Civ AI Survivor: Season Five

[T-hawk]

It's the other way around. The AIs don't pick a spot and decide when to settle it, like we do. They decide to build a settler, whenever a city chooses it for a build priority, then decide what spot to send it to. The leader flavors do factor in to how many settlers get built, and therefore how many cities. But it's not like the AIs decide when to settle fishing villages. It's more like they're continually deciding whether to build a next settler, and when they do and all better land is filled, it ends up as a fishing village.

[Sullla]

Written report for Game Four has been added to the website. This is another report contributed by Eauxps I. Fourgott, many thanks to him! If anyone else would like to do a writeup, let me know in advance by PM so we can coordinate.

http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor5-4.html

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the write up, Eauxps! Always good to have a summary of the game, plus another view point on the key moments.

I think a key point in the game was Carthage's initial attack on Athens. Pericles had just connected iron and had gotten one phalanx into his capital, which barely held against Hannibal's stack. If Hannibal had moved slightly faster or gotten a bit luckier on the dice rolls, the Greek capital might have fallen right then, almost 90 turns earlier than it eventually did on T187. Carthage likely would have absorbed all the Greek territory plus more in the east, and there would not have been an opportunity for Saladin to hit Carthage in a two-front war. Hannibal would likely have become the dominant AI. (No, I am not still bitter about my picks, Not at all. )

[Wyatan]

Game 5 prediction (might be a tad too long for the Google form)

This is a very cramped map, with each AI having room for 4/5 cities only, half of which involved in cultural border contests. The rest will be fishing villages (mostly captured barb cities). As such, second city placement will play an inordinately important role.

Charlie

He's almost guaranteed to land an early religion (thanks to turn order advantage, he'll win a race with Asoka unless they both go to Polytheism, and Asoka connects and works his silver in time).
He'll most likely send his settler towards the center of the map : rivers + ressources. That means he'll get a strong Holy City that'll ensure him cultural control of some prime estate. As such, he's going to have the most quality land of all AIs, which makes him an instant favourite.
But that Holy city is also going to be a curse : it's bound to culturally pressure Shaka and/or Napoleon, which means he's going to be the target of an early war.
With his zealot personnality, and Hatty/Asoka following a different religion, he's going to make a lot of enemies.

Charlie's game should be anything but boring : he's a candidate for both the first eliminated, and for the win.

Shaka

His land is arguably the worst of all (Asoka's is technically even poorer, but is strategically sheltered and has more fishing villages spots).
He's going to declare on both Charlie and Hatty (probably in that order)... and most likely lose.
His only shot at winning this game is by snowballing from an early successful war, but that's a long shot at best.
He'll most likely die early to an ephemeral Charlie/Hatty/Asoka coalition.

Strong candidate for First to Die.

Asoka

Perfectly shielded by Hatty, he won't be first to die.
Unless he somehow grabs the gems spot to the north ("somehow" = Bismarck incompetence), cultural victory is NOT in the cards for him, since he won't have a decent third city spot.
His land is the poorest, but he'll found/capture quite a few fishing villages : between those and no initial conflict, he's going to be a tech leader.
He should settle to the north (stone spot), but there's a very real possibility that he'll self-sabotage by sending his settler into the icy waste : the AI highly values rivers, and there's a ton of river tiles there. Also, MARBLE !
He's very likely to found the second religion, but that's not a given : if he goes for the same tech as Charlie, he'll lose that race (turn order), and then might lose the race for the second religion to Hatty.
People hold the view that he's a Gandhi-lite, but there's a little more to him than that. He might have the same preferences, only less efficient... but in spite of his hippie look, he's also far less of a peacenik. He WILL go to war, and thanks to his secluded start, it will be at a time of his choosing. In other words, the first war he'll be involved in will be one he starts.
He'll do best if Hatty holds for a while, then crumbles. That way, he'll be able to add territory connex to his, instead of potentially conquering a far-off colony (Shaka/Napoleon most likely). Ie, he'll thrive if he can feed off her corpse.
He won't be friends with Charlie.

