Cycle 39
Raw Data
Known Merits
Hudson and ALD both had expansions last cycle, and they both, again, did far more total merits than any other power, although Hudson did do about twice as many merits in his expansions than ALD did.
Aisling was in her usual place of 3rd for total merits, with Mahon down to Sirius steaduily declining, and Delaine and Patreus on about half the total merits of Sirius.
On the Effective merits chart, Aisling was number 1, she fortified every single one of her Control systems.
ALD was back up to second, and Hudson was third.
Winters Mahon and Antal were next, with a very close number of effective merits, with the merits steadily falling from Torval to Patreus.
Opposition
Hudson, Delain, Winters and Mahon all received their usual high amounts of total opposition.
ALD, Sirius and Aisling had a medium amount of opposition, which is a very high amount for Aisling.
Patreus and Torval had a medium to low amount of opposition and Antal had a very low amount of total opposition.
On the effective chart, Hudson was number 1 by a large margin, with a large amount of effective opposition to one of his expansions.
Aisling was second (instead of her usual second last, or last) with a very large amount of effective undermining, although it was less undermining than she fortified.
Mahon down to ALD all had a high amount of effective opposition, with opposition steadily decreasing from Patreus down to Sirius.
Antal has effectively no opposition.
Weekly Score
Just a small rant about the score again.
Turmoil should really have an effect on the scores, its about the only negative thing that can happen to a power.
Hudson was third the previous week, with Winters second, only 1% separated them, Hudson hit Turmoil, and that pushed him past Winters into second place.
Similar story with Patreus and Delaine, both of them were on the same score last week, Patreus hit Turmoil, and he moved up past Delaine.
Losing systems should have a large negative effect to the Powers score, and going into Turmoil should have a negative effect on the powers scores, right now it looks like one or two preparations is considered enough to cancel out being in Turmoil.
This Week in Slavery with Archon Delaine
Antal was the only Power who changes the legality of slavery to win an expansion last week, and he won 2 of them.
The system of Sukree is an Anarchy system with a population of over 3 million people. Slavery will no longer be legal there, with Antal taking over.
Yemotepa is a Federation system, so it already had slavery as illegal.
Another slow week in galactic slavery changes, 3 million people freed from the threat of slavery.
Speculation and Commentary
Mahon 80%
The Prime minister maintained his number 1 position, but his lead is only 4% this week.
The DR Crucis situation between the Alliance and Federation took an unexpected turn at the end of the cycle, with Torval winning the prep war over Hudson and Mahon.
It will be interesting to see what the player group called NULL will do about this, since they seemed to have an issue with the Federation exploiting their system because it will mess up their BGS work, because they are in Independent faction, and Winters has a reduction in Independent BGS influence.
Since Torval also has a reduction to Independent BGS influence, the situation doesn't seem to have improved for NULL.
Hudson currently has 8 expansions, which are all winning, unless Hudson goes into Turmoil, Mahon will probably be down to 2nd place next week.
Hudson 76%
The President moved back up to 2nd position, although he is currently in Turmoil.
His expansion at Okinura failed because of the Turmoil, which would have contested many of Winters systems, so the Turmoil would have been a wanted action from most of his players.
As stated above, Torval ended up winning the Prep war for the DR Crucis bubble, but Hudson still has 8 expansions this week, all of which are currently winning, and will most likely all win.
Staying in Turmoil, or balancing his CC to end turmoil, but fail the expansions will likely be the aim this week, which leaves him open to have some profitable systems attacked.
If he avoids Turmoil, he will likely be in 1st position, with 8 expansions winning, if he stays in Turmoil he should drop down, perhaps to 4th, but this isn't clear since he moved up with Turmoil this week.
Winters 69%
Winters moved down this week from 2nd to equal 3rd with ALD.
It looked like a quiet week for Winters, with less undermining on her than usual, although still a high amount, and not much effort put into winning her expansions.
She currently has 4 expansions, 3 of which are losing right now, with the unprofitable system of Barathaona currently winning.
This week Winters has listed Torval as her undermining target, probably in retaliation to Torval winning the DR Crucis bubble preparation battle, and the Patreus expansion at HIP 116045 has also been listed for her players to oppose, more about HIP 116045 in the Aisling and Patreus sections.
