We started this round with a core group of only a handful of people, though we quickly grew to moderate size. None of us is a long standing BD player, a good part of us played their first round here.

We started in Russia, close to many easy conquers, but also in the middle of the 3 big conflicting alliances of the first half of this round: NASA (Greenland), MES (Africa) and NEKO (Australia). Since we knew NEKO from E6 on the old client, we initially formed a NAP with them, while keeping somewhat friendly relations with NASA and MES. Unfortunately, we did not get any relic in the relic lottery, despite controlling a relatively large territory.

War with USSR/UNIR

Our first big war was with USSR and their allies, UNIR. The combined USSR/UNIR score was equal to ours, but we were confident in our ability to take their relic. I have to give major props to the guys from USSR. Despite the earliness of the war, they outclassed every other opponent we meet this round and fought us for a standstill for many, many ticks. Had it not been for the fact that UNIR collapsed relatively quickly and that some of the USSR members were not all that active, we might not have won the war.

After winning a decisive battle with USSR, I offered them to merge with us. It was clear that they would lose their relic in any turn, but their members had shown us their ability. Unfortunately, while the USSR leader was in favor merging, some of his members were not. They voted him out and kicked the USSR relic carried (who, sending some units to the leader, accidentally also conquered him). After that, we carried on with the war, eventually carrying home the relic. Some USSR members who disagreed with the new leaders actions did join us later.

War with NEKO

Meanwhile, our relation with NEKO had turned strongly to the worse. Unfortunately, NEKO was not under the old leadership we were used from E6, but managed by Edwin, whom I can only describe as incompetent and selfish. While we were fighting USSR, NEKO had transformed into the massive sprawling xXXx empire, with xXXx, GFU hiding in Australia behind their pawns, xACx, xGx, xHQx, xUGx who were placed in Antarctica, South-East Asia and China. Furthermore, Edwin send us impossible, outright insulting orders, e.g. “Attack MES in Europe, we will regroup behind you in Asia”. All the while we never say a single NEKO unit attacking MES anywhere near us. In the final stages of the long war with USSR (again, we did not see a single NEKO unit helping us there), Edwin suggested that we leave the relic to NEKO and only take their crystals. When we refused, he used the fact that our and USSR’s units where fighting on the relic to conquer the USSR leader and carry away his crystals and substantial bounty just as all our units were in the air towards the relic. After this, we broke with NEKO and made a NAP with MES instead.

MES had been fighting with xXXx for a while and urged us to join the fighting. When we joined the fighting, the combined xXXx empire score was about 3-4 times our score and maybe 50% larger than the SoLD-MES score. MES rushed ahead to Indonesia with huge armies, while we began dismantling the xXXx subs in China. However, by the time we finished there, all MES armies had been beaten by xXXx/GFU. From that point on, SoLD carried on the fight alone, we received scant help from MES. After conquering xGx, xUGx, xHQx, we arrived in Australia. xXXx ran away to hide behind their last remaining sub in Antarctica, GFU stayed, fought us and lost.

Now we had a problem: xXXx, the relocated part of GFU and xACx sat in Antarctica. We received *plenty* of offers by members from those alliances who wanted to join SoLD and backstab their allies. However, we did not accept any backstabber and placed a new SoLD colony there instead, moving our armies into the middle of their cluster.

War on two fronts/NASA

It now looked likely that we would get all 3 xXXx relics and draw even with NASA. So NASA set up a surprise attack on our colonies. We did have friendly relations, but no NAP with NASA before. NASA’s aim was, without doubt to take our relic and/or prevent us from getting xXXx’s. While I agree with this cold-blooded logic, I would have wished for an answer to my PMs. Placing 4000 units in our backyard is an obvious move, so why not declare war openly instead of playing mute.

We decided NOT to go for second place. We would not recall our units to fight NASA, instead we evaded their attacks on our undefended colonies by multiple relocation. NASA never conquered more than a handful of our less active members, despite the fact that we only once ever set up a colony defense.

At the same time, we struggled to win a relic in Antarctica, where our armies were under constant nuke thread and strongly outnumbered by the combined xACx, GFU, MOB (ex xXXx, ex NEKO) armies. We made a dash for one of their relics and carried it off, despite huge losses. Later on, we devastated their OPs and carried off a second relic.