Asoka the Wise doesn't stand a chance.
On the other hand, Asoka the Conqueror  has a real shot, providing that he doesn't screw up his second city placement and that Hatty doesn't do too well.

Bismarck

I believe that someone jokingly said in the chat that this was Bismarck's game to lose... well, it just might be true !
Let's say that he's the only AI in this game with its fate entirely up to it.
He's actually nearly as sheltered as Asoka : Hatty will have enough on her hands (literally), Nappy will be busy with Hatty and/or Charlie, and Asoka won't hate him enough to declare. Bismarck first to die simply isn't going to happen.
His land is cramped and production-poor, but commerce-rich, especially if he grabs the gems spot as he should. So he should grow into a tech leader, and with his military tech preference, turn that into a decisive military edge (early elephants, then first to cuirassiers, etc.).

His game plan is an easy one : murder Napoleon, then snowball from there.

Bismarck is a strong contender for the win, provided :
- he gets the ivory/gems spot for an early eco boost and to enable elephants
- he times his invasion of France correctly
Easy.
Or not : this is Bismarck, after all...

Hatshepsut

She's got good land, and being Creative plus having an emphasis on culture means she won't lose that land to culture pressure.
She might found an early religion, which would help since she's going to get a super early Great Prophet, but that depends on Asoka losing a race to Charlie.
She might settle west (rice + ivory + river), which would add border tension with HRE to her list of troubles, or go east (pig + corn + ivory).
She doesn't have copper, but she has horses to her south. Translation : Nappy will attack her super early... and lose. Badly. Yes, War Chariots are THAT good.
Unless of course, she doesn't settle those horses in a timely fashion. Or gets them pillaged (they border barbarian lands).
Bismarck could doom two civilisations there : if he doesn't get the gems spot (very bad for him), Hatty might go for it instead. Yippies, GEMS. Shinies. But... no horses. Uh-oh..

Now, I bet she's going to be the leading candidate for First to Die. And honestly, that's definitely in play : she's going to face wave after wave of early aggressions, and she's strongly likely to eventually succumb.
But I also bet the scenario people envision is Shaka and Nappy teaming up against her. I don't think that's going to happen : I think that one of them is indeed going to DOW Hatty, but the other one is going to DOW Charlie (border tension trumps worst enemy, plus Asoka is going to be worst enemy anyway).
And I think she's actually likely to survive that first assault. If she falls, it's going to be to a later one (Charlie + Nappy/Shaka).
And she's going to get help : Shaka and Charlie are extremely likely to fight, Bismarck and Nappy are almost guaranteed to duck it out, and at some point Asoka is going to lead a crusade against Shaka or Nappy.
And with that help, she might just start winning the counter-offensive.

Egypt is the Austria-Hungary of this game IMO : very likely to die (and yes, she could very well be FTD), but if she survives, then considering the quality land she has, an early cultural victory is definitely in play.

Napoleon

Oh boy.
He's got room for only three cities. Beyond that, he'll need to settle in German lands (as if Bismarck needed any further incentive for a DOW) or in HRE territory, adding to an already huge border tension (Christian Holy City).
He'll most likey settle first the spot to his south (rivers + ressources).
That spot will be swamped in Egyptian and HRE culture... but also reveal COPPER !
Well, guess what it means ? A super early DOW.
Egypt is the most likely target, but Charlie could be facing unwanted visitors instead.

That war is Napoleon's only shot at winning this game. He needs to crush his target quickly because Germany and India are already plotting his downfall. And Germany invades France, Germany wins : that should sound familiar.

Strong candidate for First to Die.


My Prediction : this game is going to be a bloodbath. If you're betting on Spaceship peacenik fest after Shaka and Nappy are gone, you're in for quite the ride.

I believe there are mainly three ways this game may go.

A) Shaka/Nappy romp. (very unlikely: 5-15%)
One of them wins a super early war (I'd say Nappy vs Hatty or Shaka vs Charlie) and gets the ball rolling.
Expect a super early domination win (cavalry era, possibly sub turn 250).

B) Hatty Cultural Win. (unlikely : 10-20%)
Against all odds, and with a bit of help, Hatty not only survives but thrives.
As a mono-dimensional leader, she techs up to mass media, turns up the slider, and wins a turn 300ish cultural victory.

