AI Survivor - Alternate Histories AI Ranking

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

I think you know my preference.

 

[Keler]

Hmm I wasn't being so nice in this thread earlier when making a new ranking out of AH makes no sense. And you know why:

That's an issue with the AH: we see a lot of games, so naturally draw wide conclusions as befit that volume of games. But we see of lot of iterations of a very narrow range of contexts, actually.

To me AH is finding out if we make good predictions or not. If there wasn't any picking contest ,I doubt there would be any interest in making AHs to begin with.
Nevertheless, trying to make ranking out of it doesn't hurt. Still fun to follow.

I hope you give Season 8 priority here, it should attract more people to the thread. I imagine you started Season 5 before the conclusion page is done and wanted to finish it first.

And at this point, nothing spoils anything, anyone can do on their own if they are so curious about it. But it is nice to see the results made by multiple people. It should also eliminate any trust issues towards the official AHs in Sulla's page whatsoever

 

[Thrasybulos]

A clarification about the settings (following a comment on another thread):

Tribal villages are removed from the maps where they existed (S1 + S2?).
And no UN either: this set of "AH" is played with "my" ruleset (Jumbled Rumble, AI League).
All wildcard games are played with Raging Barbarians ON, whether that was the case in the original game or not.

I've also made slight edits to the maps: the most visually impacting is removing all the ice, but apart from a few fringe cases (S3 Game 1?) it should have next to no impact. I've also fixed coastal ocean tiles (the result of Sullla deleting offshore islands), some river mistakes (starting on the coast, ending nowhere), sometimes moved a river a bit to avoid riverside oases. I've also fixed illegal starting positions: removing jungle/mountains/desert/tundra in the BFC.
But all of this is pretty minor.
Spoiler alert: turning 3 mountains into hills at Mansa's capital in S5 G1 did not improve his prospects.

I've left untouched some illegal ressource clusters, though: unfortunately, when Sullla moves around starting positions, he tends to leave the vacated spots as there are. Breaking those clusters would potentially have a bigger impact, so as much as I "hate" them, I've left them alone.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Season 5, Opening Round

I had run some AH for that season back in the day, but I've lost the results.
I was interested in rerunning them, though, because I remember being surprised at some of Sullla's results when he published them: they differed a lot from I could remember.

Spoiler Game 1 :

Sullla's results

Pretty much exactly the same, down to the initial oddball De Gaulle victory.

Spoiler Game 2 :

Sullla's results

Results are in the same vein as Sullla's set, although Sury here was far less successful than in Sullla's set, with Sitting Bull as the main beneficiary: so instead of a clear Sury 1st and Louis 2nd, we get three leaders almost tied.
SB here is the big loser to my rules (winner = most victories, runner-up = highest score): Sury beats him to the runner-up spot albeit he has less wins.

Spoiler Game 3 :

Sullla's results

Alright, here things are a tad different: Sullla had basically three leaders tied at the top, Elizabeth, Gandhi, and Frederick.
No tied here: Gandhi is the clear winner.
Suleiman should have been second, but Caesar scored 8 points in his last game (win + 3 kills), which was exactly what he needed to beat poor Sully.

Spoiler Game 4 :

Sullla's results

Pretty much the same, except Saladin has the edge over Hannibal here. But the main story remains that these two leaders dominated this game.
Sullla noted that Hannibal was "flimsier" than Saladin, and the first half of my games had the exact opposite: Saladin died 5 times, to Hannibal's 2. Then Saladin died only once in the next 10 games. They end up both with a 70% survival rate.

Spoiler Game 5 :

Sullla's results

This is the first S5 game I remember running AH for, and it was memorable for two things:

• The first Time victory I witnessed.
• How completely unpredictable it turned out to be: Shaka, Bismarck, Asoka and Charlie were tied, with Nappy and Hatty right behind!

So Sullla's results were a bit surprising, with two favourites (we could extend that to three: Bismarck isn't far behind).
Mine here are even further than that, with only one clear favourite, and the "baddies" really underperforming!
But again, we can see the "streakiness" of those AH: Asoka won 6 out of the first 9 games, and survived every time. He then won only 2 of the next 11, being eliminated 7 times!

