Round 16

Round 16
Winner 🥇
Player:	Gothia (Erik)
Dominion:	Bilbo (#10)
Race:	Halfling
Second 🥈
Name:	Jcinnz
Dominion:	Gladiators of Sparta (#3)
Race:	Halfling
Third 🥉
Name:	Kari
Dominion:	🌲🌲🌲 (#10)
Race:	Sylvan
General
Changes:	Round 16/Changes
Valhalla:	Link

Round 16 began on January 12th 2020 and ended on March 2nd 2020. This round saw the introduction of War and Black Ops.

Round Win Story

The Dominion of Bilbo
Ruler: Baggins	Draftees: 3,036	Spies: 0
Race: Halfling	Slinger: 14,714	Wizards: 0 (released all reg wiz at some point to train specs)
Land: 8,612	Defender: 76,501	ArchMages: 1,059
Peasants: 24,867 (maxed at 77k)	Master Thief: 31,185
Networth: 1,795,439	Staff Master: 84,102
Prestige: 2,005

Building Type	Number	% of land
Home	2030	23.57 %
Alchemy	207	2.40 %
Farm	288	3.34 %
Smithy	1400	16.26 %
Masonry	123	1.43 %
Ore Mine	115	1.34 %
Gryphon Nest	670	7.78 %
Tower	237	2.75 %
Temple	375	4.35 %
Diamond Mine	649	7.54 %
School	65	0.75 %
Lumberyard	103	1.20 %
Guard Tower	1340	15.56 %
Dock	153	1.78 %
Barren Land	857

Science	+2.63% platinum production	4,662,000
Keep	+19.26% max population	33,143,044
Towers	+0.32% wizard power, -0.32% damage from spells	328,320
Forges	+8.60% offensive power	20,848,816
Walls	+5.22% defensive power	11,838,940
Harbor	+0.00% food production, boat production & protection	0

OP 684.2k // DP 544.6k (a tad over 5:4 in the end because op specs are cheaper and I tried to get to 1.8m nw)

Rio and me talked about packing already in round 15 but I had limited time back then and Rio was helping some vets playing fast so we postponed it to round 16. With me and Rio set we discussed who we wanted to pack with and Oment is always a great packie that was also part of our pack back in the old Dominion, he was keen to play with us. Kari was a new acquaintance to me but turned out to be a great packie too, she had played with Rio a couple of times and now the pack was all set.

We talked about strats, me and Rio was going to attack oop and Kari would explore with a posibility to convert and Oment was set on a DM/mason strat human. Plan was for me and Rio to stay in the top at the start and for Oment to take over when his efficiency kicked in. Kari would adapt to what the pack needed and help out with the wiz ops that were needed.

Protection was pretty smooth, missed a few logs here and there but nothing major. I came oop on 650a with something like 3k op and 5.5k dp. At oop I made one hit, thought I would get more acres than I did and was not very happy at the time.

2020-01-15 00:03:39 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 36 land from Siindrin (#9).

Rio had a different strat with lower acres and wanted to make big gains at oop and I think he ended up getting something like 350a at oop. He looked solid but building all those acres slowed him down unfortunately and it would take a day before he was ready to start to train properly and then he was behind all the fast attackers.

We quickly realised that the main fast threats were in realm #3, #5 and #9. All these damn lizards with all their flex from chams made me cautious and I just tried to keep hitting every 12 to keep up. Other realms were already declaring war on eachother and hitting eachother as much as they could. We were flying under the radar for the moment. Being rusty I made a couple of mistakes early, I started DMs a couple hundred acres too early which made me slow and my pop was behind most of the other attackers, not to mention my op.

I just kept hitting as much as I could:

2020-01-15 13:59:54 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 48 land from THIEF! (#1).

2020-01-16 01:59:38 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 52 land from Crimson Tide (#9) <-- I was prolly 3rd to hit him

2020-01-16 13:38:05 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 37 land from Lord Herefords Knob (#18).

2020-01-17 01:56:47 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 46 land from Tanelorn (#14).

2020-01-18 05:25:15 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 46 land from Greenfields (#5).

2020-01-18 17:00:16 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 54 land from 5P1R1+3D 1N @tt@Ck (#5). <-- hit him after land got in and was fat

2020-01-19 06:56:50 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 59 land from 5P1R1+3D 1N @tt@Ck (#5). <-- they were just fat all the time

Even though I was hitting every 12 more or less I kept making smaller hits than the other attackers and was starting to fall behind. After this the first big mistake happened:

2020-01-20 07:57:01 Sadly, the forces of Bilbo (#10) were beaten back by Hearts (#4). <-- had wrong temple % in my calc and bounced by 14 OP I think

After the bounce I was 2 hits behind the top and I was irritated but I figured I could go a bit more efficient and see if I could catch up when rd started to slow down. Thanks to the blackops pack in #4 any attacker that tried to pull away was slowed down and no-one really got away. They did a good job balancing the field which helped me a lot.

