All Time Records – Staggering Stats from Pirates CSG

Pirates CSG Records

This post is dedicated to preserving Pirates CSG game history and bringing all time records into the spotlight.  This post was last edited in December 2021, so records set after that date may take some time to appear here.  Most of the battle reports for the games mentioned can be found in the Huge Game Legacy Thread, and I also tried to link to them for at least the first time each game is mentioned.

 

“Biggest” Records

Largest games of all time

1. VASSAL Campaign Game 4: 9,434 points in play, 390 ships

2. Command the Oceans: 9,078 total points in play, 509 ships

Sea of Allost, Command the Oceans 2017

Only one of the three oceans used for the game!

3. Century of Economy 2021: 8,524 total points, 432 ships

4. Century of Economy (CoEC) 2020: 6,981 total points, 386 ships

5. Century of Economy (CoEC) 2019: 5,651 total points, 291 ships

6. VASSAL Campaign Game 1: 3,516 total points in play (at 198 ships; 208 ships soon afterwards)

VASSAL Campaign Game 1, biggest virtual Pirates game

7. Economy Edition: 2,846 points in play (at 163 ships; 181 ships later on)

Economy Edition 2015 Pirates CSG game

Largest fleets of all time

1. Pirate fleet of VASSAL Campaign Game 4: 4,697 points (196 ships)

 Another Pirate megalaunch from their military port

2. Spanish fleet of CoEC 2020: 3,209 points (163 ships)

3. American fleet of CoEC 2021: 2,913 points (150 points)

4. Pirate fleet of CoEC 2020: 2,675 points (158 ships)

5. American fleet at the end of VASSAL Campaign Game 3: 2,414 points (127 ships)

Huge American fleet at the end of CG3

6. Pirate fleet in Command the Oceans: 2,347 points (131 ships)

 

Honorable mentions

From Command the Oceans: Pirates at 105 ships, 1,840 points; French at 101 ships, 1,804 points; Americans at 96 ships, 1,660 points; various others from that game surpassed 1,000 points as well.

Pirate fleet in EE (2015): 104 ships, ~1,800 points

Spanish fleet in CG1: 111 ships, 1,631 points

American fleet in CoEC 2019: 77 ships, 1,591 points

Largest non-campaign games of all time

-Three 500 point games between 5 fleets for a grand total of 2,520 total points in each of the three games. (2011-2012)

Largest single-turn launchings

1211 gold – Pirates in CG4 (41 ships launched)

Honorable mention: 628 gold (English battle fleet from CG1)

Largest oceans: 2015 Century of Empires game at ~160 square feet (Xerecs), 2011 cumulative game at ~72 square feet.  Using a pixel-to-feet converter, the ocean size of CG4 could be about 163 square feet! (I believe 3000 pixels per ocean tile in the VASSAL module; the ocean is 6×4 tiles, so 18000×12000 pixels, which comes out to 15.625 feet x 10.42 feet)

 

Unofficial/Assumed Records

These are more debatable, but many are likely true records.

Longest campaign game by turn count: Command the Oceans? (~112 total rounds)

Longest campaign game by calendar months: CG2 for a finished game (10 months); CG4, The Caribbean Game, and The Hourly Campaign are all technically “ongoing” but have no end (or in some cases, continuation) in sight.

Most ships ever used in a non-campaign game: 165? (second 2500 point game)

Largest deathmatch ever?  Defence of St. Helens scenario game from 2012 (2,520 total points at start)

Most ships ever sunk in a single day’s action: 74 (Command the Oceans, December 9th 2017)

Most ships ever sunk in one turn by a single ship: ~10, Santisima Trinidad of CoEC 2019)

Most cannons ever seen on a ship: 20, Santisima Trinidad of CoEC 2019 (honorable mention: HMS Dreadnought with 16 during CG1)

Most cancellers ever seen in a fleet: 9 from American fleet in CG3

Most players ever seen in a campaign game? (impossible to know for sure): 6 in CG3

Most players ever seen in a virtual/VASSAL campaign game: 6 in CG3

Most 10 masters used in a game by a fleet: 7 for the English in CG2

Most native canoes used in a game by a fleet: 35 (7 Spanish sets of canoes in CG1)

Fastest Battle Report (BR) turnaround: ~1 minute for the PotC anniversary game(I was writing the report at Miniature Trading as we were playing the game, and submitted it right after the game ended)

My Years at Miniature Trading: By the Numbers

My Years at Miniature Trading By the Numbers

Original thread started at Miniature Trading on December 25th, 2016

2016

Just a random thread idea I had. Not expecting many posts here, but it’s fun to look at. At least I think so. Smile

My Years at Miniature Trading

The plays are almost in two groups of three (rising consistently from 2011-2013 and 2014-2016), mostly because of 2014’s down year and a huge year this year. In addition, 2011 was about 7 months for me rather than a full 12. My trades were pretty consistent until I exploded in December 2014/January 2015. I highly doubt I’ll ever match that burst of activity. The fleets and miniature reviews are a bit random, but I’ve been more active lately with those and of course teaching new players.

