I starte off by going to each one in turn. And then visiting those sites that yielded the best results. It rapidly became clear that some sites were better at different times of the day, and visiting one site too much could result in diminishing returns. Then I spent an entire day at each site in turn and then visited the sites that produce the most food at a given time. The relative order of visiting sites did have an affect so this didn't always work particularly well. After a bit of playing around and experimentation I ended up settling on the following cycle towards the end:

08:00 Pig Swamp

09:00 Bunny Ride

10:00 Snake Shores

11:00 Dog Valley

12:00 Dog Valley

13:00 Dog Valley

14:00 Dog Valley

15:00 Rooster Peaks

16:00 Monkey Meadow

17:00 Bunny Ridge

18:00 Pig Swamp

19:00 Pig Swamp

20:00 Tiger Forest

21:00 Tiger Forest

22:00 Tiger Forest

23:00 Tiger Forest

This got me 2761 food total.

I enjoyed this. Though I think the 10 minuite estimate is far too low. This leaves less than 1s per decision!

 Looking at how various combinataions of race and class do against one another when their levels are the same there are clearly some combinations that do a lot better than others. Increasing the level helps to an extent, but the race/class combination looks like it is easily the most important factor. Special items do help, but less than the level. In most cases boots seem a bit more useful than gauntlets.

Manually scanning through the data suggests that the following combinations hopefully won't be too bad:

DWARF NINJA  v HUMAN WARRIOR + 1 boots of speed + 2 gauntlets
ELF KNIGHT     v HUMAN KNIGHT + 3 boots of speed +1 gauntlets
DWARF WARRIOR  v ELF NINJA + 3 gauntlets + 2 boots of speed
HUMAN MONK     v DWARF MONK + 4 boots of speed

As for the bonus obective. It looks like someone is threatening us if we do well in one or more of the fights, however I can't establish the details with any reliability. And as we have no idea who sent, and what their real intentions are, we would probably be wise to ignore it ad do what we would have done anyway, at least for now.
 

In general there seems to be a weak correlation between each of the attributes and costs,both when you consider every exorcist and the individual group.
- For corporeality the mystics seem to have a weak negative linear correlation.  The rest look like they have a weak step function
- For sliminess the mystics seem to have a weak negative linear correlation. All except the Pummelers (Which look linear) seem to have a weak step function.
- For intellect the Mystics again appear to have a weak linear correlation. The Slayers have a linear positive correlation, the rest seem to have a weak positive correlation.
- For hostility the Mystics have a weak negative linear function, the Wraiths  have a positive linear one, the rest appear to have a positive step function.
- For grotesueness the Mystic have a weak negative correlation, the destroyers have a positive linear correaltion, the rest seem to have a weak positive step function.
   
So one is always negative linear. One is a positive step function for everything, the other 4 are positive linear in one, but have a step function for the rest.

 Fitting a model to this leaves the best results as:
A: Entity Eliminators    (1737)
B: Spectre Slayers    (1999)
C: Mundanifying Mystics    (2862)
D: Entity Eliminators    (1737)
E: Wraith Wranglers    (1747)
F: Mundanifying Mystics    (2842)
G: Demon Destroyers    (1459)
H: Phantom Pummelers    (1804)
I: Wraith Wranglers    (1961)
J: Wraith Wranglers    (1934)
K: Mundanifying Mystics    (2842)
L: Mundanifying Mystics    (2783)
M: Spectre Slayers    (1857)
N: Phantom Pummelers    (1778)
O: Wraith Wranglers    (1747)
P: Mundanifying Mystics    (2775)
Q: Wraith Wranglers    (1513)
R: Mundanifying Mystics    (2940)
S: Spectre Slayers    (1686)
T: Mundanifying Mystics    (2821)
U: Phantom Pummelers    (1756)
V: Demon Destroyers    (1567)
W: Demon Destroyers    (1942)
Total Cost: 48089

But unfortunately we can't have them all due to anoying guild rules.

When no slayers are present total cost is 48737

When no eliminators are present total cost is 48444

Max 3 pummeller restriction isn't relevant yet, but destroyers are used. Re-running this when destroyers aren't present yields the following results:

When no slayers or destroyers are present the total cost is 49934

When no eliminators or destroyers are present the total cost is 49162

So the money saved by the destroyer call out fee is worth it in both cases, and we don't need to worry
about the pummeler restriction.

based on this model the best choice is therefore:
A: Spectre Slayers    (1942)
B: Spectre Slayers    (1999)
C: Mundanifying Mystics    (2862)
D: Wraith Wranglers    (1887)
E: Wraith Wranglers    (1747)
F: Mundanifying Mystics    (2842)
G: Demon Destroyers    (1459)
H: Phantom Pummelers    (1804)
I: Wraith Wranglers    (1961)
J: Wraith Wranglers    (1934)
K: Mundanifying Mystics    (2842)
L: Mundanifying Mystics    (2783)
M: Spectre Slayers    (1857)
N: Phantom Pummelers    (1778)
O: Wraith Wranglers    (1747)
P: Mundanifying Mystics    (2775)
Q: Wraith Wranglers    (1513)
R: Mundanifying Mystics    (2940)
S: Spectre Slayers    (1686)
T: Mundanifying Mystics    (2821)
U: Phantom Pummelers    (1756)
V: Demon Destroyers    (1567)
W: Demon Destroyers    (1942)
Total cost is estimated to be 48444

There is still quite a bit of variation, and I don't think all of this is random, and if I was doing this for real I would definitiely analyse the data further to svae more money. As it is lack of time means that I will go with the above for my entry.

All potions have between 3 and 8 ingredients. Those with 6 and 7 are most liekly to succeed with 3 being particularly unlikely. In particular Barkskin Potion is never brewed successfully with only 3.
Barkskin Potion, in common with all other potions has two ingredients that must be present, in this case Crushed Onyx and Ground Bone.
 
The same set of ingredients sometimes produce different potions so there is clearly some randomness involved.
 
Scanning through the results there are several combinations that always produce the required potion. The most convincing (With 118 entries) is:
Crushed Onyx
Dragon Tongue
Dragons Blood
Eye of Newt
Giants Toe
Ground Bone
 
Sadly 3 of these ingredients aren't available however. The same is true of most of the combinationsn that have a 100 percent success rate. There is only one exception but as that is based on a single record using that is highly risky.
 
The next best with a 65.5 percent chance of success based on 29 records is:
Crushed Onyx
Demon Claw
Ground Bone
Vampire Fang 
 
So I'm going to have to recommend he uses these, and hope he doesn't end up with Inert Glop instead. 

Those apprenticed under Escher, Geisel, and Penrose never produce impossible structures. Those apprenticed under Johnson and Statmin always do. Self Taught architects sometimes do.

I couldn't find a reliable way of determining which Self-Taught architects would produce impossible structures, so I will have to go with four of D, E, G, H, K.

All the really cheap structures are made out of wood and dreams. Unfortunately none of the 5 architects proposals have these materials. Excluding these the next cheapest ones are all made out of 2 of wood/dreams/steel, the next set have Glass and one of the other 3, this suggests K will be cheapest. Silver is the next cheapest, so we want D, E and H.

My submission is therefore : D, E, H, K
 

There is some evidence that 2 artillery is sufficient to deal with 3 tyrants, but the amount of data is a bit small. I couldn't see any other change I could make which wouldn't lead to at least some measurable risk of loseing.  Risking being eaten to impress my superiors feels like a poor trade off, especially as they should hopefully be at least somewhat impressed with winning a battle at 10:16 odds, so I will stick with my initial selection. (Though I'm pretty sure that someone who was willing to take some risk of being eaten for extra prestige would be well advised to take one fewer artillery.)

 The more soldiers that come, the higher the chance of victory. We however will be outnumbered by at least 6, and previous squads that were outnumbered this badly only won 58 percent of the time.
 
There is no massive difference where the presence of one weapon and alien leads to victory, or where an alien is present but a weapon absent leads to defeat.

