[PB58 Spoilers] Sea Monsters and Other Lurking Types

[civac2]

Yeah, though Lib is only really worthwhile if you can get something good with it. Chemistry or so would have been acceptable I suppose.

[Mjmd]

I mean SD has it teched 90% to completion he said, so at this point anyone taking is a quite a hit. AT getting steel is probably his best chance so well played there.

[Charriu]

I find it interesting that some players started investing commerce into espionage for some turns in this PB. I can't remember that this happened that often in previous PBs or did I miss that?

[civac2]

My guess is you just missed it. It seems an obvious play.

[Charriu]

I'm not arguing that it is bad. I just didn't notice this in past PBs here at RB

[civac2]

I did it twice in PB55. The first time is actually fairly cheap once you have reached a certain economical level since for most of the early game people have next to no espionage and that pittance gets spread around to boot.

[pindicator]

Did it way back in pb8 with the immortal Zulu invasion

[Charriu]

I'm wondering if Tarkeel is thinking about Environmentalism with all those windmills already in place. Don't want to ask him directly, because I don't want to influence him.

[Charriu]

Our lovely speedrunners made it to T200. Let's have another look at their numbers. As always all the data can be found here: PB58 Tracking

Before we start some notable observations from the last 50 turns:

• Ruff was eliminated with most of his territory going towards Jowy
  
• Tarkeel started his conquest of AT, who is definitely on his way out of this game
  
• Jowy and Mr. Cairo had an interesting standoff in Ruff-land
  
• Superdeath - in one of his most peaceful games - finally attacked and conquered some islands all around the world
  

General state of the game

First of all the city count:

1. Tarkeel = 36
   
2. Jowy = 29
   
3. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo = 28
   
4. Superdeath = 27
   
5. AT = 9
   
6. Ruff = 0
   

Tarkeel is building up a lead in cities with his recent conquest of AT, but don't forget that most of the cities were just added in the last 10-20 turns. Next up the pop count as of T200.

1. Tarkeel = 289
   
2. Jowy = 236
   
3. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo = 229
   
4. Superdeath = 183
   
5. AT = 52
   
6. Ruff = 0
   

This is a one of the most interesting games in recent years. We had a lot of changes on the top. First it was Serdoa/Mr. Cairo in the lead followed by Jowy and now it looks like Tarkeel is making a mark. I remember that people were complaining that Serdoa was too strong and already had this game. This is a great example why one should not give up too early.

As you know I'm also tracking Gold and Science output in addition to Total Commerce. Gold and Science statistics are still close. This made me suspicious so I investigated my code. It seems that I left something in there for testing and because of that I always track Gold and never Science. I fixed that for future games, but for this game we only have the gold value. Still we can see the power of modifier buildings in regards to Gold.
I opted to post the gold current turn numbers here with the total commerce numbers in parenthesis for comparison. But keep in mind as Serdoa already mentioned with my last report, this is not a totally accurate display of the players economy. Players spend some turns on espionage and these numbers only show what the player earn in the category if they run it 100%, which is not the reality. Still these numbers show what the players economy is capable to do.

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 1130 (754)
   
2. Jowy (ORG) = 1088 (699)
   
3. Tarkeel (ORG) = 809 (676)
   
4. Superdeath = 785 (574)
   
5. AT (FIN) = 398 (320)
   
6. Ruff = 0 (0)
   

We can see that some players (Jowy, Mr. Cairo and Superdeath) are benefitting a lot from gold modifiers and or other sources of additional gold. Mr. Cairo is still in a comfortable position, but others aren't far behind. Mr. Cairo is still carried a lot by his trait FIN as you can see from the total commerce number in parenthesis. Tarkeel has still a lot of potential with modifiers.

Now this is only the income side of the economy and it is good practice to also look at the spending. So here the total Maintenance of the players:

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 531
   
2. Tarkeel (ORG) = 422
   
3. Jowy (ORG) = 407
   
4. Superdeath = 335
   
5. AT (FIN) = 140
   
6. Ruff = 0
   

Here we can see the power of ORG. We know that Tarkeel has 8 cities and 60 pop more then Mr. Cairo, but he's still paying less maintenance then Mr. Cairo.

To get a better grasp of the actual economic potential we now take the delta of our total commerce and maintenance

1. Jowy (ORG) = 292
   
2. Tarkeel (ORG) = 254
   
3. Superdeath = 239
   
4. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 223
   
5. AT (FIN) = 180
   
6. Ruff = 0
   

I have to admit I'm a bit torn of what value more here. These are essentially the gold the players have to pay when they run 0% gold. But when they run 100% gold I do the delta of gold and maintenance, I get these numbers.

