[Long]Round summary.

[qebab]

Before I get to the summary I have a few things I want to say. Firstly I want to thank all the members in FO that are still playing actively. Some of you have been at war for more than three weeks straight now, and you’re still playing active as ever. I’m proud of you, and you deserve all the best.

I want to thank the community for a nice round, and I want to thank everyone I that helped make it what it was.

And I want to know a few things. First of all, when the merge between Omen and Angels took place, a lot of people were screaming for blood. This wasn’t surprising. I want to know if you still feel the same way about it? I’m not going to lie and say that we had the utmost noble goal of preventing stagnation, but it seems to me that we achieved it anyway. Our reasons were selfish in that we wanted to give our members a chance for finishing the round with style. We wanted to provide a good core for next round. And we didn’t mind the fact that we did get a shot at #1 together, even though it wasn’t on top of the priority list.

I hope the community will accept FO as an alliance next round and not hold any grudges, should they decide to play together (The decision hasn’t been made yet, as three out of the four HCs this round are unlikely to play). I will not be a part of it, as I simply don’t have it in me to play another round at the level of activity I have played these last four weeks. I don’t even want to take the chance that it may happen. I’m physically a ruin.

The rest of the post is a very long and very tedious round summary. I figured we needed one even if we have our favourite alcoholic posting logbook updates for us. The post is written entirely from my perspective. Since this is obviously going to be very biased, feel free to add, discuss, discard or dispute as you like.

The next part really isn’t that interesting. Scroll down until you see a break like this again if you want to read only the interesting part of the post.

But, I think it's time someone tried to make a summary of this round. We have the fantastic logbook, but there is still nothing like a good old summary where we can disagree with each other and discuss as we like! I'm going to write this from a rather personal perspective, so obviously it will not be like everyone saw it, and some things that others didn't see will be here.

I was not going to play this round at all. Then Sjor asked me to be a scanner, and I said yes, I would be an inactive scanner. And now I sit here, and I'm HC of the #3 alliance in the game. I'm trying to recall how this happened, but I'm not sure if I can even remember how it happened, let alone forgive myself for it. So it starts by being asked to scan, and then I recalled the last time I scanned. It was an unpleasant experience. I upgraded myself to a defwhore!

And suddenly I got offered a rather nice buddypack, and was a normal member. I was told Angels would be going mainly core, at around 40-50 people. It seemed like a nice idea. It had potential. Only active players, only teamplayers, playing for each other and not for some rank. Then I heard gosu were coming. gosu has a reputation for being a strong BG, and they've got good players. I was uncertain, since this wasn't the premises I joined under, but I saw that this probably made us stronger (Which later turned out wasn't exactly the case), so I was unconcerned about our performance/enjoyment of the game being affected much. Then I heard that we were also taking in a 1up bg. Now, these guys are good as well, but I was getting worried that we were overrecruiting, and it seemed like a bad idea to take in two external bgs. Then there was the mess about crusie being kicked (For reasons I'm still not sure if I know), and some from the 1up bg leaving.

This lead to a less-than pleasant atmosphere. It smelt fishy. Well, round was off, and there was no going back. Right after protection, my fakenick got blown. At the time I was pretty pissed, but in hindsight, it probably did more good than harm. As a consequence, I played outside tag without defense for 11 or 12 days. I did however defend when there were emergencies. And I got back into tag, and noticed that I was, in fact rather highranked on defpoints. That's when I really started to worry.

I'm not sure what exactly the political relations were at the time, but it was rumoured that we had a nap with Omen, which would potentially be a good partnership. It was also rumoured that more than half of gosu had planetnaps to some alliances (Which, given battlereports I saw was probably not true). Angels were #1 after the score bug got fixed, and all was well, except that we got insanely much random incomings because we tagged up too early. I'm not sure who made that decision, but it's probably one of the worst decision that was made in Angels this round. And given the amount of bad decision that were made, that says a lot.

A while later, it appeared that Omen were taking over the top rankings while eXilition were getting more and more roids without being hit much. I'm not too sure about what happened there, but if we had a nap, I'm pretty sure it got dropped at this point. Omen dropped to #2, we climbed to #1, ND had shitall roids, so I'll assume that someone targetted them rather heavily. My memory is hazy, but I think Angels had a skirmish with Omen at this time, and I also got my first funnylog of the round when a certain Omen member (No longer) threatened me in pm after having read a comment I made about Omen being 'scum'. The solution was simple, I told jer, stoom and alki, after which they got him off my back with various accusations of racism and the like.

Extract:

(xxx) if you consider words threats u dont have the skillsi was hoping
(qeb`zzZ) how can you threat someone without using words? this is the got damn internet
(xxx) exaclty

Then came the merger between SiN and TGV. This seems to have worked out reasonably well, any comments guys?


The next period in the round was a misery for my planet. Angels recieved a whole lot of incomings from a whole lot of different alliances, and our defense didn't seem to fly to a whole lot of different planets, rather than to a select few. Morale in Angels went down, some because they lost roids, others because they lost roids when defending a planet that had something like 65 incoming defense fleets, and some because they got fleetcaught. Activity started to drop properly, and some people quit. Very few people in the command seemed to be doing much, which of course leads them to get burnt out over time, and for a few of them the signs were there (Except on Sleepless who probably dced the most. Sleepless, you rock.). I'm not sure when our cooperation with ToF started, nor our cooperation with VisioN, nor our cooperation with P|M, and I am not sure exactly when our cooperation with Omen ended (I only heard what caused it, which was apparently to send Omen solo against eXilition. Bad idea guys, whoever made the decision.). In fact, I am sure of very little.

But, at some stage, the Universe decided that we shouldn't win because we were filthy blockers, and the Universe usually gets what it wants. Some times. Once or twice. (But it didn't kill eXilition the last weeks )

Morale dropped further, and so did activity. I was starting to wonder why I was playing.

Then VisioN merged with P|M, and then Angels hit eXilition and got ourselves killed. I'm not sure if this was the best possible solution to our situation at the time, but heck, someone needed to do it. And we did, and paid for it. ND hit us, Omen didn't exactly avoid us, LCH hit us, and eXilition hit us. Now activity in the officerstaff got so bad that I actually had to step in as dc/bc occasionally. I had agreed to play under the promise that I wouldn't have to do any of these things, but I had all the necessary access to tools and channels (Someone forgot to remove it from round 16), and I didn't have the conscience to sit in the dc channel and seeing shitloads of defcalls coming in without anyone trying to do them. Bad move on my part.

It went on for about a week without much change, other than in our ever-decreasing roidcount and ND's ever-increasing lead to us. It didn't take long before they had 10k roids down to us, and they looked to be going to a victory. While I don't agree with their decision to nap eXilition, it opened up the round in a way - everyone had just waited for eXilition to get involved in the round for real, and this was when it happened. Too bad it had to be unleashed on me. Somehow I managed to gather 13 eXilition waves in two days, got my DE accidentally fleetcaught and lost 11 ticks of roids (I blame Stoom.). Even with ND having the #1 spot, eXilition had far more roids, and looked to be gaining immensely, even though we hit them. Then our 'war' with them started paying off. They stopped gaining roids on ND. Huge thanks to ToF and VSN for their continued cooperation in this period.

