Round 45

Round 45
Winner 🥇
Player:	King Jota
Dominion:	Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship
Race:	Dark Elf
Second 🥈
Name:	Lud
Dominion:	Business Cat Rides Again
Race:	Sylvan
Third 🥉
Name:	Weaser
Dominion:	Werego Vespucci
Race:	Lycanthrope
General
Changes:	Round 45/Changes
Valhalla:	Link

Top 100 Results

Round 45 top 100

Round 45 - Realm #9 Win Story

Prelude to Round 45

Who knows where this story really begins? Was it during beta round 16 in which I greatly enjoyed playing attacking merfolk until that painful moment when my dear wife lost her patience and destroyed all farms in an attempt to delete this game from our life? Or was it during round 31 when I played goblin quick converter under the wing of Nate’s run-away lizardfolk, in a stacked realm, and had an amazing round and eventually landed a second place? Or was it in the many failed, or even abandoned rounds?

So many rounds have passed, some I took more seriously than others. For a long time, I wasn’t really that invested in OpenDominon, as I enjoyed faster paced games like OD Arena. In retrospect, having played frequent rounds in a micro-format offered by OD Arena was really helpful to win round 45 and greatly increased my ability to read the round and improved decision making.

This story may start somewhere in the previous draft round (Round 44). I was drafted by Captain Cerbrus and despite not feeling particularly enthusiastic about the draft it just turned out to be a pure pleasure to play with Cerb. Always positive, well organized, but overall chill, though still focused at times when needed. A perfect environment for a busy father of three. Despite failing pretty badly as slow attacking troll that round, I did learn something in that draft round that would prove vital in Round 45. I have been blopped at several occasions, and after my troll got randomly sunk and fireballed enough was enough. I was not going to be an easy blop-target in the rounds to come, and this proved of paramount importance in round 45, as so many converters and slower dominions fell to the firing of The LASER.

For realm 45, I partnered with a fellow Swedish player, Shanulf, who is a fairly new but still very reliable and a chill player, and via the dominion #pack channel we joined up with Cerb once again, and mcgeeal with whom I had never played before, but being well known for his legendary random explorer win a while back. Finally, Bobbo - a true veteran of OD and previous round winner, was looking for a pack and that settled our five. The pack constituted a good mix of experience, different playing styles and time zones. A few random additions proved to be the icing on the cake, such as Allegorical who has tons of experience particularly playing fast attacking strategies, and a special mention finally needs to go to KingAdio, a returning vet from the original game who just rediscovered OpenDominion and proved vital with strong spies and wizards.

We selected races based on what everyone was most comfortable playing. Bobbo and Allegorical quickly decided to run fast halflings, I positioned myself as our third attacker, but was looking for something that could be played medium-fast, and decided on Dark Elf to have that extra wizard protection from adepts. Mcgeeal finally decided to go explorer when the realm was revealed and it looked like we could need more info ops. Cerb dropped the bomb that he was going to France over the summer, and thus picked Sylvan to contribute with info, for as much as he could.

I don’t remember much of the sim period, kudos to Lud I believe some of us got competitive sims that way. Personally, I utilized a sim that Mris originally created as my packmate several rounds back, and as it turned out I wasn’t the only person using this sim! There were at least four Dark Elves using Mris’ sim, all coming out of protection on 694 acres, two of them from #5 why I instantly suspected Mris and his pack were located in #5. I adapted the sim to have better defense, a bit less offense, a few extra towers, and rezoned all factories for barracks. I noted already from the start that docks were a bit low, but decided to leave it be as the first and second hit were covered, and my solution here would be to bring in extra docks as soon as possible from the new conquered land post-oop.

Early round

The first two weeks mostly circulated around our two halfling attackers, Ares Pickin’ Berries (Bobbo) and Skinny Dipping in the Styx (Allegorical). They both kept hitting well, and Bobbo tended to have top op several times first week, but less dp, while Allegorical had a slightly stronger economy.

