Civ4 AI Survivor: Season Four

[LKendter]

Tokugawa??????
That was another complete WTH game.

[Sullla]

Community predictions have been added to the preview page for Game Six! Here's a quick summary:






I fully expected Mansa Musa to be the heavy favorite to win this game in the picking contest. However, I was still caught off guard by the lopsided result that we had going into this match. Well over 80% of the picking contests chose Mansa to take home the crown again, the highest percentage backing a single leader in AI Survivor history. Mansa had almost ten times as many votes as the next highest leader. We'll see if he can live up to that lofty billing when the game takes place. Elsewhere, Mao was a much bigger favorite for the runner-up spot than we typically see in these AI Survivor matches. A lot of people had him splitting the map with Mansa. Hatshepsut was another strong favorite as First to Die with almost half of the entrants chosing her, along with perennial loser Sitting Bill coming in as another popular choice. Not surprisingly, Spaceship was the overwhelming victory type choice for this game. More people picked Cultural and Diplomatic victories than Domination - a big change from our last game!

Finally, here are some of the best/craziest written predictions about what would take place during the game. There were many other excellent entries but I had to pick and choose my favorites to keep this from running on too long. Thanks again for the submissions!

elNewton: Mansa next to Sitting Duck and Darius is a good position. With Hatty there is also a low PW leader that the aggressive civs probably hate even more. Mao seems to be the best of the more aggressive leaders in this game cause of his start and general personality and could very well be the best of the rest. Gilgamesh just seems to be in a rough spot in between the "good" leaders and will possibly face two front wars. Sitting Bull will most likely just be around and do nothing after that as that is kind of his gimmick. Going for a relatively early Spaceship as this is how Mansa usually wins games. The high war number is due to the differences in PW that are in this game.

Methoz: Hatti is surrounded by low peace weight AIs and is short on space so she will die first. Then Sitting Bull and Darius will draw fire from Gilgamesh and Brennus respectively while Mansa and Mao are content to tech. Mansa obviously out techs Mao and coasts to a relatively quick space victory without ever firing a shot.

Faded_Outline: Well clearly the winner is going to be Sitting Bull. That start is delightful, he's got a couple of friendly neighbors to offer support and oh my I'm so sorry i can't keep a straight face about this... No. Good god no. This is the season of the impossible where Isabella can be a runaway monster, the likes of Asoka or Frederick pick wars of aggression and Tokugawa can have a serious chance of diplomatic victory, but even in that context there's no imaginable world where Chief Sitting duck accomplishes anything beyond stalling out Team Evil until Mansa flips them off from his spaceship. Sorry. Mansa first, Darius as his co-pilot. Hatty as a light snack for the violent earthbound masses before they dissolve into infighting.

ZincAlloy: Mansa Musa wins with the power of friendship! Or money. I'm pretty sure those are the same thing. Regardless, Mansa will get along with / hide behind Darius and the city-state of Cahokia for long enough to turn his economy into an unstoppable powerhouse. Hatshepsut dies first due to being surrounded by the trio of violence, of whom I'm going to pick Brennus to come second because I like his beard.

RefSteel: Abandoning all pretense here: I'm picking Hatty to win this because I like her. She's a fun and friendly AI to have in a single-player game, her play is often competent by AI standards - her AI Survivor record notwithstanding - and I kind of loved her North Korea (t)roleplay from Season 2. I could make up a bunch of reasons for how she'll overcome being surrounded by leaders who hate her, and how she'll eventually defeat Gilgamesh while he batters his armies against Sitting Duck's ninety four quintillion protective totem pole archers, but I wouldn't even believe it myself. I'll just hope she manages to survive long enough for Mansa Musa to tech up to tanks and conquer all her enemies so her three remaining cities can go legendary and give her a come-from-behind Cultural victory.

Aus Prof: Mao’s start is godly, Mansa’s personality is godly, ‘nuff said.

LinkMarioSamus: By any metric you can think of Mansa Musa should be the favorite to win this. I decided to weigh this all out by the fields of the previous games involving these games, and based on that Musa is an easy pick to win while Sitting Bull is a probable pick for second. I mean, it has to be one of the higher-peace weight guys, and Hatty/Darius are maybe a little too passive, so maybe Bull has a chance? I imagine we won't have a kill for a long time because none of the higher peace-weight leaders have much of a killer instinct, meaning the lower peace-weight leaders might attack into their brick walls and go nowhere in the process. Brennus is my pick for first to die going off my earlier method.

haphazard1: Gilgamesh will demonstrate that having stone is a poison pill for wonder-inclined leaders. Mansa will tech to victory with most of the low peace weight leaders being far away. Hatshepsut will refuse to build units and will be destroyed by her more aggressive neighbors.

