Game Five is finished! This was a game where one expected prediction came true and a whole bunch of other random stuff that wasn't expected took place. Another amazing turnout for the Livestream today as we maxed out at 199 viewers. So close to 200! Here's a batch of links for the next game:
Congratulations to Kjotleik and, uh, me as the shared winners of Game Five's picking contest with an impressive 28 points. Scoring was above normal in this game with an average score of 11.95 points thanks to a popular elimination pick. We are continuing with our normal Friday date for next week's game. This time we have a bunch of insane warmongers: Boudica, Gilgamesh, and Montezuma together in a game with Huayna Capac and Mao. Should be fun! Who do you have this week?
"Superdeath seems to have acquired a rep for aggression somehow. In this game that's going to help us because he's going to go to the negotiating table with twitchy eyes and slightly too wide a grin and terrify the neighbors into favorable border agreements, one-sided tech deals and staggered NAPs."
-Old Harry. PB48.
Regarding Bismarck’s bad early tech choices, it indeed seems that military flavor of 10 can lead to it, and a bad early game hits you hard in the relatively cramped maps of AI Survivor (especially this round, where Cold climate decreases the land available). Other AIs with a military flavor like that are Genghis, Ragnar, and Shaka. Only the latter performed well on occasion.
OK, I'll go into less details this time, but here's my read on the game.
First, I consider Huyna Capac to be the best AI. Better than Mansa, better than Julius Caesar, better than Justinian. Watch as he gets one tech era, then two, ahead of the rest of the field, while building every wonder, founding every religion, and fielding a decent army.
So he's the ipso facto favourite for any game he features in.
In this game, we have three groups of AIs :
- The Eastern AIs : Gilgamesh and Huyna. They'll most likely fight, and the winner will dominate the game (they're better AIs, and should win their wars faster, thus start the snowball earlier).
- The Western AIs : Augustus, Mao and Boudica. They'll also fight, and the winner will probably end up as the runner-up.
- The Central AIs : Lincoln and Monty. They'll die. Lincoln first, most likely (but less likely than people expect I'd wager).
I believe that Huyna Capac will come on top of his opposition with Gilgamesh more often than not : let's call it 60/40.
Gilgamesh has more room, so he'll be bigger, but he's also on a tight timer (and obviously, should they not fight, through shared religion + common enemy, that would be a win for Huyna).
But I also believe that Gilgamesh is nevertheless slightly more likely to win the game : the one weakness of Huyna Capac is that he may "pull the slider" too soon, and thus throw a game that was 100% his to win.
So all in all, three scenarios : 40% : Gilgamesh win, Mao++/Boudica+ second, domination++/spaceship+, turn 330-400 35% : Huyna Capac Win, Boudica++/Mao+ second, cultural, turn 300ish 25% : Mao/Boudica win, Gilgamesh(?) second, spaceship++/domination+, turn 350-400
(that last scenario regroups Huyna's "throws" and the occurences where the West actually ends up dominant)
Note : Boudica has Universal Suffrage as her favourite civic, which the AIs are likely to be running end game, so that may be a factor in foiling her domination attempts.
Note 2 : This is a game where diplo victory is in play IMO. But it happens so rarely that it's hard to bet on it.
So something like Gilgamesh First, Mao Second, Spaceship or Domination, turn 350-360 would probably yield the most points on average.
But betting on Huyna would offer the best shot at a "grand slam" score (victory type and date seem more certain in that case, although yes, Huyna Capac has been known to stumble into a dominaton win).
(June 28th, 2020, 02:16)GreyWolf Wrote:
Regarding Bismarck’s bad early tech choices, it indeed seems that military flavor of 10 can lead to it, and a bad early game hits you hard in the relatively cramped maps of AI Survivor (especially this round, where Cold climate decreases the land available). Other AIs with a military flavor like that are Genghis, Ragnar, and Shaka. Only the latter performed well on occasion.
The tech that unlocks a key ancient military unit is the least likely to be prioritized by AIs with a military flavour !
