Also from the very get-go HC didn't build any cottages, and he only had a small handful at his height. I think that's going to be very atypical. I really wonder went wrong in his coding.
That certainly was strange. Usually any FIN AI would turn those flood plains into cottage cheese and have a ton of commerce. For some reason HC wanted all of them as farms.
I couldn't finish watching that game I was so frustrated with my pick of HC. What an insane disappointment, he should have MURDERED that field with that 3 gold 2 floodplain start. My gut feeling did go for both Toku and Boudica which made it absolutely unwatchable to see that happen. And I had Saladin FTD, so I just give up.
It was a LONG game, and in some ways frustrating. (I had also picked HC to win.) HC was doing pretty well early, and if he had kept expanding (and maybe sent his army to take those barb cities near him) rather than pointlessly attacking Boudica he had a shot at advancing. Similar to the opening round match, it looked like HC built a lot more farms rather than cottages. Strange behavior for a FIN leader. Yes, he needed the food at his capital to work the gold tiles, but HC did not build a lot of cottages elsewhere.
I also wonder what happened to Gilgamesh. He did not have a lot of land, but he had enough to do better than what he managed.
A very solid showing by Toku, especially after he got slammed by barbs early.
I think the alternate histories for this game will be especially interesting. Several leaders did well for a while and looked strong at various times, but then collapsed badly. I am guessing that the game we saw will turn out to be pretty unusual.
Confession time: I have fallen asleep to reruns of AI survivor playing at 2x speed every night for the past week. Highly recommend for any of my fellow insomniacs out there
Thank you, Sulla, for putting those convenient YouTube playlists together so I can just fire-and-forget through an entire season as I drift off
I have been catching up on the alternate histories of game 7 that Sulla ran. Very interesting stuff, thanks for running a stream of them so we can see how those are done.
A question: does anyone know if in the Cathy domination win, did she settle so she could actually work the gold tile? In the actual game 7 and several of the alternate games where Cathy struggled badly, her early city placement stranded the gold tile. But I could not tell if that was true in the game she won by domination, where Russia was much stronger from early in the game. So I am curious if maybe she did work the gold for once? Anyone know?
As civac2 says, she did sometimes settle a city that could work the gold tile just north of her capital, but usually didn't. But during her win? Cathy actually settled on the gold, making it her 2/2/1 plains hill city center tile, with the city of Yekaterinberg: The one that is named for her.
It seems that gold tile was the secret to her victory! (Uh ... orrr....)
What a weird season this has been. Not a single pool one or pool two leader made it to the championship. The rankings should get quite a shake up when this season's results are factored in.
Saladin and Ramesses going for religions? Louis and Ramesses trying to build every wonder? Mehmed and Louis doing military things? Churchill doing something, maybe?
Darius doing his FIN thing has to look pretty good with mirrored land. And with Ramesses in the game he is not a lone high peace weight target. I am going to have to think about this one. Fortunately there are two weeks to consider my picks...which will be terrible anyway.
