Another season is over, and it was full of all things new. Which means you had plenty of room for various interesting strategies, logistics, and CPU optimizing.
In February, the Expansion Rank leader was Hernanduer[25] who set a new world record: 556.6M points per season! It was helped by the fast server ticks, but still an important milestone. But Hernandeur shifted his focus to GCL and lost his Power Rank leadership to AzuraStar[27].
As usual, danny[17] offers us a handy look at ER dynamics to motivate us to improve our parameters:
Currently, players have opened the ¾ of the map generated at this moment. Here is how players’ badges are distributed across the map:
Have a look at how new blood has reinvigorated the map. Usually, beginners have hard time surviving in the center of the map near vetaran players. Well, now you may easily notice that some players spawned in the last season (see map20160212 image, W3N2 and W5N1), namely Regenuluz[7] and avacore[6] not only reached GCL 6 but also used it to the full and now perfectly co-exist in the close proximity of AzuraStar. For example, there is a crossing point in W5N2, while W3S1 is adjacent to “the Pepsiman”.
The novice area W15S5 has been opened and liberated neomatrix[12] who languished there. His total number of rooms (5) makes him the owner not just of this sector but also of the neighboring W15N5 which is also enclosed by 5 rooms. This is also the youngest (by GCL) Page Rank Top member who displays excellent results and keeps progressing with each season.
Have a look at an interesting monotonous scheme of extensions in his rooms. Viewing from the profile, it looks like a caterpillar sits in each room:
In a newly-opened large novice sector E15S15 there are three sure leaders. Skorp[8], eric[6], and fezeral[6] have divided the sector into roughly equal parts after a series of clashes: Skorp ousted eric from the South-East of the sector, while eric transferred a part of his domain to the North and displayed his power on fezeral by completely cleansing his rooms. The latter decided to recover in the same sector and regained control in some of his former rooms.
In the sector W15S25 we must note Zergling[6] who managed to gain complete gain control over a small novice area of 15 rooms.
Dissi[15] keeps practicing his military prowess. He completely destroyed ProbabilityFairy[5] in W7N8 and then crushed half of Rumatah’s[11] rooms. There must have been other attacks too. His thrust against NickDP[3] still lives in our replay memory: screeps.com/s/5fB7eL, screeps.com/s/1G9epa.
The past season may definitely be called the epoch of invaders. Previously in the “Creeps lost” map mode you could see only single incidents, but now the whole map is peppered with casualties. Let’s see how it happens and how players protect themselves:
The emergence of minerals has introduced a major shift into the game. Many players have only recently started mining and collecting them, but some have already mounted serious lab chains working 24/7. For example, W5S17 with Hernanduer or W3S5 with AzuraStar. And Dissi runs terminals with all possible combinations:
In the next review, we will analyze players’ successes in mineral processing and creep boosting. It will also be interesting to watch the general vector of the expansion. Though previously players based their decisions mostly on the arrangement of energy sources, now it makes sense to look for rooms with complete mineral reserves. This can be achieved by harvesting or mutually beneficial exchange with partners.