Civ4 AI Survivor Season Six

[Brian Shanahan]

Looking at the spreadsheets, I find it funny that there's still four civs outscored by the AP. I wonder how many more seasons before even the worst performer overtakes it?

[GreyWolf]

Looking at the spreadsheets, I find it funny that there's still four civs outscored by the AP.  I wonder how many more seasons before even the worst performer overtakes it?

The AI Ranking spreadsheet doesn't include the current season yet. Three out of these four leaders (Victoria, Frederick, Sitting Bull) won medals in the current season, outscoring the AP with its one kill. The only leader with no points remaining is Hatshepsut.

[Bobchillingworth]

Considering that she has good traits, an excellent UU, and a not-terrible UB, can we definitively say that Hatty is the Worst AI?


I've said it before, but I strongly suspect that she was specifically designed to be a "buddy AI" for the player. She's easy to befriend, completely nonthreatening, and kind of cute by Civ 4 graphics standards. It's almost always a relief to have her as a neighbor, but she's hopeless as a competitor.

[Amicalola]

I don't think Hatty is any worse than some of the other lackluster peaceful leaders (Frederick and Sitting Bull come to mind). She's had some rough fields, and in a peaceful game I think she'd have a shot to win by culture.

[woengel]

Not that 2nd place played a bad game, but how close were they to a winning condition?

[civac2]

Zara was pretty close to the end of the tech tree as well. Maybe 20-30 turns for a space victory, travel time already included.

[Bobchillingworth]

I don't think Hatty is any worse than some of the other lackluster peaceful leaders (Frederick and Sitting Bull come to mind). She's had some rough fields, and in a peaceful game I think she'd have a shot to win by culture.

Maybe, but Freddie at least has the excuse that he's effectively playing without a UU or UB, and SB is burdened with terrible traits and a UU which is arguably worse than the unit it replaces. Not sure what's holding Hatty back, besides an AI which refuses to defend itself competently or pursue a victory condition with any sort of vigor.

[Fluffball]

Not sure what's holding Hatty back, besides an AI which refuses to defend itself competently or pursue a victory condition with any sort of vigor.

I don't think that's fair. She is very comparable to Ghandi, we just haven't seen her get the right field where she has a meat shield to culture her way to victory. Her chances of winning any particular game are very low, but when when she finally wins one we know pretty clearly what it will look like: Lincoln to one side of her, she's in a corner with stone.

[Sullla]

Community predictions added to the Playoff Game One preview page: http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor6...eview.html






Mansa Musa emerged from the community vote as a strong favorite to win, no doubt insipired by his excellent performance in the opening round. Catherine was the only other leader who attracted a significant share of the vote to emerge victorious. For the second place spot, Catherine was the top choice followed by a relatively even split between Suryavarman, Darius, and Napoleon. Hardly anyone expected Mansa to finish in second place as he seemed likely to either win the game or face complete elimination. The most overwhelming vote was Frederick as First to Die, one of the most lopsided poll results that we had throughout the entirety of Season Six. There are no guarantees in AI Survivor but the German leader faced a bleak starting position on this map. As for the victory condition, Spaceship was a heavy favorite over Domination and even Mansa's Cultural victory in the opening round wasn't enough to induce much voting for a repeat 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!

delan: Put simply, I predict this game will feature Catherine coming out victorious from the south but being unable to stop eras-ahead Mansa Musa before it's too late. Mansa Musa's starting territory plays right into his strengths, with cottages and river tiles galore. It's hard not to pick him, especially considering no one starts with Mysticism so he's likely to found an early religion and also that do-nothing Darius is one of his neighbours. I can see Surry attacking Mansa before he can shoot out ahead, but Surry doesn't have natural copper, and I am guessing that by the time he has iron online, it'll be too late. In the south, it certainly looks like Freddy will get picked apart by his neighbours, and I like Catherine's land, and especially the space she has, enough to pick her as the victor down there, and therefore the 2nd place finisher.

Amicalola: Frederick is going to be eaten faster than you can say 'sandwich.' Then Catherine and Napoleon just snowball out of control from there; nothing Mansa, Darius or Suryavarman will be able to do about it.

Duizhang_Lu: This is a game of extremes, and I think it plays into Nappy's hands oddly enough. Half the world is peaceniks, the other half evil bastards, and the peaceniks are for the most part incompetent. I doubt Mansa can hold out against all of the aggression he will receive, so it's a matter of which warmonger gets the ball rolling most successfully, and I think it's Nappy. Sury and Cathy both have poor access to strategic resources which will likely gimp their conquests. Viva la France!

