Round 26
Dates and Times
Round 26 signups opened at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 21st March 2008.
Round 26 started at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 28th March 2008.
Round 26 ended at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 16th May 2008.
Round Announcement
Round 26
We would like to announce the following changes for Round 26:
Buddy Packs will be reduced from 5 to 4 players. Galaxies will consist of 1 buddy pack of 4 or 3, or two packs of 2.
However, 2 new signups can be invited to join the galaxy at tick 336, instead of 1 as in Round 25.
Alliance limits will be increased to 75 and the support planet rule will be in effect.
The major change this round regards the in-game alliance defence system. It is now possible to report an incoming on overview or gal status by clicking a link beside the incoming to report it. It will then automatically get added to the in-game alliance page. The in-game alliance defence page has been improved to automatically detect the latest scans of the hostile planets (similar to the alliance attack page), and to also auto-detect the (pre)launched fleets at the same ETA as the incoming hostile fleet. It's possible to change the status to one of a variety, and there's a notes section.
We are going to have a Creators Hour in #planetarion on Netgamers on Wednesday, 12th March at 20:00 GMT, where we can answer questions about the coming round.
We'd like to remind you all that we have an ongoing speedgame at http://speedgame.planetarion.com for the rest of this week, and for all of next week, in some form.
Signups for Round 26 will open on Friday, 21st March at 20:00 GMT with the round starting Friday, 28th March at 20:00 GMT
Round Summary
New boys Denial and NoX crushed NewDawn and Jenova in an early war, and ND's attempts to work with other alliances were rebuffed. Many players viewed as unwelcome a scenario in which ND become Planetarion's first alliance to win three rounds in a row and as such were unwilling to work with them to defeat Denial. This, in turn, led to a period of stagnation in which DeNoX dominated.
During the middle of the round a controversy broke out in the PA community when it emerged that certain alliances had access to the arbiters of various other alliances, possibly via illegal accesses by IRC admins. Ascendancy were widely blamed for this, although not being the only responsible to benefit as NoX were also involved. This response was issued by NetGamers admins. Almost all other alliances united to hit Ascendancy for one night as a result of these allegations, but although roid losses were significant many top Asc planets were able to avoid losing roids and gained fleet from crashes, foreshadowing the strength of Zikonian in the later stages of the round.
During the last half of the round, Ascendancy, playing under the tag STOOMTHEREVIVAL stormed from rank 7 to rank 1. A combination of going all-zik, Stoom, crashing fewer fleets and a few nights of assistance from NewDawn, Conspiracy and Tides of Fire versus Denial and NoX led to Ascendancy overtaking Denial with a few days to go, securing their second round win.
This round was memorable for the large number of fleetcatches that took place among the various top planets from the mid-point of the round onwards. Golan, Inforza, Meatwax, Sleepless and Tronick were all #1 planet contenders who were fleetcaught and lost huge amounts of score.