The end?

While I write this, the last ticks of the round are running. We fought off a huge NASA attack on our initial relic (which they chased from Moscow to Tasmania), but had to evade their second wave. Currently our last ditch attempt to get the last xXXx relic is running, as is our counterattack on the NASA relic. Regardless of how those battles end, I want to say that I am immensely proud of all members of SoLD and of what we achieved this round. Tons of fun.

- Xeeron

Some individual shouts:

USSR - You guys are great! Great fighting, great fighting spirit. I enjoyed our war most. But, next time no civil war please!
xUGx - While you did not offer strong resistance, I value that you did not run away from the fight (like most others) and instead took the bullet that was ment for xXXx straight on.
GFU - The best out of the xXXx lot. I wish we would not have had to fight you.
xXXx/NEKO/MOB - I hope we delivered proof that your lame "hide in Aussi behind 1000 subs" tactic does not work.
S01D - If anyone noticed, we did not use our sub to do our dirty work. *Our* sub had their place behind SoLD, not the other way round. We used them to select good players to move on to SoLD. So props to all those who started in S01D and became valuable SoLD players.
NASA - You won the round, so you must have made the right moves. However I am a bit sad that we did never fight a fair war with you. This round was too easy for you.

All SoLD players - You did awesome! Without a sliver of doubt, SoLD was the most active, most feared and tactically best fighting alliance of this round. Anyone doubting that should talk to our conquered enemies.

- Xeeron

And last words:

I am unlikely to play much this HAVOC, so have your go at becoming No 1 everyone, you can do it! ... and you know you all waited for those tons of ress =P

SoLD will be back for the next round.

- Xeeron

Orginal USSR Leader here

I gotta say SoLD came out of nowhere


during july I was doing lots of on off vacations as I had a construction project out of town makeiing me awol thursdays-sundays Because of this I was viewing thins as big "skips"

The first weakend I went USSR was rank 8 if I remember correctly and SoLD was 10 when I returne4d SoLD had crept up one their was a diffrence of 1 rank

on my following return froma weakend SoLD had overtaken USSR
everytime I returned it seemed SoLD had crept up one rank untill they were 6 and had forces moving towards the USSR border I got a defence started then had to go for my final trip when I returned USSR was still fighting we got a couple more orginised defences but our forces got saped and we got in a position where the active members who participated had all sufferd heavy looses


The one battle I would have Loved to see is the one where SoLD was launching a mass attack on our final gate to the north/west of japan The squad count on both sides was amazingly high and would have proved a very nice report...sadly SoLD noticed the increase of units from some players that did not send the tick before impact and had the vast majority of their squads return


Xeeron expect a mod to yell at you for the consecutive posts

I think my post already is many times as long as the typical post at these forums, but I dont have a problem copying them together to make one even longer post out of it if that is the way it is handled here.

- Xeeron

Xeeron please do not double post.
Thanks

~Hero

Also that was a great ending to that round for both sides congrats SoLD for holding us off for so long. And great job NASA!

I think that the end of this round was great, this is my second round, and I do not have tons of time to sit and play. Once we got our first relic I would just log in, shoot down a couple of nukes and build units to plant on the relic. I lost them all on the NASA hits against the relic. I look forward to playing again next round but will sit Havoc out.

Worth to remember:
- Sallo7i from KSA, who blocked us out from India for a long time
and defeated our units with some mates in a first huge battle.
- davey from USSR, who shows very strong activity against us.
- Ghitler from xGx, as the strongest opponent I ever met.
Unfortunately, he choosed the wrong Alliance.
(still fighting after his units became super mutant by nukes )

Shame on
- adydinamo, using multiple accounts.
- zack, 'the big mouth', broadcasting nonsens all the time
and leaving the game as soon as SoLD conquered china
- kurtkelly, no explanation necessary
- edwin, the worst leader ever seen,
asking other alliances to start a war,
claiming victory about USSR without any battle against their units
and who left the game as soon as SoLD declared war
against his 'x-Empire'.

= Narses =

I just wanted to say wow.
That was a really good battle report of the round Xeeron.