Round XIV is ready and it has a name!
Thanks to ReligFree who won the name the round competition and will receive a free Planetarion credit for round XIV.

Round XIV - Public Preview and Round XIV - An Empty Throne signups will both open this Thursday 7th July at 20:00 GMT.

The public preview will be at http://beta.planetarion.com and the main round will be at http://game.planetarion.com.

Public Preview ticks will start on Monday 11th July at 23:00 GMT and will have 15 minute ticks with a shuffle at tick 36 - so please do create buddy packs so we can test shuffling with large numbers.

Round XIV - An Empty Throne ticks will start on Wednesday the 20th July at 20:00 GMT. This round will not have a specified length, but it will be between 8 and 10 weeks depending on the political situation, our aim is to be able to fit Round XV in before the winter holiday season.
There will be a shuffle at tick 36 where people will be put into galaxies with their buddy packs etc.

The full changes for round XIV are:

New features:
-Hard coded exception system – players will be able to apply for an exception from the preferences page rather than having to send an email request. The system will limit interaction to allowed levels.
-It is now possible to hide the coordinates in scans using a simple toggle
-Capture The Flag mode added to allow for events

Bug fixes:
-Alliance nickname, planet name and ruler name are all now correctly unique
-New planets can now not start with more research than a free planet can get
-Various fixes for going from a main round into havoc
-Various fixes for going from a beta to a main round
-Various bug fixes in round 13 shuffler to prevent early round exile issues
-When someone leaves an alliance time in vacation or time closed will not count towards the 72 hour period that planets must be allianceless for
-When mailing defenders recall mails it now messages the most logical people - e.g. when you mail eta 6 defenders it mails the eta 6 and the eta 5+1 defenders
-Missions page now more clearly displays the ETA for various missions
-Ticker speedups and optimisations
-ETA bug fixed - all ships should now return from battles with the correct ETA

Minor Improvements:
-Enhancements to multi-hunting tools
-Enhancements to abuse policing tools
-Enhancements to galaxy banner policing tools
-Enhancements to exile tracking
-Enhancements to fleet admin tools
-Fleet scans are now 100% accurate
-Alliances are informed if they have new mail
-HCs are now informed more clearly if they have new applicants
-MoC can now mail the whole galaxy and all MoCs in the cluster
-After the shuffle people will be able to see the coordinates of those in their buddy pack on the preferences screen
-Research restrictions for free planets is now much easier to configure, including the ability to disable the limitations entirely
-Universe rankings screen will show only top 50 galaxies and top 30 alliances; this more accurately reflects the current game and saves some db space
-Covert ops on closed planets are no longer possible
-html output changed on several pages to improve the look of the Opera text-only skin
-Galaxy system changes:
+All minister must now agree for a galaxy to exile a planet
+Only upgraded accounts can be GC or ministers
+Score limits for resource donations from galaxy fund will be biased so that free accounts do not bring down the limit to much.
+The resources from self exile will go into the galaxy fund of the galaxy that the planet is exiling from
+Buddy packs can now have either 2 or 3 members
+Galaxy exile cost formula: value/10 of each resource
+Self exile cost formula: (value/10) * (number of planets in biggest galaxy - number of planets in current galaxy+1) * (number_of_self_exiles_so_far+1) of each resource

One of the big new changes is the exception system. This works as follows:
Instead of emailing multihunter@planetarion.com as in previous rounds; any two (or more) of you who are playing from one location need to goto the 'Preferences' screen and scroll down to the 'Exceptions' section. You should see a notice saying 'You are not currently a member of any exceptions. Click <here> to apply' - click there to apply for an exception! You can apply for exceptions for a short period of time (e.g. one week or even one day), which is especially useful if a friend is coming to your house for a short time, or you can apply for exceptions for the entire round. Joining an exception enforces hard coded interaction limits so that it is harder for people playing from the same IP address to cheat.
It is worth noting that any two (or more) people playing from the same IP address and interacting without an exception once protection ends will be closed without consultation and will have to speak to one of our administrators ASAP to get reopened.
This system will be tested during the public preview and an announcement on its configuration will be made before Round XIV tick start.