Spoiler Game 6 :

Sullla's results

Here as well, Sullla's results greatly surprised me: from what I could remember of my tests, the story of this map was simple, it was a coin toss between an HC or a Gilgamesh victory.
So... Boudica??
My new results seem a lot more in line with what I remember getting, although here HC has a slight edge.
But... the other story I could remember was Gilgamesh and HC fighting. A lot. And the winner would end up conquering the world (with the odd cultural victory from HC).
Here, they rarely fought: HC fought Monty nearly every game, then Augustus and/Mao were his next foes. And both went for Culture: almost no Domination win.
There was once memorable instance (game 11) of a Gilgamesh/HC conflict: when the first batch of aiplay turns ended, I looked at the game state, and saw that Gilgamesh had gone Culture, while HC was going for a late Space. Gilgamesh would beat HC by a comfortable margin. When I went back to the game, I saw that HC had won, by Space. What? Turned out HC had declared on Gilgamesh, captured one of his Legendary candidates, then signed peace and went on to win peacefully afterwards!

Spoiler Game 7 :

Sullla's results

The infamous game which saw Alexander murder Zara extremely early and snowball from there.
My AH had pointed at that being the most likely outcome: Alex was the clear favourite on that map, with Justinian scoring some, and Peter and Qin being in competition for the most runner-up finishes.
So Sullla's results pointing instead at Peter being the strongest AI on this map was a bit of a shocker.
And... my new set of results shows Qin as the best AI on this map!

I have no clue. Except, once again: look at Qin's line. 1-10 and 11-20 couldn't be any more different!

Spoiler Game 8 :

Sullla's results

And finally, Willem's game.
No surprise there: I remember him being dominant, he was ultra-dominant in Sullla's set, a bit less in mine here, but whatever, the story's the same.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I think you know my preference.

I hope you give Season 8 priority here

Probably not going to get more feedback, so I'll just go halfway.
I'll do S6-S7-S8-S4-S3-S2

That makes the more recent seasons first, while giving a bit of time before I get into "spoiler" territory.

 

[Keler]

Something is wrong with this conversion method. The whole point should be to give them more fractional number points instead of flat 5/2
Why Sitting Bull had to be a big loser here despite winning 5 times, same amount as Louis XIV the winner?
Gandhi with 11 victories get almost same points as Julius with 2 victories.

Why not give them points parallel to their final result? Give Gandhi 6.6 points while 3.6 for Julius, instead of 5,4. Help that Bull too. I would reduce the kill points value into half. But I get it if you just want to accept as what Sulla does.
Or
You can also make conversion through percentage points. Leader's final point/All leaders total points
For Sitting Bull it could be 39/44+31+28+44+19+39+18 = 39/223 = 17%

I don't know, please do something easier to follow, less complex with less rules to know about conversion, and fairer.

 

[Thrasybulos]

The whole point should be to give them more fractional number points instead of flat 5/2

No, the whole point is precisely not to give them fractional numbers, but to stay on a strict 5/2/1* scale.

One of the reasons for that is not to give more weight to unbalanced scenarios. Every game should have the same "weight". A scenario where an AI gets an 80% win result should not give it 3 or 4 games' worth points. Every win is the same: 5 points, whether that was achieved with an 80% win or a mere 25% win.
Another reason is to stick to AI Survivor's scale: final scores should go from 0 to 60(?), not from 21.27 to 34.86.

Not sure what's complex here?
Most wins = winner = 5 points.
Best score outside winner = runner-up = 2 points.

Now, the data's there, free to use.
If someone wants to use it to derive other forms of scoring/ranking, they're absolutely welcome to it.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Season 5, Final Rounds

Since the participants in these games differ somewhat from the live games', these AH are not a repeat of Sullla's.
A few notes first.
From what I can remember from my lost set of AH:

• My runs of the Wildcard game also had Mao as the favourite, but much more so than in Sullla's AH: he won nearly every time.
  That map featured in Season 1 of my AI League, and it hinted at that starting position being the strongest on this map.
• Sullla had Washington as the favourite of Playoff 1, I had him getting destroyed nearly every game, with Pacal being a slight favourite (7 wins ?).
  Now, I believe this is one case which can be explained away with "peaceweight lock" when running games from a save game.
  For starters, that map also featured in Season 1 of the League, and Washington's start was shown as being OP (80% win rate).
  Then, if Saladin rolled high or Washington rolled low (or both!) in Sullla's games, then they'd be peaceweight allies and Louis would become Saladin's natural worst enemy. While if in my games Saladin rolled low for instance, then the dogpiles would keep coming (which they did).
• For Playoff 2, I believe my results were similar to Sullla's (JC favourite, with Willem a distant second for number of wins).
• For Playoff 3, I also had Gilgamesh as the big favourite, but HC was essentially the only other AI winning games: I don't remember Mehmed wins.
  That map featured in Season 2 of the League, but 4 games are not enough to draw conclusions. Just an interesting aspect: while the AI in Gilgamesh's infamous 3-Gold starting position always had a strong early and mid-game, it never led to a win. And Gandhi's start (from that very limited set) seemed to be the strongest actually. So having Gandhi there as a dead man definitely seems to have altered the expected dynamics of this map.

