Round 37 OMG Karen you cant just ask ppl why they went Orc

Well would you look at that. It's roundfail o'clock and here we are again, another wall of text laid before us and a whole bunch of hijinks to get through.

You know, this was supposed to be an "off-round" for me, so I had been considering putting the old quill and ink (my preferred aparatus for note-taking as a serious writer) to one side, but after the fireworks of the first week it became inevitable that I was gonna have to write another roundfail. But it will be the last one for a while I think.

Mind you, after killing all of the top players, warring most of the playerbase, and having a blast while doing it, this round really didn't feel like a fail. It was glorious.

Thinking I'd play pretty casual, I decided to go back to my roots: chaos! But it seems when I do that it was wide-reaching ramifications for the whole game. Whoops.

Anyway, as a subscriber to chaos, this naturally meant I had to pack with some of the crazier players in OD - Cronel, Damdred, Saccora (my OG blops crew) and new-to-the-crew Swamp Fox, an adversary for so many rounds and one of the snails from hell (alongside Damdred) that had utterly obliterated my realm in the last draft round.

But as is so often the case in OD, your enemies from previous rounds become your allies in the next round - and all the times you set each other on fire in the past were forgotten. Or in Swamp Fox's case, all the times he snared your realmies to death at a snail's pace were forgotten. Mostly. Well, okay, not even a little bit. It's hard to forget being bested by a snail.

Unfortunately, one feature of the tiny-ass realms (which we're apparently stuck with now, because Yami tells us it's the "majority preference" at 49%) is that if you do decide to go as a full blops pack (the only way to guarantee you'll be effective as bloppers), chances are that you're not going to land with another pack of top players - in fact, I think the current seeding algorithm disallows this entirely. So full blops packs are consigned to the role of kingmakers, unable to chart a route to victory themselves and left with chaos as their only playstyle. Fortunately for us, we had built a pack that was very much at home in this scenario.

We landed initially with 3-pack exrio, drads and some other guy, I think Gintokun was their third packie. There was maybe another 2-pack thrown in, I just don't know who they were. We would have a few randoms join later on, including lamb who was very much on board with blopsploring and causing havoc. He would prove to be an absolutely invaluable asset to the team, keeping track of top op and calculating potential flex sends. Drads also said he'd join team blop, so in total we had seven bloppers. This meant we could relax a lot on scheduling and organisation and not have to worry too much about being on that fine line between effective and useless that is so often the case when blopping.

Also in the realm were some quiet players called Gil, Blafiora, Voldigar, cybernatics and someone else who didnt share their lifetime with me. In the discord he went by Mayong, and we'd later learn (after he got hit!) that he was a relatively new player.

I was "OMG Karen you can't just as ppl why they went Orc", a Mean Girls reference ("OMG Karen you can't just ask people why they're white"), which was our pack theme. Quite a few people outside the pack joined our theme, including lamb ("Almost too 1337 to function"), Drads ("1 time she blopped me in the face, it was awesome!") and Mayong ("Don't build FHs. You will get pregnant, and die.") and although players exrio ("Karen the Excel Hater") and Gintokun ("Doubt yourself, that's what Karen's [sic] are for") also said they'd join the theme, something clearly got lost in the communication, because when the round started I found myself straddling two very different realm themes - one Mean Girls theme, and one nonsensical Karen theme.

I went goblin, my first time playing a fast explorer, and I finished 28th on 6,412 acres. I was overtaken by a lot of efficient explorers in the last two weeks, having spent most of the round sat firmly outside the top 10 in 11th or 12th place. Saccora, lamb and Swamp Fox would spend the majority of the round in the top 10, though only Swamp Fox would finish there, just clinging on in 10th place.

Our round plan was very simple: if we landed in a competitive realm, we would rally behind the attackers and blast them a path to victory with fire. And locusts. Maybe even fiery locusts. Whatever works, right?

If we didn't... well, we'd have a bunch of fully loaded blops cannons and plenty of targets.

Of course, you probably already know how it all turned out.

We did not land in a competitive realm.

The Algorithm had spoken.

Chaos was on the menu.

WEEK 1 - REALMKILLERS

I think everyone invested enough in this game to be reading a roundfail about it probably has a good idea of what went down in the first week, but I'll outline it here again anyway.

There were several strong realms in week 1, and on our radar were #6, #11 and #13. In the days before blackops opened we had assessed that #13 were in a strong position with their halfling, and a potentially dangerous lyc / gob in the mix too. But #6, to our eyes, looked absolutely lethal if they were allowed to establish a foothold. Two ruthlessly efficient lycans working on a buddy system, often hitting the same targets, often hitting the same minute. Two strong goblins, one quick converting and one not-so-quick converting, and an undead that looked like it might be "doing a mattyvanhalen" according to Swamp Fox (which, as it happened, turned out to actually be mattyvanhalen). The two buddy-system lycans alone were setting off major alarm bells in my blopper head even before considering those other guys.

We gathered our ops a day or so before blops went live and kept tabs on them. I saw the lycs building Forest Havens - and if you don't know my stance on FHs, let's just say I consider them a smidgen overpowered. Building FHs is some gamie genie cheat code bullshit and is like a red rag to a bull for this blopper, and at this stage realm #6 had done literally everything they could to paint a target on themselves. It's one thing to start with that loaded deck of two clockwork-coordinated lycs, two converter goblins and a scary undead, but to build Forest Havens on top of that was like dunking both buttcheeks in neon glow-in-the-dark paint, pointing your ass to the moon, and expecting not to get spanked.

We locked the war in and when blops went live, we opened fire.

2023-10-24 18:01:44 Only grotsky little byotches build FHs (#12) has declared WAR on Cartoon network (#6).

The plan had been to hit the lyc with the highest number of FHs, but because the two buddy lycans were so similar, at some point we got them mixed up and instead hit the one with the lower number of FHs. It bothered me at the time, because it was Captain 3% I wanted to punish (Rio), but we ended up hitting Captain Kool-aid instead (Wurstmeyer). Our plan was to cripple one lyc and leave the other alone so he could continue to compete with #13, although one of our realm mutes targeted the other lyc and hit him with 12 fireballs as well. But at 3% mitigation plus his pre-cast EM the damage was trivial.

