March Madness: Civ4 AI Edition

[Sullla]

Alright, entries for the Wildcard game are now closed. Thanks to everyone who was able to submit a prediction. Link to the game writeup is below, I'll try to record the results tonight but it might take until tomorrow due to the Easter holiday.

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ4/survivor9.html

1) Zara Yacob
2) Qin
3) Darius
4) Peter
5) Frederick
6) Washington
7) Genghis Khan Temujin
8) Asoka

Spaceship victory on Turn 326, 5 civs surviving

[haphazard1]

Thanks for another entertaining write up, Sullla!

Well, I was right that Zara would make the semi-finals although I thought he would be second. I expected Peter to pick up more land by vulturing off Qin and Temujin's warring. He did get some of Washington's land, but not nearly what I was expecting. Oh well. Asoka as first to die was pretty easy.

The Darius/Frederick warfare was rather surprising, as was their survival to the end. I expected many more deaths.

[Hashoosh]

Wow, that was a good one, thanks Sullla!

[Bobchillingworth]

Hah, only a couple picks off from a perfect prediction. that barb city in the center of the east, surrounded by enemies and building an aqueduct. You go, guys!

[antisocialmunky]

Yay, I got 3 things right.

[RiverBabble]

Wow, I actually did pretty decently this time around! Apparently not being overly analytical makes me more successful in these - who knew?

Thanks again for a great report, Sullla! On to the semifinals!

[Lord Parkin]

Well... I failed miserably at picking the winners, but I did pretty well at picking the bottom placers in the correct order.

#1 - Genghis x
#2 - Peter x
#3 - Qin x
#4 - Zara x
#5 - Frederick ✓
#6 - Washington ✓
#7 - Darius x
#8 - Asoka ✓

[Dantski]

If I was picking purely based on land and start positions I'd have picked Zara this game too, I just lost a lot of faith in him after the first round of games and didn't believe he could get in a winning position.

I'm also somewhat curious if the game would've changed much if Qin had grabbed more cities than Genghis from India.

[Yell0w]

Wow I got a nice score again, I thought peter would be bigger than Quin though, thought that he'd get more of Asoka while Quin deals with the Americans.
Nice writeups Sulla, thanks, it has been really entertaining to follow this series so far. Must be quite a lot of work, hope you feel it's worth it =)

[haphazard1]

If I was picking purely based on land and start positions I'd have picked Zara this game too, I just lost a lot of faith in him after the first round of games and didn't believe he could get in a winning position.

I liked Zara because of his starting position, and also because whenever I see him in my SP games he always seems to do pretty well. Zara is pretty extreme on the religious like/dislike, but otherwise does not go crazy for wonders, too many units, too few units, etc. Creative/Organized is a pretty solid combo and gives discounts to a lot of useful buildings. If it wasn't for the anti-synergy of a monument UB for a creative leader , I think Ethiopia would be one of the stronger standard/restricted civs.

I'm also somewhat curious if the game would've changed much if Qin had grabbed more cities than Genghis from India.

This was one of the big open questions, IMHO. I thought Peter might benefit more from the inevitable destruction of India, thus my incorrect pick for victor.