Now, the results from my games:

Spoiler Wildcard Game :

I expected Suleiman, having lucked into the strongest position on the map, to dominate the field (strongest eco of the low peaceweights while no slouch on unit building)... that didn't happen.
I've mentionned somewhere else that he's a leader who can be very dominant but inexplicably fall flat on his face in other occasions, I guess this was the latter here.
Mehmed and Kublai picking up the slack came as no surprise then.

Spoiler Playoff 1 :

With Darius in the OP start, the question was: is Bismarck as his only potential friend enough ot make it work?
The answer is a resounding "no"... especially when quite a few of Bismarck's kills are him murdering the Persian leader!
Pacal getting the upper hand (although not in a convincing way) was expected in those conditions.
On the other hand, Qin having such good results from a very poor start was not! He seems to have fought Bismarck nearly every game: his wins come from the times when he could overcome the Germans in timely fashion.

Spoiler Playoff 2 :

I'm not sold on JC, and the AH for this game have shown that not much should be expected from Willem.
So I thought this would be a Gilgamesh roflstomp, with Louis as a potential dark horse.
Well... Kublai enters the chat.

Spoiler Playoff 3 :

I consider Mehmed as a pretty decent AI, but a notch or two below Gilgamesh.
This game only reinforces that impression: in essentially the same setup, Mehmed's results are way below Gilgamesh's, to the point that HC was able to seize the day.

I've already mentionned the "streakiness" of those AH: well... have a look at Toku's result bar!

Spoiler Championship :

What can I say? Don't bet against HC.
Just don't.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Spoiler Wildcard Game :

View attachment 705984

I expected Suleiman, having lucked into the strongest position on the map, to dominate the field (strongest eco of the low peaceweights while no slouch on unit building)... that didn't happen.
I've mentionned somewhere else that he's a leader who can be very dominant but inexplicably fall flat on his face in other occasions, I guess this was the latter here.
Mehmed and Kublai picking up the slack came as no surprise then.

Wow, Suleiman really underperformed in a big way! That really threw my predictions off kilter. Interesting, though, that Peter managed to do worse from that position than friggin' Genghis Khan.

Spoiler Playoff 1 :

View attachment 705986

With Darius in the OP start, the question was: is Bismarck as his only potential friend enough ot make it work?
The answer is a resounding "no"... especially when quite a few of Bismarck's kills are him murdering the Persian leader!
Pacal getting the upper hand (although not in a convincing way) was expected in those conditions.
On the other hand, Qin having such good results from a very poor start was not! He seems to have fought Bismarck nearly every game: his wins come from the times when he could overcome the Germans in timely fashion.

I guess not being a warmonger in that famously cursed start would have helped... but still, FIVE wins for Qin?!? Color me shocked.

Spoiler Playoff 2 :

View attachment 705991

I'm not sold on JC, and the AH for this game have shown that not much should be expected from Willem.
So I thought this would be a Gilgamesh roflstomp, with Louis as a potential dark horse.
Well... Kublai enters the chat.

Another underperformance messing with my predictions, though not too badly this time. One kill from Louis is just pathetic.

Spoiler Playoff 3 :

View attachment 705992

I consider Mehmed as a pretty decent AI, but a notch or two below Gilgamesh.
This game only reinforces that impression: in essentially the same setup, Mehmed's results are way below Gilgamesh's, to the point that HC was able to seize the day.

I've already mentionned the "streakiness" of those AH: well... have a look at Toku's result bar!

Oops.

Spoiler Championship :

View attachment 705993

What can I say? Don't bet against HC.
Just don't.

Pleased at nailing the Pacal statline, and yeah, if Huayna was in the championship, he was the obvious choice for winner here.

 

[Keler]

All low pw at the finals.
Specifically pw 2 ones. They dominate everywhere. Funny Mehmed couldn't win for once. He can't win from Season 4-7 championship map aparently. Livestreams always outlier or what

 

[Thrasybulos]

Livestreams always outlier or what

Always outlier.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Season 6, Opening Round

Not publishing "teasers" here although it was asked, because contrary to the Season 5 AH set, this set has yielded by and large similar results to what Sullla got. So there wouldn't be much guessing to do, would there?

