AI Survivor - AH Guessing Contest

[Genghis the Barbarian]

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

Potentially many months because of the newest baby Sullla

 

[Thrasybulos]

But, but... AI Survivor is Sullla's baby!
Why would he need another??

I'm gonna be away this week-end.
If @Eauxps I. Fourgott submits his guesses today, I'll post the results tonight.
Otherwise, it'll have to wait until Sunday evening (or possibly Monday if I'm too knackered when I get home).

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Whoops. Sorry for holding things up! In addition to this just being a generally very busy week for me, my interest in all things AI Survivor has majorly crashed for the moment.

I'll try to knock this out quickly, but this will also be a stream-of-consciousness thing that I write down as I think it through.

Spoiler Wildcard :

OK, so Vicky, Washington, and Burger King are pretty doomed. I think Washington's position is pretty strong so maybe he can luck out some decent finishes. Huayna's position is interesting, pretty isolated and I think weak? So he might not be very strong here either. At a guess before looking at the results Napoleon's position might be good?

OK, looking at the results, #1 has as many kills as wins. I guess Huayna's position isn't that weak after all! Then two leaders racked up a crapton of kills. I'm comfortable saying that Napoleon's likely the one with the five wins thanks to his relatively safe position that was good for Kublai with the actual lineup. I could call it a day there but I'm not that disinterested; I do want to submit a full prediction!

There are multiple other warmongers whom I might suspect of amassing 36 kills, but I'm going to guess Julius is the actual culprit. His position looks a bit dangerous but it was strong in Amica's AHs, and Burger King ought to be a popular target for him to grow strong off of without too much resistance.

One other leader who got few kills but could win a couple... I'll guess Washington. He's isolated enough for 40% survival to be feasible, I think. And for the other relatively successful leader, I'll guess Stalin, who has better proximity to the map's unpopular leaders and thus more room to move.

That leaves Shaka, Brennus, and Qin as simply too cramped in the east, without great targets, to be viable against those out west. Shaka with the most kills and Brennus accomplishing the least in general checks out. And then Burger King and Vicky are essentially doomed in this setup, with Vicky more likely to snipe a couple of kills thanks to her more sheltered position.

And I just realized I missed the other solo winner with only ten kills, and forgot to lump Peter anywhere. He fits in that position as well as anybody, though. I think most of these statlines are similar enough that they can't be predicted all that accurately.

Final answer: Huayna Capac, Napoleon, Stalin, Washington, Julius Caesar, Peter, Shaka, Qin, Brennus, Victoria, Charlemagne

Spoiler Playoff One :

Huh, interesting setup. And despite the relatively high peaceweight of the field, ikt doesn't look like it was all that peaceful of a set!

I should note I don't remember any alternate results from any of these playoff maps - haven't seen whatever Atesh has finished yet and don't remember anything from any previous alternate tournaments either.

I'm reasonably confident here in predicting Justinian and Bismarck as the two successful leaders, though. Bis's position was good for a championship spot in the real game and I think this balanced field without any economic juggernauts is a good setup for him to perform relatively well and amass a good kill total. Justin probably outdoes him, though, thanks to being Justin. Lincoln had the other Championship-worthy spot in the real season but is he really going to end with one of the set's highest kill totals? I doubt it.

I'll guess him for third place though. This seems a relatively favorable map for him to have the highest survival rate on, and the decent winrate with attached low killrate checks out as well.

There's not a whole lot differentiating the other three, all of whom seemed to have decent odds of surviving but were mostly non-contenders for the win. The lowest kill total would fit Asoka well, though, and I'll put the other low peaceweight last because De Lol.

Final answer: Justinian, Bismarck, Lincoln, Ramesses, Asoka, De Gaulle

Spoiler Playoff Two :

I have Napoleon as the wildcard leader here, who looks extremely out of place in this relatively peaceful field.

What jumps out looking at this set of results, though, is that there were three highly successful leaders who usually survived, and three who had little chance. That suggests a peaceweight split - and with those kill totals, one that favored the low peaceweights. I'd have guessed Mansa for a top spot, but who else is going to succeed that consistently alongside him AND rack up a good kill total?

No, I think Pacal is forced/inspired to be more violent than normal (perhaps with some killsteals), sees his rival peaceniks dogpiled again and again, and thus cruises to many victories. That would imply Mao is the other extremely successful leader (albeit far less likely to win), with Napoleon as the third wheel thanks to his violent nature - still a decent kill total, but less likely to survive and essentially a non-contender for the win.

Mansa and Gandhi being who they are, of course, they still have good odds of winning in the few games they don't survive. Poor Zara meanwhile is just out of luck.