If Winters wins her 4 expansions and Hudson stays in Turmoil, she should move back to 2nd position, but this might not happen, Winters is likely to fail most or all of her expansions, and ALD will win her 4 expansions, so Winters will likely be 4th at the end of the cycle.
ALD 69%
The Emperor took her first step back into recovery, with winning an expansion for the first time in a long time.
2 profitable systems were expanded to, and another 4 systems are currently in expansion for this week.
This week, 3 of Winters expansions and one of Hudsons expansions have been listed as their targets.
With these additional 4 systems, ALD will be back to 66 systems, to Winters 69, so it is more than likely she will be ranked above Winters at the end of the week.
Hudson will probably still be in Turmoil, so ALD should be 2nd, it is unlikely she will get to 1st, unless Mahon goes into Turmoil, if ALD goes into Turmoil she will likely be 4th, or maybe 5th.
Sirius 61%
Sirius continued his steady climb, with another profitable expansion that didn't even get 100% in opposition.
He has 57 systems to Torvals 55, and has a sizable lead of 61% to 46% against her this week.
Another profitable system is being expanded this week, and it is away from all the other powers, so will probably also have a small amount of opposition in it.
Sirius is currently maintaining their neutrality towards all other powers, with the only real complaint being, when will they expand to a system that sells the Imperial Cutter?
Sirius should be able to maintain his position in 5th at the end of the week.
Torval 46%
Torval prepared 2 systems last week, the system of Gacrux defeated the Mahon and Hudson preparations for the DR Crucis bubble, the federation has listed Torval as their undermining target this week, it is unclear if Mahon will take any action against Torval.
It is more than likely Torval will either lose the expansion at Gacrux, or be put into Turmoil, which will allow another prep war for the bubble next week.
With Hudson probably having no CC next week to prepare with, this will leave Mahon, Winters and ALD to prep for the system.
WIth Torval on 46%, Aisling on 45% and Antal on 44%, any of these powers could swap positions, its likely Torval will drop one place down to 7th.
Aisling 45%
Aisling had lots going on last cycle.
Her players were able to fortify 100% of her systems, but 38 systems were undermined, which was enough for 7 of her systems to go into Turmoil.
She actually effectively fortified 403716 vs 357286 merits in effective undermining, but because of her terrible starting CC balance, this wasn't enough, and there is literally nothing more her players could do.
The majority of undermined systems were done partially or entirely with the piracy mechanic, and with this being a massive increase in the amount of undermining Aisling normally gets one of two things must have happened.
1) A SCRAP request to undermine her worst systems went horribly wrong
2) A substantial number of players from another Imperial power used what Sandro just called the Collusion Piracy method to purposely harm Aisling.
If number 1 is what happened, its likely Aisling will get her normal very low amount of undermining, and she will keep all the systems currently in Turmoil.
If number 2 is what happened, Alsling will lose the 7 systems, and will have more in Turmoil at the end of the week.
5 of these systems in Turmoil are profitable, and the loss of these systems will change her starting cc balance from -724 to -814
It will also free up systems for the other 3 Imperial powers to take, ALD will probably get most of them, with Patreus and Torval likely to take a few.
This will shift Aisling to 55 systems, and put Torval as the 2nd highest ranked Imperial most weeks, with Aisling and Patreus battling it out for the 3rd and 4th ranked Imperial Power.
If that wasn't enough, there was more drama between Aisling and Patreus, with Patreus preparing the system of HIP 116045, a system Aisling has lost and regained a number of times.
The Federation has offered to oppose this expansion for Aisling, but it is unclear if Patreus players are also going to agree to not expand this system, to allow Aisling to have it back.
Fighting over systems like this is all that is left for most of the powers in PP, and Aisling in particular has no where easy to expand to, because she can't easily undermine her 3 neighbors, the other Imperial Powers.
The main problem that Aislings supporters have is trying to be for Imperial unity and Aisling at the same time. These goals are mutually exclusive, Aisling can only prosper at the expense of the other 3 Imperial powers.
The opposite ins't true however, Torval, ALD and Patreus have other enemies to worry about, and its to their benefit that they are neutral or friendly towards Aisling.
The only good new is, if more than these 7 systems go into Turmoil, Aisling will go under 55 systems, so her overheads will start to decrease by a large amount.
The bad news is she may be in 10th position soon.
Antal 44%
Antal had a week similar to Sirius, with all the drama unfilding around him, his players quietly won 2 more expansions, and he is now moving to a position to get close to being above Torval, and Aisling will soon be under him.