Spoiler Game 1 :

Sullla's results

Gandhi just had to win one, didn't he?

Spoiler Game 2 :

Sullla's results

Pacal did way better than in Sullla's set, making the live game less of an outlier. But he still died way too often to get the runner-up spot which goes to HC instead of Louis, by a tiny margin.
Not sure that's actually a good bargain for HC as it puts him in a playoff game which was a Mansa roflstomp in Sullla's AH.

Spoiler Game 3 :

Sullla's results

Pretty similar to Sullla's set, with one glaring exception: that's a duo at the top, not a trio.
Augustus was definitely weaker in my games than in Sullla's ; he was still strong enough to ruin Qin's chances game after game, though.

Spoiler Game 4 :

Sullla's results

Cathy on top as in Sullla's games, but overall a more balanced picture.

Spoiler Game 5 :

Sullla's results

Pretty much what Sullla's got. Season 1 of my AI League has confirmed Bismarck's starting position on this map as very strong indeed.

Spoiler Game 6 :

Sullla's results

All right, this one's different: Sullla had Churchill as the top AI here (and his starting position was indeed very strong), but in my games he usually succombed to his peaceweight destiny, with Toku as the main beneficiary.

Spoiler Game 7 :

Sullla's results

Also pretty much what Sullla's got, with Mansa less dominant, though.

Spoiler Game 8 :

Sullla's results

Justinian on top as in Sullla's set, but while he had Darius as the clear second, here Viccy was stronger.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Season 6, Final Rounds

Spoiler Wildcard Game :

A 9-player game would seem on first thought to be pretty much unpredictable and likely to go in all sorts of directions. So I was rather surprised to see two clear favourites emerge.
Cyrus doing well is not a shocker.
Charlemagne, on the other hand... I believe it can be largely explained by his bordering two of the weakest AIs in this field: Mao and his jungled-choked start, Darius with a really cramped start. His other neighbour, Churchill, was usually pretty strong, and this is where peaceweight helped: these two were often good friends early, and by the time they fell out (if they did), Charlie had had the time to absorb his other neighbours and to grow stronger than the English.
Louis was a disappointment: he had HC's strong start from the live game, but while he had a few good games, he usually couldn't make it work. By the time, he'd got rid of Brennus, he was behind the other game leaders. As for Mehmed, he was just too exposed.

Spoiler Playoff 1 :

Mansa is pretty damn good, and he had the best start on this map. He solo-conquered Sury almost every game, and was pretty much unstoppable after that.
HC had a much weaker start, with two hostile neighbours: Viccy tended to be on the weak side, but Pericles was much more prickly. And Cathy is an unreliable ally at best.

Spoiler Playoff 2 :

I know that @ManiaMuse89 would beg to differ, but let's not read too much into Napoleon's performance in the opening round and here: he was incredibly lucky in playing on the two most unbalanced maps of that season, netting both times the OP starting position.
Justinian's start was bad, and he had a Boudica problem. Ramesses is no slouch and managed to take advantage.

Spoiler Playoff 3 :

There was only one leader on this map: Gilgamesh. None of the others deserved to reach the Championship game.
Charlie makes it thanks to his victory in the very last game, but it could easily have been SB or Alex.

Spoiler Championship :

Three high peaceweights vs 3 low peaceweights, Mansa on one side, HC on the other: I thought this would be a very balanced and disputed match-up.
Well...
Nope: HC again.

It should be noted that although Mansa scored one more win than Ramesses, the Egyptian leader actually fared much better than him in-game. This is maybe the one game where rewarding the runner-up would have yielded a better picture, as when Ramesses lived, he was usually the strongest AI on the map, only getting beaten by a faster Cultural Victory (HC or Mansa).
That's something I had observed in Season 1, Playoff 1 of Jumbled Rumble: Mansa and Ramesses were also teamed up in a hostile field, and Ramesses had fared better.
Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that Ramesses is a better overall leader than Mansa. Just that when both are teamed up in a hostile field, that seems to work out better for the Egyptian leader, when the opposite might have been expected.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Big misread on the Wildcard for sure. I guess that north central position launches up in viability without an enemy to the west, because I had no inkling that Burger King would perform even remotely well! Mao is a major disappointment as well.

Playoff 1 and 2 were pretty predictable, though Vicky doing worse than the central Pericles is pretty sad. Sury winning a game on that map is also a surprise.