That said, it was mainly his perfectly bad gems city spot that undid him : one tile south or east and he'd have been able to work the gems instead of getting the tiles stolen, and he'd have been able to squeeze another city between this one and the stone city.
Had he been able to work the gems, poor tech priorization wouldn't have mattered as much since he'd have turbo-researched them all !
Eauxps I. Fourgott: Well, this doesn't look good for poor Lincoln. Even though Auggie's been screwed out of having iron for Praetorians, he's only got two neighbors to deal with and no Monty. While I think Lincoln can be a solid leader, it will take a game of pure insanity for him to last long at all. As for the rest, I'm sure HC is going to be a popular pick, but I don't like his starting position much - no backlines and he could get squeezed pretty badly. I'm predisposed to root for Boudica and she's got a nice central position with plenty of land, guaranteed copper, and a good shot at getting spoils from Lincoln, Auggie, AND the ticking time bomb that is Monty, so I think she's a pretty good pick here to go on a romp. You can do it Boudy! Gilgamesh for second place since he has decent land to start with, has been competent in the past, and should get some nice American land.
Fluffball:: Even though financial HC looks super cramped, all but 2 tiles at his capital are riverside, including a gem. His early tech rate is going to be ridiculous and he doesn't even have a choice in that. Between Monty being crazy and a weak Lincoln nearby, he has some mid game expansion options.
MirrorG: Like Shaka last game, I've decided to give peace a chance for a while. With so many rabid warmongers on this map, I don't think the high peace weights have much of a chance. As far as the low peace weights are concerned, Huayna Capac is too choked in by Monty, both will get different religions from each other and be too distracted fighting each other to amount to much. HC will ultimately come out on top thanks to Monty having no proper metals near his start, but it will be too late by then when combined with how penned in he is by the other civs in the east. I think Mao has the best shot at sneaking his way into a spaceship win this game, as he's far away from the rest of the pack except for Augustus, who is without friends and without iron (which Mao has in his capitol), and will likely draw the ire of Monty at some point due to the fact that he has a pulse and a high peace weight. That will, again, leave Mao just isolated enough to not get distracted by warfare and tech up to spaceship.
Amicalola: Huayna and Boudica are about as close to a Dynamic Duo as we have in AI Survivor, so honestly rooting for them is too much fun to do anything else. It also does have some merit, though. Huayna has a great start, and his only issue is small amount of territory relative to the western leaders. Hopefully, that shouldn't matter if he backstabs Monte or Gilgamesh while they're off having fun in America. Boudica meanwhile has a lot of space, and her closest neighbour Augustus is pretty certain to die at some point, with Boudica getting the lion's share. From there, the two of them consolidate and edge out the competition. Gilgamesh doesn't have the economy to keep up, I think, while Montezuma is going to get himself killed at some point. Mao is too peaceful for this field, and is likely to get wiped out in the late game by someone that's expanded better. Oh, I guess there's Lincoln. He, uh. Um. He's not going to have a good time this game. I reckon this could be the easiest first-to-die we've ever had.
Bobchillingworth: Lincoln's got this, for sure.
ZincAlloy: Welcome to the angry continent, population six civs and a smudge on the ground that used to be Lincoln. This is a huge mess, with four warlike civs that are competent or better and also Monty. Huayna's very crushed on space, but Gilgamesh and Monty aren't likely to do much better for land, so he's got a shot. (Those culture granaries can clear some room!) Meanwhile, Boudica and Mao have lots of room, but none of that land is actually very good. My thought is the winner's whoever gets to vulture Monty and the unlucky civ that gets stuck in a war with him, which could actually be Huayna, as long as he's not the victim himself.
Alhambram: Eventually Monty has to shine once and his shiny gold in his city should help him for once. Mao comes in 2nd simply because he is fartherst from crazy Aztec leader. Lincoln is invited as frist by Monty to make a tour of sacrificial altars with other neighbors of Monty joining in line behind the Great Emancipator.