Dp101: Main thoughts are that both Darius and Suryavarman suck at expansion due to being likely to get stuck on wonders, and Mansa is their neighbour with a huge amount of land to expand into if neither of them do well. Despite Darius's absurd starting position, I don't think that's going to be good enough to carry him into a good position this time. Beyond Mansa launching a spaceship, I don't have much confidence about the rest of the field. As I said, Mansa's neighbours are weak (though it's probably good for him if Darius is less weak), and out of the leaders in the bottom, Fredrick is likely to get gobbled up by his aggressive neighbours, and if either of them have a successful conquest (more likely to be Catherine imo), Mansa will probably be targeted afterwards due to peace weight + overall aggression. Essentially, I think Mansa will win, but I can't see any civ that I really trust to come in second. If he can make friends with whoever comes out of the south alive, that's who will come in second, but I can't see a reality where that occurs. As such, I think Suryavarman becomes a relatively nonawful candidate for second, relatively to start a war while also not having a peace weight that would lead to the southern leaders targeting him. In the end, I just hope that everyone *but* Mansa gets locked into long destructive wars, and Mansa is left alone in the vast north to tech to a win.

ForwardArrow: Catherine's got decent food to eliminate one of her bigger earlygame problems, and a pretty solid political setup with Frederick and Napoleon almost certainly hating each other and Frederick being somewhat incompetent. I think her propensity to expand very fast will be better for taking over Frederick than the fact that Napoleon seems more likely to attack first with his greater military resources and more aggressive AI. Sury by comparison isn't in a great position to expand with Mansa and Darius right there, so I suspect Frederick will end up bigger than him. At that point it comes down to whether or not they can kill Mansa Musa and Darius, and while Mansa's a great leader and Darius has some good stuff on paper, I feel they're a bit more boxed in than a Catherine who is in a great position to expand. I suspect she inflicts some heavy damage on Mansa if not outright killing him by virtue of just being bigger than him, especially if Frederick starts chipping into Darius(which seems fairly likely) to remove his biggest ally and Sury's poor relationship with Mansa also hurts him. I do feel there's an outside chance Napoleon gets a hard snowball off killing Frederick super early, or Catherine fails to capitalize on her position and Mansa/Darius get 1st/2nd, but I think she has a great chance to throw down a dominant game and Napoleon seems more likely to ride along with her to the Championship despite Sury being a generally better leader.

Mousey_Commander: Good lord Frederick is dead

Mansa da man: My man all the way! So the obvious first, if Mansa can be left alone he wins. Realistically though, that won't happen, so if he can get Rifling before he gets inevitably dogpiled from the South similar to the Mehmed/Isabella alliance he can still come out on top. There are a number of factors at play here though. Suryavarman will almost always attack him but he doesn't have copper. If Mansa can get cottages up and use his amazing floodplains/gold to go medieval before Surya gets to construction, Mansa should be able to deal with him fairly easily. But there's another variable at play. If Napoleon and Cathy both attack Freddy at the same time, not only will Freddy disintegrate but we will have the South dominated by just two civs, and the South has more land than the North too. Cathy doesn't have an easy copper access but she's good at expanding fast, has great land and will attack Freddy regardless with Iron. What Mansa wants is Napoleon to go after Darius first or a strong enough Darius to stall Napoleon after Freddy goes down. And he must get rid of Surya at some point because the peaceful civs will not last very long. Freddy's position is unfortunate and Darius is hamstrung by jungle and might even expand towards Mansa. Ultimately, a 3 v 3 is game over for Mansa.

Alhambram: Mansa is going do well with starting bronze and UU, it should fend off Sury. Meanwhile both Nappy and Cathy devours poor Freddy who starts between two warmongers. But at that point Mansa is advanced enough that he starts to conquer all of low peaceweight civs which push him over domination limit. What about Darius? He just sits upon Mansa's coat sliding towards championship.

Delta-07: I think Freddy is in big trouble between Napoleon and Cathy. One of them or even both will run over him. The peace weigth situation between him and his neighbours is so high that I have him for first to die. The land of Mansa is very good with lots of flood plains and green tiles. He will become an economic power house. The land of Cathy and especially Napoleon isn't that great with either lots of plains tiles or even tundra. So, I don't think they both can support a good economy here. Darius and Surry have kind of god land. Darius has the advantage that he is relatively far away from Napoleon. If Darius can survive long enough to tech ahead he might be a strong factor in this game. No leader starts with Mysticism, so the discovery of religions is completely RNG, but given their religous or cultural preferences, I think Surry and Mansa will have both their own religions. If Surry and Mansa end up in different religions this will be bead news for Mansa. Even though Mansa has good land I don't see him surviving against Napoleon, Cathy and/or Surry. This game will end with a domination victory by either Surry or Cathy, I think. Even though I got disappointed by him before I will pick Surry again for first place and Cathy as second.

T K: My money's on Mansa getting the uneventful early game he needs to settle enough of his gorgeous surrounding lands to set up his 1500 AD trip to space. Normally I don't like how open he is to getting stomped in early wars, but Freddy is more liable to getting dogpiled here, and Napoleon & Cathy will be too rabid afterwards to coordinate properly against Mansa (probably).