Angels suffered more though. We didn't stop losing roids, and we didn't stop losing members, officers and HCs to inactivity. Which really isn't the way forward. I was ingal with DunkelGraf at the time though, so all was well at my puny planet. Then we both exiled because the galaxy went inactive (Sorry for leaving you Dunk ). And things just got worse.

At some stage around this time, MobRulz got pissed and kicked FeNiX, Draki and dedin(?), who were 3 of our 4 largest planets. Naturally, this didn't help morale one bit. The atmosphere got icecold, with some people praising this move, others disliking it immensely, some people tagging up [gosu], others tagging [Angels], and some other tags. Not good. Then, Omen did a cleanup of sorts as well. And penis-allianz got censored.

Lockhead came active, and started doing things. He talked to Omen about beer, girls, nobel prizes (Not really, it was politics), and he mentioned a merger. At this stage, I was HC in all but name in Angels, I did attacks, I talked to other alliances, I did defense when needed, and I didn't sleep. jupp^afk, who happen to be a friend mentioned the possibility of a merge for me. I was getting exhausted at the time, and I could see the same went for other officers too. I was all for it, and jupp seemed to like it too. The most obvious problem would be that we would never get time to get organized. eXilition would continue hitting Angels, and as soon as the merger became obvious, Omen would be hit too.

The more interesting part!

Then, one beautiful friday, a friend in eXilition told me that MacTanzu wanted to talk to me about a possible deal. We were getting hammered, we needed a break to plan and organize, and we started talks. eXilition wanted an avoidance agreement in return for us hitting ND. We agreed after some discussion, but the newb HC we (Me and Lockhead) were, didn't set any terms (Cancellation period, formal stuff). We agreed to hit ND while eXilition avoided us. (And funnily enough we threw 20 fleets at eXilition the same night as attacks had been planned already.)

Not long after, both ToF and VSN suddenly got the idea to hit ND before we contacted them. It was obvious who had talked to them - we didn't mind. Then we heard VSN had a nap with eXilition, something that VSN later confirmed. We hit ND together with ToF and VSN, but we didn't do it very effectively, as we were busy getting ready for the merger. I spammed the channel with notices of the type "If you can NOT be active... If do not have the stamina... If you don't want..." to keep playing another 3 weeks, I counted defpoints every day, I news scanned most of planets to see what they launched at, I was busy. I was making a list of people who would 1) Be kicked out of the tag, 2) Be given a second chance, 3) Come with us in the merge. People weren't, as some people seem to believe, kicked on a whim.

Despite popular belief, the reason for the merger was not the fact that Assassin said he would pay all credits for every member in New Dawn next round if they didn’t win. Even though our HC would really like to have their credits paid by him, we this was not our main objective.

It was a necessary move, no matter how harsh we had to be. People who didn't defend were to be kicked. People who didn't claim in raids were to be kicked. Omen were doing the same thing. We needed to do this to replenish with officers, and active members. We needed it to give the people who cared a decent finish to the round. It wasn't a match made in heaven. But we both needed each other. At the time of the talks there were ideas about taking the merge further, and there almost certainly will be a FO next round as well (Possibly with a new name).

We were well aware that the merge wouldn't be well received in the community. We also assumed that some people wouldn't like it at all. The decision was made together with all (I think) Angels HC, people were informed in pm, and we got ready. We didn’t hit ND as hard as some (ToF/VSN) would like to, as we had our hands full with internals at the time, but they showed understanding and were outstanding partners. <3 Oly/Auda/Bazza and everyone else we fought together with.

Then we did the kicks and all hell broke loose. At first Mac told us we were lame, but he was a man of his word, and the avoidance deal was still valid, but he was reluctant so we decided to try to keep as many options available as possible, so we didn’t planetpick ND. We did galaxy raids. And ND, of course planetpicked us, which really wasn’t unexpected, and we were indeed fools to hope for anything else. We responded in kind. The next day we had an awful lot of eXilition incomings.

When confronted with this, we were politely informed that “MacTanzu had no deals with GAYMEN!”, which we assumed meant that our deal was off. The outlooks were grim again. Then eXilition merged with Nihilum, and ND were suddenly third. Discussions were done, but no agreements were made. And then we had that thread on AD. Before ND changed their mind, and we made a deal to try pegging back eXilition together after all.

From this point and on, it was war for quite a while. 5-7 days? I’m not sure, my memory is quite hazy. Stagnation didn’t happen. I won’t say that we can take the honour for that, but I believe that if nothing else, the merger at least achieved that much.

While we didn’t get as much help as we would like to, and it turned out we weren’t able to stop eXilition, we did do a good try. I’ve always had a dislike for ND, but now that I’ve worked with some of you, I realize that you’re not at all that bad. I actually came to like a couple of you. Especially Barrow. I love Barrow.

Originally Posted by Barrow

(Barrow) and ****ing golden roids can stick it up their ass

As it seems quite certain that eXilition will win right now, I’ll offer you my congratulations for a hard fought (At least the last weeks) win. You impressed me with your dedication, organization and activity. We didn’t prove that you aren’t unbeatable (Though that is of course an impossibility), but at least we proved you were human! Your activity level suffered a lot last weekend, and you lost some people to inactivity. I just want to tell the community this so they don’t lose hope should eXilition choose to play next round.

Lastly I want to thank everyone who took part in this round and made it what it was. No matter how dull the first 800 ticks were, the last half of it made it worth it. I’m even tempted to call it a good round, but my sleeping patterns don’t agree.

- qebab out

[cura]

Originally Posted by qebab

I want to know if you still feel the same way about it?

Yes, for the reasons I'll mention below.

Originally Posted by qebab

Then, one beautiful friday, a friend in eXilition told me that MacTanzu wanted to talk to me about a possible deal. We were getting hammered, we needed a break to plan and organize, and we started talks. eXilition wanted an avoidance agreement in return for us hitting ND. We agreed after some discussion, but the newb HC we (Me and Lockhead) were, didn't set any terms (Cancellation period, formal stuff). We agreed to hit ND while eXilition avoided us. (And funnily enough we threw 20 fleets at eXilition the same night as attacks had been planned already.)

Not long after, both ToF and VSN suddenly got the idea to hit ND before we contacted them. It was obvious who had talked to them - we didn't mind. Then we heard VSN had a nap with eXilition, something that VSN later confirmed.

This is where eXilition won the round.

Originally Posted by qebab

Before ND changed their mind, and we made a deal to try pegging back eXilition together after all.

