Happy new year everyone! OH has been forced to endure my spam in gchat, but I thought that I might as well write something for the entertainment of possible lurkers. I spent a while today logged in and collected some basic data, I thought that possible topics for a post could be our domestic plans (Golden Ages, tech path), current war situation or macro overview. Personally I always enjoy rankings, regardless how stupid or childish they might be, so in the end I decided to go with that...
And obviously what kind of ranking list would it be if it would not be divided into tiers..
Note that the below list is not my forecast on how the game will actually play out. It's more like a snapshot of the situation or how this game would end if it would be played as Always Peace Space Race to the end - with a twist of geopolitical position impacting the ranks..
Below is the current top 10 based on in-game score. Score, as always, does not really represent players position correctly, so I counted the number of cities for the most relevant competitors (pretty quickly so numbers might be a bit wrong). City count does not give the right idea either, but at least you have two data points in addition to my BS.
![[Image: ScoreT177.PNG?dl=0]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/a6bfp6vfnd07rzm/ScoreT177.PNG?dl=0)
Tier 1: 50 cities club
1. BGN (51 cities)
BGN has been fighting succesfully + dtay's position has weakened dramatically + we have invested in weakening dtay --> BGN leads the game.
We have pretty much equal amount of land with BGN + Our current tech position is even enough + Our economy is GNP-wise a bit stronger, but MFG-wise a bit weaker + We have FIN for late game, BGN's PHI and CRE aren't too overwhelming --> If this would turn into an always peace game, we would have a fair chance to reach space before BGN.
However, BGN's geopolitical position is clearly superior to ours and he must be considered a favourite to win this. We have dtay to our east, pindi and Dreylin are behind, but have still standing armies to our north and of course BGN himself to our west. BGN has access to a handful of weaker civs (Q, wetbandit, Nakor, others) and thus a realistic chance to keep growing and put him into a winning position.
2. OH + FT (50 cities)
In a turn or two we should finally have our continent just for ourselves and currently our economy is strongest in the game (+1330 gpt is ~200 more than BGN creates). However, our position is fragile and as already said, there are no easy ways to get to 70 cities in the near future. I'm somewhat worried that BGN wants to cripple us with Cossacks or Dreylin razes a coastal city for fun, etc., but of course the big question is still how the current dtay-war will play out now that pindi signed peace (dtay has currently less than 10 units on pindi continent so it's pretty disappointing that pindi just did not push him into the sea). Regardless of what happens, our eastern border will always be at least somewhat uncomfortable, but it remains to be seen how big burden this dtay operation in the end is for us. (Not that I would regret it)
Tier 2
Next 3 civs are in not particular order and already the next couple of turns will show, what will be the direction for krovice and dtay.
3.-5. TBS (37 cities)
I don't know if it's geopolitics, land quality or player skill, but somehow all the strongest civs ended up in the southern part of the world. Before this current conflict top 5 civs in score were all from the south (dtay, BGN, us, Krovice, pindicator). However, now it seems that TBS is the winner of the north and probably the only one from there who can still dream about winning this game if starts align correctly. TBS is behind in tech, no Astro, no Chemisty, no RP, but if for example we end up crippling ourselves and BGN and TBS can still conquer couple of weak neighbors: With high tech costs and RBMod known tech bonus there is still enough time to compete for the win.