1. Jowy (ORG) = 681
   
2. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 599
   
3. Superdeath = 450
   
4. Tarkeel (ORG) = 387
   
5. AT (FIN) = 258
   
6. Ruff = 0
   

I think I will track both values in the future. One thing is certainly true. Jowy's economy is doing the best as he's first in both categories. Mr. Cairo earns more gold, but can only investigate less then the other players. Tarkeel can invest more into research, but has to stabilize his economy.
Still the game is pretty open between the top three players. AT is definitely out and Superdeath has to be careful in the future.
But these are only the current turn numbers. We should also look at the accumulated numbers. Once again these are the accumulated gold numbers with total commerce in parenthesis.

1. Jowy (ORG) = 69563 (56308)
   
2. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 69553 (59622)
   
3. Superdeath = 65374 (52360)
   
4. AT (FIN) = 59308 (54339)
   
5. Tarkeel (ORG) = 55968 (52778)
   
6. Ruff = 15853 (13994)
   

Surprisingly Tarkeel is in the worst position here, but I would guess that this will change in the future as he stabilizes his economy, builds more modifiers buildings etc. Here we can also see that the two FIN leaders earned a lot more raw commerce compared to the other players.

But once again we need to set these numbers into perspective with the maintenance cost:

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 37669
   
2. AT (FIN) = 30390
   
3. Jowy (ORG) = 27903
   
4. Superdeath = 26837
   
5. Tarkeel (ORG) = 24555
   
6. Ruff = 10692
   

No wonder that the ORG leaders are doing well here. But Superdeath numbers are also great. No doubt he has courthouses in play. Once again we take the delta of Total Commerce and maintenance for a full picture:

1. Jowy (ORG) = 28405
   
2. Tarkeel (ORG) = 28223
   
3. Superdeath = 25523
   
4. AT (FIN) = 23949
   
5. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 21953
   
6. Ruff = 3302
   

The maintenance is dragging down Cairo by a lot. But we should not forget how the numbers look if we build the delta between gold and maintenance.

1. Jowy (ORG) = 41660
   
2. Superdeath = 38537
   
3. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 31884
   
4. Tarkeel (ORG) = 31413
   
5. AT (FIN) = 28918
   
6. Ruff = 5161
   

Superdeath looks a lot better in this category. Still Jowy is the leading player so far. Still a very open game.

Financial Bonus

As a disclaimer just as last time, here I collected all the extra commerce a player (would) have gained if he was working Financial tiles. For example if you worked a coast tile you normally gain 2 commerce and 3 commerce with FIN. In this case my tool notes down 1 extra commerce. You will also find that I am tracking the CtH implemenation of Financial as well as the normal BtS implemenation for comparison.

Looking at the current turn numbers first:

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 182
   
2. Jowy (ORG) = 143
   
3. Tarkeel (ORG) = 131
   
4. Superdeath = 95
   
5. AT (FIN) = 39
   
6. Ruff = 0
   

Here the cumulated numbers:

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 13207
   
2. Jowy (ORG) = 11589
   
3. Tarkeel (ORG) = 9559
   
4. AT (FIN) = 9280
   
5. Superdeath = 8813
   
6. Ruff = 2556
   

Mr. Cairo is still playing FIN to its fullest. I think it is fair to say that FIN is the backbone of his economy, which keeps him in the top.

Regular readers know that I also compare these numbers to the BtS implementation. Again the current turn numbers. I've also put the delta between CtH and BtS in parenthesis:

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 203 (21)
   
2. Jowy (ORG) = 146 (3)
   
3. Superdeath = 99 (4)
   
4. Tarkeel (ORG) = 164 (33)
   
5. AT (FIN) = 41 (2)
   
6. Ruff = 0 (0)
   

There's still some potential for extra commerce in Mr. Cairo's economy, but I would need to have a closer look. Now one would also assume that Tarkeel has more potential for extra commerce, but this is misleading. Due to Tarkeel's Serfdom economy with windmills and farms, he has a lot of 2 commerce tiles, which would get extra commerce under BtS but not with CtH.

Let's turn to the accumulated numbers now. Again these are the BtS numbers with the difference towards CtH in parenthesis and the effectivness of my nerf in percent.

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 15399 (2192) -14%
   
2. Jowy (ORG) = 12818 (1229) -10%
   
3. Tarkeel (ORG) = 11006 (1447) -13%
   
4. AT (FIN) = 10640 (1360) -13%
   
5. Superdeath = 10071 (1258) -12%
   
6. Ruff = 3026 (470) -15%
   

We see that the overall reduction is around 10%-14% for the relevant players. These are the lowest reduction numbers I've seen so far in any PB. I think this is due to the long peaceful development phase of this PB.

Now you might remember that I also tracked my new 2.0 implementation. This bonus is essentially the same, but you need to build a lighthouse to unlock it for the cities water tiles. Now of course because this isn't implemented here the players have less incentive to build a lighthouse for this bonus. But I think these numbers can still help to evaluate the extreme cases of this implementation. If it is in place, we do expect the players to go for lighthouses sooner. Let's look at the current turn numbers with the numbers of the current implementation in parenthesis.

