[PB65 LURKERS] We lurk in single-file to hide our numbers

[Amicalola]

I think this game looks to have quite high potential. I also think it has quite a high potential for Mjmd to self-destruct, and destroy another contender, over some 'incorrect' borders. I wonder who the winner of Mjmd lucky dip will be.

(or perhaps I am being too harsh. I hope so. This game does have high potential)

[Ginger()]

You mean the very egregious CF pink dot of Money? Yeah I could see Mjmd seeing that as "incorrect". I certainly would. But Creative Madrassas are nuts and seems to have solved that matter before Guilds unlocks economically viable two movers (HA are so expensive for their mortality rate). I looks like the city will even claim it's third ring.

I think Mjmd's problem here is that he doesn't have a macro goal.

As for high potential, it already looks like a 3-horse race

I feel bad counting out SD with the very powerful late game that awaits him, but I think that "the spoils" in Bing and SaC won't require the comparative advantage of Phracts to crack open, so it'll become a race of who from Mjmd/Pindi/Cornflakes can get away with the most. Also SD's F/H situation looks starved

[Amicalola]

You mean the very egregious CF pink dot of Money? Yeah I could see Mjmd seeing that as "incorrect". I certainly would. But Creative Madrassas are nuts and seems to have solved that matter before Guilds unlocks economically viable two movers (HA are so expensive for their mortality rate). I looks like the city will even claim it's third ring.

I think Mjmd's problem here is that he doesn't have a macro goal.

As for high potential, it already looks like a 3-horse race

I feel bad counting out SD with the very powerful late game that awaits him, but I think that "the spoils" in Bing and SaC won't require the comparative advantage of Phracts to crack open, so it'll become a race of who from Mjmd/Pindi/Cornflakes can get away with the most. Also SD's F/H situation looks starved

Three horse races can have high potential! I was very impressed by HAs in PB64, fwiw (Gav's, not my own ).

I would agree that SD is a dark horse at best, and probably too far behind to matter. Maybe if there's some kind of three-way war, though.

[Ginger()]

Cornflakes's reasoning is impeccable, if he was going to be the one to face the cataphracts down the line.
There's always these openings to be aggressive early, (Cornflakes mentioned that he was imitating Gavagai) and with a surprise offensive you can make substantial gains, but you're inevitably lightning rodding. Whenever SD does put together a real military, 9:1 that'll be the first place he ends up looking.

I think what makes this move excusable though for Cornflakes is 1) he got it very cheaply, and 2) Pericles of Arabia is hilarious. +6cpt is insane to deal with and establishes some very pretty defensive frontlines

[Tarkeel]

There's also a pretty decent chance that Cornflakes would have been the first place visited by the Cataphracts.

Also, SD's reasoning is hilarious; when picking Byzantium you are painting a big picture on your back, begging someone to stop you before Guilds.

[Charriu]

T100
I have to be honest I was caught by surprise that this PB hit T100, so sorry for everybody, who was waiting for the report. So let's dive into the report. As always all the data can be found here: PB65 Tracking

Before we start some notable observations. I have to be honest though, I have stopped watching this PB closely during these 50s turns. Let's see what I can guess from my data alone:

• We finally saw major conflicts.
  
• Cornflakes is digesting sucksatciv at a slower pace
  
• Mjmd also halted Bing in his progress
  
• pindicator and Cornflakes were in a race for Pyramids, which Cornflakes won in T77, pindicator then went on to build Oracle in T86. Meanwhile Mjmd finished The Great Lighthouse in T82 and Superdeath build the buddhist shrine in T89
  
• Important for all the current turn numbers presented. Keep in mind that pindicator is in a golden age around T100.
  

Since this PB is running CtH 3.0, we got some new data points. By now I've explained all data points here: data points explanation

General state of the game
City count

1. Mjmd = 12
   
2. Pindicator (IMP) = 10
   
3. Cornflakes = 10
   
4. Bing = 8
   
5. Superdeath = 8
   
6. sucksatciv = 7
   

Population

1. Pindicator (IMP) = 54
   
2. Cornflakes = 54
   
3. Mjmd = 49
   
4. Superdeath = 34
   
5. Bing = 27
   
6. sucksatciv = 26
   

I think somebody already mentioned that this is a 3-way-race now. It's true that pindicator, Cornflakes and Mjmd are leading and Bing and sucksatciv are out of the game. But from the numbers alone Superdeath doesn't look totally out yet.

