Editing Round 39 Dan was abandoned as a child

Hi, Rush here. And it's time for another Roundfail: draft edition!

I was drafted onto Team Dan, alongside Gothia, Erix, Asanka, Scratch, Zar, ForPony and Sizzler. Dan had also drafted Bombtek, but after asking us to make him a sim (which Lud, who said he was taking the round off - and then played anyway and almost friggin won the game - generously created for him), he then never turned up to register in time. We DMed him and pinged him a bunch but I don't think he used discord much and he definitely had turned his notifications off, and so he missed the deadline and would have been seeded randomly into one of the other realms - if he even signed up for the round at all. Honestly, it felt a bit like we dodged a bullet, but then we ended up with Elf Woods as a rando in-realm anyway which felt a bit like what happened to me the time I went to return a toaster I'd bought at Tesco because it wouldn't heat up, only to be given a replacement toaster that was missing the lever to lower the bread into the grill and switch it on. Neither of them could make any fucking toast.

I already knew I was on Team Dan before it got announced publicly. Merf had strongly alluded to me being on Dan's team in the Rush Hour podcast where we revealed the co-captains, despite me saying on the pod I wanted it to be a surprise (though if you ask Merf, he says I directly asked him what team I was on). Then after the pod wrapped and we were having the post-pod chat he straight up told me who my team was. I don't know how Merf got all of the info he did - someone from the captains discord must have been leaking it to him - but he was 100% accurate. 

Dan was the one team captain that, if you'd asked me before that chat with Merf, I'd have put money on not drafting me - especially with Gothia as his co-captain. The previous round my pack had been responsible for obliterating a member of their pack (Wurst) as soon as wars became viable, leading to their entire pack abandoning, and the dissolution of their entire realm as the remaining players became refugees and were shipped off to other realms. This legendary blopmageddon was what ushered in the Dark Ages of blops we now find ourselves in. It had gotten a little heated in the discord in the days that followed; I'd called Dan a serial abandoner, he'd called me a narcissist. Standard internet beef.

That said, this is all just a game; it's difficult for me to take a lot of what gets said in the heat of the moment too seriously while we're all out here running fantasy dominions filled with orcs and pixies or whatever. If Dan was drafting me I could only conclude he didn't really give a damn either. 

Just to make the scenario as awkward as possible however, I'd also spent some time on the Rush Hour pod saying Dan and Gothia didn't strike me as leadership captain-y types, as they typically filled "General" roles in packs (as in, the second-in-command position); and my experience in previous draft rounds with that type of player was that they often don't perform as well outside their usual team environments. So it was also great to be joining the very captain and co-captain I'd just been saying didn't seem to have that synergistic victory spark. It could have been worse; Merf, knowing I had been drafted by Dan, had been keying me up repeatedly to say negative things about them on the podcast to try and sew seeds of discord among our draft pack. That fucker Merf's always on the psyops, even between rounds. Unfortunately for Merf, neither Dan or Gothia seemed at all concerned with our opinions. 

From Dan's draft reasoning on the RiolTalk pod, I think he made the logical decision with the players on the board available to him at the time. I got drafted pretty much exactly where I expected to be, in round three (aka the support round) - although I still can't believe Unfather went before me! An outrageous selection by Grapes.

Looking around at the other teams, I thought Crazy Elf and Swamp Fox had put together the best teams, but I was still optimistic about our team compared to some of the other compositions. We were certainly in the top half in terms of player capability, at least in my estimation, so it really just came down to whether or not our line-up was going to be able to cope on the ops side: due to timezones, I could support Gothia well enough, but Dan and Erix didn't have any natural supporters. I wasn't over the moon about being drafted specifically as ops support (as a blopper, it's really only a role I perform when none of the pure explorers are willing to do it); but given the perceived weak nature of blackops for the second round running, and a crazily disproportionate mutual war op bonus still in full swing, I figured maybe settling for ops might not be the worst possible fate if that's what it came down to. 

We spent actual days trying to decide on a theme. Erix had a bunch of lame-o America-centric theme suggestions like "Trump theme", "wrasslers theme" and "fuck the commies" theme that nobody wanted to do, but would then poo-pooed my really good theme suggestions, like naming ourselves after rocks. ForPony wanted to do a beach boys theme where you'd kind of type-hum the beat of the song, and use the word "blops" a lot. Scratch wanted to do a potato theme. We were all over the place. Eventually we all agreed that theme-by-democracy was a dumpster fire, so we asked Dan just to pick whatever he wanted. He went with "insulting team captains" as a theme. So naturally I called myself "Dan was abandoned as a child". I can't help myself, I've always got to stoke the fires. It's a blopper's nature. 

Lud had made a Sylvan sim and a Nox sim for us, and the original plan was to have ForPony and I running Sylvan blopsplorers and Bombtek running a Nox blopsplorer, but since Bombtek never showed up, I went Sylvan and ForPony ran Nox. As for randos, we picked up Vinn, Espiritus and Elf Woods. Vinn was a steal, Espiritus was an unknown (or I thought he was, turns out this was my third round playing with the guy!), and Elf Woods... well, Elf Woods is bad. There's no getting around it, he just sucks. He is also bit of an enigma, made even more so by the fact that he unshared advisors with everyone a few days into realm assignment. His lifetime shows that he generally finishes on 2k acres despite having played 15 rounds now. It is almost impressive that after 15 rounds he hasn't quite cracked a reliable 3k explorer finish. Although, having Elf Woods in our realm did give us something to work towards: a collective goal to not get hit before he did. 

We failed horribly in that goal.

'''WEEK 1 - FA MELEE'''

Pretty much everyone (including me) expected our realm to play fast - but after much discussion Dan, Gothia, Erix and our various other attackers decided not to put a horse in that race, correctly predicting that there would be a lot of fast competition this round and instead opting for quick convert / slow attack strategies. And when the horses left the gates at oop, I think they were all pleasantly surprised at being even more right than they'd dared to imagine. There were fast attackers everywhere. Every man and his dog was fast attacking. In the first week we were having to track a ridiculous number of players all competing for top op to the point where it sometimes felt overwhelming. I don't know how anyone did it in classic when there were thousands of players - probably with a lot of off-site tools and the kind of free time a teenager at school has. There were some situations where I just couldn't be bothered working out if I had the wiggle room to explore a few more acres or not so I'd just chain dp instead. It probably hurt my early growth a bit, but I tend to play on the conservative side anyway. 

This being the third draft round, I think it's fair to make the claim now that these draft rounds are always chaos at oop, and this round was certainly no letdown. The GPC's factory changes, which they cooked up to invalidate people's cache of sims, also had the knock-on effect of invalidating the dp reference chart a lot of people use as a guideline for the first 72 hour of dp needed. This combimed with the "teenagers in ferraris" draft round sim phenomenon lead to a few spectacular wrecks in the first week and a lot more player hits than usual. Our realm by contrast was an absolute fortress - we were the final realm to hold out against being invaded until day five, when Espiritus ate a hit after a risky send. The only realm that even came close to our level of invasion evasion was realm 10, but they'd suffered their first hit six hours earlier.

