Civ4 AI Survivor: Season Four

[GreyWolf]

I guess the only scenario in which Bull can do reasonably well (in AI Survivor conditions) is having him being attacked, only for the attacker to be backstabbed by someone else, and then Bull managing to conquer most of the weakened attacker's land.

[Fluffball]

I guess the only scenario in which Bull can do reasonably well (in AI Survivor conditions) is having him being attacked, only for the attacker to be backstabbed by someone else, and then Bull managing to conquer most of the weakened attacker's land.

He's an absolute beast at defending. He wouldn't need a backstab, just for the attacker to waste enough production for him to counterattack. After a couple lucky city gains, he could use momentum to take the rest of the territory.

The AIs aren't THAT different. He's definitely one of the worst, but he could become a lucky run away just like any other AI.

[Sullla]

Community predictions have been added to the preview page for Game Seven! Here's a quick summary:






Game Seven ended up with several more large favorites in the picking contest. Perhaps not learning anything from the fate of the previous week's favorite in Mansa Musa, the picking contest once again went all in on the Pool 1 leader with about 75% of the entrants choosing to back Huayna Capac. The Season Two champion was the runaway favorite to emerge victorious and no one else was able to crack much above 10 percent. This was a game where we had a decisive second place selection as well, with about half of the contestant choosing to back Boudica as the runner-up. The logic seemed to be that Huayna would win in the north and Boudica would win in the south, the two of them joining together to rule the world in concert. At the other end of the spectrum, nearly everyone was picking either Washington or Churchill to be the first eliminated from the map. Although Washington had a clear edge here, Churchill was giving it his all and drawing some real support from the fans in being the first to die. Spaceship predominated as the victory type, with Domination as the runner-up and Cultural a darkhorse candidate. For what it's worth, Huayna Capac did win the Season Two championship via an unlikely cultural victory. This could be another chance for him to pull off the same ending.

Finally, here are some of the best/craziest written predictions about what would take place during the game. There were many other excellent entries but I had to pick and choose my favorites to keep this from running on too long. Thanks again for the submissions!

Y3llowSheep: Surely the top seed won't get owned again? Right? Guys?

Joks: Both Churchil and Washington are the most likelly to be target in wars due to aggresive neighbors, different Peace Weight, poor past performaces and bad starts. I'd say Washington is a bit worse, a 65/35 chance. This leaves a world with Low Peace weight Characters+Augustus, but I'd also like to point out that Nap's non-stop attacks and Rome's start may eliminate France and let Aug live. In this scenario HC is a clear favorite to whatever victory he prefers, with Boudica crusing to 2nd, but I really like both Rome's start and the civ itself and I'd really like Aug to go on. I ended picking the safe option anyway. Spaceship and culture are both possible, a 50/50 I'd say.

ZincAlloy: Huayna Capac and his excellent hat win this one, since Washington is a wash like always and becomes an easy kill for the Incans. Not only will Napoleon get his obligatory 1 kill (Boudica), but he even comes second, narrowly avoiding getting shipped off to Elba, er, I mean the Wildcard game.

LinkMarioSamus: Washington. Is. Toast! He has all three of the low-peace weight guys for neighbors and is separated from the other high-peace weight leaders on the other side of the map. This will in time lead to their downfall. I'm picking Boudicca to win because she has the killer instinct, and we just saw how devastating the Celts can be in the early game. Also I don't trust top-seeded leaders this season, but all the same we should return to some semblance of normalcy after last game.

Faded_Outline: The question isn't "Will Huayna Capac win?" but "Who will stop him?". Boudica, maybe, but with identical peace weights even their inevitably conflicting religions might not be sufficient motivation to get that war happening. Augustus perhaps, if he attacks into Praetorians at exactly the wrong time, but that'd be the only outcome where he loses such a fight. The more likely answer, to my mind, is "no-one".

Fjord: Put simply Huayna has a great start - so it will be an huge upset if he doesn't just roll over everyone in this game. Washington is right next to the mad dog Napoleon and likely to be eyed by Huayna too so I expect him to make a rapid exit. Augustus will likely pick up Boudica's or Huayna's religion in the early running, as will Churchill, but eventually one of them will implode by founding their own. At that point though praetorians or protective trait respectively should mean they both outlast poor Washington. He needed a bunch of tree huggers to have any chance of survival ! I think long term Boudica doesn't make it out either - she has aweful starting techs and will be the infidel religion to Huayna despite same peace weights. Likely also her aggression will get her into trouble early on slowing tech pace and ultimately making her also a sitting duck to more tech savvy civs. I pick Churchill as second though, just to add some flavour and because IRL he was an amazing statesman so basically just totally biased! Time I had some luck in this picking contest!