Final answer: Pacal, Mansa, Mao (advancing tho), Gandhi, Napoleon, Zara

Spoiler Playoff Three :

This time I'm looking at the results before the map. Another tale of two leaders ROFLstomping everybody else, one of whom essentially has a lock on the win. Two mediocre leaders, one weak one, and one completely hopeless one. I have Huayna down as one of the leaders in this field, who else do we have?

OK, looking at the actual map, clearly it's Liz who's doomed. Now then, which Financial leader will be the unstoppable juggernaut in the wake of her demise? Hannibal has the more likely personality to snowball across the map and more space... but Huayna's as far as possible from the only likely backstabber of this bunch. That settles it; when in doubt, bet on Capac.

With that being said, Hannibal as his #2 seems like a pretty solid bet here. So which of the other three was hopeless? Mehmed's the easiest pick since he's in the middle, but I'm actually going to guess Saladin instead. Kublai made the finals from this spot, but he had much better conquest options. I don't think Sal will have great land and he'll probably struggle to spread his religion effectively, leaeding to him lacking leverage to accomplish anything.

Final answer: Huayna, Hannibal, Mehmed, Kublai, Saladin, Elizabeth

Spoiler Championship :

My championship field is Justinian, Bismarck, Pacal, Mao, Huayna, and Hannibal.

Hmm, which of those is least likely to win? For "some reason", my gut is telling me Bismarck. Three wins and no kills also has an obvious answer: Pacal. That's the easy part.

That leaves four leaders remaining. One was mediocre and managed only a single win. The other three were all essentially equivalent with about equal survival and killrates. One won more than the others but was that a meaningful difference or just swings of luck?

Mao seems the obvious odd-one-out here, leaving Huayna, Hannibal and Justin to battle it out. Of those, Justin seems most likely to have the least wins owing to not being Financial. As for the overall winner...

Well, with odds like this, it would be pretty silly for me to not pick Huayna and have him be the right answer, wouldn't it?

Final answer: Huayna, Hannibal, Justinian, Pacal, Mao, Bismarck

 

[Thrasybulos]

my interest in all things AI Survivor has majorly crashed for the moment

Issue with burnout, the first signs usually get ignored. When they finally get noticed, it means it's too late to avoid a hard burnout.

 

[Thrasybulos]

This actually turned out to be a fairly hard to predict set, and to be honest, I would have fared poorly.
Amazingly though, you nearly all nailed the wildcard results perfectly.
But none of you got the Champion, and actually only Eauxps even had him in the final setup!

Atesh (@Genghis the Barbarian ) got HC and DG: 2 pts
@a pen-dragon got HC, Mao, Ramesses: 3 pts
@Keler got Ramesses: 1 pt
@Eauxps I. Fourgott got HC, Mao, Pacal, Hannibal: 4 pts

For Season 2, there are no existing AH (apart from the few incomplete sets that Sullla ran), so we could have something different:

• I post the anonymized results for the opening rounds and the WC.
  For each game, you get 1 pt per correctly placed leader, and x2 if you correctly identify both the winner and runner-up.
• Then we do the same thing for the Playoffs.
• And then for the Championship.

As it would yield a lot more points than what we've done so far, it could be a standalone contest (that would allow Atesh to take part on an equal footing, and Eauxps has said several times that he'd rather not get spoiled for Season 2 so he might sit that one out).

What do you guys think?

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Fine with that

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Issue with burnout, the first signs usually get ignored. When they finally get noticed, it means it's too late to avoid a hard burnout.

Especially when you're thinking "Let's see if I can finish getting through this game/season..." (I couldn't and still have something like 40% left of S1P3. We'll see when that ever is done.)

But I figured this had to be coming at some point. I was doing too much for too long for it to not. It'll be fine, I always have phases with these things.

As for S2, your earlier arguments plus my own unlikeliness to address the games myself anytime soon have me more inclined to go ahead and participate. But we'll see.

I like the idea of the format you proposed and you could still apply the later rounds' points to the contest as normal. But my feedback counts for the least here given my current (lack of) engagement.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Especially when you're thinking "Let's see if I can finish getting through this game/season..." (I couldn't and still have something like 40% left of S1P3. We'll see when that ever is done.)

But I figured this had to be coming at some point. I was doing too much for too long for it to not. It'll be fine, I always have phases with these things.

As for S2, your earlier arguments plus my own unlikeliness to address the games myself anytime soon have me more inclined to go ahead and participate. But we'll see.

I like the idea of the format you proposed and you could still apply the later rounds' points to the contest as normal. But my feedback counts for the least here given my current (lack of) engagement.