Fireballs on Captain Kool-aid were very successful however. Although both lycs had pre-cast EM, evidently fully braced for war, Kool-Aid's EM didn't really turn up to the fight. We had expected 50% mitigation (if we'd hit the right target); in the end, it was closer to 20%.

The same hour, unbeknownst to us at the time, the entire pack threw in the towel and hit the abandon button.

Pack abandonment is a relatively new phenomenon, but Wurst and DanTheMan have now done this twice in a row: last round after dicking a bunch of people over with some salty suicides and then abandoning so as not to deal with the consequences, and then again this round, in order to make a statement about blackops and fast attackers. But once again it also fucked with the round dynamics, disrupting the balance of the round we had - rightly or wrongly - intended to create. This behaviour is far more destructive than any fireball volley, which they understand very well. Some of the dead pack in #6 then started cheering #13 from the sidelines, positively gleeful at what they'd done to the round and openly supporting a runaway. It wasn't a good look.

Other games have penalties to disincentivise this lame-o boardflip behaviour, and I think it's about time OD started considering temporary bans for repeat offenders. Nothing seems forthcoming in the changes though, so this protest tactic remains wide open for packs to abuse again and again in the future.

24 hours after our opening gambit, we had recharged our blops batteries in order to switch targets to the quick-converter goblin (DanTheMan). He had some wizards, so we tried to assass them despite all being fairly low on spies, and FHs (because of course he had FHs), so we just sidestepped those and opted for lightning bolts. A suboptimal choice so early in the round but it was our only option left - the undead had wisely brought in AMs, the slower goblin wasnt worth focusing on at that moment, and the other lyc was to be left alone.

While we were lightning bolting Dan, the 24 abandon-timer for Wurst, Rio and Gothia started ringing and they all disappeared in a puff of custard-yellow smoke. Dan had hit the abandon button shortly after them, which was kind of him because we all started zapping him the same minute his packies were bailing, and meant we were still able to harvest that precious infamy. Dan later tried to claim that he had planned to cancel his abandon at the last minute and play on, and seemed affronted when nobody believed him. He claimed to have proof but refused to share it, and then tried to extort me for feet pics. Fruity.

In the emerging drama in the discord, it became clear who all these rage-quitters were. I was shocked by the A-lister calibre of three of the players we'd swiftly eliminated: each of them were multi-round winners, and the other one was Dan.

Later, fett would relocate the refugees left behind in the war into other realms to try and live out their lives in relative peace, and leave #6 as a ghost realm.

No blops pack in OD history has ever killed off an entire realm. As accolades go, this one was going to be hard to top. I had the bittersweet feeling that my OD blackopper career had just peaked. How do you top that? Cronel, Damdred, Saccora, Swamp Fox, Drads, lamb and I had become Realmkillers. Possibly Blafiora too, if he was indeed the rogue mute that fireballed Rio instead of Wurst.

With the benefit of hindsight finding out who we had hit, I felt vindicated in our decision to take them on - and if they hadn't been such poor sportsmen about it, I do genuinely believe they could have fought on. However, I also realise opinions on this vary and that many considered the war an obvious strategic error. In fact the smartest play overall would have been to war neither realm, as some also pointed out. But one of the quirks of being an uncompetitive realm means you have to set your own goals, and one of ours was to try and "have the most wars in OD history", so no war was never an option - and we also thought we could literally help keep the wolves at bay. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. And we certainly took a lot of fire for our decision.

That heat made us feel like we at least had to try a redemption arc for the community, so instead of going after the Great Oracle next (which had been our plan), we instead declared war on #13 straight away.

2023-10-26 18:03:32 Is halfling a carb? (#12) has declared WAR on Oh naggers. Of course. (#13).

They mutualed back the same hour, which suggested there was a 90% chance that Merf was in that realm.

2023-10-26 18:59:24 All Hail Rush (#13) has declared WAR on Is halfling a carb? (#12).

But it turned out to be the smart move for #13, because no other realm stepped up to do anything, including #1 who had sniped the Oracle while we were going after #13, and then just sat on it like plums with a gadget they couldn't figure out how to operate. Perhaps some Wonders should come with IKEA-style instruction manuals. I imagine all you'd need for the Oracle would be a picture of the Wonder, an equals sign, and an explosion symbol, and #1 would have been able to work it out from there. Instead they would spend a few days scratching their heads, standing around looking at it with puzzled expressions on their faces, poking it with sticks.

The pressure of mutual war with top op meant we really had to focus on our dp, because that 10% op bonus is no joke. As bloppers, our dp and our economies are more precarious, and having to overtrain dp on top of that really hurts.

We focused on fireballing their halfling (and those not in range focused on their goblin) for the opening wave. Some people shouted that this was a mistake, and that we should have been burning the lyc. It marked what would be the start of a lot of back-seat blopping directions from people who were not doing anything themselves.

About four hours before the mutual war bonus kicked in, one of the guys in discord who had been pretty quiet piped up to say "Hi guys, I'm snared!". It was Mayong, a relatively new player. He had about 50 assassins total and apparently hadn't been taught the value of spies in war. It always seems to fall to me to teach these lessons to newer players, who have to learn the hard way first, but that is probably my own fault for starting so many wars. After what happened with Mithrandir rounds ago, I was hyper-vigilant about it for a round (to the point where Lokiramza was probably sick of me telling him about how great spies were and how he should totally build more), but that zeal had worn off a bit in smaller realms where I considered snare less effective. And so here we were again.

We mulled over the idea of countersnaring the lyc so he might not be able to cast his Ares or racial, and therefore might not hit the invade button, but we weren't able to get Cronel or Saccora to respond to pings in time to organise anything, so the idea was a non-starter.

Realm #13 waited for the war bonus to kick in and kept his Ares off for about 5 hours total. There was nothing we could do to help. Mayong ate the hit.

