Civ4 AI Survivor Season Seven

[pindicator]

I was actively rooting against my picks there at the end. It was wonderful

[Fluffball]

I was actively rooting against my picks there at the end.  It was wonderful

Sort of similar, my picks were absolute garbage and had zero chance, but I was rooting for "evil" which I never do because I want King Musa to do well. Also everything was just so improbable you couldn't not vote for chaos.

[haphazard1]

Just finished watching the game. What an insane start to the season. Tremendously entertaining, and my picks were completely wrong as usual.

Thanks again to Sullla for running this marathon of a game 1.

[haphazard1]

A couple thoughts on game 1. Heavy spoilers!

What a weird game! I think this one will be especially interesting in the alternate histories, whenever they eventually happen. Significant turning points that seemed very low probability to me:

- Gandhi declaring on his fellow Hindu Pericles (the bigggest surprise)
- Gandhi not turning on the culture slider any time in the last 50 turns (Maybe his loss of two of his culture cities caused the AI to reset its victory type, even though it later recaptured them?) and using his great artist to bomb city #2 rather than city #3
- Isabella's minority religion spreading to two neighbors, rather than her dominant Christianity, leading to mutually destructive warfare with Stalin
- Stalin choosing (see above point) to declare on Isabella rather than Gandhi or Pericles

At various points in the game it looked like a Gandhi culture win was a near certainty, then a Gandhi elimination, then a Shaka runaway to domination, then a Gandhi culture win again. The reversals were huge, and happened very fast -- it was crazy. Gandhi should have won easily, as he got exactly the game he needed: no one attacked him for millenia, allowing him to build and build and build in peace. Instead, he declared repeatedly. And refused the run the culture slider for an easy win late. And mis-used his great artist. I give Gandhi the "holding the idiot ball" award for game 1. Shake was crazy -- of course he was, he's Shaka! -- but it almost worked as he fought off a 3-vs-1 for many turns. If the Zulus had just a slightly better economy, maybe the mad war-monger could have pulled it off.

Finally, that tech pace. Ouch. Are we sure this was set to deity?

OK, had to get all that out of my system. Now to go make my (inevitably wrong) picks for game 2.

[Brian Shanahan]

Random.org's predictions:

This time, random.org has decided to play the percentages, a late space win by Mansa Musa (t353), with Gaius Augustus bringing up second place. With a total of 21 wars predicted, the random number gods reckon Hannibal will be first to die (the number of wars is, I think, is probably the worst roll of the dice this round)

[haphazard1]

I don't know if I should be pleased or worried that random.org has produced similar picks to my own. I had an earlier finish date and fewer wars, which maybe will work better. Not sure about the first to die, though.

[Mjmd]

Game two preview

[Brian Shanahan]

I don't know if I should be pleased or worried that random.org has produced similar picks to my own. I had an earlier finish date and fewer wars, which maybe will work better. Not sure about the first to die, though.

You're just using an inferior random number generator.

[LKendter]

I just got to read the write up. What a crazy game! I think it set the record for twists and turns.

[Amicalola]

Writeup link, for anyone curious. If you didn't watch the game, this is highly recommended as it was a pretty crazy one.