I keep track of my plays at BGG, which is why I have such detailed numbers. The fleets, miniature reviews, and trades are all easily accessible from your profile here at MT, while the players taught is more similar to plays and is tough to have high numbers in heh.

The averages work out pretty nice – a little over 50 games a year, a fleet submission at least once a month, trades scattered throughout the summer and winter, and a miniature review once in a great while.  🙂

According to a google spreadsheet Xerecs and I have been using for various things, 63 games out of 91 (69%) were played on VASSAL. There’s a chance I also missed recording a few in the doc, in which case the percentage would be slightly higher.

Found another reason to post here! I finish the year at 92 plays and 27 trades.

From my plays at BGG, I can figure out how many games I’ve played in each month of the year, and then calculate which seasons of the year have the most plays.

My Years at Miniature Trading

For the seasons, I simply did 3 month blocks. Spring (March-May), Summer (June-August), Fall (September-November), Winter (December-February).

The disparities are interesting: of my 341 total plays, only 18 have come in the March-May window, making the spring by far my least common time to play Pirates. Fall would be similarly low if not for the whopping 48 games I played this past September and October alone, mostly as a result of T1. If not for August the three winter months would be the three highest single-month totals. I’m slightly surprised by how much higher the winter is than the summer, though almost all of my campaign games have occurred in the summertime, which still only count as one play each. Hopefully T2 will allow my big January and February numbers to climb even higher!

2017

A year later, and time to fully update my stats.
My Years at Miniature Trading

It was another big year for playing, as I set a personal second best in games played, barely surpassing the total from 2013. It was a REALLY big year for fleets, as I submitted a whopping 16 fleets between June 21st and June 22nd. Shocked My yearly total of 37 fleets submitted is by far my new personal record, and continues the “fleet explosion” seen since 2015. I do notice a trend though – since 2013, my fleet total increases by about a dozen on the odd years (12-24-37), but then dips on the even years. 2018 will likely continue that trend, with my creative energies temporarily exhausted. XD

The long slow trading decline continued as well, as I continue to flesh out my collection and don’t need as much stuff. There were some nice additions though, including the Guichuan and various stuff that saw action in Command the Oceans.

I also set a new personal record for miniature reviews. The 8 does include my first ever review of a custom game piece. I was disappointed not to teach more players, but the campaign games (Command the Oceans and VASSAL CG3) are just so fun.

As for my 2018 goals with these numbers, I hope to continue averaging around 50 plays a year (although, I’m basically averaging 60 per year after the 168-game flurry of the past 2 years XD). For the fleets and trades, I’d just like to see double digits. MR’s come and go, so I’m not overly concerned about those. I definitely want to teach more than 7 players to set a new personal best, and naturally my inclination for campaign games should lead to at least one new one of those.

Here are my 2017 plays by month, with February, July, and December unsurprisingly the busiest months. I was disappointed that March ended my active months in a row streak of playing at least one game of Pirates (at 28!), but I hope a new streak has started as of November 2017. (October was a little weird due to CTO)
My Years at Miniature Trading

And finally my cumulative monthly totals. The disparity between the summer/winter months and those of spring/fall only got bigger. Every month other than October and November has more plays in it than the entire spring season of March through May! It was another big February, which now has almost twice as many plays as any other month.
My Years at Miniature Trading

2018

My Years at Miniature Trading by the numbers

As I discussed in my 2018 Year in Review, 2018 was an absolutely DISMAL year for Pirates.  I anticipated that somewhat in terms of numbers because it was the first year since 2015 without tournament play, and I’m so content with my collection that trading almost feels unnecessary (thanks VASSAL!  XD).  Although my plays were WAY down, I started three campaign games and those are my favorite type of game by far.  After massive explosions in my fleet and review numbers, it was only natural for them to fall back a lot, especially once Miniature Trading’s demise became a possibility in late August 2018.

I’m anticipating changes in 2019 that may even drive some of these numbers further down, but I’ve kind of “been there, done that” in terms of producing the above types of content for this game.  I’d like to focus on campaign games and making the game more popular rather than endless fleet ideas and small games.  My per-year averages will naturally fall quite a bit over time, but I can always compute stats for specific periods of time, such as the ridiculous run from 2015-2017.  In addition, I think I’ll start adding new stats: numbers for youtube videos produced (231 in 2018), podcasts recorded (24), and (less likely) Instagram posts.  Those three categories all had strong years in 2018, and they’re much more impactful and helpful to the community than my plays or fleets anyway.

Thanks for checking this out, and feel free to share your own stats for Pirates CSG!

-Admiral A7XfanBen