AI Survivor - AH Guessing Contest

[Thrasybulos]

Next up: Season 8.

I have published my results for the Opening Round here.

For the final rounds, we get the following game composition:

Spoiler Wildcard 1 Map :

Spoiler Wildcard 2 Map :

Spoiler Playoff 1 Map :

Spoiler Playoff 2 Map :

Spoiler Playoff 3 Map :

Note: Sullla seems to have an issue with placing leaders on the Playoff 3 maps.
Once again, the proper team numbers (thus turn order and spot on the map) was not respected for his game: Pericles was assigned team n°4, when, as the wildcard entrant, he should have been assigned team n°6.
So that's why Mehmed gets moved here, compared to the live game. Whether getting Qin's spot is an upgrade or not, that's up to you to decide.

The game results were:

So... who made it to the Championship game? And who was the Champion?

 

[a pen-dragon]

This time I will not write a map analysis since this is the last season and I have the maps sufficiently well placed in my mind.

Spoiler WC1 :

Pacal - Hanni - AC - Stalin - Gandhi - Isa

Isa is doomed not to win a game due to PW but she can win a few wars. Gandhi has to be fifth. AC is probably not doing to well with two good financials and three low-PW amongst the top-four, so I place him third due to the low survival. Stalin fourth due to not being financial. Pacal before Hanni due to the start.

Spoiler WC2 :

Ragnar - Louis - Genghis - Liz - Willem - Mao - Bis

This is a game of warmongers. For once I think Ragnar will profit from finacial, since with that land not doing so would require farming everything and even he is not that economically inept. Then he just stomps. Liz and Bis are obviously not in a position to gert many kills, Willem has his own weaknesses and Mao sits in a corner, thus they are the last four, in the order above, since Liz and Willem can win, willem surviving is a bit more likely and Mao surviving being much more likely. Louis before Genghis due to him being closer to both high-PW and Ganghis being closer to Rag.

Spoiler PO1 :

Kublai - Gilga - Sulei - Charly - Asoka - Mansa

Kublai being here means that Mansa will struggle a lot, with this result he probably does not have a single win. Asoka is in a similarly bad position, although maybe a bit more likely to survive due to bordering Charly. The same + protective goes for Charly, so that is the bottom three.

On the top Kublai - Gilga - Sulei, primarily due to their starting positions.

Spoiler PO2 :

Justi - Cyrus - Shaka - Ragnar - Victoria - Hatty

With low-PW being present in the east this significantly increases Justinians chances. Ragnar is in the same situation as Brennus and will not do better. Fourth. Hatty is too pacifistic for this map, so she gets last place. Cyrus gets second over Shaka due to being further from Justi, having safe backlines and being better at econ. That leaves Vicky with a reasonable fifth.

Spoiler PO3 :

HC - Saladin - Nappy - Pacal - Mehmed - Peter

That is definitely a downgrade for Mehmed. Saladin probably is in the best position to profit if HC gets thrown out, although I think that Pacal should have equal chances. Pacal is the non-HC winner with the lowest kills. Nappy also has a reasonable shot at winning. Peter is last due tobordering Nappy.

Spoiler Championship :

HC - Justi - Gilga - Sal - Kublai - Cyrus

I may have made a mistake, because someone without a win in this crowd seems unlikely. HC wins, the others are a bit behind, yadda yadda yadda.

 

[Keler]

For wildcard games who is the silver based on that points not sorted tables? I guess it doesn't matter anyway

Spoiler WC1 :

1 Pacal-does matter
2,3 and 4 Agustus,Hannibal or Stalin. But I think that 22 kills can't really be Hannibal.-doesn't matter.
5 Gandhi
6 Isabella

Spoiler WC2 :

1 Ragnar
2 Louis
3 Mao
4 Elizabeth
5 Willem
6 Genghis
7 Bismarc

Spoiler PO1 :

This is the hardest one. Real hard
1 Charlemagne
2 Suleiman
3 Mansa
4 Kublai
5 Asoka
6 Gilgamesh
uh well??

Spoiler PO2 :

1 Cyrus
2 Justinan
3 Shaka
4 Hatshepsut
5 Ragnar
6 Victoria

Spoiler PO3 :

Yeah good eye on that, I realised that wrong assign too. Which is bad for fantasy team purposes.. anyway
Oh geez
1 Huayna Capac, comfy
2 Saladin
3 Napoleon
4 Pacal
5 Mehmed
6 Peter

Spoiler CS :

CS stands for ConfuSion
So for star fish map, I got team=1 position for Charly?? .. Justin number 4 starts from the terrible Gandhi spot. And Saladin gets Qins place.This map solo boosts shrine civs. Winner religion civ.
Saladin has better position than Justin based on what I selected.
1 Saladin
2 Cyrus
3 Huayna aka hyena.
4 Justinan .. 3 survivals total!!!!? (Ok probably Mansa made into championship then, not Sulo.. I am confused, wrong and aware and not changing my answer.)
5 Süleyman. (Elizabeth's pos was suspiciously bad too.)
6 Charlemagne but you can read as Charlatan.

