Cycle 37
The raw data is out for Cycle 38 (Even the Preparation information)
Fortification, Preparation and Expansion
No expansions for ALD and Hudson last cycle, so the total merits are much closer for all the powers, with Hudson, ALD and Aisling still clearly putting in the most merits compared to everyone else.
Hudson put in a massive 605398 merits into their preparation list, and ALD put in a new record amount of total fortification, 1102875 merits.
Aisling put in over 360000 merits, a very high amount, but nothing compared to the 720000 merits they put into preparations 2 weeks ago, and Winters also put in a very high amount, over 220000.
Delaine and Antal were the only 2 combat expansion powers with expansions, and you can see they both put in a very large amount of merits into expansion.
Delaines total graph is one of the most skewed, perhaps the most ever, with 87% of his merits coming from expansions.
On the effective merits, Hudson easily has the most with a high amount of both fortification and preparation, with Aisling taking the second position.
The 3rd position is the chart that sticks out, with nearly all of Delaines effective merits coming from his expansion, giving him more effective merits than ALD for the first time.
Winters again put in more effective merits than Mahon, which is a trend that has continued this year.
Opposition
Delaine moved back into being the most opposed Power last week, with the second most opposition he has seen in his expansions, 820000 merits worth.
Undermining on Mahon was up from its usual very high amounts, with the undermining on Hudson, Winters, Delaine, ALD, Torval and Sirius being fairly equal, at a medium to high amount.
Patreus, Antal and Aisling saw very little total opposition.
On the effective chart, ALD has a very high amount of effective undermining, not her highest ever, but more than any other power except Hudson or Delaine have every received.
Mahon and Winters had a high amount of effective undermining, with Hudson and Torval receiving a medium amount of effective undermining.
Effective undermining on the other powers was low.
This Week in Slavery with Archon Delaine
Last cycle ALD lost 4 systems and Delaine gained 1.
ALD has no effect on slavery in her control systems, so the slavery status of these areas is unchanged, but it does free up the area for Winters, Antal or Aisling to take over, which would reduce slavery in the area.
Delaine took control of the system of Morronii, which is currently ruled by an Anarchy minor faction which already legalised Slavery and Imperial Slavery, so no change for the Pirate Lord taking it over.
It was a slow week for changes to Slavery throughout the galaxy last cycle, with no realy change due to Power Play.
Patch Changes
Above are the changes in CC income that the last patch introduced.
I'm not 100% sure if the number for ALD is correct, since she was in Turmoil.
Aisling, the power who needed a CC bailout more than anyone else, seems to have received the least.
Introducing the 12 Powers of the Galaxy
If 2 more Powers were introduced, they would have to be Groombridge and Guathiti, which consume more merits per week than many of the established 10 Powers.
Above is how the total merits would look if ALD and Hudson lost these systems and they became their own power.
Speculation and Commentary
Mahon 83%
The Prime Minister retained the number one position again.
During the week a problem developed with a Player Minor faction and Winters prepping a system next to them, which would make their home system exploited by Winters, should she win the expansion.
The player group pledged themselves to Mahon and begun a prep war with Winters over the system.
This would normally be described as the actions of 5th columners, since this player group is commandeering the prep list of one power for their own purposes, and will probably unpledge after they win the prep war.
To make matters more complicated, the system of DR Cruis is a profitable one, while the actions that are normally attributed to 5th Columners are prepping low or negative profit systems.
This does highlight a problem Minor Player Factions have until the freedom fighter mechanics are implemented.
Mahon has one expansion this week, but Hudson has 4, should Mahon lose his expansion, and Hudson wins all 4 of his, its possible Mahon will drop to 2nd position.
Hudson 76%
Hudson stayed in 2nd position, after leaving Turmoil with a large CC balance, and had to put many merits into preparations to dictate which systems they would now be expanding.
All 4 of the expansions are in ALD territory, threatening to reduce ALDs starting CC balance.
This will also hurt Hudsons starting CC balance, but Hudson has 706cc compared with ALDs 68cc so he has much more to spare.
ALD has no expansions this week, so will have a better chance of opposing Hudsons expansions than if ALD also had expansions of her own.
If Hudson wins all his expansions he could be back to the number 1 position, unless he hits Turmoil he shouldn't drop to number 3.
Winters 71%
Winters retained the 3rd position and still has a sizable lead in systems over Aisling and ALD.
Winters was one of the many powers who got less preparations than they could afford with the increase in cc from the patch, and only has 2 expansions instead of 3 this week.
One system from an area ALD just lost, and one system which contests ALD systems are currently being expanded.
Winters is now clearly ensconced in the 3rd position, with too few systems to move to 2nd, and too many to drop to 4th, and should maintain the 3rd position for at least several weeks.
Aisling 62%
The Peoples Princess went into Turmoil and has the profitable system of Conii in danger of being lost.