If need be would you like for me to do some of S2?

 

[Keler]

I don't mind what you do with this contest. So this means contest is over and I am last place?
I will participate regardeless but what I really wonder is what your conclusion will be after completing season 2 AHs.
Which should be posted on the other thread. Then you go back AI League?

 

[Thrasybulos]

As far as I'm concerned, you're all so close together that it's basically a tie.

Yeah, I'll post the rankings after the AH for S2 are done.

And the League will get restarted after that, but there'll be a hiatus: I won't be doing anything Civ4-related during the Chrismas + New Year period that's for sure, then I'll probably extend that break by a few weeks.
After that, the idea is to play the whole of a League Tournament to check whether I'm happy with the formulas or need to tweak them, before I post anything.
So a ballpark estimate for publishing the first League results would be sometime in March?

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

If need be would you like for me to do some of S2?

"Need" is an interesting term for this. Let's put it this way: I don't care at all if the S2 alternate histories are not completed for ages. I am happy for them to wait as long as it takes me to get around to them. In that sense, I feel no "need" whatsoever for anybody else to contribute. (And my assumption is that my interest in AI Survivor stuff will be rekindled at some point - I tend to go in "on" and "off" phases like this with all of my interests - and at that point, I will be excited to tackle the S2 AHs if they are still available, and from that point of view would kind of like them to still be available.)

Of course, if you really want to take them on yourself, there's no reason you can't - it's certainly not reasonable for me to expect everybody to leave them alone indefinitely solely so that I can do them whenever I want.

(Openers 2 and 3, and then I think 6 (the Mansa one) are the ones I'm most specifically interested in though, so if you do decide to tackle this season yourself, it would be nice if you could at least leave those for last.)

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

"Need" is an interesting term for this. Let's put it this way: I don't care at all if the S2 alternate histories are not completed for ages. I am happy for them to wait as long as it takes me to get around to them. In that sense, I feel no "need" whatsoever for anybody else to contribute. (And my assumption is that my interest in AI Survivor stuff will be rekindled at some point - I tend to go in "on" and "off" phases like this with all of my interests - and at that point, I will be excited to tackle the S2 AHs if they are still available, and from that point of view would kind of like them to still be available.)

Of course, if you really want to take them on yourself, there's no reason you can't - it's certainly not reasonable for me to expect everybody to leave them alone indefinitely solely so that I can do them whenever I want.

(Openers 2 and 3, and then I think 6 (the Mansa one) are the ones I'm most specifically interested in though, so if you do decide to tackle this season yourself, it would be nice if you could at least leave those for last.)

I guess “need” wasn’t the correct term - more like if you wanted help from me to knock some out if/when you started working on S2 to reduce likelihood of burnout, I definitely plan to take a break after finishing S3.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

I guess “need” wasn’t the correct term - more like if you wanted help from me to knock some out if/when you started working on S2 to reduce likelihood of burnout, I definitely plan to take a break after finishing S3.

Ah, that makes sense. Well, as I mentioned, I'm not going to be vexed about the idea of it taking a long time and several bursts for me to finish S2. But if I change my mind later, I'll keep you in mind.

 

[Thrasybulos]

All right, lets get the Season 2 special rolling.

As a reminder, for each game, you'll score 1 point for each leader correctly identified, and you'll double your score if you correctly identify both the winner (gold highlight) and the runner-up (silver-highlight).
Results are sorted by number of wins then by score.

I've linked Sullla's Season 2 page above, but in addition, let's recap the games composition:

As for the results:

Spoiler :

 

[a pen-dragon]

Spoiler G1 :

Mao - Peri - Liz - Vicky - Hammu - Zara

As a general remark the rid climate probabl disadvantages builders, since most individual cities will be weaker. The jungle belt in the center becomes stronger.

Mao is the only low-PW here. Liz is very close to him. Zara and Peri start in the jungle and Mao has lots of rivers with floodplains, making his and above average on this map. Vicky and especially Hammu seem to have little good land and probably will be quite weak.

Of the AIs Pericles is fairly adept at going culture, Mao is a solid leader overall, Liz is a techer that needs some calm, Vicky is at least financial and Zara and Hammu are relatively weak.

I think that Mao is likely to overrun Liz. Since the northern leaders probably will have slow games this may be sufficient to get him over the line. Seeing the first with 20 kills makes me think of him.

His biggest rival probably is Pericles, who will survive more and kill less.

Since Mao dies in 8 games that leaves some room for Liz to show the rest how teching works and she probably is the one in third.