Looking at the cases where 1 soldier fought 1 alien:
- Artillery reliably win against venomopede, tyrants, scarab (only 8 records), crawlers, abominations
- Flamethrowers reliably beat crawlers, scarabs (only 5 records), normally win against venomopede, but normally lose to abominations, and consistently lose to tyrants.
- Grenades reliably win against abominations, crawlers, scarabs (only 6 records), venomopede normally win against tyrants 
- Lance reliably win against venomopede, scarab (only 6 records), crawlers, abominations normally win against tyrants
- Minigun reliably wins against crawlers, scarab (only 3 records), venomopede reliably loses against abominations, tyrants
- Phaser reliably wins against venomopede, scarab, crawler, normally wins against abomination reliably loses against tyrants
- Torpedoes reliably wins against abominations, crawlers, scarabs (Only 5 records), venomopede normally wins against tyrants
 
 Tyrants look like the strongest enemy followed by abominations.
 
When 1 soldier faced 2 abominations they always lost unless they either had torpedoes, lance or artillery. Torpedoes seem best but aren't perfect.
When 1 soldier faced 2 crawlers they always won if they were equipped with grenades, lance or phaser.
When 1 soldier faced 2 scarab they always won unless they were equipped with artillery or torpedoes.
When 1 soldier faced 2 tyrants they always lost unless they were equipped with artillery which won about half the time.
When 1 soldier faced 2 venomopedes they always won if they were equipped with grenades or lances

When 2 soldiers go into battle they are never equipped with the same weapons.
 
When 2 soldiers faced 3 tyrants the only combinations with victories were (torpedoes + mini gun and torpedoes + lance). 1 Artillery was insufficient. Suggest 1 artillery is insufficient to deal with 3 tyrants.
 

Looking at battles where only scarabs are present suggests the following limits on the number that can be defeated by a single type of weapon reliably:
- Artillery and tropedoes: 1
- Grenades and lances: 2
- Rifles and flamethrowers: 3
- Phasers: 4
- Minigun: 5

It looks like that if you have enough weapons to reliably win against each type individually then you will win reliavbly against the group.

This suggests that the following would give us a 100 percent - epsillon chance of victory:
- 3 artillery (Deals with Tyrants)
- 2 mini guns (Deals with Scarabs) 

- 3 torpedoes (Deals with Abominations)
- 1 grenade (Deals with crawlers/venompede)
- 1 lance (Deals with crawlers/venompede)

I suspect it can be done with fewer soldiers, however this is my provisional lineup if I don't get a chance to look at this further.
 

>!Grey turtles have a much lower weight than most 3.9->7.9
Greyish green turtles have a lower weight then the green ones, though the ranges overlap. Lowest 13 highest 42.9
There is a big spike in the number of green turtles with a weight of 20.4
Suggests we are dealing with multiple distinct species.

 
The spike in green turtles with a weight of 20.4 all have 6 shell segments. 
No green turtle with 6 shell segments has a weight other than 20.4.
Therefore Harold has a weight of 20.4

 
All gray turtles have fangs, and no other coloured turtles do. Means we can ignore this as any effect will be entirely contained in the colour.

There appears to be a slight increase in weight with the number of wrinkles, scars, shell segments, and miscellaneous abnormalities, though the rate of increase depends on shell colour, and to a lesser extent on nostril size.
 
Fitting a linear model explains just under 80 percent of the variation for grey turtles, and a little over 50 percent for the rest.
There is no obvious pattern to the deviations, and there is clearly a lot of randomness as a lot of identical turtles have widely differing weights.

My best estimate for the weights of the turtles based on the linear model is as follows:
Abigail      20.0
Bertrand     17.3
Chartreuse   22.8
Dontanien    19.2
Espera       16.5
Flint         6.8
Gunther      25.5
Harold       20.4
Irene        21.7
Jacqueline   18.6

If I wanted to maximise my income from the constitutional despot I should bump up the estimates a bit, however I don't need the money, and frankly my reputation as an honest scholar is worth more than a few gp. And who knows if enough people ignore perverse incentives like this he may stop offering them and become a less wrong constitutional despot? I can dream at least. As for the unflattering portrait, you can always judge someone by the quality of the pepole you have offended. Coming from him that is going to be seen as a compliment by the people that I care about, not an insult. So I will just give him my best estimates and move on.

Looking at this further, by far the strongest effect is the latitude, and that looks more like a rectangular effect than a trigonometric one. Replacing  the trigonometric fit with one that modelled a rectangulat latitude effect and no other yielded a model that explained most of the variation. By itself this looks better than the previous model.  

The next biggest effect looks like it is due to variation in murphys constant. This looked vaguely quadratic. 

The next biggest effect looked like it was due to variations in the value of Pi. It looked vaguely triangular, with the point ust below 3.15. 

The next biggest effect looked like a vaguely sinusoidal variation due to the longitude.

Including all of these in a model yielded one with a standard deviation of 4.9, and predicted that the following 12 locations were the best:

76804 VALUE:87.95301643603202
16965 VALUE:88.18566645580597
104815 VALUE:88.34280034001172
8415 VALUE:88.39346893009704
18123 VALUE:88.50303192064138
107929 VALUE:88.5221749787355
99595 VALUE:88.59004262250107
80395 VALUE:88.59313676878352
42742 VALUE:88.72736581213306
40639 VALUE:88.80584599223495
65607 VALUE:90.36919375244607
94304 VALUE:90.63981001558145

This is currently my best estimate. As the predicted values are all < 100 I will have to file a report on this with the empires colonisation department in case there is every any interest in making another attempt, but I won't risk the empresses' rath by attempting to colonise any of them.

Thank you for posting this. My findings are as follows:

Only 2 existing locations have > 100 performance. Both of these have:
- No strange smell
- Mint air
- Adequate Feng Shui

Most other high performers (But sub 100) have the same properties. Addittionally the weird sounds of the high performers are either:
- Eerie Silence
- Otherworldly Skittering

This suggests it would be sensible to restrict ourselve to locations with these properties. This alone increases the average performance from 23.12 to 46.92

High values of murphys constant are bad, though the affect seems to become small at around 3.5. There is some evidence to suggest that amongst the high performing section (But not the others) too low a value of murphys constant would be counterproductive, though it is a small affect. It may be a statistical fluctuation. Restricting to locations with a value < 3.5 would leave an average of 62.77

A value of pi below the normal value also looks harmful, though one that is too high also looks counterproductive. It looks like a relatively modest effect though and I don't wan to exclude too many possible locations, so I won't exclude any locations based on the value of pi.

There are few high performing ones between latitude -38 and +38.
There are few high performing ones around shortitude 0, and  +-90
There are few high performing ones around deltitude 0, and  +-90
But this might be caused by the small number of bases in these areas.

I then fitted a simple linear trigonometric model to the records that had the other properties that were identified with high performance. This gave the following model:

90.40498684665667+1.0177516945528096*sin(deltitude)+11.356095534597717*cos(deltitude)-0.17160136718146096*sin(shortitude)+14.734915658705445*cos(shortitude)-2.41427525418688*sin(latitude)-62.034325081735766*cos(latitude)+5.158741059290979*sin(longitude)+8.287780468342245*cos(longitude)
Standard deviation of error is 13.19479724158273 The no of records was 180

I found that the standard deviation error was reduced when degrees  were converted to radians using the local value of pi, so that is what was used.

This predicts that the following 12 possible locations have the best performance:

38730 VALUE:110.47214318466737
103420 VALUE:110.67976641439135
91328 VALUE:111.69109272372066
26403 VALUE:112.35848311090837
7724 VALUE:112.40205758474453
21409 VALUE:113.21091851443907
89352 VALUE:113.88444725998731
3090 VALUE:113.89351821821175
65317 VALUE:121.11038526877846
57364 VALUE:123.12690147352956
26627 VALUE:132.5469987591373
91627 VALUE:134.17450784571542

In practice I think it is unlikely that all of them will be greater than 100, but it looks like it will probably be good enough to please the empress.

 My best estimate is:

Hammer Hurler
Matchlock Marauder
Professor Pyro

This is also my entry for the PvP contest

Page of Hope and Heir of Space

I haven't had a chance to analyse any effects that depend on Waking-Time yet. But based on the other data every other Snark that was hunted that matched  one of B/G/H/P/Q/Y was successfully hunted so if this was for real I would play it safe and go with:

B G H P Q Y

To maximise value:

A B C D G H J K L M N P Q R V W Y

Looks like it will yield an expected value of just over 14, albeit with an uncomfortably low 84 percent chance of survival. This is my provisonal entry to the bonus task if I don't get a chance to analyse Waking-Time dependant effects.

