Civ AI Survivor: Season Five

[Kuro]

Personally, the one recommendation I would make is that I think a bonus point for winning without a kill or something would be good to somwhat equalize for leaders such as Gandhi, Mansa Musa and the like whose ideal win involves no wars at all. Odds are that if you win a game without a single kill, you were incredibly dominant in some area (teching or culture) to beat those who were. I am guessing this wouldn't happen since it adds a bit of overall needless complexity given it is so minor, but I do think it would help state, for example, Pacal's tech dominance and Gandhi's peaceful dominance this season where they ran away with the game without a single conquest.

I had meant to get in predictions and what I am about to post in earlier, but real life prevented me from doing so. And so here I am at 3:20 AM (as of the start of writing this) making this post haha.

First spoiler tag here: I had felt like it seemed this season had a surprising number of points scored by leaders outside the normal high end, so I did a very quick count of everyone who scored points this season and how many points they had in the spoiler below. This is very simple and not, like, advanced statistical looks or anything, but people may find it interesting nonetheless. I wanted to do this before the Wildcard round so nobody had a chance to score in more than one game.

Alexander: +9 (2 -> 11)
Huanya Capac: +7 (35 -> 42)
Saladin: +7 (1 -> 8)
Willem: +7 (9 -> 16)
Suryavarman II: +6 (19 -> 27)
Asoka: +6 (5 -> 11)
Gandhi: +5 (17 -> 22)
Pacal: +5 (16 -> 21)
Julius Caeser: +4 (31 -> 35)
Hannibal: +4 (12 -> 16)
Charlemagne: +3 (20 -> 23)
Mehmed II: +3 (3 -> 6)
Brennus: +2 (7 -> 9)
Tokugawa: +2 (11 -> 13)
Louis XIV: +2 (4 -> 6)
Peter: +2 (4 -> 6)
Washington: +2 (0 -> 2)
Genghis Khan: +2 (2 -> 4)
Augustus Caeser: +2 (2 -> 4)
Elizabeth: +1 (6 -> 7)
Kublai Khan: +1 (29 -> 30)
Bismarck: +1 (0 -> 1)
Mao Zedong: +1 (18 -> 19)

A few points of interest:

Of the 23 leaders who scored points in the opening round, a full 12 of them were leaders at or below the median of 7 points scored, which given how top heavy AI Survivor has historically been (IE the top leaders dragging the median UP) is pretty impressive. Instead using the average, 10 points, gives us Willem in this group as well.

Perhaps as notable, though, is how many of the top leaders FAILED to score points: 3 of the 8 Pool One leaders failed to score a single point, and of those 3 ALL of them were in the top 3 highest scoring AI (Justinian, Mansa Musa, Stalin). Kublai was also eliminated, but managed to score a point. similarly, FIVE of the 8 Pool Two leaders were eliminated without scoring a single point, meaning half of all pool leaders failed to score at all (which, in turn, makes up 8/52 of overall leaders). The end result is that even outside the median, leaders with more mediocre scors such as Tokugawa and Hannibal managed to boost their profile.

Obviously, one level of this could be simple randomness: Civ IV is balanced enough we would expect any lesder to, in theory, be capable of a win / points if you played enough games. Certainly this would fit for someone like Washington, whose scoring circumstance was rather fluky (tho he didn't play all THAT badly imo). Another possibility is that this is a course correction: AI Survivor has traditionally been ridiculously top heavy but with only 4 seasons of play there is still large amounts of variance, so it is very possible that the top end is overly represented, especially since the playoffs have a snowball effect (winning allows you to potentially score more points, so a single good run can do a lot). More serious game-by-game analysis would need to be done to go more beyond this.

In addition, rule changes and the map can be factors. For example, less free Deity techs likely makes early aggression easier because neighbors are more likely to be easy pickings compared to AI Production + Turn 1 Archers. Similarly, this year's map has been notable for lacking copper in various areas, allowing true warmongers like Alexander and Genghis Khan to thrive. Copper doesn't just mean you can whack an army without it, but it allows the AI's army to be built up stronger than the othr before war which can make all the difference since taking down cities with Walls is high casuality. In fact, Hannibal, Genghis Khan and Alexander all started off their games attacking a neighbor without copper and being able to ride that that to superior points. This suggests the common theory that these are circumstantial leaders, mostly Alexander/Genghis, are true.

Due to the distribution of finishes for Pool One/Two leaders, each playoff game has two Pool Leaders in it, although if Mao finishes in the top two of the Wildcard round he will give one game three. This also means unless Game 1 finishes Pacal + Charlemagne, Game 2 finishes Suryavarman + Julius Caeser and Game 3 finishes Huanya + Gandhi, we WILL see non-Pool leaders score at least one more 2nd or higher (pending Mao as mentioned). In addition, at least one non-pool leader will score from the wildcard as Mao is the only pool leader from there. This means that we'll be seeing a further rise of lower end leaders.

Hannibal, barring results changing to boot him bac out, has made it into Pool Two at 16 points, booting out Shaka. Willem going to 16 points also has him in Pool Two, booting out either Pericles or Zara Yaqob who are tied. Other leaders who could in one game move from un-Pooled to Pool Two OR from Pool Two to Pool One inclue: Tokugawa (2 points behind Pool Two entry), Alexander of all people (11 points puts him 4 behind Pool Two, so a single win gets him there), Asoka (Asoka's 11 poins ditto), Pacal II (Two points behind Charlemagne, 4 behind Suryavarman), Gandhi (1 point behind Charlemagne, 3 behind Suryavarman). As a random note, it is actually not impossible Kublai Khan loses his Pool One slot, but it would require at least 3 of Charlemagne, Pacal, Gandhi and Suryavarman to win or get 2nd and then score in the championship game.

I was gonna add more but I forgot since I'm so tired so w/e.

And after that, I'm also going to as usual post my Wildcard Game predictions:

This map is brutal for Brennus and Bismarck, neither of whom have easy copper early and so are going to be destroyed by barbarians. This is the main reason I pick Bismarck first to die over Hammurabi, along with Hammurabi's Bowmen actually being useful.

The southern tundra is going to spawn lots of barbarians, but Gilgamesh and Tokugawa both have great traits to deal with that: Gilgamesh gets quick border pops to defog and get cultural bonus and both are Protective which in a Raging Barbarian AI game is actually very good. In addition, Gilgamesh has capital copper with a sick capital while Tokugawa has copper so close he CAN'T avoid it, riverside grassland gems and some excellent nearby city possibilities. Sick capital, too. He is also neighbor to Bismack, meaning he's likely to get land by eating Bismarck (gee, that sounds familiar!). Note that Gilgamesh also starts with great techs here. I also feel like both of these AI in general are underestimated / underrated, Tokugawa can actually become a Pool Two leader if he wins!

The wildcard Ai-wise this game is Genghis Khan, who could roll over Bismarck or Hammurabi (moreso Bismarck) early and wn, or could war dec an "ally" and sink their game. I only predict 12 wars since I feel like most will drag on, but Tokugawa and Gilgamesh will not play nice and eventually one conquers the world. T366 end date as raging barbs will make it last longer and there's like no great techer this field. Similarly why I am picking Domination.

I see two other main ways this goes: Brennus founds a religion and spreads it to key allies, likely leading an alliance against Hammurabi (who likes culture) and Mao (who essentially doesn't care for it). Brennus then cruises to a win as a religious bruiser, not too unlikely.

If the raging barbs truly keep the aggressive AI down or Genghis Khan otherwise causes a lot of trouble for them, I can also see a world where Bismarck + Hammurabi as natural allies tech until too high of a lead to be conquered and win.