2023-10-27 18:17:08 Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (Yami) (#13) invaded Don't build FHs. You will get pregnant, and die (Mayong) (#12) and captured 76 land.

It was frustrating, because throughout the war we had mentioned several times for @everyone to mix up their Ares casts and not to let it get too low. When Mayong was snared, he was on 1 hour of Ares remaining. I dont think he saw any of the messages. Not everyone can follow the discord 24/7 I suppose, and a lot of people turn off pings entirely. So it goes.

Towards the tail end of the war, we switched to roasting the lycanthrope instead, and when we were able to cancel, we noped out of there. 24 hours of mutual war equates to 36 hours of the 10% op bonus thanks to the malingering mechanic, which was meant to stop one-sided wars where one realm can undeclare and revoke the op bonus at their whim. In realms with mutual where both parties are on board with the war, it feels way overkill, and not in the spirit of the original design intention.

Realm #13 didn't abandon after they were fireballed, which left the whole community perplexed. You mean you can just weather blops and play on? Someone should have told #6!

WEEK 2 - WARMING UP THE WAR MACHINE

We took a day off war to knock down the Factory of Legends, having debated whether or not #1 was worth pursuing to take a Wonder that would have limited utility to us now that our ratios, techs and improvements were starting to kick in. We took ops on their realm and assessed they were actually similar in blopper numbers to ours, which meant we'd essentially be having a Shadow League war. And there are no winners in the Shadow League - only big fat losers. We would potentially get locked into a Wonder trading war if they doubled down on it, and given that realms can get quite possessive over their wonders, we decided it wasn't worth the hassle. Having no idea what they'd do, and knowing that we likely couldn't meaningfully punish them if they did decide to dig their heels in over the Wonder, we left them to it. Eventually they did war #13, but only after the threat had moved out of their range and they could only burn his smaller realm mates.

We waited a little while to see if #13 would mutual #1 once their war with #8 lapsed; if they had, we would have jumped in and declared war on #13 and roasted the halfer and the lyc again, as we still had four bloppers in range. Annoyingly, #13 made the smart play and didn't mutual back. My certainty that Merf was in that realm dropped from 90% to the low 20s.

When it became clear #13 wasn't going to make the mistake we wanted them to make, we set about looking for war anywhere else, for literally any reason.

And then one guy in #3 stole a single piece of platinum from me.

spies from wet season🍆💦 (jahmes) stole 1 platinum from our vaults!

Did he not know who he was messing with? It was just outrageous. The absolute nerve. It couldn't be tolerated, we obviously had to make an example of his realm.

Before warring, we took a closer look at #3, and discovered that their goblin, Orryhz Fizzlefists (Larso), had some FHs already built and even more in the queue - enough to take him to the 3% meta. I felt the red mist come over me. He had just signed his own death warrant.

2023-10-30 18:13:56 spies from wet season🍆💦 (jahmes) stole 1 platinum from our vaults! (#12) has declared WAR on Naughty Monsters! (#3).

We nuked Orryhz into the dirt.

Although the war went pretty smoothly, #3 soon became a nuisance and extended the war by taking the factory about five minutes before we could cancel. It was on such low hp and so close to war cancel that Swamp Fox and I were getting ready to treat it like a freaking Ares drop and had both hopped into voice chat to make sure I could cancel it before they knocked it down. But with a few minutes to spare, one of their attackers eventually got the job done.

2023-11-01 17:56:48 Bang-she (B) (#3) has attacked the Factory of Legends (#12) !

2023-11-01 17:56:49 The Factory of Legends has been destroyed and rebuilt by Naughty Monsters! (#3).

This meant we wouldn't undeclare, and instead had to spend all of our stockpiled mana (ready for the next war) on cyclones instead, and it extended the war by another day and a half. This tedious exchange would play itself out over several wars until we ultimately decided to ditch the Wonder entirely later on.

Around this time, Wurstmeyer dropped his 15-page thesis on fireballs on the community. The theatrics around the circumstances his pack abandoned in had laid the perfect groundwork for a blops rework proposal that the even those with the most immutable views on the secretive GPC wouldn't be able to ignore. The proposal itself was a thoughtful solution to frustrations for both fast attacker and blopper playstyles, and was a framework he'd put forward previously (though not as fully fleshed-out) but which a former iteration of the GPC had taken no action on. They were probably too busy not doing anything about Forest Havens to look at it.

It addressed the problem around bloppers feeling useless unless they were in megapacks by scaling fireball damage based on just #TwoBloppers, but capping the max damage they could deal early doors at just 14% (increasing as the round goes on), simultaneously addressing a fast attacker complaint that fireballs were too destructive in the early game. The max damage for the declaring realm at 14% feels too low to me here, but the cap can be increased with outside realms taking action, so it remains to be seen if this system will work. Personally I'd prefer it to start at 20% and slightly lower the additional damage outside realms can do by dogpiling on, but that's just because historically other realms favour a "let the other guy take the risk" approach to winning (which we'd already seen with #1 squatting on the Oracle while we warred #13 - it almost never works out, last round's winner notwithstanding). If this new fireball design changes that mentality then Wurst's proposal might be the start of a new blops dynamic.

Of course, the real winner of this solution is SlyPimp, who can finally say that "Hashtag TwoBloppers" are all you need to stop a runaway, without sounding like the kind of unhinged lunatic you see wandering the streets wearing nothing but a sandwich board, ringing a bell and shouting about Mayan meteors and y2k lizardpeople living in vaccines.

The only major concern I have with the redesign is that it gives fast attackers a lot more staying power despite blops. Fast attacking has always been a "do or die" strategy: a glass cannon, high-risk and high-reward playstyle. Getting slammed for being modded up to the eyeballs on day 4 and trying to lock everyone else down is the price you can (and ought to) pay for it. And I do think it should be that way. This lessens the risk to runaways considerably. I sound out this note of caution now because it really will come down to the community as a whole responding to threats: the sit back and do nothing approach will not work.