Some traits definitely go better with some houses, however I couldn't see much in the way of clear cut rules. I constructed the following highly provisional allocation by considering students that were sorted when the helm was still reasonably reliable, and then combining the probabilities of a student with each of the 5 ratings being sorted into each house, and selecting the one which on balance seemed most likely.

A    Dragonslayer
B    Thought-Talon
C    Serpentyne
D    Dragonslayer
E    Humblescrumble
F    Serpentyne
G    Dragonslayer
H    Humblescrumble
I    Humblescrumble
J    Thought-Talon
K    Dragonslayer
L    Dragonslayer
M    Dragonslayer
N    Dragonslayer
O    Serpentyne
P    Thought-Talon
Q    Dragonslayer
R    Humblescrumble
S    Serpentyne
T    Humblescrumble
 

 After staring at the data a bit more:

• Woodcutters are only valuable at low coal levels. At coal level 1 an extra miner is consistently more valuable than a woodsman
• Brewers seem to be actively harmful to fort value.
• There is a big fall in fort value when no warriors are present.
• The previously observed drop off in the value of additional miners after 5 seem to occur because it makes it less likely for other valuable types to be present, not because it is intrinsically bad. 6 miners and 2 smiths/crafters seems to be much better than 5 miners and 3 smiths/crafters.

My final selection for the fort of Magh Loduhr is therefore:

• 4 farmers
• 6 miners
• 1 smith
• 1 crafter
• 1 warrior

Some more observations:

 - Having no farmers, brewers or warriors leads to 100 percent expedition failure. If there is a warrior present there is a small chance of success (Raiding for food?).
- The chances of failure when there are >= 4 farmers present and no brewers/warriors is statistically indistinguishable from about 99.5 percent regardless of the number of farmers. 3 farmers with no warriors/brewers gives a much lower success rate. Adding warriors only makes a distinguishable difference when the number of farmers is small.
 - 4 brewers and no farmers/warriors do about as well as the farmers, but 3 brewers do better, but 1 or 2 do worse. Adding warriors only makes a difference when the numbers of brewers is small.
 - Looking at forts with 4 farmers the additional value of each additional miner decreases, so we shouldn't go too miner heavy. In particular there is a sharp decrease after 5.
 - 3 miners and 1 smith is better on average than 4 miners. 2 miners and a smith is about as good as 3 miners when no crafters are present. A similar pattern holds for crafters.
 - Crafters do better than average when silver or hematite is present, a bit better than average when tin or copper are present, but don't do well with magnetite or gold
 - Smiths do better than average when hematite is present , a bit better than average when tin and copper are present, average when magnetite is present, but worse than average when silver or gold is present.    
 - Warriors do better than average when copper and hematite, about average when hematite, magnetite and silver is present and worse than average when gold is present
- The average for smiths is better than for crafters which is in turn better than warriors.
     
  Which lead me to the following provisional roster
    
    - 4 farmers
    - 5 miners
    - 2 smiths
    - 1 crafter 

    - 1 warrior

-

A few observations:

  - There is a weak correlation between expedition size and the probability of the fort surviving, so we should choose 13 dwarves.
   - Farmers and brewers are crucial to the survival of the city. Specialising in one type seems more efficient than having both. 6 farmers or 6 brewers guarantee survivial, but if you have a mixture you need at least 10. Farmers seem slightly better than brewers. 3 farmers give > 99 percent survival, but 4 brewers are needed to do as well. Warriors marginally increase survival odds when there are fewer farmers and brewers, but nothing else seems to have a positive impact.
- Miners seems to generate most of the value
   - Having one woodcutter offers a meaningfull boost, but there doesn't seem to be much benefit in haveing more. The boost is biggest at low coal values
   - Forts with 2 warriors seems to do best, though the gap between 1 and 2 seems to be modest, and maybe due to them haveing fewer lower value types.
   - Haveing 1 smith provides a modest beenfit, though haveing more is counterproductive.
   - Crafters are similar to warriors, except the effect is much smaller.
   - When no smiths or craftsmen are present then the for value is significantly reduced. 
   - Smiths and crafters do better when different resources are present.
 

 Which suggests something like this is needed to maximise value, subject to the constraint of minimising the risk of loseing the fort:
   - 6 farmers
   - 1 warrior
   - 1 crafter
   - 1 smith
   - 4 miners
   
   An alternative strategy which accepted a small risk of fort loss in exchange for makeing much more money would be:
   - 3 farmers
   - 1 warrior
   - 1 woodcutter
   - 1 crafter
   - 1 smith
   - 6 miners

I only had time for a very superficial analysis, however hopefully the following isn't too bad:

• Rainbow Rays of Rahl
• Alatar's Abyssal Armor
• Solomon's Solar Shield

 * When Monstrous Regeneration and Anomalous Agility is assigned to every hero it results in a 
* 36 percent win rate. When they are chosen there is only a 21 percent win rate. The sample
* size is to big for this to be dismissed as a statistical fluctuation. With the DM ruling out
* any difference in God assigned cheats or other time dependent effects it looks like heroes
* are making their decisions based on some hidden variables we don't have access to.
* 
* Many combinations of traits assigned by the Chaos deity also show substantial differences
* (sometime better, sometimes worse), than when they are chosen. This suggests the provisional
* decision to go with Radiant Splendor + Enlightenment probably isn't optimal after all.
* 
* The best set of traits chosen by the Chaos Deity for Heroes in our class is :
* Temporal Distortion + Anomalous Agility. (95 percent win rate based on 20 records)
* Barrier Conjuration + Mind Place (92.3 percent Win rate based on 13 records).
* Rapid XP Gain + Monstrous Regeneration (91.7 percent win rate based on 12 records)
* Barrier Conjuration + temporal Distortion (88 percent win rate based on 25 records)
* 
* Temporal Distortion + Anomalous Agility does almost as well when these cheats are chosen as well.
* 
*  On balance I think it would be a good idea to change my cheats to:
*  Temporal Distortion + Anomalous Agility.

For heros with our traits:

- Temporal Distortion and Rapid XP gain are the best 2 overall which seem to work well with anything.  The best single combination however is Enlightenment + Radiant Splendor (94 percent win rate). Shapeshifting is just terrible and should always be avoided. The others work well with some traits, but not with others;
The following combinations are very poor (< 1/2 win rate) and should not be given to other heroes like me:
- Anomalous Agility + Barrier Conjuration
- Anomalous Agility + Monstrous Regeneration
- Anomalous Agility + Uncanny Luck
- Barrier Conjuration + Monstrous Regeneration
- Barrier Conjuration + Uncanny Luck
- Enlightenment + Hyper Competent Dark Side
- Enlightenment + Monstrous Regeneration
- Hyper Competent dark Side + Mind Place
- Hyper Competent Dark Side + Radiant Splendor
- Hyper Competent Dark Side + Uncanny Luck
- Mind Place + Uncanny Luck
- Monstrous Regeneration + Radiant Splendor
- Monstrous Regeneration + Uncanny Luck
- Rapid XP Gain + Uncanny Luck
 
When looking at records for all trait a different picture emerges. Here MindPlace is the ability that is terrible, and shapeshifting does reasonably well with anything except MindPlace. The only terrible combos (< 1/2 chance of success ) which don't involve MindPlace are:
- Anomalous Agility + Barrier Conjuration
- Barrier Conjuration + Monstrous Regeneration
- Enlightenment + Hyper Competent Dark Side
- Hyper Compenetent Dark Side + Radiant Splendor
- Hyper competent Dark Side + Uncanny Luck
 
 Radiant Splendor and Enlightenment still does best overall though.
 
In general our traits seem to be somewhat below average, but Radiant Splendor + Enlightment still looks like a very strong combination. This combination was noticeably less successfull (6/12 times) for heros with our traits when the Chaos deity was involved. The sample size is small, and the effect doesn't show when all heroes are considered, so this might be a statistical fluctuation; however it may be an idea to avoid further dealing with this deity, just in case it is giving inferior versions of traits to heroes like me to spread chaos.

