March Madness: Civ4 AI Edition

[Dp101]

Winner: Zara
Runner up: Pericles
First to die: Suleiman
Survivors: 3
Victory: Space t321

[Katon]

Winner: Zara
Runner Up: Pericles
First To Die: Boudica
Survivors: 3
Victory: Space, T318

Boudica's pretty much forced to expand into Stalin, which given their personalities should devolve into war at some point. The question is whether other leaders take the chance to dogpile Stalin; if they don't, I like his land better than Boudica's. Either way, that mess will likely leave Pericles and Zara without too much fighting to do, and they've both shown that they can exploit a peaceful start quite nicely.

[Lord Parkin]

Darn... I really wanted to root for Boudica, but that's some seriously horrible land she's got. She's the only leader that's forced to fight her way out of a narrow strip of desert and tundra. Ugh.

I think Pericles/Zara realistically have the best chance of moving on to the championship given the map. However, I feel bound to stick with my earlier prediction again - even if I lose horribly due to it.

Playoff Round Three

- Boudica advances
- Brennus advances

Alright...

Winner: Brennus
Runner Up: Boudica
First To Die: Stalin
Survivors: 3
Victory: Space, T327

*Closes eyes and crosses fingers*

[Commodore]

Winner: Zara
Runner Up: Pericles
First to Die: Sulieman
Number of Leaders Surviving: 3
Victory Type and Date: Diplo, T315

[antisocialmunky]

Going to be tough to predict this one. Every AI but Boudica has nice land and/or a lot of it.

I'm tempted to either pick the 2 Celts or Zara and Pericles. I have no flipping ideas for this game if I'm to be honest.

Glad to hear this. Finding a good map for these games is not always easy. The more indecision we have from the field, the better I've done.

Well after that ridiculous Mansa game, I think its well deserved. Good job.

Either way I hope this isn't a 49ers followed by Broncos playoff.

[Azza]

Winner: Zara Yaqob
Runner up: Sulieman
First to die: Stalin
Survivors: 3
Victory: t333 domination

[RefSteel]

Score note: I think I also get five points for my Elizabeth/Mansa guess, right? Even though I was actually crazy (I prefer "loyal" but I'll face facts) enough to place them in the wrong order....

Playoff Game 3 predictions:

Winner: Boudica is a great ally (just ask Alex) and a strong warmonger if she can somehow maintain tech parity. I'll just go ahead and pretend she has a chance of actually doing that in this game.

Runner-up: Pericles is the eponymous hero of a wonderful, underappreciated play by William Shakespeare! He's also in a pretty decent position on this map unless Suleiman settles clear across the desert at him the way Qin did to Elizabeth.

First to die: Stalin ... because unless religious differences and border tensions result in Boudica (with help from his other neighbors) somehow running over him in a war, there is just no scenario where she can possibly win this thing. Honestly, there's no scenario anyway; her land is beyond terrible, probably the worst I've ever seen in this tournament. On top of that, she's a leader who needs to succeed in war if she's going to win, and this guy -- with whom peaceweight says she'll be Pleased on first contact -- is her only neighbor. But confound it, I'm sticking with her anyway!

Survivors: 4, going again with the closest thing to a wild fantasy of a scenario where Boudica and Pericles can finish in the top spots here.

Victory: Diplomatic, circa Turn 310. Or something?

Meanwhile...

I dunno, does 6/7 even matter if Catherine basically murdered everyone on the continent except her Russian pet?

Well, my "survivors' ranking" is completely unofficial; there's no reason you can't make your own if you'd like! For the results that actually count, we'll have to wait for Sullla's full list at the end. That said, Catherine's more-impressive Regular Season victory is arguably canceled out by Mao's superior position at the end of his Playoff game. I didn't try to judge that stuff either way, but just ranked everyone based on objective criteria (though in a different order than Sullla's official ones) to ensure I don't play favorites:

My silly and totally unofficial "objective" criteria:
1) Only surviving leaders are eligible. Since a leader whose entire civilization is destroyed, no matter in which game, is disqualified from my list, I won't include still-active leaders until the tournament ends.
2) Scores are assigned according to average in-game rank across all the games each leader played. Thus, Catherine and Mao each have a score of (1 + 3) / 2 = 2. If Mansa Musa wins it all, his score will be (1 + 1 + 1) / 3 = a perfect 1!
3) Ties are broken in favor of the last round the leader reached. So if Justinian finishes 3rd in (and survives) the Final round, while his average rank will be the same as theirs, he will show up above Catherine and Mao in my standings.
4) Further ties are broken on the basis of head-to-head records when they exist. (This is why I placed Darius over Peter, but they'd be in the same order if we skipped this tiebreaker anyway.)
5) Still-further ties are broken in favor of the leader who, on average, had to face a greater number of opponents in each game. (This is why I'm placing Mao ahead of Catherine.)
6) Finally, still-extant ties are broken on the basis of each leader's best game: Highest rank achieved, then earliest victory date if any, and finally highest in-game score achieved if necessary.

I love your stories! I love how the AIs breakwhat i call the "3.5th" wall: they know theyre in a game but arent aware of Sullla

Thanks; I'm glad to add to the fun! The AIs have to be unaware of Sullla though. If they knew he was there, they wouldn't have amusing conversations with each other; they'd all just be tearing their hair and gnashing their teeth, crying, "We can't win! He'll conquer the world, make fools of us all, and write wonderful, hilarious recaps on his website where he pokes fun at all our weedy mistakes again!" And they would almost certainly be right.

[Nakor]

Winner: Zara
Runner Up: Pericles
First To Die: Stalin
Survivors: 3
Victory: Domination, T321

[TheSunIsDark]

Things I've learned from this:

Watch out for Mansa beating your spaceship with culture

Watch your back if you start near Lincoln (I'm having warring problems with him as well, in a current game)

Tokugawa is the worst AI in the game, conquer him later on when you have tanks vs longbows.

[Azoth]

Winner: Pericles
Runner Up: Zara Yaqob
First to Die: Boudica
Survivors: 4
Victory: Spaceship, T325

An interesting map: the starts are reasonably balanced (except poor Boudica's) and the leaders have fairly similar peace weights. I'm betting the leaders with the best economic traits will pull through, but a lot will depend on how the religions play out. Pericles has the most secure position, with only one neighbour, Sulieman, who is easy to befriend. He won't be able to monopolize the religions like Mansa in the last game, so a Spaceship win is more likely. Zara will have to deal with Stalin and Brennus, and it won't help that he'll probably found his own religion at some point. He'll come out on top in the end, but won't be able to catch up to Pericles in time for the launch.