Hitting Peach from behind with a banana R32

If you are looking in here for a light read, a bright, easygoing story, full of merf-isms and peace declarations, I’m afraid to tell you that you found the wrong Round 32-tale. Though our protagonists eventually finds riches, their journey is one full of anguish, death, sleepless nights, and lizards. So, so, so many lizards.

This recountal begins the same as so many other stories of misery; on a dark and stormy night. Round 31 had ended, Manno and the PERV were distraught. Rury’s experience as Lycanthrope had left him licking his wounds; Erix’ Spirit had been crushed; Poige’s Undead never came out of the grave; Manno’s Icekin had melted into a puddle; and Volv’s Sylvan was so horrific he was debating if he’d play again.

Morale was at an all-time low. The test round came and we decided to keep the pack together and regroup. Since the previous round hadn’t had a single war declaration in the first few weeks, we chose to let out some frustration and mercilessly blop fast attackers, while also getting a better idea of how the restructured blops and resilience would affect attacking early round. Throughout this exercise it became abundantly clear that if we wanted to compete playing fast, we would need a lizardfolk.

During the down time in pre-realm placement, Rury, Poige, and I discussed a variety of different strategies and builds- with Poige really falling in love with a lizzy sim that Rury had created. Rury and I looked over a couple different builds each, but would wait until placement to fully decide what we’d do. Volv had volunteered to be our ops guy and Manno was undecided… and that’s when it appeared that fortune might be changing for our heroes.

Manno and the PERV had lost their zeal from the calamity that was called Round 31 and rebranded themselves as “Realm 4” an homage to their previous realm placement during both R31 and the sprint round. Realm 4 was then placed in Realm 2, however in this case, being #2 wasn’t as unpleasant as one would expect. Realm 4’s newly acquired realmmates were none other than the famed Hydra. Not only that, but they also had been placed with Jrog, a cool and collected blopper who had joined them in murdering peasants during the previous sprint round.

With as much wizard and spy support as a boy could ever hope to have, Poige was jumping for joy to play his Lizardfolk. Erix, always the dutiful realmmate, opted to play a Lycanthrope in an effort to be Poige’s “Robin”. Rury had settled on a Troll that would eventually change the community’s perception of Troll, Manno had decided to try a slow attacking Dwarf, and Volv would join the corps of ops. For the remainder of Realm 2; Jrog chose DE opsplorer, Larso went with slow attacking troll, Grapes would settle on WE, Dave would attack (with the intention of deconverting) as Halfling, Peabrain would give slow attacking Nox a try, and Thor wanted to explore as Goblin. Manno furnished Thor a solid sim and sent him on his way.

The stage was set, Realm 4’s newly renovated and rejuvenated team in Realm 2 was ready to conquer the world of OpenDominion, with a pair of fast attackers, a number of slow-mid attackers, and a handful of opsplorers.

The first couple days of the round went smooth enough for the team; the Liz and Lyc were growing fast, both sitting in the top 10, however the shear number of Lizardfolk attackers slithering around made it feel especially tenuous. It seemed as though every realm had shown up with a crew of players wanting to fast attack, with over half of them being amphibious. By day 4, outside of the 2 big attackers in Realm 2’s Realm 4, there were 4 in Realm 4, 2 in Realm 3, 2 in Realm 8, 2 in Realm 11, another in Realm 9, and in Realm 10. There were likely more than have been forgotten, but being forgotten is their punishment for all picking the same race and strategy.

Around day 3 Neophyte joined the realm and our team knew this would be a special round.

As soon as war could be declared, Realm 7 warred Realm 4, and slowed their attackers down. The strongest attacker appeared to be Prince Vegeta (cerbrus) when he accidentally left himself open:

Victorious on the battlefield, Koopa Troopas Den of Questions (#2) conquered 83 land from Prince Vegeta (#11)

Less than 18 hours after the hit on Prince Vegeta, Fountain of Youth was destroyed by Realm 2, which shortly thereafter lead to Realm 11 declaring war on them. This would be the first of many, many wars, for our valiant heroes. Realm 11 attempted to fireball Poige and Erix, but due to some well organized counter-blops, Realm 11’s preeminent blopper, Rush, was left with nothing to do but stand there with his wand in his hand. With mutual war active and a dedicated team of spies, a snare-hit was in the cards:

Victorious on the battlefield, Koopa Troopas Den of Questions (#2) conquered 125 land from Majin Buu (#11)

As soon as war could be cancelled, #11 would abort the failed mission, which was unfortunate as Erix was lining up to hit Majin Buu the following hour. In the midst of all the fun of the war against #11, Realm #5 also decided to try and slow down Realm #2 with their own team of bloppers- but it was an unorganized spattering of meaningless operations, that effectively did nothing.

The following day Realm 4 (who had already shifted their own focus to blops) declared war on #2 as well- which brought the current number of active wars for them to 3. In the midst of the barrage of wars, 11 had taken the FOY from 2; but 2 promptly took it back and cancelled the war. This would be the last we see of Realm 11. Realm 4 would take FOY from 2 a couple days later.

While our noble warriors continued to battle with these rogue vigilantes and their war declarations, realm 7 was causing their own brand of chaos. They had moved from blopping realm 4, to 6, then to 3; in conjunction to the wars realm 2 had survived, it slowed down virtually all fast attackers. It was an ideal situation for a quick converting race, like a Goblin, to take control. Low and behold, in realms 6 and 8, that’s exactly what would get moving.