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 179 (182)
   
2. Jowy (ORG) = 143 (143)
   
3. Tarkeel (ORG) = 130 (131)
   
4. Superdeath = 95 (95)
   
5. AT (FIN) = 37 (39)
   
6. Ruff = 0 (0)
   

We now can see that there is almost no difference between the different implementations, which is intended. To get a better grasp of the impact we have to look at the accumulated numbers. You will once again find the delta between BtS and the lighthouse nerf in parenthesis followed by the reduction in percentage compared to BtS:

1. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 11994 (3405) -22%
   
2. Jowy (ORG) = 11402 (1416) -11%
   
3. Tarkeel (ORG) = 9249 (1757) -16%
   
4. AT (FIN) = 8590 (2050) -19%
   
5. Superdeath = 8451 (1620) -16%
   
6. Ruff = 2045 (981) -32%
   

So if we only look at the four relevant players we have a reduction between 11% - 22%. Now keep in mind that only Jowy and Tarkeel have stronger incentives to build lighthouses earlier, so I deem their 11% and 16% a little more realistic then the others. Keep in mind that all these numbers are virtuell as this implementation is not in place here. But we can at least assume that nobody would do worse then the numbers above if it would be in place.

Protective Bonus

Nobody took PRO in this game, but that shouldn't be a reason not to track it. Here are the current turn numbers:

1. Tarkeel (ORG) = 104
   
2. Superdeath = 87
   
3. Jowy (ORG) = 76
   
4. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 67
   
5. AT (FIN) = 10
   
6. Ruff = 0
   

If you look back at the numbers from T150 you will notice that they improved by a lot. This mainly due to more wars between multiple players and due to the new and shiny civic Mercantilism, which naturally boost these numbers. Like last time keep in mind that Tarkeel has the Great Lighthouse.

Let's go to the accumulated numbers for a better view:

1. Tarkeel (ORG) = 5419
   
2. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 4868
   
3. Jowy (ORG) = 3968
   
4. Superdeath = 2981
   
5. AT (FIN) = 2932
   
6. Ruff = 414
   

Now I mentioned in the T100 report that I also tracked the new implementation of 100% trade yield here and we now see some significant difference between 75% and 100% trade yield. First the current numbers of 100% trade yield with the delta in parenthesis:

1. Tarkeel (ORG) = 124 (20)
   
2. Superdeath = 101 (14)
   
3. Jowy (ORG) = 87 (11)
   
4. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 72 (5)
   
5. AT (FIN) = 11 (1)
   
6. Ruff = 0
   

As you can see the extra 25% trade yield improves PRO's performance in the late game, which was one intended effect of increasing the trade yield value. For a better overview let's look at the accumulated numbers with the delta between 75% and 100% in parenthesis

1. Tarkeel (ORG) = 5715 (296)
   
2. Serdoa/Mr. Cairo (FIN) = 5139 (271)
   
3. Jowy (ORG) = 4357 (389)
   
4. Superdeath = 3600 (619)
   
5. AT (FIN) = 3181 (249)
   
6. Ruff = 414 (0)
   

Overall I'm quite pleased with the small buff to the late PRO game. I think the 100% was a step in the right direction.
Misc

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

• AGG is still not generating a lot of money compared to the other traits (highest is 28 per turn for Tarkeel). Now this is to be expected with this peaceful development
  
• Tarkeel is the sole user of Serfdom. It no doubt improved his numbers in regards to commerce. But it's harder to track by how much, because he swapped into it while in a golden age and of course at the same time he might have swapped a lot of worked tiles. His overview in his thread is more revealing then my numbers here.
  
• Superdeath and Mr. Cairo used Caste System for some time (19 and 10 turns respectively)
  
• Surprisingly the barbarians are in Caste System since T159. I'm sure it will help them achieve a victory here.
  

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:




Not that much can be said about the traits that we didn't already know from past PBs

1. The old order of FIN>ORG>PRO>>AGG still holds true. For this you have to look at the cumulated numbers
   
2. If you look at the current turn numbers, you can see that PRO is making a comeback.
   
3. For one player PRO is as good as ORG (Tarkeel)
   
4. AGG is doing poorly in a peaceful game like this.
   
5. Even with the lighthouse nerf FIN is doing better then ORG.
   

[Mjmd]

Finally got around to reading all the numbers and I love them.

This is a very good game with multiple people having a chance. Poor SD I think thought he could just take a couple cities form Jowy, got cocky with early success and kept going. I think he should have tried peacing out after taking initial 2 cities and trying to vulture more of AT. He obviously couldn't know what Cairo would do, but Cairo choose to take the easy pickings in weakened AT, which I don't blame him for.