Zara will probably be a bit better than Vicky or Hammu, due to his land. OTOH Vicky is financial and if not conquered by Peri might get some wins. Hammu seems weaker than both but may survive more due to being farther away from the big threats. Zara being close to Mao makes me place him last, with Vicky fourth due to being financial.

Spoiler G2 :

HC - Wang - DeG - Boudi - Stalin - Monty - Church

HC, DeG and Churchill have the best land. This map also contains Wang, Stalin, Monty and Boudica with roughly equal starts.

The first must be HC, due to great land, close targets and weakish opponents.

Besides him there are four leaders with at most 6 survivals + wins. Churchill seems to be a big dogpile target, in the middle of a map with 2 extreme warmongers (Boudi, Monty), 2 other unfriendly low-PWs (DeG, Stalin) and HC on top. I do not think that he will survive often.

I think that Boudica has a small edge over Monty, due to having less forests, more backlines and being slighly less crazy.

Wang is financial in a corner and could get a win or two. Stalin also has a shot at winning by conquering Huayna. DeG may win, but only because I think that Church and Monty are the last two and he needs to win. I do not think he has a 5% chance at winning on this map.

Spoiler G3 :

Gandhi - Saladin - Gilga - Darius - Asoka - Wash

Of those players only Gandhi and maybe Asoka are able to have the result the first has. Gandhi is way more likely due to his culture-hyperfocus. Also Gandhi has Darius and Asoka as meatshields.

For the rest this looks very similar, except maybe the last. I think Wash is most likely to be last due to being the isolated high-PW and not that adept at warfare. Gilga probably is the 11/11 third, since he will declare more wars than Saladin and thus kill more, both others and himself.

I will place Asoka fifth, due to being far away from Gilga, resulting in high survival and low kills. Darius fourth due to being at war with Gilga and sometimes killing him. That leaves Saladin second.

Spoiler G4 :

Cathy - Justi - Louis - Ragnar - Charly - Peter - Bis

Cathy has a good start, in a corner, next to a probable outcast, Charly, and decent land. Rag, Louis and Justi also have decent land and Peter seems to have bad land. I think that both Bis and Charly will frequently be conquered, due to being both at 6 PW in this field.

Bis probably is first to die due to being weaker militarily and bordering the more dangerous Ragnar and Peter instead of Justi and Cathy. Thus I will place Bis last.

For a win I think that Cathy and Ragnar will be contenders for conquests. Louis might get a cultural win, but I think this is less likely due to stopping teching being a bad idea militarily and border tensopns building up. Justinian also has a shot at winning, due to being a good leader. Charly might just win if he somehow can withstand Cathy. Peter will probably not win due to his bad start. Thus Peter sixth.

Charly will probably have less kills than the others, making him third or fifth. Cathy and Rag probably are amongst the ones with 15+ kills. If Louis goes culture he will also have few wins. Additionally I think that Justi is mor elikely to win with relatively few kills. Thus I think Cathy first, Justi second, due to many wins, and few kills, Louis third due to a few (culture) wins and few kills, Rag fourth due to kills and few wins, and Charly fifth, getting a lucky win.

Spoiler G5 :

Shaka - Willem - Hanni - Toku - Isa - Frederick

The first one certainly had a strong military performance, and little actual danger of being wiped out. On this map this most likely is a Shaka stomp. Freddy last due to being a likely early Shaka target and weak leader. Isa probably does only slightly better.

Hanni, Willem and Toku ahve higher chances of survival due to being on the other end of the continent. Willem probably gets eliminated most frequently out of these three, due to bordering both others. Toku has the lowest chances of winning, due to being Toku and not financial. That means Willem second, Hanni third and Toku fourth.

Spoiler G6 :

AC - Rammy - Mansa - Brennus - Hatty - Alex - Mehmed

On this map both Egyptian leaders have the best land. The others have a bit worse land, but there are no big differences. There are four high-PW leaders on this map with Rammy, Hatty, Mansa and Augie. All of these are amongst the stronger leaders. They border each other, making assistance against low-PWs possible, depending on how religions spread. Since three of them go for Religions like lemmings this might disadvantage them, due to spreading the religions.

What is significant is the big desert separating Brennus from the rest. Alex only borders high-PWs, and might get some kills, especially on Hatty. If Alex attacks Mansa and his Skirmishers before construction he will probably be eliminated soon.

Looking at the totals, three leaders shared the wins and three barely survived. What speaks against the low-PWs is that all these high-PWs are good at econ, both Brennus and Alex do not know what econ means, Mehmed is close to Augustus, and I think that the probability for someone else running away with the game is too high for one low-PW to get five wins.