That means Antal will be out of the bottom 3 and into the 6th-7th range most weeks, and may overtake Sirius should he go into Turmoil.
Antal is getting up to the really bad part of teh overhead curve though, and every new expansion is making his player fortify more and more systems.
His next 3 expansions will make his overheads go up by 530cc, and with most of them likely being in the 50-60cc profit range, his starting cc balance will be around -650 to -700, which means he will be looking to shed some systems soon.
The prospect of getting into the top 5 may motivate his players to fortify more for a few weeks though, if he goes into another controlled turmoil, 10th will be his likely place for 3 or 4 weeks.
This week he has 2 expansions, one into the ex Delaine system of Brynhilo, if he wins both of these systems, he should overtake Torval and Aisling, and move up to 6th place.
Patreus 34%
Patreus has a slow week according to the known merits, and was edged into Turmoil, mostly due to his very low amount of effective fortifying.
The system of LTT 8260 was fortified exactly 100 merits under its trigger, and maybe a simple counting error was the cause of the Turmoil.
This week he has 2 expansions, one of which is an ex Aisling system, which has caused some friction between them, and it is unclear if the Patreus players will try to expand this system, but so far it is being expanded, but is currently losing.
If Patreus is able to get out of Turmoil, he will probably have enough CC to prepare 2 or more systems, which is coming at the same time that Aisling may lose 7 more systems. This may put further strain on his players relationship with the Aisling players, because more of her ex systems will look like goof preparation targets.
Since going into Turmoil didn't drop Patreus to 10th, he will likely not fall to 10th at the end of the week, but there is a small chance Aisling might fall to 9th and push him up to 8th.
Delaine 26%
The Pirate lord was hit with a larger amount of undermining that the previous few weeks, and only had one expansion available due to the CC reporting bug showing him able to afford 2 systems while he actually couldn't.
This week he has one expansion, which is again the main target of the Imperial High Council.
Opposition at his expansion is expected to be at its usual very high levels, and no public undermining targets have been listed yet, but it's possible the Pirate Lords players could be persuaded to help Aisling oppose the Patreus expansion into her old system.
Raw Data
Known Merits
Hudson and ALD both had expansions last cycle, and they both, again, did far more total merits than any other power, although Hudson did do about twice as many merits in his expansions than ALD did.
Aisling was in her usual place of 3rd for total merits, with Mahon down to Sirius steaduily declining, and Delaine and Patreus on about half the total merits of Sirius.
On the Effective merits chart, Aisling was number 1, she fortified every single one of her Control systems.
ALD was back up to second, and Hudson was third.
Winters Mahon and Antal were next, with a very close number of effective merits, with the merits steadily falling from Torval to Patreus.
Opposition
Hudson, Delain, Winters and Mahon all received their usual high amounts of total opposition.
ALD, Sirius and Aisling had a medium amount of opposition, which is a very high amount for Aisling.
Patreus and Torval had a medium to low amount of opposition and Antal had a very low amount of total opposition.
On the effective chart, Hudson was number 1 by a large margin, with a large amount of effective opposition to one of his expansions.
Aisling was second (instead of her usual second last, or last) with a very large amount of effective undermining, although it was less undermining than she fortified.
Mahon down to ALD all had a high amount of effective opposition, with opposition steadily decreasing from Patreus down to Sirius.
Antal has effectively no opposition.
Weekly Score
Just a small rant about the score again.
Turmoil should really have an effect on the scores, its about the only negative thing that can happen to a power.
Hudson was third the previous week, with Winters second, only 1% separated them, Hudson hit Turmoil, and that pushed him past Winters into second place.
Similar story with Patreus and Delaine, both of them were on the same score last week, Patreus hit Turmoil, and he moved up past Delaine.
Losing systems should have a large negative effect to the Powers score, and going into Turmoil should have a negative effect on the powers scores, right now it looks like one or two preparations is considered enough to cancel out being in Turmoil.
This Week in Slavery with Archon Delaine
Antal was the only Power who changes the legality of slavery to win an expansion last week, and he won 2 of them.
The system of Sukree is an Anarchy system with a population of over 3 million people. Slavery will no longer be legal there, with Antal taking over.
Yemotepa is a Federation system, so it already had slavery as illegal.