''2024-03-20 00:51:31    The Jungle B (Disco) (#12) invaded fellow dominion Look at my grade point average! Look at it! (Merf) (#10) and captured 73 land.''

''2024-03-21 06:59:17    Open Domination (bigchris27) (#3) invaded fellow dominion Jack of all tirades! (Espiritus) (#9) and captured 51 land.''

There was also a lot of playing "guess who?" with packs. Everyone in the draft round wants to know where someone is, because once you have one person identified you have virtually the entire realm triangulated, which makes it easier to predict their moves. Loose lips started sinking ships straight away as we were able to nail down a number of realms early on. I don't know who blabbed to who from these realms, because all the people I spoke to gave nothing away, and most people I spoke to seemed to think we were in #5. Except Rio, who accurately guessed our realm in a conversation with Gothia, and MattyVanHalen, who knew without a shadow of a doubt where we were, indicating that someone in our realm had straight up told him. B's realm was the easiest to identify, because they'd been "mcgeealed" - Cosula hadn't changed his rulername from his lifetime; something mcgeeal did to my draft pack five rounds ago. Whoops!

I don't know what the general consensus on who the most dangerous realm was with so many FAs flying around. Vinn assessed towards the end of the week that it was between #3 and #5, with #11 still hanging in there. But there was something about #10 that made me uneasy: a very strong fast attacker plus an absolutely rock-solid looking goblin heading for a convert. So I put the goblin on permaquake. 

After about 48 hours of quakes, it seemed to trigger some real annoyance from his realm, who lit up my news with notifications from three different ops bitches falling over themselves to get my info within the space of a minute, including a land spy. I knew I wasn't a good target (the gift of undesirable land types) but I was on the lower end of dp and may have been hittable without Those nerds are a threat to our way of life (Blafiora) needing to send any chams. 

''2024-03-22 14:21:21	 Spies from Yes I Am A Nerd, Bookworm I'm Studious! (exrio) (#10) were discovered within our castle!''

''2024-03-22 14:21:11	 Spies from Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (Nauj) (#10) were discovered amongst our buildings! We executed 1 spy.''

''2024-03-22 14:21:07	 Spies from Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (#10) were discovered amongst our buildings! We executed 1 spy.''

''2024-03-22 14:20:49	 Spies from Yes I Am A Nerd, Bookworm I'm Studious! (#10) were discovered amongst our lands!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:48	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (#10)!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:46	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (#10)!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:44	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (#10)!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:43	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (#10)!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:40	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (#10)!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:38	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (#10)!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:36	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yeah. And we'll be up to our asses in nerd shit. (#10)!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:30	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yes I Am A Nerd, Bookworm I'm Studious! (#10)!''

''2024-03-22 14:20:22	 Our wizards have repelled a Clear Sight spell attempt by Yes I Am A Nerd, Bookworm I'm Studious! (#10)!''

Not taking any chances, I rezoned some alchs over to lumberyards for some instant dp and made sure my dominion was more of a "no nerds allowed" kinda deal than a "revenge of the nerds" situation. 

At the beginning of day six we started seriously looking at taking down the Halls of Knowledge. ForPony had done about 13k in cyclone damage to it, which meant it was probably around 60k, but we figured if any other realm had identified it as a Wonder they wanted they'd already be on the case too having seen the air ranks. Broken toaster Elf Woods was also cycloning something, and had done about 15k damage, but we didn't know to what - and we didn't want him sniping a Wonder that didn't fit in with our realm strategy, so we knew we had to act quickly before we potentially ended up with something totally unsuitable like the Wizard Acadamy. Gothia put together a spreadsheet of the damage we'd done and the damage we needed to do, and then began the game of herding the geese to try and coordinate a take-down. We needed Espiritus, but he wouldn't respond to pings or council. We eventually got him in direct messages on discord, but his army was out and he was about to go to bed. He then set an alarm for the middle of the night for him (he was in the Phillipines) for when his army got back in 5h to get up to help take down the Wonder, but didn't tell us he was doing this, so there was a mad scramble to assemble the team while he was temporarily awake. We couldn't get half the team to reply, particularly those we needed to send op (which would comprise the majority of the damage). Dan was off building another wing for his house, Erix was stuck in another disciplinary meeting with HR, Scratch was in a potato-induced coma, and Vinn was too busy scoring out words in the dictionary. 

I don't know why, but organised Wonder take-downs are always stressful in my realms. It's never just smooth sailing. Something always has to make it seem like an edge-case possibility. I suppose we were taking the Wonder down a lot earlier than other realms seemed poised to do, which was always going to put it more on the fringes of possible. Fortunately Erix was finally released with a warning from HR and was able to back us up with the remaining op we might need. Zar, ForPony and I sent out our silly little cylcone swirls, then Gothia pulled the trigger and sent his troops. Then there was a painful 30 second delay where we wondered if Espiritus was actually going to follow, but he did. And the Wonder fell. We didn't even need Erix in the end, so he left to go and work on his alibi for his next HR meeting. 

''2024-03-21 19:29:41	Volv is named after a gay wizard (Gothia) (#9) has attacked a neutral wonder!''
                                                                                                                                                  
''2024-03-21 19:30:08	Jack of all tirades! (Espiritus) (#9) has attacked a neutral wonder!''

''2024-03-21 19:30:08	The Halls of Knowledge has been destroyed and rebuilt by Erix doesn't wash his hands afterwards (#9).''

Several of us in the realm had made the decision to join the Shadow League this round - including me, which marked the first time I'd even considered it since it was ultranerfed many, many rounds ago and rendered basically useless to anyone outside of the hydra, who would just use it for cheaper ops and bully anyone that joined it until they had to leave. My opinion of the Shadow League has always been that it's essentially a noob trap, and just forces you to get bogged down with insane ratios that eventually ruin your economy; it's designed to set blackoppers on a path to irrelevance so they don't bother the "real" players. I have always viewed the SL insignia as little more than a purple moron badge. But Erix made a fairly persuasive argument early on, saying that Virchue spent most of his rounds in the SL and always finished big, benefitted a lot from the cheaper ops, and wasn't really hassled much by bloppers. I also knew from talking to ForPony on the podcast there were some ways to game SL so that generally the other purple moron badge holders didn't bother with you. And I knew the hydra was split up, so the bullies were out of the picture. It was a good environment to give it a shot. I put in my application to join the SL and, alongside ForPony and Zar, we soon had three purple moron badges on display in the realm. Initially only ForPony had the mana to boast any sort of threat level, but a lot of people don't bother to check - even after Dave cautioned that we could well be fakers on RiolTalk - but after the first week I'd finished bringing in schools and was able to finally focus on building war% towers. Faked it 'til I made it. 