 

[Thrasybulos]

For wildcard games who is the silver based on that points not sorted tables?

Highest scores behind winner, and just realised that in both cases it's 47 points.
I didn't highlight them here because it doesn't matter as they don't move up. They're highlighted in my Excel file because they still get the 2 PWR points.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Spoiler Wildcard 1 :

Gandhi in a central position is bad news for him. Probably has the lowest survival rate on the map.

Next easiest to guess is the 22 kills with only 3 wins. Stalin seems by far the most likely to achieve this statline.

Who of the other four isn't viable? Both based on personality and position, Izzy seems most likely to me.

That said, Augustus's position isn't great and its biggest advantage is in potential gains from Gandhi. But there's probably also plenty of games where Stalin rolls him up. So he seems likely to be #3 with the lower survival rate.

That leaves Hannibal and Pacal as the top two, and I'll guess Hannibal as the winner. Higher kill rate is more up his alley and his position is safer (and won the real game!) Pacal normally has a playoff spot but loses out this time due to extra conflicts he doesn't necessarily want. The kill count isn't as low as I've come to expect from him, but adjacency to Gandhi is probably a big part of that.

So my final answer is: Hannibal, Pacal, Augustus, Stalin, Gandhi, Isabella.

I also just now realized that #4 in the list is actually #2 in score (that idiosyncracy is not my favorite). That matches up well with the emergent narrative of the warmongers largely working to roll over the map, but flaming out half the time to allow the peaceful leaders to get some wins.

Spoiler Wildcard 2 :

There is an EXTREMELY clear winner on this map 33 kills! I think it has to be Ragnar. Genghis is the only other leader from his lineup I would suspect of racking the counter up that high and his position is much worse. I suppose the coastal start also works very well with Ragnar's Financial/Fishing combo.

OK, what about the three clear losers? 8 survivals and 5 kills between the three of them. Liz/Bismarck are obvious choices but who's the third? It's hard to tell and I could be wrong here. But I'm going to guess Willem gets royally roughed up by Mao/Ragnar/Genghis en route to a poor result. I'll guess the #5 spot for him - a couple of non-winning survivals, but zero kills since he has no good targets.

2 wins and dying every single other game has got to be Liz, and that leaves Bis never able to figure out how to win.

That leaves Mao, Genghis, and Louis, one of whom survives a ton but never wins and racks up significantly less kills. I was originally thinking Mao was a power player here, but eh... That position was pretty tight on space in the real game, yet is out of the way. The big survivor seems more his line.

I'll guess Louis for second, spitting out some cultural victories, and Genghis third, racking up a ton of kills but managing to properly snowball only a few times.

So my final answer is: Ragnar, Louis, Genghis, Elizabeth, Willem, Mao, Bismarck

Spoiler Playoff 1 :

OK, Mansa's the first one to look at here. We know he had a good position, but how much worse is it when he has a warmonger as a neighbor? That ends up being a tough one. I would think he'd win more than once, but that would mean either 20 kills or the best survival rate on the map, which doesn't seem too likely. And if he's one of the bottom three, that would mean many more kills than wins, which is not very Mansa-esque either.

This one is stumping me pretty bad. I actually went and did the other two playoff games, then had to come back to this one! I'd almost put Mansa as the one with 20 kills based on Atesh's findings of Mansa cracking heads in the AHs. But if he only survives half the time, the warmongers next to him must do pretty well, and neither of them passing 12 kills in that situation seems pretty unlikely. Ugh, really tough one.

So instead, I'll try a different angle and start with last place. I thought about Asoka, but with Kublai his only hostile neighbor and likely to be distracted by Mansa on the other side, I don't think he'll come under the same pressure as Pacal did. With that plus the strong nature of the start (including a metal he can mine straight away!) I think he has to at least have a couple of good runs. Instead, I'll put Suleiman in last. His position isn't very strong and I don't think he's particularly safe from attacks on either side, which coupled with his generally Sillyman-ness leaves him with poor prospects of accomplishing anything major. So that's one piece of the puzzle in place.

With that said, I think the 20 kills and 50% survival rate has to be Kublai. If it was one of the corner leaders scoring that many kills, the survival rate would be better.

So if those two are in those positions, who are our two 65% survival leaders? I'm going to guess Mansa and Asoka. Either Kublai successfully snowballs off of one/both of them and wins, or else they use their strong starts to get the win themselves (and probably come in second to each other most of the time). If it's that, Mansa definitely seems likely to have the higher kill total although the difference between the two is not really significant enough to draw any reliable conclusions from.

That leaves Gilgamesh and Burger King as the two one-win wonders. BK with more survival but less kills in this scenario is a perfect fit. If this guess is correct then Suleiman basically loses no matter what happens: Mansa or Asoka whacks him late, Kublai uses him to fuel his snowball, or else none of those three even matters to him as BK/Gilgamesh deal with him themselves.