Burger King's viability is again surprising on Playoff 3 given the strength of the PW-opposed Gilgamesh. I guess the overall dynamics shift some though when it's an even PW split, rather than the 4-2 low majority I was expecting. And Izzy and SB are there to draw aggression.

Championship was largely as I expected. I'm assuming HC's higher winrate is largely the result of The Power Of Teamwork

I'm hungry for more of these. When are the S7 results expected?

 

[Thrasybulos]

When are the S7 results expected?

Sometime next week I wager: I was away this week-end so couldn't get anything done in that regard (only games 1 & 2 done atm). Plus, I have something else running in parallel (although nearly done I think) which should interest you as it'll provide you with game results on the new Championship map.

 

[Keler]

I knew I made it wrong somewhere because I wasn't really buying Mansa with 4 victories in a 2v4 pw situation. I should have put Ramesses instead of Boudica.

I found HC's S6 wildcard start pretty weak. Maybe it is not so strong after turning off raging barbarians.

And what is CPS?

 

[Thrasybulos]

And what is CPS?

"Championship Progression Score".

I didn't have a name for it when I mentionned it in the intro:

Alternate scoring
On top of the "AH Power Rating" which is an attempt at translating Sullla's system for the AH, I'll also be using for comparison a very simple system of "Championship points":
Elimination in the opening round: 0 pt.
Elimination in the wildcard game: 1 pt.
Elimination in the playoffs: 2 pts.
"Elimination" in the Championship game: 4 pts.
Champion: 8 pts.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Season 7, Opening Round

Season 7 is where I gave up with the picking contest.
I had picked Shaka for the first game, then Suleiman, then De Gaulle, then Qin, then Roosevelt, then Willem, then Pacal.
Notice a pattern?
5 out of 7 were shown in the AH to be the correct pick (Willem tying with Darius), De Gaulle was the 2nd most likely to win. Pacal was the only one where I whiffed.
And not a single one of them won the live game!
For game 8, I troll-picked Charlie, deeming him the least likely to win, thus the most likely winner... and Season 7 trolled me back by having for the first time the actual favourite win!

With the "official AH" lining up with my reading the games, I thought that this set of AH would be like the previous one for Season 6: low in surprises.

Well... this is Season 7.

Spoiler Game 1 :

Sullla's results

I expected no surprise there as I'd run a few AH myself for that game, and they'd shown Shaka even more dominant than in Sullla's.
And... this happened.
I don't really have an explanation.
It would seem that Shaka very rarely fought with Stalin here, as I remembered him backstabbing the Russians quite a lot in my previous games. And that might be it: Izzy solo-conquering Stalin and his rich lands was enough to put her ahead, and Shaka couldn't catch up to her.

At least it should make @Fippy happy: Izzy finally doing well!

Spoiler Game 2 :

Sullla's results

I thought I was in for the second major surprise in as many games: Suleiman was struggling, barely ahead after 10 games. And then he won 8 in a row!
Streaky again...

Hannibal did much better than in the official AH, enough actually to get the runner-up spot.
Sury was a major disappointment. Again.

Spoiler Game 3 :

Sullla's results

No surprise here, pretty much the same as what Sullla got.

Spoiler Game 4 :

Sullla's results

Qin is the top leader here as well as in Sullla's set.
But while Sullla had Joao and Gilgamesh tied, here Gilgamesh did way better, which, I should say, seems to agree more with expectations.
Also, note the "streakiness" again: Qin crushed the first half of the set, but Gilgamesh was the dominant leader in the latter half.

Spoiler Game 5 :

Sullla's results

And then we have this game.

Amicalola (who ran the AH for Sullla for this game) had Roosevelt as the top leader (albeit not in a dominant fashion: 7 wins).
Here... they're all the same. Even Boudica, although she won only once, didn't feel weaker than the others.
I believe this is the most balanced set of results I've ever seen for an AH, making that game completely unreadable.
And it's so close that Churchill, with only 3 wins, gets the runner-up spot although KK, Asoka, and Roosevelt have 4 wins each!

Spoiler Game 6 :

Sullla's results

Myth (who ran the AH for Sullla for this game) had Willem and Darius tied with 9 wins each.
Here as well they're the top two leaders, but it's not a tie: Willem is clearly ahead.

But the most glaring difference is probably Saladin: 25% survival rate in Myth's set, 70% here!

Spoiler Game 7 :

Sullla's results

Sullla had Hatty with a staggering 85% win rate on this map.
She's still the top AI in this set... but a far cry from that!