Provisional Decision: Go with Radiant Splendor + Enlightenment

Some omens/disasters are clearly correlated with what happens next year, though I couldn't find anything that stood out and made a given disaster nearly certain to happen this year. Some of the signs were also contradictory. I couldn't find any additional clear cut pattern by looking at previous years, though given that several disasters come in clumps I wouldn't be surprised if there was something to learn by looking for correlations > 1 year in the past.  I suspect a complicated algorithm could need to be used to pull everything together to produce a highly accurate prediction, however my relatively simple analysis suggests that the following may not be too bad:

Interventions I am very confident are optimal:
- Italia Famine Relief(10000Dn)
- Grecia Plague Prevention(10000Dn)

Interventions that look reasonably likely to be optimal:
- Hispania Famine relief(10000Dn)
- Italia Plague Prevention(10000Dn)

Interventions that look moderately useful, but I suspect aren't optimal:
- Grecia Fire Prevention(10000Dn)
- Hsipania Fire Prevention (10000Dn)

There doesn't seem to be a killer card that dominates one or more of the others.

Having a balanced deck seems to be important, as the probability of winning  consistently declines as the number of distinct cards falls, and the maximum number of a single card rises.

The cards clearly aren't equivelant as some groups of cards do consistently better than others. 

I haven't been able to get a grip on what the rules might be, but peering through the fog suggests that the following combination won't be too bad:

 2 Alessin, Adamant Angel
 0 Bold Battalion
 1 Dreadwing, Darkfire Dragon
 2 Evil Emperor Eschanous, Empyreal envoy of entropic dead
 0 Gentle Guard
 1 Horrible Hooligan
 0 Kindly Knight
 2 Lilac Lotus
 1 Murderous Minotaur
 1 Patchy Pirate
 0 Swords of the Shadow
 2 Virtuous Vigilante

This is my provisional entry for both the main and PVP objectives.

Infiltrate:
3273
4449
4027

Legal:
5058
3850
2325

Paramilitary
3440
2719
3597

Infiltrate:
3273 
4449 
4027 

Legal:
5058 
3850 
2325 

Paramilitary
3440 
2719 
4027

Min noise in 9 max is 32, with an average of 16.
Everyone with > 28 noise had a Trum-Troopa. All the really low instances of noise which involved Trum-Troops were wither with a boy paired with a Fum-Foozler or a girl pared with a Who-Whonker.

Girls tend to make much more noise with Fum-Foozler than boys.

There seems to be a slight bias to younger children producing less noise with Sloo-Slonker.

If a child likes/dislikes a Gah-Ginka one year it looks like it will also like/dislike it another year.

Blum-Blooper appears to be consistently unpopular with Fum-Foozler and normally unpopular with Who-Whonker

Which suggests.

Blum-Blooper: Ideally goes with Fum-Foozler but possibly also Who-Wonker.
Fum-Foozler: Only goes to boys
Gah-Ginka: Goes to children that haven't liked it in previous years.
Sloo-Slonker: Give to younger children
Trun-Troops: Go to either boys with a Fum-Foozler or girls with a Who-Whonker
Who-Whonker: From others

   Four Blum-Bloopers
   Four Fum-Foozlers
   Two Gah-Ginkas
   Three Sloo-Slonkers
   Three Trum-Troopas
   Four Who-Whonkers

Andy Sue Who 12 M  Gah-Ginka, Blum-Blooper
Betty Drew Who 11 F Trun-Troops, Who-Whonker
Sally Sue Who 11 F Trun-Troops, Who-Whonker
Phoebe Drew Who 9 F Trun-Troops, Who-Whonker
Freddie Lou Who 8 M Fum-Foozler, Blum-Blooper
Eddie Sue Who 8 M Gah-Ginka, Fum-Foozler
Cindy Drew Who 6 F Blum-Blooper, Who-Whonker
Mary Lou Who 6 F Sloo-Slonker, Blum-Blooper
Ollie Lou Who 5 M Fum-Foozler, Sloo-Slonker
Johnny Drew Who 4 M Fum-Foozler, Sloo-Slonker

 As there are only half points for duplicates focusing on one area is not a good idea. As hunts in locations where the Crow That Breaks The Sky are present it seems like a good idea to avoid Thunderwood Forest (excpet in Weeks 6). There's no information on how many points you get for different sized creatures which makes it difficult to factor that in. The number of datapoints for hunts in this period is very low so I will just crudely weight the hunts to the areas that look more promising.
 
Week 06: Thunderwood Peaks
Week 07: The Lordesteppes
Week 08: Miresmouth Forest
Week 09: Scorchsand Shores
Week 10: Devil's Maw
Week 11: The Lordesteppes
Week 12: Miresmouth Forest
Week 13: Scorchsand Shores
Week 14: The Lordesteppes
Week 15: Miresmouth Forest
 
Armour and Weapons:
Again there seems to be too litle data to draw any firm conclusion so just go with what looks to be
best on average for each region.
Thunderwood Peaks - Flaming Faulds armour and a Stormblade
The Lordesteppes - Electro chainmail Armour and a Badger Bludgeon.
Miresmouth Forest - Electro chainmail armour and a Winder's Rime
Scorchsand Shores _ Ground Greaves armour and a stormblade
Devil's Maw - Windy Wear armour  and a Winder's Rime

The known Genus in the monster file appear to be grouped. Together with hints about data being obscured by poor handwriting it suggests the unknown ones belong to the group they are in:
Toxicala = Beast
Earthmover = Beast
Raging Windrider = Avian
Flying Storm = Drake

Within a genus the data is consistent with being ordered by size  suggesting:
Rimewinder <= Scary
Dull Viper >= Rinewinder, <= Scary
Peaksnake  >= Dull Viper, <= Scary
Wrathrope >= Peaksnake, <= Scary
Earthmover >= medium, <= legendary
Macrophant >= Earthmover, <= legendary
Flamu >= small, <= large
Puffdrake <= small
Sandcrawler >= Medium
Thunderclap Wyvern >= Sandcrawler

Sightings by biologists:
All times/During weeks 6-15
Cassowarrior 46/13
Cold Parrot 47/4
Downhanger 98/22
Dull viper 65/16
Earthmover 71/15
Flamu 53/12
Flying Storm 45/18
Macrophant 35/5
Northern Badger 77/7
Peaksnake 41/3
Puffdrake 33/0
Rimewinder 25/6
Sandcrawler 53/7
Thunderclap Wyvern 31/14
Toxicala 19/0
Wrathrope 41/8

So the Toxicala is the most desirable specimen for the biologists, followed by the Rimewinder, Puffdrake, and Macrophant. The Toxicala  and Puffdrake have never been seen between weeks 6 and 15. and the Rimewinder is quite likely to be a small beast. The name of the Macrophant together with it's position in the list suggests it is probably a large beast, suggesting this is the most desirable one to find on balance. During this time of the year in the past it has only been seen in the The Lordesteppes, suggesting that is a good place to go. Hunts in this location also seem to be more successful on average than the average hunt. Posion Plate armour from the Poison element has been used on more than half of the succesfull Macrophant hunts, suggesting that is the best choice for them. A sword with the wind element is the most succcessful weapon.


For the locations the biologists look for specimens the following stand out:
They enver go to the Devils Maw between weeks 37 and 39 or between weeks 46 and 49
They never go to Miresmouth Forest in weeks 13 or weeks 33-45
They never go to Scorchsan between weeks 1 and 6 and between weeks 46 and 52
They never go to the Lordesteppes between weeks 20 and 32, and also in week 52
They never go to Thunderwood Peaks in weeks 7-19

Looking though the hunters logs hunts suggests:

Hunts in the gap periods in Devils Maw are either unsucessful or yield a Sliding Queen Shash (only in the first period) which has a scary size. Possibly this is only present during these times and the ancient biologists were
to scared to got there then? That monster has not been seen anywhere else or at any other times which is consistent with this.

Hunts in Miresmouth Forest between weeks 33-45 are unusually unsuccessful. Maybe the biologists are avoiding it because of poor pickings. Or more likely the Legendary Crow That Breaks The Sky frightened the biologists off, The hunters never caught one of these outside of this window which suggests the crows may only be present during this time? The times at which the crows have been caught in the Lordsteppes and Thunderwood Peaks also correspond to time when the biologists don't go there.. No crows were caught in Scorchan during the gap, however it they are migratory birds that are always present in one location then the gap would perfectly align with the time at which their location was not otherwise known, suggesting the cause of this gap is the same.

 There is mo obvious correlation between no encounters and probability of success, but it looks like this is caused by better teams of adventurers taking on dungeons with more encounters on average.
 