So my final, none-too-confident answer is: Mansa, Kublai, Asoka, Gilgamesh, Charlemagne, Suleiman

Spoiler Playoff 2 :

Very starkly split results from this map once again! I think our 100-pointer has got to be Cyrus. We know that spot is cracked, and Cyrus adds to it a more aggressive personality and a pair of theoretically soft targets in Vicky and Hatty. Lots of romps through the map ensue.

Justin I think is #2 with a similar dynamic to the real set.

#3 is where things get interesting! I don't think it's Hatty - instead, I'm guessing Shaka! He has the same soft targets as Cyrus and can probably often work with him to dismantle them to solid results. Actually winning is tougher but he at least has the start to make it work.

That leaves three non-entities and at that point you might as well draw names out of a hat. I'll put my final ordering of them based on peaceweight and positioning.

So my final answer is: Cyrus, Justinian, Shaka, Ragnar, Hatshepsut, Victoria

Spoiler Playoff 3 :

Sal's position seemed to be the strongest in the beginnings of Sullla's set. But in what world does he win 15 games while only scoring six kills? No, that statline could only be one leader in this field. It's Huayna time again, baby!

OK, so how does everything flow downstream from there? No obvious outcasts in this field. Aside from the big man himself, though, we have three more with good survival rates - one of whom never won and had far less kills - and two relative duds. Also a generally pretty low kill count as I guess these guys all get along. To me that indicates that the stronger leaders might be our three friendlier guys who get up to Pleased and then stop fighting - Mehmed is probably weakest because that Qin position seemed to really suck, and it's a coinflip between the other two statlines but I give Sal the edge because his position is stronger. Hannibal puts out a decent showing.

That leaves the central Peter and the crazy Napoleon as our outcasts, both also in less than amazing spots. I'm guessing Peter is the one with the lower survival rate but the sole win, that central position once again coming into play, while Napoleon simply can't do much here.

So my final answer is: Huayna, Saladin, Hannibal, Peter, Mehmed, Napoleon

Spoiler Championship :

I've given myself a final field of Mansa, Kublai, Cyrus, Justin, Huayna, and Saladin.

And I feel none too good about this field now, because there's not one but two duds who almost never even survive!

Well, let's get the easy answers out of the way first. If(Huayna.InChampionship == True): Champion = Huayna. This econ-fest of a map with a largely friendly field is perfect for him. Just ten wins is honestly pretty unimpressive.

And only three survivals but winning two of those is probably Mansa.

So who else is getting killed all the time? I don't know . It makes me think that Asoka or Hatty must have slipped in here somehow with a strangely high kill total. But that's weird enough that I'm not going to go and revise a prediction to include them. Similarly I can't quite do the mental gymnastics to bump Burger King to the top of Game 1 or a high PW through the wildcard round. So then what low PW somehow kept dying on this map that I had thought was so hard to die on?

I don't know but Sal seems the most likely candidate. It would be one of the religious nuts since that's the most likely avenue for too much conflict, and I do believe Justin is a stronger leader. Sal also has the Qin spot so if that's somehow cursed, he's the one to suffer from it.

As for the rest, we have two other leaders who are in the mix a lot. One was clearly the strongest leader outside of Huayna with 4 wins. Nobody here outside of Huayna/Mansa is especially great at econ, but Justin I think is a bit better, so I'll guess him. For the other high survival rate, I fancy Cyrus over Kublai, especially since he's less likely to be stupid and get himself into trouble later on.

So my final answer is Huayna, Justinian, Kublai, Mansa, Cyrus, Saladin.

Very interesting set of games!

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

I see that between the three of us, we managed to predict five of the six available options for top-two spots for Playoff One

 

[Thrasybulos]

So, one the one hand, we had a very unsurprising champion.
On the other hand, Charlie and Shaka were surprise guests to the championship, and of course, having a wildcard entry making it into the championship (Hannibal) is always harder to guess...

@a pen-dragon got HC and Cyrus: 4 pts
@Keler got HC, Cyrus, Charlie: 3 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott got HC, Cyrus, Mansa: 6 pts

 

[Thrasybulos]

Next up: Season 4.

I have published my results for the Opening Round here.

For the final rounds, we get the following game composition:

Spoiler Wildcard Map :

Spoiler Playoff 1 Map :

Spoiler Playoff 2 Map :

Spoiler Playoff 3 Map :

The game results were:

So... who made it to the Championship game? And who was the Champion?

 

[Keler]

hello again. Lets do this. season 4

Spoiler WC :

1. Stalin
2. Gilgamesh- maybe vice versa with stalin.
3. Pericles- very low survival 2 wins because corner start
4. Mehmed
5. Darius- very low survival 1 wins
6. Boudica- no victory

Maybe Stalin and Gilgamesh are swapped. No idea.