Because of Aislings poor starting CC balance, she will need to do a large amount of fortification, to have a chance of not losing this system.
Aisling also prepared the system of Chnumar, which is a loss making system her players have tried very hard to push from her preparation list in the past few week.
Staying in Turmoil will stop this bad system from being expanded into, but this runs the problem if it being available to be prepared into the next week again.
It may be in Aislings best interests to expand to Chnumar, as strange as that sounds, to stop the weekly prep war to avoid the system, but this may only replace it with another bad system that needs to be removed from the prep list.
Aisling probably needs to just shed a large amount of systems, 10-30, and accept that many of them will be profitable, and hope some of them can be regained once her starting CC balance is more under control.
Until then, Aisling has 8 more systems than Torval and Sirius, and 3 more system than ALD, so should be secure in the top 5 unless more systems are lost.
Torval 52%
Torval, like everyone else in the top 5, retained their position from the previous week.
She was hit with a much larger amount of undermining than usual, and although she avoided Turmoil, she only has enough CC for a low income system.
With Hudson and Winters focusing on expansions into ALD terrritory, Torval will probably go back to a more normal level of undermining for her.
ALD has 5 more systems than Torval, so Torval will probably move out of the top 5 this week.
Sirius is also on 55 systems, so whichever one of them wins expansion number 56 should be ranked ahead of the other.
ALD 51%
ALD lost 4 of the 7 systems she had in Turmoil and with the loss of these systems and the CC increase from the last patch, ALD now has a starting CC balance of 68cc.
That means she will no longer be able to be put into Turmoil if she fortified every single system, which should be even easier for her to do now with less systems.
ALD once had 77 systems but is now down to 60, but this is probably as good a ratio of lost systems to CC increase as a power who is under threat of attack can manage.
Aisling would probably have to lose many more systems to achieve the same thing.
The good news for ALD is her expansions are nearly impossible to directly oppose, so regaining systems will be easy.
The difficult part will be to stop bad preparations getting onto the list again.
This week ALD has expansions from Winters, Hudson and Delaine contesting her systems, so her players will be very busy trying to stop all of them, or at least most of them. It may be impossible for all of these expansions to be stopped.
In the short term ALD has less systems than Aisling, so should be ranked 5th generally until she gets 4 more systems. With enough CC to prepare 2 systems this week, this may only take 3 weeks.
It may take several months to get more systems than Winters and return to the 3rd position, but ALDs steady decline over the previous 20 weeks should be coming to an end.
Sirius 44%
Sirius received the second most extra cc from the last patch, which has made them much more difficult to be put into turmoil.
Undermining on Sirius has been down over the last few weeks and the other powers seem to be returning to a more neutral stance towards them.
If he can maintain this neutrality he should be able to win some expansions, and start to get closer to Aislings number of systems and perhaps make a more permanent return to the top 5.
Until then Torval and Sirius will continue to have a close battle over the 6th and 7th positions.
Patreus 39%
Patreus received a new title during the week, Admiral, and moved up past Antal to 8th position.
On the known merits front Patreus had a very quiet week, no expansions to work on, very little needed to be put into preparation and very little fortification needed.
This week he has 3 expansions, 1 that contests Winters systems, and 2 around Imperial space.
Patreus is also 3 systems behind Antal, so if he wins all 3 expansions he will be very close to having a higher score than Antal most weeks.
The expansion into Winters space will probably meet heavy resistance, but its a system his players probably don't want to win anyway, the other 2 systems would only be opposed by other Imperial Powers, but this is very unlikely.
Sirius and Torval both have 8 more systems than Patreus, so even if he wins all 3 expansions, he probably wont move up to 7th, 8th or 9th is more likely.
Antal 38%
Antal was the power hit hardest with the extra cc bug. He got the biggest benefit, restoring his terrible economy back into a much better position, but instead of being able to afford 3 preparations, only 1 could be afforded, and this one was lost in a prep race to Mahon.
The good news is, Antal will be able to postpone going into another controlled turmoil until a few more expansions, rather than right now.
With no expansions and no preparations, Antal falls down one position, and with no chance to win an expansion this week, he may still be ranked under Patreus at the end of the week.
Delaine 34%
The Pirate lord was the only power to expand last week, and it was i the face of the 2nd highest opposition to his expansions that he has seen.
A large number of ALD and Aisling players were seen opposing this expansion (along with Patreus and Hudson players) and ALD listed Delaines expansions as their primary focus.
In retaliation for this LTT 874 has again been prepared by Delaine, and this system is currently being expanded into.
ALD will be stretched thin with the Winters and Hudson expansions, and help from Aisling and Patreus will undoubtedly be called for to help stop the Kumo expansion.
Last time the battle for LTT 874 was very close, this week will surely be no different.
