March Madness: Civ4 AI Edition

[Bobchillingworth]

Thank you so much for doing this, Sulla- this has been hours of great entertainment.


Pretty awesome final round as well.

[Hesmyrr]

Thanks for all the effort, gave me something to look forward throughout the month

[RefSteel]

I'll keep my story short this time:

The sounds of battle outside had faded; a soft peace seemed to fill the world as Elizabeth calmly poured a second cup of tea. For any other guest, even an emperor, a servant would have performed the duty, but this guest, this final guest, deserved the work of the Queen's own hands.

"It's so nice to have a visitor," Elizabeth said with pleasure, offering the teacup and then sipping from her own.

With a smile, the dark-haired lady asked, "You know me, don't you?"



With a nod of pleasure, Elizabeth answered, "I believe our Bard of AI-von wrote many sonnets to you." She sipped again from her teacup. "Yes, my dear, I know you. But I wonder ... I've wondered for some time, I suppose ... what happens next?"

With another warm smile, Death answered, "Everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out."

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And on consideration, I have to agree with Death, in Neil Gaiman's graphic novel from which her last line above is a quote ("Sandman: Fables and Reflections") - Bess is not actually my very favorite monarch of all time; there is one whom (sharing the opinion of Death herself) I think I like better.

No point in updating my unofficial standings with the official ones already out (especially since the only change would be adding the two winners to the top of the list). The last couple of games certainly saw a lot of eliminations!

It doesn't surprise me (at least in hindsight) that France and Egypt did so poorly; they're favored in MP in large part for their great starting techs, which are among the worst for Deity AIs, since they'd get both for free anyway! Mining and Mysticism (or Fishing for a seafood start) are much better in this scenario. (As well, Obelisks require skill to leverage properly, Salons are kind of junk, War Chariots go obsolete before Deity AIs bother with war and Musketeers are virtually a blank UU for AIs that move their entire stacks at the speed of the catapults! That said, Hatty might well do better with a more favorable opponent draw. Matching up against Willem's superior traits is difficult enough, but her game also featured Mehmed, Musa, and the tournament winner and runner-up!

Thanks for hosting the tournament and writing all those reports up, Sullla! It was tremendous fun!

[Dp101]

Zara, I trusted you!

[LexiSilva]

Mansa! Nooooooo! Gotta be Sury then.
*later* Not Suryyyy! Oh, Zara, come on catch up to him he doesn't deserve it!
*later* Justinian... Justinian!

[TheHumanHydra]

Thanks, Sullla.

[TheSunIsDark]

So, we have proved that:

Philosophical is the best trait
Industrious is the worse
Aggressive, Protective and Charismatic are terrible
Imperialistic is awesome
Expand or die (yes, we already knew that)
Never convert to Confucianism, except in one of my Vanilla OCCs

[Ituralde]

Thanks Sullla for your amazing writeups and analysis!

Still can't believe Justinian won. It was entertaining though.

[LexiSilva]

Never convert to Confucianism, except in one of my Vanilla OCCs

Aaaaand our succession game!

[TheSunIsDark]

Never convert to Confucianism, except in one of my Vanilla OCCs

Aaaaand our succession game!

Good point, I wasn't counting variants! I'll rephrase:

Never convert to Confucianism, except in one of my Vanilla OCCs, in a variant game or when the religion hogs are on the other continent and Confucianism is the only one on your continent.