C) Asoka/Bismarck/Charlie domination win. (very likely: 60-80%)
With the world constantly at war, one of these three will emerge as the dominant power and crush all opposition.
Expect that to happen in the tank era, circa turn 330-350 (slow tech game).

D) (yes, ever since the eponymous musketeers, three actually means four)
Thwarted domination run. (extremely unlikely : 5%)
This includes the opportunistic UN victory, the stranded last city behind an opponent who won't open borders, and the last two standing AI pleased with one another.
I believe that last scenario won't happen : no shared religion, no shared favourite civics, huge border tension, spy shenanigans...
In those cases (apart from the UN victory, duh) expect a very late Spaceship (turn 400+).
In the case of Asoka, it could also be a very late Cultural victory.

So, what should you bet ?

Betting ( A ) means you'll most likely only score 3 points (victory type), but you can shrug it off : "Hey, it's already happened once, it's bound to happen again. One day."
On the other hand, if you win, enjoy your 20ish point score in the lowest scoring game of the season !

Betting ( B ) could be embarrassing when Hatty turns out to be first to die indeed.
On the other hand, if she pulls it off, instant bragging rights over all those plebs of little faith who had condemned her !

Betting ( C ) is the surest bet. But with three possible leaders to consider... you could have the overall scenario correct but end up with a very poor score, nailing neither winner nor runner-up nor FTD.
Potentially the low risk low gain bet.

Betting ( D )... Just don't.

Now, you could also hedge your bets : something like Hatty first, Domination Win means you're pretty much guaranteed 3 or 5 points (but forfeiting a shot at 8 points).

Good luck !

[Sullla]

Community predictions added to the Game Five preview page: http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor5-5-preview.html






nabaxo: Charlie will get tied up with nonsense wars in the west with aggressive leaders, giving Asoka plenty of time to tech ahead in peace. Bismarck is gonna act as a good bulwark to the older teutonic nation.

Fjord_73: Less extreme an AI than the tree huggers Asoka and Hatty and not psyco like Shaka who will probably get tangled with Hatty early on. I think Hatty protects Asoka for a while before Shaka gets that far east, but my hope is that Bismark expands well and quietly techs away before landing a hammer blow on Hatty and getting the spoils of war that Shaka started. After that he can snowball and swallow up Asoka. If Hatty and Asoka get religions there may be strife in the south, but my expectation is that even then they wont go to war with one another, being of similar personality and peace weight. My hope is it's Charlemagne as the second major religion and this spreads to the other non peace loving nations in the north. Napoleon from my experience is likely to do his own thing and then get entangled in wars he cant win at inopportune moments. Let's see - I never do well at these predictions, but I love the stream and its always a blast to see who wins out in the end. You never know - even the most mundane looking of matches could be a fire cracker

MirrorG: Since the world has decided to stop caring about my predictions, I'm now embracing the only thing I have left to go off of: memes. Shaka is right there to pick off Hatty, with India not far off from that point, I think that he's actually got a decent shot of warmongering his way into snowballing out of control. I place Burger King as 2nd instead of fellow warmonger Napoleon because I think, if France tries anything against the HRE, the latter will have gained a friend or two via their religion they could use to call in an ally and stay alive until Shaka gets around to DoWing them to finish off the domination victory. Long game because we've had just about nothing but, this season, and 16 wars because Napoleon + Shaka means this is likely to be a bloodbath.

ZincAlloy: Who stole all the copper on this map? I bet it was Pacal — he's trying to have someone die even earlier than he did last season. And it could happen; if Shaka grabs the one to his north or Napoleon gets the one to his south, they'd be in a spot to wipe a metal free opponent. I vote Napoleon for the domination win, as he's got the better capital of the two. Shaka's got worse land and too many trees, and we all know how the AIs suffer from horrible hay fever.