Due to there being more high-PW than low-PW I will place Augie first, since Preats are a nice weapon. I do not think Mehmed will survive them often. Of the three others Rammy is the one bordering no low-PW but probably the most warlike.

The last three are probably Brennus - Alex - Mehmed in that order, because Brennus is in a corner thus more difficult to reach and Alex is more likely to have a kill than Mehmed. All without wins.

This interpretation has the weakness of one of the high-PW not winning. The most likely explanation would be Hatty being mislead into pre-construction wars by having horses in her capital. (Plotting with only war chariots really is a stupid mechanic)

That leaves probably Mansa third, with Alex-kills, and Rammy second.

I will place Hatty behind Brennus due to Brennus being relatively safe, and Hatty only surviving five games making it more likely she did no win.

Spoiler G7 :

Qin - JC - KK - Joao - SB - Lincoln

7/4/8???? Who could have such a result? JC and Kublai are uncapable of having such low amount of kills, SB probbly not, Lincoln and Joao seem to have relatively weak starts, seemingly only leaving Qin?

Second and third look like JC and KK due to the high number of kills. JC probably second due to a more central start.

Then Joao, Lincoln, SB. Joao has a shot at Kublai and might win some games. Lincoln seems too peaceful for this map. SB might get a win somehow due to surviving long enough.

Spoiler G8 :

Napoleon - Pacal - Sulei - Cyrus - Genghis - Sury - Wash

Here I think tht Wash and Pacal got relatively poor land. The others seem roughly on the same level, maybe Sury has a bit less good land.

Nappy looks like he has a good position to profit from the weakness of the eastern leaders. In the west we have a hoard of Warmongers with Genghis, Cyrus, maybe Sulei and definitely Nappy, who could slow each other down.

I think Nappy first is relatively safe. As for second, this is a more peaceful leader. It could be Pacal, leverageing financial into wins, despite the land, or Cyrus, maybe even Sulei, playing a relatively peaceful game.

Washington last seems almost assured, due to him being the only high-PW. Pacal doing badly would mean all four western leaders doing well, but that seems unlikely. Thus Pacal probably is second.

Genghis has his difficulties doing econ, so I think he is the least likely to win, and he is way too agressive, starting wars too early, possibly making him fifth. I find it difficult to decide between Sulei and Cyrus, but I will say Sulei third, due to slightly better land.

 

[Keler]

Spoiler G1 :

1.Mao Zedong
2.Pericles
3.Elizabeth
4.Victoria
5.Hammurabi
6.Zara Yaqob

Spoiler G2 :

I really hate this sorting problem to be fair. And Huayna Capac again despite not having the best capital?
1.Huayna Capac
2.Stalin
3.Wang Kon
4.De Gaulle
5.Montezuma
6.Boudica
7.Churchill

Spoiler G3 :

Everyone else after 20 win Gandhi is so random.
1.Gandhi
2.Darius
3.Saladin
4.Lincoln
5.Asoka
6.Gilgamesh

Spoiler G4 :

1.Catherine
2.Justinian
3.Louis XIV
4.Ragnar
5.Bismarck
6.Peter
7.Charlemagne

Spoiler G5 :

1.Shaka
2.Willem van Oranje
3.Hannibal
4.Tokugawa
5.Isabella
6.Frederick

Spoiler G6 :

1.Ramesses
2.Hatshepsut
3.Mansa Musa
4.Augustus Caesar
5.Mehmed
6.Brennus
7.Alexander

Spoiler G7 :

Maybe I should have swapped Sitting Bull and Joao.
1.Joao
2.Julius Caesar
3.Sitting Bull
4.Kublai Khan
5.Lincoln
6.Qin Shi Huang

Spoiler G8 :

1.Cyrus
2.Pacal
3.Suleiman
4.Napoleon
5.Ghenghis Khan
6.Suryavarman
7.Washington

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

I went through and looked at each map from the save file in my copy of Civ 4, but I didn't look at Keler's maps at all. Here goes:

Spoiler Game 1 :

Mao, Pericles, Liz, Vicky, Hammurabi, Zara

Mao is the PW outcast, but he pulled it off in the real game and he has an amazing starting position, plus excellent traits to exploit it. Only six wins and 60% survival underscores the danger of his position but he has as good of a shot as anybody. That high kill total also works out since the PW situation would land him in a lot of conflict.

Pericles's position isn't great, but it's decent and again worked for him in the real game. The distant presence of Mao and weakness (and easy friendliness) of Vicky make this an extremely safe position that he survives from in almost every game, but due to lack of amazing land or amazing AI personality, the majority of those survivals are nothing special.