2020-01-20 20:40:11 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 65 land from Big Game Hunters (#11).

2020-01-21 08:53:08 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 63 land from Beers Beards and Axes (#14). <-- No Ares all-in.

After this hit I got ops on Moist at 10:59:31 and saw he had dropped 1657 op specs and he could break me, not by a lot but he could. I was thinking over my options and I started to train op specs myself to be able to hit him back (I got 5% op tech in 1hr before his spec troops making me able to hit back). I was 100% sure he dropped those specs to hit me but the hit never happened and he just sat there making the op push useless. I thought my op specs had kept him from hitting me as I could hit him back and he didn't want to trade hits. I heard after the round that those specs were meant for 12 halfer, who was ops bitz to the UD in 12.

As we saw #4 effectively keeping any good attackers at bay with blackops we all upped our ratios and kept track of when they could cancel and declare on a new realm. It really hurts training to 0.84 WPA as a fast attacker and also building huge amounts of docks to prevent sinking but we figured it was better being slower but safer vs blackops. Most of the other fast attackers first started to prepare for the blackops when #4 had declared and they all got hurt for it. The blackops made most of the fast attackers run huge amounts of temples which sucked for me but also slowed them down as they didn't build pop buildings.

At this point I think we were being considered a threat and also Oment with his imps. I was still behind a couple of attackers but my numbers started to look good and I caught up in acres and my efficiency vs the others was also an advantage I had. I knew that if I could only keep up I would pass the others if I just had enough time. I kept hitting, still not the high profile hits but growing all the time was the key:

2020-01-23 16:59:24 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 77 land from Big Game Hunters (#11).

2020-01-24 05:59:07 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 77 land from Big Game Hunters (#11).

2020-01-26 00:58:55 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 103 land from Bilbo Baggins (#6). Take that, you copycat! :)

I was still running more dp than op and I was defending top op all the time. But now the round had slowed down a bit and we were all fighting for the same targets making it harder for me to find a hit. We had to find hits without spells or really fat attackers sending:

2020-01-27 09:20:15 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 111 land from Tethys (#11). No Ares.

2020-01-27 21:59:42 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 145 land from Venus (#17). Assassinated about 1000 drafts.

2020-01-30 17:00:09 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 152 land from Qwertyuiop (#6). No Ares.

2020-01-31 07:17:53 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 133 land from Qwertyuiop (#6). No Ares again. Not sure what this guy was doing.

I was now definitely one of the big threats but everyone's attention was turned towards #12 UD (Blafiora) who played a spec and mod heavy strat. He was fireballed and snared for a very long time but he was still top op and very dangerous. I doubt his strat would have worked in the long run but he played it well being solo. Realm 9 decided to try and kill the undead so they declared war and they traded several hits which I think benefited the UD more than it hurt him (being UD and all...).

2020-02-02 18:12:51 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 168 land from Boaty McBoatface (#2). Assassinated 800 drafts to minimise Mhieves sent.

2020-02-04 14:00:35 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 162 land from Fuck Trudeau (#11). War-Snare, early hit because others could snipe him out of range.

2020-02-06 17:00:31 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 215 land from Domain Name (#6). Specdump for Leonardo (#5), but he caught wind. Was still possible, but this was way safer. Aresless.

At this stage this had become a race between me and the realm 3 halfer Gladiators (JC) and possibly some converters. It was a weekend and I knew that I would be away only able to make phone logins but I prepared my pack and they were all helping out with calcs and top op checks. We prepared for a war-snare again and I made a nice hit:

2020-02-08 17:00:40 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 187 land from Domain Name (#6). Snared.

The day after I was standing in the airport waiting for my flight that was delayed due to a storm and got messages from my pack that shit was going down. I was in no position to make a hit at the time unless something extraordinary happened. Both Poseidon in #9 (Toothy) and Gladiators #3 made big hits and I was a bit upset as I needed them to sit for a while to catch up. Fortunately for me Blafiora decided to also send on really low dp and I could also make a hit to stay on par with Gladiators:

2020-02-09 19:20:55 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 195 land from let me in (#12). <-- I think he had something like 172k dp vs me and everyone else was 200k+

I assume that a lot of other players were mad because of this hit but it was a key moment for me being able to keep up even though I wasn't ready to hit at the time.