There were a few other people in SL in other realms, but I just ignored them and they, for the most part, ignored me. The only SLer that was any sort of nuisance was another sylvan in #1, They called me Mr.👓 (Karpatheo), who would regularly try to assassinate my draftees even though he was miles behind the top assassin. I assume he was infamy farming, but I'd deliberately made myself a terrible target for that, so after a while I just figured he could never remember which person in SL gave him the infamy yield he was after.

Speaking of SL, one of the more interesting hits in the first week came from a fast attacker in #10 who made the curious choice of joining the Shadow League, and then made a massive hit: 

''2024-03-20 21:59:48	Those nerds are a threat to our way of life (Blafiora) (#10) invaded Monopolize Scooby 🍖 and gain control over all 🐕 (Rury) (#11) and captured 93 land.'' 

When asked about it, #10 didn't exactly clarify the decision making process behind this choice when they appeared on the Riol Talk podcast the following weekend (for reasons that would later become clear). It seems to me it was likely a schoolboy error or a misclick when joining guards. In any case, we gave him a hard time with fireballs until he sensibly turned in his purple moron badge the next day. But if anything, he'd earned that badge more than any of us had. 

'''WEEK 2 - MERF'S MEDIA EMPIRE'''

We didn't get off to the greatest start in our second week. 

''2024-03-23 22:01:58    Look at my grade point average! Look at it! (Merf) (#10) invaded fellow dominion Yami's the cheap stripper at JC's stag party 🕺 (Asanka) (#9) and captured 121 land.''

''2024-03-23 22:21:39    Ozzy Osboarn (Chunk) (#2) invaded fellow dominion Yami's the cheap stripper at JC's stag party 🕺 (#9) and captured 107 land.''

''2024-03-24 02:59:57    Rig the 2044 election (Sugarjon) (#11) invaded fellow dominion Yami's the cheap stripper at JC's stag party 🕺 (#9) and captured 97 land.''

Dan then tried to use this as cover and made a risky send, which didn't pay off: 

''2024-03-24 11:59:54	More like DownSyndromeDave (DanTheMan) (#9) invaded the angriest angle (#0) and captured 53 land.''

''2024-03-24 16:57:43	Every Corporate HR Department, Ever. (Nate) (#5) invaded More like DownSyndromeDave (#9) and captured 69 land.''

Dan was a bit miffed that #5 had hit him when he felt there were better targets on the map, and I think he may have concluded that it was a targeted take-down. He apparently later kicked off in the captains discord about people leaking locs. 

Apart from a comatose Asanka dropping Ares and then farming out over 300 acres (or 600+ with land gen) to #2, #10 and #11 and Dan's minor setback, our realm had mostly avoided taking hits. For his part, Asanka's dominion was a classic example of why people complain that fast exploring is too easy - relatively low activity, high performance, a big lead on acres early, then snoozing on dp / spell drops. Fast exploring carries this far greater risk of getting hit if you aren't careful because the top attackers really want that lazy explorer booty, so they're constantly looking out for it, but the hits don't really translate into a terrible finish, so it's an easy deal for the fast explorers. 

As we progressed through the second week the FA circus had begun to consolidate a bit with some frontrunners taking their leads. #10 had emerged as a potential runner, with "Damdred" flexing his muscles as a top fast attacker threat, and were invited onto the podcast to talk about the round so far. Unfortunately Damdred wasn't able to make it, so Soup came on in his stead to represent the realm. Soup wasn't able to provide a lot of insight but was able to repeatedly assure everyone that Damdred was enjoying himself.

Cutting to the chase here, the whole discussion on RiolTalk between Merf and Soup was a ruse. #10 was actually Swamp Fox's draft pack (which Merf was part of) and they had deliberately picked out Damdred as a rulername to subtly mislead the gossipers, but kicked this into overdrive when the real Damdred and his real realm (who were actually realm #8) leaned into the lie, and invited them onto the podcast to engage in maximum tomfoolery by amplifying the propaganda. I haven't listened back to the podcast to see if Soup was barefaced lying or simply being cute with the truth; I'd just taken it at face value at the time. I'd been impressed with Damdred's first shot at fast attacking last round. He'd even clapped Rio's cheeks at one point, although he had paid the price for it and got wrecked soon after. And I knew he was a hot-shot player from the Nebula Kingdoms community we'd poached him from. So it made sense to me that he could be punching high this round. But it was all a con; collusion between realms.

Unfortunately for #8 and #10, the collusion didn't last very long. The podcast went out late on a Sunday, but by Tuesday everyone seemed to know who #10 really was and were openly hinting at it in the OD discord. Merf's media empire had suffered from a chronic case of loose lips sinking ships. I can't help but wonder if Merf would have still tried to pull the wool over everyone's eyes - or if he'd have had as much success as he did - if Rio had been on the podcast to interrogate the situation a little more. 

Later on the Rush Hour podcast, I'd liken the antics on RiolTalk to Russian propaganda. It's no coincidence that RiolTalk (RT) chose to align its initials with Russia's propagandist news station, Russia Today. Of course, I saw all of this coming all the way back in round 27 https://imgur.com/a/h5dQo3O

Even more bad news followed for realm #10 in the form of realm #11, who had seized a circumstancial opportunity to its fullest and catapulted their fast attacker into the frontrunner position. 

''2024-03-27 22:59:48	Rig the 2044 election (Sugarjon) (#11) invaded Jeff "Ironwood" Hudson (margoose) (#4) and captured 129 land.''

While other FAs were hitting in the 80a range, Rig had smashed sleepy Jeff for 129a, taking advantage of the others being out and unable to retalliate against him. Some people speculated that the fast attackers finally had a runaway, but internally some in our realm had seen the writing on the wall. The fast attackers hadn't gotten the clean break they needed to lock down the round early and were now consigned to a gradual trudge towards familiar irrelevancy.

Gothia summarised the state of affairs: "I think all of the fast attackers have been hit at least once, and with no runner it seems to me that quick converters will take over in the next week or so. Dan and Scratch are both looking to be the top quick converters for their races or at least on par with competitors; we just need to make sure we find the fattest targets and be prepared if something like a suicide happens. Beyond that, Erix and Vinn are also well positioned to be the top dogs of their races, looking set to take over around day 30-35 if they can make smart choices on good targets."

He was however less enthusiastic about his own chances at this stage, projecting that he was a week or two away before he could even think about getting in range with his all-in dp. He was going to need a big dollop of luck to make it work.

Gothia also kept closer tabs on Dan after his yolo earlier in the week. Conversations in discord (paraphrased below) had shifted a bit from:

Dan: "I'm gonna do it"

Dan: "I'm doing it guys"

Dan: "Yolo!"

to:

Dan: "Can I hit this bot?"

Gothia: "No."