There are no teams where more than 2 adventurers are of the same class. There is probably a reason for this.
Where there are duplicate types the dungeon is only beaten 55 percent of the time v 64 percent when there are no duplicates, so I will have 4 different types of adventurers in all my teams.
 

There is no obvious correlation between the rank of the highest adventurer and the probability of beating the dungeon. Suggests having a balanced team is more important than just maxing one out, unless there is specific evidence to the contrary.

Looking at the probability of defeating an encounter when a particular type of adventurer is missing suggests the following:
Goblins - teams do better than average when a Cleric, Fighter or particularly a Ranger is present
Goblin Chieftain - Teams with a fighter in them do much better than those without, Ranger is second best
Wolves - Are very easy to beat regardless of the team
Orcs - Fighters seem to be best followed by clerics
Orc Warlord - Teams with fighters do much better than ones without.
Orc Shaman - Again fighters are best, though mages and druids seem to be pretty close Skeletons - Easy to beat, though teams with clerics do a bit better than average
Zombies - Teams with clerics do best, though mages come close
Ghosts - Clerics  do best
Basilisk - Druids are best followed by fighters and clerics
Lich - Clerics are best followed by Mages 
Dragon - The toughest to beat. Fighters and Rangers seem best followed by mages and clerics
Boulder Trap - Fighters do best
Lever Puzzle Room - Easy though rangers seem do do slightly better than most
Riddle Door - Mages and Clerics do better than most, though again this is easy for all
Cursed Altar - CLerics do best
Snake Pit - Easy though Druids do slightly better than most
Poison Needle Trap - Rogues do best
 
Fighters appear to be the best all round adventurer, followed by clerics.
 
Looking at the probability of winning an encounter when particular levels of adventurers are present
suggests the following.
(1) When either a level 6 fighter, ranger or cleric is present an encounter against goblins is almost always
won. Rangers seem to be slightly better. 

(2) Where the highest rank of an adventurer is <= 2 the probability of defeating the dungeon is less than 50
percent. Between 3 and 7 it gradually increases from 61 percent to 68 percent, but there is a big jump to
87 when at least one level 8 adventurer is involved (Though there are only 30 cases of this).
 
 Temple of Lemarchland

There are 86 previous dungeons which had encounters which are a subset of those in the first dungeon. It looks very much like a junior dungeon. 4/8 teams which were all of rank 1 managed to beat it, which suggests spending relatively little on this.
 
 Infernal Den of Cheliax .

 The final encounter of every "Infernal Den" is either a Dragon or a Lich.
Every Den which has either wolves or Orcs encounters has a dragon at the end suggesting that we are
facing a dragon here. A high level figher looks like it is the best bet agasint dragons.
 
 
Goblin Warrens of Khaz-Gorond  

All dungeons with Goblin in the name have quite a few Goblin encounters, and most have a Goblin Chieftain. Poison Needle Traps, Snakepits and boulder traps are secondary threats.  Teams with at least 1 level 6 of several types look like they have nearly a 100 percent chance of winning against, lower level rangers seem like they are slightly better than other types. Fighters seem to be best against a Goblin Chief, though team with a
fighter with level > 3 seem to do worse than ones below it, though this is possibly a statistical artefact
as the numbers are relatively small.
 
I don't think I can confidentally identify a good choice based on my current understanding.. Peering through the fog my best current guess is:
 
Lost Temple of Lemarchland:
level 3 cleric
level 2 rogue
level 2 druid
level 2 mage
 
Infernal Den of Chelaix:
level 7 fighter
level 2 cleric 

level 2 druid
level 3 ranger

Goblin Warrens of Khaz-Gorond 
level 6 ranger
level 2 cleric
level 4 fighter
level 1 rogue

Spoiler protection.

Team colour doesn't appear to have any meaningful imapct on the chances of winning.

There are onl2 games where the opponents combination was played which is too small to draw any conclusions from, however there are 352 games where a team has had 4/5 of these characters. 

Teams with Greenery Giant or Nullifying Nightmare in them seem to do unusually well against Dire Druid (Nullifying nightmare does slightly better)

Greenery Giant looks very strong there is no other character that has been part of a winning team > 50% of the time against teams which she has been in, though Lanslide Lord comes close

Nullifying Nightmare and Tidehollow Tyrant seem to do best against Phoenix Paladin

Quartz Questant is also fairly strong, but teams with Blaze Boy in tend to win slightly more often than teams with Quartz Questant in. Greenery Giant and Nullyfing Nightmare also do very well. Rock-n-Roll Ranger however does better than all except Greenery Giant

Against teams with Tidehollow Tyrant in them teams with Greenery Giant, and Rock-n-Roll Ranger do best.

 Which suggests the following line up:
 - Greenery Giant
- Landslide Lord
- Nullifying Nightmare
- Rock-n-Roll Ranger
- Tidehollow Tyrant

 Both times this combination was used it won.
Teams with at least 4 of those characters won 77 percent of times, which suggests this is a strong combination.

I will therefore use the following for both the regular and PvP teams:

 - Greenery Giant
- Landslide Lord
- Nullifying Nightmare
- Rock-n-Roll Ranger
- Tidehollow Tyrant

I couldn't find much just by looking at the data.
 
Roughly 90 percent of all type of ship survive their voyage.
Survival rate for different purposes varies between 84 and 92 percent doesn't seem partcularly significant
 
Looking at the survival rates for different combinations of ships and purposes revelas some anomalously low values Carrack carrying redstones only 79%. Dhow and Mythrill 71% are the standouts. Might be a statistical fluctuation, and as we don't know what we're carrying it doesn't help much
 
Ships that sail only one week after their last voyage have a noticeably lower survival rate (74%), otherwise it doesn't appear to have much effect. So provisionally ignore all possible ships that sailed one week ago.
 
Voyages of length 10 or less have approximately the same survival rate of 90 percent, but this falls to 79% and 76% for voyages of length 13 and 14 respectively.

There are 19 encounters that did not take place on the planned route, and one of them occurred on land. This is a small fraction of the total, and they all occurred close to the route suggesting the planned route is reasonably reliable.
 
iceberg encounters are concentrated in the N part of the map, and are more prevelant during the N hemisphere winter.
Kraken encounters seem to be restricted to a small number of tiles which tend to come in clusters, they are slightly more active during the summer. 
Reef encounters seem to be restricted to a small number of tiles which tend to come in clusters. 
Merfolk seem to be restricted to a few moderatly big clusters
Wyrd Majick Fyre is centered on a cluster around J8, with a few random encounters elsewhere. Given the small number there is no reason to think these tiles are any more likely to suffer an encounter from it than any other.

Finding paths which yield the minimum expected damage (defined as all damage done in known encounters on route + 100/hexes on route for all planned routes that went through it but got destroyed yields the following)
Best path to first destination(L13) is:
(1) Q6 P7 P8 P9 P10 O11 N11 N12 M13 L13 
Best path to second destination(E8) is
(2)Q6 P6 O6 N6 M5 L5 K5 K6 J6 I6 H7 H8 G8 F8 E8 
 
Restricting it just to voyages leaving in June leads to::
Best path to first destination(L13) is
(3) Q6 P6 O6 N6 M7 M8 L8 K9 K10 K11 L12 L13 
Best path to second destination(E8) is
(4) Q6 P6 O6 N6 M5 L5 K5 K6 J6 I6 H5 G5 G6 F7 F8 E8
The slightly more northerly route in (4) is possibly because icebergs are less prevalent at that time of year, and they are concentrated in the northern part of the map, however there is no data at the end of the route, and Kraken have been seen in these hexes at other times, and they are more active than normal at this time of year, however the southern route also goes through Kraken infested waters.
  
Assigning double the weight to destroyed ships (and counting all voyages) yielded route Q6 P6 O6 N6 M7 M8 L9 L10 K11 L12 L13 and route (2) again. So this looks reasonably robust against changes to this weighting.
  
  For the captains choosing those that have survived more voyages than any other seemed like a reasonable first guess, however looking at the data suggests that the same name can be given to > one captain e.g Seamus Reagans voyages occur in 2 widely separated groups. So instead we need to look at the ships, which can hopefully be uniquely identified by their ids. Ships are generally commanded by the same captain. The 2 ships that have survived the most voyages are the Orange Falcon followed by the Mopey Diamond.
  
