AI Jumbled Rumble : another set of AI Survivor Alternate Histories, with a twist

[NickGabben]

Real life can suck hard at times, but good to hear you're hanging in there. Don't overdo it and take care of yourself (and your mom).

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

It has come to my notice that Season 2 game files were never shared with us. Do you have them? If you can please share them with us. I believe Season 1 game files were just shared this year thanks to you

I think the Season 1 files have actually been on the website all this time. You are correct about Season 2's though. I recently got them from Sullla and can confirm that he's fine with me sharing them further. But would you use them to pre-empt me?

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Sorry to hear, Thrasybulos. It is nice to have you back. Know that I'm rooting for you in AI Survivor and globally!

 

[Keler]

I think the Season 1 files have actually been on the website all this time. You are correct about Season 2's though. I recently got them from Sullla and can confirm that he's fine with me sharing them further. But would you use them to pre-empt me?

Ok, what I do is switchhero tournaments(seasons) making sure I use every map of Sulla at least 20 times in random order.
Because I change leaders appearing on map it can't be same as alternative histories you run and share before someone else do. I mean we can run rest of season 1 games before you share them if we really wanted to do that so no my use of season 2 maps will not be a pre attempt to your efforts.

I am doing this for fun to give some excitement to my otherwise boring working day, I aim to measure which leaders got more lucky and less with their starting positions and random draft groups, as well as see if the luck factor really balacing out if we had like 120 seasons instead of 8. I plan to share right after the end of season 8 in a new thread but the missing season 2 games look kind of annoying like a hole so I would be happy if you shared them.

I also notice you run the alternative histories of season 8 game 2, are you close to Sulla in real life?

Example of switchhero game: https://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor4-16.html

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Gotcha gotcha. I got permission from Sullla, so here are the files. (Though as you could have but didn't point out, it's not like I have any right to withhold them from you in any case unless Sullla wanted me to, they're not mine to police. I hope I didn't cause any offense with my first reply.) I might skip your thread, though, so I can stay unspoilt as to the map dynamics

I also notice you run the alternative histories of season 8 game 2, are you close to Sulla in real life?

Heh, no, just in his Discord DMs. I was one of the rejected applicants to run the set for Game 1 and had let him know that I would take any that he wanted to send my way in the future.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

I don't know your plans for after you go through Season 3, but might I suggest that you move to later seasons next, instead of moving back? Season 2 is still unexplored territory in terms of AHs. I'm hoping to do it after I finish Season 1, and if nothing else has been done on it yet, that maximizes the excitement of discovery.

Don't worry, the new format I have in mind is closer to what Keler is doing, so no spoiling for you. And although I do intend to have a go at the earlier seasons' maps at some point, I did intend to start with seasons 5-7.

Speaking of seasons 1 & 2, though : could someone provide me with the worldbuilder files ?
Although I've moved from the Steam to the GOG version of the game, I still can't open Sullla's saves without the game crashing.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Speaking of seasons 1 & 2, though : could someone provide me with the worldbuilder files ?
Although I've moved from the Steam to the GOG version of the game, I still can't open Sullla's saves without the game crashing.

I don't have any undoctored ones handy at the moment (some changes are needed to make AHs work with the AP still in play). But this does sound like an issue I had recently trying to run an AH for the most recent season. I normally run unmodded Civ 4, and if I tried to open up the Season 8 file without changing my game, it crashed - I needed to swap in the AP-free XML first. Similarly, with that XML in place, I couldn't open any unmodded save games (or, at least, the one I did try made the game crash). Might you be suffering from something similar?

 

[Thrasybulos]

Possibly.
I'm using a very simple XML mod (setting the cost of the espionnage mission to 0 so that I can see the graphs without having to resort to Great Spies), but I remember testing without the mod and still experiencing the crash.
Could be a case of a double issue : Steam version + mod.
Meaning it still crashed at the time without the mod because of the game version, and it keeps crashing now because of the mod.
I'll give it a try tonight without the mod.

If it fails, don't worry about doctoring : I just need the maps. I also do quite some doctoring on my end anyway.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Just tested it : still crashes, even with the mod files removed (turns out I also had the AP-disabling buildinginfo.xml, which is useless now since I just disable diplo victory altogether).

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Gotcha - I'll need some extra time to actually make XMLs for the Season 2 files (haven't done any work on them yet), but I can probably get you a zip tonight.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Thanks.

But no rush, I won't be needing them for some time yet.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

The winner of Season 1 (by a sliver) was... unexpected.

You weren't kidding! I find many of these results including the championship game curious. From looking at the Alternate Histories for Season 4+, the discrepancies with your Jumbled Rumble would seem to indicate map balance.

Naturally, I'm interested in seeing what turns up in future seasons. Did you rerun the existing draw for your Season 2, or did you redo the draw based on end-of-season Elo?

 

[Thrasybulos]

Yes, the difference with the AH clearly owes to map balance and player distribution (neighbourhood is important).