RonJenzy: Man, I don't even know anymore. Hatty gets absolutely smoked by Napoleon and Shaka. Let's just say they get a mostly equal share of her. The rest of field is full of such non-entities that Shaka and Napoleon just kinda go on a rampage until... let's just say Shaka wins. Or they kill each other and Asoka just sits around and wins. Or, like, Bismark wins because everyone else kills each other. Burger King's religion might make a difference? He might work with the crazies, or maybe he'll find himself dragged down by them them? I just don't see him winning. Too vulnerable to the Super Murder Bros., and not able to keep up in a tech/culture race with Asoka. But really, these leaders are either pretty bland or have 9+ aggression ratings, how does anyone predict this? I'm just voting mostly based on what I want to see, because the longer the hyper-aggressive leaders stay alive, the longer we get to enjoy their antics.

SpamBot: I will happily accept scoring zero points if Burger King dies in the process.

Mousey_Commander: It's a sad lineup when Charlemagne actually looks like one of the better picks. This game may as well be unpredictable, even by AI survivor standards, but one thing stand out: Charlemagne is the only one bordering Shaka who will bother building a military (and protective at that) which will spare him or at least slow Shaka down. Shaka is going to sweep through the south and win through sheer inertia, Charlemagne survives long enough to get second place.

Kuro: I know Charlemagne isn't too popular in AI Survivor, but I think he's actually somewhat underrated. People talk about his undeserved wins, but Charlemagne also had a win robbed from him in the infamous Wang Kon Troll Job of 2017. On that note, saying the only notable thing about Charlemagne that game was throwing feels a bit out of place when Charlie was so militarily and landgrab successful that game! I feel like this game is great leader-wise for Charlmagne but bad positionally. If he was in Asoka or Napoleon's place it would be obvious: Kill Hatshepsut with inevitable differing faith, expand well, beat ultra-aggro civs who tired themselves out. As-is, Charlemagne is at serious risk of Shaka or Napoleon or both dragging him down hard. If he doesn't have that happen, he will probably either kill Hatshepsut due to religion or a backwards Shaka or Napoleon and win. I feel Charlemagne will therefor likely ally with one of the two warmongers. (Oh, and finally, fun fact: With Mansa dead, a Charlie who advances to the Playoffs could leap frog Mansa and make EVERYONE salty!)

Bobchillingworth: I think this will be a similar match to the one featuring Caesar and Gandhi; it'll come down to whether Shaka can correctly prioritize murdering Hatsheput, opening a path to additional easy conquests against Asoka and Bismark and eventual world domination, or if he mindlessly throws units at Charlie's protective Archers or, worse, Napoleon. I suspect he and/or Nappy will eventually come around to eliminating the Egyptians, but they'll waste a lot of time elsewhere first, allowing Asoka to pull away in tech and become unassailable.

Faded_Outline: It is theoretically possible to be more doomed than Hatty from the outset, but you'd have to specifically engineer a scenario for it. She'll fold faster than the Flash doing laundry, and it's hard to imagine Asoka either NOT being next target or holding out against the storm that blows through Ex-Egypt. Picking Napoleon as the dominant warmonger due to Shaka's sad lack of starting iron. As for Bismarck and Charlie? Even this line gives them more attention than they deserve.

RefSteel: So Egypt's closest horses for War Chariots seem to be in Shaka's BFC. With Shaka and Napoleon for neighbors, leaving her to shield Asoka from them both, and given her survivor history ... I'm picking poor Hatshepsut to win basically out of compassion - because probably nobody else will!

Ochotona: Based on the rivers and leaders with mysticism, I'm kind of expecting a northern religious group and a southern one. I expect the northern group (basically just Charlemagne and Napoleon) to work better together than the southern group, leading them to dominate over the long run. Napoleon I expect to get the lion's share of the spoils due to his position in comparison to Charley. Asoka may be able to win with his isolated position, but I think it could be too isolated for his own good, as the low peace weight civs might run amok over Hatty and Bismarck without him doing anything until it's too late.