Jota — 2025-06-13 00:46 Lyc r10 looks like he's gonna run away

Without taking any hits themselves, Bobbo and Allegorical gradually lost ground to realm #3, and after realm #5 fired the laser and essentially destroyed realm #3 we found Bobbo and Allegorical both being a full hit or more behind the lycanthrope Werego Vespucci #10 (Weaser). He just kept finding better targets. It was only a question of time before his economic superiority would render him a full-blown run-away. So 12 days after OOP Allegorical and Bobbo decided to trade land with the lyc in an attempt to slow him down.

allegorical — 2025-06-18 18:56 Wiz released and max specs trained…

The exchange happened, and it could be debated whether we could have hurt him more by having Bobbo and Allegorical be more patient and push op on the lyc, however the sensation here was really that unless they acted now without hesitation there could perhaps never be another opportunity. Bobbo was and had been on around 10k peasents behind for an extended period of time already, and was clearly running out of steam. In an exciting moment they set up a raze-hit on Weaser’s lyc, but in the end it couldn’t prevent him from running away.

2025-06-19 02:19:48 Werego Vespucci (#10) invaded fellow dominion Skinny Dipping in the Styx (#9) and captured 134 land.

2025-06-19 01:01:34 Victorious on the battlefield, Skinny Dipping in the Styx (#9) conquered 175 land from Werego Vespucci (#10).

2025-06-19 00:59:18 Sadly, the forces of Ares Pickin’ Berries (#9) were beaten back by Werego Vespucci (#10).

Personally, I had with a single exception been hitting bots until this moment. Running higher GT than other medium fast attackers I was well positioned with a decent chunk of schools and DM, good numbers and relatively high land. I had managed to work around the problem with low docks in the sim, and was never low on boats, though it came very close at one occasion. Being able to run a fairly high population from early barracks and additional homes, I could quickly push enough op to keep a good pace on hitting bots, and even managing to catch a few players at times.

Right after Bobbo and Allegorical flared out with that distinguished move on the lyc, I pumped forges and delivered a good hit with only a hundred points margin on a dominion played by Lamb:

2025-06-19 11:25:05 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 77 land from 🌳 Department of Groves and Elves (#4).

And with Bobbo and Allegorical now out of the race, and realm #5 seemingly on a crusade to end all converters and slower races I found myself in a very promising position going into the middle round.

Middle round

Rallying the troops!

Jota — 2025-06-22 11:57 Guys, I think we need to make a few important decisions here. Lyc has run away and we got no super slow doms to rely on. Its Shan for fast explore and myself as medium speed. I think I could do well and I'm willing to put effort into the remainder of the round. But I can't do it without more ops support, right now we only got shan in range of lyc. We will also need some more ops muscles to get a wonder (hopefully!), get good info and launch blops agsinst the competition if needed. So I'd like to know who would be willing to spend some time and energy to back me up into attempting a strong and competitive finish? Our halfer friends would need to deconvert I guess. All the best, Jota

It can certainly be difficult to find motivation to adapt and take on a supportive role when you’re out of the race and have 5 weeks ahead. But our team rallied behind me, now being the sole attacker left in the race from our realm, and both Bobbo and Allegorical deconverted and proved extremely useful assets for the realm for the remainder of the round. Shan started bringing in tons of wizards and spies and slowed down his exploration growth as a result. Cerb was in France but managed to log in regularly and kept up well on average, and it wasn’t long until he refused more baguettes and fried frogs in garlic and returned home full time. Mcgeeal had constantly strong ratios.

I could focus on continued growth below the range of Weaser’s lyc. Most hits required substantial and sometimes very quick ops which our excellent team steadily delivered, again and again. The last hit on Shaman's Ritual Rib Rack played by Kenshiro required both heavy draftee assassination and tons of repetitive barrack spies to bring down his true number of Wolf Raiders left at home.

2025-06-21 21:14:16 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 84 land from Fahrenheit 151 (#6). Italic text

2025-06-22 20:57:00 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 89 land from Swamps of Despair (#0).

2025-06-23 16:59:33 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 95 land from Foraging Dachshund (#0).

2025-06-26 04:59:31 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 116 land from Wolf Rider Leg Haunch (#12).

2025-06-27 21:48:18 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 126 land from Shaman's Ritual Rib Rack (#12).

