Round 22

Round 22
Winner 🥇
Player:	Gothia (Erik)
Dominion:	Judas Iscariot
Race:	Halfling
Second 🥈
Name:	SlyPimp
Dominion:	Noobmaster69
Race:	Merfolk
Third 🥉
Name:	Mandos
Dominion:	Mary-Kate
Race:	Dark Elf
General
Changes:	Round 22/Changes
Valhalla:	Link

Round Win Story

After round 21 we were discussing what to do next round and if we were sticking together, we all thought we deserved more than we got in round 21 so after a little talk we decided to go for it again. Plan at first was to have Oment play fast and us 3 others a little slower with ability to blackop our competition. When the round came closer I did what I usually do and ditched the idea of going slow and decided on fast. Since halfer is one of my favourite attacker races I was pretty set on them (Judas Iscariot). Oment chose liz (Vidkun Quisling) for the big flex and sui potential they have. Rio wanted to try a tech DE (Conversion therapist) as we saw a lot of potential in them and BigBell decided on Nox for the reduced casualties and also with a few techs (Ephialtes of Trachis). We landed in a realm together with CountBrass and Nursey who we quite quickly invited to our pack channel. New players that we could help teach a little more about the game and they were always friendly and willing to send their spies and wiz to slaughter to help us get ops.

First few days was kind of quiet, we all kept hitting and keeping good dp as most other fast attackers. There looked to be quite a few going fast early; #1, #5, #8, #11, #14, #18, #24 all had elements of fast attackers. One of the keys here was that most of them didn’t have support as a pair but was either solo or waiting for a fast converting kobbo. We kept on moving but were always behind on op early even if we kept good dp, both me and Oment tried to get a good number of elite dp in to use for flex and extra spies, others did not.

Quite early in the round the mods were rising and the use of spec op, I don’t like it particularly unless you have a specific target lined up but we had to play their game so me and Oment also started to mod up. Rio was gathering techs while slowly growing and same with BB. Rio was looking at 30+ techs and BB at 14 before getting ready to convert. Things were kind of quiet until #18 FWs farmed out to everyone (but me!) so we were falling a little behind, especially considering I was number blind and sent 1k less than needed on an allin hit on #18 dwarf (Virchue) and bounced. Top op/dp switched between #11 Speedy (Sarmis, doing loads of op specs), #14 Danae (Merf) and also #24 Hornpub (Kenshiro) with me a little behind and Oment even a little further behind that. We all kept hitting but Danae definitely looking to be in the best spot with highest acres, most pez, big DM and also top op/dp. When he got to that position he decided to convert to all WR it looked like and keeping his hobos for flex scare and possible 9hr hits. That gave me, Oment and Hornpub time to catch up in acres and we passed him, somewhere around here Speedy gave up and released all 12k spec op and started to explore.

While Danae converted we only had to defend Hornpub basically and we saw an opportunity for Oment to send while I covered him vs Hornpub. Hornpub took the bait and I retaliated the tick after. At the time we thought I would be open to Hornpub on his return but I managed to get enough dp in that I would be safe from the retal. We then saw that Alone Rider (Blafiora) was gearing up for a raze and I responded accordingly treading a fine line between when to train op and dp to maximize my ability to retal and get out on top. That’s the biggest turning point of the round. Hornpub had his fellow attacker Alone Rider raze me so that Hornpub could retal. This started a hitting war and as I had more dp than Hornpub but he had more op so we could both hit eachother back and forth with Alone Rider raze me on the two first retals as I was safe otherwise. Since Hornpub sent early in the hour we saw an opening for Oment to join in as well but he messed up his GN in the calc and bounced. He would get another shot on the next wave though. Eventually Hornpub was so low on dp that Danae also could join in for a freebie putting him in a strong position with a mix of WR/hobos and big pez and DM. That also meant Oment could make a second hit. Hornpub and Danae really screwed it up by sending early in the hour making Oment able to benefit every time.

Hitting War

2021-02-05 19:59:56 Victorious on the battlefield, Vidkun Quisling (#22) conquered 145 land from Casa de fuego (#5).

2021-02-05 21:00:00 HornPub (#24) invaded fellow dominion Vidkun Quisling (#22) and captured 226 land.

