we've been 2 on 1'd entire round so far.

They're all shit because I'm not in any of them.

Well for 27 the start was a nightmare We should of had 12 active players start. By some freak randomness, we got 3 randoms, and out regular active guys couldn't get in. We waited the 2 days, killed them off, and then got the players we wanted in. That set us back enough to where we couldn't really afford the defenses that we wanted to have by day 5 and we paid for it. And no bad feelings, but 36 did a good job of hitting us and we did a poor job of early defense. We just couldn't afford the lasers we needed with the poor way the 1250 randoms got in to our family.

After 36 hit us, we had 2 players have some serious RL issues and they could not play, so we had to spend even more early round cash to take their planets etc etc. Our allies 34 dumped us without warning and that led to even more conflict clearing them from cores. We did go back and forth with 09 for a bit over a few systems, but all in all, we are doing well. I don't know if we would have been #1 even if everything went as we planned, 36 and 08 were both off to great starts, but I would say at least top 3. We had a family full of great players, Disposable Heros, Nox, Teddy, Flipmode, Spyro, but bad luck and timing really hurt us early on.

We've come back about as good as we could have, and we should be 4th by tomorrow easily and that because we do have great players. Sometimes the way you plan it and the way it actually happens is 2 different things...and honestly, i've had a lot of fun this round. I think Dispo said it best when he told me "I'm having the most fun i've had this round. We didn't give up and we got a great active family, and we just have lots of fun playing, reguardless of the outcome"

I think the biggest problem was the 08/30 alliance. 30 had a tough round from what I can gather, and 08 folder like a bath towel. We were really hoping that 08/30 - 36/09 battle would last a couple of days at least, to give us and the 34/23 alliance time to catch up, and then be able to give either of the 09/36 or the 08/30 winner a run for their money, but when 08 folded in 2 hours and people started deleting, we knew 09/36 would dominate. We are by no means giving up, and we will fight them till we all got 1 droid left if we have to, and I think that's the biggest problem with the game right now. Families give in to easily to larger families, and then the larger ones grow without ever spending a dime on defending themselves. If families would fight wars, and not delete, or pay 100 planets for a NAP, it would level the playing field. I think Mace said in another post somewhere that with only 32 families, that only allows for 3 to maybe 4 good alliances. That's just not enough to make the game competitive. Of those 3 to 4 alliance, inevitable, some players will have rl issues, and other things that don't allow them to play, so the alliance will fail. With such limited "good" families, there's just not enough competition.

All that being said, last round I deleted from a top family and landed in the 30th ranked family. Totally inactive and going nowhere. But after a week of getting the guys interested and getting some teamwork going, we started playing well. I honestly haven't had that much playing since my first few rounds. I think we ended up 5th in size, NW maybe 15th or something. We just logged in everyday and had fun, no matter if we lost a few planets or gained a few. I really don't think it's fair to end a round early because 2 families appear to be untouchable. For all we know, the bottom 15 families could be having the most fun rounds of their IC lives, and it would not be fair to them to end that.

I really think 100, 6 player families, would be better than 30, 12 players ones. If each could draft 4, it only leaves 2 random spots open. It would cut down on the amount of random/deletes each family gets with players trying to random into one of the top 5 families. And with that amount of families, it would almost guarantee more competitive alliances, and a more even playing field.

Nice post on history of 27 ...Like I said before, I do think you're the one fam that's played well but have been struck by bad luck + good moves by other fams.

And I think you nail it on the head when you say this:
"and I think that's the biggest problem with the game right now. Families give in to easily to larger families, and then the larger ones grow without ever spending a dime on defending themselves. If families would fight wars, and not delete, or pay 100 planets for a NAP, it would level the playing field."

People need to realise that the aim shouldn't be to win straight up.  Go have fun, go do what you need to.  Go fight wars, don't be afraid of losing - and if you do well, and have fun while doing it, and work with like-minded people, you're bound to naturally do well

----

A separate issue though about more drafts with less member fams, I don't agree witht hat.  Having a higher draft ratio in a fam will create more 'super' fams.  What IC needs is to spread the talent more, which means more randoms and less drafts per fam.  We tried it with a 9/2 set up (9 sized fam - 2 drafts) and it was pretty good in terms of competition and skill distribution.