Another slow week in galactic slavery changes, 3 million people freed from the threat of slavery.
Speculation and Commentary
Mahon 80%
The Prime minister maintained his number 1 position, but his lead is only 4% this week.
The DR Crucis situation between the Alliance and Federation took an unexpected turn at the end of the cycle, with Torval winning the prep war over Hudson and Mahon.
It will be interesting to see what the player group called NULL will do about this, since they seemed to have an issue with the Federation exploiting their system because it will mess up their BGS work, because they are in Independent faction, and Winters has a reduction in Independent BGS influence.
Since Torval also has a reduction to Independent BGS influence, the situation doesn't seem to have improved for NULL.
Hudson currently has 8 expansions, which are all winning, unless Hudson goes into Turmoil, Mahon will probably be down to 2nd place next week.
Hudson 76%
The President moved back up to 2nd position, although he is currently in Turmoil.
His expansion at Okinura failed because of the Turmoil, which would have contested many of Winters systems, so the Turmoil would have been a wanted action from most of his players.
As stated above, Torval ended up winning the Prep war for the DR Crucis bubble, but Hudson still has 8 expansions this week, all of which are currently winning, and will most likely all win.
Staying in Turmoil, or balancing his CC to end turmoil, but fail the expansions will likely be the aim this week, which leaves him open to have some profitable systems attacked.
If he avoids Turmoil, he will likely be in 1st position, with 8 expansions winning, if he stays in Turmoil he should drop down, perhaps to 4th, but this isn't clear since he moved up with Turmoil this week.
Winters 69%
Winters moved down this week from 2nd to equal 3rd with ALD.
It looked like a quiet week for Winters, with less undermining on her than usual, although still a high amount, and not much effort put into winning her expansions.
She currently has 4 expansions, 3 of which are losing right now, with the unprofitable system of Barathaona currently winning.
This week Winters has listed Torval as her undermining target, probably in retaliation to Torval winning the DR Crucis bubble preparation battle, and the Patreus expansion at HIP 116045 has also been listed for her players to oppose, more about HIP 116045 in the Aisling and Patreus sections.
If Winters wins her 4 expansions and Hudson stays in Turmoil, she should move back to 2nd position, but this might not happen, Winters is likely to fail most or all of her expansions, and ALD will win her 4 expansions, so Winters will likely be 4th at the end of the cycle.
ALD 69%
The Emperor took her first step back into recovery, with winning an expansion for the first time in a long time.
2 profitable systems were expanded to, and another 4 systems are currently in expansion for this week.
This week, 3 of Winters expansions and one of Hudsons expansions have been listed as their targets.
With these additional 4 systems, ALD will be back to 66 systems, to Winters 69, so it is more than likely she will be ranked above Winters at the end of the week.
Hudson will probably still be in Turmoil, so ALD should be 2nd, it is unlikely she will get to 1st, unless Mahon goes into Turmoil, if ALD goes into Turmoil she will likely be 4th, or maybe 5th.
Sirius 61%
Sirius continued his steady climb, with another profitable expansion that didn't even get 100% in opposition.
He has 57 systems to Torvals 55, and has a sizable lead of 61% to 46% against her this week.
Another profitable system is being expanded this week, and it is away from all the other powers, so will probably also have a small amount of opposition in it.
Sirius is currently maintaining their neutrality towards all other powers, with the only real complaint being, when will they expand to a system that sells the Imperial Cutter?
Sirius should be able to maintain his position in 5th at the end of the week.
Torval 46%
Torval prepared 2 systems last week, the system of Gacrux defeated the Mahon and Hudson preparations for the DR Crucis bubble, the federation has listed Torval as their undermining target this week, it is unclear if Mahon will take any action against Torval.
It is more than likely Torval will either lose the expansion at Gacrux, or be put into Turmoil, which will allow another prep war for the bubble next week.
With Hudson probably having no CC next week to prepare with, this will leave Mahon, Winters and ALD to prep for the system.
WIth Torval on 46%, Aisling on 45% and Antal on 44%, any of these powers could swap positions, its likely Torval will drop one place down to 7th.
Aisling 45%
Aisling had lots going on last cycle.
Her players were able to fortify 100% of her systems, but 38 systems were undermined, which was enough for 7 of her systems to go into Turmoil.
She actually effectively fortified 403716 vs 357286 merits in effective undermining, but because of her terrible starting CC balance, this wasn't enough, and there is literally nothing more her players could do.