Spoiler PO1 :

1. Huayna Capac- because so low kill. Bad start yet still wins the most??!!
2. Tokugawa- so many kills!!! Probably killed HC a lot and snowballed. But low survival too.
3. Hannibal- can't plot pleased. Lets HC win.
4. Louis XIV
5. Justinian- basically a high pw leader
6. Cyrus- very high survival rate, no wins

Spoiler PO2 :

1. Gilgamesh- my wildcard runner up.
2. Mansa Musa- no kills at all
3. Kublai Khan
4. De Gaulle- lots of kills no wins
5. Willem van Oranje
6. Ramesses II- trash starting place

I am quite unsure because of Championship game. I blame Toku. Did Willem make it top 2?

Spoiler PO3 :

1. Catherine
2. Mao Zedong- or vice versa for top 2
3. Peter
4. Julius Caesar- great place for undeserving second places. Not that it matters here though, due to debug autoplay
5. Stalin- insert wildcard winner here. Even Gilgamesh would be bad with this capital.
6. Augustus Caesar- zero survival skills

Russia vs Italy game.
It doesn't matter other than guessing the right top 2. So this is the easiest one to predict. Nothing can go wrong here.

Spoiler CS :

1. Huayna Capac - 17 wins???? I know he is extra strong on that map. He won 4 of the 6 tournaments??
2. Gilgamesh- more kills. Warmonger game
3. Mao Zedong- few kills. Economy game
4. Catherine- she is just bad on this map. Only won one tournament in my series. One must see the map and neighbours nevertheless.
5. Tokugawa- no kills. 2 survival.Probably always a religion outcast too.
6. Mansa Musa- 1 kill? 1 survival.

This map has so many errors it is so annoying. Top starting positions have 1 less deer if I remember correctly. Some tile differences too. Just whatever. I realised them when I copied the notepad into excel xD

 

[Thrasybulos]

This map has so many errors it is so annoying.

For my runs, I've fixed all those I found reported and those I spotted.
Hopefully caught them all, but no guarantee.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

A lack of previous results from these maps, I see. Well, we'll see how I can do with just eyeballing them - no close analyses of the exact terrain here!

Spoiler Wildcard :

Looks like Perry and Darius are in some big trouble here. Darius manages to win 2/3 of games that he survives thanks to the central position and his amazing traits, while Pericles is slightly more viable with the higher kill total. There's the easy ones.

Zero wins and sixteen kills is probably Boudy. Friendly Mehmed is a good neighbor for her to have but the position's probably too cramped to vie for the win.

That leaves one of Mehmed, Gilgamesh, or Stalin with a significantly lower win and kill total than the others. Gilgamesh seems most likely to be left out since he just doesn't have the same easy access to the map's targets. As for the other two, that is pretty close to coinflip odds, but I'll guess Stalin is the one surviving more since he isn't in the center.

So my final guess is: Stalin, Mehmed, Darius, Gilgamesh, Pericles, Boudica.

Spoiler Playoff One :

An all lower-peaceweight setup like this would seem to be pretty open-ended... and the results seem to bear that out.

The winningest leader getting just a handful of kills (and less than one per win) certainly suggests that it's Huayna again.

The other statline that jumps out immediately is the good kill total with the best survival rate on the map by a solid margin, but zero wins. That... is really hard to guess. Ultimately though I'll go with Toku, because I feel like any of the other four with that statline would have gotten at least one win.

The other four all have essentially equal survival rates, but two got a bunch less kills and one had the hardest time actually winning. I am going to guess that Louis is the one who struggled more to win, Justin had a rougher game than normal for whatever reason and thus didn't score many kills, and Hannibal performed similarly but scammed more wins with Financial. That would leave the central Cyrus as a fairly high-variance leader who got a bunch of kills. I could easily see this being wrong but it at least makes sense.

So my final guess is: Huayna, Cyrus, Hannibal, Justinian, Louis, Tokugawa.

Spoiler Playoff Two :

An intriguing position for Mansa, in a hostile field but with one other higher peaceweight, an out-of-the-way position, and another econ leader as his closest neighbor. Can he make it work?

Well, looking at the survival rates, looks like nobody was too doomed here. Makes me almost wonder if I missed a strong high peaceweight in the Wildcard, but nah, I still don't see Pericles or Darius getting 22 kills there.

The other most interesting thing I see here is that only three leaders appeared to actually have a shot at winning. Who didn't, then? Probably Mehmed for one, since his position looks pretty terrible. Ramesses's also seems on the cramped side, and De Gaulle's not as obviously bad but with a weak enough leader that I see him squandering it. If I'm right that would leave Willem/Kublai/Mansa as our viable winners.

In that case, 7 wins with two kills is pretty obvious, and this would seem to be Willem's map on the whole. Kublai struggles a fair amount with his central position but it does have the potential to at least win some games. As for the others, Ramesses is probably surviving the least, and De Gaulle's probably going to be picking up more kills than Mehmed simply because his start gives him more hope of that.

So my final guess is: Willem, Mansa, Kublai, De Gaulle, Mehmed, Ramesses.