Anyway. We took the Factory back from #3 and started looking around for another realm to whack over the head. #4 and #7 had been relentlessly feeding #13, upgrading their runaway chance from "likely" to "almost certain", so there was some sentiment in our pack discord that we should give them a bit of a kicking - but we're also a chaos realm, so when Cronel suggested rolling a d12 we said go for it.

Cronel rolled the die, and it landed on realm #2.

Realm #2 was the refugee camp where fett had sent mattyvanhalen to be safe from the travesties of war that had torn his life apart two rounds in a row now. And everyone in that realm was smaller than I was, and I wasn't even the biggest in my realm, trailing in fourth place, with my economy a smoking ruin from so many wars and the mutual from the previous week. It felt too much like punching down. And Matty certainly didn't deserve it, so even though the chaos gods had demanded him as a sacrifice, we decided to spare #2.

For now.

Around the same time #7 fed #13 again so the notion of giving them a good spanking for it grew significantly in popularity.

2023-11-03 20:56:28 Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (Yami) (#13) invaded Goblet of Fire Sprite (margoose) (#7) and captured 99 land.

Margoose, as an aside, had been one of my sleeper picks in the OD Fantasy League that Manno and Eric run alongside the round. I'd played with him before and found him to be a really solid player and reliable blopper, but he earned me a shocking 75 points, the second lowest score of any player picked. The only person to score lower was PeaBrain, who DanTheMan had singled out for greatness, but abandoned in the last week. I think I can see what Dan saw in him.

2023-11-03 23:05:15 You smell like a baby prostitute (#12) has declared WAR on OD’s Favorite Cocktail Bar (#7).

This realm had insane spy ratios but little in the way of wizard ratios, so we were able to do significant damage to their top lyc, American Werewolf (Asanka) (#7), though he immediately put wizards in the queue that we had no hope of assassinating. As a chaos realm, we weren't exactly focused on optimal damage on these more frivolous targets. Cronel, Master of Fire, focused fireballs. Swamp Fox, who seemed to pride himself in having high scores in lots of different areas while being the Master of None, slapped him with a Plague. I hit him with lightning bolts for the Master of Tingles title.

Realm #7 then decided to change their name to "Forest Havens are Bestest Havens!", so if it wasn't clear before, it was now obvious they were all totally insane. But I heard electrotherapy was once a popular treatment for the mentally unsound, and so felt like I was delivering some good old fashioned medicine with each lightning bolt I threw at them.

We had hoped to put the brakes on American Werewolf with the blops, and there's no doubt that we did slow him down a little bit, doing some damage and forcing him to train spywiz defences. But we later found out they had AgFx in their team, which meant they had pretty invaluable intel on our spywiz ratios, and were able to train adequete defences without going overboard. When we checked up on him two weeks later, he was third place and doing great. What a bastard. And their realm name was still praising forest havens. Double bastard. It would stay that way for the ENTIRE ROUND. Some people just don't respond well to medication.

Towards the end of the war, #9 became the next realm to offer up some free lunch to the halfling in #13, and so in turn invited our unwelcome gaze.

2023-11-05 11:31:46 aaaaand it's gone (#13) invaded Rum and coffee are mascarpone staples (Oceanu) (#9) and captured 107 land.

Their Kobold, ZuckerMehlEierButterSchokopulverHaselnüsseMilch (Sloxxor) (sidenote: what the fuck is that name?) was pretty big, another top 10 target - and had also built Forest Havens.

And so my hands were tied.

2023-11-05 23:00:46 You also smell like a baby prostitute (#12) has declared WAR on Flour Power (#9).

One thing I can say about #9 is that at least they didn't have a Nox in their realm; I was starting to get sick of being permanently miasma'd in every back-to-back war. It was in all other respects an unremarkable war.

While we were spanking some feeders, #13 made a big mistake. I suspect they calculated that we were already at war and so were relatively safe from the big noisy blops realm that was still in their range.

2023-11-06 20:20:45 You like putting fishsticks in your mouth? (#13) has declared WAR on The Lesser Known Gods of Mount Olympus (#4).

Unfortunately for them, there were actually other realms out there with a proactive view on war. We expected #1 to be all over it, but instead they had to be led by #10.

2023-11-07 08:04:05 Do Wolves Swim? (#10) has declared WAR on You like putting fishsticks in your mouth? (#13).

Realm #1 hadn't taken the initiative, but they did at least follow suit.

2023-11-07 12:14:07 Problem 4 (#1) has declared WAR on You like putting fishsticks in your mouth? (#13).

And obviously we weren't going to pass up on a dogpile. As soon as we could drop the war with #9 and redeclare, we did.

2023-11-07 23:03:23 You also smell like a baby prostitute (#12) has CANCELED war against Flour Power (#9).

2023-11-07 23:03:30 Four for you, Glen Coco! You go, Glen Coco! (#12) has declared WAR on All things considered, I couldn't be better I must say (#13).

Realm #13 was now at war with FOUR realms, and unable to mutual anyone. It was a fine pickle they'd found themselves in. But it was perfect for that Glen Coco line, so I applaud them for it anyway.

WEEK 3 - CEMENTING THE RUNAWAY

Unfortunately #13's goblin found a hit on one of the mute guys in our realm.

2023-11-09 04:43:10 "Now I'm in the closet, I'm in the closet too" (Jcinnz) (#13) invaded fellow dominion Doubt yourself, that's what Karen's are for. (Gintokun) (#12) and captured 111 land.

Meanwhile, #10, the original warring realm, fed the halfer.

2023-11-09 05:22:06 aaaaand it's gone (Playt0i) (#13) invaded I am the god of tits and wine (Chunk) (#10) and captured 147 land.

What a shambles.

There's not much to say here except whoops. At the beginning of all the drama of our first war with #6, we'd been repeatedly accused of "handing #13 the win", though everyone predicting this outcome had identified the lycanthrope as the top threat in that realm. I think these multiple wars probably put an end to that possibility, leaving the round relatively open for a certain Disney-enjoyer in #4, who was able to pressure the halfling.