On behalf of 08: We weren't ready for an opp war, thats what we got + a bit sidetracked, but yea, as soon as ppl got opped they ran like chickens...

Ok this has to stop its way too embarasing for myself...

You want a story, well you got it although it's not that big as of 27's

1. MW opened, i've had a plan for a team... Noir randomed in, wasted all the draft spots, byebye dream team...

2. Me and my mates decided to stay and let noir do eco, nothing bad so far, he's done a great job... but there comes the times when wars are getting close etc... myself, from the experience i've gathered along this long road in IC felt the need of building our bankers and resourcers some fleets... at the time it sounded like an overreaction, i said build big numbers of agents and wizzies, ofcourse... i was not listened to... they said we dont need that much(stan & noir)

3. Nightwish explores in our cores and portals(small nw rule etc..) - low move for some but for me it was part of the game, luckily we had Luster random in and build some bombers to take a few out... he only managed to get rid of half the planets. Right before or a bit after the portals of Nightwish were in, 36 opped us... well... our bankers, first our pop bankers to negative income, then our cf bankers...

4. At some point, abit after the opps Stan deleted... i went to our chatroom to see whats the plan etc.. i see there something like: we've given up a long time ago and some other bs... i had the portals of NW being ffed.. and couldve cleared him and retook all planets lost, which were around 70(give or take a few), but i was so dissapointed i didnt care that much anymore.

5. Mostly and the reason of which i deleted is simple, dissapointment on so many levels...

thats about it... 3408 had no opp defence and were opped like a....

AA/ICDeath Fam what about me lol i guess i'm not famus yet lol

Hahaha TICO always has good fun... 

Oh I had good wish to play with Noir and Roar this round!!!!! ..... but studies is first mates.  My boss very exigent these months... my country is possible buy one satellite... exist very problems with climate these ultimate years... and my certificate of Geomatic is urgent....

What happens in this round if Parrot playing inactive.... and Genesis is EMO club.... Uhmm very rare all this...

.. more Broker and Nandro are good friends  but very pacific in one war.... operations SS? Oh Yeah cheating gays game of always.... If a round there is no real big war is only a waste of time.... X(

Well... well... is very urgent more players with wish kicking ASS!!! and not SS gays only....

We suck. thats about it. To many noobs in our fam. And we argue all the time.
I often thought about talking a walk into the forrest, fina a nice big tree and hang myself.
Thats how depressed i am.

Shit round and no fun. And i blame Torques.

3407 thinks its none of your damn business

I find it most fair to say that 36 did all his wars this round with most planning possible.

27 raid at sor; 4-5 attackers participating in killing 27.

war with 18 (mainly for morale loss) to secure our reach to our allies.

skirmish 34/23 for the systems in S4/south S3 (we made hell of a nap thats beneficial to us but not to 23)

war with 38; we took em out easily.

war with 08. well this is kinda sad for 08;
08 had luster jumping 26k bombs 10 ticks before my portals ticked in. I had like 4 good shares only with their bankers/resourcers. Luster failed to take these 4 and took the other 4 less important ones. Kinda feel bad that an attacker with 200% speed and 26k bombs can't take out a total of 8 planets where max laser on the planet was 560 or so. adn I had 3 with only 350 or less.

he only took 2 out on his own and had to get Noir and Rawrr opping my lasers before he triggered.

All by all when I kept the shares perfect planning and total fleet arrival at tick portals ticked in and massive activity from myself took down 08 player by player;

Thumbs up for Rawrr who forcefielded all my shared portals I think 1-2 ticks after they ticked in. (Kinda lacked octa to jump big wiz). He left me with 12 ticks to do as much damage as I could. And I did and they know it.

Kinda sad Rawrr left though cause by then my portals went down due to forcefields.

At this point im just using my fleet to kill 42 as they were 7th in ranking and not far away at all.

I hope to be adding more fights soon.

I was wondering why my conquered planet count was higher than yours Dispo?! I thought you were just inactive....like last round

Im having fun to, playing in some low fam raping fams on my own.. Didnt get the draft I wanted so randommed in there trying to get this fam running by giving their leader some advise and stuff.. Not as much fun when you have a strong eco around you but its something really different for me. Its a long time ago when I attacked :')

Kai