Art Deco: Gilgamesh is clearly second best AI in this game after Huayna Capac. No discussion needed. And about traits. Game developpers are imbeciles who fucked things up again, just like Nefertiti picture of Hatshepsut, or Kublai Khan-Qin Shi Huang image confusion before expansion packs. And they happen to mix Hammurabi and Gilgamesh's traits. This way Gilgamesh has Creative and Protective traits instead of Aggressive and Organized. Which ironiclly boosts Gilgamesh's economy and helps him out in land grab considering he would skip mysticism with those preferences while it screws Hammurabi. And since Huayna Capac isn't great when it comes to wars and expansion, with a visit from Montezuma he is likely to delay and just be an average dude in the game.
Vergilou: We have two high peace weight leaders separated and two religious zealots right next to each other. This game will be a total mess diplomatically. I went for Boudica first and Mao second because Huayna has what we can call now a "Cathy start". Poor Lincoln by the way... But this will be entertaining. Monty declares on Lincolm too early to conquer him but weaken him enough for someone else to finish the job. During this time Boudica, Mao and Caesar divide the gigantic land and then the two aggressive take on the pacifistic one. Huyana makes ennemies on founding a no one practice religion and dies because of his start. After absorbing a part of Caesar, Boudica conquers the east and Mao will not backstab her because of military alliance. With no ennemies left they will tech to space. Wait I didn't mention Gilgamesh? Because he will do nothing aside maybe jumping on half dead targets.
Schmun: I think Mao vs Capac is a tough choice on this one. Mao definitely have a better start: Capac starts buried in forest, with most of his options for expansion also heavily in the jungle, plus crowded by two very aggressive leaders. Mao, by contrast, has much more room to expand. Both favourites have high food starts and Capac has some tasty gems. Of course, early war declarations from Gilgamesh of Monty might not be bad for Capac, he could roll up his neighbours early on and keep going from there. On the other hand, if Capac gets attacked before he can properly unlock his start then that might torpedo his game. I think a lot depends on where those first settlers from Gilgamesh and Monty go. Of course, they are much more likely to attack Lincoln first, who is obviously FTD. If Capac picks up Monty's religion then that's a big deal. Hmmm, I think ultimately Capac can still clinch it, he's such a good AI.
BluesyCobalt: Boudica snipes the Meditation religion, gobbles up land in the direction of Mao and Augustus, starves them of iron, goes ham on the entire Western part of the map while Monty turns the Eastern side of the map into a clown fiesta, and Huayna Capac doesn't get things under control until Boudica is Too Damn Big™ and on her way over with rifles and cavs if she hasn't already taken a bite out of Monty.
Greeny: I'm taking a huge risk by picking the Inca as first to die. The scenario I'm imagining is him and Monty founding opposing religions in the beginning, thus putting a big target on Huyana's back that will make him Monty's first victim. Given that the Inca has no copper near his start and that his surrounding land is poor in general, I think that an early attack by Monty will punch through, taking 1 or 2 cities and weakening the other pre-colombian leader just enough to allow the Aztecs to eventually wipe him off the map. The game will be won by Boudia who has lots of room for expansion and a soft target in Augustus to her west. I'm not as confident about my pick for Gilgamesh as 2nd place but do think he has it in him to overtake Lincoln and get his share of a inevitably collapsing Aztec empire.
Isidora: This is going to be a pure murderbowl. Poor Lincoln.
eyser24: I am taking a risk and am choosing Mao to win. The resources around Inca look good, but I don't like his neighbors, and these neighbors are also really close to him. I think Inca's fate depends on whether his neighbors expand towards him immediately and block him in or not. Gilgamesh is the most likely leader to benefit from Lincoln's demise and will balloon in power from that, and a Sumeria-Inca conflict will come in play down the road. Gilgamesh is a wild card and I am depending on both him having a good expansion and also Inca getting bogged down either in early conflict with Monty or having a poor expansion to where he is crippled. Mao and Augustus are likely to expand towards each other and allow Mao to gain a ton of land from their inevitable conflict. He seems isolated compared to the other warmongers and I think he could viably win by either space or domination.
