Gold spike in CAT/CEG3.5.3

Panagea standard size standard speed infoaddict and IGE.

I recall this was an occasional bug in GEM.

It seems that 3 civs jumped from 100 to 2500-3000 gold in the late Middle ages.
They couldn't have been paid off because they had eliminated the 2 civs that could have paid them. Their GPT was still only about 10.
Since they were all at war with the Hunds, they could have been given a token sum by the Huns, but the Huns only had 100 gold at the most.

The three were Zulu, Constantinople and Rome.
It occurred right around the time I was starting to research guilds.
Late middle ages.

It was a game ender as 2 decided to target me.
They spent the money on units quite well which is a positive rather than holding onto it.

Three other civs did not see the spike, but they were lagging in technology behind these civs.

I looked at the logs, and it appears that they were indeed pulling in 150-170 gpt.
See attached.
I see no mention of Rome in the Lua log even though they had the largest total.
There were a total of 8 other civs at game end and only 2 of them were on gold-spending sprees.

Example: [448987.671] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora no affordable building of FLAVOR_SCIENCE
[448987.687] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora no affordable unit of FLAVOR_HEALING
[448987.718] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora no affordable unit of FLAVOR_NAVAL_BOMBARDMENT
[448987.718] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora no affordable building of FLAVOR_WONDER
[448987.718] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora no affordable unit of FLAVOR_SOLDIER
[448987.781] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora no affordable unit of FLAVOR_DEFENSE
[448987.796] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora no affordable unit of FLAVOR_NAVAL
[448987.828] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora no affordable unit of FLAVOR_RANGED
[448987.828] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Theodora 125 of 2192 (+92/turn) saved
[448988.187] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 AIPurchase Shaka 50/506 PAID for upgrading Crossbowman (#1179677)
[448988.234] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 AIPurchase Shaka 50/506 PAID for upgrading Crossbowman (#884771)
[448988.328] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Shaka no affordable building of FLAVOR_SCIENCE
[448988.343] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Shaka no affordable unit of FLAVOR_NAVAL_BOMBARDMENT
[448988.375] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Shaka no affordable unit of FLAVOR_ANTI_MOBILE
[448988.390] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Shaka no affordable unit of FLAVOR_SIEGE
[448988.406] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Shaka no affordable unit of FLAVOR_NAVAL
[448988.437] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Shaka no affordable building of FLAVOR_HAPPINESS
[448988.468] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Shaka no affordable building of FLAVOR_GOLD
[448988.468] MT_Initialize: INFO Turn 138 Shaka 125 of 506 (+163/turn) saved

You can use firetuner or IGE to take over the AI to see where all the gold is originating from.

I was earning about 35GPT and these civs were pulling in 4 times as much on Prince level.
I will try your suggestion the next free time I can play.

I can seem to get firetuner to do anything.
It just says good evening working late?

FireTuner must be running alongside an active game.

You will only see the console screen with the welcome message if FireTuner is running by itself. There is no other setting or software that needs to be used/installed, just start the tuner and then start a game and it will connect to it and display the tuner 'panels'.

Tuner doesn't want to connect to the game.
Any other hints?
I start it first then the game and nothing.

Via IGE I saw that Shaka was earning 200gpt and spending 118 on maintenance costs.
Theodoras was earning only 103 per turn with 71 in costs.

Shaka was far ahead of me in techs, but only had 3 libraries in his 12 cities.
His most developed cities had ikanas, libraries, monuments, and markets.
The capital had a caravansery and wonders.

He was building no buildings, just units.

Theodoras was earning 103 and spending 71 for maintenance.
All her cities except the capital were barren of buildings.
The capital had many buildings but no walls.

Rome's capital was the worst: a stable, capital and palace with 2000 net gold.
Their 2 other cities had nothing constructed.
No walls there either.

How to access the tuner: http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?90923-How-Do-You-Access-In-Game-Tuner

Thanks Stack.
I didn't have it enabled.
You saw the post about gold above.
I can't see from the logs if there really was a spike.
Just many turns where they couldn't decide to buy anything.
I'll explore this more as time allows over the week and report back.
IGE only allows one to look at cities using the cheat console.
One can't really see how 12 little cities are generating 160 gold for Shaka.
I think the log I post proves that at least 2 of the AI try to buy something every turn with their gold stacks.
Rome is a puzzle as they just churn out legions into late game building nothing.
I have a thread on "why doesn't the AI build anything in the main forum.

Try changing AI_PURCHASE_FLAVOR_MAX_ATTEMPTS to a higher value in Cat/AI/CEAI_Data.xml. I currently have this set to 5 so AIs save their gold for emergencies if their high priorities are not available.

Please explain what that variable does.
I'm guessing it looks at its top 10 flavors if
AI_PURCHASE_FLAVOR_MAX_ATTEMPTS=10 as in v3.6.1.
What causes a buy and what causes it not to buy something.
According to that list, Shaka would buy a FLAVOR_NAVAL_BOMBARDMENT unit before anything else. I know he had some ships but he had far more Impis and archers which are not on his list.

More importantly, why does the LUA log only show 2 civs attempting to purchase each turn.
Is this a feature of Vanilla as well?