Dan: "Ok"

Another Ares drop from Asanka earned him the nickname ACanka in-realm:

''2024-03-29 01:02:12	Look at my grade point average! Look at it! (Merf) (#10) invaded fellow dominion Yami's the cheap stripper at JC's stag party 🕺 (Asanka) (#9) and captured 114 land.''

Asanka had generously gifted more than 800 acres to our enemies at this point. Just whose team was he on?!

'''WEEK 3 - OMENT'S PROPHECY'''

The third week was the week everything stalled, and fast attackers started complaining about - well, anything that could be hurting their playstyle. Explorers bothering to defend themselves; bots having too much dp; it being too expensive to mass raze, rezone and build insane mods instantaneously to get the drop on, well, literally anyone you wanted at that point; or even players just not making enough mistakes. Why can't you guys just make more mistakes and give these poor honest fast attackers your land? More fast attackers had been touted as the solution to stalls but this round had a lot more than we've seen in a long time, and it didn't solve the problem. Rio speculated that the reason for this was they were all making dumb decisions. It's difficult to design around that issue though. 

Realm #10 had still been in a decent position at the beginning of the week and when #6 warred them to take back the Fountain they'd pinched, my eyes lit up. Realm #10 at this point was pretty much confirmed to be Swamp Fox's draft team, which included Merf, which likely meant an internal push for mutual. We agreed in-realm that if that happened we'd war #10, but as the day progressed, it became increasingly clear that Merf didn't have his hand on the big red button and was probably tied up and gagged in a corner somewhere. I suggested that we should war #10 anyway, targeting the merf in the first wave and the goblin on the second wave, and most were in favour. Unfortunately #8 then stepped into the mix and overcomplicated the situation for us; it increased the possibility of a Wonder snipe and would leave #10 with options on what Wonder to take - the Fountain, or our cherished Halls of Knowledge, which was on a meagre 200k hp and would be easy prestige. Merf had apparently broken free from his restraints and #10 mutualed #8. It was already a mess. 

We stood down for war. I ran a few scans in the first day of the wars to see if any blops were happening, and no one in #10 had burning. It was purely a Wonder squabble. Hilariously, #6 (a non-draft realm, with a few notables like Virchue, empoy and Robert) still managed to take the Fountain back for themselves, and when #10 was able to disentangle themselves from their impulsive mutual, they went after #6 again. Gnomish Mining Machine fever had officially spread from round 38 into round 39, and realm #10 were hopelessly in its thrall. Still, if no one was blopping any of them in these wars, I guess it was a no-risk scenario.

Meanwhile, amazingly, the Shadow League was the only thing keeping my interest in the round. I had mostly been sticking to an honour system that most of the other Shadow Leaguers had adopted: if you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone, and we can all enjoy our cheaper ops together. With the exception of the nerd fast attacker that accidentally joined I hadn't really flexed my ratios on anyone. Then #3 (Crazy Elf's draft realm) decided they could join SL and start harrassing my realm. At first the top spy disbander, Big Chuncks of Wurst after Scruff in Gothiaborg (Jaerock), focused on Asanka, miasma'ing and disbanding about a hundred spies, while JcinYami (jmerc13) started snaring me and gunning for my Earthquake title. I counter-snared him and upped the quakes to give him a moving target. Up until this stage I'd been solely quaking That’s 7,107.32 boobs (Swamp Fox) (#10), and by day 18 I'd put 276 hours on him - which was 11.5 solid days since blops went live out of a possible 13 days. But I dropped the laser focus on him and widened the net, quaking all dwarves in range, no doubt leaving them all scratching their heads. 

The next day Chuncks of Wurst had the temerity to assassinate 40 of my draftees, so in response I swarmed him on 18k food, then disbanded 450 of his spies, then snared him down - then passed his details over to ForPony, who begrudgingly liberated another 350 spies from their posts. He wasn't happy about getting 15 infamy per cast, but I assured him that sometimes in the pursuit of chaos, damaging your opponent is more important than what you personally gain. Those 40 draftees were precious to me, and had to be avenged.

Chuncks had been slammed with up to 400k platinum in damages in seconds, confirming Oment's warnings that in some scenarios it was now the most powerful blop in the game. Chuncks requeued a ton of spywiz and scuttled out of the SL the same tick they arrived. Fortunately for Chuncks, since I had an alarm set to kill all of them on arrival, SL has a 12h leave time (it used to be 24h) and he managed to escape without further harm. 

Towards the end of the week we took the decision to war #12 and give new fireball its first real test of the round. Most of the wars up to this point had been for Wonders, and fireballs seemed incidental to those wars at best. The frontrunners in fireball were realm #6, who were falling over themselves to donate as much land as humanly possible in their war with #10. It was a fight they picked but both realms were caught in the thrall of Wonder fever - but #10 were very much the benefactors here. Over the course of the war (at the time of taking note on day 24) realm #10 had collected over 1,500 acres in conquered and generated land. With the mutual war land gains bonus, it was closer to 1,700 acres.

Realm #6 had started off as the plucky hero realm willing to sabotage one of the leading realms but had ended up becoming meals on wheels instead. The exchange rate on land vs blops they were offering may just be the greatest deal ever seen in OD history.

In our war, we targeted Mad Merf and Glory (Lud) (#12) for fireballs. His dom was looking a bit cheeky so we figured we'd throw a speedbump at him. We declared, we fireballed, we burned, we plagued, we did that whole shebang. Asanka and Zar did the volleys, and I drew the short straw and got tedious maintenance duty. Very quickly while fireballing on maintenance I realised something was wrong - not only had Asanka's and Zar's fireballs not taken Lud down to cap, but he was recovering his peasants so quickly that I couldn't keep him at cap either. I exhausted my wiz strength and he was still recovering. 

It turned out there was a bug. We don't know when it was introduced - fett said he rewrote everything at some point, and there was a zero somewhere a zero had no business being. Honestly fett could tell me anything and I'd have no idea if it was true or not, but a rogue zero definitely sounds like something I'd say if I was a developer telling someone who understood nothing about my profession and I didn't want to have to explain it. But the long and short of it was burning wasn't working as it should. The fireballs still hurt Lud, according to Lud, but it was still pretty frustrating. #3 joined in the war and contributed some fireballs of their own, but it still didn't seem to be enough to keep Lud at cap. 

I messaged fett and he fixed the bug pretty quickly, and refunded some mana and wiz strength to our realm in order to try and reset the balance, but Lud had already cast Lucky Bastard and most of my refunded fireballs on a 2.1 ratio bounced, instead killing a load of my dryads, and when I did finally succeed with a fireball it was reflected back at me. 

These sorts of experiences do not foster goodwill and patience towards new fireball.

