[PB63] Lurking the night away

[El Grillo]

I guess SD forgot the usual rider of "also, you declare war on everybody else" to prevent this kind of misunderstanding Alas, it might be just as rough for Jack this way, I certainly would not feel great loading the game to see three simultaneous war declarations. It's not out of the question that he could get one or more peace treaties and this all blows over, since SD doesn't sound like he wants to fight 10 ~turns before he was ready to, who knows what Bing would do if Jack offered him peace and gold, and Cornflakes surely would prefer to consolidate the Ottoman gains, but that would require Jack to initiate the offers, and if his morale has taken a big hit he might just feel consigned to his fate and hunker down instead.

EDIT: Wait, am I reading this right that Bing paid both SD and Cornflakes 150 gold each as a result of misunderstanding SD's request? That's fantastic.

[Amicalola]

I'm glad Superdeath is actually committing to damaging Cornflakes - someone has to, if this game isn't going to become a stomp. Hoping that Ginger at least joins in, as so far he seems to be building despite that being a losing proposition (and knowing(?) that it is a losing proposition). Which is frustrating to watch, given that Ginger is probably 2nd place (or at least very close with SD, but I like Ginger's spot better with the AP and soon Sankore/Spiral). Do something Ginger!

[Amicalola]

Perhaps I spoke too soon. I underestimated SD's capacity for reckless damage.

[Charriu]

T150

It's T150 and credit were credit is due. They made it here without any reloads in the last 50 turns. So let's dive into the report. As always all the data can be found here: PB63 Tracking

Before we start some notable observations:

• We saw quite a bit more action. Most notably Cornflakes turned his early tech advantage into knights and swallowed Fabled whole.
  
• We saw the attempt to kill off JackRB which was prevented by diplomacy (JackRB gifting cities and Bing accepting the war declaration from Superdeath)
  
• Then there was the beautiful defense by Mjmd in a 1v2 vs Bing and Ginger.
  
• In the last turns we saw the start of a campaign against Cornflakes by Superdeath and Mjmd
  
• Oh and Mr. Cairo is also in this game. I was honestly surprised to find his name in the tracking tool as I have totally forgotten about him. Sorry Mr. Cairo
  
• More wonders were built most of them by Ginger (T105 Mausoleum, T128 Temple of Artemis, T137 Apostolic Palace, T149 Sankore) but crucially the others also did get some like Mjmd (T101 Hanging Gardens, T143 Parthenon), Cornflakes (T143 Great Library) and most importantly Superdeath with Chichen Itza at T138.
  

General state of the game

First of all the city count

1. Superdeath (IMP) = 19
   
2. Ginger = 16
   
3. Mjmd = 16
   
4. Cornflakes = 14
   
5. Mr Cairo = 12
   
6. Bing = 11
   
7. JackRB (IMP) = 10
   
8. Fabled = 0
   
9. pindicator = 0
   

And here are the current amount of pop across those empires at the T150 mark:

1. Ginger = 134
   
2. Superdeath (IMP) = 126
   
3. Mjmd = 125
   
4. Mr Cairo = 93
   
5. Bing = 87
   
6. Cornflakes = 72
   
7. JackRB (IMP) = 68
   
8. Fabled = 0
   
9. pindicator = 0
   

For a moment it looked like Cornflakes would secure himself a position in the top ranking, but the recent attack has thrown him back into the middle of the pack. What we can see is that we have a group of 3 players making up the top 3. We will see if that hold true with the following numbers.