So my provisional answer (Which may be changed if I get time to look into this further) is:
Send The Mopey Diamond, a Carrack captained by Conall MacDougal by route Q6 P6 O6 N6 M5 L5 K5 K6 J6 I6 H7 H8 G9 G10 F10 E9 E8
Send The Orange Falcon, a Galleon captained by Brandon Buchanan by route  Q6 P7 P8 P9 P10 O11 N11 N12 M13 L13

Solar - Appears to operate on approximately a 27 day cycle which suggests it's value should be around 50 on day 384. However this has risen to anomalously high values recently (The supernova being a star may be the cause), so there is a risk it may not behave as predicted in the immediate future.
 
 Lunar - Seems to go through a pattern of relative highs and lows that repeat every 27-28 days, probably not coincentally the same as the orbital period of the moon. On day 356-357 lunar was at a relatively high value of 46 - 39, so this looks like a good prospect. 
 
 Ocean - Can be very strong, but also very weak at times with no obvious pattern.
 
 Breeze -  Has never been more than 20 or less than 6. This is unlikely to be good enough.
 
 Flame - Can be anywhere between 11 and 41 with no obvious pattern
 
 Ash - Is consistently <= 10 , so should probably be avoided
 
 Earth - Another one that can easily be very high or low with no obvious pattern.
 
 Void - Highly erratic osscillations between 17 and 30,
 
 Doom - The qualitative pattern seems to repeat itself once every 8 days, suggesting it's value on day 384
        will be about 30.
 
 Spite - Is 0 about half the time. It takes on a high value regularly once every 28 days though. The last time
            this happened was on day 369 which is no good for us. On other days it is either 0 or a relatively low
            value, so this is one to avoid.
        
  Looking at the ones that seem reasonably predictable Solar + Lunar should yield over 90 so this should be a good prospect, providing the supernova doesn't unexpectedly disrupt things.
  
  Lunar + Doom is another possibility, however unless the supernove disrupts things it has a lower expected value.
  

 On balance I think Solar + Lunar looks like the best bet.

Spolier protection

Where we have access to data for Maria for all resonances the amplitude that would have been produce is roughlyn in the same ballpark except for the gamma resonance which is highly variable and is  not obviously correlated to anything. The ordering is:

- delta
- alpha
- beta
- zeta ( except for a few where zeta generated 0)
- epsilon
 

- eta is a little erratic, sometimes above beta, sometimes below zeta, othertimes in between.

Which would suggest that delta should be used, except this pattern clearly doesn't hold for all the other pilots, so assumming the data for one pilot will help us work out what wuld be best for another pilot to use looks dubious.

Janelle has consistently generated higher amplitudes than the other candidates.
With the gamma resonance she generates > 3.2K 3/36 time with a number of other close calls (7 > 3.15 11 > 3)
With the beta resonance she generates > 3.2K 2/96 times (Though a number of others were close 4 > 3.15 10 > 3)
With the zeta resonance she generated > 3.2K 2/36
 
She has never generated > 3.2K with any of the others.

 All the other candidates except Will do best with the alpha resonance, though there is nothing to suggest any of them are likely to generate > 3.2K regardless of which resonance they use.

So Janelle is going to have to try her luck with the gamma resonance and good luck to her, she'll need it.
 

My first thought was that if I'm bidding against different versions of me then we should all co-operate and bid at most 1sp in order to maximise our profits. However we would most likely be up against NPC who won't do this which wrecks this strategy. In the absence of any indicateion of how the NPC and other bidders would bid I generated a random price between 0.9* average price and 0.9* minimum price, and then manually adjusted a couple that didn't  look right which resulted in the following bids:

Lot 1 Red Dragon 1 days since killed       73sp
Lot 2 Jungle Mammoth 1 days since killed     35sp
Lot 3 Mild Boar 5 days since killed        14sp
Lot 4 Jungle Mammoth 5 days since killed     22sp
Lot 5 Mild Boar 1 days since killed        14sp   
Lot 6 Green Dragon 2 days since killed      63sp
Lot 7 Mild Boar 2 days since killed        16sp
Lot 8 Mild Boar 5 days since killed        7sp
Lot 9 Mild Boar 8 days since killed        5sp
Lot 10 Mild Boar 6 days since killed       10sp
Lot 11 Mild Boar 8 days since killed       2sp
Lot 12 Blue Dragon 8 days since killed      18sp
Lot 13 Jewel Beetle 1 days since killed      4sp
Lot 14 Mild Boar 1 days since killed       14sp 
Lot 15 Jungle Mammoth 4 days since killed     29sp
Lot 16 Jungle Mammoth 2 days since killed     29sp
Lot 17 Mild Boar 5 days since killed       10sp
Lot 18 Red Dragon 6 days since killed       44sp
Lot 19 Mild Boar 5 days since killed       14sp
Lot 20 Jungle Mammoth 1 days since killed     34sp

Long term pattern of prices falling with time since killed for all monsters.
 
Yeti are consistently the cheapest. Winter Wolfs start of as the most expensive, but as time since killed 
increases the Snow Serpent becomes roughly equal.
 
Yeti have yielded the highest profit with Snow Wolf the highest losses.
 

From the description it looks like the winning bid and profit should be independent.
For each lot find similar lots in the past. From the ones Carver didn't win we can estimate the probability of winning for each possible bid, and from the ones she did win we can estimate the amount of money to be made by selling it. For each lot we can then look for the bif which maximises P(Winning)*Estimated profit.

Yeti 0 days since killed. All other winning bids at 55. 56 Should win with an estimated 18 profit.
Snow Serpent 2 days since killed. All other bids were at 20. 21 should win with estimated 5 profit.
Snow Serpent 1 day since killed. All other bids were at 40. 41 should win with UNKNOWN profit.
Winter Wolf 1 day since killed. All other bids were at 38. 39 should win with estimated -2 profit.
Yeti 5 days since killed. Other bids between 30-33. 34 should win with estimated 24 profit,  but there are only 4 other winners, so the risk of losing unless we bid more seem realistic, but that probably won't offset the risk of losing if we win.
Winter Wolf 1 day since killed. All other bids were at 38. 29 should win with estimated -2 profit.
Snow Serpent 1 day since killed. All other bids were at 40. 41 should win with unknown profit.
Snow serpent 5 days since killed. Other bids 10-16. 17 should win with estimated 10 profit, but only 6 cases where other bidders won. Winter wolf 3 days since killed. Carver won all of these by bidding between 24 and 38 average selling price was 33.
Winter Wolf 7 days since killed. Other bids between 20 - 23. Bidding 24 generates an estimated 1 profit.
Winter Wolf 8 days since killed. Other bids at  20-23. 24 Wins at estimated -3 profit.
Snow Serpent 8 days since killed. Other bids between 12 and 17. 18 wins with an estimated profit of 9.
Winter Wolf 2 days since killed. No non Carver winners. Craver bid between 27 and 41 with an average selling price of 34.
    
For the cases where there are no non Carver winners it seems reasonable to enter the lowest bid. There are a number of cases where the best non Carver bid is constant, so there is a realistic chance that dropping the bid will guarantee that we don't win. Whilst there are only a few at the lowest bid it looks like increasing the bid will reduce the expected profits more than can be expected to be gained by increasing the odds of winning.
  
For the cases where the profit is unknown. Looking at the other data the selling price only seems to drop
by a few sp per day. This suggests that we probably can't make a profit on the Snow Serpent unless we submit a low bid and get very lucky. Guess and knock a modertae value (10sp) off the average bid
  
Where the expect profit is < 0 put in a cheeky low bid just on the off chance we can pick one up cheap.
Do this at one below the lowest selling price where there are a reasonable number, otherwise guess and knock 10sp off.
  
So we have:
    
lot 1 Yeti 0 days since killed - 56sp
lot 2 Snow Serpent 2 days since killed - 21 sp
lot 3 Snow Serpent 1 day since killed - 30sp
lot 4 Winter Wolf 1 day since killed  - 29sp
lot 5 Yeti 5 days since killed - 34sp
lot 6 Winter Wolf 1 day since killed - 29sp
lot 7 Snow Serpent 1 day since killed - 30sp
lot 8 Snow Seppent 5 days since killed - 17sp
lot 9 Winter Wolf 3 days since killed - 24sp
lot 10 Winter Wolf 7 days since killed - 24sp
lot 11 Winter Wolf 8 days since killed - 11sp
lot 12 Snow Serpent 8 days since killed - 18sp
lot 13 Winter Wolf 2 days since killed - 27sp
    
350sp in total so we don't have to worry about losing later lots because we spent too much earlier.

