Adventure Twenty-Four: Results

[Sullla]

Here are the preliminary results for Adv. 24:

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/adv24results.html

Our two shadow games were a result of using the BUG mod (mindcheater) and at TriviAl's self-request for missing one of the rules.

Congratulations to all our players, and especially our three perfect scorers, who had the successful combo of great planning and a little luck from the AIs to pull it off. Credit as well goes to Dawn for taking on a game on high difficulty and sticking it through to a solid finish.

[LKendter]

OUCH - I thought I did good...
#10 of 14?

[Compromise]

...Credit as well goes to Dawn for taking on a game on high difficulty and sticking it through to a solid finish.

Hear! Hear!

OUCH - I thought I did good...

But I think you beat the mean!

[Sullla]

There were several posts in some of the report threads wondering when the AI would have built wonders in a control game, without the player. Since it's easy to do that using debug mode, I went ahead and ran a test game. Now keep in mind that this removes the player's civ from the map, so Mansa Musa ended up having a GIGANTIC amount of territory, and easily running away with the game. (He won a UN victory with three different vassals voting for him.) Anyway, here were the wonder dates:

1160BC Stonehenge (Justinian)
625BC Oracle (Asoka)
300BC Great Wall (Asoka)
125BC Temple of Artemis (Asoka)
250AD Great Lighthouse (Pacal)
560AD Statue of Zeus (Justinian)
820AD Hanging Gardens (Suryavarman)
960AD Shwedagon Paya (Asoka)
1020AD Great Library (Justinian)
1030AD Pyramids (Suryavarman)
1030AD Apostolic Palace (Justinian)
1050AD Mausoleum (Pacal)
1090AD Colossus (Mansa Musa)
1190AD Parthenon (Asoka)
1280AD Notre Dame (Justinian)
1380AD Hagia Sophia (Pacal)
1430AD Chichen Itza (Asoka)
1505AD Angkor Wat (Asoka)
1535AD Sankore (Justinian)
1550AD Taj Mahal (Justinian)
1560AD Sistine Chapel (Suryavarman)
1575AD Spiral Minaret (Pacal)
1660AD Kremlin (Suryavarman)
1695AD Statue of Liberty (Mansa Musa)
1842AD Pentagon (Pacal)
1854AD Broadway (Pacal)
1866AD Eiffel (Pacal)
1870AD Rock N Roll (Pacal)
1882AD Cristo Redentor (Pacal)
1886AD Hollywood (Pacal)
1904AD United Nations (Pacal)
1909AD Three Gorges Dam (Mansa Musa)
1959AD Space Elevator (Mansa Musa)

No one ever built Versailles, according to the replay. Maybe the AIs know it's not worth the hammers, hmm?

A lot of these dates seem extremely late to me, but I guess we should keep in mind that there were no Industrious civs, no stone/marble, and no player-instigated tech trading to push down the tree faster. Still, for what it's worth, here's some info for you all to chew on.

[Compromise]

Since I posted some interest in the information and had a little time this evening, I went through the reports and picked out what info I could find about when the AIs built wonders in different people's games.

The wonders are listed below, roughly in order by the date that they were built in someone's game.

Great Wall 750BC (Muaziz)
Great Wall ?Date? (TriviAl)
Great Lighthouse ~600BC (uberfish)
Pyramids 250BC (timmy827)
Statue of Zeus 150BC (mindcheater)
Statue of Zeus ?Date? (TriviAl)
Chichen Itza ?Date? (playshogi)
Temple of Artemis after 975BC (LKendter)
Temple of Artemis 125AD (Dawn)
Great Lighthouse 200AD (Muaziz)
Great Lighthouse 225AD (timmy827)
Great Lighthouse ?Date? (LKendter)
Statue of Zeus ~500AD (Swiss Pauli)
Hanging Gardens 640AD (Dawn)
Hanging Gardens ?Date? (TriviAl)
Apostolic Palace 900AD (timmy827)
Angkor Wat 940AD[GE] (Swiss Pauli)
Shwedagon 1100AD (Dawn)
Notre Dame 1140AD (timmy827)
Angkor Wat 1190AD (Dawn)
Spiral Minaret 1260AD[GE] (timmy827)
Broadway after 1715AD (LKendter)
Eiffel ?Date? (LKendter)

In general, it seems that the early wonders were earlier than in Sullla's no-human game. (This makes sense because if the AI hadn't built them particularly early, the player likely would have beat the AI in that game and the date wouldn't get listed.)

Middle wonder dates are roughly comparable. (Probably because the player is either doing better than the AI at getting to wonder techs, or isn't. Also, this is where wonders are noted as being built by AI Engineers.)

Little info is available from players for the later wonders. By this point, the player is usually either clearly ahead or clearly behind the top AI tech rate.

I think these numbers help show the importance--as Sullla said--of both planning and luck for this event.

[Mortius]

Yeah, luck was definitely involved.
In Uberfish game Great Lighthouse fall in 600 BC in others games it was build in AD times (200 AD - Muaziz, 225 AD - timmy827, 250 AD - Sullas test). Clearly BAD luck here.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'm surprised how late the wonders fell in the game: I guess the selected AIs don't value wonders highly. I ran a couple of quick tests before the adventure and in one Capac built Henge in 2800BC (so I figured he probably wouldn't feature in the adventure) then in the next (where there were no IND Civs) someone built Oracle ca BC1300 (w-o Marble). I lost ToZ in the adventure itself around AD500 IIRC.

[TurinTuramba]

Heh I had an even earlier Great Lighthouse in my game at 850 BC from Survayman. I guess that date isn´t possible to beat without a coastal capital.