Civ AI Survivor: Season Five

[Fluffball]

The zoomed out global view of resources doesn't work because the entire landmass is covered in them and unreadable, but a more zoomed in shot of the ice seems doable. I didn't think much of it last game, but in game 2 the southern ice is just enormous. Farmable tundra with fresh water, deer, some hills, all the sudden you have a fairly strong city.

[darrelljs]

Written summary for Game One has been finished: http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor5-1.html

As I do every year, want to thank you for the no doubt extensive time & effort you put into a written summary on top of the livestream.  Its my preferred way to consume the event until the final, when only the livestream will do .

Darrell

[Amicalola]

I agree a quick extra picture of the ice could be nice, but I'm curious, do you guys see "has tundra" to be a positive or a negative on a leader's chances of winning? Personally, I think it's not good, because they're possibly going to expand that way instead of to temperate areas + it means there's room for an extra AI there. Do you think the pros outweigh the cons?

[haphazard1]

If there are some food resources (deer or seafood along the coast), then the frozen regions can be a plus. The AIs get big enough discounts on costs that even a pretty crummy city is still a net positive for them. Look at what happened in game one

with the French cities in the north, where there was some seafood. The south did not have much food and the AIs did not really expand into it, even when they ran out of space elsewhere.

If an AI were to send their initial settler(s) into the frozen wastes then yes, it would be a big negative. And the frozen regions will spawn barbs which can be a distraction for the AIs, although without raging barbs the deity AIs get enough of a bonus that it is (usually) not a significant issue.

[Sullla]

Community predictions added to the Game Two preview page: http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor5-2-preview.html






Duizhang_Lu: Cathy + Troll Kon + Sitting Bull? This game is going to be a riot!! Despite Cathy's strength, I think Sury actually has a better chance to win since Sitting Bull is screening the rest of the peaceful civs. As much as he sucks at winning, Sitting Bull is hard to kill, so I think he's going to drag Cathy and Brennus down with him. I fully expect Wang Kon to go out in a blaze of glory, trolling until the very last. Who knows, with how far he is from most of the evil leaders, maybe he'll live to troll again!

MirrorG: Surya and Cathy are both solid picks for who will be able to grab the most land early on and use it to their advantage. That said, Surya sharing a river with Sitting Bull puts him at risk of sharing a religion with someone who is probably not the best friend to have, and who he'd probably do better at conquering to block of Cathy. Speaking of Cathy, since she isn't running as much of a risk of getting on Sitting Bull's good side, I believe she'll take him out and use that power base to win out the rest of the field. Aside from that, a split down the middle between low and high peace weight leaders = lots of wars, but perhaps a bit of a bloc forming at the end that keeps the game running longer than it otherwise would've. Sitting Duck for first-to-die because of course.

Alhambram: High peaceweights shall defy the threat of evil civs. In a shocking moment Roosevelt rolls over Louis while at same Wang Kon manages stalemate Sury. Cathy get stuck by Sitting Bull's protective traits and Brennus is too preoccupied in his little corner. Eventually both Roosevelt and Wang Kon rolls over the map with Roosevelt taking the most spoils. Therefore three high peaceniks lives long and happy lives. Endgame drama comes at moment when Roosevelt already launched spaceship and got 2 turns left to win, but Wang Kon put down vote for Diplomatic Victory and with help of Sitting Bull he wins the vote.

ZincAlloy: Oooo, Roosevelt and Sitting Bull? Two delicious snacks for Cathy to munch on on her path to victory. Brennus tags along for second place, solely by spreading his religion to her to secure an alliance. Wang Kon does absolutely nothing and survives with only a city or two when the spaceship wins it, as he's building up power for the wildcard game.

pindicator: I feel like this is Louis' game. He's got a wonderful start with the stone, double gems, and double gold. He has two very peaceful and low unit-building neighbors in Wang Kon and Roosevelt. If there's ever going to be a time for him to shine this is it. So I think he eats Roosevelt, and then helps Cathy pick off Sitting Bull. Then ends up 2nd to Sury becaue it's freaking Sury.

Myth: Cathy, in test games and previous “alternate histories,” when she won, won EXTREMELY quickly and early. I saw one game where she won domination on turn 250. Since this is a larger pool of leaders, 300 is my early win prediction. Roosevelt is the only high peace weight, non-protective leader, which I assume will allow Wang and SB to survive a little longer. However, Cathy is still the best leader here in my opinion and, since Louis is furthest from her, is my decision for second, especially if he gains from Roosevelt’s destruction.

Amicalola: So I think for this one the weight of numbers and the quality of the various AIs means another low peace-weight victory is in the books. The question is which ones will actually win. Catherine and Brennus both have pretty weak capitals for their techs (Cathy in particular also has very little food around her), so I think they'll both be slow to start. Additionally, they have to go through Sitting Bull to get to the others, and though I'm 100% sure he's going to die, he'll bleed a lot first. So I think the victory/second goes to Louis/Suryavarman respectively, mostly because they have better capitals (especially Louis, hot damn!), and easier access to the weaker peaceful civs, especially Roosevelt (whos stone will make him not expand much). He's my first to die for that reason, as well.