I'm also tracking the actual gold and science output of the players. But some additional info is needed. Like in previous PBs the gold number does not include maintenance cost of any kind and the science output does not include KTB and prereq bonuses from other techs. Reason is that I want to compare these numbers to the commerce output to see the effect of modifier buildings and in case of science I want to be able to compare the science output between players and KTB and prereq bonus are a distraction in this case. Both numbers do include extra gold/science from specialists, modifier buildings and other stuff I haven't mentioned so far. These actual numbers are most interesting when we add up all the numbers of each turn. For the current turn and the players potential income the virtual numbers are still more useful. These virtual numbers were my previous tracking and they treated the slider as always being on 100% gold or science. At first I want to look at the current turn numbers of the virtual gold income (all players running 100% gold):

1. Mjmd (ORG) = 523
   
2. Ginger = 386
   
3. JackRB (FIN) = 340
   
4. Bing (ORG) = 337
   
5. Cornflakes (AGG) = 335
   
6. Superdeath = 325
   
7. Mr Cairo = 299
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 0
   
9. pindicator = 0
   

All players are fairly close together by these numbers, which is surprising to see. Now of course Mjmd is an exception with a sizable lead in gold. That lead is mostly due to high commerce numbers (487). I predict with all of his coastal cities that that commerce comes from the Colossus.
Of course things get more interesting if we take maintenance into account. FYI info this is the sum of all maintenance factors (city, unit, supply and civic).

1. Bing (ORG) = 140
   
2. JackRB (FIN) = 157
   
3. Cornflakes (AGG) = 203
   
4. Mr Cairo = 227
   
5. Mjmd (ORG) = 228
   
6. Superdeath = 247
   
7. Ginger = 260
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 0
   
9. pindicator = 0
   

We once again see the wonder of ORG when we compare Mjmd (16 cities) with Mr. Cairo (12 cities). All other numbers between those two are fairly equal. Now Mjmd is paying a hefty 101 in city maintenance which mostly is due to recent conquests. Also notably is that Ginger is paying the most in civic maintenance with 121 followed by Superdeath (85) and Cornflakes (66)
With the maintenance at hand we can now include that into the gold income to see how much gold everybody could make this turn:

1. Mjmd (ORG) = 295
   
2. Bing (ORG) = 197
   
3. JackRB (FIN) = 183
   
4. Cornflakes (AGG) = 132
   
5. Ginger = 126
   
6. Superdeath = 78
   
7. Mr Cairo = 72
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 0
   
9. pindicator = 0
   

Jack and Bing's small empires might be an opportunity for them to get some crucial techs. Of course the dominant player here is Mjmd. We already knew that his commerce income his huge. But as we will soon learn this is not the whole picture. Ginger is running a specialist economy with PHI. Because of that let's look at the virtual science numbers to see how much science those players can produce.

1. Ginger = 690
   
2. Mjmd (ORG) = 585
   
3. Superdeath = 397
   
4. Cornflakes (AGG) = 380
   
5. Mr Cairo = 355
   
6. JackRB (FIN) = 354
   
7. Bing (ORG) = 303
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 0
   
9. pindicator = 0
   

As you can see Ginger has a way better beaker output then the rest although Mjmds also isn't too shabby. But don't forget that Ginger also produces science when he is running 100% gold. Right now that is 204. I have to say I am very glad that we finally have a good showing of PHI and a specialist economy. Lastly I am a bit concerned about Superdeath. He might be a contender by size, but in all other numbers he looks more like a player in the midfield.
Now let's see how good the player did across the whole span of 150 turns. For this we look at the accumulated actual science numbers, which I already have described above:

1. Ginger = 13110
   
2. Cornflakes (AGG) = 10481
   
3. Superdeath = 8723
   
4. Mjmd (ORG) = 8461
   
5. JackRB (FIN) = 7858
   
6. Bing (ORG) = 7857
   
7. Mr Cairo = 6245
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 3942
   
9. pindicator = 485
   

Ginger built up a good tech advantage according to these numbers. Keep in mind that Cornflakes trumped everybody else last time in this section and has stagnated on science for a good moment now. The big question is will Mjmd be able to take advantage of his better commerce numbers in the following turns.
But what exactly did the players do with all those beakers. Well fear not here it is:




As you can see Ginger also has a sizeable amount of techs compared to the others. Fun fact Jack researched Mysticism in T144 after such stuff like Engineering and Civil Service.