For our part, we had no particular target lined up after the war ended, but Swamp Fox suggested we stick it to the quitters. And so probably my favourite ever war was declared, and in true chaos style:

2023-11-10 22:16:09 Lights out bitches (#12) has declared WAR on We'll leave the light on for you. -Motel (#6).

Amusingly I'd later discover that Rio got an email ping for this war.

Our next targets on the war-everyone campaign were Realm #2. The time had finally come for the mattyvanhalen refugee camp to know the horrors of war.

2023-11-13 22:28:58 The Plastiques (#12) has declared WAR on Disaster incoming, shields up! (#2).

But it didn't quite work out that way. This realm was prepared. Every single target that we wanted to hit was incredibly well defended versus blops despite having no capability to clap back. For my part in the war, it felt like I was electrocuting a bunch of turtles wearing rubber boots. They also seemed to sense that we were about to war them and had Energy Mirror up already. I think of all the wars we had, if you can be considered to lose a war despite taking almost no damage (except from reflects), this one definitely felt like our biggest L.

In the days that followed, realm #4 would continue its legacy of feeding, and would also be joined by a new eager feeder in #3. Outside of war it is really not difficult to track top op and stay ahead of it, or just stay out of range, but both of these realms struggled.

2023-11-11 23:53:15 aaaaand it's gone (#13) invaded Wuud M'ilf Succupus (Psychosophy) (#3) and captured 143 land.

2023-11-14 03:59:30 aaaaand it's gone (#13) invaded Crepuscles, God of Twilight (cerbrus87) (#4) and captured 171 land.

2023-11-17 03:59:42 aaaaand it's gone (#13) invaded Wuud M'ilf Succupus (Psychosophy) (#3) and captured 167 land.

That one guy feeding twice was a real facepalm moment. If we didn't have a runaway before, it was certainly looking like we might now. Our realm had been debating going back to war with #13, but this chain of hits made the op bonus risk vs potential damage just out of the question. And most of the realms in the game at this point had demonstrated such a disregard for their dp against the halfer, so what was the point?

Realm #1 took a different view and warred #13, I think all of them still out of range of the halfer. They traded their Wonder back and forth and then cancelled.

Our next war would obviously be #3 and purely punitive for the Wood Elf (Psychosophy). Someone had to intervene to slow him down before he fed again. It was only a shame he hadn't built Forest Havens to really invite the spanking that was coming his way. But in the short term, we were already at war with the excel nerds in #8.

WEEK 4 - BLACK WEDNESDAY

2023-11-16 19:53:14 You can't join Mathletes, it's social suicide (#12) has declared WAR on Three Sheets to the Wind (#8).

Some people complained publicly about this war, which happens sometimes - either you're taking out a potential competitor (we targeted lots of potential competitors to our realm), or picking on a realm that "doesn't deserve it" (they all deserve it). The complaining does get a little tedious after a while, and by the time it came to #8 we had all stopped caring about what other realms wanted us to do, or thought we should do for them.

In #8's case, we had a very good reason for warring them: their names were just too nerdy to let slide.

Most of the realm targeted the Nox, =textjoin("33", true, 1, 7) (Jomutta), and it's the first time I've seen a Nox take such a hammering with blops. As an explorer Nox I expected him to have much higher ratios, but from what my realmies reported, his population got cooked.

I on the other hand was only interested in lightning bolt damage, so I focused on the Dwarf attacker, =IF(AND(dp<op,ares=“off”), “go”, “bounce”) (mdk).

King Jota had been the most vocal to complain about the war (and at round end, he was naturally revealed to be in #8), offering a salty congratulations that we were causing people to quit. But no one in #8 abandoned, which was a little anticlimactic after all Jota's dramatic foreshadowing.

Realm #13 then bottomfed on #1 in what was a disgraceful and dirty move that was widely panned by critics as being "totally lame you guys".

2023-11-17 15:59:55 aaaaand it's gone (#13) invaded William Powell (Blade) (#1) and captured 123 land.

Then there was this insane hit chain after the #13 lyc, who was apparently itching to go nuclear, hit into #11:

2023-11-18 00:34:19 Santa Coming Down Your Chimney (Rury) (#11) invaded Berdadadarrgon (Bobbo) (#5) and captured 161 land.

2023-11-18 00:58:59 Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (Yami) (#13) invaded Santa Coming Down Your Chimney (Rury) (#11) and captured 158 land.

2023-11-18 01:40:12 =IF(AND(dp<op,ares=“off”), “go”, “bounce”) (mdk) (#8) invaded Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (#13) and captured 239 land.

2023-11-18 01:43:20 =INDEX('Military'!R:R,MATCH(1104,AE:AE,0),1) (mris) (#8) invaded Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (#13) and captured 242 land.

2023-11-18 01:44:41 Popsicles, God of Brain Freeze 🧊 (Mithrandir) (#4) invaded Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (#13) and captured 179 land.

2023-11-18 01:49:41 Crepuscles, God of Twilight (cerbrus87) (#4) invaded Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (#13) and captured 184 land.

2023-11-18 01:56:21 I am the god of tits and wine (Chunk) (#10) invaded Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (#13) and captured 165 land.

2023-11-18 01:58:54 Bang-she (B) (#3) invaded Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (#13) and captured 159 land.

2023-11-18 02:59:55 Judas Escargot (Zar) (#10) invaded Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (#13) and captured 142 land.

2023-11-18 10:48:28 Crepuscles, God of Twilight (cerbrus87) (#4) invaded Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow (#13) and captured 121 land.

Some people got a little too excited amongst the vulture banquet and paid a heavy price.

2023-11-18 03:11:41 We took strawberries and cake and combined them (Lud) (#9) invaded Judas Escargot (Zar) (#10) and captured 182 land.

2023-11-18 03:14:20 Laissez les bons temps rouler (InternetFett) (#9) invaded Judas Escargot (#10) and captured 160 land.

2023-11-18 04:58:08 Stuffing Your Wifes Turkey (Cobber) (#11) invaded Judas Escargot (#10) and captured 161 land.

2023-11-18 09:57:07 A Stiff Drink of Creamy Eggnog (Oment) (#11) invaded Judas Escargot (#10) and captured 140 land.