Slashin': See that spot 3N of hatty and 3S of napoleon where a city can claim both horses and copper? I believe whether hatty or napoleon claim that spot will largely dictate the course of the game in this copperless world. If napoleon gets it, hatty has no access to horses or metals until iron working, a tech she'll have slowly meander to while her cities are inhaled by the shaka/napoleon tag team. If hatty gets it, hatty still dies but is substantially stronger and delays napoleon's aggression, leading to charly potentially being targetted and buying a substantial amount of time for Asoka to run away with the game. Otherwise... We have a setup where relationships will be heavily dictated by random religious spreads and war probability dice rolls (from both war loonies whom are willing to plot at pleased). I'll take my shot in the dark and go with asoka for space with bismarck as runner up. Asoka has a relatively isolated start with two peaceful neighbors and a silver just begging to be hooked up as soon as Bombay's border expands. If religions spread just right to Napoleon and neighboring peaceniks, Asoka has a real shot of pulling a Gandhi gambit and getting so far in tech that his more bellicose neighbors won't be able to touch him when they set their eyes on him. Bismarck also has an excellent food start that should theoretically be good for expansion, and if it was any other AI leader, I would have strongly considered for first. However, Bismarck's typical weaknesses may actually be a boon for his start. His strong military research preference allows him to hook up iron at an early date on an otherwise metalless and horseless start. Bismarck's early military buildup dissuades Napoleon from attacking him, and since he's unlikely to found his own religion, will hopefully pick up the religion of the most technologically dominant ai. Our warmongerers have a chance to snowball, but they've both consistently shown they are unable to consolidate a land advantage into a meaningful tech lead and end up getting stalled out in wars. Here's rooting for the peaceful civs to maybe help Gandhi get to the championship this year.

BohemianSpoonyBard: As a humble citizen of Prague, I am obliged to express support for our glorious leader Burger Ki... err I mean Charlemagne. His personality would awe other leaders and so they would make mistakes to make him a winner again

Fluffball: Bismark seems like he should be a way better leader than he is. I'm going to give him a chance in this game since Hatty will probably draw a lot of fire and he has that weird Eastern side with seemingly a lot more room for expansion than someone like Shaka. Picking the weird leader almost paid off for me last week with Ramesses; Bismark come through for me!

Bernn: Napoleon has a lackluster record in this competition so far, but I think he's in a position to do well here. He's up against a relatively weak field, has a solid central position and neighbors two ineffective leaders in Hatshepsut and Bismarck. If he can roll over one of them early, he'll have a commanding lead and will be able to keep conquering all the way to the end. Shaka has no metal anywhere near his territory and won't even be able to act as a check to the French armies if the diplomacy happens to shake out that way. Asoka lasts to the end by virtue of having a pretty isolated start far, far away from Napoleon's aggression.

Warclam: Only one thing is clear: Hatshepsut is going to die soon. She's going to get Shaka'd, with a Napoleon for dessert. The big question is, does she hold out long enough for Asoka to get strong? If so, he should do well. This could happen if Asoka can use religion effectively, or if Napoleon gets distracted picking on Bismarck or—best of all—slamming his head against the Protective walls of Burger King. But if Shaka and Napoleon focus fire on Hatshepsut, then all bets are off. It's just a guessing game for who gets the fist next, and whether they'll hold out long enough or end up as fuel for Shaka's war machine. I think the single most likely ending is Asoka barely escaping the World of Shaka on a spaceship, but one thing I've learned this season is that the RNG holds us all in its sway.

Vincarius: I'll be betting on Napoleon this game with Charlemagne second as his religious ally. Why? Well mostly because I dont like the starting locations of the others. Bismarck has been an underwhelming leader so far and while he has drawn a nice food-rich start near the coast, he does lack happiness resources. In my own games Asoka has always been quite a good science leader and he does have lots of room to expand to this time. However, most of it is tundra and the good land to his northwest lacks rivers. He is also likely to start his own religion which will make him hated by Charly and his potential religious allies. Hatsepsut is next to the warmongers and will get eaten first by Napoleon/Charly/Shaka. Shaka's only good route for expansion is going northeast, an area which will likely get gobbled up by Charly's holy city and/or Hatsepsut's creative cities. So I dont see him having a good land grabbing phase, resulting in him being too far behind to win. That leaves Napoleon and Charly. And just because I don't want the burger king to win again, Ill go with France. Plus Napoleon does have a nice starting area and lots of posibilities for conquest. Vive la france!

luddite: Hatty will die quickly. Napoleon, Shaka, and Charlemagne will then fight endlessly with pointless wars that accomplish nothing, while Bismarck does nothing useful and Asoka techs away in the corner to victory.