Production

Now next I want to turn to my new production tracking, but before that I have to explain in more detail how I collected this info for this PB. With this tracking I iterated through every city and added up all the hammers being produced this turn including forest chops and whips. It does include extra hammers from whipping, chopping and of course overflow. The only thing it is missing right now is hammers put into building wealth or science directly. I've also split the tracking into two categories Production and TotalProduction. Both work the same way but the important difference is that TotalProduction includes modifiers from buildings (forge, factory) and traits (All traits who have production bonuses). Now it's a bit sad that I can't divide it into more detail, but you can imagine that it will be very difficult for example to differentiate which extra hammer came from a forge and which from EXP granaries. Here are the accumulated total production numbers across 150 turns with the non-modified production numbers in parenthesis:

1. Ginger = 17380 (14620)
   
2. Mjmd = 15564 (13674)
   
3. Superdeath (IND) = 14379 (12069)
   
4. Cornflakes = 13597 (11568)
   
5. Bing = 11377 (9668)
   
6. JackRB = 11297 (10241)
   
7. Mr Cairo = 10117 (8936)
   
8. Fabled = 6906 (6105)
   
9. pindicator = 324 (324)
   

As of this turn I won't be able to distribute these numbers to specific traits, resources or the forge bonus. Still I think it is interesting to see how these numbers turned out. Take JackRB as an example. He is FIN and IMP therefore only has the settler production bonus. We know that he had 12 cities at T100 and since then has only built 1 settler. I also doubt that he made any serious attempts at wonders. Therefore I'm willing to contribute almost all of the hammers he gained through modifiers in the last 50 turns to the forge bonus. He has Metal Casting since T112. Let's be nice and say he manages to finish the first forge in T115. That means in 35 turns the forges gave him around 839 extra production. That's why I think getting those forges up is especially important for an IND player not only because they are cheaper, but rather because you get that 25% bonus some 20 turns earlier compared to other players.
Now Superdeath wasn't especially early to Metal Casting, but still he managed to gain 2131 extra production in the last 50 turns. The only player who gained more was Ginger with 2478 in that time span and we know that he constructed wonders most likely with modifiers. So forget about the world wonder bonus (mostly) when you play IND and concentrate on those forges.

Financial Bonus

Last time this statistic was boring, but no more. But first I have to explain how this works for the new players.

Here I collected all the extra commerce a player (would) have gained if he was working Financial tiles. For example if you worked a river hamlet tile you normally gain 3 commerce and 4 commerce with FIN. In this case my tool notes down 1 extra commerce. This commerce is then multiplied with the corresponding gold modifier to make all economic traits more comparable with each other. Do not that the gold modifier calculation is not perfect right now and most likely higher then it should be. Luckily nobody has shrine income yet, which distorts the modifier calculation in a bigger way. You will also find that I am tracking the CtH implemenation of Financial as well as the normal BtS implementation for comparison. Keep in mind that we are playing with the newest FIN nerf, which was that water tiles only give extra commerce with a lighthouse present.
With all of that out of the way, let's look at the current turn numbers first:

1. Mjmd (ORG) = 104
   
2. Ginger = 100
   
3. Superdeath = 72
   
4. JackRB (FIN) = 69
   
5. Mr Cairo = 69
   
6. Bing (ORG) = 66
   
7. Cornflakes (AGG) = 50
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 30
   

We usually expect FIN players to do better in this category, because they have the real incentive to work 3 commerce tiles.

Here are the accumulated numbers:

1. Ginger = 4284
   
2. Mjmd (ORG) = 3961
   
3. Cornflakes (AGG) = 2645
   
4. JackRB (FIN) = 2603
   
5. Superdeath = 2583
   
6. Mr Cairo = 2378
   
7. Bing (ORG) = 2219
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 1724
   

We see that Ginger and Mjmd have developed their economies a lot further then the rest. Of course Cornflakes is plagued by a recent attack and before that the integration of Fabled-land.