2021-02-05 21:46:03 Victorious on the battlefield, Judas Iscariot (#22) conquered 268 land from HornPub (#24).

2021-02-06 08:31:05 Fellow dominion Judas Iscariot (#22) fended off an attack from alone rider (#24).

2021-02-06 08:35:36 HornPub (#24) invaded fellow dominion Judas Iscariot (#22) and captured 231 land.

2021-02-06 08:52:00 Sadly, the forces of Vidkun Quisling (#22) were beaten back by HornPub (#24). (Unintentional bounce)

2021-02-06 09:20:06 Victorious on the battlefield, Judas Iscariot (#22) conquered 270 land from HornPub (#24).

2021-02-06 20:24:33 Fellow dominion Judas Iscariot (#22) fended off an attack from alone rider (#24).

2021-02-06 20:33:59 HornPub (#24) invaded fellow dominion Judas Iscariot (#22) and captured 251 land.

2021-02-06 20:50:12 Victorious on the battlefield, Vidkun Quisling (#22) conquered 295 land from HornPub (#24).

2021-02-06 21:39:23 Victorious on the battlefield, Judas Iscariot (#22) conquered 241 land from HornPub (#24).

2021-02-07 08:07:05 HornPub (#24) invaded fellow dominion Judas Iscariot (#22) and captured 282 land.

2021-02-07 08:47:27 Danaë (1636) (#14) invaded HornPub (#24) and captured 268 land.

2021-02-07 08:57:21 Victorious on the battlefield, Vidkun Quisling (#22) conquered 227 land from HornPub (#24).

2021-02-07 09:20:50 Victorious on the battlefield, Judas Iscariot (#22) conquered 198 land from HornPub (#24).

I just have to mention the losses on razes here, it’s totally nuts to have so big losses on a 85% bounce. Please make the curve much steeper.

2v1 with Danae

So this ended with me on 900a plus from where I was, Oment had got 2 big hits in and Danae got one. It ended the round for Hornpub and left it to be me and Oment vs Danae on a 2v1. This should prove to be a massive advantage for us.

After this we decided to go for the Guild of Shadows that had just been taken by realm 18, we declared war and we all decided to send at it to maximize the prestige gained. 18 warred us right back with the intention to take it from us so we just hit it down once but they seemed keen on keeping the war up so BigBell, CountBrass and Nursey kept hitting it to force 18 to undeclare as the dwarf had a massive 5:4 potential with war.

We had suspected for some time that Danae was played by Merf and Rio called it in our pack channel: “I’m not worried about Merf, he always fucks up at some point” and he would be right some days later. Things kept going and we were keeping a close eye on Merf while all three were growing. Merf really did go allin on his DM which we were quite happy with at the time as mods would probably have made him unstoppable for us. He stopped at a massive 900 DM and gobbo bonus on top compared to our 500-600 DM. Merf was the only one from his pack in my range and he failed a lot of spy ops on me (32 BSs at one time) so he was not checking me constantly which was a stroke of luck. We tried to utilize our 2v1 advantage and I sent out on a hit knowing that Merf could hit me but would be hittable by Oment and he would be nearly safe on return. What Merf didn’t know at the time was that I had built 2 dailies to GT and I had also r/r my schools to GT and 5 random factories that I still had in the time that he couldn’t get my spy ops. I sent out and came back hour after to see that Merf had bounced on me and that was without him getting a new survey. Oment then hit Danae for a massive hit:

2021-02-16 16:59:52 Victorious on the battlefield, Judas Iscariot (#22) conquered 239 land from HornPub (#24).

2021-02-16 18:00:00 Fellow dominion Judas Iscariot (#22) fended off an attack from Danaë (1636) (#14).

2021-02-17 00:57:41 Victorious on the battlefield, Vidkun Quisling (#22) conquered 359 land from Danaë (1636) (#14).

That ended the round for Danae vs us and Oment sat on big acres and trained massive military trying to slow others down while I kept on hitting for a massive lead. I also had quite a few half cost acres left after the hitting war with Hornpub and I made a BF to get an even bigger lead and eventually get out of Danae range so that I didn’t have any attackers left in range.