Amicalola: I can't believe it. Charlemagne has lucked himself into possibly the worst game of AI Survivor in history. It has to be close. Shaka and Napoleon are, weirdly, dead men walking here. All other leaders are going to Hate them, and inevitably their backwardness will be their undoing. Shaka in particular has almost zero food around him, kinda like Catherine in Game One...Meanwhile, Hatshepsut is probably the high peace weight leader most likely to be negatively affected by those ticking time bombs, and Bismarck is, well, bad. So my first place is for Charlie who will capitalize off the aggressors' falls, and second place is Asoka who will stay the hell out of their way beforehand. Burger King strikes again!

c0lors: Arise, children of the Fatherland / Our day of glory has arrived / Against us the bloody flag of tyranny / is raised; the bloody flag is raised. / Do you hear, in the countryside / The roar of those ferocious soldiers? / They’re coming right into your arms / To cut the throats of your sons, your comrades! // To arms, citizens! / Form your battalions/ Let’s march, let’s march / That their impure blood / Should water our fields.

smithy: Bismarck has excellent resources and the chance to get off to a flying start. He will not. It will take til T80 to hook them up, this will still be the most interesting thing he does all game. Hatty loses the stone to Asoka, she doesn't have marble either for her wonders. She cries a bit, her hat falls off, Shaka and Boney come over to give her a hug. Asoka gets a flyer and is miles ahead in land and tech, he then goes for an early culture win. His infantry hold off the medieval doomstacks for ages, but the dogpile breaks through 3T before he gets the win. Shaka and Napoleon do the heavy lifting, Charlie snipes the best cities. Napoleon declares on Charlie- there is much rejoicing. His 100+ unit stack gets lost in the southern tundra due to pathfinding and open borders issues- there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. The war drags on tediously, the peace after is worse. T480 Charlie conquers a tundra barb city. This is the first thing he's done on his own all game. When the borders pop this puts him ahead on score. T499 Sulla ragequits season 5 at the thought of all these bums progressing to later rounds, and the burger king getting yet more undeserved leaderboard points.

Churchie: If only there was an option for no winner...

Game Five Picking Contest Entry Form

Two more days to get the predictions in before Friday's match.

[Kuro]

Since my prediction was too long to fit in (and I figured it'd be fun to show my victory date etc prediction) here's mine in full:

Winner: Charlemagne
Runner Up: Napoleon
FRD: Hatshepsut
Total Wars: 16
Victory Type: Spaceship
Victory Date: T337

I know Charlemagne isn't too popular in AI Survivor, but I think he's actually somewhat underrated. People talk about his undeserved wins, but Charlemagne also had a win robbed from him in the infamous Wang Kon Troll Job of 2017. On that note, saying the only notable thing about Charlemagne that game was throwing feels a bit out of place when Charlie was so militarily and landgrab successful that game!

I feel like this game is great leader-wise for Charlmagne but bad positionally. If he was in Asoka or Napoleon's place it would be obvious: Kill Hatshepsut with inevitable differing faith, expand well, beat ultra-aggro civs who tired themselves out. As-is, Charlemagne is at serious risk of Shaka or Napoleon or both dragging him down hard. If he doesn't have that happen, he will probably either kill Hatshepsut due to religion or a backwards Shaka or Napoleon and win. I feel Charlemagne will therefor likely ally with one of the two warmongers.

I picked Napoleon for a few reasons. First off, I don't think Napoleon is as bad as his 3 points indicate, I'd take him over guys like Roosevelt. Secondly, Charlemagne and Napoleon share a river and so religious spread is highly likely. Thirdly, Napoleon has the higher religious +. Finally, Napoleon has Bismarck to his flank as well, making Napoleon significantly more likely to war elsewhere AND to war successfully. Similar to Game 4, I predict the way the land will partition will keep Domination from occuring, and I feel like this will be another game with no survivors.

