Civ4 AI Survivor: Season Three

[T-hawk]

True - even in Civ4, I remember the first time I got a sentry chariot into a peaceful AI's lands and watched in amazement as the AI sent its mounted units running around in circles inside its own borders every turn for utterly mysterious reasons.

That's intentional. When the AI in Civ 4 is at peace without any immediate mission or need, it will wander around its units. It's just to give the impression of activity, that you're playing against an opponent who's doing something.

[Sullla]

With Game Two approaching on Friday, I went ahead and added the community predictions to the Game Two Preview page. There doesn't seem to be much of a consensus for this game, and I have to admit that I really don't know how this one plays out either. Let's hope that there's a good amount of action and it doesn't turn into a peaceful lovefest.

[Sullla]

Another game is done and it turned out to be more entertaining than expected. Thanks to everyone who was able to turn out today and take part in the Livestream. Special thanks to shallow_thought, who won the prediction contest for the second game with 19 points. Here's a bunch of links as we get ready for Game Three coming up a week from today.

Next Game: Friday, 18 August 2017 at Noon EST

Overview Season Three AI Survivor Page

Current Bracket and Standings

Game Three Written Preview

Game Three Video Preview

Game Three Picking Contest Entry Form

Overview Map:

The recording of Game Two can be found here. I'm hoping to have the written report finished by the end of the weekends. Thanks all.

[Singaboy]

Just to let you know, thanks for the write-ups. Highly entertaining

[shallow_thought]

Special thanks to shallow_thought, who won the prediction contest for the second game.

I did? I was actually able to catch this live, which was great fun, but I'd really not been paying attention to my picks so had no idea (I had to stop watching as soon as the win was in, as my wife's tolerance for having it on the TV was getting thin ).

Will be looking forward to the next one.

[Ruff_Hi]

I missed the first two seasons of this ... enjoying the 3rd season so far.

Question about the game setup ...
- Can the AIs see the whole map ... or are they limited to what they can see at the start?  Do they know where they are on the map?
I ask because Sullla said at 1:25ish mark that his 2nd settler move was a bad sign for Churchill (I can see that) but then called it a 'dumb move' ... implying (to me) that he (Churchill) should have known better.  If he was in the South West ... then moving his 2nd settler in that direction would have been a great idea.  Hence my question.

The running commentary is excellent.  I can see the deep inner workings of the game being a real huge advantage (ie the peace weights between the southern AIs) ... excellent job.

I started my own AI game and can see the advantage of the way Sullla has this set up (+100 relationship with the AIs to stop them declaring war on the observer).  In my game, I could open up the AI cities ... not sure why Sullla can't ... there might be a debug option that was flipped.

I started my game with 7 players and moved my starting location off to the south ... however, this left a hole in the map where I use to be.  Sullla - do you move everyone else to compensate for this?  Or do you start your game with 6 players, save the worldbuilder file and text edit in the observer player / start?

Finally ... in my game, Pericles is pushing for space.  I saw him complete 3 cockpits ... even though he only needs one.  Is this an example of the part being destroyed by espionage?

[Fluffball]

Two of my favorites, Sury and Mao in this game. Those guys rarely do badly in my experience.

[Sullla]

To answer your questions Ruff, the AIs cannot see the whole map and must explore it themselves to know what's out there. This is one of those things that Soren and Sirian were always very proud about with regards to the Civ4 AI, the fact that it doesn't see the whole map and cheat that way like the Civ3 AI did. Of course, here on Deity the AI starts with 2 scouts and 4 archers, which allows them to defog their immediate neighbor pretty quickly. When setting up the map, I do move the observer civ off into the southern tundra, and sometimes that requires moving AI starting positions around somewhat. I keep that to a minimum as much as possible, and I often have to go through several dozen maps to find one that fits reasonably well. The "Regenerate Map" plus debug mode makes this a painless process in Civ4. Finally, the reason why I can't open up the cities is because I've used Worldbuilder text editing to set up the initial map. Apparently that prevents the player from opening up any of the cities that get founded in debug mode. It's a shame but we can work around it using all of the various graphs and menus to see what's going on.

I finished the writeup for Game Two and just posted it to my website. Happy reading everyone.

[Ruff_Hi]

I finished the writeup for Game Two and just posted it to my website. Happy reading everyone.

Excellent write up.  I really appreciate the way you can see actions taken over a few turns and extrapolate them to long term impacts.

To answer your questions Ruff, the AIs cannot see the whole map and must explore it themselves to know what's out there. This is one of those things that Soren and Sirian were always very proud about with regards to the Civ4 AI, the fact that it doesn't see the whole map and cheat that way like the Civ3 AI did. Of course, here on Deity the AI starts with 2 scouts and 4 archers, which allows them to defog their immediate neighbor pretty quickly.

That is what I thought.  Thanks for the answer.  It is interesting to see how some luck in their initial decisions (which way to settle) has long impacts on the game.

When setting up the map, I do move the observer civ off into the southern tundra, and sometimes that requires moving AI starting positions around somewhat. I keep that to a minimum as much as possible, and I often have to go through several dozen maps to find one that fits reasonably well. The "Regenerate Map" plus debug mode makes this a painless process in Civ4.

Ahh ... I have used regenerate map ... but not in debug mode.  I will try that.  The Pangaea maps I am generating are nothing like your 'almost circles'.  Mine keep on looking like dropped spaghetti and all of the land bottle necks that involves.

Finally, the reason why I can't open up the cities is because I've used Worldbuilder text editing to set up the initial map. Apparently that prevents the player from opening up any of the cities that get founded in debug mode. It's a shame but we can work around it using all of the various graphs and menus to see what's going on.

I'm going to keep on looking into this as my second game involved starting two games (one with 6 players and one with 7 players) and merging the worldbuilder text files so that I used the 6-player game map and added a 7th player as the observer civ.  And I could double click the cities open.

[Azoth]

Another thing to note is that WorldBuilder text editing removes the barbarians' starting techs; normally, they'd start with the same technology as the Deity civs: Hunting, Archery, Agriculture, the Wheel. This does have an impact on gameplay, as barbarian cities spawn with 3 Warrior defenders, instead of 3 Archers, and are significantly easier to capture. It's the reason Gandhi managed to capture Bantu with a wandering Archer in the last game, creating a flashpoint for conflict with Churchill down the road. The techs can be added back in via Worldbuilder, but not in the text file.