Spoiler Playoff Three :

Augustus is very dead. Ouch.

After that, not the easiest map to read. We clearly had three dominant leaders though, who largely slaughtered the others and mainly differed in how often they were able to convert that to a win.

It's hard for me to say, but the two northwestern spots seem to have much less land available and so I'll guess they're more runt-ish civs who often fuel the others. (If I'm wrong, it's most likely because Peter is gaining from Augustus's demise.) If that's the case, then I'll simply sort the other three based on their land at a glance and their personalities.

So my final guess is: Catherine, Mao, Julius, Peter, Stalin, Augustus.

Spoiler Championship :

My championship field is: Huayna, Cyrus, Willem, Mansa, Catherine, and Mao.

I don't like this field because there are two obviously doomed leaders in the final tally, but Mansa is the only one here who would fit the bill. Someone else must have just randomly drawn the short straw a bunch? But I'm not sure who.

But the obvious thing here is the total dominance by a single leader despite the theoretically balanced championship map. This one's quite odd as the lineup wouldn't seem to especially favor any single leader. What's up with that?

I'm pretty stumped here and not very confident. But I'll differ from the usual "just pick Huayna" strategy, for all the good it did me last time. Evidence has suggested that Creative is extra powerful for this map, so perhaps Willem is our winner? Mansa is enough of a distraction for the aggressive leaders for him to build an unstoppable tech lead and crush the field from there. The other likely story is that it was actually Ramesses who made it here alongside Mansa, leading to a Huayna roflstomp here as they just get pummelled by the low peaceweights. But if they made it out of Playoff Two's field just fine, what changes that they get pummeled here by this not super-duper aggressive group they're in with?

No, I've probably made some massive miscalculations somewhere along the way. Oh well.

So I'll just stick with what I picked to reach this point. Willem dominates. Mansa dies. That would make Cyrus and Cathy the picks to be the other muscles on this map, which makes enough sense. I favor Cathy to get the actual wins thanks to Creative. Huayna for some reason (Creative? Or something else?) is much less strong here than normal and can only muster a single win. That leaves Mao strangely hopeless.

So my final guess is: Willem, Catherine, Huayna, Cyrus, Mansa, Mao.

 

[Thrasybulos]

A lack of previous results from these maps, I see.

I've posted my previous AH set in your season 1 AH topic.
I've then re-used two of those playoff games for my Raging Barbs experiment.

As for map data, they were used in RJ Season 1, with the results available here (and with a very similar cast for some games).
Finally, there's obviously Keler's treasure-trove of data.

 

[a pen-dragon]

Spoiler WC :

Stalin - Mehmed - Pericles - Gilga - Darius - Boudica

I really like the starting positions of Pericles, Stalin, Mehmed and to a lesser degree Darius. Boudica and Gilga get more forests and less rich land. Based on PW Pericles and darius will not do well. Pericles still has a shot at CUlture, thus I will rank him third.

Boudica last due to her being ill-suited to such a start and weak at econ. Getting some kills is all she will acomplish.

Darius gets fifthn due to low survival.

Now I am left with Stalin, Mehmed and Gilga, out of which only two are doing fine. Probably Gilga is not, due to his start.

I will place Stalin first, due to being closer to the high-PWs, and possibly having more land.

Spoiler PO1 :

Hanni - Justi - HC - Louis - Cyrus - Toku

This is an all low-PW game, so religions will probably have some importance. Justi and Louis will probably each grab an early one, except that it seems open. Regarding starting positions, Justinian has a nice capital and interesting backlines, lthough he has lots of jungle. Toku's capital has too much gold for his own good and too little food. He still has good land to backfill if he can secure his corner. HC has mediocre land. Louis has a great captal and lots of jungle, Cyrus only has lots of jungle. Hanni has very nice land around his capital.

With that record I think that either HC or Hanni is first, the other leaders all will definitely survive more without winning. For some variety I will bet on Hanni being first, because here I think that is actually reasonable. HC gets third, with similar stats, a bit more kills and less wins. Reasons for this are Toku, their respective land, and Hanni possibly getting please-locked.

Second is Justi, due to being (IMHO) the next best leader in a decent spot and Toku probably converting to Justinians religion, allowing Justi to go east and conquer the french heathens.

Toku will probably not win games, but get a few kills and survive, thus I will place him last.

Louis fourth and Cyrus fifth only because I think that Louis has a better shot at winning due to culture.

Spoiler PO2 :

Willem - Mansa - Kublai - Mehmed - Rammy - DeG

De Gaulle really has a bad position, with lots of hills and plains bringing him very little food. Except that I think the starts are about the same, not great, but not too bad either.

I will place DeG last due to his start and being next to Kublai. I do not think that Mehmed will have much of a chance due to starting in a corner with Kublai his only neighbour and needing to expand.