Takuan: I'm giving up on trying to score points; from now on, i'll just vote with my heart. My favourite leader in this game is by far Boudica. She doesn't have the best territory, so that's going to be rough for her. The way i can see her winning is if she gets a religion early and get some friends, then expands towards the west. There are some luxury resources to grab to help her compete with the rest of the AIs. Then if she attacks and defeats August Caesar, she can have a shot at winning. For that to happen, i need Lincoln to be ignored, which is far fetched but eh. Maybe Monty will be the mad man we love him to be, and will attack his closest neighbour not named Boudica, aka Huayna Capac. His double gold will make him a very decent threat even for the beast HC is. That will stall that beast, and allow Boudica to rampage to the West. Then she can either develop and snowball, or turn her attention to more juicy targets - Lincoln, backstab Monty, or give Mao a try. In any case, that's my wish, Boudica to win. By using logic though, Huayna and Mao have the best chance, especially the former, but again, maybe Monty will make my wish come true. Please Boudica, please, i want at least ONE of my picks to do well, especially if it's a leader i like. Stomp them all Boudica !!
Commodore: Okay, Huayna starts with double rice and riverside grassland gems, I'm not going to bet against him for the win. But the rest of the results are much harder to predict; who will be in second place? Giggles who can buddy up with the juggernaught Inca and eat America? Mao, who pairs general competence with a roomy start? Boudica, who has a buffet in all directions? I went with Mao but I could see it any way. I feel like I'll be in a tiny slice of the prediction pie, but I'm actually going to say Monty gets first to die. Sure, Lincoln will be hated by literally every other active leader on the map, but Monty is between two good warmongers who really want their own religions...I think Monty dies to Monty's hand, first.
pindicator: Monty is going to decide this whole game. Does he go after Lincoln or does the religious difference + border conflict with Huayna Capac cause him to go that way? Does he do something unpredictable and attack the Celts? I think he's going to go after HC - and with a good starting position he may even have some initial success. But eventually he'll do something stupid and lose. Even so, Lincoln is still FTD just because he's also go Boudica and Gilgamesh to kill him. So who wins? Not Huayna Capac. He does not have good land and is cramped in his corner, so unless Monty suicides against him early and loses quickly HC will not win this game. I think Boudica has the best position with the most opportunities to win. As long as she doesn't attack Monty. 2nd place is harder: who gets to live in a corner? Does Mao become BFFs with Boudica? Gilgamesh far enough away to carve out a strong empire? Or does HC recover from early Monty enough to get a chunk of the east? I think Mao is most likely - i just don't like HC's land, and Gilgamesh is a little too unpredictable.
smithy: I'm gonna hold on to the dream of a Monty/Lincoln religious partnership sweeping through the land like an unstoppable tide. Unfortunately both will be dead long before I wake up. Monty will butt holy city heads with HC, and Lincoln has 5 aggressive evil neighbours and may not get any metals- T104 elimination is the record and this could be close. The others civs are going to view this as a gold rush- Monty and Lincs caps have it and they want it. Winner may well be the one who makes the best early rush. Smart money has to be on HC as always, and i'm going for Boadicea to snag second due to having more land out west. Hopefully Mao and Gilg can hang around without doing anything too silly and raise the quality of the wildcard round. Alternatively we could just save a lot of time and just ask Kjotleik?
Faded_Outline: ...and here is that hypothetical "More Doomed" scenario alluded to last week. Beyond Lincoln's re-assassination, Huayna Capac might just be next on the chopping block... he's hemmed in a little too much by two bad neighbours and unlikely to get all that much support from beyond. Doesn't matter what AIs are involved, 2v1s are bad news. Monty gets the blood, Gilgamesh gets the buildings, and from there I see a violent but reasonably solid path to victory for the latter.
Wyatan: "Cuzco delenda est." - Missive from King Gilgamesh of Sumer to Emperor Augustus Caesar of Rome. (According to the Chinese scholar who donated the document, it was found by one of his ancestors, a captain in the army which liberated the barbarian city of Zhou. It is a fair assumption that the messenger never reached his destination.)