2023-11-18 05:30:47 Plopatypluses (Neophyte) (#5) invaded I am the god of tits and wine (Chunk) (#10) and captured 212 land.

Meanwhile, we had decided that Wonder-trading in all these wars was limiting our blops damage output, because we'd have to spend a day to a day and a half pissing about with cyclones which just isn't fun. So when the spreadsheet nerds in #8 eventually knocked the Wonder down we decided they could keep it, and let us get on with the real job of roasting peasants.

2023-11-18 18:38:57 The Factory of Legends has been destroyed and rebuilt by Three Sheets to the Wind (#8).

2023-11-18 20:50:03 You can't join Mathletes, it's social suicide (#12) has CANCELED war against Three Sheets to the Wind (#8).

Realm #13 would later war them for it, which was pretty funny.

With the war over, it was now time to spank the naughty wood elf in #3 for his cavalier attitude to dp.

2023-11-18 20:50:15 Whatever, I'm getting cheese fries (#12) has declared WAR on Naughty Monsters! (#3).

This realm actually fought back well with some blops, but I was able to weather the storm. When I realised their Dark Elf (King Drillo) and their Human (Teppa) were assassinating my wiz I put most of them into AMs and left a small pool of 25 wiz for them to exhaust their SS on. It's a bait tactic that I've found works against some players. It stops them snaring me as an alternative, or nicking my mana, and for some reason they seem to think killing one wizard at a time is worthwhile. They get infamy / mastery either way I suppose, and I much prefer them doing this than virtually anything else they could be doing.

2023-11-19 16:10:03 A swarm of insects are eating our crops, slowing food production.

2023-11-19 15:36:49 1 wizard, and 1 spy mastery were killed while they slept in our towers.

2023-11-19 14:49:25 A great fireball has crashed into our keep, burning 414 peasants, 2,524 food, and 1 wizard mastery.

2023-11-19 14:00:17 Exploration for 7 acres of land completed

2023-11-19 13:13:00 1 wizard, and 1 spy mastery were killed while they slept in our towers.

2023-11-19 13:12:56 Spies from Bigbay killers (King Drillo) (#3) were discovered attempting to sabotage our towers! We executed 8 spies, and 6 assassins.

2023-11-19 13:12:51 Spies from Bigbay killers (#3) were discovered attempting to assassinate our wizards! We executed 8 spies, and 6 assassins.

2023-11-19 13:12:36 1 wizard, and 1 spy mastery were killed while they slept in our towers.

2023-11-19 13:12:20 1 wizard, and 1 spy mastery were killed while they slept in our towers.

2023-11-19 13:11:48 1 wizard, and 1 spy mastery were killed while they slept in our towers.

2023-11-19 13:11:05 Spies from Humans (Teppa) (#3) were discovered attempting to assassinate our wizards! We executed 11 spies, and 6 assassins.

2023-11-19 13:09:04 A great fireball has crashed into our keep, burning 413 peasants, 2,524 food, and 1 wizard mastery.

2023-11-19 13:08:49 A great fireball has crashed into our keep, burning 417 peasants, 2,545 food, and 1 wizard mastery.

Towards the end of our war, Mithrandir stole the headlines with another of his trademark round-defining fumbles. According to Mith, he had been sitting in range of the halfer in #13 with his Ares off thinking that if the halfer hit him, he would be able to retal-hit even if he was pushed out of range - the same way revenge blops work.

Unfortunately for Mith, attacks don't work this way. Once you're out of range, you're out of range.

2023-11-21 06:10:18 aaaaand it's gone (Playt0i) (#13) invaded Popsicles, God of Brain Freeze 🧊 (Mithrandir) (#4) and captured 236 land.

Mith had done a great job of holding the halfer in check, but was undone once again by his Achilles' heel: Ares' Call. One way or another, that spell is seemingly his downfall every round. And this round he couldn't even blame it on Disney!

Although others thought the hits into #3 locked in his status as a runaway, in my view this was the moment he finally, truly ran away, on day 31. After we nuked three of the game's top players on day 4 in an act of supreme benevolence towards the community, the community had repaid us by relentlessly feeding the halfling in #13 - all the while blaming us for everything - but it was never game over until this moment.

Of course, people's opinions in discord differed about when the 'true' runaway point was, and again a few people chimed in to say it was all #12's fault. But it seems memories are quite short in OD, because all of the stick we got initially over 'handing #13 the win' was predicated on the assumption that the lycanthrope was the destined runaway and the halfer was already presumed dead. By this point in the round it was the exact opposite, but some people will never get let the facts get in the way of a good flaming. Does anyone ever know what they're talking about? I do wonder.

And with Mith out of the picture, it was now our turn to face the wrath of an uncontested runaway. Saccora, who works retail, had been somewhat AWOL for the whole round already; but this was Black Friday week, and instead of checking the top op numbers and training dp when he woke up, he instead mass explored. It cost him dearly.

2023-11-22 08:33:59 aaaaand it's gone (Playt0i) (#13) invaded fellow dominion WE SHOULD TOTALLY JUST STAB DRAFTEES! (Saccora) (#12) and captured 229 land.

Fuck.

WEEK 5 - POOPSUCKLES

The next day, it was looking like dangerous waters for both Swamp Fox and American Werewolf (Asanka), who were now the only two dominions in the halfer's range. Swamp Fox had the edge on dp, American Werewolf had the edge on land, and both realms were thinking "I hope the other guy eats it". The halfer, for his part, only had to wait to see what tasty morsel fell into his lap next. Meanwhile, every single explorer that had been previously parked outside the halfer's range kicked their exploration into overdrive, and overnight I fell 6 places in the ranks from 11th to 17th, sinking to 20th the following day. I had previously been in range so had a lot more dp than all of the players now overtaking me, but I couldn't keep up their pace of exploration even when I full throttled it. The efficient explorers were now loose.

It did mean however that there were now plenty of meat shields between me and the halfer, should he elect to settle for a cheeky bottomfeed. Which I was fine with. Always have a fall guy, I say. Or a dozen of them, that works too.