After those hits we all had to sit and build for a while but a few days later I was getting ready to hit again. We still had war on Domain Name and had him lined up for a hit with snare again. But I realised I was close to hitting Poseidon all-in if ares was off. I trained to make the hit if spell was off. I hoped it was as he had been building for several days. Spell was off and I made the hit:

2020-02-11 10:59:29 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 256 land from Poseidon's Pearl (#9) All-in without Ares.

On return I decided to make a war BF to get a land lead over Gladiator as I had just gotten the CC tech to help with construction as well:

2020-02-11 22:59:49 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 150 land from Domain Name (#6). War BF.

Both me and Gladiators sat for several days building but my CC tech really helped and I was done 24hrs ahead of him or something like that. I stocked plat and started to train massive amounts of SM. When my stocked plat was gone I saw that I had enough op to hit Gladiators all-in if spell was off. I switched to dp and hoped he would have spell off. Only reason I was close to hitting him was that he also stocked plat and his training hadn't really started yet. We were talking about it in the pack and I could have hit him hr before my last op got in but I would have needed a significant amount of MTs to break, hr after the amount of MTs was much lower and we decided to wait. When the hr came we got the rev but frenzy was active for 12hrs. I was a bit upset that I didn't push for a check the hr before but it was what it was. Instead I decided to make another BF to get a bigger advantage over #3, I was on about same pez at the time but I had more op/dp. The BF pushed me to 6-7k more pez and better military and he was not done training yet so timing was good:

2020-02-14 22:59:55 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 164 land from Venus (#17). I think Venus was #13 in the land ranks at the time.

Both me and #3 sat for 5-6 days just training with me in the front seat so I knew he either had to find a fatty or try to hit me same hr as I sent. We calced that I could hit Silverfern if ares was off but I couldn't hit early in the hour as #3 would just send all MTs needed so we decided to snare him instead and I would hit him very end of the hr:

2020-02-20 04:59:59 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 265 land from Silverfern (#13).

We also knew that #3 could follow on Silverfern if ares was down so we planned it so that he could recast ares right after the hit, which he also did. From what I've been told #3 tried to hit me same hr but he hesitated when I sent so close to HC.

After that hit it was more or less a question of when I would be able to hit #3 as I was so far ahead in op/dp. We knew that if he sent I would just hit him regardless and he would likely hit me back but I could then hit him again to make it 2-1 or possibly 3-2, I would definitely get out on top with one hit more on him. One evening Oceanus in #11 sent out very light on dp and I was pretty upset. I waited up for several hours checking #3 at every HC to see if I could same hr hit him. It didn't happen and we figured that Oment could send out on 20-30k dp more than Oceanus. I guess #3 knew that I could hit him whoever he hit so he just hit Oment as he was in my realm. I hit Gladiators back of course:

2020-02-22 10:44:34 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 406 land from Gladiators of Sparta (#3).

And he retalled: 2020-02-22 20:52:18 Gladiators of Sparta (#3) invaded Bilbo (#10) and captured 483 land.

And I made it 2-1 as expected: 2020-02-22 22:27:44 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 404 land from Gladiators of Sparta (#3).

After that we both again had to sit and build, I had 1400 barren and he had 1000 I think. CC came in real handy and I was done building faster than he was. After this he was running spell all-in the rest of the round as I was able to hit him otherwise. By this time we knew I was going to win and it was just about trying to get as big finishes as possible for all packies. Kari was probably able to get 2nd place if she kept exploring and that was what we were hoping for. #3 realised that was the case and he made a hit on Silverfern and I hit him right after: 2020-02-28 07:59:59 Victorious on the battlefield, Bilbo (#10) conquered 429 land from Gladiators of Sparta (#3).

The last days I was sitting there with only 2 doms in range, #3 halfer and #18 Nox (Ed, who had all techs and came strong late in the round). I talked it through with my packies that if #3 halfer sent out last day I would leave him to get the acres in as I think he deserved the 2nd place finish more than the Nox. Turns out none of them sent and Gladiators finished 2nd after exploring something like 27a last day to stay ahead of Kari who placed 3rd.

A big thank you to all my packies, Oment, Kari and Rio and also a big thank you to Victor that randomed with us! Great strat talk and fun shit in the chat and always helpful to get ops and calcs. It was definitely a team effort and I'm glad to see Kari making 3rd place as well :)

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