Willem: I have no idea what I am doing *insert picture of dog in chemistry lab*
I wasn't able to get in my prediction all week so only just now got it in. Glad this competition is so open with predictions! Spoilered mine below.
Winner: Gilgamesh
Runner Up: Mao Zedong
First to Die: Lincoln
Total Number of Wars: 12
Victory Type: Spaceship
End Date: Turn 333
Boy, it is hard to NOT pick Huanya Capac with his impressive track record of success. But let's look at the map for a moment: If it was any other leader, we would be saying Huanya is doomed! He has almost no room to expand and could easily be hemmed in to 3 worthwhile cities and 1-2 tundra ala Shaka and Ragnar, with Creative Gilgamesh and likely to be religious founder Montezuma to culturally crush him. Every neighbor except poor sweet hapless Lincoln is highly aggressive wnd would be willing to wardec him despite shared peace weight.
On top of that, the diplomatic situation for him is pretty horrible. Correct me if I am wrong, but turn order is alphabetical as I recall in how Sulla set it up, so Boudica is going to found a religion most likely (2nd city could change times). Montezuma will almost certainly go for another. But Huanya ALSO likes his religion and starts with Mysticism. It is highly likely Huanya turns himself into a religious pariah in some way and causes Boudica or Montezuma to declare, especially since Monty will declare on anyone for any reason already. I think Huanya is going to be hemmed in and cut down, be it from being dragged down in pointless wars to flatout being conquered.
By comparison, Gilgamesh is likely to ride an ally's religion and is the most likely to get a lot from Lincoln's inevitable demise. He doesn't have as much expansion room as Boudica, but he still has a lot particularly due to Cultural. My prediction is Gilgamesh expanding outwards, culturally crushing the area, killing Lincoln and snowballing from there. Montezuma, Boudica and Huanya all drag themselves down in wars. Whoever founds Gilgamesh's religion will be buddy-buddy with him while the rest are cut down.
On that note, look at the starting tech differences this game! Gilgamesh's Agriculture/Wheel into Mining is perfect for his start. He is going to get wet corn up quickly, get mines up quickly and road his resources. Poor Mao's amazing Agriculture/Mining is going to waste but his capital is bananas so hey. Neither Boudica nor Montezuma can hook up any resources and are both beelining Meditation, they are going to get an incredibly slow start off which opens room for someone like Gilgamesh, Mao or Huanya to get ahead too. Huanya is avoiding very first religion (tho if he goes Wheel -> Polytheism, he beats the loser of Boudica/Montezuma to it) and doing solid, Lincoln and Augustus also doing as expected. Gilgamesh's start seems the most explosive here.
I didn't talk about the other half of the continent because it seems obvious. Augustus is gonna wonder spam with Stone, he doesn't have the easiest Praetorian iron, Mao is going to get to 1v1 him and conquer him. I think Gilgamesh ends up with a larger empire and wins but I flip-flopped a lot on 1st/2nd order, feels very up in the air (Mao is probably "safer"). And it isn't like Gilgamesh has scored poorly: He's only one point out from a Pool Two leader (and with shaka's elimination could take his or Pericles' spot. Same with Boudica, actually.)
Lincoln just seems destined to be FTD. His diplomatic situation is Season One Gandhi-esque. If he and Mao had swapped spots, I would actually give him and Augustus good odds (they tech in peace while the religiously different warmongers drag each other down), but that's not the case. Someone else COULD die first but Lincoln seems by far the favorite.
I don't think whoever wins will end up with enough land area to win (probably 3 survivors or 2 survivors with roughly 60/40 or equal territory), so spaceship it is. I've generally been overshooting on the war count and I feel we'll get wars with people crumbling fast, so I brought it down to 12 (can't go TOO low with Monty). Pretty average finish date.
(July 3rd, 2020, 06:05)Kuro Wrote: I wasn't able to get in my prediction all week so only just now got it in. Glad this competition is so open with predictions! Spoilered mine below.