RefSteel: I'm pretty much going by the form book here, with Catherine - one of my favorites, and one of the most effective AIs - gaining most of the spoils from a dogpile on the weakest AI in the tournament, then just rolling on across the bottom of the continent until she hits the sea. Bought into war with her erstwhile allies, she could crush them along with everyone else, leaving the Troll King - the one who bought her in twice - as the distant second-place civ by default and geography. The only surprises I'm expecting are the normally-highly-effective Sury getting outplayed (and/or getting stymied by having too many neighbors who hate him, even if they're mostly not very competent) and Wang Kon arranging or getting involved in a bunch of different wars ... which I admit would be a relatively tame performance by his standards of insanity!

Patrick Hayden: I really like Suryavarman's start. He's got a lot of space. I think Catherine will go to war with her two neighbours but I don't think they'll be quick/easy wars.

SpamBot: If only Roosevelt and Sitting Bull had swapped positions... But no, Cathy, and likely Brennus as well, is going to get drawn into a prolonged stalemate with that Duck. This leaves the door open for... Wang Kon and Suryavarman? Aka some of the most random and unpredictable AIs? Goddamn it. I suppose that Louis might also have a shot to win, but he will have to ignore the lure of the Stone long enough to settle some land and kill Roosevelt and honestly that is another RNG gamble. Well, at least this game promises some epically bad decision making?

ThreeLeggedChicken: A lot of pointless early-mid game skirmish wars and cross-map invasions take place in the north. In the south, Sitting Bull enjoys only 65 turns of peace before the first invasion, and then slowly fades off the map while causing huge casualties to all his enemies - Catherine being the main beneficiary. Louis suffers a faster collapse by the combined forces of Wang Kon and Roosevelt, with the Americans surprisingly ending up with every city except the French capital. Actually, the Americans hold pretty well until the Industrial Era, when Catherine completes what she started, but failed to finish, in the Season 4 game with the help of Cossacks. From that point, Cathy does what she needs to get a Domination victory - namely, settling a number of iceballs in the south and thwarting a Cultural attempt by Troll Kon that used Paris. Survayarman holds off Brennus for second, by virtue of having larger cities and acquiring some border cultural flips from Cathy's conquests.

luddite: Louis has a great starting location with food and lots of luxuries nearby. Most other leaders lack luxuries. He'll waste time building wonders, but at least the stone will make it go quickly, and will help him win border wars. Then the low peaceweight leaders on the edge will all attack the high peaceweights in the center.

Dark Savant: Cathy has been a strong performer in previous years, but she doesn't have much food near her start and can easily get boxed in by Sitting Bull (who doesn't have the personality to do well, but can and will stop others from doing so). Louis drew a coastal start without coastal resources. He's likely to build too few cities and too many wonders, with his closest neighbors of opposite peace weight. That's a recipe for early elimination. Roosevelt has a good enough start, neighbors, and space (he has the best opportunity to expand away from the equator) to do okay, but I wouldn't trust his personality to do so well as to win. Brennus will have a couple of powerful cities, and his lack of happiness resources doesn't hurt much with his traits, but he's also likely to be boxed in with such a corner start. So which of Suryavarman and Wang Kon will do the best? It's hard to say; it's unlikely they'll be good friends, so they probably won't both perform well. They both have roughly equal-looking starts; Suryavarman's position would be stronger if only he had early happiness. Let's say Wang Kon, because why not. With Louis XIV looking to be the most likely early victim, let's say their other neighbor Roosevelt for second.

bellarch: Cathy's start looks a lot like Mehmed's from Game 1: few neighbors, good land to expand into (and lots of it), similar peace weight AI who will probably found a religion to the north and a great war target to the rest. However, unlike Mehmed, her neighbors are not tech monsters but rather AI Survivor's resident mediocrity and Sitting Duck. Cathy feasts on duck, backstabs Brennus after growing huge, and rides a war-torn continent to domination. Sury ends up on the wrong side of a religious divide with Cathy and gets eaten, so Louis, with his out-of-the-way location and great start, happily builds wonders, beats up Roosevelt a little, and rides Cathy's coattails into the playoffs.... I say this assuming that this is a normal game. Part of me fully expects that Wang Kon works his black magic and somehow gets Sitting Duck into the playoffs.

Isidora: Honestly, these picks make no sense, but I'm betting the game won't either.

Game Two Picking Contest Entry Form

Two more days to get the predictions in. And as Fluffball mentioned, the lack of a zoomed out picture of global resources is because it becomes impossible to see the map through the resource bubbles. I can try to get a picture of the southern tundra as requested later today.

[Commodore]

I'd like to register my prediction: This loony field, we're going to see the lowest-scoring game of this entire round (I'd say the whole season but if there's a huge Wildcard game that might beat it).

[antisocialmunky]

@Sullla, I wish there we could add game specific scoring for certain games like 'Sitting Bull Survives (Y/N) 1 Point`

[Fluffball]

@Sullla, I wish there we could add game specific scoring for certain games like 'Sitting Bull Survives (Y/N) 1 Point`

You want to just give 100% of contestants a bonus point? 

[Bobchillingworth]

I wonder if SB might fare better if his UU were simply replaced with the default Axeman. Given the way the AI carelessly chucks units at cities and stacks, his Dog Soldiers may lead to him regularly being on the losing end of unit exchanges prior to Catapults.

[Amicalola]

I wonder if SB might fare better if his UU were simply replaced with the default Axeman.  Given the way the AI carelessly chucks units at cities and stacks, his Dog Soldiers may lead to him regularly being on the losing end of unit exchanges prior to Catapults.

I feel like that's very possible. Although I still think he'd be pretty bad either way, because of the whole "build units but don't use them" shtick.