Liz fights Mao a lot and is boom-or-bust. When she booms it's peacefully, not by the sword.

The other three are all in poor shape, with lousy land up north and a cramped position near Mao for Zara. Of the three, I think Vicky has the best path to victory: not a lot of danger, somewhat more fertile-looking land than Hammurabi, and Financial. She thus sneaks out a few wins this way.

The last two don't accomplish much of anything and Zara dies more due to his central position.

Spoiler Game 2 :

Huayna, Wang, Churchill, Boudica, De Gaulle, Stalin, Monty

None of the positions on this map are super inspiring. Huayna's looks at least as good as any other and he's Huayna. Case closed.

After him there's only two leaders who are at all decent at even surviving. I think Boudy's a good bet to be the greater of these: while lack of starting techs will weaken her vs. in the real game, she still has a rather safe position, far away from Huayna, and Monty to snack on.

I could see the other being either Stalin or De Gaulle, but since Hauyna doesn't seem to have been terribly aggressive, I'll guess Stalin has a decent chance of being ignored while the Inca go after higher PW targets. However, with Huayna and Churchill as his two closest neighbors there's no room for him to snowball.

The other four are largely hopeless, with one more so (no wins, only one survival, and less kills). I could see the case for one of the higher PWs in the hopeless position... but I can't not choose Monty.

That leaves the others with a real if low chance of success. I think Wang is the best set up since Huayna is his only danger, could ignore him some, and Wang has Financial. Churchill is mostly doomed, but his central position allows him to snowball ahead in the very rare games where he doesn't die. (Maybe fueled off an early conquest of Capac to remove the economic pressure on him? Wang would be his only other rival in that scenario.) And De Gaulle is largely hapless but lucks into one win.

Spoiler Game 3 :

Gandhi, Darius, Saladin, Roosevelt, Asoka, Gilgamesh

100% winrate! Was NOT expecting anything that dominant for sure. That leaves three options: either Gandhi's position with those extra backlines was in fact so strong that victory was guaranteed; Darius's super juicy capital location made him unstoppable and he just got unlucky/tech-screwed in the real game; or one of the other four is unexpectedly super strong.

Well, upon review, none of the other four positions look as strong to me. And with the remaining two options, given that one of them is this guy...

Team Gandhi all the way! His position honestly doesn't look that OP to me, but he's the most likely suspect. And I suppose his friendly neighbors count for a lot. The low killcount also corresponds well.

The problem with a 100% winrate is that it's hard to get any meaningful distinction among the others. 0 wins, 45-85% survival rate, and 2-11 kills for each one - can't be too certain about anything there! I make my best effort though.

I'm guessing Darius's capital is strong enough, combined with having peaceful Gandhi as a neighbor, that he can't help but survive almost every game even if he accomplishes almost nothing with those survivals. Sal goes out and gets the most done, much as in the real game, but it's an uphill battle. Roosevelt has a lousy position but his friends helping him against Sal/Gilgamesh counts for a lot and lets him get several kill credits. Asoka is in little danger but is too peaceful to accomplish much in terms of scoring (and is probably bogged down a lot by crusades with Sal). Finally, Gilgamesh does the worst by virtue of having a horrible start position.

Spoiler Game 4 :

Justinian, Louis, Charlemagne, Cathy, Peter, Ragnar, Bismarck

Cathy won the real game in convincing fashion, but that victory was based on the success of an extremely early war against Burger King. We know she's a much slower starter, especially economically, without the bonus starting techs, so I'm not so hot on her chances here.

Instead, it's a different duo, both of whom died in the real game, that I think are the real power players here. Louis has an extremely dangerous position in the dead center of a heavily militaristic map, plus his own nature that gets him into trouble. But he does seem to have the best combo of starting land and starting techs to get off to a strong start, plus the cultural focus to cross the finish line as well, so I think he gets a good share of wins. When he doesn't, though, it's usually going to be because Justinian is at least somewhat profiting off his demise - thus leading to a more consistent set and the best overall performance on the map. Justin's also got a tantalizing capital, and his peaceweight and more northerly position should help him avoid too much trouble.

Cathy and Burger King are next, and I'm betting they survive together in 0-2 games total. Cathy's got a more favorable overall diplomatic position, so she has an easier time surviving, but she's virtually never able to snowball ahead of the central duo. On the other hand, if Burger King gets the upper hand and conquers most to all of Russia, he's got a very strong empire that can compete for the win. It's not a common occurrence though.

Of the other three, Peter's largely out of luck but manages to scam one win; Ragnar is decent at cracking heads and surviving, but Financial can't compensate for his overmilitarism and he can't win; and unpopular Bis with poor land is the map's punching bag.