Now take a look at your post and view it from an ND perspective, you see now why ND was VERY hesitant to work together with an alliance like FO? After they took victory away from ND and gave it to eXilition?

[qebab]

Similarly I could say that eXilition won the round when New Dawn napped them. They had players out of tag (In another tag, miniscule difference), they recruited shipjumpers, etc.

Can you try to take a look from our perspective? If it it so that we could not have won, why would we want New Dawn on top instead of eXilition? Given their membercount, they had fewer fleets they could roidrace us with, they had been fighting a lot harder for it.

Chances were that, had you managed to be ahead of them in the rankings the last week (Which given their current membercount seems unlikely), they would have broken their nap with you and sent you into oblivion in a day or two. And then there would be no FO to help you fight them. All in all, I think the round turned out very well.

Edit: In hindsight, maybe we should just have laid down and died so you could believe that you were winning for another week? Or we could have continued hitting eXilition while you, them and LCH roided us? No, we needed that deal.

[cura]

Originally Posted by qebab

Similarly I could say that eXilition won the round when New Dawn napped them. They had players out of tag (In another tag, miniscule difference), they recruited shipjumpers, etc.

That's really not so similar, since they had a 27m gap to catch up at that time, after FO did eXi's dirty work by hitting ND with ToF/VsN they only had a 9m lead to bridge.

Originally Posted by qebab

Can you try to take a look from our perspective? If it it so that we could not have won, why would we want New Dawn on top instead of eXilition? Given their membercount, they had fewer fleets they could roidrace us with, they had been fighting a lot harder for it.

You were kingmakers, you couldn't win the round anymore. You chose to make the alliance "king" that would later call you GAYMEN rather than the alliance who hasn't broken any agreements at all with you at that point or later in the round. I'd call it another bad move on your part.

Originally Posted by qebab

Chances were that, had you managed to be ahead of them in the rankings the last week (Which given their current membercount seems unlikely), they would have broken their nap with you and sent you into oblivion in a day or two. And then there would be no FO to help you fight them. All in all, I think the round turned out very well.

Doubtfull, we have no value so if they targetted us instead of you it would've done them alot worse than if they hit you. Ofcourse it would've done you better if they hit us, but we're comparing the relation between eXi hitting ND or eXi hitting FO and the consequences on eXi and ND now or not?

Originally Posted by qebab

Edit: In hindsight, maybe we should just have laid down and died so you could believe that you were winning for another week? Or we could have continued hitting eXilition while you, them and LCH roided us? No, we needed that deal.

Maybe in hindsight you shouldn't have threathened ND to do your dirty work for them by hitting eXi, we all know why ND didn't take that offer, and that's simply cause Angels had a history on backstabbing people they work with. So yeah, that's why we didn't cooperate at that time and that's why we sent a few fleets to Angels when they had a war with eXi (we didn't planettarget Angels at that point at all unlike you make seem, btw).

[qebab]

Originally Posted by cura

That's really not so similar, since they had a 27m gap to catch up at that time, after FO did eXi's dirty work by hitting ND with ToF/VsN they only had a 9m lead to bridge.

Sandmans tells me that eXilition, the day they added 6 people to tag gained 21 million points score. Surely that is significant? I am not sure how big Nihilum was at the time of the merge, but I'm sure it would have closed a significant part of that gap. Not to mention they added another 5 people to tag after that. If they had not been at war when they added those 5 people, I am certain you would have seen a huge scoregrowth.

Originally Posted by cura

You were kingmakers, you couldn't win the round anymore. You chose to make the alliance "king" that would later call you GAYMEN rather than the alliance who hasn't broken any agreements at all with you at that point or later in the round. I'd call it another bad move on your part.

No, we still honestly thought that we had a chance at winning. And if we hadn't lost darts, IsNoGoOd, Satyr, Rasputin and Xalibur out of tag, we would in fact have been just a few million points behind eXilition right now, if ahead of them. The fact that we didn't merge solely to go for a high rank does not mean we did not try to achieve a victory, no matter how hollow people would call it. And we worked hard for it.

And, it is not as if no ND members have given us any shit for the merge either. The fact that a drunk HC in eXilition called us gaymen does not mean the rest of the alliance is full of shitheads, just like the same goes for ND. There are a lot of good people in both alliances.

Originally Posted by cura

Doubtfull, we have no value so if they targetted us instead of you it would've done them alot worse than if they hit you. Ofcourse it would've done you better if they hit us, but we're comparing the relation between eXi hitting ND or eXi hitting FO and the consequences on eXi and ND now or not?

Look, we're talking about a scenario where there is 1 week left until the round ends, and ND is - let's say 20 million score ahead of eXilition. Do you not think they would be able to close that gap? XP is significant, yes, but surely you have seen their fleetcatches? They would not have any trouble closing that gap.

Originally Posted by cura

Maybe in hindsight you shouldn't have threathened ND to do your dirty work for them by hitting eXi, we all know why ND didn't take that offer, and that's simply cause Angels had a history on backstabbing people they work with. So yeah, that's why we didn't cooperate at that time and that's why we sent a few fleets to Angels when they had a war with eXi (we didn't planettarget Angels at that point at all unlike you make seem, btw).

Threatened? At no point this round have I threatened ND. And to my knowledge, neither has any FO HC. If you are still referring to MobRulz' affairs earlier this round, he is not affiliated with FO in any way. And if you mean our attacks on you, it was a response to over 80 ND fleets incoming the night the merge took place. I'm sure you just wanted us to hit eXilition and ignore those?

I can see why you were reluctant to work with us, yes. However, I don't think you can honestly say FO have given you the same treatment you claim Angels have given you in the past. A lot of the members are the same - none of the HC are. I can see why this would give you hesitation, but regarding our cooperation this round, I don't think we have given you any reason to scorn us the way you seem to.

[cura]

Originally Posted by qebab

Sandmans tells me that eXilition, the day they added 6 people to tag gained 21 million points score. Surely that is significant? I am not sure how big Nihilum was at the time of the merge, but I'm sure it would have closed a significant part of that gap. Not to mention they added another 5 people to tag after that. If they had not been at war when they added those 5 people, I am certain you would have seen a huge scoregrowth.

Well, you have to both take in effect that the merger of FO had the biggest demotivation of this round for ND members ("We can gain victory as much as we want but they'll always be able to do something like that to take it away from us"). Making the last few weeks pretty inactive for ND, even before we started fighting eXi (actually the war with eXi re-motivated quite some ppl, not enough sadly tho)

Originally Posted by qebab

No, we still honestly thought that we had a chance at winning. And if we hadn't lost darts, IsNoGoOd, Satyr, Rasputin and Xalibur out of tag, we would in fact have been just a few million points behind eXilition right now, if ahead of them. The fact that we didn't merge solely to go for a high rank does not mean we did not try to achieve a victory, no matter how hollow people would call it. And we worked hard for it.

Maybe you did have a chance, but I doubt victory lied with giving eXi a larger chance to contend for the #1 position. So working together with them at that point showed no insentive to win at all, just making them kings.