The greatest challenge during mid round was to solve the problem how to enter Weaser’s range without being smashed all-in. His lyc was still growing at a very fast pace, and had a clear military advantage. Dark Elf inherently suffers from weak turtle defense if you play them correctly, only training spec-op. But I deviated from the norm here and actively started training Spellblades already in the last days of the second week. This was different from the other competing Dark Elves who relied on full spec op at this stage. As a result, I lost some speed, and particularly Nigel Powers #5 and Goldmember #5 played by Rio and Mris respectively gained some ground on my military numbers and started to look really good. I was however quickly building up a stronger all-in defense which turned out to be the correct call given my situation as a lone attacker without a partner who could push op to be a threat.

We decided to attempt capturing a wonder, The Fountain of Youth, and enjoy 3% extra population. All our bloppers brought in extra ratios and we eventually wared realm 2, who quickly escalated to mutual war.

2025-06-29 05:15:25 Wishing on a Well (#9) has declared WAR on Unintended Consequences. (#2).

2025-06-29 14:27:56 Unintended Consequences. (#2) has declared WAR on Wishing on a Well (#9).

During the war we we blopped a few attackers in realm 2, but didn’t do any massive damage. Eventually we captured the Fountain of Youth, but lost it back to realm 2 after a few days, and decided to cancel the war. I was being sunk a lot during the war, but brought in extra docks and had also been running high docks basically all round, resulting in me being effectively safe from sinking. Our randomers also took a couple of mutual war hits, and the war started to look bad.

At this stage I made perhaps the biggest mistake of the round as I suddenly left the elite guard. I had been a member for a long time and witnessed how other attackers, like the Dark Elves in #5, were doing well outside of the guards. The 2 % extra plat was too enticing to miss out on, but just after I left guard I looked in horror how Weaser also left EG and quickly delivered three bottomfeeds. He had an appetite for cavern, my home land type, but fortunately he decided to hit Nigel Powers #5 (Rio) instead, who had far lower all-in defense than me. After his first hit I could defend Weaser all in, and I quickly applied for Royal guard and barely escaped with a scare. Still, I suffered extensively as I couldn’t hit while Weaser wasn’t back in the EG. I had been training op to attack, but was now sitting on high swordmen for another 1,5 days before I resorted to a mere bot hit – my last bot hit of the round, just to bring in some new lands.

The massive land Weaser captured in his bottomfeeds increased his land lead significantly, but he also took casualties, and was revenge-fireballed and finally wared by realm 5 and fireballed even more while only protected by the Royal Guard. For several days I was gaining military strength on Weaser as he was low on peasents from the fireballs from #5 and had to spend tons of plat and resources on constructing all the non-discounted acres he had just bottomfed. I know this was a good opportunity to speed up, and quickly trained swordmen and looked for a hit to enter his range.

An undead (Jaerock ) dropped Ares Call which enabling a big hit, and on the following day I could enter range by hitting Mini Me #5 (Gwyn), quickly followed by another big hit on a goblin (Ivetza) who send out and left himself open:

2025-07-01 09:02:14 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 159 land from Gravy Seals (#11).

2025-07-02 16:05:00 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 175 land from Mini-Me (#5).

2025-07-04 20:05:05 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 201 land from Drunken in 60 seconds (#6).

Weaser had now constructed his lands and recovered his peasant count, which numbered some 70k. Though he kept finding targets, longer periods of time started to pass between hits. His realm managed to snare-hit one of my competitors (Delta Forks #11, played by Disco) and by now discussions emerged in the realm chat and it was suggested I should start pushing op on Weaser. However, #5 was already busy doing exactly that.

Jota — 2025-07-06 10:34 R5 seems opted to act against r10 lyc at some point. Not sure what they're planning though, seems a bit flawed. Nigel powers is training tons of op, enough to seriously threaten the lyc. But he doesn't have nearly the all in dp to actually defend him all in. So only way I see this being an effective threat is if Nigel can get just a few acres oor and sneak in range at will with the daily bonus.