Winner: Gilgamesh
Runner Up: Mao Zedong
First to Die: Lincoln
Total Number of Wars: 12
Victory Type: Spaceship
End Date: Turn 333
Boy, it is hard to NOT pick Huanya Capac with his impressive track record of success. But let's look at the map for a moment: If it was any other leader, we would be saying Huanya is doomed! He has almost no room to expand and could easily be hemmed in to 3 worthwhile cities and 1-2 tundra ala Shaka and Ragnar, with Creative Gilgamesh and likely to be religious founder Montezuma to culturally crush him. Every neighbor except poor sweet hapless Lincoln is highly aggressive wnd would be willing to wardec him despite shared peace weight.
On top of that, the diplomatic situation for him is pretty horrible. Correct me if I am wrong, but turn order is alphabetical as I recall in how Sulla set it up, so Boudica is going to found a religion most likely (2nd city could change times). Montezuma will almost certainly go for another. But Huanya ALSO likes his religion and starts with Mysticism. It is highly likely Huanya turns himself into a religious pariah in some way and causes Boudica or Montezuma to declare, especially since Monty will declare on anyone for any reason already. I think Huanya is going to be hemmed in and cut down, be it from being dragged down in pointless wars to flatout being conquered.
By comparison, Gilgamesh is likely to ride an ally's religion and is the most likely to get a lot from Lincoln's inevitable demise. He doesn't have as much expansion room as Boudica, but he still has a lot particularly due to Cultural. My prediction is Gilgamesh expanding outwards, culturally crushing the area, killing Lincoln and snowballing from there. Montezuma, Boudica and Huanya all drag themselves down in wars. Whoever founds Gilgamesh's religion will be buddy-buddy with him while the rest are cut down.
On that note, look at the starting tech differences this game! Gilgamesh's Agriculture/Wheel into Mining is perfect for his start. He is going to get wet corn up quickly, get mines up quickly and road his resources. Poor Mao's amazing Agriculture/Mining is going to waste but his capital is bananas so hey. Neither Boudica nor Montezuma can hook up any resources and are both beelining Meditation, they are going to get an incredibly slow start off which opens room for someone like Gilgamesh, Mao or Huanya to get ahead too. Huanya is avoiding very first religion (tho if he goes Wheel -> Polytheism, he beats the loser of Boudica/Montezuma to it) and doing solid, Lincoln and Augustus also doing as expected. Gilgamesh's start seems the most explosive here.
I didn't talk about the other half of the continent because it seems obvious. Augustus is gonna wonder spam with Stone, he doesn't have the easiest Praetorian iron, Mao is going to get to 1v1 him and conquer him. I think Gilgamesh ends up with a larger empire and wins but I flip-flopped a lot on 1st/2nd order, feels very up in the air (Mao is probably "safer"). And it isn't like Gilgamesh has scored poorly: He's only one point out from a Pool Two leader (and with shaka's elimination could take his or Pericles' spot. Same with Boudica, actually.)
Lincoln just seems destined to be FTD. His diplomatic situation is Season One Gandhi-esque. If he and Mao had swapped spots, I would actually give him and Augustus good odds (they tech in peace while the religiously different warmongers drag each other down), but that's not the case. Someone else COULD die first but Lincoln seems by far the favorite.
I don't think whoever wins will end up with enough land area to win (probably 3 survivors or 2 survivors with roughly 60/40 or equal territory), so spaceship it is. I've generally been overshooting on the war count and I feel we'll get wars with people crumbling fast, so I brought it down to 12 (can't go TOO low with Monty). Pretty average finish date.
I mostly agree with that assessment (see my predictions a coupla posts above).
Just a few minor points :
- Turn order is Pool 1 leader, Pool 2 leader, then alphabetical for the rest of the leaders. So Huyna Capac does have turn order advantage.
- The river between Huyna and Gilgamesh marks a natural boundary and the terrain arounds it is the best terrain available to them : which of the two ends up in control of most of that terrain should be a key indicator of things to come.
Advantage Huyna there IMO since he should send his settler towards that river and plop a Holy City right there. Holy City trumps Creative.
But the opposite could also happen (Huyna sends settler south and/or doesn't go for religion, while Gilgamesh does settle the river and gets a religion), in which case Huyna Capac would be in a world of trouble indeed.