Current turn Gold at 100%

1. Pindicator (PRO) = 167
   
2. Mjmd (PRO) = 128
   
3. Cornflakes = 121
   
4. Superdeath (FIN, ORG) = 89
   
5. Bing (FIN, PRO) = 83
   
6. sucksatciv (ORG) = 65
   

As I said above pindicator is in a golden age, which explains his higher number. Overall we see a similar picture like from the cities and pop count.

Current turn total maintenance

1. sucksatciv (ORG) = 59
   
2. Superdeath (FIN, ORG) = 60
   
3. Bing (FIN, PRO) = 76
   
4. Pindicator (PRO) = 117
   
5. Mjmd (PRO) = 118
   
6. Cornflakes = 123
   

Superdeath is enjoying the benefits from ORG. For comparison Bing has the same number of cities and pop (roughly). But Superdeath has to be cautious. He's paying the lowest unit maintenance and therefore has the smallest army of them all. Oh and by the way the biggest unit maintenance is payed by sucksatciv with 1 more then their mortal enemy Cornflakes.

Current turn maintenance-gold delta

1. Pindicator (PRO) = 50
   
2. Superdeath (FIN, ORG) = 29
   
3. Mjmd (PRO) = 10
   
4. Bing (FIN, PRO) = 7
   
5. sucksatciv (ORG) = 6
   
6. Cornflakes = -2
   

Accumulated actual science

1. Cornflakes = 1542
   
2. Superdeath (FIN, ORG) = 1174
   
3. Pindicator (PRO) = 1114
   
4. Mjmd (PRO) = 876
   
5. Bing (FIN, PRO) = 699
   
6. sucksatciv (ORG) = 526
   

I was a bit shocked to see Mjmd being so low in science. This may be an issue for him in the future.
But what exactly did the players do with all those beakers. Well fear not here it is:




It should be fairly self explantory. It's all the techs the players have researched so far. The number in front is the turn the players acquired the tech. Overall nothing to surprising that we didn't know of already.

Food

Accumulated food towards growth

1. Mjmd = 1662
   
2. Cornflakes = 1506
   
3. Pindicator (IMP) = 1468
   
4. Superdeath = 980
   
5. sucksatciv (EXP) = 720
   
6. Bing = 719
   

We can see two distinct groups. Those who put a lot of food into growth and those who don't. You might suspect this already, but those three putting a lot into growth are also the ones who whipped the most with you guessed it Mjmd whipping the most.

Accumulated food kept (Granaries etc.)

1. Mjmd = 837
   
2. Pindicator (IMP) = 783
   
3. Cornflakes = 762
   
4. Superdeath = 473
   
5. sucksatciv (EXP) = 339
   
6. Bing = 323
   

This normally is a nice statistic to compare EXP, IMP and the rest. But since sucksatciv never managed to make a claim in this game, we don't really have a good comparison.

Production
Accumulated total production
You will find the unmodified production in parenthesis if it differs. I only show relevant traits here.

1. Cornflakes = 4616 (4095)
   
2. Mjmd = 4217 (4104)
   
3. Pindicator (IMP) = 4163 (3691)
   
4. Superdeath = 3272
   
5. sucksatciv (EXP) = 3139 (2928)
   
6. Bing = 2629
   

Total unmodified whip production

1. Mjmd = 1800
   
2. Pindicator (IMP) = 1080
   
3. Cornflakes = 1050
   
4. Superdeath = 730
   
5. Bing = 510
   
6. sucksatciv (EXP) = 490
   

Total chop production

1. Cornflakes = 736
   
2. Superdeath = 616
   
3. Mjmd = 500
   
4. Bing = 460
   
5. Pindicator (IMP) = 360
   
6. sucksatciv (EXP) = 220
   

With the above data in mind we can say for sure that the traits (and resources) produced the following amounts of extra hammers:
CRE (Cornflakes) = 281
IMP (pindicator) = 233
EXP (sucksatciv) = 211
CRE (Mjmd) = 96
PRO (pindicator) = 79
PHI monasteries (Cornflakes) = 51
EXP (sucksatciv) = 18
Stone for Pyramids (Cornflakes) = 164
Stone for Pyramids (pindicator) = 81
Stone for Walls (pindicator) = 79
Stone for Walls (Mjmd) = 13
Stone for Walls (Cornflakes) = 25