Spoiler protection

Known harpy, kraken, merpeople, and shark attacks seem to be on a gentle rising trend.

Known pirate attacks fall substantially from 1401 onwards, but are still the most common. Despite this the year and month doesn't appear to have much impact on losses, and there is no obvious correlation between the month and the frequency of a given attack.

The direction doesn't appear to have much impact either.

Looking at how the damage is distributed across known encounters

- Harpy peaks at around 10-15 then falls away, none have done more than 23

- Kraken peaks at around 55 then falls away, none have done more than 78

- Pirates peaks around 15-20, and falls away, none have done more than 64

- Sharks peaks at around 20 -25 then falls away, none have done more than 56

- water elemental is strongly peaked around 80, but falls away rapidly, none have done more than 85

Suggests the only serious threats are:

- crabmonsters

- demon whale

- merpeople

- nessie

All of these peaked below 100 percent damage with 1 exception the demon whale, which suggests this is the biggest threat. With this in mind I should definitely invest in all 20 oars for 20 gp.

Nessie is responsible the causing the second highest number of incidents with very heavy damage, so investing another 30gp in cannons looks sensible.

Merpeople are the next biggest threat, but bribing them could make matters worse if it leads to more dangerous encounters. There were 2678 known merpeople encounters. If we assume they are spread evenly across the other 8 encounter types that means at least 334 demon whale attacks. Looking at the distribution of damage caused by the demon whale attacks it looks like the peak is likely to be well over 100 percent damage, and they represent a very real threat even with all the extra oars. It is not at all clear if this would represent a net reduction in risk, and when I consider that the high cost would prevent me investing in crabmonster defenses the benefits of this look dubious.

The crabmonsters are the only other encounter that do a large amount of damage, so arming the carpenters for 20gp looks sensible.

For the remaining 35 gp investing money to reduce a minute risk to my life and impressing the admiralty with less damage done to the ship seems a lot more attractive than minutely increasing the risk to my life and impressing them with saving money. Of the lesser threats the water elementals do the most damage, so if any of them are going to get me it is most likely to be them, so I will invest the last of the gold in the foam swords.

Final decision:

- 20 oars @ 20gp

- 3 cannons @ 30gp

- Arm the carpenters @ 20gp

- Foam swords for the deck crew @ 15gp

- 15 gp under budget

 So you foolish mortals, you don't trust me enough to give your true names,
  your worried that I might talk you out of your soul if you allow me to talk to you,
  and you feel the need to put in place precautions to stop me sending you anything other than your marching
  orders. Despite this you do apparently trust me to take an important decision for you. If everything is
  as it appears this set of mortals is even more stupid than the usual lot.
  
  Looking at the the list it start of with the necromancers attacking the geomancers.
  The the pyromancers intevene breifly, before the necromacners start attacking the vitamancers
  Then the vitamancers and the pyromancers start attacking one another
  Then things gets pretty random
  Then the necromancers attack ther cryomancers.
  Then there are 607 groups of 5 battles where all of the mancers ignoring the electomancer are involved in once.
  
 The groups of 5 battles involve a lot of groups with attacks on both sides territory, which suggest either a
 very good spy network predicting one sides attacks, or someone is actively organising this. It also suggests the records are grouped in chronological order.
 
  The so called good mancers have won more battles than the other side, in particular once the group battles
  occur their lead over the other mancers appears to increase at a roughly constant rate. Granted some battles
  can be more important than others, but it does rather suggest that this plane is in rather more danger of
  being taken over by this lot than the other lot. You may call yourselves good, but anyone can call 
  themselves that.
 
  Assuming the probabilities of each mancers winning a battle only depend on the mancers involved and the
  location, and not any other battles suggest that if I want to maximise their chances of winning 5 battles
  I should tell them to:
  Cryomancer COUNTER  v Pyromancer A 100.0 % of WIN Min data points 18
  Vitamancer A COUNTER  v Pyromancer B 71.42857142857143 % of WIN Min data points 18
  Geomancer A DEFEND  v Necromancer A 100.0 % of WIN Min data points 18
  Vitamancer B COUNTER  v Necromancer B 65.21739130434783 % of WIN Min data points 18
  Geomancer B DEFEND  v Necromancer C 100.0 % of WIN Min data points 18
  P(All Win) = 46.58385093167702
  P(4 Win) = 71.42857142857143
 
  And if I was to sabotage there efforts by maximising there chances of losing 5 battles:
  Vitamancer A DEFEND  v Pyromancer A 11.888111888111888 % of WIN Min data points 19
  Cryomancer DEFEND  v Pyromancer B 12.5 % of WIN Min data points 19
  Vitamancer B COUNTER  v Necromancer A 0.0 % of WIN Min data points 19
  Geomancer A COUNTER  v Necromancer B 28.000000000000004 % of WIN Min data points 19
  Geomancer B COUNTER  v Necromancer C 4.166666666666666 % of WIN Min data points 19
  P(All Lose) = 53.197552447552454
  P(4 Lose) = 73.88548951048952
  
 Is winning all 5 battles more important than a bigger chance of winning 4 battles . This bunch of incompetents don't say. In any case it makes no difference if I was to help them, and only a small difference if I wasn't.
  
  Confining the analysis just to the groups of 5 yields slightly different results:
  Vitamancer B COUNTER  v Pyromancer A 89.1891891891892 % of WIN Min data points 18
  Cryomancer COUNTER  v Pyromancer B 85.29411764705883 % of WIN Min data points 18
  Geomancer A DEFEND  v Necromancer A 100.0 % of WIN Min data points 18
  Vitamancer A DEFEND  v Necromancer B 76.92307692307693 % of WIN Min data points 18
  Geomancer B DEFEND  v Necromancer C 100.0 % of WIN Min data points 18
  P(All Win) = 58.51779381191147
  P(4 Win) = 76.0731319554849
  
  Vitamancer A DEFEND  v Pyromancer A 9.090909090909092 % of WIN Min data points 12
  Cryomancer DEFEND  v Pyromancer B 12.5 % of WIN Min data points 12
  Vitamancer B COUNTER  v Necromancer A 0.0 % of WIN Min data points 12
  Geomancer A COUNTER  v Necromancer B 31.57894736842105 % of WIN Min data points 12
  Geomancer B COUNTER  v Necromancer C 4.166666666666666 % of WIN Min data points 12
  P(All Lose) = 52.15809409888358
  P(4 Lose) = 76.23106060606062
  
As the situation qualitatively changed when the groups of battles started to occur these are the ones to use
if I want to help or hinder them? But do I? On the available data there is no obvious way to know which outcome would best server my interests. If they are  distrustfull enough to take all these precautions they may be expecting me to give them what seems to be the worst possible outcome, and they are trying to trick me by changing the labels so that it is actually the best.
  
 These mind games are what demons should be playing on mortals not the other way around. They are really out of line by putting me in this position! So I won't give them any advice at all. Whatever they were planning 
 it is highly unlikely that they would go to the trouble of summoning a demon in the hope that it would
 ignore them. And if I ever comes across them again in more normal circumstances I will be sure to teach them a lesson. Now back to some good old fashioning demoning...

// Plotting a graph of reading v colour reveals the following.
//- Blue somewhat erratic but definite trend of increasing mana with increasing reading
//  The erratic part is in the 22 - 63 range, before and after steady increase/decrease.
//- Green  seems to fluctuate in the 2- 40 range regardless or reading
//- red erratic all over the place, no consistent pattern
//- yellow seems to fluctuate in the 18 - 21 range regardless of reading
//
// Green has an average mana of 21, red 25 , though green seems to have fewer with really low values.
//
// There is no obvious correlation based on the items name.
// Eliminating obviously uneconomic items suggest the following are realistic:
//Pendant of Hope         54 mana      34 gold    BLUE
//Ring of Joy             10-30 mana   32 gold    BLUE
//Hammer of Capability    15-35 mana   35 gold    BLUE
//Warhammer of Justice +1 18-21 mana   41 gold    YELLOW
//Plough of Plenty        18-21 mana   35 gold    YELLOW
//Saw of Capability +1    avg 21 mana  35 gold    GREEN
//Amulet of Wounding +2   avg 21 mana  35 gold    GREEN
//Pendant of Truth        avg 25 mana  38 gold    RED
//
// Pendant of Hope is obviously the best. Could reach target with near 100 percent certainty with top 5 items
// leaving me with 23 gold.
//
// Pendant of Hope + Saw of Capabilty + amulet of Wounding + Pendant of Truth would leave me with 58 gold
// if it worked, but would probably fail just under 50 percent of the time. This could be reduce significantly
// by paying 32 gold, but that would only leave me with 3 gold more, and still looks less certain.
//
// As avoiding being in debt by 200 gold is probably much more important to me than gaining 25 gold I will go
// for what looks to be the safe option of:
// Pendant of Hope
// Ring of Joy
// Hammer of Capability
// Warhammer of Justice + 1
// Plough of Plenty
// And hopefully 23 gold.
 