Cerb — 2025-07-08 05:43 Nigel pushing crazy op and not great all out DP. He is holding for shagwell who has way better pop

Jota — 2025-07-08 06:24 I'm doing the opposite of Nigel here. Instead of trying to push op on the lyc I'm gonna try to utilize fully that someone else already is pushing op against him. I'll construct massive homes here, get higher pop and better economy. I'll aim to defend Nigel all out, defend lyc all in, while training enough op to hit Nigel if he sends out.

By training only the minimum amount of ratmen necessary, Weaser was keeping up peasants nicely at this stage and kept pushing good amounts of Garou, but his defense was also gradually falling behind, and #5 decided to attempt to threaten him, in an interesting cat-and-mouse game that lasted several days, a move that seemingly alarmed Weaser and eventually made him train more ratmen which slowed him down even further. A long crunch occurred until Shanulf explored too far and entered range of Weaser, being an easy target. At this stage it didn’t matter much as every hit only brought me closer and closer in on Weaser and I could remain deep in his range by finding solid hits every time Weaser sent out.

2025-07-07 20:16:02 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 240 land from Swordsman Sashimi with Mana Infused Sake (#12).

2025-07-11 22:19:59 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 225 land from Fire-starting in the Hanging Gardens (#2).

2025-07-13 10:47:35 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 278 land from Goldmember (#5).

At this stage, Weaser had made a big hit on the nomad in #2 (SlyPimp) and followed up with two quick bottomfeeds. I was however able to follow with a massive hit myself on Goldmember to take me within range again. By now, middle round was transitioning into late round with roughly 1,5 weeks remaining. Weaser was still in a strong position, but having lost peasant advantage and now forced to spend double resources on construction costs from the two bottom feeds, the top competitors were once again gaining momentum. Prestige was also quickly adding up providing substantial op and housing bonuses and as Dark Elf I could quickly recharge my op after a hit by converting new elites from specs to gain a net plus from each attack, and quickly replenishing and adding new swordmen.

It was also clear that among the top competitors Business Cat Rides Again #11, played by Lud, was in the strongest position among them, though I always held my own position as the one with the most end-game potential. Felicity Shagwell (Gothia) was not finding big enough hits on a regular basis and fell behind a bit, and Nigel Powers had to pay the toll of having pushed op on Weaser and was left with too low all-in defense to enter range. Only one goblin remained, Purple Wolf Tail And Raging Fiery Hobpot (#12) played by playt0i, but he was now struggling with dp and peasents, a classic goblin-problem when you’re forced to play under a run-away.

Late round

mcgeeal — 2025-07-11 12:11 How do you think you stack up?

Jota — 2025-07-11 12:13 My numbers are decently on par with the r12 gob, r11 sylvan I have better all out DP but a bit weaker op But I also have better pop than the goblin, worse than sylvans... If I just pull off a hit at some point I'll be in good shape My ability to push spec op is unmatched by the other races, and I got way more potential than sylvans with building mods. Just gotta defend them and not risk a 9h We're still in the race boys!

The moment finally came when I identified an opening to make my first hit within range of the lyc.

Jota — 2025-07-15 07:55 I'm gonna take a big risk here boys

Calvin — 2025-07-15 07:57 I love risk

Bobbo – meme No risk No reward

mcgeeal — 2025-07-15 12:49 Holyyy

2025-07-15 05:59:06 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 320 land from Purple Wolf Tail And Raging Fiery Hobpot (#12).

It was a calculated risk, as Weaser could hit me, but I figured he couldn’t risk a full send on me as that would leave him open for attacks from the other top competitors. And nobody else could hit me. Still, you never know if people make rational choices, and sometimes an event occurs and someone sends out to trigger a chain and suddenly you’re open for attack… I switched hero to healer just in case I would take a hit, but survived and brought in enough land that I know would enable me to push op on Weaser. However, Lud’s sylvan shortly followed with a big hit of his own, constructed his lands and quickly started pushing massive amounts of spec op.