My realm was exasperated. We were almost 12 hours into the war at this point and felt like we'd done pretty lacklustre damage. We'd gone into the war intending to limit Mad Merf's training, but I think Zar's meme best summed up the situation: https://imgur.com/a/MDqkN5K

I messaged fett again and explained the issue in more detail, and he agreed to remove some of Lud's peasants to bring him down to the level he should have been at had fireball / burning been working. I'm not sure he ever actually did that though (certainly Lud wasn't aware of it if he did, which means it probably never happened), and I mostly lost interest in the war after that. #10 knocked down our Wonder, which we expected, and we took it back. We had discussed if we should just let them have it, but ultimately agreed the Halls still had some utility left to us. We posted in council for the less active discord players (Espiritus, Elf Woods, and a new guy that had joined called Gwyn) to ask them not to take the Wonder down early. Espiritus was the only one who responded to the thread and we clarified to him why we were timing it carefully. Then he hit the Wonder anyway, knocked it down, then apologised in the council thread saying he forgot. 

In the interim before Dan was able to cancel the war, Zoojed (Zedijar) (#12) threw some troops at the Wonder and did a trivial but crucially uneven amount of damage, which upset Vinn, who I'd learned has some sort of affection for pristine and round numbers. Espiritus may never know the mental anguish he caused with his yolo. I think we should all practice having a little more empathy in this game for all the Vinns out there.

To cap off the week we assassinated some draftees so Erix could swipe some land from one of the two remaining SLers, JcinYami (jmerc13) (#3). His ratios made assassinating annoying and I failed about half the time. But together with some key sizzler support, Erix was able to make the hit.

''2024-04-08 16:54:45	Victorious on the battlefield, Cronel thinks chaos is a personality trait (Erix) (#9) conquered 113 land from JcinYami (jmerc13) (#3).''

Even as a dirty SLer myself it was satisfying to help engineer a hit on another SLer - and I got decent infamy for it. Should've trained more dp instead of all those ratios pal!

Our realm overall wasn't feeling like it was in a good spot despite making the smart choice to play slow and picking up a fantastic Wonder for the playstyle. Gothia's early prediction that he wasn't getting the momentum he needed was worsened by people continually sniping the bots he'd lined up for a hit, and he was now being out-trained by his competitors. Scratch was talking about training suicidal op just to help someone out, which is always a good indicator that someone is dead in the water. Dan had made a few mistakes and had now been overtaken by Erix as the top dog of the realm. Asanka had been hit too much to be in with any hope of a respectable fast explorer finish and was only 200a ahead of me and my slow-ass Sylvan SL blopsplorer build. Despite insane imps with a 32% keep and 16 techs unlocked I figured it was only a matter of time before I overtook him, and I felt like I was doing quite poorly as well. Infamy being stripped out of the game without any other economic crutch being added had definitely hurt my growth. 

'''WEEK 4 - BOREDOM IN KAMIKAZIA''' 

Nothing happened in the fourth week. Well, maybe for you stuff happened, maybe in the game stuff happened, but for me, I was largely checked out and so I hereby confidently assert that nothing happened. If something had happened I'd have heard about it and I didn't hear anything. The main discord was mostly Crazy Elf complaining about beloved OD superstar Zooj. My realm chat for an entire week straight was people just stating where there were in the attack queue, which is every bit as interesting as constantly announcing to everyone around you where you are in a telephone queue to speak to a customer service rep. Either that or they would speculate when Zooj might send. Or mention that they were bored, and that attacking was boring. It was a boring week for everyone in #9. Have I mentioned that we were bored? 

Well, people being bored and consequently being boring doesn't leave you with much to work with for an entertaining roundfail story, so instead I've outsourced this week to ChatGPT and asked it to spin us up a short tale instead - with a few key plot points I specifically requested. 

(I may also have added some enhancements to the text.)

Behold! My* magnum opus. 

(*copyright to every writer who ever lived, probably - who knows how many writers this bot ripped off in the making of this epic)

---

In the kingdom of Kamikazia, a curse of boredom had settled like a thick fog, suffocating its once lively population. Heroes and Legends alike found themselves in a state of listlessness, their once noble quests for land and renown now rendered dull and uninspiring.

Gothia, once a revered warrior known for his courage and strength, found himself struggling to keep up with the other Legends. He sighed heavily as he surveyed the empty training grounds, his sword feeling heavier in his hand than usual. "What's the point?" he muttered to himself, his voice tinged with frustration.

Erix, the cheeky imp, flitted about the courtyard, his usual mischievous grin replaced by a weary expression. He paused by Gothia's side, his tiny wings drooping. "Cheer up, Gothia! It's not all doom and gloom," he chirped, though even his upbeat tone couldn't mask the despondency in his voice.

Gothia glanced at Erix, his brow furrowing. "Easy for you to say, Erix. You're not the one struggling to keep up with the others," he grumbled.

Erix shrugged, his impish grin returning. "Maybe you just need a change of pace, Gothia. A new challenge to reignite that passion within you!" he suggested, fluttering his glitter-encrusted wings excitedly.

But before Gothia could respond, a booming voice echoed across the courtyard, drawing their attention. Rush, a fearsome sorceror of the blackest of black arts, strode into view, his eyes alight with mischief. "Well, well, well, what do we have here?" he exclaimed, a wicked grin spreading across his face.

Gothia tensed at the sight of Rush, his hand instinctively reaching for his sword. "What do you want, Rush?" he growled, his voice dripping with suspicion.

Rush chuckled, twirling his staff between his fingers. "Just thought I'd spice things up a bit, Gothia. Break the monotony, you know?" he replied, his eyes still gleaming with mischief.

Gothia narrowed his eyes, his grip tightening on his sword. "I don't trust you, Rush. Your idea of 'spicing things up' usually ends in disaster," he retorted, his tone sharp.

Rush shrugged, unfazed by Gothia's hostility. "Suit yourself, Gothia. But don't come crying to me when you're bored out of your mind," he quipped, before disappearing in an uninteresting puff of smoke.

Gothia sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "What are we going to do, Erix? The curse of boredom is only getting stronger. Even that encounter with Rush just now was really boring and he usually does stuff like set us on fire," he lamented. "I'm so bored. This is so boring!"

Erix glanced up at Gothia, a spark of determination flickering in his eyes. He brushed a permed lock of hair from his tiny imp eyes. "We'll figure it out, Gothia. Together, as pals!" he declared, his squeaky voice ringing with conviction.

But deep down, both Gothia and Erix knew that breaking the curse of boredom would be no easy task. And as they watched the sun sink below the horizon, casting long shadows across the empty courtyard, they couldn't shake the feeling that their efforts would ultimately end in failure. And the worst kind of failure too: a legacy that would bore the pants off anyone who heard about it.

Meanwhile, up in the hills of Kamikazia, Zooj, the golden god of a man, stood tall and proud, his charismatic aura shining brightly despite the darkness that surrounded him. But his confidence wavered as Crazy Elf, consumed by jealousy and bitterness, confronted him with a fierce glare.

"You think you're sooooo special, don't you, Zooj? With your stupid sexy golden locks and your charming winsome smile," Crazy Elf spat, his voice dripping with venom. "But mark my words, your reign will come to an end, and when it does, I'll be there to watch you fall!"