IMO the other main ways this can go is a Shaka + Napoleon finish where they gang up on Charlie or Hatshepsut and conquer around (If so, my bet is on Napoleon 1 Shaka 2) or an Asoka culture victory with his large tracts of land + the warmongers dragging everyone down ala Gandhi. No matter what happens, Hatshepsut seems destined to be FTD: Surrounded by Shaka AND Napoleon AND likely to found a competing religion to both Charlemagne AND Asoka. She's also shown to be completely militarily incompetent. If it isn't Hatshepsut, it is probably Bismarck.

(Oh, and finally, fun fact: With Mansa dead, a Charlie who advances to the Playoffs could leap frog Mansa and make EVERYONE salty!)

[Zalson]

Incidentally, Sullla, what was causing the list to sort incorrectly on stream?

[Ramkhamhaeng]

@Next game: Sullla, an orange and red neighbor may be difficult to distinct on the map. Could Hatshepsut get an other color, e.g. the persian PLAYERCOLOR_CYAN?

[Wyatan]

So, game 5 results...

I think my reading of the game was mostly correct, but it went disastrously bad for my picks : Bismarck/Asoka, FTD Napoleon, Domination.

First to die was a gamble.
I think it's roughly 30% chance Hatty, 30% Nappy, 25% Shaka, 15% Charlie.
I chose the unpopular option out of my top two picks... and lost.

I had the last three leaders standing correctly, but you need to pick two, hey.
I eliminated Charlie because he was a contender for first to die, while the other two were not.
I picked Asoka second because, while he's a stronger leader than Bismarck, he needed a few more things to go his way to come on top. Plus, in case Hatty pulled off her cultural victory, he was the most likely to finish second IMO.
Well... chose wrongly there too.

Finally, Asoka and Charlie staying pleased with one another, thus preventing a conflict that would have led to domination, that was unlikely (see below) to say the least, but well, it happened.

I believe there were a few freaks occurences (ie, if we'd run alternate histories for that game, they'd be pretty unlikely to be repeated) :

- Bismarck doing that bad at the start.
I mean, you don't expect him to expand well, or to be an early leader... but c'mon.
Managing to grab the gems spot... and placing his city in the exact spot that would allow another civ to contest culturally all the good tiles, while preventing him from squeezing another city in his territory ?
Not researching the Wheel for 100 turns ?
That led to a belated and failed first war vs Napoleon, and down the road, to be too late to stop Asoka.

- Asoka founding his religion in his capital.
I think it led to a lot more culture pressure on Hatty's southern city (east of her horse city), which might contribute to explaining her DOW.
Ironically, if Asoka's second city had been his Holy City, it would have put culture pressure on Hatty's core cities, but since those were equally culturally strong, that wouldn't have led to border tension.

- Asoka not attaking Napoleon.
You might think "he's a peaceful leader, that's normal"... But even peaceful leaders, once they've been on the warpath, tend to DOW their weak and hated enemies. Or even not so weak : cf. Hatty.
That's significant, because if Asoka had captured French cities, that would have built up border tension with Charlie, and dropped their relations from Pleased to Cautious.
As such, their cultures mainly overlapped near Charlie's Holy city, ie his strongest city culturally, hence very little border tension.

- And the big one : Hatty DOW'ing Asoka !
I did mention in my predictions that in order to do really well, Asoka would need Hatty to resist the early assaults (which she did), but to later crumble so he could conquer her territory from her killer.
I didn't mean that she'd offer herself as a sacrifice !  
That changed the game dynamics, since he got the territory, without prying it from Shaka/Nappy/Charlie's grasp, and thus could stop there without being involved in a war that would have led to further conquests and conflicts.

Definitely a game I'd like to see "alternate histories" for.

Game 6 prediction :

My prediction for game 6 is that 88% of the entrants will have Huyna Capac Winner, Lincoln FTD.  

[Kuro]

Game 6 Notes:

Wow. Montezuma/Huanya/Gilgamesh/Lincoln do NOT have a lot of room to expand, huh? Also if those starting tech picks happen, Montezuma/Boudica tie for Meditation. I think Boudica wins the coin flip?