The majority of undermined systems were done partially or entirely with the piracy mechanic, and with this being a massive increase in the amount of undermining Aisling normally gets one of two things must have happened.
1) A SCRAP request to undermine her worst systems went horribly wrong
2) A substantial number of players from another Imperial power used what Sandro just called the Collusion Piracy method to purposely harm Aisling.
If number 1 is what happened, its likely Aisling will get her normal very low amount of undermining, and she will keep all the systems currently in Turmoil.
If number 2 is what happened, Alsling will lose the 7 systems, and will have more in Turmoil at the end of the week.
5 of these systems in Turmoil are profitable, and the loss of these systems will change her starting cc balance from -724 to -814
It will also free up systems for the other 3 Imperial powers to take, ALD will probably get most of them, with Patreus and Torval likely to take a few.
This will shift Aisling to 55 systems, and put Torval as the 2nd highest ranked Imperial most weeks, with Aisling and Patreus battling it out for the 3rd and 4th ranked Imperial Power.
If that wasn't enough, there was more drama between Aisling and Patreus, with Patreus preparing the system of HIP 116045, a system Aisling has lost and regained a number of times.
The Federation has offered to oppose this expansion for Aisling, but it is unclear if Patreus players are also going to agree to not expand this system, to allow Aisling to have it back.
Fighting over systems like this is all that is left for most of the powers in PP, and Aisling in particular has no where easy to expand to, because she can't easily undermine her 3 neighbors, the other Imperial Powers.
The main problem that Aislings supporters have is trying to be for Imperial unity and Aisling at the same time. These goals are mutually exclusive, Aisling can only prosper at the expense of the other 3 Imperial powers.
The opposite ins't true however, Torval, ALD and Patreus have other enemies to worry about, and its to their benefit that they are neutral or friendly towards Aisling.
The only good new is, if more than these 7 systems go into Turmoil, Aisling will go under 55 systems, so her overheads will start to decrease by a large amount.
The bad news is she may be in 10th position soon.
Antal 44%
Antal had a week similar to Sirius, with all the drama unfilding around him, his players quietly won 2 more expansions, and he is now moving to a position to get close to being above Torval, and Aisling will soon be under him.
That means Antal will be out of the bottom 3 and into the 6th-7th range most weeks, and may overtake Sirius should he go into Turmoil.
Antal is getting up to the really bad part of teh overhead curve though, and every new expansion is making his player fortify more and more systems.
His next 3 expansions will make his overheads go up by 530cc, and with most of them likely being in the 50-60cc profit range, his starting cc balance will be around -650 to -700, which means he will be looking to shed some systems soon.
The prospect of getting into the top 5 may motivate his players to fortify more for a few weeks though, if he goes into another controlled turmoil, 10th will be his likely place for 3 or 4 weeks.
This week he has 2 expansions, one into the ex Delaine system of Brynhilo, if he wins both of these systems, he should overtake Torval and Aisling, and move up to 6th place.
Patreus 34%
Patreus has a slow week according to the known merits, and was edged into Turmoil, mostly due to his very low amount of effective fortifying.
The system of LTT 8260 was fortified exactly 100 merits under its trigger, and maybe a simple counting error was the cause of the Turmoil.
This week he has 2 expansions, one of which is an ex Aisling system, which has caused some friction between them, and it is unclear if the Patreus players will try to expand this system, but so far it is being expanded, but is currently losing.
If Patreus is able to get out of Turmoil, he will probably have enough CC to prepare 2 or more systems, which is coming at the same time that Aisling may lose 7 more systems. This may put further strain on his players relationship with the Aisling players, because more of her ex systems will look like goof preparation targets.
Since going into Turmoil didn't drop Patreus to 10th, he will likely not fall to 10th at the end of the week, but there is a small chance Aisling might fall to 9th and push him up to 8th.
Delaine 26%
The Pirate lord was hit with a larger amount of undermining that the previous few weeks, and only had one expansion available due to the CC reporting bug showing him able to afford 2 systems while he actually couldn't.
This week he has one expansion, which is again the main target of the Imperial High Council.
Opposition at his expansion is expected to be at its usual very high levels, and no public undermining targets have been listed yet, but it's possible the Pirate Lords players could be persuaded to help Aisling oppose the Patreus expansion into her old system.
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