Some players may ask themself, how much would the players have made without the lighthouse-FIN-nerf. For this it is worth looking at the numbers from the previous FIN version, which did apply extra commerce for land tiles at 3 and water tiles at 2. Here the accumulated numbers with the lighthouse variant in parenthesis for comparison:

1. Ginger = 4766 (4284)
   
2. Mjmd (ORG) = 4203 (3961)
   
3. Cornflakes (AGG) = 2963 (2645)
   
4. JackRB (FIN) = 3174 (2603)
   
5. Superdeath = 2810 (2583)
   
6. Mr Cairo = 2736 (2378)
   
7. Bing (ORG) = 2412 (2219)
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 1868 (1724)
   

Even though this is a map with less focus on water the players managed to run some more water tiles.

Lastly how sever is the recent nerf at the moment. Here the comparison for this lighthouse implementation compared to BtS (delta, reduction in percent):

1. Ginger = 1691 (-28.30%)
   
2. JackRB (FIN) = 1228 (-32.05%)
   
3. Mr Cairo = 1213 (-33.78%)
   
4. Mjmd (ORG) = 1102 (-21.77%)
   
5. Superdeath = 979 (-27.48%)
   
6. Bing (ORG) = 985 (-30.74%)
   
7. Cornflakes (AGG) = 984 (-27.11%)
   
8. Fabled (ORG) = 553 (-24.29%)
   

We are now looking at a more reasonable reduction of around 27%-33% with notable exception Mjmd 21%

Protective Bonus

This is somewhat interesting even though nobody is PRO, so let's look into the accumulated numbers

1. Ginger = 1348
   
2. Mjmd (ORG) = 1167
   
3. Cornflakes (AGG) = 886
   
4. Bing (ORG) = 623
   
5. JackRB (FIN) = 453
   
6. Mr Cairo = 356
   
7. Fabled (ORG) = 344
   
8. Superdeath = 151
   
9. pindicator = 0
   

We are right around that point in the game when domestic trade routes have a comeback. A lot of conflict bombed almost all foreign trade for JackRB, Cornflakes and Mjmd and Ginger is running Mercantilism since 4 turns (which cost him around 30 commerce in trade per turn). I find it very interesting to see Superdeath so low, which means he got a lot of foreign trade across the whole game, but this may change in the upcoming turns due to his conflict with Cornflakes.

Civics

Government:

Of course Ginger is still running Representation thanks to pyramids with a 7 turn break into Police state. Mjmd and Mr. Cairo are running Hereditary Rule since T125 and T126. The rest of the bunch are happy little despots.

Legal:
Mjmd is running Vassalge since T125. Cornflakes is running Bureaucracy exclusively since T101 and Ginger joined him in T132. The rest of the players are barbarians.

Labor:
Everybody is a slave holder except for Ginger who run Caste System for 10 turns and serfdom for 5 turns.

Economy:
Ginger is running Mercantilism since T147. That's it.

Religion:
Cornflakes is organizing religion since T101 and Mr. Cairo joined him in T126 and Ginger in T127. Mjmd made the late switch to Organized Religion in T145. The rest are pagans.

Misc

I'm tracking a lot more but there is not enough information there to justify an own paragraph. Therefore a little summary here:

• Ginger has produced 5 great persons in the last 50 turns. Next best are Mjmd (3) and Cornflakes (2 + 1 from Music)
  

Comparing traits

The main goal of all this tracking of course is to compare the economic traits related around commerce income or maintenance reduction. So let's do this:




As you can see I changed the layout a little bit again in preparation for the new production tracking. I already color coded the 4 economic traits so that you easily see, who uses which trait. Except for FIN every trait has a hammer bonus so I included all of them. But I'm still disappointed in how this looks. I like how the 4 economics traits have light colors that are easy to distinguish. But with 7 more traits I'm running out of these colors. If anybody has a better idea how to do this I'm all ears.

Keep in mind that I am now factoring in the gold modifier for FIN and PRO. AGG and ORG are also modified by the added inflation they prevented.
As you can see FIN is now doing better then ORG across the board. But for the most part not in an extreme way. Most notably though is that AGG has secured a pretty stable 3rd place in the ranking. People are running some bigger armies as I can see by the unit maintenance. The lowest is 29 by Ginger.

