[ComradeRob]

Originally Posted by Scorpio

please add xVx to that

And LCH, Insomnia, TGV... where do we stop? I've deliberately tried to focus on the big four alliances since those are the only ones whose decisions are likely to shape the course of the round. The other alliances (no disrespect to them) are unlikely to change the course of the round by their decisions. For every minor alliance you can quote as being on one side, someone else will quote another as being on the other side.

Originally Posted by The_Fish

Seems Angels have set their intentions alongside 1up though, showing hostility to ND.

That's one way of looking at it. According to this view, ND were only hitting Angels because Angels had hit ND. The fact that this coincided with eX hitting Angels was apparently entirely coincidental, and implies no agreement between eX and ND.

Why, then, does a coincidence in 1up and Angels targetting imply that they must be cooperating?

I'm not saying that they aren't cooperating. I honestly don't know, but I'm not sure that it's a safe assumption to make. It seems to me that, since ND are assuming that there's cooperation between 1up and Angels, and Angels are assuming that there's cooperation between ND and eX, both alliances are going to make the other's assumptions come true even if they weren't true when they were initially made. Both sides can now begin formal cooperation with their assumed partners, on the justification that "we're going to be attacked because people think we're cooperating, so we will have to cooperate in order to survive".

Originally Posted by Heartless

It is fairly obvious, especially from last night, that ND is - like last round - unable to handle a night with the amount of incoming Angels, eXilition and 1up have been facing this round several times already.

I don't think that's entirely fair to ND. They lost less than Angels lost recently, and no alliance - even eXilition - has escaped roid loss this round. ND were always going to lose roids last night, and I don't think that they can be judged on the basis of a single night's performance against several enemies.

Originally Posted by Heartless

Assuming you just wanted to try to ride on the wave, you did it poorly. You should have spread your targetting across several alliances and thus try to stay out of the ongoing war for some more time - but you chose different.

If they did that, people would accuse them of fence-sitting

I'm not sure any of us can say what ND's strategy should be, or what 1up's strategy should be either. That's a decision for the HCs of the alliance to take. It's easy to criticise an alliance from the outside, and it's easy to forget how difficult the job of a HC is. Making big decisions with limited information is always hard, and nobody gets it right 100% of the time. In fact, I don't think ND's strategy has been a bad one so far. They're in 3rd place, with a better average and total roid count than Angels (who are 2nd). The #1 alliance is eXilition, and it's reasonable to assume that they, having now taken the lead on both score and roids, will be the focus of attention in the coming days. ND's position is pretty good, when those things are taken into consideration.