A prolonged crunch happened, I imagine it must have been terrible to endure if you weren’t actively taking part of it. I was only looking at the lyc at this stage. I felt comfortable that I could compete with Lud’s sylvan last days, the problem was whether there would be enough time to bring in enough land to grow past Weaser. I was on double peasants compared to Weaser by now, but he still had a huge military and land size. He kept his population up by training mostly Garou and only a few ratmen. I considered pushing all swordmen, but realized that trading acres with him would mean heavy defensive losses, perhaps it was the correct move against Weaser in an isolated standoff, but such move could now give Lud’s sylvan the upper hand instead. Lud was slightly below me in size, and had better op but worse dp.

mcgeeal — 2025-07-15 19:40 @Bobbo you're probably more experienced in this spot, what are you thinking if you're the lyc right now? @allegorical also

allegorical — 2025-07-15 21:03 Likely - Lyc realizes he cannot for sure win and looks to stall so explorer can win? at some point his DP is major issue with multiple people in range

Bobbo — 2025-07-15 21:06 yup

allegorical — 2025-07-15 21:12 in other words - his 470+ OP is useless when he leaves 385k that can be smacked by 10 people

It seemed like several observers were very focused on Lud’s sylvan being the top threat to the lyc.

allegorical — 2025-07-16 21:00 10 war 11

Cerb — 2025-07-16 21:02 Why

allegorical — 2025-07-16 21:18 Resilience on Sylvan would look like snare

Cerb — 2025-07-16 21:19 Ya but he cast last tick and is home So he can’t bf to gain more land ?

allegorical — 2025-07-16 21:20 Yeah I’d think to keep spells down to deter hitting again and slow without Midas maybe??? Cerb — 2025-07-16 21:20 They are not thinking jota as long term threats Good for us

Jota — 2025-07-16 23:17 Yep good good

Having dreamt of the top spots for too long we experienced a rude awakening when finally war came upon us, and of course it was from #5 who once again fired the LASER.

allegorical — 2025-07-17 16:40 @everyone war from 5!!! @mcgeeal snaring you???

mcgeeal — 2025-07-17 16:43 Ugh yes I’m snared What a thing to wake up to lol

Despite desperate attempts to hit mcgeeal, Felicity Shagwell’s push failed as mcgeeal took some lightning strikes but still managed to draft up, boost walls and evaded the whole thing like a boss. The Laser had apparently lost its potency from early round. I started losing many boats to sinking, but realized it wouldn’t become a real problem as I had tons of docks. While we were busy with #5, Lud kept bringing in offense like a mad man and finally played out his finest card and deceived Weaser with a “release-push spec op” trick and delivered the second largest hit in OpenDominon history:

2025-07-19 09:14:56 Business Cat Rides Again (#11) invaded fellow dominion Werego Vespucci (#10) and captured 587 land.

Jota — 2025-07-19 11:20 Business Cat Rides Again (#11) Total Defense: 552 762,54 vs Temples: 5.42% He's open for a retal

This is great

Lyc doesn't have to send any flex So I think he will feel compelled to take the hit here

2025-07-19 09:39:31 Victorious on the battlefield, Werego Vespucci (#10) conquered 460 land from Business Cat Rides Again (#11).

So just like that both my top competitors lost resources on buildings, offense and defense, and while they did gain big amounts of net land, I was suddenly sitting with a superb defense and free to push all the offense I wished – and that’s what a Dark Elf does best. I pushed max swordmen and started looking for a target. We initially discussed snaring the lyc while his land had dropped but even so we had too few dominions in range of him, and a snare was impossible. I knew I needed to hit big here, and we were all looking for a fatty.

Jota — 2025-07-19 22:58 Mb we could snare someone

mcgeeal — 2025-07-19 23:02 Lief Erickson 10 ?

Jota — 2025-07-19 23:04 Dunno Need to check his dp

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:18 @Ops support update laura bingham pls And earnest

Cerb — 2025-07-20 00:31 Done 513k do on Laura without ac in 2 ticks

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:33 Yeah I mean if we have enough people we should snare laura now

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:34 Yeah so how many guys do we need? Everyone available I suppose

allegorical — 2025-07-20 00:35 chunk's sheet as .5 spa and wpa so not great

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:36 Cool How's your ss guys?

allegorical — 2025-07-20 00:37 99%

Bobbo — 2025-07-20 00:38 100

Cerb — 2025-07-20 00:40 91 ss

mcgeeal — 2025-07-20 00:45 We have 4 on now then @Adio180u around

Cerb — 2025-07-20 00:47 we have 5, including jota right mcgeal is here but not online

Adio180 — 2025-07-20 00:48 Yo

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:48 I cant snare him Wow

Cerb — 2025-07-20 00:48 oh ok

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:48 A hero showed up

mcgeeal — 2025-07-20 00:49 Im at 91

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:48 Ok how's your spy strength @Adio180?