On the top that looks like peaceful finishes. I think that Mansa will sit in his corner and just be Mansa, getting second place. That leaves Rammy, Willem and Kublai with the potential to do well. I think that of these three the third is very likely to be Kublai. Also I think that Willem will do better than Rammy due to PW, so Willem first.

Mehmed fourth due to having more kills than Rammy.

Spoiler PO3 :

Mao - Cathy - JC - Peter - Stalin - AC

Here I think that the three north-western leaders are doomed, due to being on top of each other. Julius has access to a b it more land, but really Cathy and Mao have the best chances to grab lots of land. Mao has an advantage with the gold capital.

AC last due to being the only high-PW in a bad spot. Peter will have slightly better stats than Stalin due to being closer to Augustus.

The top is ordered by starting positions.

Spoiler Championship :

Willem - Hanni - Justi - Mao - Mansa - Cathy

I have Hanni, Justi, Willem, Mansa, Mao and Cathy in the Championship. Mansa is the PW-outlier and on this map this is bad news. Mansa fifth, scoring no kills.

On the top the low-PW financials will have good chances, Justinian probably behind them. Mao and Cathy will win less, but one of the obviously kills more. I think that Mao will be closer to Mansa, so I will place him fourth and Cathy last. The last place also had an abysmal performance.

The reason for this in my setup could be a Willam stomp, and he is closer to Cathy, although in both cases there is little difference. Hanni second and Justi third, as above.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Two of you went against HC?

@Keler got HC, Mao, Toku, Cathy: 8 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott got HC, Mao, Cathy, Willem: 4 pts
@a pen-dragon got Mao, Cathy, Willem: 3 pts

Edit: Which, amazingly, makes you all tied at 33 pts each!

 

[Thrasybulos]

Next up: Season 3.

I have published my results for the Opening Round here.

For the final rounds, we get the following game composition:

Spoiler Wildcard Map :

Spoiler Playoff 1 Map :

It should be noted that Sullla, for the season 3 playoffs, went for an alphabetical turn order instead of the turn order determined by game results.
I suppose that was a mistake (both the opening rounds and the wildcard used an alphabetical turn order, so he mechanically kept going), and I've "fixed" it for my games, going for the standard Playoff turn order.

So that's why AIs who finished in the same position in both my games and the live game (eg Justinian here) don't get the same starting spot.

Spoiler Playoff 2 Map :

Spoiler Playoff 3 Map :

The game results were:

So... who made it to the Championship game? And who was the Champion?

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

The game results were:
View attachment 711255

I'll take a stab at this:

Spoiler WC :

Kublai Khan's spot was demonstrated to be incredible, and Nappy has that spot + a super easy target + no enemies surrounding him. He has to be 27 kills.

Man I want HC to not win this season, but he is the only leader I can ever envision winning seven times with just seven kills. Probably a lot of games where HC cultures away while the rest of the world burns. Also, looking at P3, this feels like the only obvious choice.

4 wins + moderately decent kills screams Qin to me, he is the only competent builder here not named HC, has backstabbing tendencies that fit well with this map, and is not in the central cornucopia.

36 kills feels like JC with his praets + central position but he probably has way too much fighting to be able to win. Methinks JC could have won much more with a non-Incan leader in HC's spot.

In:
HC
Nappy

Out:
Qin
Charlie (the only guy I could see winning 2 games with 6 kills, maybe he kills HC a couple of times)
JC
Shaka
Stalin
Peter (most survivals + generic personality)
Brennus
Wash
Vicky

View attachment 711256

Spoiler P1 :

1st is Bismarck, tracks with number of kills + low survival rate when he does not win. Probably kills Ram and/or Lincoln a ton (starting pleased with Ram does not deter Bismarck, and Ram's culture shenanigans will surely create tensions).

2nd is, believe it or not, DG. DG's land is incredible post IW and post Calendar, and he has a soft target to his east with land that is far inferior. Think there are a lot of games where DG runs over Asoka followed by Lincoln.

3rd is Justin, lots of space and high survival rate, finishes in 2nd place a lot either by spreading his religion to DG or by being out of Bismarck's way. I'm reticent to say he only has five kills, but I suspect Justin's inability to plot at pleased will hurt him quite a bit here, especially if he and Asoka take all the religions from Ram (their PW is pretty close).

4th is Asoka - two wins where he is able to defeat DG and coast from there

5th is Lincoln, he is completely out of the way but just does not have a winning personality.

Crazily enough, last is Ram, this is not a good diplo situation for him - central position, surrounded by a backstabber and two potential religious enemies, and DG could march an army down south whenever he feels like it. Think culture border tensions give him a lot of trouble.

In:
Bismarck
DG

Out:
Justin
Asoka
Lincoln
Ram

Spoiler P2 :

This is an obvious Mansa stomp, no questions asked, Mansa has so much territory available to himself. Yes, I can see him with 19 kills, he is surprisingly aggressive and will probably run over Pacal and someone else in multiple occasions.

Only leader who wins or dies with two kills is Gandhi. No PW10 ever has a truly good diplo situation. Gandhi with PW6 is a top 5 leader in the game.