Zooj raised a perfect eyebrow, his expression unflinching. "Is that a threat, Crazy Elf?" he retorted, his voice calm but laced with a hint of amusement.

"You bet your perfectly sculpted sweet cheeks it is!" Crazy Elf shouted, his heart burning with an insane rage. With a feral snarl, he lunged at Zooj, their clash of wills echoing through the silent streets of Kamikazia. 

As they fought, their insults became increasingly mundane, their bants devoid of any spark or wit. As they traded blows, a faint drizzle began to fall from the sky, the raindrops so light and unremarkable that they hardly made a sound as they hit the ground. It was the most boring kind of rain imaginable. 

"Wait!" Crazy Elf gasped for breath, holding his arms up in surrender. "Wait, I have something I have to confess!"

"This better be interesting," Zooj sighed. He'd hardly even broken a sweat.

"I love you Zooj, I've always loved you," Crazy Elf sobbed. Zooj gasped. 

Crazy Elf had done it. Someone in Kamikazia had finally said something interesting.

The rain stopped abruptly. A silence fell over the hills. The heavens themselves seemed to catch their breath. 

Was this it? 

Was this how the curse would be broken? A confession of love? Of hopeless infatuation, of lust, of Crazy Elf's shameless desperation for that carnal Zooj touch?

Erix flitted over the hills just in time to gasp in shock as he watched the two heroes suddenly embrace, their tongues-

[Sorry folks, I had to cut it there before I was responsible for OD's first erotica. Subscribe to my Patreon for the full version.]

'''WEEK 5 - THE INEVITABLE MITHSTAKE'''

After flatlining from sheer boredom for a week straight, someone finally stepped up to the plate to spice up the round. And while it wasn't Damdred, it was the realm that had been impersonating him. And oh boy did they bring the spice.

It started off innocently enough with an isolated event that didn't involve any of the actors that were about to take centre stage. With so many massive explorers flying into the stratosphere, #12 was able to bank on one of them letting their Ares slip. They had been tracking a bunch of them, but it was Captain Planet that dropped the ball, and #12 caught it.

''2024-04-14 23:42:10    Mad Merf and Glory (Lud) (#12) invaded Captain Planet (Saccora) (#8) and captured 368 land.''

This hit dropped Lud's op and evidently gave #10 the courage that they could take war to our realm, snare hit Gothia, and be safe from reprisals from #12. 

''2024-04-16 04:25:45    No-one's gonna really be free until nerd persecution ends. (#10) has declared WAR on Erix don’t need no edumacation (#9).''

Gothia had suspected it was coming and had upped his spies from completely non-existent to homeopathic, and had me and ForPony casting illumination on him for an extra +10% spy defence. Unfortunately his ratios were still trash and sitting at something like 0.25 so an extra ~80 spies equivalent in defence was pretty useless. #10 were able to snare him down and keep him snared, with a lot of their attackers getting in on the action because Gothia's spy defences were made of wishful thinking. 

Gothia considered his options as the freight train hurtled towards him and his Ares hours ticked away: he could release his op and try to force a bounce; he could release his dp and deliberately feed #10's competition; at the fever pitch of his desperation he even considered deconverting to blopping; or he could take the option he ultimately chose: to just eat the hit.

For my part, I set about disbanding spies in #10 to hurt the snare efforts. Based on fails in Gothia's news I was able to work out who had spies instead of assassins - but their ratios were so garbage and with their Wizard Academy reducing damage by 50% I only got like 10 a pop. 

Once Gothia had time to assess the situation it became increasingly clear that #10 weren't just going to hit him, but they were also apparently totally oblivious to the fact they were going to feed the one guy they should have been keeping tabs on to make sure they didn't feed: Lud. And Lud, sensing opportunity at their war dec, had dropped specs to make sure he had the flex to hit Mith if he sent.

Surely they wouldn't pull the trigger? Surely they had ops on Lud?

''2024-04-16 09:04:47    GIMME’ HEAD TILL I’M DEAD (Mithrandir) (#10) invaded fellow dominion Volv is named after a gay wizard (Gothia) (#9) and captured 226 land.''

''2024-04-16 09:42:18    Mad Merf and Glory (Lud) (#12) invaded GIMME’ HEAD TILL I’M DEAD (#10) and captured 352 land.''

''2024-04-16 09:45:29    The Dan Who Knew Too Little (Weaser) (#12) invaded GIMME’ HEAD TILL I’M DEAD (#10) and captured 364 land.''

Guess not.

The popular theory in our realm was that this was all a result of Merf's tactical awareness, but after some more digging, it turned out Merf didn't really have anything to do with it. And neither did draft captain Swamp Fox. And neither did Mith. In fact, the more digging I did, the less accountable #10 became for their decision. Somehow, they'd wound up in a war, with a coordinated snare campaign against us, and then made a hit, and they'd accomplished all of that without any of them making any decisions. Quite incredible really. 

''2024-04-16 11:59:56    Victorious on the battlefield, More like DownSyndromeDave (DanTheMan) (#9) conquered 279 land from The Dan Who Knew Too Little (Weaser) (#12).''

''2024-04-16 12:14:19    That’s 7,107.32 boobs (Swamp Fox) (#10) invaded fellow dominion More like DownSyndromeDave (#9) and captured 184 land.''

''2024-04-16 12:17:56    What the 💦 did they do to this 🐟? Batter it to 💀? (Psychosophy) (#1) invaded fellow dominion More like DownSyndromeDave (#9) and captured 182 land.''

''2024-04-16 17:29:28    Engineer Robotic Candiru Army (Cobber aka Poige) (#11) invaded Mad Merf and Glory (#12) and captured 360 land.''

I was poised and ready to trigger Burning on Mithrandir, but Gothia cautioned that it was better to leave him alone, with the expectation that he would now come to his senses and suicide on #12. I sulked: even in war I couldn't blop!

Of course, Mith did not do what was expected and instead just hit Gothia again. 

''2024-04-17 14:59:16    GIMME’ HEAD TILL I’M DEAD (#10) invaded fellow dominion Volv is named after a gay wizard (#9) and captured 234 land.''

Then Erix scored himself a lil war hit:

''2024-04-17 15:25:17    Victorious on the battlefield, Cronel thinks chaos is a personality trait (#9) conquered 199 land from Lamar’s limp-wristed throwing style (Sharkey) (#10).''

''2024-04-18 04:01:26    No-one's gonna really be free until nerd persecution ends. (#10) has CANCELED war against Erix don’t need no edumacation (#9).''

But that pesky lingering war bonus'll getcha every time:

''2024-04-18 09:02:27    Victorious on the battlefield, Volv is named after a gay wizard (Gothia) (#9) conquered 203 land from Those nerds are a threat to our way of life (Blafiora) (#10).''

