AI Survivor - AH Guessing Contest

Alright, since Atesh ended up not participating, we actually have three options here:
  1. Proceed as planned with the "Season 2 special". Eauxps and a pen-dragon have some catching up to do in that case!
  2. End the "Season 2 special" here (Keler wins) and add S2's final rounds to the standard contest.
  3. Do both scorings!
Which option would you prefer?

There's 3 of you and 3 possibilities: if you end up splitting the votes 1-1-1, my tie-breaking vote will go to option 2 as it means the least work for me. :p


So, for the final rounds of Season 2, we get the following game composition:

S2_Contest_Composition.png


Spoiler Wildcard Map :

S2_Contest_Map_Wildcard.jpg


Spoiler Playoff 1 Map :

Note: As was the case for Season 3 (and maybe Season 1, with me not paying attention ?), Sullla used alphabetical order for turn order, while I used the result-based turn order of the later seasons. Hence, once again, leaders starting from different spots than in the live games even though they had the same result.

S2_Contest_Map_Playoff1.jpg


Spoiler Playoff 2 Map :

S2_Contest_Map_Playoff2.jpg


Spoiler Playoff 3 Map :

S2_Contest_Map_Playoff3.jpg


The game results were:

S2_Contest_Wildcard.png

S2_Contest_Playoffs.png

S2_Contest_Championship.png
 
Doing both seems to make the most logical sense, although Keler not winning the S2 contest with that lead would come as a big surprise.
 
I'd say end season 2 special so I win that :D
And continue with main contest where I am 3 points behind or something and Huayna wins the tournament as always...
14 wins??
I will post my prediction 10-12 hours later. Lets finish fast to give you some time to conclude before holiday.
 
Spoiler Wildcard :

1.Louis XIV
2.Hannibal
3.Elizabeth-put any low pw leader here, they win 6-7 times at worst.
4.Qin Sh Huang
5.Willem van Oranje
6.Cyrus
7.Kublai Khan
8.Napoleon
9.Ragnar
10.Zara Yaqob
11.Hatshepsut


Spoiler Playoff1 :

1.Catherine
2.Joao
3.Tokugawa
4.Pacal-it doesn't matter for this contest, maybe swapping Joao and Pacal makes more sense.
5.De Gaulle
6.Mao Zedong


Spoiler Playoff2 :

1.Huayna Capac- this is a quite bad performance for him
2.Suleiman
3.Hannibal
4.Shaka
5.Roosevelt
6.Mansa Musa- they both have very high survival interestingly


Spoiler Playoff3 :

1.Justinian
2.Ramesses
3.Louis XIV
4.Pericles
5.Julius Caesar
6.Gandhi-designated loser


Spoiler Final :

1.Huayna Capac- just to be safe.
2.Justinian-they are all same.
3.Catherine
4.Suleiman
5.Ramesses
6.Tokugawa
 
No arguments this time.
Spoiler WC :

Cyrus - Willem - Liz - Hanni - Zara - KK - Rag - Qin - Nappy - Louis - Hatty


Spoiler P1 :

Mao - Pacal - Cathy - DeG - Toku - Joao


Spoiler P2 :

HC - Mansa - Sulei - Shaka - Roos - Willem


Spoiler P3 :

Justi - Cyrus - Peri - Rammy - JC - Gandhi


Spoiler Championship :

HC - Justi - Cyrus - Cathy - Pacal - Mansa
 
I've published the game results.

I don't have the time to compute your scores, sorry. :(
One of you can do it if you're interested, or I'll do it when I get back.

Merry Christmas to you guys! :)
 
What can I say? Middle of the work week when I'm having my brain melted by the stuff I'm working on and then going to boring office Christmas parties isn't the best time to sit down and have a good think/analysis/write about this. Saturday morning is much better.

I made the below without peeking at the posted results. It's up to Thrasy whether to count them or not.