Swamp Fox, who had been running Surreal Perception 24/7 to pick up checks from #13, had some surprising data to share. We were one of just two realms that had eyes on the halfer (the other being Asanka in #7), which meant only we knew his current op. This means that generally, when other players want to know what the safe dp is, they have to check the explorers in range to get a rough idea. The surprising thing was how many doms were exploring like there was no tomorrow without checking Swamp Fox's dp to see what was safe - over the course of two days, just three realms did their 'due diligence': #3, #4 and #10. Everyone else must have been taking a 'fuck it, safety in numbers' approach. Or maybe they don't have the same PTSD trauma as some of us grey-haired explorers, from the round nate ran away and kept dropping Elite Guard and bottomfeeding, forcing us into EG and eating a grossly punitive +25% exploration tax.

No matter what happened this round I wasn't joining EG ever again as an explorer. I'd rather risk getting hit than pay 25% tax on acres.

However, explorers needn't have worried on this day, because Mith was back in town.

2023-11-24 14:49:49 Popsicles, God of Brain Freeze 🧊 (#4) invaded Humans ( Teppa) (#3) and captured 237 land.

This hit would send him soaring back into the halfer's range. Mith's realm again checked Swamp Fox's dp... 30 minutes after Mith already made the hit. We calced Mith and saw that he was very borderline, likely to get hit again if the halfer just sent a few hundred of his elite dp units. The halfer dropped specs as well, making it likely he wouldn't even need those dp units. Mith, on the other hand, continued training only elite dp.

Uh oh.

2023-11-25 02:08:39 aaaaand it's gone (Playt0i) (#13) invaded Popsicles, God of Brain Freeze 🧊 (Mithrandir) (#4) and captured 261 land.

In the continued spirit of spanking feeders, we warred Realm #4 next. It was quite a boring war, I didn't catch any ops and we just farmed numbers from their top players. The war that came and went without much remark by anyone in the discord. I think even #4 found it boring.

With Swamp Fox stuck sitting waiting endlessly for the halfer to send, and the halfer sat endlessly not sending, he viewed his shot at that hard to come by gold-plated 7k blopper finish to be increasingly unlikely. Meanwhile, we'd been looking round at the realms we hadn't warred yet, alongside realms we might want to war again, and were largely coming up with no real reason to target anyone. So far we'd gone after high level threats, spanked feeders, and latterly focused on just blitzing players who were ahead of us, but with a little over a week left in the round there isn't much you can do to knock the wind out of someone's sails. So that really just left one realm on the checklist that I personally wanted to pay a visit: Realm #1.

With Swamp Fox taking his foot off the gas, and therefore giving zero fucks about what we did next, I knew there was a good chance I could take the realm into a war with #1 without ruining anyone in the realm's round. I floated the suggestion and everyone, particularly Cronel (because you know, it's Cronel), was keen. Realm #1 felt like it could be a nice showdown for the closing act of the round.

Realm #1 were 'the other blops realm'. They were high land explorers, presumably on good ratios, and had taken the Great Oracle (+40 wiz str, -15% spell costs) while we were preoccupied at war with #13 in the early game. It was travesty how little they utilised it.

Of course, we had briefly considered taking the Oracle off them early on, but had instead pivoted to take the Factory to help boost our growth a bit with all the blops baggage we were saddled with. The Factory proved useful for the majority of the game, but we didn't allow ourselves to become attached to it, and dropped it at the right time.

However, the Oracle in #1 now posed a problem for us: it gave their realm a huge boost to their wizard firepower, meaning we could potentially eat a lot of damaging blops for the first two days of the war until we were able to take it down. But having made the decision to drop the Factory, taking the Oracle off them was now an option.

We nudged up our ratios, with most of us going from a 1.0 to around 1.5, which I figured would be more than safe. Like every other explorer since the halfer ran away, #1 was going full throttle on pumping acres and I suspected they'd long ago stopped maintaining their ratios.

I turned out to be even more correct than I could have imagined.

WEEK 6 - AROUND THE WORLD

I knew I'd be a particular target due to my higher profile this round, so I pushed to 2.0 on defence, and massively pumped spires to give me a deadly 2.5 on offence. Lamb ran the lightest ratios, keeping his at a 1.0 on defence, but his investments into spires along with his masonries made for a huge spike in wizard power at 1.7.

We warred #1 and targeted their Nox, Guy Fawkes (Mulla), and annihilated his peasant count to less than half in the opening wave. His ratios were trash. We snared him too for the mastery, and to limit any response. And for the lols.

Realm #1 responded with uncoordinated blops, seemingly targeting people at random, failing constantly. We had all cast Energy Mirror several hours before the war (so we'd still be at max strength for our opening volley). Any one of us they tried to fireball had such a low peasant kill count and such a high fail rate, plus reflects, that they largely abandoned the attempt. It seemed I'd made another huge mistake: these weren't bloppers, they were explorers with a blops wonder. Like those zany little frogs in the Amazon that have bright and deadly-looking colours so any predators think they're poisonous, when they are in fact mostly harmless. Have you ever been nibbled by a tiny harmless frog? That's what war with #1 was like.

There was one exception, who I'll tip my hat to: Thomas Percy (MikeyBlue), the Dark Elf, was the only player that showed up in my news every day of the war. A wiz race, he had natural wiz ratios, but in targeting me specifically he'd picked the most defended of us, and his success rate was at best 50%. The fail rate was enough that I stopped casting Energy Mirror in favour of saving the mana and having the wiz str instead, though this was then off-set by Mikey's snares.

Cronel was unimpressed: "All this time, with the Oracle in their hands, and this is their power?"

We decided to leave #1 with the Oracle: they clearly needed it more than we did. And it meant we could focus on blopping them for the full 48 hours.

Fireballing Guy Fawkes, Cronel also dinged a round milestone: he had just roasted over 200,000 peasants, marking his second-highest kill count to date.

We hit Ambrose Rookwood (Shaidar) next, fireballing his peasants - he was similarly weak on ratios and we had few fails.