Originally Posted by qebab

And, it is not as if no ND members have given us any shit for the merge either. The fact that a drunk HC in eXilition called us gaymen does not mean the rest of the alliance is full of shitheads, just like the same goes for ND. There are a lot of good people in both alliances.

Well we might have given u a hard time about it, but it hasn't made us break any agreements later on the round. While (and FO said so theirselves in a meeting with ND) eXi has a history of backstabbing you guys.

Originally Posted by qebab

Look, we're talking about a scenario where there is 1 week left until the round ends, and ND is - let's say 20 million score ahead of eXilition. Do you not think they would be able to close that gap? XP is significant, yes, but surely you have seen their fleetcatches? They would not have any trouble closing that gap.

I beg to differ, but I guess you removed any possibility to find that out.

Originally Posted by qebab

Threatened? At no point this round have I threatened ND. And to my knowledge, neither has any FO HC. If you are still referring to MobRulz' affairs earlier this round, he is not affiliated with FO in any way. And if you mean our attacks on you, it was a response to over 80 ND fleets incoming the night the merge took place. I'm sure you just wanted us to hit eXilition and ignore those?

I was replying to the fact that we gave Angels incoming when they were still Angels and they were hitting eXi. FO didn't even exist yet then. In regards of those 80 fleets incoming, was that the same night we got over a 100 of FO&VsN&ToF then? Cause I doubt you can respond before something has been done. So don't make it look like a response, we mainly targetted ToF that night, not FO. So I'm sure you're number of 80 is slightly exaggerated aswell.

Originally Posted by qebab

I can see why you were reluctant to work with us, yes. However, I don't think you can honestly say FO have given you the same treatment you claim Angels have given you in the past. A lot of the members are the same - none of the HC are. I can see why this would give you hesitation, but regarding our cooperation this round, I don't think we have given you any reason to scorn us the way you seem to.

Well, the reluctance to work with FO grew mainly out of FO taking the win from ND and giving it to eXi this round. This doesn't mean we'll be reluctant to work with you next round. While that was the case with Angels.

[Jester]

Thanks for making this post, qebab. It was a very interesting read. It's always good to be able to see how things were from different perspectives.

[JonnyBGood]

****s sake cura stop blaming everyone else for your alliance's ****ing mistakes. ND are just as much to blame as anyone is. How you can possibly claim another alliance is more responsible for eXilition winning than your own when you were napped to them from the time they went from seventh to first place is beyond me.

[pig]

Great post Qebab.

[BADA]

That was not a bad post at all just about right.

All about perspective tho on a few points.

There are 2 major factors of how the politcs panned out in PA this Rnd where IMO.

In simple terms just like me:

1. The early round actions you have pointed polictically of Angels, Omen, TOF, VSN, and P|M resulted in ND looking for allies else where.

2.The political (Anti ND) actions of EXI (Which you kindly pointed out) while in NAP to ND.

Neither of these points we had much control of, but others did!

[qebab]

Originally Posted by cura

Well, you have to both take in effect that the merger of FO had the biggest demotivation of this round for ND members ("We can gain victory as much as we want but they'll always be able to do something like that to take it away from us"). Making the last few weeks pretty inactive for ND, even before we started fighting eXi (actually the war with eXi re-motivated quite some ppl, not enough sadly tho)

That is highly possible. I wonder, if eXilitions adding people to tag would have had the same effect? We had to think of our own members first and foremost, and demoralizing ND members was sadly something which we did not take into account at the time.

Originally Posted by cura

Maybe you did have a chance, but I doubt victory lied with giving eXi a larger chance to contend for the #1 position. So working together with them at that point showed no insentive to win at all, just making them kings.

What were our alternatives? We needed time to regroup and organize ourselves. That's how simple it is. We could not have won, and we would not have stood a chance at all, if we had not done it that way.

Originally Posted by cura

Well we might have given u a hard time about it, but it hasn't made us break any agreements later on the round. While (and FO said so theirselves in a meeting with ND) eXi has a history of backstabbing you guys.

That is true, to some extent. They considered our deal to be non-existent after the merge, which is to some degree understandable. The fact that they launched at us and then told us we never had a deal is not.

Originally Posted by cura

I was replying to the fact that we gave Angels incoming when they were still Angels and they were hitting eXi. FO didn't even exist yet then. In regards of those 80 fleets incoming, was that the same night we got over a 100 of FO&VsN&ToF then? Cause I doubt you can respond before something has been done. So don't make it look like a response, we mainly targetted ToF that night, not FO. So I'm sure you're number of 80 is slightly exaggerated aswell.

Yes, and I was speaking about FO.

And as I said already, we did galaxy raids that night. Admittedly those galaxies had ND members in them, but I doubt that we were responsible for more than 20 of those 100 fleets, at most. And if you 'mainly' targetted ToF that night, you did one hell of a job targetting us, and a poor job targetting ToF. We lost in the region of 6000 roids, and they gained 5%. And no, that number is not exaggerated. I could go bug Shoshuro to make him find the numbers from the toolsite (Being the poorly skilled computer user I am, I can't find them). I might do it later today if it is really important to you to know.

Originally Posted by cura

Well, the reluctance to work with FO grew mainly out of FO taking the win from ND and giving it to eXi this round. This doesn't mean we'll be reluctant to work with you next round. While that was the case with Angels.

I understand that. And I appreciate that the relations between ND and FO will not be harmed by it next round.

[lokken]

summary

"blame mobrulz"

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by qebab

A while later, it appeared that Omen were taking over the top rankings while eXilition were getting more and more roids without being hit much. I'm not too sure about what happened there, but if we had a nap, I'm pretty sure it got dropped at this point. Omen dropped to #2, we climbed to #1, ND had shitall roids, so I'll assume that someone targetted them rather heavily. My memory is hazy, but I think Angels had a skirmish with Omen at this time,

Let me get to it from my side then.

Omen was a mess internally starting from a week before the round. We had a fairly hapless command structure - I myself had a relationship crisis (which ended up in a break up later on), and the beginning of cemester at university, so I didn't have the time I usually had - rounds 17 and 18. To add to it, I was pretty badly burnt out from the two earlier rounds. So, we started off with Cmd_Carl being responsible of general organizing, Cain being in charge of the military, while jupp handling defence department and Killmark running the third attack group (the two others being ran by Cain and Carl). We had a pretty promising score of members, with solid names to it. What we lacked, was communication (horizontal, from command to members), and any bit that would help the newly geared people mold into the old core we had gathered.

I started worrying when Cmd_Carl told me pre-round that we had the best scanner situation ever, and that he had a full memberlist with members' contact details et cetera vitals marked up. Which, of course, turned out to be a more than a week old sketch with names and some numbers to it. Cain rushed to the rescue and sorted these things out while Carl was (at gym?), hence, we managed to pull ourselves to the round albeit barely.