LinkMarioSamus: Frederick is almost certainly the weak link of this group, and his early demise will greatly benefit Napoleon and Catherine while at the same time dooming Mansa Musa and Darius. Mansa Musa will probably be occupied with Suryavarman the whole game while Darius is probably going to just be his usual inert self. Heh, poor Germany once again doomed to be partitioned between two powers, and it's even France and Russia to boot!

BigBadBen: I'm getting game some 4 flashbacks with Napoleon subbing in for Alex next to a leader who may very well build the Pyramids before researching mysticism (Frederick instead of Stalin this time). And with Cathy in the same game to boot! It's very possible that the French overrun the German leader with a billion axes despite capital copper for both leaders. Then Napoleon gets dragged into conflict with Cathy like Alex did. Unfortunately for those two leaders, this conflict will be much earlier than the game-deciding wars in game 4 (i.e. before its essentially just the two of them left on the map) and only serve to make sure neither of them are in any shape to provide Sury the help he needs to stop the (only? I think) pool one leader able to win an opening match-up this year. Mansa has capital copper, so he shouldn't die to a zerg rush from an opponent with only iron available. So, as long as Mansa doesn't hold off on rifling before assembly line, I think he can hold of Sury in a one-on-one. If Darius can figure out how to build settlers and Napoleon focuses on Frederick, he could do well, but I'd have to see it to believe it (especially with a seafood start). Mansa wins by culture since he's going to win and found just about all of the religions himself. Cathy in second, mostly because I don't trust Darius to build more than five cities, and Mansa will be too busy teching and building temples to care about wiping out anyone after Sury.

Bernn: Catherine's victory in the opening round this season was arguably the result of a handful of lucky breaks rather than any sort of brilliant play, but her knack for expanding well and bullying weak neighbors is undeniable and I think it'll serve her well this game. She's got that nice peninsula area to backfill in the east, a solid capital site and an easy nearby meal in Frederick. The poor guy is wedged right between Napoleon and Catherine and will almost assuredly take heat and fold early on. If Russia can win some prizes through Germany's almost inevitable downfall, Catherine will be in a great position. And if she can bite into Darius or Napoleon after he recklessly attacks her, she'll be even stronger. The big question of this match is, can she crack Mansa Musa before his tech edge grows too sharp? I'll go with yes, since I have a feeling Sury will attack Mansa at some point and slow him down, but it's gonna be a close one.

Fluffball: Frederick with copper at his capital sets a pick for Mansa/Darius. Sury only has iron while Mansa has copper, and by IW it's too late. Darius has gems and Mansa will likely have gold at his second city (and maybe even iron; that location is dynamite.) Both have rivers. It's a race against time for buffoons like Napoleon. Financial/alive for 1st and 2nd.

Greatmefisto: This game is going to end in 1 of 2 ways. First way is Mansa doing his Mansa things winning by culture/spaceship. Second way is Cathy/Napoleon duo rolling over the map. Mansa is by far the best leader in the field no question about that but does being the best is enough here? I am not sure because his diplo situation looks dire to me. He has 2 potential allies in form of Freddy and Darius. Freddy is locked between Cathy and Napoleon (yikes!) and is almost certanly a first to die. I can't see him surviving this. Next Mansas ally is Darius but he on the other hand rolled a Hannibal/Louis jungle heavy start and we saw in game 8 how he almost lost to heavily crippled Hannibal. If he plays this bad with an excellent starting postion and crippled neighboor than I can't see him play well with this start. He has very strong capital I'll give him that but nothing past it. This makes me feel like Mansa is playing 1 v 3 here and I don't know if he's capabale to build proper tech advantage before the rabid dogs will come after his head.

bellarch: I felt good about the high peaceweight leaders in this game - until I took a look at how close Freddy is to Nappy and Sury is to Mansa. This setup seems designed for them to come into conflict early, when they can easily be crushed. However, the real winner from all this fighting will be Cathy. She has more space than anyone on this map, and she'll expand while the others are busy fighting - likely vulturing a few cities from Frederick on his way out - and end up in the dominant position once Freddy and Mansa are dead. Knowing Napoleon, she'll also end up the beneficiary of an ill-advised war against her by France that ends up with her owning his territory, too. And then she wins, probably by spaceship but also quite possibly by domination! . . . okay admittedly I also just want her to win. Please?

rekenner: Mansa, show Darius how a real Financial leader does things.

Playoff Game One Picking Contest Entry Form

Hope to see a bunch of you on the Livestream this upcoming Friday, July 16th!

[Brian Shanahan]

Looking at the spreadsheets, I find it funny that there's still four civs outscored by the AP.  I wonder how many more seasons before even the worst performer overtakes it?

The AI Ranking spreadsheet doesn't include the current season yet. Three out of these four leaders (Victoria, Frederick, Sitting Bull) won medals in the current season, outscoring the AP with its one kill. The only leader with no points remaining is Hatshepsut.

Oops/