At this war's outset we knew there were two big scary blops realms.

By the time the war ended, with the ruse of the zany little frogs laid bare, we knew there was only one.

The only realms left on our to-war list were #11 and #5. Merf had been in the discord trying to reverse-psychology up a war between us and #5, for reasons known only to Merf, and so naturally we opted for #11 first.

2023-12-04 00:12:42 What a bright time, it's the right time, to blop the night away! (#12) has declared WAR on Unlike me, Christmas came fast (#11).

I targeted the Icekin (Rury) and started mass-assassinated his wizards. He had a lot in reserve that he hadn't converted into AMs. I already had the wizard assassin title, but I had been soft competing for it all round with some of the players in my own realm outside my pack - drads in the early game, and then lamb in the late game. But Rury's wizards catapulted me from neck-and-neck with lamb to 1,600 ahead and accounted for around a third of the wizards I'd killed all round. Rury responded by training more wizards, but didn't convert any to AMs, further boosting my killcount.

Realm #11 also had a great lightning bolt target, their Nox (MacTheMeek), but I didn't trip over him until the last day of the war. Sad face.

With just a day left in the round when we were able to cancel, we only had one realm left to war.

2023-12-06 00:03:31 Say crack again (#12) has declared WAR on Expect our 15 Page Thesis on Pointless Sui's Later (#5).

Dave still hasn't dropped that thesis on us. Maybe he's saving it for the next Riol Talk.

As wars went this one was pretty friendly. You likely aren't gonna do anything devastating anyone at the end of the round that's likely going to make them care. For my part, I just farmed snares on Grapes (Crappybarbara) so he would have less wiz strength to go after my realmies.

And with the war on #5, our campaign of terror was complete.

As I cast a wistful look back on the events of this round, I'm pleased with how my realm performed. We spanked bottoms, we sent the top players packing, we went around the world and back again on a never-ending war campaign, we picked up tons of ranks like true whores and, precipitating a blackops overhaul that had been long overdue, we made this round the best swan song for blackops that we possibly could.

As I publish this burn book, I salute you, my fellow Meanies in #12.

By the way, did you guys ever hear about that time Eric made out with a hotdog?

EPILOGUE

Here's one for the number fetishists out there.

Collectively, as seven blackoppers, we:

- Roasted 833,002 peasants, many of whom cowered in their Forest Havens as the skies filled with ash.

- Tickled 29,979,399 castle improvements out of existence...

- ...and gave 1 King Jota a panic attack with those tickles.

- Murdered 49,436 draftees as they slept peacefully in their beds.

- Assassinated 9,730 wizards (as they dreamt smugly about 241 Energy Mirror reflects). That's 4.8 million platinum's worth of dead wizzies!

- Quaked the booties off miners for 344 hours, for a little over two weeks of tremors.

- Flooded pesky Merfolk for 762 hours. A month's worth of rain! That'll teach them to be fish.

- ...and super soakered 1 fishy Mithrandir for probably half of those hours.

- Snared for 756 damage. That'll strip your Ares off ten times over. Spooky!

- Sunk 2,257 boats, potentially leaving 67,710 troops on the bench.

- Brought the black death to thousands of peasants for 273 hours. At just over 11 days, it was a short pandemic.

- Fired millions of locusts out of a cannon at local farmers for 185 hours. They feasted for over a week.

- Cast a total of 3,957 spells, of which 710 failed, for an average success rate of 81%.

- Put the lives of our wizards at risk every day, resulting in 2,702 wizard casualties. That's an estimated range of 1.35 million platinum to 2.7 million platinum value in wiz lives lost!

- Convinced 853 spies to part ways with their memories, costing the enemy taxpayer 426,500 platinum. I say "we", that one was all Saccora.

- Undertook 5,793 spy operations, of which 1,682 went awry, for an average success rate of 70%.

- Mourned the loss of tens of thousands of our own spy lives, totalling 26,933 spies lost or executed, for around 13.4 million platinum in value. Ouch.

- Realised the horrors of war as 149,100 peasants were lost to enemy fireballs. Lucky shots, all of them.

- Had to redecorate 3.1 million of improvements damage to our own castles.

- Undertook 15 wars. No stone unblopped, it was a thorough but fair-handed thrashing for all.

- ...or so we thought! Only realm #10 escaped our wrath. A glitch in the matrix had all of us convinced we'd warred them already, until we checked the town criers end-round for this log.

- ...and so much fun with realms #6, #9 and #13 that we warred them twice.

- Turned the lights off permanently in realm #6, becoming the first realm in OD history to "kill" another realm.

Shout out to my pack: Damdred, Cronel, Swamp Fox and Saccora. A great bunch of lads. Damdred, always great for his one-liners and memes, definitely makes the round more fun when he's about. Cronel, an unstoppable force of chaos, he was a must-have for a blackops swan song round and I'm glad I got to pack with him again. Saccora, my original packmate from back when I first re-discovered OD; he didn't have much time this round but he still made time for the coordinated blops. And Swamp Fox, who seemed to spend his time perpetually hiding out in parking lots where he was safe to blop to his heart's content, away from the prying eyes of coworkers and family, was a fantastic asset to the team and super active to boot.

Other notable mentions:

Lamb, again, huge thanks for keeping us all informed of top op all round. Lamb was an unsung hero for a lot of it, but he helped keep us safe!

Drads, great team player for bloppin' and very easy-going.

Mayong, the relatively new guy, he loved all the wars and was a great sport about all the chaos, even though as an attacker he sometimes got bitten by the enemy bloppers. I hope I land with him again sometime.

And that, dear readers, brings us to the end of another roundfail. Probably the last one for a while. I love writing them, and people seem to enjoy reading them, but most of these roundfails end up around the length as some of my dissertations at university and technically qualify as "novelettes"! If I put this much effort into my creative writing, I could be a published author like three times over by now. Maybe when the Toothy Merch Store goes live I'll sell them as a collated compendium of stupidity.

So, until next time... whenever that might be.

TL;DR

This round in a nutshell: Because fuck Forest Havens