Spoiler Wildcard :

Napoleon, Louis, Liz, Cyrus, Zara, Hannibal, Ragnar, Kublai, Qin, Willem, Hatty

It's hard to guess much about how all the low PWs will do vs. each other with so many in the game. No spots looked particularly overpowered to me. What is easy to guess, though, is that the high PWs are the three who don't survive much. I underestimated Hatty in the opening round... but c'mon, look who her neighbors are here. There's no way. Liz has what looks like the best spot on the map by a good margin, and with friendlier neighbors might be a juggernaut here. As is, she wins almost every game she survives, but the latter part is pretty tough to pull off. I don't think there's anything special enough about Zara or his position to be likely to overtake any of the low PWs as the third low survival rate.

I don't love anybody's spot for that top scoreline with so many wins and kills, but I ended up going with Napoleon. It's a dangerous position, but it's also in the lush central belt, and if he can build up on that, take more good land from Liz, and see his neighbors go after the high PW bait instead... it could be manageable. Mainly I struggle to see anybody else achieving that kill count.

For the other two successful survivors who also win games, Cyrus has the potential to snowball through the west coast, while Louis can do his cultural thing as well as poaching land off Hatty. Hannibal was out of contention here; his start looks pretty crappy and he doesn't have any nearby conquest opportunities. Willem I don't think is likely to amass that high of a kill count.

Liz seems pretty win-or-die with that nice, spacious starting position and her traits. Zara is less successful but probably snowballs through her once?

And then it's just shades of mediocrity for the rest. Hannibal and Ragnar are at least fairly safe, so I gave them the higher survival rates. Kublai is near the theoretically strong Napoleon and Louis which dampens his hopes of surviving. And Qin and Willem simply can't accomplish enough in this scenario.


Spoiler Playoff One :

De Gaulle, Pacal, Cathy, Mao, Toku, Joao

This is a fairly easy one to read (correctly? That's a whole different question). Joao is the PW outcast and pretty toast. That leaves his land available for primarily Cathy and De Gaulle to benefit from. Ergo they should be the two getting a lot of kills and wins. De Gaulle's position is much safer with only the not-that-aggressive Mao as another neighbor, so I think he's in the pole position to have a great run.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, Pacal is quite isolated. I don't know if his low winrate is because of poor land quality, his own failures, or getting beat up on later, but in any case it's lower than I'd expect. Still, a third of the time the others just let him run away with it.

As for the others, Joao is ded. The 2 wins but only 4 total survivals is an interesting statistic as nobody else on this map seemed to be in that much trouble; central Mao (next to every strong leader) seems the best candidate. Not sure how his winning games happened though (murdering DG early?) Toku seems like the better candidate for more survivals from his corner, but not accomplishing a whole lot with them.


Spoiler Playoff Two :

Mansa Musa, Huayna, Suleiman, Shaka, Roosevelt, Louis

The most interesting thing about this statline is that nobody dies all the time! All survival rates are right in the middle of the spectrum with only 30% separating the highest from the lowest, despite the high peaceweights being outnumbered and sandwiched by the lows. Interesting, most interesting.

So then, the question. Do I believe that Mansa will survive at least 40% of the time, from a central position with immediate access to gold and enemies all around, and win zero of those games? The answer: No. Thus I think he and Huayna more or less have to run the table on this one.

Mansa is the more successful of the pair as he turns out to be too strong on this map. He keeps killing his attackers and winds up with the higher score as a result. Huayna does well and probably dominates if someone like Fred is in the Mansa spot.

Of the others, one has a notably higher survival rate, and I'm guessing Suleiman: he's not a big dogpile target like Roosevelt, and his position has MUCH more room to move than Shaka/Louis's (plus he's farther from the Mansa buzzsaw). As for the last three, there's no real difference between the statlines but I put Louis's sheltered yet crappy position as the higher survival rate and Shaka for slightly more kills.


Spoiler Playoff Three :

Napoleon, Ramesses, Justinian, Gandhi, Julius, Pericles

This is actually a really tough read. Someone clearly ran the table here, and the 34 kills seem to rule out the high PWs. But then, to stop them from winning by culture, I'd expect there to be a second strong leader with a high kill count. But there isn't really! I'd guess that someone is snowballing hard enough that they can't win in time and/or they're splitting the cultural prizes too evenly for it to be that strong of an option for any of them.