Financial Bonus
Current turn FIN bonus

1. Mjmd (PRO) = 19
   
2. Cornflakes = 15
   
3. Pindicator (PRO) = 14
   
4. Superdeath (FIN, ORG) = 13
   
5. sucksatciv (ORG) = 10
   
6. Bing (FIN, PRO) = 9
   

PB65 really is a poor cottage map.
Accumulated turn FIN bonus

1. Mjmd (PRO) = 311
   
2. Cornflakes = 286
   
3. Superdeath (FIN, ORG) = 210
   
4. Pindicator (PRO) = 195
   
5. sucksatciv (ORG) = 98
   
6. Bing (FIN, PRO) = 57
   

Severity of FIN nerf compared to BtS
Here the comparison for this lighthouse implementation compared to BtS (delta, reduction in percent):

1. Mjmd (PRO) = 285 (-47.82%)
   
2. Cornflakes = 467 (-62.02%)
   
3. Superdeath (FIN, ORG) = 296 (-58.50%)
   
4. Pindicator (PRO) = 335 (-63.21%)
   
5. sucksatciv (ORG) = 139 (-58.65%)
   
6. Bing (FIN, PRO) = 384 (-87.07%)
   

Protective Bonus
Everybody is fairly equal in the current numbers - even Mr Lighthouse - so let's look into the accumulated numbers
Accumulated PRO bonus

1. Pindicator (PRO) = 396
   
2. Mjmd (PRO) = 375
   
3. Cornflakes = 375
   
4. Superdeath (FIN, ORG) = 322
   
5. Bing (FIN, PRO) = 256
   
6. sucksatciv (ORG) = 192
   

Misc
Great people born

1. Cornflakes = 3
   
2. Superdeath = 1
   
3. Pindicator = 1
   
4. Mjmd = 0
   
5. sucksatciv = 0
   
6. Bing = 0
   

I'm tracking a lot more but there is not enough information there to justify an own paragraph. Therefore a little summary here:
Civics
Government: Cornflakes switched into Representation in T80 thanks to Pyramids and pindicator just switched into Hereditary Rule at T99. Everybody else is a despot.
Legal: All of them are barbarians.
Labor: Everybody is a slaver except for pindicator, who runs serfdom since T99
Religion: Everybody is a pagan except for pindicator, who runs organized religion since T99

War weariness
Nobody would have gotten any unhappiness from WW so far.

Comparing traits

The main goal of all this tracking of course is to compare the economic traits related around commerce income or maintenance reduction.




This really is a cottage poor map so far which explains these numbers somewhat.

Stay tuned for the T150 report.

[Tarkeel]

So, SAC has Feudalism, but is missing Construction and HBR. That's going to be a very static defense.


His economy won't like missing CoL and Calendar. Even IronWorking and MetalCasting is going to be noticeable.

[Tarkeel]

My scouting chariot identified a soft-spot in Pindicator's western front with Superdeath. I staged 6 chariots where they would be out of sight but in range thanks to Engineering roads. 6 chariots vs. a single archer! ... But after considering the offers from Pindicator and a good look at the graphs and demographics I changed my mind and did not attack for the following reasons:

(...)
Therefore I made the following physical and diplomatic maneuvers this turn:
- re-offered Open Borders to Pindicator
- Moved my attack stack completely out of range of Pindicator's border, and into a position to move into MJMD's territory next turn
- Moved all 6 chariots onto the border with Pindicator where he can see them. Then sent him the following: Gloomhaven + (6 gold) + horses, for my fish. Intending to draw his attention to the fact that I could have struck Gloomhaven with those 6 chariots this turn, but didn't.

Cornflakes




This one didn't make sense to me until I started writing this up, but now I think I know what it means.  It goes with a situation I found in Superdeath's lands:




So the 6 Horse means he's threatning to attack me if I don't do something.  His next offer was Open Borders; I had accepted that anyway before seeing this but now it makes me want to attack those chariots.

In any case, I think I have to spend 95g to upgrade that longbow in Gloomhaven and then probably dry whip either another longbow or a spear there as well.  To remove temptation.  There aren't any units that can reach.  Really an oversight by me to just have a single archer here.

Nothing to see here, just another reminder how mercy is interpreted as a threat.

[Miguelito]

Should pindi just declare on Cornflakes but stay in his borders?

[Ginger*]

I don't think they realize how serious Cornflake's monk wonder threat is.
His commerce is pretty bad by comparison yes, but as soon as he hits Banking he's going to leave Mjmd and Pindi in the dust. At least that's how it was for me in PB63, the saving rates equalize with Banks, and Rep + Merc with PHI is too good.