Real question is, who survives a ton with 17 kills? I think the answer is Zara, who kills Gandhi and/or Mao a ton and is on the opposite side of Mansa.

Pacal probably wins two games where Mansa somehow falters (honestly, he and Gandhi are interchangeable), and I could see Mao also surviving a ton with quite a few kills. Mao and Zara could be switched, Zara's land is not very good. Nappy just is not good enough to handle a remote fishing start.

In:
Mansa
Zara

Out:
Gandhi
Pacal
Mao
Nappy

Spoiler P3 :

HC has by far the best land and the easiest target. Only other leader with good land here is Mehmed, and his kill count tracks I think. Only other leaders I can see winning here are Hannibal and Saladin.

In:
eLiZaBeTh (jk)
HC
Mehmed

Out:
Hannibal
Saladin
KK
Liz (lol)

View attachment 711257

So... who made it to the Championship game? And who was the Champion?

Spoiler Championship :

Turn order is Bis, Mansa, HC, DG, Zara, Mehmed. This means that the neighbor situation is, starting from top middle and going clockwise:

DG, Zara, HC, Bis, Mansa, Mehmed. Even PW split, much depends on how the neutrals go - hence the surprisingly competitive set. I really don't want HC to win, so I am a bit biased here. I just can't see Mansa with 20 kills though. My hot take: MEHMED is the champion. He could kill either Mansa or Zara early, then have a lot of dominant finishes from there. 2nd or 3rd place is probably either HC or DG. Mansa has 3 wins and dies in all the others, Zara has one random win, Bis just isn't good enough.

Winner: Mehmed
Runner Up: HC

DG
Mansa
Zara
Bismarck

 

[a pen-dragon]

Spoiler WC :

HC - Nappy - Shaka - Qin - JC - Stalin - Brennus - Peter - Washington - Charly - Vicky

On this map I believe that Huayna and Qin have a bit worse starting positions due to being very close to the tundra. Peter and Stalin are a bit worse due to starting in the jungle, but at least post-IW they have good land. Brennus is a bit cramped and Viccy also has mostly jungle. The rest are roughly compareable.

Looking at this result (which is mad btw, looking ate those scores), there are two obvious warmongers. 27 and 36 kills, even in a 11-player game is a lot. There are two lesser ones with 19 and 15. Amongst the top warmongers I expect Julius, Shaka and Napoleon. There are enough relatively calm leaders that could only get this far by regularly stomping the map that there are limited options. I suspect the third with 4 wins and 19 kills is not one of these.

then there are a few obvious econ performances. The top spot stands out with seven wins and seven kills. The fourth also seems like an econ player.

Then there are three doomed ones with at most three survivals, and two bad performers that sometimes survive, but have low kills and still low survival.

For the doomed ones I would go along the peace-weight divide, since there are only three high-PWs: Vicky, Washington and Charly. Vicky is probably last due to being non-protective and bordering two warmongers. Charly could get some kills by Shaka attacking too early and not being supported. Washington has a chance at survival due to distance, but not much else. Thus Washington - Charly and Vixky at the end.

Amongst the rest, who is capable of good econ performances? Obviously there is HC, but also Qin and Peter are not crazy warmongers and at least capable of econ without requireing to snowball first.

Due to his corner start Huayna looks relatively safe, thus I place him first. Analogously, Qin could do well if Brennus does not and Shaka goes West, thus I will place him fourth. Peter I place eighth, due to this being a player with low kills.

On to the warmongers! Charly and Vicky being weak is good for Julius, Stalin and Nappy. Due to being surrounded by warmongers Julius will probably have more wars adn kills but also less wins than Nappy. Stalin is slow top start due to jungle. As aresult Nappy second, JC fourth and I am tempted to place Stalin as sixth. Shaka probably is third, leaving Brennus in seventh.

Spoiler PO1 :

Rammy - Bis - Asoka - De Gaulle - Lincoln - Justi

Lincoln and DeG have lots of Jungle and Asoka has little food. But the worst start hits Justinian, being in a corner with at best uninspireing land around him. Rammy at least has lots of grassland around his capital. Bis probably got the best start and will probably have some river connections, thus skipping TW will not hurt him that much.

The result indicates more warlike leaders prevailing. OTOH DeG and Bis are the only low-PWs. Justinian will struggle due to his start and DeG needs allies.

Asoka and Rammy tend to go culture, but I believe that they are sufficiently good to wage war against strugging AIs. Bis also tends to have some kills if doing well, because he tends to win later victories. Thus I will go Rammy first, Bis second.

DeG will win some wars, so fourth, and Asoka gets placed in front of Lincoln, since being closer to DeG to kill him off is an advantage.

Spoiler PO2 :

Mansa - Pacal - Mao - Gandhi - Nappy - Zara

I believe that this is the first time the third place in wins will progress. Mansa and Pacal have great econ starts, Gandhi is missing rivers and possibly food, Qin needs Iron working, but is in a good long-term position, Zara got a mediocre start and Nappy has an awkward start, no rivers, lots of coast.