Evidently fed up with Mith's shenanigans, Gothia had just decided to feed his competition instead.

''2024-04-19 00:59:46    Mad Merf and Glory (#12) invaded fellow dominion Volv is named after a gay wizard (#9) and captured 244 land.''

''2024-04-19 01:26:53    Engineer Robotic Candiru Army (#11) invaded fellow dominion Volv is named after a gay wizard (#9) and captured 232 land.''

The war was over and I went back to sleep. Metaphorically speaking, that is. I was already asleep when the war cancelled. I'm using a writing technique here to convey that I was basically comatose with boredom at this point in the round, you see. I stopped taking notes and fully intended not to bother recording the rest of the round. 

But then Erix made it his mission to keep things entertaining. 

'''WEEK 6 - ERIX GETS TACTICAL'''

I was roused from my coma by a ping from Zar to see if I had enough spy strength to contribute to a snare. A quick scan of the chat revealed that Erix was in a panic about a potential rezone hit on him from the Wood Elf in #8, Captain Falcon (Soup), after he'd sent out the previous day: 

''2024-04-22 22:42:24	Victorious on the battlefield, Cronel thinks chaos is a personality trait (#9) conquered 228 land from 2 Thy 1 Cup (Crazy Elf) (#3).''

Captain Falcon had apparently been stacking plat overnight and had a cool 1.6 million ready to terraform some acres with the magical power of money, giving him more than enough op to clap Erix's cheeks at a 110% hit and be totally safe on dp.

The long and short of it was that we could maybe snare Captain Falcon at a push so he couldn't cast Ares, but we likely couldn't keep the spell off him long enough for it to matter, so in reality we had no option but to wait.

In the tick before he could make the hit, Erix revealed that he'd been chatting to Oceanu the previous night (who was also in #8), and had suggested the Wood Elf may want to stack plat for some morning fireworks, assuming certain players made certain moves and sent according to his expectations. Erix had apparently been trying to play 4d chess and engineer an outcome that it seemed hadn't actually transpired, and had instead given Captain Falcon a potential hit on himself instead. The realm chat was unforgiving with gifs chortling at the fact he had quite literally dug a grave for himself. 

Fortunately for Erix, word on the street was that Captain Falcon was Faith (Rush from the future edit: this was wrong, but I didn't know that when writing the next two paragraphs, and I'm too lazy to rewrite it - Faith was actually Captain of the Obvious, lol). Knowing the player and the psychology is a huge part of anticipating moves in this game and with Faith, who others described as a calculating player only interested in his own finish, we figured a rezone hit for just 110% was probably not worth the cost. It's a move a Wood Elf can only realistically deploy once and so Faith was likely not going to pull the trigger until there was a substantially better target on the menu. Also Erix had sucky landtypes.

The hit never materialised. Faith had played according to expectation, and Erix was spared the rod he himself had created. 

Later when I spoke to Erix to try and get more information about what 'fireworks' he'd been expecting for this story, he claimed he'd made the whole thing up, hadn't spoken to Oceanu and that it was all fake news. 

Whether it was fake news, or his claim that it was fake news was the real fake news, I guess we'll never know. 

Meanwhile, Mith was busy force-feeding his direct competition the roundwin. His realm had warred #7 to snare WhiteSnakes on a Plane (Candarius), had failed in the snare and allowed him to cast Ares, but were still able to make the hit a few ticks later.

''2024-04-22 21:57:54	GIMME’ HEAD TILL I’M DEAD (#10) invaded WhiteSnakes on a Plane (#7) and captured 351 land.'' 

Realm #10 hadn't been taking ops on their direct competition again though. It was an unusual strategy and it wasn't paying off. Mith seemed to be flying blind on every send.  

''2024-04-23 05:57:56	Engineer Robotic Candiru Army (#11) invaded GIMME’ HEAD TILL I’M DEAD (#10) and captured 393 land.''

Or maybe it was just tactical awareness week and I'd missed the memo.

'''THE FINAL DAYS - CRONEL'S REVENGE'''

In the last week, Erix had been getting excited about the prospect of a 7k finish. For once, it was just within his reach. He was like a kid on Christmas Eve, eagerly anticipating the imminent arrival of Santa. Only unlike all the good boys of the world, Erix couldn't actually rely on Santa showing up, since it was predicated on a number of factors, several of which were out of his control. He needed to make the right moves at the right time and hope that nobody (including him) did anything dumb. 

Unfortunately for Erix, it wasn't going to be Santa coming down the chimney with the gift of mucho acreage. Instead he was to be visited by the OD Grinch, who would instead deliver a swift kick in the balls.

I'd warned our pack right at the start of the round that whoever picked a name insulting Cronel was probably in for a rough ride, and might want to consider going Spirit or Undead to mitigate the endless swarms that would be coming their way. Erix initially listened to this advice and was going to run Spirit, but later changed his race and went Nox, and I guess just #yolo'd on keeping the name (or he forgot). Fortunately for him though, Cronel didn't really bother him with harrassing ops and his realm instead just carefully chose their moment to fuck with him. And it just so happened the moment they chose was the moment Erix was hoping the stars would align, and the seas would part, Santa Claus would come to town and he'd waltz on over to that rare attacker 7k finish. 

As with most things in OD these days, it all started with a Mithstake.

''2024-04-25 04:03:49	GIMME’ HEAD TILL I’M DEAD (#10) invaded Jeff "Ironwood" Hudson (margoose) (#4) and captured 206 land.''

This move set in motion the crazy daisy chain of the round:

''2024-04-25 05:59:53	Engineer Robotic Candiru Army (#11) invaded GIMME’ HEAD TILL I’M DEAD (#10) and captured 465 land.

''2024-04-25 06:59:43	Mad Merf and Glory (#12) invaded Engineer Robotic Candiru Army (#11) and captured 537 land.''

OD bots (B) pulled the trigger on a suicide, and this was likely the move that secured the roundwin for Poige. 

''2024-04-25 07:59:53	Build an army of OD bots (B) (#11) invaded Mad Merf and Glory (#12) and captured 491 land.''

''2024-04-25 10:38:41	Captain O Captain! My Captain! (Warpig) (#8) invaded Build an army of OD bots (#11) and captured 367 land.''

''2024-04-25 10:59:35	The Dan Who Knew Too Little (Weaser) (#12) invaded Build an army of OD bots (#11) and captured 296 land.''

Erix trailed in for sloppy thirds, late to the party because he'd been snoozing all morning:

''2024-04-25 11:07:30	Victorious on the battlefield, Cronel thinks chaos is a personality trait (#9) conquered 281 land from Build an army of OD bots (#11).''

Erix had calculated that he wasn't the best target if anyone chose to hit him. There were others out on similar dp, bigger land and and with more desirable landtypes. In particular Erix had noted an icer 400 acres bigger than him just 4k dp ahead that should have been a no-brainer for someone to target over him. 