Adio180 — 2025-07-20 00:49 Oh 99%

Cerb — 2025-07-20 00:50 sick

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:50 Ok i think we could be good

allegorical — 2025-07-20 00:50 I think worth the risk even of sui from lyc

Cerb — 2025-07-20 00:50 lets fucking roll the dice. its now or never

Adio180 — 2025-07-20 00:51 Here what am I doing Against who

Cerb — 2025-07-20 00:51 we will war 10 and snare laura

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:51 I will declare war against realm 10 U do the spy op magic snare against Laura Bingham

/…/

Jota — 2025-07-20 00:55 Did anyone notice a 0?

Adio180 — 2025-07-20 00:55 I got a 0 after 3rd time

Cerb — 2025-07-20 00:55 no, hes at 490 resil so its close

mcgeeal — 2025-07-20 01:05 Also can we change realm name to “Ready to Ragnorak” either @Jota or @allegorical

Jota — 2025-07-20 01:05 Haha ok

But i wanna hit first

mcgeeal — 2025-07-20 01:05 Haha fair

Jota — 2025-07-20 01:05 Just need to remember to hit laura bingham and not the lyc

Cerb — 2025-07-20 01:05 lol

Jota — 2025-07-20 01:06 I have pictured hitting the lyc for 2 weeks

2025-07-20 00:01:17 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 510 land from Laura Bingham (#10).

Cerb — 2025-07-20 02:01 boom!!!!!

Bobbo — 2025-07-20 02:01 well done

Cerb — 2025-07-20 02:01 good shit team

Jota — 2025-07-20 02:01 Fantastic guys Love you all

Cerb — 2025-07-20 02:02 and your dp is super high

Jota — 2025-07-20 02:02 Hope you enjoyed this almost as much as I did What a team It's rare to pull off these things late round like now

Cerb — 2025-07-20 02:03 i did enjoy doing something useful. good job

allegorical — 2025-07-20 02:04 nice

The realm chat exploded late round. It was so much fun. And the best was still to come. Who could believe that? I started constructing land and instantly brought in more GT and a few GN, pushed more swordmen and enjoyed a whole 153 prestige to keep my offense up. I was however in for a really busy day in real life and didn’t spend much time looking for targets here, idea was to try to snare the lyc next who was still in the winning position despite that I just leveled the field to a good extent with the massive hit on Laura Bingham, played by B. There were some talks about resorting to bottomfeeding myself, but Dark Elf isn’t the best race for bottomfeeding as it doesn’t convert elites on bottomfeeds, and I felt I had time and the numbers to still find another big hit. There was not much to worry about from our competitors at this stage, nobody could hit me on a full send, though Weaser had the numbers to suicide with upcoming war bonus, but why would he?

Jota — 2025-07-20 17:29 Yeah, business cat is falling behind here About same peasants

Business Cat Rides Again (#11) Total Offense: 518 499,55 Temples: 0%

Business Cat Rides Again (#11) Total Defense: 612 771,49 vs Temples: 0%

Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) Total Offense: 548 854,71

Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) Total Defense: 613 389,31 vs Temples: 0%

I think I have stronger potential with room for more GN and 4 point attackers Let's see

Weaser responded by leaving guard and sent out a bottomfeed, and as we believed, removing his sui threat from my mind which felt like a relief:

2025-07-20 19:57:53 Victorious on the battlefield, Werego Vespucci (#10) conquered 258 land from Haemogoblin (#2).