The raw data is out for Cycle 38 (Even the Preparation information)
Fortification, Preparation and Expansion
No expansions for ALD and Hudson last cycle, so the total merits are much closer for all the powers, with Hudson, ALD and Aisling still clearly putting in the most merits compared to everyone else.
Hudson put in a massive 605398 merits into their preparation list, and ALD put in a new record amount of total fortification, 1102875 merits.
Aisling put in over 360000 merits, a very high amount, but nothing compared to the 720000 merits they put into preparations 2 weeks ago, and Winters also put in a very high amount, over 220000.
Delaine and Antal were the only 2 combat expansion powers with expansions, and you can see they both put in a very large amount of merits into expansion.
Delaines total graph is one of the most skewed, perhaps the most ever, with 87% of his merits coming from expansions.
On the effective merits, Hudson easily has the most with a high amount of both fortification and preparation, with Aisling taking the second position.
The 3rd position is the chart that sticks out, with nearly all of Delaines effective merits coming from his expansion, giving him more effective merits than ALD for the first time.
Winters again put in more effective merits than Mahon, which is a trend that has continued this year.
Opposition
Delaine moved back into being the most opposed Power last week, with the second most opposition he has seen in his expansions, 820000 merits worth.
Undermining on Mahon was up from its usual very high amounts, with the undermining on Hudson, Winters, Delaine, ALD, Torval and Sirius being fairly equal, at a medium to high amount.
Patreus, Antal and Aisling saw very little total opposition.
On the effective chart, ALD has a very high amount of effective undermining, not her highest ever, but more than any other power except Hudson or Delaine have every received.
Mahon and Winters had a high amount of effective undermining, with Hudson and Torval receiving a medium amount of effective undermining.
Effective undermining on the other powers was low.
This Week in Slavery with Archon Delaine
Last cycle ALD lost 4 systems and Delaine gained 1.
ALD has no effect on slavery in her control systems, so the slavery status of these areas is unchanged, but it does free up the area for Winters, Antal or Aisling to take over, which would reduce slavery in the area.
Delaine took control of the system of Morronii, which is currently ruled by an Anarchy minor faction which already legalised Slavery and Imperial Slavery, so no change for the Pirate Lord taking it over.
It was a slow week for changes to Slavery throughout the galaxy last cycle, with no realy change due to Power Play.
Patch Changes
Above are the changes in CC income that the last patch introduced.
I'm not 100% sure if the number for ALD is correct, since she was in Turmoil.
Aisling, the power who needed a CC bailout more than anyone else, seems to have received the least.
Introducing the 12 Powers of the Galaxy
If 2 more Powers were introduced, they would have to be Groombridge and Guathiti, which consume more merits per week than many of the established 10 Powers.
Above is how the total merits would look if ALD and Hudson lost these systems and they became their own power.
Speculation and Commentary
Mahon 83%
The Prime Minister retained the number one position again.
During the week a problem developed with a Player Minor faction and Winters prepping a system next to them, which would make their home system exploited by Winters, should she win the expansion.
The player group pledged themselves to Mahon and begun a prep war with Winters over the system.
This would normally be described as the actions of 5th columners, since this player group is commandeering the prep list of one power for their own purposes, and will probably unpledge after they win the prep war.
To make matters more complicated, the system of DR Cruis is a profitable one, while the actions that are normally attributed to 5th Columners are prepping low or negative profit systems.
This does highlight a problem Minor Player Factions have until the freedom fighter mechanics are implemented.
Mahon has one expansion this week, but Hudson has 4, should Mahon lose his expansion, and Hudson wins all 4 of his, its possible Mahon will drop to 2nd position.
Hudson 76%
Hudson stayed in 2nd position, after leaving Turmoil with a large CC balance, and had to put many merits into preparations to dictate which systems they would now be expanding.
All 4 of the expansions are in ALD territory, threatening to reduce ALDs starting CC balance.
This will also hurt Hudsons starting CC balance, but Hudson has 706cc compared with ALDs 68cc so he has much more to spare.
ALD has no expansions this week, so will have a better chance of opposing Hudsons expansions than if ALD also had expansions of her own.
If Hudson wins all his expansions he could be back to the number 1 position, unless he hits Turmoil he shouldn't drop to number 3.
Winters 71%
Winters retained the 3rd position and still has a sizable lead in systems over Aisling and ALD.
Winters was one of the many powers who got less preparations than they could afford with the increase in cc from the patch, and only has 2 expansions instead of 3 this week.
One system from an area ALD just lost, and one system which contests ALD systems are currently being expanded.
Winters is now clearly ensconced in the 3rd position, with too few systems to move to 2nd, and too many to drop to 4th, and should maintain the 3rd position for at least several weeks.
Aisling 62%
The Peoples Princess went into Turmoil and has the profitable system of Conii in danger of being lost.