Realm 8‘s Goblin (Gothia) had started to get rolling and looking like he’d be trouble and Realm 8 had just captured Ruby Monolith, so despite Realm 2 having been in perpetual war for the previous 7 days:

2022-12-03 01:18:47 Fireflower! (#2) has declared WAR on All New Wonderous Tastes (#8)

With Volv, Jrog, and Neo working alongside the Hydra, Gothia was taken from 26k peasants to 16k. The damage would have been much more severe, but a few members of the blop-squad had fallen out of range of Gothia.

Having just lost FOY a second time, we decided to take Ruby Monolith from Realm 8.

2022-12-06 01:00:42 The Ruby Monolith has been destroyed and rebuilt by Fireflower! (#2)

2022-12-06 01:00:54 Fireflower! (#2) has CANCELED war against All New Wonderous Tastes (#8)

It was now the end of day 16- almost all other fast attacking threats had either been consumed by fire, had their fleets sunk, or their lands conquered:

Top 10 Largest Dominions 1. I'm afraid I just blue shelled myself - 3102 2. Koopa Troopas Den of Questions - 2990 3. It's Over 9000! - 2880 4. Hitting Peach from behind with a banana - 2693

Thor was the top explorer, Poige and myself were the top 2 attackers, Rury’s troll was progressing nicely, the remainder of the slow attacking team had nice and steady growth, and the rest of the realm still looked healthy as well. Additionally, upon capturing Ruby Monolith and cancelling the war with 8, there was finally peace in Realm 2. For the first time in nearly 10 days, our brave warriors were no longer at war. Little did we know that our reprieve would be so short lived…it lasted all of 5 hours, 51 minutes, and 21 seconds, to be a little more precise.

2022-12-06 06:52:15 Who's up for a game of tennis? 🔥🎾 (#7) has declared WAR on Donut Plains (#2)

For those of you keeping track, this is the 5th different realm that #2 had been to war with, in approximately the first 1/3 of the round.

The following day: 2022-12-07 13:53:23 Modern Warfare (#6) has declared WAR on Grumble Volcano (#2)

Between Realms 6 and 7, they came after Poige and I pretty hard and caused quite a bit of damage. I was knocked down to 1/2 peasants and kept that way for days. It was at this time that our morale came crashing down. We had been almost perpetually in war for 10 days, having had half the game attempt to destroy our economies- meanwhile the goblins were clearly the top threats. Along with the wars on us and the goblins looking extremely strong, there were still some lizards slinking around. Two Buttons in realm 4 had decided to change his build to suicide and the lizards in realm 8 were keeping decent pace with big suicide potential.

With war active, Poige had a possible hit on realm 7, but would leave himself open to get hit by a lizard in realm 8. We knew I would have an easy retal on the lizard and even if I hit him, Poige would also be able to retal for himself, so we went for it:

2022-12-09 04:59:19 Victorious on the battlefield, Koopa Troopas Den of Questions (#2) conquered 131 land from Dope Fiend Dasher (#7)

2022-12-09 07:59:19 Fully Cooked Keep Refrigerated (#8) invaded fellow dominion Koopa Troopas Den of Questions (#2) and captured 214 land

2022-12-09 11:48:54 Victorious on the battlefield, Hitting Peach from behind with a banana (#2) conquered 162 land from Fully Cooked Keep Refrigerated (#8)

2022-12-09 16:07:56 Victorious on the battlefield, Koopa Troopas Den of Questions (#2) conquered 134 land from Fully Cooked Keep Refrigerated (#8)

Poige had quite a few losses from sending back to back, as well as getting hit, but he still gained decent land on this interaction. It also gave me a nice hit and it knocked that lizard out of our way.

Over the next week Poige recovered and kept growing, as did Rury. Having been slightly behind Poige in size and op, combined with the blops, made it abundantly apparent that I wouldn’t be able to keep going for too much longer… Oh, and 7 decided to come back for war again.

2022-12-16 22:59:21 Et tu, Brute? (#7) has declared WAR on Golden Mushroom (#2)

Thor was out in front by a substantial amount, Poige was still 2 hits in front of Gothia, I was still holding in the top 10, but Rury was moving quickly and had jumped all the way into the top 10 as well.

Rury was their target.

Top 10 Largest Dominions 1. I'm afraid I just blue shelled myself - 4843 2. It's Over 9000! - 4466 3. Koopa Troopas Den of Questions - 4338 4. Renegade - 4223 5. Freeze By Christmas - 3850 6. Dirty Bubble - 3761 7. Hitting Peach from behind with a banana - 3697 8. The Lord is testing me - 3693 9. DENIED! You can't touch our chariots! - 3678 10. Screaming Whispers - 3561

From this point I made another 1-2 hits and then deconverted right before the goblins went crazy on op. The rest of the realm kept growing despite Realm 8s best efforts.

I can’t believe you read all the down this far. You must really enjoy the 5 hour long episodes of RiolTalk….

Then came along the goblin suicides on Rury and overall general chaos. 4 Nox (lamb), 3 Gnome (templeman), 5 WE (nate), 8 Troll (bigbell), 8 WE (oment), and others that I’m sure I’m forgetting made for an unpredictable last couple weeks.

From start to finish we had great activity and teamwork from top-to-bottom of the realm. Also, suck it losers, we won!