The fifth rank is a warmonger, doing OK. Beyond that, the water murkies. Mansa and Pacal have great starts, but probably get different religions in the mid-game and sometimes fight. If they are first and third, each survives 19 times and they have a combined 36 kills. I find that difficult to believe.

I think that Mansa first is likely, as he is not immediately threatend by warmongers.

I think that Mao is most likely to be third, due to his good start and actually being kind of a warmonger. Nappy probably is fifth, I just do not think he can do better than Mao.

gandhi and Pacal probably get their kills, Pacal probably more than Gandhi, leaving Zara being ineffective last.

Mansa and Mao progress.

Spoiler PO3 :

HC - Kublai - Hanni - Mehmed - Saladin - Liz

HC comes from the wildcard game and directly grabs a top-two econ spot. HC first.

Mehmed is in the other great econ spot. Liz has long term potential, but is the obvious PW-outcast. Hanni and Saladin have slightly awkward starts, with deserts hindering their expansion. Kublai has a decent start.

Liz last.

Amongst the rest Saladin probably isthe weakest. Not a warmonger, mediocre land, ... .

Hannibal has the advantage of being financial and closest to Liz, Mehmed has a better start and Kunlai is the best warmonger of the three. Due to the high survival I think Kublai is likely to be second. Hanni gets third and Mehmed fourth.

Spoiler Championship :

HC - Mansa - Kublai - Rammy - Mao - Bis

I got HC, Kublai, Mansa, Mao, Rammy and Bis. Bis probably is last.

The leaders with lots of kills are doing better. Frankly this looks like four low-PWs, so maybe I made an error. I this setup fourth is probably Rammy, Mansa second, HC first, Kublai third and Mao fifth?

Mansa has demonstrated an ability to win wars in some environments. I believe this to be one. As always, this is a bit more guesswork than other games regarding AI strength, due to the positions being roughly equal.

 

[Keler]

I am writing from mobile phone here. I won't have access to computer until monday 9 december so here it is.

Spoiler :

Wildcard

1. Washington- 7 wins, less kills, huayna killer
2. Napoleon- score leader, victoria killer
3.Julius caesar- maybe he should be swapped with zulu idk
4. Peter- 2 wins few survives, could be inca too, or stalin.
5. Shaka-most kills, runner up in score but not gonna happen just one victory.
6. Qin shi huang- a victory
7. Charlemagne- first guy with no victory, some kills
8. Brennus
9. Stalin
10. Huayna- I am not buying it.. when he starts around his enemies with a lot weaker spot.
11. Victoria



Po1


1. Ramesses
2. Bismarc
3. Justinian- 5 wins and so few kills. Maybe I should swap with justin
4. De Gaulle- trashed late game by germany?
5. Lincoln- few kills
6. Asoka- victim of france?


Po2
So winner and third place moves to championship instead of runner up it seems.

1. Gandhi- can he do this? Murder that much?
2. Mansa Musa- always losts 1v1 to napster
3. Napoleon-survived every game minus one!
4. Pacal- low survive chance
5. Zara Yaqob- his one outlier game saw him run over gandhi or mao. High survival also.
6. Mao Zedong- zero wins.

So what Napoleon made into championship now? Or Mansa?

Po3
1. Saladin-dominant king
2. Kublai Khan
3. Hannibal- elizabeth could destroy him in any 1v1 with those capitals, maybe?
4. Mehmed- an outlier win, he captured all of england in a lucky dogpile event
5. Washington- he did what?
6. Elizabeth- dogpiled that badly? Her start is actually good?


Championship

But its confusion...
Yeah playoff2 aside, I am not putting who starts where round map.

So my final is
1. Saladin
2. Ramesses- with so many kills? I mean could Justin or De Gaulle really make it?
3. Kublai Khan- top trio is a mess. I just don't want to regret, should I put Hannibal instead?
4. Gandhi- zero kills
5. Napoleon- he made it, not mansa the runner up!
In season 5 playoff 2 you placed 3 wins over 4 wins due to score. But not here?
6. Bismarck

 

[Thrasybulos]

I believe that this is the first time the third place in wins will progress.

So winner and third place moves to championship instead of runner up it seems

Right, so I tried to make things less confusing and apparently achieved exactly the opposite!
Winner = most wins = "gold" cell
Runner-up = highest remaining score = "silver" (grey) cell

My default sort for the anonymized results is by wins then by score. And most of the times, at least for the top spots, it works just fine.
But sometimes (as was the case here) the runner-up has fewer wins than another leader ranked lower.
When that was the case previously, I would tweak the sort order so that the runner-up would always be listed second, but that seemed confusing.
So this time, I've kept the sort order consistent instead, with the highlighted cells providing the info.

Guess I should have kept the previous method.

 

[Fippy]

You make me miss Survivor already..but it's still months away