided major incoming so far in the round (some four weeks in), came under pressure for the first time. They worked with Howling Rain but had largely held the #1 rank as a result of the 1up/eX war. The hydra BG, who made up a large chunk of WP's score and roids, knew many of the eX core well, and had agreed on pNAPs between them for the round. As always this lack of member control proved costly. Wolfpack attempted to fight eX and their block, beginning co-operation with 1up et al but eX/ToT/LCH tore through them and Wolfpack lost large numbers of roids. The block struck back as well, and the fifth week of the round saw eX also being roided, a -13% night being particularly damaging. eX were simply better able to keep their fleets growing and flying though. Roids swung back and forth over the next two weeks with the roid lead being swapped back and forth being eX and WP, and Angels actually rising ahead of both of them during this time. ND and SiN also merged, slightly over a week after eX began targeting WP, into SINND, taking third place in the alliance rankings and looking threatening behind the two leaders.

Eventually, as Wolfpack were ground down, eX turned their attention back to 1up. The roid lead eX had built led to their fleets becoming significantly larger than 1up's and in one night the eX block took nearly 20% of 1up's roids, breaking the back of much of the genuine resistance that was left in the universe. eX's roid growth took off following this, swiftly passing Wolfpack's roid lead. This was aided, in no small part, by a member of the hydra BG and Wolfpack's biggest planet, Keizari, leaving Wolfpack in order to join Angels. eX were now firmly in the ascendancy and reclaimed the roid lead from Angels as they gained 50000 roids in the space of 10 days. The hydra BG left Wolfpack at this point, with much of the group going on to join Angels. eXilition, responding to a unwitting NAP violation, devastated rain's planet as he was moving from WP to Angels. Regardless eX ran away with the round from here on, taking a hard-fought and much deserved victory from the round. Angels, boosted by the addition of hydra, finished #2. More controversially NoS, who had NAPed both major blocks throughout the war, finished in third place. The winning planet of the round was the aforementioned Keizari, who as a Zik benefited from battles such as the one below, and the #1 gal was 1.2, who finished with a comfortable roid and score lead over the #2 galaxy.

Contenders

The below contenders graphs were taken on the 5th of June, 3 days before the round ended.

#1 alliance contenders

#1 planet contenders

#1 galaxy contenders

Events

Round13's top planets were not decided alone on their aggressiveness, activity and cunning, but also in their ability to reap huge rewards by stealing ships. One of the battles that kept Keizari and figar on their toes was the attack on 15:8:11, which boosted them both ~4M in score. Being on the defensive in the final lemming runs was crucial for securing a top planet.

Lokken's R13 Logbook

Lokken kept a 'diary' of R13, which can be read in Round_13:Lokkens Logbook.

Final Rankings

Top 100 Planets

Final Planet Rankings

Top 20 Alliances

Final Alliance Rankings

Top Galaxy

• Grim 1:2:1
• Mistwraith 1:2:2
• Tyroka 1:2:3
• SeqZ 1:2:4
• [HR]Chaos 1:2:5
• BGLame 1:2:6
• Dauthi 1:2:7
• {eZZa} 1:2:8
• TumNarDok 1:2:9
• Arbac 1:2:10
• Shockey 1:2:11
• cbk 1:2:12
• mazzelaar 1:2:13
• Pooley 1:2:14
• Tis 1:2:15
• YaegeR 1:2:16
• Haer 1:2:17
• Rasta 1:2:18
• Artur 1:2:19
• Pattyy 1:2:20
• Ziw 1:2:21
• august 1:2:22

Great article but it didn't have everytinhg-I didn't find the kitchen sink!

See Also

• Alliances in R14

• A log of the end of round Winner's Ceremony.

• The round's ship stats were made by Jester