Statistics

[NobleHelium]

I would imagine the popwhip ratio should be higher earlier in the game and reduce gradually as the game goes on.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Now that is the stat I really have been wanting.

We are basically the pop leaders despite whipping 3-4 times as much pop away as the non-Germans, who are completely out of this game.

That we have currently grown 25% more total pop than the next closest team, while we also have the best economy and an average to above-average production total demonstrates a far larger lead than the demos suggest, and we are doing quite well in the demos.

[novice]

Well, obviously a team emphasizing mines over whips will have grown less pop than us. Doesn't necessarily mean they're behind in their development - although we have other metrics indicating that they are.

[kjn]

Novice is quite correct. Whipping is only one of many ways of achieving production in Civ, and my values only shows which teams that have emphasised using the whip, which have whipped effectively, and which might have whipped too much.

The old adage about lies, damned lies, and statistics is quite true here. I can produce a lot of data based on my C&D efforts, but the precision or validity or both of it can often be questioned, and it all needs to be interpreted.

[waterbat]

I am also wary of tech rate statistics for another reason: tech trading.

The team emphasizing mines over cottages could find themselves in a very good position with some well executed (read: lopsided) tech trades.

[NobleHelium]

There aren't any tech trades, waterbat.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I think you guys are being a touch silly.

Lets take Univers. We have whipped off 360 base hammers more production than them. Unless you believe that somehow they have averaged 5hpt more than us the entire game (including early turns when everyone had similar numbers), making that up through mines, while simultaneously developing cottages and tech at the same rate as us (basically impossible if working mines), then I don't see how they could even theoretically be keeping pace with us.

Given that we are the best in soldier points of the non-warring teams and have in the upper echelon of cities founded (food hammers created via settlers), the whip stats are pretty damn revealing of crazy strong play so far.

[waterbat]

tech trading is disabled?? i thought that was one of the things that got voted down (along with espionage).

[Gold Ergo Sum]

tech trading is disabled?? i thought that was one of the things that got voted down (along with espionage).

We wouldn't be playing if tech trading was on.

[kjn]

Better whip statistics

I cleaned up the various methods I had for noting down whips, and here is a better table over whipping from each team, though I might still have missed a few more. The three key numbers I managed to compute:

Pop per whip: simply the average amount of pop that is whipped in each use of the whip. Generally, you would want a number slightly more than 2 in the early game.

Popwhip ratio: the amount of pop that has been whipped away divided by the current pop. No idea what a good number here would be, and it would probably be dependant on the map and the stage of the game.

Popwhip sum: the sum of whipped away pop and current pop. This shows the team that has managed to grow the fastest.

Team	Whips	Whipped pop	Pop per whip	Popwhip ratio	Popwhip sum
RB	9	20	2.22	0.8	45
WPC	2	3	1.5	0.19	19
Spanish	4	7	1.75	0.44	23
Apolyton	4	8	2	0.47	25
German	19	30	1.58	2.14	44
CivFr	7	9	1.29	0.33	36
CivPlayers	1	3	3	0.13	26
CFC	5	10	2	0.42	34
Univers	5	5	1	0.18	33

In growth we can see four tiers: first us and the Germans, then CivFr, CFC, and Univers, then CivPlayers, Apolyton, and the Spanish, and last WPC.

The German popwhip ratio here is quite staggering, which also explains their quick growth, it's almost three times ours.

Most whips are small, with 1-pop whips being the most common for most teams. Among the teams with multiple whips, only we, Apolyton, and CFC have a pop per whip value of 2 or higher.