At the same time, I was completely unavailable, being at a dinner for several hours, while apparently the boys were busy making plans! Bobbo and mcgeeal had identified that Leif Erikson, another big explorer in #10 played by DavetheGoliath, had Ares up for only 5 hours, and he seemed to be just hittable. The problem was that nobody could reach me as I was busy eating the most delicious Feijoada followed by an excellent sweet pudding and sipping Porto wine to this.

mcgeeal — 2025-07-20 22:16 what if we just go ahead and snare leif if we still can and hope man wakes up in the next 4 hrs lol

I eventually had to go for a piss and left for the mens’ room, looked at my phone and found 13 @Jota!-notifications and a missed discord call from mcgeeal. I knew something important had happened, and as soon as they described the situation, I called on the realm to reveal Leif again, and things were certainly looking a bit shaky as he had surreal perception on, but Ares was still only up for 4 more hours. There was a brief moment of doubt as we only had four guys online at this moment, but then I realized that Leif had bounced like an entire page of clear sights on me a few hours before, and he was very likely not near 100 % wizard strength.

Jota — 2025-07-20 22:21 Keep him down 4h is doble Guys I repelled like 10 cs from him a few h ago He's not 100%

Jota — 2025-07-20 22:24 Just rev him and if 4h or less we go

allegorical — 2025-07-20 22:24 agreed

Adio180 — 2025-07-20 22:25 I can do something quick

Jota — 2025-07-20 22:25 Yes we do this now

mcgeeal — 2025-07-20 22:25 it's down, goooo

allegorical — 2025-07-20 22:25 ready

Cerb — 2025-07-20 22:25 Hey

mcgeeal — 2025-07-20 22:25 Leif Erikson (#10) snare

Cerb — 2025-07-20 22:25 Leif now?

Jota — 2025-07-20 22:25 Go Leif Erikson

allegorical — 2025-07-20 22:25 go go go

Jota — 2025-07-20 22:25 Snare right now until u get 0

mcgeeal — 2025-07-20 22:26 eh's at zero

Shanulf — 2025-07-20 22:26 Done

Everyone was excited about our second snare against #10 in 24 hours and we just couldn’t restrain ourselves from mocking with our enemies a bit:

allegorical — 2025-07-20 22:49 their realm chat...

Alright I'll BF and we'll be ok

Cool - lets find a target

Nice got a BF and moving right along.

Now just make sure DE doesn't get a war hit on us!

Hey uhhh - I might have gotten snared

Cerb — 2025-07-20 22:50 Screen shot that for hopeful round win story

We discussed what realm 10 could do to prevent us from delivering the hit on Leif in a few hours, and identified a counter-snare against me could possibly pose a problem, but I didn’t worry much about this as all explorers in #10 were certainly low on spy strength from having assassinated my draftees during the entire day. When I returned from the dinner, the boys had been casting lightning on Leif to reduce his dp further. The snare had been so quick that this was the first time I actually looked at Leif’s defense in detail myself. And it did not look promising at all! While the boys kept Leif snared well enough, he had stockpiled 1 million plat and 60k gems by the HC prior to my supposed hit. He also had a few GT incoming that I don’t know if anyone had calculated with, and a huge population that produced over 1000 draftees every hour.

Jota — 2025-07-21 00:41 Guys Leif is drafting up Need to calc him again...

We decided to stab him, but I was still extremely worried about a release. Only 1000-2000 points released would make it very difficult for us to stab him. And by now I was also getting tired from last night’s late adventure when we snared and I hit Laura Bingham in the middle of the night my time.

Cerb — 2025-07-21 01:43 He has plenty of resources

Jota — 2025-07-21 01:43 Yeah this is super risky

Cerb — 2025-07-21 01:43 But you know the saying Risk it for the biscuit

Jota — 2025-07-21 01:59 Lets give him a volley of lightning short after hc Then wait a few min then we stab

Jota — 2025-07-21 02:03 Lets all stab st the same time Who is rdy?

Cerb — 2025-07-21 02:03 Full or just teat

Bobbo — 2025-07-21 02:03 im ready

Adio180 — 2025-07-21 02:03 im ready

Cerb — 2025-07-21 02:03 Ready

Shanulf — 2025-07-21 02:03 ready

Jota — 2025-07-21 02:03 Ok go go go

2025-07-21 00:04:42 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 524 land from Leif Erikson (#10).