Stay tuned for the T200 report.

[naufragar]

Quite little lurker activity for a game at threat of world war.

I wonder if Mjmd would be able to buy Cairo off at the price of his island? I'm just an outsider looking in, but it seems like Ginger has this sewn up if Mjmd doesn't save Cornflakes, and the loss of the island might be the price of saving the game. On the other hand, I appreciate the doctrine of never giving up territory, so idk.

[Tarkeel]

Ginger definitely looks to be in the best position right now, with SD and Mjmd (pre-Cairo invasion) slightly behind. I guess it will depend on whether 1) Mjmd can stave off Cairo to intervene in Ginger-CF war, 2) Superdeath can digest Jack, 3) Ginger can avoid a second front in his war.

[Amicalola]

I really struggle to understand Cairo's thought process here. At least in the first attack, Mjmd was nominally 'winning.' Here it just seems bizarre, amd throwing the game to Ginger. I'd be completely furious if I was Mjmd here, I think he's handling it impossibly well from a personal level.

I think the game looks like a total lock for Ginger, as a result of that invasion. It reminds me a lot of SD's attack on Jowy in PB58, which I also argue sealed the game for us there. I might be wrong, but it doesn't look like Cornflakes is putting up a stiff defense. I hope I'm wrong, that would be a sad way for an interesting game to end.

[Mousey]

I really struggle to understand Cairo's thought process here. At least in the first attack, Mjmd was nominally 'winning.' Here it just seems bizarre, amd throwing the game to Ginger. I'd be completely furious if I was Mjmd here, I think he's handling it impossibly well from a personal level.

I think the game looks like a total lock for Ginger, as a result of that invasion. It reminds me a lot of SD's attack on Jowy in PB58, which I also argue sealed the game for us there. I might be wrong, but it doesn't look like Cornflakes is putting up a stiff defense. I hope I'm wrong, that would be a sad way for an interesting game to end.

It doesn't even have much justification as a war of revenge/spite. Cairo started their only previous war and the worst he suffered was wasting his own units and getting some fishing boats pillaged?
Shame we aren't hearing much in his thread about why he's making this decision.

[Tarkeel]

It's clear I've got the driver's seat in this game, but I'm not sure how to close it. I'm thinking of launching Cavalry raids against SD's mainland through my OB with Bing or Mjmd. Passive option would be to conserve my troops and just stack up to prevent Mjmd from invading (I have Sistine one turn from completion ready to pull the trigger whenever I no longer care about upsetting Mjmd, but for the moment, friendship is valuable). BING actually voted for religious victory lol, which I guess means he's on my side? Fingers crossed. The problem with consolidating Cornflake's holdings is the dormant culture, I'll be unable to eliminate cornflakes without a lot of effort and probably Astro or Ironclads, as Superdeath is massing Caravels. Plus it's very open to invasion from China and Mjmd has his own cities there which would be crushed by my Sistine Culture. The only threats to reach Rifles before the heat-death of this game are Mjmd and Bing, which leads me to hypothesize that maybe kneecapping Mjmd would be the way to go to trigger a concession. But I'm loathe to do that. Full on wars in other's heartland is a real commitment, it's like marriage—"till death do us part", and it seems that Mjmd is the kind of player to try and maximize his chance of winning. If he gets peace from me, he might not gear for a war he'll lose just to hurt me like some other players will. Safer choice would probably be to stockpile gold, complete Oxford, and then race for Assembly Line to draft Infantry.

I think this post warrants some discussion, what is the best way to pilot this position into a win? My gut feeling is that you'd want to force your opponents into over-protecting, with a combination of roving marauder cavalry and amphibious threats. There's a lot of cities threatened from the sea here.

It's hard to tell from the screenshots, but I think most of the fighting between SD and Ginger is in Cornflakes' land, and I think it would be possible for Ginger to open a new front over the sea in the other direction.

[Tarkeel]

My first instinct is to agree with Mjmd (for once!): I'm not sure this request should be granted.