Charriu: What are the deciding factors in the beginning of this game: Religion and rivers. With Brennus being the only one with Mysticism, he will take the first religion. He's also connected with Gilgamesh and Mao via river. I could see those two taking up Brennus' religion. With that we have our bay boys club all together. They will most likely kill Hatshepsut, who will found her on religion. With the religion, her unit and wonder build preference, I don't see her surviving against Gilgamesh and maybe Mao. Gilgamesh could also go against Sitting Bull, but he is better setup to survive against the bad boys. The last religion will go to Mansa Musa, of course. He will most likely convert his to neighbors Sitting Bull and Darius. They will form the good guys. In the long run I could see Sitting Bull and Brennus being crushed between the two blocks. But all of this will give Mansa Musa enough time to bring this to a space victory with his buddy Darius at his side.

lightms: Apart from the seeded leaders, these guys are a bunch of monkey! The best of them is Brennus! He's like... the Roosevelt of the Celts. Mansa Musa is gonna wipe the floor with them. Mao Zedong is gonna make them Mao Ze-gone. There gonnna get Culturally Revolted. I can't think of any clever insults to do with Mansa Musa... They're gonna get universally sankored in the face? Anyway, these guys haven't got a chance vs Monty

TMIT: Mansa drawing Sitting Bull/anti rush cow as a buffer against the more aggressive leaders is a big boon. I expect SB to accomplish nothing in terms of winning as usual but he's an effective lightning rod and takes time to kill. Time the others won't have with MM around. I am predicting Hatty to die early-ish to Gilgamesh or Mao, which would shape my picks of MM #1 (culture) and Mao #2 depending who does it. However, this game could easily send Gilgamesh on SB early, which would prop up Mao to possibly favorite status or even lead to chaos where Gilgamesh gets piled/removed by otherwise weaker AI. The field is probably a bit too aggressive for Darius/Hatty absent a Gilgamesh/Brennus throw. Regardless of everything else, MM has a good start and isn't likely to see early action, which makes him an easy favorite. This is as much a league of throwing as LoL itself is though, so you never know.

Rusten: People are sleeping on Brennus. He'll kill Darius with ease and win diplomatic victory (doesn't DoW at pleased) going up against Mansa who builds the UN early as the other candidate. Votes coming from Mao and/or Gilgamesh who will have killed Hatty and Sitting Bull.

Fluffball: I mean... Mansa.

Game Six Picking Contest Entry Form

[rho21]

Every pie chart has an 8.8% section.

Looking forward to the game.

[Charriu]

Awesome. I took the liberty to add a 8.8% player to the contest.

[thestick]

I am bored enough to start thinking seriously about this contest .

Quick straw poll: are you playing to maximize your final score, or your chances of being first place? Or some other strategy? I am following the first one (and not succeeding).

I wonder if we could introduce a betting market. It probably wouldn't be worth the administrative effort, but it would allow us to say 'the community thinks that Justinian has a 50% chance of winning,' rather than '50% of the community thinks that Justinian has the greatest chance of winning.'

[Sullla]

Game Six is complete! I won't spoil the outcome but it was certainly an interesting game. Here's a batch of links for the next game:

Main Season Four Webpage

Sullla Twitch Page

Sullla Discord Channel

AI Reference Guide from CivFanatics

Game Six Livestream

Next Game: Opening Round Game Seven

Schedule: Scheduled for Friday, 31 May 2019 at Noon EST

Game Seven Map Setup Video Preview

Game Seven Written Preview

Game Seven Picking Contest Entry Form

Congratulations to artdeco, Axiis, Warclam, Marek, and sealgo as the winners of Game Six's picking contest with 13 points. Scoring for the group as a whole was pretty brutal in this one due to some... unexpected events.

We continuing with our normal Friday date for next week's game. Huayna Capac is back again - can he bounce back from his poor showing in Season Three?

[shallow_thought]

Scoring for the group as a whole was pretty brutal in this one due to some... unexpected events.  

Great. I was late in making my choices, picked random stuff out of pure sympathy for a hard-done-by leader and boredom with the cult of Mansa (however historically justified it may be). And then I didn't get a chance to watch the game, but somehow did a lot better than some rounds when I actually stopped and thought about my picks .

[haphazard1]

How did random.org do this week?

[Fluffball]

I really think another ten turns or so in a delayed war dec would have made every one score way higher. That city on a hill with walls would have stopped everything and dramatically changed the game.

[Charriu]

I am bored enough to start thinking seriously about this contest .

Quick straw poll: are you playing to maximize your final score, or your chances of being first place? Or some other strategy? I am following the first one (and not succeeding).

I wonder if we could introduce a betting market. It probably wouldn't be worth the administrative effort, but it would allow us to say 'the community thinks that Justinian has a 50% chance of winning,' rather than '50% of the community thinks that Justinian has the greatest chance of winning.'

I'm actually looking for the first place and about the betting market: I was actually thinking about how one could turn the survivor season into a charity event.

About the last game, I wonder how the game would have went if Darius did not loose his settler to barbs. Maybe this would have protected Mansa better from Brennus, because now Darius would have been in a close border situation with Brennus before Mansa was.