Because of Aislings poor starting CC balance, she will need to do a large amount of fortification, to have a chance of not losing this system.
Aisling also prepared the system of Chnumar, which is a loss making system her players have tried very hard to push from her preparation list in the past few week.
Staying in Turmoil will stop this bad system from being expanded into, but this runs the problem if it being available to be prepared into the next week again.
It may be in Aislings best interests to expand to Chnumar, as strange as that sounds, to stop the weekly prep war to avoid the system, but this may only replace it with another bad system that needs to be removed from the prep list.
Aisling probably needs to just shed a large amount of systems, 10-30, and accept that many of them will be profitable, and hope some of them can be regained once her starting CC balance is more under control.
Until then, Aisling has 8 more systems than Torval and Sirius, and 3 more system than ALD, so should be secure in the top 5 unless more systems are lost.
Torval 52%
Torval, like everyone else in the top 5, retained their position from the previous week.
She was hit with a much larger amount of undermining than usual, and although she avoided Turmoil, she only has enough CC for a low income system.
With Hudson and Winters focusing on expansions into ALD terrritory, Torval will probably go back to a more normal level of undermining for her.
ALD has 5 more systems than Torval, so Torval will probably move out of the top 5 this week.
Sirius is also on 55 systems, so whichever one of them wins expansion number 56 should be ranked ahead of the other.
ALD 51%
ALD lost 4 of the 7 systems she had in Turmoil and with the loss of these systems and the CC increase from the last patch, ALD now has a starting CC balance of 68cc.
That means she will no longer be able to be put into Turmoil if she fortified every single system, which should be even easier for her to do now with less systems.
ALD once had 77 systems but is now down to 60, but this is probably as good a ratio of lost systems to CC increase as a power who is under threat of attack can manage.
Aisling would probably have to lose many more systems to achieve the same thing.
The good news for ALD is her expansions are nearly impossible to directly oppose, so regaining systems will be easy.
The difficult part will be to stop bad preparations getting onto the list again.
This week ALD has expansions from Winters, Hudson and Delaine contesting her systems, so her players will be very busy trying to stop all of them, or at least most of them. It may be impossible for all of these expansions to be stopped.
In the short term ALD has less systems than Aisling, so should be ranked 5th generally until she gets 4 more systems. With enough CC to prepare 2 systems this week, this may only take 3 weeks.
It may take several months to get more systems than Winters and return to the 3rd position, but ALDs steady decline over the previous 20 weeks should be coming to an end.
Sirius 44%
Sirius received the second most extra cc from the last patch, which has made them much more difficult to be put into turmoil.
Undermining on Sirius has been down over the last few weeks and the other powers seem to be returning to a more neutral stance towards them.
If he can maintain this neutrality he should be able to win some expansions, and start to get closer to Aislings number of systems and perhaps make a more permanent return to the top 5.
Until then Torval and Sirius will continue to have a close battle over the 6th and 7th positions.
Patreus 39%
Patreus received a new title during the week, Admiral, and moved up past Antal to 8th position.
On the known merits front Patreus had a very quiet week, no expansions to work on, very little needed to be put into preparation and very little fortification needed.
This week he has 3 expansions, 1 that contests Winters systems, and 2 around Imperial space.
Patreus is also 3 systems behind Antal, so if he wins all 3 expansions he will be very close to having a higher score than Antal most weeks.
The expansion into Winters space will probably meet heavy resistance, but its a system his players probably don't want to win anyway, the other 2 systems would only be opposed by other Imperial Powers, but this is very unlikely.
Sirius and Torval both have 8 more systems than Patreus, so even if he wins all 3 expansions, he probably wont move up to 7th, 8th or 9th is more likely.
Antal 38%
Antal was the power hit hardest with the extra cc bug. He got the biggest benefit, restoring his terrible economy back into a much better position, but instead of being able to afford 3 preparations, only 1 could be afforded, and this one was lost in a prep race to Mahon.
The good news is, Antal will be able to postpone going into another controlled turmoil until a few more expansions, rather than right now.
With no expansions and no preparations, Antal falls down one position, and with no chance to win an expansion this week, he may still be ranked under Patreus at the end of the week.
Delaine 34%
The Pirate lord was the only power to expand last week, and it was i the face of the 2nd highest opposition to his expansions that he has seen.
A large number of ALD and Aisling players were seen opposing this expansion (along with Patreus and Hudson players) and ALD listed Delaines expansions as their primary focus.
In retaliation for this LTT 874 has again been prepared by Delaine, and this system is currently being expanded into.
ALD will be stretched thin with the Winters and Hudson expansions, and help from Aisling and Patreus will undoubtedly be called for to help stop the Kumo expansion.
Last time the battle for LTT 874 was very close, this week will surely be no different.
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