Editing Round 25

Round 24 started on the 24th of May 2021 and ends on the 16th of July 2021.

== Round Win Story ==
So I guess I finally won a round, who would’ve guessed? I certainly didn’t when I started this round… But after 50+ rounds of consistently mediocrity in DC and OD I won a round.


'''TLDR version:'''

Decided to slack and explore with some techs and DM + masons. Kept growing while everyone was killing each other and all the Mexican standoffs that were going on. Passed the exploring #15 Lyc at some point, still expected attackers (mainly #11) to pass me but they didn’t so to my surprise I won.


'''Pre-round:'''

I packed with Nanne (Slice), Jaerock and we replaced Björn (Sommarhyda) with MeeSax because Björn went sailing so he didn’t play. 
After my failed atteching troll of last round I wanted to slack again so decided to go merf explorer. Figured I should get some techs but didn’t know if I wanted to go 14, 19 or 32 techs and decided to see how it would go.
Nanne picked Sylvan attecher, MeeSax WE converter and Jaerock was gonna do something opsbitzy. Jaerock was however too late to sign up. We had memes as theme as an idea to spice up dom chat in case we ended up in GTC.


We landed in an active realm with Wellan, Martinum, LarsO, Vovin and Blafiora so that was nice. Mix of strats, fast attacking, slow attacking, atteching and converters but everyone was active.


'''Disclaimer:'''

Please note I have no clue what exactly happened during the round and what plays took place. You’ll have to listen to the Rio podcast for that ;-) I just looked at top OP that I could see and kept exploring as much as I could…


'''Early round:'''

Came OOP at 750 acres with some schools. Kept exploring and went for 300 schools ASAP. Everyone helped tracking top OP/high OP and we saw it shifting around between #5, #13, #14 and #15. Pretty sure I could’ve been hit at some points but just kept my head down and kept trying to defend them while growing and building DM (after I got my 300 schools).


Blaforia died with his Orc so he asked which wonder we wanted and got us Underground Society somewhere after 2 weeks which was nice to have against plat thieves.


'''Mid round:'''

Round played out, some attackers died off, others popped up and converters came into play. 


I just kept exploring while defending them all (or I think I did, at least the ones I noticed). Went to 826 DM so I had 13k gems/hr thx to techs (bit more later with extra tech). Decided to keep my schools since rebuilding them as DM (my initial plan) or masons would be quite expensive and I didn’t mind getting some extra techs + merfolk has plenty of space. I ended up with 33 techs thanks to that (and was able to take 34th last day but didn’t take it).

After I was done with DM I was unsure what to build, should I go masons directly or not? I talked with Yami and JC and figured I should get my imps up a bit first so went with homes first to max out my peasants. When my imps were up (something like 35 mln points invested) I just dumped masons (and essentials, though I always had lumber issues so I traded a lot of gems to lumber). Threw in some GT now and then to get enough jobs since masons only caused unemployment.

At some point #9 took our wonder but we took it back right away, earning me 36 prestige. 



'''Late round:'''

With like 2 weeks left I took a good look at the exploring #15 Lyc who was largest for most of the round and saw my eco was better and he didn’t have techs so I had a chance of catching up even though he had still quite a lead.


With about a week left we got warred by #6 to blop me, got hit with FBs and lost about 25k peasants (had the tech, 20+% towers and about 1% FH). Joined guard (thought about it earlier but never did it), trained a couple of hours worth of extra wiz, dumped extra gems into towers and  build some extra FH but after the first wave it kinda died off.


Kept looking out for the attackers, gnome from #5, WE from #11 and Merfolks from different realms. With 2 contenders #11 looked strong so I was pretty sure they, or at least one of them, would pass me. Meanwhile I just kept exploring, focusing on hills to push to 20% GT so I kept on growing while defending everyone. I even was prepared for a big r/r from #11 WE which never came. This ment I was quite overdefended and had to train nearly no DP the last days, especially after the WE got hit. 

Since I was on my way to and on vacation the last 5 days it was nice to be able to just explore and don’t have to worry too much about yuge spec dumps.
Everyone kept locking each other up, #5 gnome kept pushing and #8 merf too with huge temples so #11 merf couldn’t really follow up right away after his first BF. Time slowly ran out for #11 merf to hit often/big enough to pass me while I just kept growing.

I went to bed before offensive actions got disabled and was paid to 7667 acres. Thought about taking the URG smash tech and destroy like 3k buildings (basically everything but masons, GT and farms) to get about 2 million plat which would give me 35ish extra acres but decided against it. Woke up to pee during the night and exploration was still not disabled so I explored some more to 7714 and completely against my own expectations of the first 48 days I won the round.


Thanks to my pack and realm for the help and the entertainment in the discord channel.
Thanks to Yami, JC, Elei and Playt0i for the entertainment and answers to all my questions in our round 19 discord chat.



'''Random notes:'''

I was really happy to pass 300k plat/hr at some point during  the round (new personal best), 100k peasants was my next goal I broke (and spammed the discord channel with). I peaked at about 110k peasants and 430k plat/hr.
Was able to explore 10a/hr most of the round, well above 4K I fell down to 9/hr. When I stopped building the last days it fell to 7-8hr.
I love surreal perception, fun to see plat thieves checking you out only to find out I spent it all before FG ran out.
Underground Society is a great wonder too, think many people didn’t realize I had it judging from the plat theft attempts and their effort to trade 20+ spies/MT for small amounts of plat.
It appears I have my best finishes when I try my least.


{{Round_finish
 | round = 25
 | round_id = 36

 | winner_player = Zedijar
 | winner_dominion = That’s what she said!
 | winner_race = Merfolk

 | second_player = Neophyte
 | second_dominion = Big Slick
 | second_race = Merfolk

 | third_player = Winterr
 | third_dominion = ANOTHER BRICK in the wall
 | third_race = Human
}}

== Rounds ==

{{Round_nav
 | round = 25
 | previous_round = 24
 | next_round = 26
}}