Spoiler Game 5 :

Shaka, Willem, Tokugawa, Hannibal, Isabella, Frederick

This is the only game with any existing AHs, as Sullla long ago did a five-game set as one of his earliest experiments with that concept. I haven't looked them up in making these answers, but as I recall they reinforced Shaka and then Toku being the two strongest and Fred being doomed, while Willem died five times and winning once.

The 44 kills makes the winner pretty easy to guess. Loss of starting techs doesn't faze Shaka and he continues to run over the map time and time again.

Toku is second place once more with his own strong kill total, if far below Shaka. The actual second-highest winrate must be Willem; I just can't envision anybody else winning this map four times with only one kill.

Hannibal has a surprisingly high kill total for what looks like a weak position, but I guess dogpiling his neighbors with the help of Shaka/Toku helps. Izzy is doomed on this map, except she randomly pops off exactly once. Perhaps that was the one game where Shaka died? I did like her position pretty well but I think the diplo landscape isn't recoverable enough for her.

This map might be a whole different story if we had another leader in that central position. It doesn't look half-bad (albeit between two neighbors who will be dangerous for anybody). However, we got Fred. 'Nuff said.

Spoiler Game 6 :

Mansa, Ramesses, Mehmed, Brennus, Augustus, Alexander, Hatshepsut

This feels like a pretty rich map all around, but three leaders seem to be rather on the outside looking in, land-wise: Brennus, Alex, and Augustus. That leaves the others as the real contender, and whom would I trust to get the incredibly consistent 95% survival rate? Only Mansa. It's a high kill total for a relatively peaceful leader, but we've seen in the past that Mansa can crack some skulls with the best of them.

That leaves two secondary contenders. I like Mehmed's start and techs a lot so he seems like the obvious pick for the high kill total that comes along with the second playoff spot. Ramesses is out of the way so I imagine he finds a way to outculture Mansa about a third of the time.

The last spot with a decent survival rate goes not to Hatty, but to Brennus, who I figure can often either tag along with Mehmed or else dodge the forces that knock him out, while at the same time having no hope of winning himself. That leasves the relatively poor positions of Alex/Augustus and the bordering-three-warmongers position of Hatty as the no-hopers on this map. RIP Hatty.

Spoiler Game 7 :

Lincoln, Kublai, Qin, Sitting Bull, Joao, Julius

Do we believe in JC on this map? No, no we don't. Fishing/Mining do not juice up this starting position, ergo he flails around a lot and gets into trouble with all of his neighbors.

That top statline has me good and puzzled, though. Who on this map is in position to win that much but also get that low of a kill count? Without any economic heavyweights it's pretty puzzling. I think it's one of the two eastern leaders, though, and ultimately settled on Lincoln. His land does have very high commerce potential, so all he needs to do in many games is dodge Qin's aggression for long enough and he's one of the game leaders. This is a generally ineffective bunch, so the "tech in a corner and hope everybody else fails" strategy could well be more successful than average here.

Qin is the other one I'd expect as that double gems + Mining start looks quite juicy. I think he should definitely be one of the top three leaders as his danger level is relatively low. However, I ultimately went for less wins + more survivals/kills; that high of a kill count for him is a bit odd with Lincoln being so successful, but on the flip side there are still quite a few games where Lincoln dies, and I figure Qin's got to grapple with JC sometimes as well. My alternative option was Qin first, SB third, Lincoln probably fifth, but SB is probably in more danger?

Second place was easy at least; honestly, what's really impressive is that Kublai managed to die that many times, because if JC is weak as I expect then I don't know how he manages it from that privileged position. Easy access to JC and Joao allows Kublai to rack up the kills and if he were a better leader he might be a juggernaut here. Incidentally, this is the very map that started my annoyance at Kublai consistently underperforming but not getting called out on it by the real big dogs.

As for the other two, SB is viable here, but still in a hazardous position and will always have trouble crossing the finish line first, while Joao's pretty screwed but managers to luck into one win.

Spoiler Game 8 :

Cyrus, Pacal, Napoleon, Suryavarman, Genghis, Suleiman, Washington

This one was a real puzzle as there were three hopeless leaders. It was easy to guess the unpopular Washington and insane Genghis as two of them, but who in the world would be the third? Nobody else's position looked that bad.

To start with, the top two seemed very likely to be the same as in the real game. 7 wins/8 kills is Pacal's brand, and it was easy to imagine that Washington next door gave him the breathing room needed to regularly pull ahead despite an uninspiring location. Cyrus has tons of space and benefits further from Genghis's demise; I think he comes in like a wrecking ball against the rest of the map just like in the real game.