Fluffball: I think Boudica and Napoleon go on a rampage together, sharing the polytheism religion after Boudica founds it. There won't be enough land available for domination, so a slow spaceship win.

UnforcedError: I start feeling that betting on these matches is not much better than buying lottery tickets. I gave this game a thought but if I turn out to be totally wrong again due to wretched starts or AP shenanigans I will probably just use random.org next time. So I think Huyana has a decent cap, some room to expand, and a bunch of low peaceweight AIs he'll likely be friends with. He will probably go for a cultural victory. Boudica for second and Washington for FtD (due to Augustus having iron readily available). I'm also sure Wang Kon is sabotaging these draws. Can't see too many civs advancing to the wildcard game from here either.

JackDRB: The more aggressive civs should assert their dominance pretty easily here over the others, so I think it reduces the question of who does well ot of the trio of Huayna/Boudica/Nappy. Huyana and Boudica will be religious rivals most likely, and I think whoever comes out of that matchup on top goes on to win the whole match, with Nappy second. Fingers crossed Huayna doesn't get too locked up in wonders, because I'm going with him. Washington FtD looks like a no brainer to me.

Charriu: There are two things that I'm pretty sure of here. First thing: Who will die first. I would say its Churchill. He's very close to Boudica and has a different peace weight. His land also isn't that great for his starting techs and in general. Boudica will likely show him, who's the real ruler of Britannia. Washington and Augustus are also likely to die, but they are both fairly isolated like Frederic was in game three. Washington in this case by distance and Augustus by a very nice mountain range between him an Huayna. The second thing that I'm sure of is that will have two religion blocks one in the north founded by Huayna and one in the south founded by Boudica. Those two will most likely clash at some point and Boudica will get the upper hand thanks to her friend Napoleon, who will share her religion. Huayna just does not have very good allies up there. So Boudica will win a domination victory with Napoleon second.

Brian Shanahan: Seeing as I know sweet fanny adams about picking a consistent winning lineup, I'll just expand on Sullla's idea of the map being Ireland, by noting the relative start points for each civ. Firstly Churchill starts in the best part, Limerick (where I'm from natch), then onto Boudicca who starts right in the Golden Vale, the town of Clonmel where I work (needs moar cow that start really). Napoleon is next, and he gets to start in the Garden of Ireland (where Adam and Eve really came from), Wicklow though the game's Wicklow has more floodplains than Bray would ever see. Wasington gets Belfast in the north east, and all the religious issues that brings, while over in Derry Huayna gets far more gold than Donegal has ever seen. And to finish it off, Augustus lands himself in Belmullet not far from where General Humbert got by the idiot French navy when he was trying to support the 1798 rebellion, happening in Dublin and Wexford (all the way across the country).

RefSteel: Capac seems poised for success here, but I'm betting on a bloodbath, with the "good" leaders crumbling when they fail to put sufficient pressure on their enemies to prevent one another from being overrun one by one. Churchill's awful traits, proximity to Boudica, and late-blooming civ could help him to the earliest exit, as the first in a long, grinding parade of ruin and destruction. Or, the way this year's AI Survivor competition has been going, Napoleon could lose a culture bid at the last minute when Gus nukes his three culture cities and Washington strolls into one of them with a random exploring Cavalry, setting things up for Boudica to win by diplomacy!

LKendter: I'm starting to feel I should simply roll dice. The season has been so chaotic...

Game Seven Picking Contest Entry Form

[Wyatan]

Thanks again for running this, Sullla.

By the way, I finally got round to testing the mod idea I put forward earlier.
It actually works flawlessly.

I suggest you use it instead of the second observer civ : less hassle, less error-prone, and it allows you to keep seeing the AP votes post-UN.

If you already have the CustomAssets folder structure at the same level as your "Saves" folder, copy the CIV4VoteInfo.xml I've provided to the same location (/CustomAssets/xml/gameinfo/).
If you don't, copy the whole CustomAssets folder I've provided to MyGames/beyondthesword/
As far as mods go, it's a really trivial one: just one entry removed from an xml file.

And since we're talking trivial mods... during the last game, you've mentioned that the AIs keep setting the slider to 10-20% espionnage.
That's normal behaviour for AIs with an espionnage preference, but for all the others, I bet it's caused by the massive espionnage ratio against them that your settled great spies is causing.
I've actually observed it in one of my tests : none of the AIs were spending on espionnage, until the tech leader researched the democracy line and started building jails and security bureaux left and right, meaning a massive espionnag points influx. In answer, all the other AIs set their espionnage slider to 20%...
Furthermore, since they're spending against you, until they catch up, they can't use their espionnage points against their real targets: the other AIs.