3.-5. Dtay (30 cities)
Before the current war dtay had a decent tech lead, but I still claimed that we would have a fair chance of beating him into space thanks to FIN trait + more unused potential of our land if neither of us acquires more land. Possibly seeing the situation similary, dtay attacked and was close to getting the valuable hindu shrine and more land from pindicator, but as you know, now it looks like the invasion wasn't succesful. Currently dtay has the same amount of cities on pindi continent as 20 turns ago, his tech lead compared to BGN and us has evaporated due to upgrades + anarchy turn, we have burned 4 of his cities, krovice has captured one and razed two, Colossus is obsolete, etc. At the moment dtay makes a bit less than 1000 gpt per turn when he saves money --> his economy is clearly not the strongest one anymore. Krovice should be able to cut dtay in half next turn, which makes his geopolitical position even more uncomfortable than it was before this war. Dtay is still a force to reckon and if he gets peace from Krovice and goes to full revenge mode against us it will make our life difficult. However, a lot of good things need to happen before he can really compete for the win again. Probably dtay would need to get peace from us and Krovice and absorb that pindicator continent as he tried before, but from his current position that is even more difficult than at the first time. Apart from dtay's super-annoying Krovice border we now have a dominant navy and if dtay clashes with pindi we either punish his western holdings or compete for pindi's land ourselves (assuming BGN does not screw us simultaneously).
3.-5. Krovice (28 cities)
I still don't get how Krovice managed to get so many cities peacefully in the land grabbing phase, but anyways their economy/teching has been compensating for that since the early days. Krovice has an army, which they need to convert into more land as they are behind in tech and their current city production/GNP power isn't enough for the late game. However even if they are succesful in that (let's say dtay screws up badly) I'm not sure if that is still enough if nothing bad happens to BGN or us.
Tier 3 - 25 city lot
Following 3 civs have actually a lot in common. All of them started in north/middle, have a semi-competing amount of land/cities, but are a decent bit behind in tech. These guys can maybe still dream of a win, but they require both great successes in their own play and the top 5 civs to cripple themselves. (we are doing our best to accommodate that..)
6. GermanJoey (26 cities)
GJ started in north and I only have limited info on him. I remember bitching about scooter's hut luck in the early game and forecasted success, but I might be mixing things up.. Anyways, techwise Joey lacks Chemistry and Music+Mil.Trad, but has Astronomy. As said above, he is not thaaat much behind, if he can eat someone with little effort and grow to the next level.
7. Plako (23 cities)
Plako is finally awake and he has topped the 20 city limit and xenu is down to 1 city. However, plako does not have Printing Press, Chemisty and Astro yet so there is probably too much climbing to do.
8. WilliamLP (23 cities)
I don't know WilliamLP's story in this game, but my bet is that it goes something like that: An OK start economically and now he has finally managed to convert it into city captures. Probably all solid, but in a 33-player game solid just isn't quite enough for top spots. William lacks the same techs as plako and also Education+Economics (Free Market).
Tier 4: Rest
From Top 10 players based on in-game score I'm still missing Gavagai and pindicator. I can't remember Gavagai's tech position anymore, but his 17 cities are just too little for keeping up in the late game when techs get more and more expensive. Pindi has gotten his shrine city back, but he is down to just 14 cities. I assume his story will involve teching to Rifling and then turtling and fighting until the bitter end. I doubt there is much more in this game for him, but that's ok as pindicator's succesful defense and counterattack against dtay is already heroic enough for one game. Behind these two there are still couple of civs with >=15 cities (AT, Molach, Ruff), but from position 11-13 it is just a so long way to win that even my wild imagination can't really see that happening. Overall there are still 24 civs alive and only 9 are dead, which is much less than I was imaging. There are couple civs that should only have a small amount of turns left in this game though.
Random comments for OH:
- I love the no. 1 rank in food and land area
BGN has more pop points than us though 
-
for the whip cascade. Lurkers, I often play "captain obvious" and remind OH about minor micro stuff that he most certainly has handled. However, whip overflow trickery is something that I never need to double-check as OH lives for that stuff
- I noticed that we were about to finish a musketman next turn in one of our cities. Even if we still postpone rifling, maybe we just leave it in queue so that it auto-upgrades later to a Rifleman? (+ organize our builds later in other cities so too that we are efficient with cuir->cavalry and musket->rifle upgrades)
- After this turn we have enough money for 6 turns of full research. With oxford coming in we will be making roughly 2700 base beakers per turn with max reseach. If we go the economic route first, we should get Constitution EOT179, Democracy EOT181/182 and Corporation EOT183. Assuming we start our Golden Age RP + Rifling won't take too long either, partly thanks to known-tech bonus, so in ~11 turns we should have the aforementioned 5 techs. Is this somewhat aligned with your timings?
