I think everyone will agree. The last era (for now?) of Mars 4 had all the excitement of watching grass grow. At least it was over fast.

I realize that diplomacy and negotiations are part of the game, but honestly if it wasn't for the "backstabbing" incident around tick seven or eight hundred this round had all the energy and passion of a eBay auction for used clothes.

POGI won.....

Everyone congratulated them....a lot, but for what I'm not sure. "Negotiation" perhaps? ...as in WAY TO NEGOTIATE POEGEEEeeeeee..eeeeee....eee....ahem. (polite clap)

No doubt they were powerful, running into a POGI sub-alliance member was as rare as a McDonalds franchise. Believe me I know this first hand. My alliance pulled off a brilliant plan that might have captured the last relic for 5 ticks had we had four or five times the forces.....and some divine intervention.

No, this one was a real nail-biter, FERRrrr sure....that is if watching paint dry makes you anxious. Trying to find someone to go to war with was as hard as finding a date at your family reunion (SOOoooo, you're related to POGI how? Hmmmm...2nd sub-alliance twice removed, I think we can battle some....but we probably better just keep it tactical, no telling what would happen if we got serious and got strategic..... Seriously, someone needs to inform all those sub-alliances if you remain loyal to the end....you will lose, I GUARANTEE IT.

I KEEED I KEEED....

I had some fun, but would have really enjoyed a full blown war! The last few days was...well....boring. I was praying to the gods of war for a major betrayal or backstabbing. I had hoped that FRNDs would get "serious this round", or that some sub of sub of sub alliance member of POGI's would get cocky with Chandler or Dax and say something like "POGI KICKED YOUR BUTT...WOOHOOO!!!" But alas it wasn't to be....

It took 700 hours of game play to realize we were in the Twilight Zone, and this was NOT Battle Dawn.....it was Friendly Dawn, or, Negotiation Dawn, or Red Token Dawn, or MIND-NUMBING-BORING-DAWN.....The outcome of this era was fixed better than a professional wrestling match...just a hell of a lot less exciting.

(I keed...I keeeeeeeeed....not)

i laughed a lot at this but you are right it was basically setup that POGI would win, seriously who watches a round then wins??? no one

No, it wasn't set up so that POGI could win. As far as I knew, POGI was here to watch, as much as ExSO. TDT was here to win and FRND...well after several great eras and with Ilona becoming admin, and after the great Elements vs SYN era, M4 has never been the same. Therefore we built there not because we wanted to play but because we loved the server!! And just wanted to watch and relax. Cuz honestly I cant put in the 20 hours per day activity again lol.

TDT made the big mistake of backstabbing us. There has been literally no one, EVER, that has made it to within 3 ticks of our colonies and won. ABI tried it in Age 4. With a superior force and lost. TDT tried it and they lost. Elements tried it and they lost, even with 10 sub alliances. We promised to help TDT win, but for all kinds of silly reasons they backstabbed. It was then that I swore that TDT wont win this round and talked to Phil. He at first was reluctant to attack TDT, but once he understood that TDT backstabbed us and was fractured from within as an alliance, he attacked. He obviously heeded my request not to attack Cinder as per my request, because she showed us respect and didnt join their backstab.

The bad part was that TDT didnt put up a fight. The 7 members that COULD have fought, instantly broke away. So all POGI had to do was go collect crystals and kill individual armies. FRND as promised, handed over the 2 relics we took because we neither had the activity nor the motivation.

All in all, M4 this era was not completely without action. FRND killed about 200 odd TDT squads. They killed about 200 of ours. POGI killed some individual armies. But I have to admit, it was nothing compared to what it was 2 eras ago. That was the greatest era Ive played on BD. A single alliance against a sub-empire!! I doubt I can do that again though. Extremely tiring and you get burnt out.

This is one of the reasons that BD needs to have less eras with more activity, strategy and drama. It is sad that M4 has to be one of the servers to go down, but as many of you said, better close down completely than turning into the Tree channel.

At its best M4 was epic..the era Allen mentioned I built tick 1200 or so and in 1000 ticks I lost my army twice (in fact we all did), moved from 10 ticks to our hive to 10 ticks to WIND hive and back again so many times. In the end had not 7 of them been banned the outcome was still out for grabs. Overall an era that noone could ever complain about.

That being said...BD right now cannot support more than 5-6 really good eras at a time. All of galaxy is a joke and a newb fest, while on the other servers the only ones to keep are E1, E2, E3 and E4, M1 and F1. And maybe a couple of solo servers for no-lifers who hate communication, team play and strategy.

It's great alliances that make eras great...sadly there is fewer and fewer of those around. For many reasons...mainly because life gets in the way and we tire to see a game that could have been great getting worse instead of better, getting outdated and buggier with every update.