The hit happened. I had palpitations and probably a heart rate of 160+ when I sent, still fearing a release. I’m not sure if Leif was asleep or not, but it was a magnificent hit that catapulted my dom into the #1 position on 9298 acres with Weaser behind me on 9072 acres. As it turned out I was still open to suicide from Weaser due to the war bonus being active, but nobody believed he would give up his round and his impressive land size.

From here there were still a couple of days left, and I constructed more GT, temple and GN, and also brought in even more docks and spies, after which I turned to pushing mostly swordmen with a few gargoyles mixed in here and there. Weaser was forced to go all ratmen here with the population he still had left, being on 35k+ against my 70k+. I calced that I would hit him before attacking could be disabled if he didn’t resort to starting releasing his op for extra draftees, which of course he did. That removed the last threat of a suicide, and eventually Weaser sent out to bottomfeed in a last attempt to gain more land.

I was still in the Elite guard looking for a 75 % target, and everyone was pretty tired at this point and just wanted the round to end. We amazingly failed to note the merfolk Screaming Mimis #8 (Craghack) who was within my 75% range and had apparently left himself open, this being due to an old survey showing higher than actual GT, but it did not matter as I had tons of op at this stage and could easily send out on a few bottomfeeds, which is how the win was sealed and so the round ended for me and the fantastic team in #9:

2025-07-23 04:59:17 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 301 land from 🧄Garlic-Tunneler Goulash🍲 (#12).

2025-07-23 16:09:20 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 267 land from Schnapps and Sensibility (#6).

2025-07-24 04:46:41 Victorious on the battlefield, Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship (#9) conquered 217 land from 🧄Garlic-Tunneler Goulash🍲 (#12).

These hits took my dom just some acres short of 11,000 a new personal record by far. This win was a team effort from Myths and Mistakes (#9). Great contributions from Shanulf, Cerbrus, Mcgeeal, Bobbo, Allegorical and King Adio. I also wish to thank Calvin, Seth Harris and TheWittyGinger for their valuable help at times. Many factors played out in our favor over the course of the round, but we were cunning, took several correct decisions, deliberately let others do a big chunk of the dirty work, and finally stepped up when required. Had I not been on vacation in Portugal last week I suppose I could not have dedicated several nights to waking up in the middle of the night for snare hits.

I salute Weaser and Lud for the fierce competition at the top. Well played. Realm #5, being stacked with top players in a manner seldom seen also played a great round and showed us what an aggressive and coordinated realm strategy can do, though in the end they overextended, having their attackers be so active with blops and threat-op.

Over the course of the years, I have learnt that every man is the architect of his own fortune in dominion, and previous winners like Jboy and Harm were an inspiration as they showed that you can win a round without being the strongest realm on paper, but instead by just doing your thing and simply not giving up and showing patience in key moments.

Round 45, the stars aligned and my previous experience along with an excellent pack and realm boiled down to the win. Thank you for reading this far, and best luck to InternetFett who keeps administrating and developing OpenDominion, and everyone who keeps playing and making this game so highly enjoyable. / Jota

Myths and Mistakes (#9)

#Dominion	Player	Race	Land	Networth
1. Presenting Fenrir to Masters Agility Championship	King Jota	Dark Elf	10,942	1,863,865
2 Serving Thyestes' Family Dinner	mcgeeal	Vampire	6,695	817,425
3 Loosing Zeus on a Goose	cerbrus87	Sylvan	6,316	1,073,202
4 Lending Tyr a Hand	shanulf	Kobold	6,093	978,445
5 A Fresh Fade for Sampson	KingAdio	Wood Elf	5,193	1,083,615
6 Skinny Dipping in the Styx	bigchris27	Halfling	5,025	788,611
7 Helping Heracles do Chores	Calvin	Wood Elf	4,863	1,357,178
8 Ares Pickin’ Berries	Bobbo	Halfling	4,596	764,302
9 Ancient	Full Garous	Wood Elf	4,548	1,212,535
10 Medusa's Eyes are Up Here	Winterr	Troll	3,896	727,778
11 Better luck next year	Seth Harris	Human	3,896	951,668
12 NoDoomGuyAllowed	TheWittyGinger	Demon	3,098	604,288
13 Somnium	Somnium	Human	1,429	301,690

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