The scanner problem made itself clear immediately, and a lot of the people who had promised to run officer duties failed to attend or fell back off them even before we tagged up. We ran some rather succesful attacks, Cain's BG (mainly ran by ReligFree and Sengir in reality) and Carl's BG (that had MortalP and add pulling the heavy labour) wrapped up some good results, and we were comfortably sitting untagged, gaining at least the same or more than the other peak alliances were per day.

At this point the quality started to appear lacking. In my eyes, we were comfortable where we stood. Of course, the occasional member would have his roids cut off by 4-5 waves by lemony snicket's series of unfortunate events (usually xVx prelaunching 15 fleets per wave over three waves, being piggied by F-Crew launching 6 waves), but the overall results were good. People started moaning, and some crumbling was happening, there were concerns over people not being able to build themselves a decent defence fleet to tag up with (and for some reason we never really got a plan of dictating defence fleet orders to members running), and people were for some reason generally concerned.

All this eventually resulted in us being forced to tag up, which I didn't particularily like, because I had anticipated the problems it would bring, and wanted to push it as far as possible to maybe recoupe some before - the lack of scanners, the lack of defence command, the lack of defence fleets, all ended up building a vicious circle of inability on the defensive military side. The offensive was still running good though, but that's perhaps what Omen's usually been known for.

After tagging up, Killmark wanted to test his BGs ability before anything important would emerge, and wanted to declare a war with Howling Rain (who were, at the time, lurking down the ranks with roughly double members to what Killmark's BG had, but fairly matching scores). I denied him that, saying that there will be more urgent thinigs to attend military power to soon enough, and that planet-targetting Howling Rain would at this early stage of round just be utterly useless and waste of oxygen. NewDawn planet targetted Angels for a night at this point for yet unknown reasons. The same day they were landing we were tagged up fully. After that, they asked Angels, Post|Mortum, and Tides of Fire if any of them would have interested in targetting Omen. So, the obvious counter-reaction was to clinge a deal with Angels, with the terms of beating ND down together until they crack and stop churning fleets out, and then moving on to evaluate other threats in the universe - here, eXilition was first discussed (yes, it was discussed a lot pre-round too, but this was the point where we talked that they should be dealt with, but ND's planet targetting and blockbuilding, as they had recently pulled a political alliance with LCH, were the first concern).

So, for two nights we were happily hitting ND and LCH galaxies, and forcing them down somewhat. They weren't cracking though, so I talked to Sjor and we agreed that they would need to be planet targetted. We both agreed that this would be done. Sjor went for a drunken haze for days to last at this point, and the Angels BCs (who noticed ND had switched from targetting Angels into targetting Omen) were of the opinion that planet targetting ND is silly and of no benefit, and g0at, felagund, et co decided to pick galaxies instead.

During the evening I had talked to Mobrulz with Sjor being absent, and Mob had promised me the same as talks with Sjor were - that they would definately join planet targetting the next night.

During the night, Angels churned more fleets at Omen than at ND.

The next day, Mobrulz came to me and said they couldn't target ND right now with Omen. Post|Mortum had, according to Mob's words (which evidently Sjor had fed him behind the scenes), targetted Angels heavily (from rank 7 or something they were, this was a bizzarre accusation), and they would need to reserve firepower for this. I gave Cain orders to keep on targetting ND. The moment I came back home from a date, though, Cain and Killmark had collectively decided that it's time Angels pays (they didn't SMS to check from me - Cain would usually do that, as I could get on IRC from phone to check things out - because they knew I would have forbidden it). It caused an effect that ended up with Tides of Fire, Vision, and Angels teaming up at us - which was really what was coming with such a descision to target Angels.

We were crumbling internally, Cmd_Carl was (at gym?) going to movies the night his head BC's grandmother died, telling it's time to check how the AG fares without his presense, Cain was running attacks wasted and stoned, Killmark's BG was underperforming, and defence command or defence structure was really not even spoken of, and, what scanners. I was focused, and Cain too when he was sober, to salvage what's left and take into a new uphill. We took some time off fencesitting off once we shook off Angels and co, and I talked to Sjor on mostly daily basis - to hear him tell me how Angels can and will smash Omen with their block if it's necessary, and how they have a three-way non aggression pact and a deal to triad target anyone that becomes a threat to their block.

So we were sitting solo, ND was sitting with LCH, and eXilition was down the ranks, collecting themselves for a rise. Once the picket fence was getting worn, we went for the obvious - Angels wasn't about to target eXilition even if they had been pushed here and there to it (as they were publicly sitting with their three alliance block, which was more feeble than they would admit at that point), and after watching it for a few days the call came in. ND, LCH, eXilition, and Omen collectively decided to avoid each others for a while and give Angels a run for it. Ironically, this would have been the night Angels finally managed to get a grip from their up there top seat with their block, and launched some fleets at eXilition. Angels were, though, proven unworthy teammates, so the descision staid put to riddance them. While on it, we were discussing with Angryduck and BA of the eXilition scenario - both of them weren't convinced that eXilition is sufficient threat to the top rank that they'd have to be dealt with, and Omen was definately in no shape to run any broad military operations on eXilition alone, well, without support from three-four-five others.

Hell, we were lucky to have an occasional person DCing, and to have our daily raids sorted. At this point, Cain ran some utterdrunk attacks, mainly the notorious raid on 2:6, which, to be honest, was run so utterly piss drunk and wasted you really don't believe it, and, it ended up being a bit of a lucky disaster. It was just horrible though, I was near slitting my wrists for it. Carl went south, for the fifth time during the round, and wasn't available. Killmark was very inactive, as his planet had gone bad (last round activity from him was ensued by his planetary success). He was demoted from high commander to officer, and his AG was merged to Carl's and Cain's in order to maintain some level of military coverage. He got pissed off with his demotion, said he was backstabbed, and left Omen. Killmark had had a lot of behind the scenes political ops during the round - not only Carl had leaked half our coordinates and internal issues to Cartman - but Killmark had also pulled his share handing out pieces of our arbiter to people without really asking anyone.

We were a ****ing toast, but Angels was going down, ND was going up, and eXilition was floating. I talked to Barrow, and my thoughts were that we really can't win, and I saw NewDawn and eXilition as the candidates for the victory. I wished them a happy race, and ND still figured they could just outrace eXilition here and there. The days went, and we continued being shit. I was very annoyed at Carl (who was at gym or south), Cain (who was drunk or stoned), and a bit at Wishmaster (who was having his hardcore round, which basically means, his hardcore playing ended when his galaxy failed to hit the top ranks and his planet didn't do so well). I was getting bitchier and bitchier, even bitchier than I was early round; the member whine was constant from day one (with a reason, too), but things like defence command and scanner sorting weren't really my pitch, and as you can probably figure, I really had no energy to take care of them, or to look after everything that happens in the alliance, so I let Carl and Cain and co. do their shares, and hoped the occasional (daily) bithcing to them would get them realize (Carl had this fantasy that the alliance would run itself while he dabbles with his willy or so) that things need to be taken a micromanagement way into, and supervised, slapped, and looked into.