The one thing I learned is that the diplomatic environment is of paramount importance, but in more subtle ways than we already knew.
We all know that Gandhi in a warmonger game means a dead Gandhi.
But it goes beyond that.

For instance, Willem is one of the main reasons I tweaked the Elo formula for the playoffs and championship (by halving the gains/losses for the playoffs, and iirc halving them again for the championship). Otherwise, he would have dropped to below average !
Season 2 Playoffs 1 (how come Playoffs 1 always fields the tougher competition ?) features HC, Willem, Justinian, Pacal, Mansa, Asoka. So 3 players in common with Season 1 Championship.
Well, in that field, Willem thrived, HC floundered.

For season 2, I used the existing draw.

But that format with repeating the same setups over and over doesn't really work.
That's why I'm going to move on to a different format, more akin to "open" tournaments in chess.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Speaking of how the map and diplo environment can have a huge impact... I recently reread the AH report for Sulla's Season 6 Championship.
He mentions there Pacal's single-minded Cultural Victory plan...
... when, on top of my head, I can't remember him ever going for it! Maybe once in the last 40 games I ran which featured him?

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Diplomacy is a substantive factor, but I can't claim a great understanding of it! I thought it was interesting in my own tests and then the Alternate Histories for Game Three last season that the aggressive parties denied Justinian a comprehensive edge on the map. It is such a bad matchup for him to have low peace weight neighbors who declare at pleased and adopt his religion.

One of Pacal's seven wins in my tests was a ~T400 Cultural Victory, but I never saw anything from him like the Season 6 Championship. Gilgamesh seems to prefer culture, but on some maps you'd never know. In general, I'm less confident in my tests from last year due to persistent successes from neutral and high peace weight leaders that I did not find corroborated by the Alternate Histories

 

[Thrasybulos]

Here are the results and files for Rumble Jumble, season 2.

I have started running the championship games, so hopefully the playoffs and championship results will be available by the end of the week.

No Wilcard league this season, as it would have dragged things too much (and I would have left Season 2 unfinished as a result).
I instead picked the two "best thirds" from the opening round. It led to two "stinkers" making it to the playoffs, but oh well.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Any chance you could post something light, like images of each overall result, to the thread? Having to sift through a bunch of zips is pretty inconvenient otherwise...

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

The biggest surprise for me from S2 Opening Rounds is that Victoria distinguished herself on a more peaceful field. Not only does this potentially have implications for this week's game in the current season, but it also goes against the Power Ranking and Alternate Histories. Curious how she holds up in the playoffs.

 

[Thrasybulos]

The biggest surprise for me from S2 Opening Rounds is that Victoria distinguished herself on a more peaceful field. Not only does this potentially have implications for this week's game in the current season, but it also goes against the Power Ranking and Alternate Histories. Curious how she holds up in the playoffs.

This is the second game she dominates (she also had a very strong showing in season 1's wildcard league's opening).
So it would seem that in a high peace weight context she lives up to her potential.
... except that wasn't the case in the S1's wildcard league finals, where Gilgamesh crushed the competition when the field was 4 high PW vs 2 low PW.
So, I don't know, really.

In this week's game, her local context is 2 v 2. She can certainly thrive, but she needs Ragnar and Stalin to fight it out, which is almost bound to happen. But will that happen before, or after they massacre her ?

The real surprise for me was Gandhi, who definitely seems to be more famine than feast.

Any chance you could post something light, like images of each overall result, to the thread? Having to sift through a bunch of zips is pretty inconvenient otherwise...

I'll do that, but you'll still need to open the archives to get the full picture (in particular regarding map balance).
As I said, I view this setup as flawed, I'd rather move on to a better format than spend hours writing reports for this one.

 

[Thrasybulos]

S2 Opening Round results (get the files provided previously for more details).

Spoiler Game 1 :

Impressive showing by Ramesses, in a stacked field, who gets edged out at the very last run.

Spoiler Game 2 :

In a high peaceweight field, Vicky crushes the competition, Asoka hints at being in fact the better Indian leader?

Spoiler Game 3 :

I don't really remember that game.
Sury keeps disappointing, no surprise there, but Mao outperforming Hannibal feels wrong.

Spoiler Game 4 :

Another game that didn't leave an impression.
A dominant Justinian was to be expected. On the other hand, Darius doing so well is not something I would have expected, and Louis seems to have underperformed.

Spoiler Game 5 :

Alex kept sabotaging his own team by straight attacking them, or by feeding the opposition.
Mansa was the most impressive, Gilgamesh disappointed.

Spoiler Game 6 :

Roughly what you'd expect.
But the map was very unbalanced, with Elisabeth's position in Sullla's game accounting for 70% of the wins.

Spoiler Game 7 :

HC finishes 17 points ahead, while a mere 4 points separate the second from the last.
Hard to draw conclusions about the other leaders in that context.

Spoiler Game 8 :

Weird game.
Started off as a Pacal roflolstomp, then it was De Gaulle's turn, then Shaka's.
Would probably require another 100 runs to get a clear picture.