The choice to go Stealth over something else comes up several times. They only have to take it once. We have enough data to know that the AI will almost always research all the optional tech prior to getting the last spaceship tech. It's silly to rant about it if it happens every time.
I am curious as to why it happens almost every time. I did some checking in the XML file, and it looks like almost none of the later spaceship techs have either gold or culture flavors except oddly enough Robotics, which has a culture flavor (along with military, science, and production). So Liz researching that one makes sense. I guess for the others it is just random, since none of them have her preferred tech flavors, and she just got unlucky and picked a very poor path.
As Sulla mentioned during the game, the AI really has no idea about optimizing a space ship win. It just keeps researching, builds parts as they become available, and eventually the space ship just kind of happens. Reaching the victory condition is mostly accidental.
Yeah, folks act like it's a surprise or a big thing when somebody starts detouring even though it almost always happens. I feel like there's decent odds of Stealth being skipped but that's about it.
Haven't been posting full random.org picks as I've gotten pretty tired of that lately. It always spits out something ridiculous and after a while it just gets old. Last week was supposed to be a Gilgamesh win with Lincoln in second place. This time is similar, Brennus win with Fred second.
Another entertaining game, with a couple near-facepalms from Sulla. Thanks as always for running these.
Thoughts on playoff game 2:
Ramesses in this game was another example of an AI behavior that I don't understand. They have unclaimed land next to them, decent land with resources and food. But they just don't expand. I know they have programming to not found more cities if their economy is already struggling too much, but at the 5-7 city empire size Ramesses should not have been in that bad of shape since his core land was pretty good. The AI will sometimes tie up its stronger cities with wonder builds; Ramesses is a wonder monger so maybe this played a role. But he ignored some very decent land for a LONG time. Any suggestions for what triggers this behavior?
Another good week for my picks. I was wrong about second place (I had Justinian), but got Augustus, Brennus, diplomatic, and close on the date. With every leader in the game not declaring at pleased, I thought it likely the world would be one big hug fest after Brennus died. So I chose the rare diplo victory condition and it worked out. Brennus was doomed by peace weight, as many expected. And Frederick did an underwhelming job with that awesome start, also as expected. Second week in a row where the god-tier start did not result in a contending performance.
(September 6th, 2024, 17:49)haphazard1 Wrote: Another entertaining game, with a couple near-facepalms from Sulla. Thanks as always for running these.
Thoughts on playoff game 2:
Ramesses in this game was another example of an AI behavior that I don't understand. They have unclaimed land next to them, decent land with resources and food. But they just don't expand. I know they have programming to not found more cities if their economy is already struggling too much, but at the 5-7 city empire size Ramesses should not have been in that bad of shape since his core land was pretty good. The AI will sometimes tie up its stronger cities with wonder builds; Ramesses is a wonder monger so maybe this played a role. But he ignored some very decent land for a LONG time. Any suggestions for what triggers this behavior?
Another good week for my picks. I was wrong about second place (I had Justinian), but got Augustus, Brennus, diplomatic, and close on the date. With every leader in the game not declaring at pleased, I thought it likely the world would be one big hug fest after Brennus died. So I chose the rare diplo victory condition and it worked out. Brennus was doomed by peace weight, as many expected. And Frederick did an underwhelming job with that awesome start, also as expected. Second week in a row where the god-tier start did not result in a contending performance.
Team Sury from PB3 rides again! And ASM is in serious contention on the Fantasy side too.
And now the season 8 championship game is set. What a weird season it has been. Thoughts on playoff game 3:
I was worried that my Churchill to win pick was going off the rails when he was slow to expand early, and again when he attacked Victoria without siege units (despite already having knights!) and threw away a huge army for nothing. But he managed to come back from those errors for a very solid win. I thought Victoria would get squeezed for land despite her very good start, and she did...but mostly because she just refused to expand. There was land there for the taking, but she got fascinated by that marble tile and building too many wonders. That pair of barb cities popping up did not help her, certainly. Pericles was first to die as I expected, but I did NOT expect him to declare the game's first war on SB of all people. No idea what was going on with that. Spaceship win and 10 wars both hit (got a bit lucky for the exact hit on wars).
Where I missed was picking Mehmed for second place. I expected him to be strong on this map, mostly at Pericles' expense, and that worked. But I thought being at the other end of the continent would keep him out of conflict with leader Churchill, and that did not work. Oh well, can't get everything right.
Sitting Bull was stronger than I expected, but in the end did not do much with the land he had. That was expected, as SB just is not very good for AI Survivor purposes. His obsession with poisoning his neighbors' water ended up costing him big time in this game, ruining relations with Churchill.
And then there is Qin, who somehow ended up advancing with second place despite a horrible early game. His early city placement was terrible, his economy stunk, and he warred uselessly with SB for long stretches of time (as expected). But somehow he hung around and avoided drawing Churchill's ire, so he gets a slot in the championship.
So I somehow find myself leading the picking contest going into the championship. I have no idea how this happened. My picks in the early part of the season were nothing special, but somehow part way through I started hitting the picks. I don't think I am doing anything differently. But somehow it has worked. We will have to see if I have one more good game worth of picks for the championship.
Thanks as always to Sulla for running these entertaining games. The Ogre Battles streams have been fun also.
My last random.org pick was in. I believe it was Gandhi to win a late Diplo victory with Mansa in second place.
I'll be happy for someone else to take the torch next season. This was fun for a while (especially when it won Week 2!) but all the, well, random picks, lack of success, and as time went on, lack of ability to make coherent/fun narratives out of the picks got old.
A very exciting finish to season 8, with another entertaining game. Thanks once again to Sulla for running these, and also to Cuthraxys for the fun map. It definitely made things interesting.
Somehow Gandhi held on to second place, which helped me win the picking contest. (I had Gandhi first, Elizabeth second so that got me partial points.) Still not sure how that happened, since I was using the same picking process as past seasons where I did terribly. But the world's greatest villain just barely came though for me. What a weird season!
Congrats to Sulla and his wife on the upcoming blessed event!
Thanks as always for running these. 
Thoughts on playoff game 3:
I was wrong about second place (I had Justinian), but got Augustus, Brennus, diplomatic, and close on the date. With every leader in the game not declaring at pleased, I thought it likely the world would be one big hug fest after Brennus died. So I chose the rare diplo victory condition and it worked out. Brennus was doomed by peace weight, as many expected. And Frederick did an underwhelming job with that awesome start, also as expected. Second week in a row where the god-tier start did not result in a contending performance.
No idea what was going on with that. Spaceship win and 10 wars both hit (got a bit lucky for the exact hit on wars).