One night I came home, looked at the high command channel topic, and figured they had put a meeting up scheduled. I said I really don't want to attend a meeting of inactives. And held a brief lecture. So, Wishmaster came to me, and told me how inactive I had been during the round, and how useless I had been. I would admit that I wasn't as much of a force driving it as I probably was R17 (with rain) and R18 (even more in role here, with rain being in Spain with little to no internet access - he didn't want to play R18, as he said he had no time and he couldn't), but I would definately disagree with the inactivity and such accusations. Behind my eyes, I was seeing Carl (at gym, or in south, or London, with no internet access), and Cain (stoned, drunk, or at MaxMillian's, even more stoned, drunk, and such), and well, hardly anyone else. MortalP was working like a little animal, likes of him kept the daily routines running.

So, I with the push from Wishmaster (who himself was playing hardcore active round, popping by to say a word or two once every two days or so), I decided to step down as Omen High Commander. And I was frankly so annoyed at the situation, and pretty much burnt out, and definately not enjoying the game a bit, so I decided to leave Omen too - to find a place down the ranks where I could play ignoring the political and such rant, just sending fleets around without NAPs, targettings, and fuzz.

I eventually ended up getting booted from TGV though. I had launched a defence fleet against an incoming on my galmate (well, I didn't pay closer attention, Greenhills just asked me if I could send some of my roaches over to Masta_Mark's, and I launched them all as my DE incs had just recalled), and on ETA1 I notice Kargool attempting to reach me on every internet media in existance. Ehm!

Ha!

So, there I was, defending against Kartool with 11,8k roaches, on ETA1, and he was requesting me to recall. My words were, in brief, "No", as it would have most likely gotten some of my galmates' defence fleets bashed, as it was relying on my roaches doing the stunning. I told him that he might want to toss me a notice before he launches a solo raid on my galaxy, as I have no arbiter access and I really don't try launch an attack at every planet I defend against just to see if he's TGV. I mentioned that had he asked me to recall on ETA5 or higher, I would have cancelled the launch or not launched at all, but I wouldn't let my galmates' fleets die off like that.

Ha!

So he booted me!

Ha!

And munkay!

Ha!

Who recalled his harpies defending against jerome et co on a fleetcatch, hence TGVer lost his corvette fleet (some 11,5k cathaar corvettes got caught and stolen there, with munkay's 4k or so harpies having disappeared from their role on the defensive side).

Ha!

Excuse the TGV rant, I just had to, I had just gotten myself all warmed up here hehe.

[Mek]

nice long posts, ill grab them when i get home as i dont have time to read them all, kudos to qebab for his post, was a good read

but some of the political decisions made this round were nothing short of piss poor. dont make me ressurect insomnia to show you guys how a real alliance idles its way through a round successfully :P

[BADA]

The same day they were landing we were tagged up fully. After that, they asked Angels, Post|Mortum, and Tides of Fire if any of them would have interested in targetting Omen. So, the obvious counter-reaction was to clinge a deal with Angels, with the terms of beating ND down together until they crack and stop churning fleets out, and then moving on to evaluate other threats in the universe - here, eXilition was first discussed

On obvious reaction would be to make sure your intel/facts are correct and react to the correct information.

You missed out the facts of the early formation of the VSN/Omen/Angels block against ND. I do beleive 3 allainces attacking 1 does form a block?

Do these actions not warrent ND to look for allies?

Also at this time P|M were throwing a lot of ships our way as well and needed to verify if they where with you also. Seems after sniffing about the intel world they where.

Or is it 4 alliances that make a block? (VSN/P|M/Omen/Angels) not to sure.

So your above statement while some aspects are correct happend AFTER your block hit ND over a period of time

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by BADA

You missed out the facts of the early formation of the VSN/Omen/Angels block against ND. I do beleive 3 allainces attacking 1 does form a block?

Do these actions not warrent ND to look for allies?

A shared battle command channel was between Angels and Omen. Vision popped by one night, or two perhaps, but Post|Mortum wasn't involved. The shared channel and the cooperation was put up as a counter-reaction to you looking for allies; Ie. this means, your looking for people to team up against Omen with, not just asking Post|Mortum, but Tides of Fire and Angels also, resulted in Omen forming a pact with Angels, with occasional Vision featuring. So your talk about "warranting ND to look for allies" is rather haywired, as you were looking for those allies before we started hitting you. It is WHY we did it

[mens]

Hey it would be interesting to see teh defcallcounts on your bots.
which ally got most inc?`and least?

[TouRiQueT]

Good posts guys.
________
red headed Cams

[Wishmaster]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I was very annoyed at Carl (who was at gym or south), Cain (who was drunk or stoned), and a bit at Wishmaster (who was having his hardcore round, which basically means, his hardcore playing ended when his galaxy failed to hit the top ranks and his planet didn't do so well).

One night I came home, looked at the high command channel topic, and figured they had put a meeting up scheduled. I said I really don't want to attend a meeting of inactives. And held a brief lecture. So, Wishmaster came to me, and told me how inactive I had been during the round, and how useless I had been. I would admit that I wasn't as much of a force driving it as I probably was R17 (with rain) and R18 (even more in role here, with rain being in Spain with little to no internet access - he didn't want to play R18, as he said he had no time and he couldn't), but I would definately disagree with the inactivity and such accusations.

So, I with the push from Wishmaster (who himself was playing hardcore active round, popping by to say a word or two once every two days or so), I decided to step down as Omen High Commander. And I was frankly so annoyed at the situation, and pretty much burnt out, and definately not enjoying the game a bit, so I decided to leave Omen too - to find a place down the ranks where I could play ignoring the political and such rant, just sending fleets around without NAPs, targettings, and fuzz.

Keizarie...I played this round as active as I planned.

I said I would play an active round -as peon- which was what I did.
I was top 50 all round ( till the #eXcessum meet where I got bashed ) and I was top 5 defender. I dced some 70-100 calls, and in general was a pretty good -member- this round.
We both know u got no reason to be pissed at me. Its more the other way around.

You claim I came to YOU and told you how inactive u had been? It was more like you came into HC chan after been away for god knows how long? 2 days? 1 day? And u whine at Cmd_carl, Cain and jupp for being fking shit and inactive. And since you had already said that u were stepping down / quitting / disbanding Omen like 5 times earlier this round, I decided to take side with what Omen would have to work on with after you had gone.

I do not regrett anything I said that day, and imo it was a good thing you left. You cant have any power, u get too arrogant and whiny if u get it. You are IMPOSSIBLE to work with, and unable to discuss anything with. It is your way or -WHINE-. I sat in HC chan all round listening to it, and believe it or not.. people get tired of it. Never once did u have any suggestions on how to improve Omen, but you just kept on whining about Cmd_carls member list preround, how stone Cain was and how inactive KM was.