Twin Terrors

That’s the time the twin DEs (Mary-Kate and Ashley, Mandos and McDaginald) started to rise up the ranks, we had spotted them a few weeks earlier but we couldn’t do much about them as they played it very safe and solid until one mistake. Mary-Kate made a massive hit on a dwarf to land in my range. I had just hit out of range of Danae and aimed to hit Mary-Kate as soon as he got in range. We were set up to hit him before he could rezone acres to cover his buildings, but we made a mistake on the NW calc and my hit was delayed by 1 minute or so and Mary-Kate managed to rezone his acres on time.

I built to maximum temples in one go and tried to catch one of the two explorers I had in range but I was short on a 5:4 by a few k on the Sylvan in #13 (Slater) and I just had to sit and wait for someone to get in range. This still put me in a big lead without anyone to hit in range so the waiting game kept on. Oment was holding the fort with a massive 5:4 and he slowed the twins a lot not allowing them to enter my range at the same time which would have totally locked me down on a 2v1 vs me. We knew that it was going to be hard to stop the twins and that something big was needed for us to come out on top even if I had a big lead and no attackers in range. #5 Merfolk (Blade) did get in range, and he was hit for more mods.

Eventually HCT was taken by the twins realm, I assume so that no one else would get it. This was when both of the DEs were in my range (with incoming on Ashley) and BigBell called it, Mary-Kate will make a hit now while Ashley was out on a hit. I prepared the following tick to try and 5:4 Ashley same tick as MK sent out but nothing happened. We were all talking in the pack chan and I almost forgot about the same hr hit but managed to get ready for the following HC on time and saw that MK sent 5 seconds before HC and I hesitated for a microsecond but pushed the button and saw the time stamp, I had missed HC by 2 seconds and rushed to my advisor to see if it registered before or after HC. To my joy it was registered on the right side of HC and I was messaging Oment to make him also hit Ashley so that he would be out of my range on return. That was a big suicide by Oment and he got hit a lot after that hit sacrificing his round for me to win. Thank you for that mate!

That sacrifice by Oment 90% sealed the deal for us but there was still enough time left for MK to hit for enough acres to pass me even though not very likely. As other converters/slow attackers were coming strong like the WE and gnome in 25 that helped keep Ashley in check but she was also in worse shape than MK. I woke up one morning to see that Rio had hit Ashley allin on an ares drop for 550 acres, I thought it was a 5:4 hit but more like a 1.1:1 hit and Rio ended up gaining a good portion of acres off that hit. That took Ashley out of the equation and we decided to sink MK who was on only 35 docks to maybe enable me to hit Ashley allin and if not we would cripple his end game not being able to train Swords. It also made Rio safe against MK when his land was in. The sinking was very successful and I was looking to hit Ashley allin but I was a little greedy and decided to wait for war to be active for a bigger hit and more op. Unfortunately the 25 WE was thinking the same and r/r for more op and hit Ashley out of my range. The last two days was just waiting for the round to end and not send out on a risky hit to fuck it up. I trained some more op just to keep ppl in my range honest on a send and also making me able to hit anyone who would try and pass me but that didn’t happen so it was an uneventful last couple of days.

A few shout outs:

-Oment, MVP of the round in my book, I could not have won without you sacrificing your round for me. Best numbers guy I have come across in dominion.

-Rio, always great talking about all the angles and what to do next. We usually agree and have same thought on what to do but always willing to help out. Best strategist I have seen.

-BigBell, awesome guy that really improved his game to be one of the best and ballsiest attackers I’ve played with. You should do fast attacking only though 😊

-CountBrass, thanks for the help doing blackops and also for helping getting us ops on spy/wiz races. You are always welcome to ask questions and we will help you.

-Nursey, I have never seen anyone get as many ops as you, even on ppl we didn’t really need. Now that you have some more understanding of the game and what to focus on I think you will improve your game a lot.

-Merf, great battle we had and we really had to get lucky on that bounce to end up where we did.

-Mary-Kate and Ashley, great game, you really played it solid and I was sure you would take it up until the last two days.

-Hornpub, thank you for keeping up the hitting war, that was great for me and Oment. I can understand why you did it even if it was worse for you doing it instead of just eating the first hit.

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