And obviously what kind of ranking list would it be if it would not be divided into tiers..
Note that the below list is not my forecast on how the game will actually play out. It's more like a snapshot of the situation or how this game would end if it would be played as Always Peace Space Race to the end - with a twist of geopolitical position impacting the ranks..Below is the current top 10 based on in-game score. Score, as always, does not really represent players position correctly, so I counted the number of cities for the most relevant competitors (pretty quickly so numbers might be a bit wrong). City count does not give the right idea either, but at least you have two data points in addition to my BS.
Tier 1: 50 cities club
1. BGN (51 cities)
BGN has been fighting succesfully + dtay's position has weakened dramatically + we have invested in weakening dtay --> BGN leads the game.
We have pretty much equal amount of land with BGN + Our current tech position is even enough + Our economy is GNP-wise a bit stronger, but MFG-wise a bit weaker + We have FIN for late game, BGN's PHI and CRE aren't too overwhelming --> If this would turn into an always peace game, we would have a fair chance to reach space before BGN.
However, BGN's geopolitical position is clearly superior to ours and he must be considered a favourite to win this. We have dtay to our east, pindi and Dreylin are behind, but have still standing armies to our north and of course BGN himself to our west. BGN has access to a handful of weaker civs (Q, wetbandit, Nakor, others) and thus a realistic chance to keep growing and put him into a winning position.
2. OH + FT (50 cities)
In a turn or two we should finally have our continent just for ourselves and currently our economy is strongest in the game (+1330 gpt is ~200 more than BGN creates). However, our position is fragile and as already said, there are no easy ways to get to 70 cities in the near future. I'm somewhat worried that BGN wants to cripple us with Cossacks or Dreylin razes a coastal city for fun, etc., but of course the big question is still how the current dtay-war will play out now that pindi signed peace (dtay has currently less than 10 units on pindi continent so it's pretty disappointing that pindi just did not push him into the sea). Regardless of what happens, our eastern border will always be at least somewhat uncomfortable, but it remains to be seen how big burden this dtay operation in the end is for us. (Not that I would regret it)
Tier 2
Next 3 civs are in not particular order and already the next couple of turns will show, what will be the direction for krovice and dtay.
3.-5. TBS (37 cities)
I don't know if it's geopolitics, land quality or player skill, but somehow all the strongest civs ended up in the southern part of the world. Before this current conflict top 5 civs in score were all from the south (dtay, BGN, us, Krovice, pindicator). However, now it seems that TBS is the winner of the north and probably the only one from there who can still dream about winning this game if starts align correctly. TBS is behind in tech, no Astro, no Chemisty, no RP, but if for example we end up crippling ourselves and BGN and TBS can still conquer couple of weak neighbors: With high tech costs and RBMod known tech bonus there is still enough time to compete for the win.
3.-5. Dtay (30 cities)
Before the current war dtay had a decent tech lead, but I still claimed that we would have a fair chance of beating him into space thanks to FIN trait + more unused potential of our land if neither of us acquires more land. Possibly seeing the situation similary, dtay attacked and was close to getting the valuable hindu shrine and more land from pindicator, but as you know, now it looks like the invasion wasn't succesful. Currently dtay has the same amount of cities on pindi continent as 20 turns ago, his tech lead compared to BGN and us has evaporated due to upgrades + anarchy turn, we have burned 4 of his cities, krovice has captured one and razed two, Colossus is obsolete, etc. At the moment dtay makes a bit less than 1000 gpt per turn when he saves money --> his economy is clearly not the strongest one anymore. Krovice should be able to cut dtay in half next turn, which makes his geopolitical position even more uncomfortable than it was before this war. Dtay is still a force to reckon and if he gets peace from Krovice and goes to full revenge mode against us it will make our life difficult. However, a lot of good things need to happen before he can really compete for the win again. Probably dtay would need to get peace from us and Krovice and absorb that pindicator continent as he tried before, but from his current position that is even more difficult than at the first time. Apart from dtay's super-annoying Krovice border we now have a dominant navy and if dtay clashes with pindi we either punish his western holdings or compete for pindi's land ourselves (assuming BGN does not screw us simultaneously).