The last 2 rounds I have bared with you, as you have been active and been doing alot, but it just became to much to stomach the abuse you threw their way, and the way u acted infront of our members regarding how SHIT the other HCs where. Way to go if you want to ruin morale. You were not active enough this round keiz. You just came on when you had incommings, to whine some more about not being covered, and then to say you would stop defending alliance and defend galaxy instead since alliance never covered you!! ( which is bs, as u were our def drain #1 I think, and only one still getting defence when below def point limidt) Way to go -role model-

You also whined to Military HC when u didnt get prepicks...
And saying that there were no targets for you is pure BS.

end of rant. sry keiz for what this had to be like.

[Gio2k]

Every round the same old horse crap.
@ Angels, if you play next round in any form: Learn to handle a round. Learn politics. Stop making the same mistakes round after round after round.
@ ND: Learn to lose. Accept your mistakes instead of blaming the win of eX on everyone but yourselves. Learn finally that you will never win without fighting for it. What kind of gay P.S. is "Note the neutral bit" ???? (In reference to the End of NAP notification to eX).
@ eX, or actually at some people in eX (MacTanzu and some others): Learn to win with grace. Your alliance is the best on terms of roid racing, military and political play. Don't stain your reputation with low punches at fallen enemies.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

I do not regrett anything I said that day, and imo it was a good thing you left. You cant have any power, u get too arrogant and whiny if u get it. You are IMPOSSIBLE to work with, and unable to discuss anything with. It is your way or -WHINE-. I sat in HC chan all round listening to it, and believe it or not.. people get tired of it. Never once did u have any suggestions on how to improve Omen, but you just kept on whining about Cmd_carls member list preround, how stone Cain was and how inactive KM was.

I think it was a good thing I left too - for the alliance. Regards to the rest of it, I partially agree with you, partially disagree. It's a shame they've been asking me back for next round, though, I'm quite ridiculed about it, aren't you? The only difference is, there still was quite a few members who queried me and told me that they were disappointed at me leaving, and the same people would probably disagree with you.

edit.
and I whined about the lack of prepicks only because there were three consencutive nights on the attacks where there were max 2 targets I could launch at. And you're definately exaggerating your DCing share. I just saw the statistics. I'll give it to you, it was less than 70-100.

[Wishmaster]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I think it was a good thing I left too - for the alliance. Regards to the rest of it, I partially agree with you, partially disagree. It's a shame they've been asking me back for next round, though, I'm quite ridiculed about it, aren't you? The only difference is, there still was quite a few members who queried me and told me that they were disappointed at me leaving, and the same people would probably disagree with you.

Yes, I do not think that would be for the best of Omen. We dont house shipjumpers and quitters, atleast I like to think we dont. If somethign else happens it might be time for me to retire -again-

those members did not know what I knew, did they? And they remembered what u had done in prev. rounds, failing to see you were not doing the same this.

What annoys me is you blaming this on me though, when all I did / tried to do was to pick up the pieces u left behind.

[Wishmaster]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

edit.
and I whined about the lack of prepicks only because there were three consencutive nights on the attacks where there were max 2 targets I could launch at. And you're definately exaggerating your DCing share. I just saw the statistics. I'll give it to you, it was less than 70-100.

You were given prelaunch among with the other high value / score players, but didnt want to launch a late wave or whatever it was. Cant believe that happened 3 nights in a row.

I might be incorrect about how many calls I took, but I doubt it. I have seen the statistics also. But you know just aswell as me that when you DC alone a hectic night you dont got time to add all to webby.

[aNgRyDuCk]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

While on it, we were discussing with Angryduck and BA of the eXilition scenario - both of them weren't convinced that eXilition is sufficient threat to the top rank that they'd have to be dealt with

our frame of mind was, with 4 alliances hitting us, none of which were EX, we could only fight what we could see at that point, would have been a bit stupid to hit EX and watch 4 other alliances have a free run at us. And by the way, ask EX who the first alliance to Ptarget them this round was..around the second week of the round..... be it only for 1 night...it was suggested to others and declined...ND did it anyhow. We saw other options as more realistic at that point

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

You were given prelaunch among with the other high value / score players, but didnt want to launch a late wave or whatever it was. Cant believe that happened 3 nights in a row.

Yeah, it happened three nights in the row. The prepick you are talking about was otherwise a fine event, except that I had no access at the attack room, it was moderated, and the other people were voiced, hence claimed most things I could launch at before I could even claim anything.

And I'm not blaming it on you, I am just saying that you were the cornerstone that caused me finally to have enough of it. Which, as we both agree, was good for Omen - and I reckon Shoshuro has done quite some piece picking too, as for what I've heard you haven't been in a hugely active role lately anyways.


Regarding duck, yeah, I'm aware of it. I wasn't aware you were targetted by four alliances at the time we spoke late round (during your eXilition NAP), you never mentioned that to me.

[Wishmaster]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

And I'm not blaming it on you, I am just saying that you were the cornerstone that caused me finally to have enough of it. Which, as we both agree, was good for Omen - and I reckon Shoshuro has done quite some piece picking too, as for what I've heard you haven't been in a hugely active role lately anyways.

Hehe, piece picking? I never planned to have any role in FO, once the merger was done. It was decided that Shoshuro and jupp from omen and qebab and lockhead from angels should be the ones to lead FO. Something I couldnt agreed more to.

[ReligFree]

The only problem i have with your post there qebab is that your gal didnt improve with the exile? Id imagine exiling into my gal would be the best thing since sliced bread... cut me deep man :P

[Scorpio]

I am top300 on roids.
And my freebie planet was in h3ll's galaxy. Which was an unexpected honour tbh..

[Kargool]

Before this round TGV was looking at a round with rebuilding and reshaping of the alliance, we had just played a very exhausting round with Omen (The most active of us atleast) and was thinking that this was gonna be our big rebuild round. I decided not to play this round early on because of the timeconsume and the fact that I was trying to adjust to a new timeschedule with school and eventually work, but got dragged into it again after a few weeks without it.

TGV's command started out with notsure, Avenged, Dorraj, zub0 and Car as hc's. They got things kind of wrapped and everything looked okay. After a while it was only notsure and Car who was active, the others had stepped out due to various reasons.
At around tick 320 discussions towards SiN were initiated towards a merger, at that point both SiN and TGV found it abit to hard to cover galaxyies with proper raids, this problem was probably abit bigger for SiN than for TGV but we clearly saw the signs then allready. The merge discussions were initiated while me and Cedlind was on our way to the shop to buy beer and julebrus Later on he initiated talks with notsure and the merge was agreed upon etc.