Of the other three, I liked both Napoleon and Suleiman's starts considerably more than Surys'... but Sury has the peaceful Pacal and easy target Washington nearby. Is he really that likely to be eliminated 80% of the time or more? I ultimately settled instead on Suleiman, who had the decidedly more prickly Genghis and Cyrus nearby, as the best bet to disappoint. RIP Sillyman.

Napoleon's start + techs make him a force to be reckoned with on this map and he manages several snowballs, but ultimately Cyrus and Sury pick him apart by the end more often than not. Sury's mostly a sidekick and I guess got lucky on dogpiles/killed Pacal to win once. Suleiman just gets roughed up too much and can't do anything well enough to come out in front. That's my bet, at least.

That was a fun set to go through. We'll see if I'm still interested in running these games under the "true" conditions once I get back into doing my own AHs, but this may have been worth it either way.

I feel like Arid also makes for the most distinctive-looking maps of any of the climate options. Would be fun to return to it for a season sometime down the road.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Looking through the results now, and I see all three of us had a different opinion on whom the American in G3 was.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I'm leaving on Saturday for the end-of-year period, so in order to wrap this up in time, slight change of plan: I'll be done tonight with the Championship runs (13 down, 7 to go), and I'll post tomorrow the anonymized results for the Wilcard, Playofffs and Championship (initially I wanted to post them one by one so you'd have the correct list of leaders for each, but you'll have to do as previously with your guesses carrying ).

@Genghis the Barbarian, if you want to have a go at this, today's the last day.

 

[Thrasybulos]

So, the answers were:

Spoiler Game 1 :

1. Mao
   
2. Pericles
   
3. Elizabeth
4. Zara
5. Victoria
6. Hammurabi

@a pen-dragon got the top 3: 3 x 2 = 6 pts
@Keler had the same answer: 6 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott ditto: 6 pts

Spoiler Game 2 :

1. Huyna Capac
2. Montezuma
3. Churchill
4. De Gaulle
   
5. Stalin
6. Boudica
7. Wang Kon

@a pen-dragon got the HC and Stalin: 2 pts
@Keler got HC, DG, and Boudica: 3 x 2 = 6 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott got HC and Churchill: 2 pts

Spoiler Game 3 :

That one was essentially unreadable past Gandhi.

1. Gandhi
   
2. Roosevelt
   
3. Saladin
4. Darius
5. Asoka
6. Gilgamesh

@a pen-dragon got the Gandhi, Darius, Asoka: 3 pts
@Keler got Gandhi, Saladin, Asoka, Gilgamesh: 4 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott same: 4 pts

Spoiler Game 4 :

1. Catherine
   
2. Justinian
   
3. Louis
4. Ragnar
5. Bismarck
6. Peter
7. Charlie

@a pen-dragon got the top 4: 4 x 2 = 8 pts
@Keler got went full house: 7 x 2 = 14 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott went the opposite: 0 pt

Spoiler Game 5 :

1. Shaka
   
2. Willem
3. Tokugawa
   
4. Hannibal
5. Isabella
6. Freddy

@a pen-dragon got Shaka, Willem, Izzy, Freddy: 4 pts
@Keler had the same: 4 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott got them all: 6 x 2 = 12 pts

Spoiler Game 6 :

1. Ramesses
   
2. Hatty
3. Mansa
   
4. Augustus
5. Brennus
6. Mehmed
7. Alex

@a pen-dragon got only Mansa: 1 pt
@Keler got nearly got them all: 5 x 2 = 10 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott whiffed : 0 pt

Two of you are still non-Hatty believers it would seem.

Spoiler Game 7 :

This was a tough one.

1. Joao
   
2. Julius
   
3. Qin
4. Kublai
5. Lincoln
6. SB

@a pen-dragon got JC: 1 pt
@Keler got Joao, Julius, Kublai, Lincoln: 4 x 2 = 8 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott got Qin: 1 pt

Spoiler Game 8 :

1. Suleiman
   
2. Pacal
   
3. Napoleon
4. Cyrus
5. Genghis
6. Sury
7. Washington

@a pen-dragon got Pacal and the bottom 4: 5 pts
@Keler got Pacal and the bottom 3: 4 pts
@Eauxps I. Fourgott got Pacal, Napoleon, Genghis, Washington : 4 pts

Which gives as a current tally:

1. @Keler 56 pts
2. @a pen-dragon 30 pts
3. @Eauxps I. Fourgott 29 pts

(Hope I haven't made any mistake )