As the previous one, this game featured four high peaceweights versus two low peaceweights, and we saw how badly that went for the low peaceweights.
Even though the AIs on the high PW team seemed inferior to the likes of Darius and Victoria, I expected this game to unfold along similar lines.
... and it did, in large part.
The one difference was Louis managing to secure 3 wins, so "Team Evil" did a tad better here.
Louis indeed felt like he was the best leader in that field, often teching well and fielding a large military. It just wasn't enough to overcome odds that were stacked against him.
To make matters worse, while Wang Kon and Monty usually founded the first two religions, Louis would often found the Monotheism religion. That meant there was actually no "Team Evil": Louis and Monty would most of the times be enemies, owing to their religious divide.
Still, it was a bad setup for Louis (apart from the obvious being the target of multiple dogpiles): he often tries to go for Culture, when here, owing to the diplomatic situation, Domination was the way to go. So his Culture tech and build emphasis would often prevent him from snowballing efficiently.
Montezuma, on the other hand, had the right plan. He's just bad at implementing it. He just made enemies of everyone (attacking religious allies for peaceweight reasons, and his one peaceweight ally for religious reasons) and paid the price for it game after game.
This game featured both German leaders (who haven't exactly done well in AI Survivor). So which of them is the worse?
As it turned out,
Bismarck performed significantly worse than
Frederick.
I would have expected the opposite to be true: the more militaristic Bismarck, who
can plot at Pleased, should have been better able exploit this field than the more peaceful and passive Frederick. But that didn't happen.
Bismarck often got into trouble he couldn't manage, while Frederick had more success with his please-forget-I'm-here-and-let-me-tech-in-peace approach.
But all in all, they did little to dispel the notion that they're among the weakest Civ4 leaders.
That left the Koean and Portuguese leaders as the dominant AIs in this game, a position they seemingly achieved more by default than through intrinsic qualities.
Wang Kon was carried by his economic strengths: Financial trait + Shrine income. Although the latter meant he would draw quite a lot of aggression, particularly from Monty. And I suppose that's where Protective came into play.
He did win an impressive and uncharacteristic Culture attempt, with a pretty early date (T265), but apart from that, it was usually grow through benefitting from being on the right side of a dogpile, and let your economy carry the day.
Joao also played to his strengths: a good expansion phase granting him a position of strength both militarily and economically, which he was often able to exploit, if not for a win, at least for making it to the end.
He equalled Wang Kon with 6 wins, but was only eliminated 4 times, which makes him the best performing AI in this group.
All in all, it did feel like a weak field, with only Louis and Joao hinting at the capibility to be competitive against stronger AIs.
As I suspected, the map wasn't very balanced, but... not exactly in the way I'd thought.
Although it seems pretty obvious, I had missed
Position B being an absolute death spot: AIs starting there would be hopelessly boxed-in. It had Iron, but no Copper: so no early break out attempt as a possibility, and any delay in researching Iron Working could prove fatal when sitting next to an AI with Copper at its capital (F).
So that made
Position F, correctly identified as a strong spot, even stronger. AIs starting there would not only have a good early economy thanks to the Gems, they were also provided with an easy expansion prospect.
Almost as good (same number of wins, a bit more eliminations) was the other neighbour of position B,
Position D. The capital site wasn't as good, but its Gold tile still made it pretty strong. What made this position so strong (in addition to its super weak neighbour) was that it allowed to compete for the western lands. What I had identified as Position A's land was also Position D's. Central positions tend to be all or nothing: they're either death spots or great spots. Here, it turned out to be the latter, and I had completely misread that.
The one weakness for that position was a lack of Copper, which could spell trouble when IW was delayed.
With positions D & F accouting for 16 wins, that meant
Position A wasn't as strong as anticipated. It actually only saw 3 wins.
Now, the AI starting there was almost always an early and mid-game leader, so it
was a strong position. But not enough. Part of the reason why is I believe that its huge backline became barb territory. That led to pillaging, and having to divert ressources to deal with them. It also meant that with those barb cities to conquer, the AI there would miss out on the early dogpiles. Or, if it did join in, it would then see another AI conquer those barb cities and deprive it of that backline.
Also, conflict with the tenant of Position C was pretty much unavoidable, and it would often come in the form of an inopportune backtab.
Albeit roomy,
Position C proved a secure jail indeed.
Rougly half the time, the AI there was eliminated as a consequence of failing to escape through conquering the stronger AI in position A.
The remaining scenarios were a split between staying put and making it to the end as an irrelevant civ, or winning a long struggle, but too late to matter.
Position E seemed average, with decent land and expansion prospects, and that's what it proved to be, with only one win, but a 50% survival rate.
It suffered from two main issues. The first one was that it bordered four other civs, and thus was very conflict-prone. The second issue was that one of those recurring conflict was against the tenant of position F... usually a stronger civ.
So Joao and Wang Kon join Victoria and Darius to a finals which seem promised to a high peaceweight winner.
And from what I've seen so far, I don't see either of them having a chance against the Game 1 winners. It would seem that Victoria (or possibly Darius) has a lock for the wildcard.
But let's see first who the final two contestants will be.
September is a bad month at work.