My first thought is to look for the lowest stat in each category which succeeded. I will probably want at least this. Unfortunately this is 2 in every case, so this doesn't help.

My second thought is to look for a patch in stat space where there are a disproportionably large number of successes, however of the stats I can access none has a meaningful number of adventurers particularly close to them.

My third idea is, for every possible set of stats we could choose look at the adventurers whose stats were strictly worse than or equal to those, and see which ones enclosed the highest proportion of successes. There are several with a 100 percent success rate, but none with more than 2 data points, which isn't much. There are however 2 with 6 datapoints and an 83 percent success rate, which seems better established:
str: 8 con: 14 dex: 13 int: 20 wis: 12 cha: 5
str: 8 con: 14 dex: 13 int: 19 wis: 13 cha: 5
Both seem roughly evenly balanced, and either seems to be a reasonable choice. I would go with the first purely on the intuition that if you are going to have one really strong stat, better to go all the way.

1) With a match.

2) Use a magnifying glass to focus the suns rays onto it.

3) Fire a laser beam at it.

4) Use a cigarette lighter.

5) Use a bunsen burner.

6) Strike flints against one another to generate sparks to light the candle.

7) Dip it in a lava pool.

8) Use a heater to increase the temperature in the room till it self ignites.

9) Attach the wick to two wires, then use them to put a large amount of electrical power through it.

10) Take it to a bonfire, and put the candle in it.

11) Rub sticks together to start a fire, then use it to light the candle.

12) Detonating some explosives might light it if you are lucky.

13) Position the candle under a space rocket and wait for the rocket to launch.

14) Send the candle into a solar flare.

15) Send the candle into the accretion disk of a black hole.

16) Find a burning building, and light the candle from it.

17) Put it in the overn, and turn the heat up to maximum.

18) Wait till the news reports a heathland fire, then head to the fire to light it.

19) Put the candle at the edge of a nuclear fireball.

20) The candle might be electrically powered, in which case it can just be switched on.

21) Use another candle that is already lit.

22) Put it at the top of a lightning conductor, and hope it gets hit by lightning.

23) Put the wick in the way of a discharge from a Van De Graph generator.

24) Soak it in water, bombard it with an intense beam of microwaves, and hope it is heated up enough to ignite.

25) Put the candle in a solar furnace.

26) A telescope could be used to focus sunlight onto the candle.

27) Buy a lot of mirrors, rig up a complicated system to focus sunlight onto the candle.

28) Smash a lightbulb while it is switched on and use the hot filament to ignite the candle.

29) Douse the wick in hydrochloric acid, then drop a piece of potassium on it.

30) Cover the wick in phosphorus powder, take it to the Sahara desert where the high temperature will cause it to self ignite.

31) Take it to a steam train and use the fire in it to ignite the candle.

32) Hire a hot air balloon, use the flame that generates the hot air to ignite the candle.

33) Position the candle under a firework when it is launched.

34) Use the flame that burns above oil rigs to ignite it.

35) Put it in the fire burning in my fireplace.

36) Go to a fossil fuelled power station and use its fire to ignite it.

37) Go to a blast furnace and dip the candle in the molten metal.

38) Leave it in an experimental nuclear fusion power plant before it is switched on should do the trick.

39) Find part of a jungle that is going to be slashed and burned and leave it in the fires path.

40) Use a camping stove to ignite it.

41) Wait for the random motion of air molecules to cause it to spontaneously ignite.

42) Bore a hole down to the mantle and lower the candle down.

43) Mass burn all of the planets fossil fuels, eventually global warming will get so bad it will self ignite.

44) Put it in a box and send it to Venus where the high temperature will cause it to spontaneously ignite.

45) Would putting it in a room where the atmosphere was made of 100 percent oxygen ignite it?

46) Extract the gunpowder from several party poppers, detonate them at once near the candle and hope this ignites it.

47) Light a sparkler, and use the sparks given off to ignite the candle.

48) Use the spark generated by a spark plug in a car to ignite the candle.

49) Dip the candle in chlorine, replace the atmosphere in the room with hydrogen, and warm until it self ignites.

50) Fire an intense X ray beam at the candle.

51) Put the candle in a jet engine.

52) Putting the candle in a particle accelerator might work.

53) Use an intense neutrino beam to light it.

54) If the wick is laced with metal wires moving a strong magnet rapidly above it may induce currents which heat it up and cause it to light.

55) Drop the candle from the top of the atmosphere. The heat generated during renetry will light it.

56) Use the flame from an oil lamp to light it.

57) Use a burning compost heap to light it.

58) Take it to a neighbour and light it from their barbecue.

59) Light it from a burning torch.

60) Take it to a kiln.

61) Pour some molten lead on the candle.

62) Get a fire breather to breathe on it.

63) Use a welder to light the candle.

64) Dip it in a vat of boiling oil.

65) Compress the atmosphere in the room until it heats up enough that the candle self ignites.

66) Drop a minuscule amount of anti matter on the candle.

67) Use virtual quantum particles to transfer heat from a nearby hot object to the candle.

68) Drop a meteorite on the earth, light the candle from the resulting fireball.

69) Use the dynamo effect between Jupiter and Io to light it.

70) Leave the candle in the vicinity of a supernova.

71) Focus the energy generated by the northern lights onto it.

72) Go on an expedition to the Amazon in the search of a previously unknown fire breathing animal.

73) Maybe the current generated by an electric eel could light it?

74) Use some Greek fire.

75) Give it to a friend who has some means of lighting it for me.

76) Leave it in a rack of candles in a church, at some point someone will come along and light it.

77) If I throw it out in the rubbish, and the rubbish is burnt in an incinerator, it will in some sense be lighted.

78) Wait for the sun to expand to swallow the earth, which will inevitably light the candle.

79) Use a flame thrower.

80) Start a war and position it in a target likely to be targeted by incendiary bombs.

81) Use the hot air generated by politicians speeches to light it.

82) Return it to the place it was bought from, hopefully someone else will buy it and light it for me.

83) The Trojan candle stratagem: Claim that the candle is a gift from the Gods, and that the city that lights it will never be conquered. Hope this tricks someone into lighting it for me.

84) Use an oxyacetylene torch.

85) Use some nano technology that will bring atoms in the candle together with oxygen atoms in such a way that the candle will light.

86) Maybe dark matter could be used to light it some how?

87) Or maybe dark energy could be used instead?

88) Firing a high energy beam of muons at it would probably do the trick.

89) Leave the candle next to a battery that is known to catch fire. Wait for the battery to catch fire and light the candle.

90) Wait for the next scheduled witch burning. Insert the candle in the pyre, and wait for it to be lit.

91) Or wait for the next mock Viking ship to be burnt, and hide it in there.

92) Break into a shop that sells candles, add this one to the collection, leave someone else to buy it and light it for me.

93) Pour some sulfuric acid on it, then deposit a piece of sodium on it.

94) Carbonic acid and lithium should also work.

95) Soaking it in water, then pumping fluorine gas into the room should also work.

96) Pay someone else to light it for me.

97) Focus several sound waves on the candle to cause it to warm up and light.

98) Attach the candle to springs at either end, use them to pull it back and forth very fast so that air resistance causes it to heat up and light the candle.

99) Put it in a computer driven car. Program the car to drive into something at high speed. Hope that the resulting crash starts a fire that lights the candle.

100) Post a babble challenge on Less Wrong asking for 100 ways to light an candle, then use the best one.