In the zip archive I've provided, you'll also find a modified CIV4EspionageMissionInfo.xml file (same location).
I've made a single modification to it: in the first entry (ESPIONAGEMISSION_SEE_DEMOGRAPHICS), I've changed the iCost value from 30 to 0.

That means that as long as you have a single espionnage point stored against a civ, you can see its demographics.

I've tested the following:
- At the start of the game, remove your own palace (thus, no spending at all against the AIs, meaning they can retarget their own spending to their real opponents).
- On the turn before you want to see demographics for the first time, add a Security Bureau to your city.
- Remove the spy specialist your governor assigned (sigh...) to prevent your settler build taking an extra turn.
- On the following turn, delete the security bureau : you can now permanently see all demographics, with zero impact on the AIs.

(Now, it also allows the AIs to "see" all demographics, but with aggressive AI turned on, that has no impact.)

The last point is that your great spies also allow you to contact the AIs: you can instead spawn a scout next to them and delete it, or even simpler, since you're editing the worldbuilder file anyway, just add those lines to the team0 definition:
ContactWithTeam=1
ContactWithTeam=2
ContactWithTeam=3
ContactWithTeam=4
ContactWithTeam=5
ContactWithTeam=6
(and ContactWithTeam=7 if a 7 AI game).

[Fluffball]

I wouldn't suggest changing to the mod miss season, as it would give an advantage to the AIs who don't play the game running the espionage slider. It might make sense to use it starting in the playoffs or save it for next season. At lest everyone is equally hampered by it, although it does mess up the AIs with espionage flavors (presumably making Churchill even worse to we thought!)

[T-hawk]

I remember seeing in early seasons the AIs running the espionage slider in response to the observer civ's espionage. Honestly, that's always been a significant reason I never took any interest in this series. It's not playing the real game with the real AI behavior, it's a hacked-up modification of it. Same goes for doing it on Deity difficulty, which skews some things too. I get that shortens the real time consumed... but that's exactly what Quick speed is for if you're worried about that factor.

[Zalson]

Sullla, you don't need to log out to submit the form. I think the Eye in the top right allows you to preview and test a submission to the form.


   

0 points in that last game! Picking high variance is ... not working well for me.

[Sullla]

Thanks for the suggestions, but as I've stated before I'm content with the current setup and would prefer not to use a mod for AI Survivor. I'm truly glad to see that the turnout has been so great throughout this season - we had 175 picking contest entries today, the most that we've ever had! And without spoiling anything, we may very well have had our most dominant AI performance in AI Survivor history in Game Seven. It's worth a watch if you didn't catch it live today.

Here's a batch of links for the next game:

Main Season Four Webpage

Sullla Twitch Page

Sullla Discord Channel

AI Reference Guide from CivFanatics

Game Seven Livestream

Next Game: Opening Round Game Eight

Schedule: Scheduled for Friday, 07 June 2019 at Noon EST

Game Eight Map Setup Video Preview

Game Eight Written Preview

Game Eight Picking Contest Entry Form

Congratulations to Brian martin as the winner of Game Seven's picking contest with 18 points. Scoring for the group as a whole was fairly average in this game, right in the middle of the spectrum. We are continuing with our normal Friday date for next week's game. Season Three champion Stalin is finally making his debut in Season Four - can he keep the magic going this year?

[haphazard1]

Game seven was quite fun to watch, even though my picks (as usual) were not very good.

On the espionage issue, all the AIs face the same effect from the observer civ. The arena may be an artificial one, but the competition should be level. How much each AI favors espionage is one of their characteristics in the XML. And plenty of them will run the espionage slider even in SP games where the human player is putting little if any EP against them.

Now to check Sullla's channel. I showed up barely in time for the game and missed this week's Shanty Pete adventures.

[Fluffball]

On the espionage issue, all the AIs face the same effect from the observer civ. The arena may be an artificial one, but the competition should be level. How much each AI favors espionage is one of their characteristics in the XML.

The one issue is that someone like Mansa may be running 100% research instead of 20% espionage, which is severely hampering him versus a Churchill who is running the utterly useless espionage slider. I mean that could have literally changed the outcome of Mansa's game; he needed another 5 or 10 turns. Running the slider may have cost him his game.
I'm totally on Sulla's side that you shouldn't mod the AI for this project, but changing a single text line to get a better view of the AI isn't even a mod in my view, it's actually creating a more pure experience.