2.4. Round end thoughts

2.4 End / 2.5 Start Stuff

Believe it or not, we're a couple days away from completing our fifth round as an alliance. Odd to be one of the older alliances in the game, isn't it?

We've had a decent round. To recap some of the things we've done that stick out to me:

* Successful large-scale jumps on every major alliance in the game (KAOS/UF, ES, DI/Rens, IA, SH/XF, LoF), multiple times for many of them
* Destroyed Admiral Williamson - first time this has been done, though it had been attempted before
* Promptly killed CortezNeo twice upon discovering his treachery
* Come back from one of the lowest activity points we've ever had (near the end of the war with KAOS) to outstanding activity, to the point of shutting down raids without even having to move.
* Thrived after IGF disbanded, when most of the game expected we'd fall flat without an ally

Most importantly in my mind, we mostly avoided the drama bomb for yet another round. In a round with major alliances falling apart left and right, we've incorporated a large number of new players into the alliance and have still stayed stable. I think this is a direct reflection of the type of members we're lucky enough to have here and attract: quality players who play unselfishly and put the alliance first.

It's an ideal we'll need to carry into 2.5.  We've made a name for ourselves over these past several rounds, and there will likely be plenty of alliances gunning for us next set. Much of the game expects us to have a big round in 2.5, and I have to agree with them. Our roster going into 2.5 is very good. Our activity is nearly unparalleled. Our ability is battle proven.

The only thing at this point that can get in the way of us dominating 2.5 is if we get away from the things that have got us where we are now - if we start to play selfishly, argue over stupid things, treat eachother poorly, get too full of ourselves, forget to have fun, and get complacent, trusting others to pick up our slack. It's cliche, but the only thing that can realiastically beat us is ourselves. With all the new blood we're getting next round, it'll be important to stick to these fundamenetals.

Anyhow, for 2.5 there are relatively few things that need to be addressed.

1) To end the debate, we are going NEUTRAL aligned. End of discussion. :P
2) Raiders are going ZALLUN. Not Polloid or Scourge. Starting align will be decided by roundstart.
3) Raidingwise, we'll be returning to planned ops again. We have enough raiders that we will be hitting large targets frequently. The map is small enough that we will hit anything with quantity or quality of kills.
4) Huntingwise, we'll be focusing on group hunting/jumping as we have for the latter half of this round. [u]Take this into consideration as you select your race for 2.5[/u]. We may not have gotten the most kills this round, but damned if we didn't bag a large number of quality kills.
5) We will NOT be claiming a system on the first day; we'll instead see who takes what and take our pick after the initial squabbling. Don't waste your turns.

Really not much to plan, I suppose. :P We'll see what we have and do what we wish. It's going to be great.

Solace