Then #8, Cronel's draft realm, dropped an asteroid of coal on Erix's early Christmas: 

''2024-04-25 19:15:33	Captain Falcon (Soup) (#8) invaded fellow dominion Cronel thinks chaos is a personality trait (#9) and captured 371 land.''

It hit like an atom bomb. The stars unaligned. The seas promptly squelched back together. And Erix's dreams of a white Christmas melted before his eyes.

Alright, alright, I'm done with the ''ham''fisted Christmas imagery! ...get it? Christmas ham? Anyone? 

So anyway. Erix. Was. Furious.

He rapidly cycled through the five phases of grief. First up was shock and denial.

Erix: "Wtf? Are you serious?"

Which quickly gave way to anger:
 
Erix: "This is BULLCRAP"

He seemed to skip the bargaining phase - or maybe he did bargain, pleading to some American God via more traditional methods instead of over discord. Either way, blink and you'd miss it because soon enough he was straddling the depression and acceptance phases:

Erix: "It is what it is."

But he didn't stay there for long. Erix had decided he preferred the anger phase much more than the depression or acceptance phases, so he soon returned to the comforting arms of raw fury. Or if you ask Erix, he says he never left the anger phase. His default bad round ending of "sui merf if things go wrong" had transitioned to "sui anyone in #8 as revenge". He couldn't hit Cronel, so instead he redirected his fury at faith. As jester at the time, he updated the realm name to faith's lifetime account and added the message "better defend 5:4". The threat was issued. The gauntlet had been thrown down. 

I spoke to Cronel about it a few days later, and he said nobody in his realm had even noticed the realm name, so the threats ultimately fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, Erix wasn't suiciding anyone. He was instead making a calculated move to claw back some land and maybe still limp on to that dreamy 7k finish. As  long as a certain cheeky roundwinner-to-be in #11 didn't send while he was out, he was covered. 

''2024-04-29 03:22:11	Cronel thinks chaos is a personality trait (#9) invaded 2 Thy 1 Cup (Crazy Elf) (#3) and captured 236 land.''

But with just a few hours left on the clock, Poige sent: 

''2024-04-29 10:56:35 Engineer Robotic Candiru Army (#11) invaded I've had it with these 👩‍🍼🚚 🐍 on this 👩‍🍼 🚛 🛩 (Yeeeoow) (#1) and captured 349 land.''

And then #12 came knocking:

''2024-04-29 11:58:35	The Dan Who Knew Too Little (#12) invaded Cronel thinks chaos is a personality trait (#9) and captured 336 land.''

Even OD bots was getting his ownback this round, clapping Erix's cheeks in retalliation for his participation in the gangbang earlier that week. 

''2024-04-29 13:55:51	Build an army of OD bots (#11) invaded Cronel thinks chaos is a personality trait (#9) and captured 322 land.''

It was over. Erix didn't get his revenge. Instead, for all his revenge plots, Erix would finish the round as a victim of revenge twice over, and short of a 6k finish on 5,895 acres. Which is still a great attacker finish. 

But it wasn't a 7k.

From this point onwards, Erix was a broken man. He vowed to enact revenge upon 'the guy' in #8 - some day, in some future round. His promises of revenge haven't worked out too well for him so far though. And last I heard HR had caught wind of him scrawling obscenities about wood elves onto the side of company air conditioners, so things may even be going from bad to worse. 

We wish him luck. Maybe next round will be his John Wick moment. 

'''EPILOGUE'''

Overall, this was a dull round for me. The Dark Ages of blops really sucked a lot of the life out of the game for bloppers, but there is a little light on the horizon with the recognition from fett and the GPC that blops need another major rework - and I've seen some good ideas coming from that direction already. Maybe next round bloppers can feel like part of the team again, and bring that spark of chaos back into the round dynamics.

It was my first time playing with Dan and Gothia, and while I don't think my initial "General" player type was off the mark, I definitely have a better appreciation for what both personalities bring to the table. Dan is a strong player that can play at a very high level with basically zero team input, and he's an opportunist, but the flipside of that is when he doesn't have someone (presumably Wurstmeyer) to act as a check and balance to his inclination to yolo, it can be his undoing - which certainly seemed to be the case this round. Gothia seems quite similar to Rio in his ability to assess the battlefield and was often spot on with his predictions as to how actions across multiple realms would unfold; it's one of the rarest abilities in the game and looks a lot like reading tea leaves to the rest of us.

We went into the round initially wondering if we'd be alright on the ops front, but we needn't have concerned ourselves, because Zar was putting out literal tomes of data tracking all of the ops in the early game, and kept it up until pretty much the end of the round. He's also a 'scary explorer' - and hear me out, because in his case that isn't an oxymoron. Zar will sit with his Ares off in range of top attackers when he knows they want fed, and present himself as bait, waiting for them to take ops, watching as they gather their intel, smiling as they cast rev, waiting again as they make their calculations, sometimes even letting them rev a second time - and then he'll cast Ares and watch them bounce. Just for the lols. It's a level of "playing chicken" I've never seen before and it will catch even cautious top attackers out. It completely fucked SugarJon who had been doing great up until that point: 

''2024-04-07 21:00:59	Rig the 2044 election (Sugarjon) (#11) invaded B is really more of a C- (Zar) (#9) but failed to conquer any land.''

Shoutout to Scratch, who played great for a new player, even if he was a bit frustrated at times with the lack of action or not being able to make moves when he wanted to. He's a fun player that brings a lot of bants and energy to the realm - if you haven't listened to his podcast with Nauj give it a whirl, it's a good listen. How does this niche game have three podcasts? Madness. You have to love this community.

Out-of-realm shoutout to Mith who singlehandedly kept the game interesting with his unique blend of yolos and trademark Mithstakes. He reminded me of something an old IT manager once said about me after I'd accidentally wiped an entire server: "He knows just enough to be dangerous."

I finished on 6,069 acres. I could have finished about 150 acres bigger, but something about the number 6,069 just appealed to me. It was... ''nice''. We capped off the round end with a mutiny against Dan who had been missing in action for so long that Scratch was starting to tape his picture to milk cartons. As King for a day, I only had one agenda: war! We picked #10 because why not, and we did almost no damage (I was getting 92 pez kills per fireball) because that's just how blops are at the moment. 

Congrats to realm #11 on their win - to Poige and B's draft pack. It was entertaining to see that the a few of the top contenders for the win this round were non-drafters, and that a non-drafter won, though I doubt Poige could have done it without B's suicide on Lud. 

And the ending of the story that everyone is really here for: 

Elf Woods finished on 3090 land. He did it - he broke 3k acres! Not for the first time, mind you, but it's one of just a few occasions he's managed it. And he did it all under my benevolent telepathic guidance. 

You're welcome, Elf Woods.

And that's it. Third draft round over. Back to your regular packs, everyone. See you next round. 

TL;DR

This round in a nutshell: https://imgur.com/a/VICXRM7