- I believe Huyna Capac is more likely to win the conflict, simply because their definition of "win" is different : Gilgamesh needs Huyna Capac to be dead or at least severely crippled by turn 150, while just not losing cities or avoiding conflict altogether is a "win" for Huyna Capac.
So Gilgamesh will be stronger (maybe even much stronger), and should he prevail, he'd go on to win the game 100%, that's why I agree that he's slightly more likely to be the winner.
But Huyna Capac can win the game with 8-9 cities, while the other leaders will need 25+. So his chances aren't far behind.
- I agree with Mao second in the case of a Gilgamesh win : Gilgamesh is more likely to attempt domination, and Boudica stands in the way...
(July 3rd, 2020, 06:05)Kuro Wrote: I wasn't able to get in my prediction all week so only just now got it in. Glad this competition is so open with predictions! Spoilered mine below.
Winner: Gilgamesh
Runner Up: Mao Zedong
First to Die: Lincoln
Total Number of Wars: 12
Victory Type: Spaceship
End Date: Turn 333
Boy, it is hard to NOT pick Huanya Capac with his impressive track record of success. But let's look at the map for a moment: If it was any other leader, we would be saying Huanya is doomed! He has almost no room to expand and could easily be hemmed in to 3 worthwhile cities and 1-2 tundra ala Shaka and Ragnar, with Creative Gilgamesh and likely to be religious founder Montezuma to culturally crush him. Every neighbor except poor sweet hapless Lincoln is highly aggressive wnd would be willing to wardec him despite shared peace weight.
On top of that, the diplomatic situation for him is pretty horrible. Correct me if I am wrong, but turn order is alphabetical as I recall in how Sulla set it up, so Boudica is going to found a religion most likely (2nd city could change times). Montezuma will almost certainly go for another. But Huanya ALSO likes his religion and starts with Mysticism. It is highly likely Huanya turns himself into a religious pariah in some way and causes Boudica or Montezuma to declare, especially since Monty will declare on anyone for any reason already. I think Huanya is going to be hemmed in and cut down, be it from being dragged down in pointless wars to flatout being conquered.
By comparison, Gilgamesh is likely to ride an ally's religion and is the most likely to get a lot from Lincoln's inevitable demise. He doesn't have as much expansion room as Boudica, but he still has a lot particularly due to Cultural. My prediction is Gilgamesh expanding outwards, culturally crushing the area, killing Lincoln and snowballing from there. Montezuma, Boudica and Huanya all drag themselves down in wars. Whoever founds Gilgamesh's religion will be buddy-buddy with him while the rest are cut down.
On that note, look at the starting tech differences this game! Gilgamesh's Agriculture/Wheel into Mining is perfect for his start. He is going to get wet corn up quickly, get mines up quickly and road his resources. Poor Mao's amazing Agriculture/Mining is going to waste but his capital is bananas so hey. Neither Boudica nor Montezuma can hook up any resources and are both beelining Meditation, they are going to get an incredibly slow start off which opens room for someone like Gilgamesh, Mao or Huanya to get ahead too. Huanya is avoiding very first religion (tho if he goes Wheel -> Polytheism, he beats the loser of Boudica/Montezuma to it) and doing solid, Lincoln and Augustus also doing as expected. Gilgamesh's start seems the most explosive here.
I didn't talk about the other half of the continent because it seems obvious. Augustus is gonna wonder spam with Stone, he doesn't have the easiest Praetorian iron, Mao is going to get to 1v1 him and conquer him. I think Gilgamesh ends up with a larger empire and wins but I flip-flopped a lot on 1st/2nd order, feels very up in the air (Mao is probably "safer"). And it isn't like Gilgamesh has scored poorly: He's only one point out from a Pool Two leader (and with shaka's elimination could take his or Pericles' spot. Same with Boudica, actually.)
Lincoln just seems destined to be FTD. His diplomatic situation is Season One Gandhi-esque. If he and Mao had swapped spots, I would actually give him and Augustus good odds (they tech in peace while the religiously different warmongers drag each other down), but that's not the case. Someone else COULD die first but Lincoln seems by far the favorite.