In our case NOBODY got kicked as a reason (we had 3 recruits waiting to join TGV that had to wait abit longer.) that we wanted to merge, the two alliances were at a 40-20 split and it was agreed that the ally would keep the TGV tag. The merge was completed after first breaking the game, but eventually got merged properly. SiN provided TGV with a few officers and Cedlind and darkzidane was to be SiN's "hc's" in TGV. At that time Avenged allready had gone inactive, zub0 was overworked and Dorraj was happily idling somewhere. I came more or less back in around tick 350 with helping organise a few things, and dc'ed a few nights for the ally. At that time my planet was happily being unallied and I attacked 2-3 times pr week, but I wanted to help the alliance and wanted to make sure people got def etc. After a while Devlin got promoted to HC, and immideatly went inactive of sorts

We had great coverage on the scan side. Sebas and Baguar comes in mind as excellent scanners, and we enjoyed full scancapability for the most of the round, cept in the end when a certain scanner decided to threefleet instead of doing jpscans.

About defence this round for TGV, we had 2080 defcalls that had priority, out of them 50,3% were marked covered by alliance. A number I think we in TGV is very satisfied with. In addition to this alot ofc got covered by our members themselves either by producing or covered ingal.

As for politics we completely stayed outside politics most of the round. We did galraids and that was it. When I came back I wanted abit more xp factor to the galraids so I told bc's to start hitting higher ranked galaxies, wich we did to a high factor of success. This however brought us unwanted attention from both eXilition and later on FO, but we stayed on path, and afaik we were not planet targeted by either, it was more retaliation. We ourselves made a nap with ND after a while. Our reasoning behind this was quite simple. We knew at that time that ND had a few alliances they were teaming up with. I wont say the b word but atleast they were teamed up and co-ordinated a few attacks. Due to us napping ND we managed to stay clear of not only ND incs, but also their co-operation alliances. But we still could claim the co-operation alliance planets as targets. After a while we also napped xvx due to us wanting to team up with them hitting ToF. That co-operation lasted one day.

We ourselves planettargeted F-crew in one raid, VsN in one raid, ToF alone in one raid.

We finished 7th wich is higher than we've ever finished and had 7 planets in top 100.

I'd like to thank the SiN players for excellent co-operation and good teamwork after the merge, some ofc didnt feel like they fitted into TGV's mindset but most of them stayed on and did a good effort.

I personally hope that the alliance limits will be lowered next round so that you can get abit competition about the spots in an alliance and making the late round inactivity syndrome more easy to weed out. I bet that most of the top 10-5 alliances were suffering quite heavily because of this as the round progressed.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Gate

Oh, I will make one prediction.

If eXi bring any form of reasonable strength (ie more than what, 20 people?) to the table and get anywhere near the top, they will need to be hit by a massively overwhelming force.

Self interest and sheer shortsightedness will prevent this from happening. The alliances will probably decide that hitting eXi gals will work, or maybe they'll get threatened by eX and back down, or maybe they'll not trust the others to go in (maybe because they're hoping to avoid doing any of the work themselves) and so refuse to join in any first step.

And then eXi will roflol and win.

I was pretty close tbh.

[Tietäjä]

Comes with a de ja vu round 17 feeling, doesn't it, Gate?

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by Kargool

I personally hope that the alliance limits will be lowered next round so that you can get abit competition about the spots in an alliance and making the late round inactivity syndrome more easy to weed out. I bet that most of the top 10-5 alliances were suffering quite heavily because of this as the round progressed.

Might not work the way you intend. An alliance could simply split into two or more battlegroups, each being a seperate tag and co-operate in the attacking ( but obviously not the defending ), rather then be forced to ditch people.

[lokken]

Originally Posted by Gate

maybe they'll not trust the others to go in

You see, a load of people go on about this, but look what happened to Omen who did go in, they no longer exist because they happened to trust someone. Oh what a ****ing surprise that was. I'd rather finish 2nd than send my alliance to total oblivion.

As I've said in previous posts - if Angels actually had a shred of even the slightest integrity at the start of the round, people might have played ball and exi would have lost. You never know, Angels might have gone in with Omen.

Your prediction goes on about 'short sightedness and self interest' but that doesn't really cover it enough.

The key reasons for an exilition victory are these (in my own order of importance):

- ND crashing their fleets early on, absolutely killing their value, making them unable to fight a war against anyone able to properly harness value. This was their costliest mistake, because they had to fight for XP later, which meant landing, which meant crashing an even more cataclysmic amount of value. This is arguably the biggest reason of all - we played like complete dicks for two crucial sections of the round. We might have got a decent score, but it meant we were going to be pants at fighting wars and simply a paper tiger.

- eXilition are the only 'serious' alliance able to harness value. FO, Angels, Omen, ND can be easily smacked around and mopped up. ND pretty much roided eX to the core and were close to breaking them - we just didn't have the players/value to take out their big planets without crashing horribly. eX must have thought Christmas was a month early when we started crashing into them. The other alliances are pretty easy to mop up.

- the Angels command team. The way they behaved towards alliances disintegrated any kind of trust or prospect of sensible cooperation from the off. Your prediction goes along the lines of 'self interest and sheer shortsightedness'. If ND were self interested it was with good reason at the Angels/Omen stage of proceedings.

- the ND command team present who were pretty obstinate towards FO when they were in no position to hold anyone to ransom over anything, we needed to work with FO as soon as they offered it to us on any serious level, which was on about the 25th? The thread by angryduck is nothing short of ****ing stupid and an all out disgrace for any upstanding member of ND - what an arrogant piece of shit that was. I don't care if people thought it was 'funny' it was not something befitting of our alliance. Only cost a day or two, but doesn't stop them getting a mention.

- The Angels members with pnaps. Way to go to making your alliance even more ineffective. It meant Angels could do what they really wanted. This is one of the few things ND can say it has some discipline with, to let it happen is a complete shambles.

- Omen. Why did they even bother starting. A truly dire performance.

- the FO merger comes bottom as it had requisite benefits (better HC, made use of some players who weren't really being used) and some disadvantages (merging for #1, changing the balance of diplomacy of the whole game)

Exilition have won only partially out of self interest and short sightedness from the other alliances. The main reason is because other alliances have been run very badly indeed, and this is why we have a thread called 'leadership', while eX have been a solid unit. They've hardly been spectacular, as I'm sure their mobile phone based activity is something to exploit rather than be afraid of, as you can inflict crippling sleep deprevation upon them if they choose to play to that level of dedication.

The only alliances who have played reasonably smart this round are Vision, ToF and Ascendancy, because they've milked this mess for all it's worth. The first two have got a stack of roids, while the last got the top galaxy they aimed for, because they don't get too involved in these kind of things, and just go wherever the best roids/steals are.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Phil^

Might not work the way you intend. An alliance could simply split into two or more battlegroups, each being a seperate tag and co-operate in the attacking ( but obviously not the defending ), rather then be forced to ditch people.

Sadly thats happening allready. The game is way to attackoriented. Alot of separate tags were co-operating at a very high level and consistent throughout the round.