3.-5. Krovice (28 cities)
I still don't get how Krovice managed to get so many cities peacefully in the land grabbing phase, but anyways their economy/teching has been compensating for that since the early days. Krovice has an army, which they need to convert into more land as they are behind in tech and their current city production/GNP power isn't enough for the late game. However even if they are succesful in that (let's say dtay screws up badly) I'm not sure if that is still enough if nothing bad happens to BGN or us.
Tier 3 - 25 city lot
Following 3 civs have actually a lot in common. All of them started in north/middle, have a semi-competing amount of land/cities, but are a decent bit behind in tech. These guys can maybe still dream of a win, but they require both great successes in their own play and the top 5 civs to cripple themselves. (we are doing our best to accommodate that..)
6. GermanJoey (26 cities)
GJ started in north and I only have limited info on him. I remember bitching about scooter's hut luck in the early game and forecasted success, but I might be mixing things up.. Anyways, techwise Joey lacks Chemistry and Music+Mil.Trad, but has Astronomy. As said above, he is not thaaat much behind, if he can eat someone with little effort and grow to the next level.
7. Plako (23 cities)
Plako is finally awake and he has topped the 20 city limit and xenu is down to 1 city. However, plako does not have Printing Press, Chemisty and Astro yet so there is probably too much climbing to do.
8. WilliamLP (23 cities)
I don't know WilliamLP's story in this game, but my bet is that it goes something like that: An OK start economically and now he has finally managed to convert it into city captures. Probably all solid, but in a 33-player game solid just isn't quite enough for top spots. William lacks the same techs as plako and also Education+Economics (Free Market).
Tier 4: Rest
From Top 10 players based on in-game score I'm still missing Gavagai and pindicator. I can't remember Gavagai's tech position anymore, but his 17 cities are just too little for keeping up in the late game when techs get more and more expensive. Pindi has gotten his shrine city back, but he is down to just 14 cities. I assume his story will involve teching to Rifling and then turtling and fighting until the bitter end. I doubt there is much more in this game for him, but that's ok as pindicator's succesful defense and counterattack against dtay is already heroic enough for one game. Behind these two there are still couple of civs with >=15 cities (AT, Molach, Ruff), but from position 11-13 it is just a so long way to win that even my wild imagination can't really see that happening. Overall there are still 24 civs alive and only 9 are dead, which is much less than I was imaging. There are couple civs that should only have a small amount of turns left in this game though.
Random comments for OH:
- I love the no. 1 rank in food and land area
BGN has more pop points than us though -
for the whip cascade. Lurkers, I often play "captain obvious" and remind OH about minor micro stuff that he most certainly has handled. However, whip overflow trickery is something that I never need to double-check as OH lives for that stuff - I noticed that we were about to finish a musketman next turn in one of our cities. Even if we still postpone rifling, maybe we just leave it in queue so that it auto-upgrades later to a Rifleman? (+ organize our builds later in other cities so too that we are efficient with cuir->cavalry and musket->rifle upgrades)
- After this turn we have enough money for 6 turns of full research. With oxford coming in we will be making roughly 2700 base beakers per turn with max reseach. If we go the economic route first, we should get Constitution EOT179, Democracy EOT181/182 and Corporation EOT183. Assuming we start our Golden Age RP + Rifling won't take too long either, partly thanks to known-tech bonus, so in ~11 turns we should have the aforementioned 5 techs. Is this somewhat aligned with your timings?