March Madness: Civ4 AI Edition

[Nakor]

Cool idea, Sullla!

[spacetyrantxenu]

Putting my (nonexistent) bitcoin on Joao despite the pangaea setting. He always seems to expand well, obviously, and techs reasonably well in my games. Watching this with interest.

[Sullla]

You guys did read the link in the first post, right? I explained the setup in much more detail there. I'll link again for anyone who missed it: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/civ4survivor.html Duels would be interesting as well, but that would require about 50 games to play out, and I'm not prepared to put in quite that much effort. Perhaps another time.

I did the drawing for the first game. Here's the short writeup that I've prepared for the competitors:


Brennus

Brennus has Spiritual and Charismatic traits in Civ4. As one of the two Celtic leaders, he has access to the Gallic Swordsman unique unit and the Dun as a unique building. Outside of the Spiritual trait, all of these are viewed as being fairly weak options - I can't recall anyone choosing to play Brennus in a standard Pitboss game of Civ4. The Celts also have Mysticism and Hunting starting techs, although starting techs don't matter that much for Deity AIs since they all begin with Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, and Archery. Brennus the AI has a medium military flavor, along with an emphasis on religion. He has an aggression rating of 7/10, which is above average and make him a bit of a warmongerer. Brennus AI also cares a lot about religion, with a major bonus to shared faith and a large penalty to other competitors. He's a fairly average AI in total.


Napoleon

Napoleon is Organized and Charismatic for traits, with the amazing Musketeer unique unit and the completely not-amazing Salon unique building by virtue of being France. He is one of the most aggressive leaders in the entire game, with a heavy military emphasis and an aggression rating of 9.1 out of 10! Napoleon is also one of the most likely leaders in the game to demand tribute and demand civic changes. He doesn't care about religion though, and he's one of the easiest AIs to keep on good terms when having a different faith. Nevertheless, Napoleon is a scary leader. He builds tons of units and he isn't afraid to use them. Only a couple of leaders are more likely to go to war.


Peter

Peter is Expansive and Philosophical in Civ4, with the Cossack and Research Institute as befitting his Russian civ. Despite his peaceful traits, Peter is actually a fairly aggressive leader, with an 8/10 aggression rating. He's very willing to go to war with his enemies. At the same time, however, Peter also rarely makes demands of other civs, and has science and growth flavors for his AI programming. It's all kind of a weird package. Peter AI could focus on peaceful teching, or he could just as easily go into a murderous rage and spend the whole game fighting his neighbors. Impossible to tell.


Ramesses

Ramesses has Spiritual and Industrious traits, the ones that used to belong to Gandhi in pre-expansion days. He has the good fortune to be playing as Egypt, with the strong War Chariot and Obelisk unique stuff. Unlike the rest of this bunch, Ramesses has a low aggression rating at 3.7 out of 10. His most prominent claim to fame is a very heavy emphasis on wonders, with a 10/10 rating for wonder construction and a culture emphasis to boot. Expect Ramesses to do a lot of wonder-whoring, that's what he's known for. He also places a lot of focus on religion as well, with a giant bonus for shared faith. How he'll do with this violent field of competitors is anyone's guess, probably the game winner or first one eliminated with little in between.


Suryavarman

As anyone who's played Civ4 Multiplayer games at Realms Beyond likely already knows, Suryavarman has Creative and Expansive traits. (It's a testament to his popularity that I can spell that name without looking at it!) These are extremely strong traits that favor early expansion and growth. He also gets the Ballista Elephant and Baray to play around with, which are fairly average. Suryavarman AI has gold and culture flavors, along with a high wonder emphasis (8/10). Yet he also builds a decent amount of units, and has a high aggression rating of 7.6 out of 10. His AI performance is another one that's a mixed bag, hard to figure out. Still, Suryavarman is one of the most likely leaders to expand out to a large size and start snowballing from there.


Tokugawa

Finally we have Tokugawa for the last leader, with the horribly non-economic trait pairing of Aggressive and Protective. These are excellent combat traits, of course, but there's a reason why humans stay away from these ones. Japan also gets access to the Samurai and Shale Plants, which are fairly weak unique items. Tokugawa is infamous in the Civ4 community for having the "loser" profile, the isolationist leader who refuses to work with anyone and eventually gets out-teched and dogpiled. Turning off tech trading should actually help poor Tokugawa, who inevitably gets left out of the loop when tech trading is on. He's yet another leader with a high aggression rating (7.3 out of 10, and trust me, they aren't normally this high!) and Tokugawa is almost pathologically unable to get along with his neighbors. It would be a true shock to see him do well.

Overall, it's a violent group of leaders here. Everyone except for Ramesses is well above average in terms of aggression. Furthermore, with two civs that emphasize religion in the Celts and the Egyptians, there's a strong probability that the world will be divided into competing faiths and prompt even more conflict. This game hasn't even begun yet, and I can't wait to see the blood start flowing!

Get your predictions in for this group, I'm planning on posting what happens this evening.

[Old Harry]

Great idea . I wonder does winning in the opening round give you any kind of advantage or seeding for the playoff round or will the playoff be randomly rolled?

I presume they are restricted, so I'll put 0.5 euros apiece on Asoka and Huyana.

[Sian]

given that group, i'm calling Suvivorman (Sury) for the win

[Twinkletoes89]

I'm staking my bet on Peter for some Cossack domination!

[Dantski]

Don't let me down Napoleon!

[Nakor]

Going for Sury! Peter in second place.

[Cyneheard]

I'm staking my bet on Peter for some Cossack domination!

+1. Peter FTW.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Going with Peter. Tokugawa to finish last.