Justinian is the obvious pick for juggernaut due to reputation, but (and this is where my predictions get really unreliable, since they hinge on the chaotic Wildcard's pick being correct) Napoleon has the position to make it happen. Immediately improvable double corn + double ivory + immediate copper to quickly go on the warpath with his uber-capital? Seems like it could work well. 34 kills if anything seems a little low in that scenario - maybe not the most Domination finishes as opposed to early space from running away with all his extra land? I don't know. Or maybe a more balanced warmonger made it to this spot and that explains it, although it doesn't give me any points :p. Anyway, that's what I went with.

One of the high PWs is probably the four wins (Justin or JC would have more kills if it was them) and Ramesses seems the safest. Some of those kills might be against Gandhi tbh. Gandhi himself survives a surprising amount, though probably in beat-up shape (I think that's more likely than the eight kills from the position above), while Justin can only manage one win and a smattering of kills thanks to getting beat up a surprising amount by the leaders around him (the Napoleon buzzsaw is very bad for his health, perhaps?)

Julius has perhaps the safest position on this map but I don't believe he can exploit it effectively beyond beating up on Pericles and maybe stealing some kills. As for Pericles, he's surrounded by unfriendly faces and has very low-production land. Last place is a natural fit.


Spoiler Championship :

My championship field is: De Gaulle, Catherine, Mansa Musa, Huayna Capac, Napoleon, and Ramesses.

As for my guess: Huayna, Napoleon, Cathy, De Gaulle, Mansa, Ramesses.

Hm. I guess it's time to pencil in another win for Capac. Mansa and Ramesses are clearly the doomed ones here and Mansa can only manage a single win. The others are basically identical. Not the most interesting one tbh.
 
With Thrasy out and me having time for the first time since he posted the Season 2 playoff stuff :nono: I'll tally our results.

First, the main contest.
Spoiler Main contest :

@Keler got Huayna (as winner), Cathy, Ramesses, and Justin: 4x2 = 8 points
@a pen-dragon got Huayna (as winner), Cathy, Justin, and Mansa: 4x2 = 8 points
I got Huayna (as winner), Cathy, Ramesses, and Mansa: 4x2 = 8 points


That leaves the final totals for the contest as 42 for Keler, 44 for pen-dragon, and either 37 or 45 for myself - depending on how much Thrasy trusts me and is a stickler for the deadline! Boy would that be a sucky way to lose.

As for the Season 2 contest, based on the above I don't think Keler screwed up enough to change the results, but here goes:

Spoiler Wildcard :

Keler got Louis, Qin, Kublai, Zara, and Hatty: 5 points
a pen-dragon
got only Hatty :( 1 point
Eauxps
got Hannibal and Hatty: 2 points (do I get double points for guessing the top two but in the wrong order?)


Spoiler Playoff One :

Keler got Cathy and De Gaulle: 2 points
a pen-dragon
got Pacal only: 1 point
Eauxps
also got Pacal only: 1 point


Spoiler Playoff Two :

Keler got Shaka and Roosevelt: 2 points
a pen-dragon
got Suleiman, Shaka, and Roosevelt: 3 points (but again had the top two in the wrong order)
Eauxps got Mansa, Huayna, Suleiman, Shaka, and Roosevelt (only missing one leader because I had the wrong Frenchman in this game!): 5 x 2 = 10 points!


Spoiler Playoff Three :

Keler got everybody! 6 x 2 = 12 points and the win guaranteed if it wasn't already.
a pen-dragon got Justinian, Julius, and Gandhi: 3 points
Eauxps
got Ramesses and Julius: 2 points
Interestingly, I think I would have been much more confident picking Louis as the winner if I'd correctly guessed him making it to this game. Because I'm so smort and all :lol:


Spoiler Championship :

Keler got Huayna, Justinian, and Ramesses: 3 x 2 = 6 points
a pen-dragon
got Huayna, Justinian, Cathy, and Mansa: 4 x 2 = 8 points
Eauxps
got Huayna only :shifty: 1 point


Final tally for the Season 2 contest: Keler wins with 83 points. a pen-dragon finishes in second with 52. I finish with an ignominius 29 if my guesses for this round don't count. If they do count, I finish with a slightly less ignominious 45.
 
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