I don't think whoever wins will end up with enough land area to win (probably 3 survivors or 2 survivors with roughly 60/40 or equal territory), so spaceship it is. I've generally been overshooting on the war count and I feel we'll get wars with people crumbling fast, so I brought it down to 12 (can't go TOO low with Monty). Pretty average finish date.
I mostly agree with that assessment (see my predictions a coupla posts above).
Just a few minor points :
- Turn order is Pool 1 leader, Pool 2 leader, then alphabetical for the rest of the leaders. So Huyna Capac does have turn order advantage.
- The river between Huyna and Gilgamesh marks a natural boundary and the terrain arounds it is the best terrain available to them : which of the two ends up in control of most of that terrain should be a key indicator of things to come.
Advantage Huyna there IMO since he should send his settler towards that river and plop a Holy City right there. Holy City trumps Creative.
But the opposite could also happen (Huyna sends settler south and/or doesn't go for religion, while Gilgamesh does settle the river and gets a religion), in which case Huyna Capac would be in a world of trouble indeed.
- I believe Huyna Capac is more likely to win the conflict, simply because their definition of "win" is different : Gilgamesh needs Huyna Capac to be dead or at least severely crippled by turn 150, while just not losing cities or avoiding conflict altogether is a "win" for Huyna Capac.
So Gilgamesh will be stronger (maybe even much stronger), and should he prevail, he'd go on to win the game 100%, that's why I agree that he's slightly more likely to be the winner.
But Huyna Capac can win the game with 8-9 cities, while the other leaders will need 25+. So his chances aren't far behind.
- I agree with Mao second in the case of a Gilgamesh win : Gilgamesh is more likely to attempt domination, and Boudica stands in the way...
- Huanya isn't the one competing with Boudica for Meditation potentially decided by turn order, Boudica is, so fortunately that doesn't matter.
- Huanya isn't going to get a holy city until later at minimum because he is going Wheel first while Boudica or Montezuma will get Meditation. Unless he goes Polytheism next, he likely gets a 3rd+ religion and so ends up not getting the holy city domination. This is the "worst case Huanya" scenario of course but all it takes is not researching Polytheism before Monty/Boudica.
- I don't think the other leaders need 25+ cities to beat a Huanya with 8-9 cities. Huanya's advantage is not THAT large just from traits, some of those would inevitably be tundra and Huanya would have a good chance of losing militarily even at around...12-13 cities vs. 8-9 I feel depending on the enemy leader and land. IMO Huanya NEEDS to conquer this game in order to win rather than just avoid conflict. I also personally feel Huanya is most likely to conflict with Monty or Boudica rather than Gilgamesh.
- But I could be totally wrong of course! Huanya just isn't gonna get to sit around like Asoka untouched this game, anyway. We definitely seem to have some pretty similar thoughts, so it'll be fun to see how our stuff shakes out by comparison.
Another amazing turnout for the Livestream today as we maxed out at 199 viewers. So close to 200! Here's a batch of links for the next game:
Scoring was above normal in this game with an average score of 11.95 points thanks to a popular elimination pick. We are continuing with our normal Friday date for next week's game. This time we have a bunch of insane warmongers: Boudica, Gilgamesh, and Montezuma together in a game with Huayna Capac and Mao. Should be fun! Who do you have this week?
![[Image: noidea.gif]](https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/noidea.gif)
In this game that's going to help us because he's going to go to the negotiating table with twitchy eyes and slightly too wide a grin and terrify the neighbors into favorable border agreements, one-sided tech deals and staggered NAPs."
![[Image: survivor5-6-9.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/Survivor/S5/survivor5-6-9.jpg)
![[Image: survivor5-6-10.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/Survivor/S5/survivor5-6-10.jpg)
![[Image: survivor5-6-11.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/Survivor/S5/survivor5-6-11.jpg)
![[Image: survivor5-6-12.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/Survivor/S5/survivor5-6-12.jpg)