The "baddies" did way better here, including Monty who offered a repeat performance of the live game.
It could be a "peaceweight lock" explanation here: Monty and Pacal seem to have fought a lot less than in Sullla's games. Which, by a ripple effect, meant that instead of Cathy facing a 1v2 situation against Lizzy and Hatty, it was Lizzy who found herselft in the expected 1v2 vs Monty and Cathy.

Spoiler Game 8 :

Sullla's results

Sorry to burst Slashin' (who ran the AH for Sullla for this game) bubble... but Napoleon was most definitely not a better bargain here than Louis.
He had Louis win 9 times on this map, with HC and Napoleon tied for second with 5 wins each.

Well, there's only one guy in the picture here, and that's Louis.
According to Keler's data, it should come as no surprise, as his starting position was one of the most brokenly good ever.
HC did HC things and managed to pull a few wins nevertheless, and gets the runner-up spot. It should be noted that he never made a culture attempt. Not once in 20 games.

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Whoops, forgot to respond to these earlier. That's what happens when they get posted while I'm at work!

Spoiler Game 1 :

Sullla's results

View attachment 707784

I expected no surprise there as I'd run a few AH myself for that game, and they'd shown Shaka even more dominant than in Sullla's.
And... this happened.
I don't really have an explanation.
It would seem that Shaka very rarely fought with Stalin here, as I remembered him backstabbing the Russians quite a lot in my previous games. And that might be it: Izzy solo-conquering Stalin and his rich lands was enough to put her ahead, and Shaka couldn't catch up to her.

At least it should make @Fippy happy: Izzy finally doing well!

Izzy getting so strong here is quite interesting indeed.

Spoiler Game 2 :

Sullla's results

View attachment 707785

I thought I was in for the second major surprise in as many games: Suleiman was struggling, barely ahead after 10 games. And then he won 8 in a row!
Streaky again...

Hannibal did much better than in the official AH, enough actually to get the runner-up spot.
Sury was a major disappointment. Again.

Major off for Sury. Surprised Bis managed to pull one off.

Spoiler Game 3 :

Sullla's results

View attachment 707786

No surprise here, pretty much the same as what Sullla got.

Spoiler Game 4 :

Sullla's results

View attachment 707788

Qin is the top leader here as well as in Sullla's set.
But while Sullla had Joao and Gilgamesh tied, here Gilgamesh did way better, which, I should say, seems to agree more with expectations.
Also, note the "streakiness" again: Qin crushed the first half of the set, but Gilgamesh was the dominant leader in the latter half.

Frankly, just Joao getting two wins is pretty impressive given that his two compatriots both completely zero'd out.
lol Peter

Spoiler Game 5 :

Sullla's results

View attachment 707789

And then we have this game.

Amicalola (who ran the AH for Sullla for this game) had Roosevelt as the top leader (albeit not in a dominant fashion: 7 wins).
Here... they're all the same. Even Boudica, although she won only once, didn't feel weaker than the others.
I believe this is the most balanced set of results I've ever seen for an AH, making that game completely unreadable.
And it's so close that Churchill, with only 3 wins, gets the runner-up spot although KK, Asoka, and Roosevelt have 4 wins each!

Wow! That is impressive. Churchill managing to sneak out second is pretty satisfying.

Spoiler Game 6 :

Sullla's results

View attachment 707791

Myth (who ran the AH for Sullla for this game) had Willem and Darius tied with 9 wins each.
Here as well they're the top two leaders, but it's not a tie: Willem is clearly ahead.

But the most glaring difference is probably Saladin: 25% survival rate in Myth's set, 70% here!

That Darius is sure something, huh.

Spoiler Game 7 :

Sullla's results

View attachment 707792

Sullla had Hatty with a staggering 85% win rate on this map.
She's still the top AI in this set... but a far cry from that!

The "baddies" did way better here, including Monty who offered a repeat performance of the live game.
It could be a "peaceweight lock" explanation here: Monty and Pacal seem to have fought a lot less than in Sullla's games. Which, by a ripple effect, meant that instead of Cathy facing a 1v2 situation against Lizzy and Hatty, it was Lizzy who found herselft in the expected 1v2 vs Monty and Cathy.

This might be the most interesting result in the set! Especially the four Pacal wins. Also lol Fred

Spoiler Game 8 :

Sullla's results

View attachment 707793

Sorry to burst Slashin' (who ran the AH for Sullla for this game) bubble... but Napoleon was most definitely not a better bargain here than Louis.
He had Louis win 9 times on this map, with HC and Napoleon tied for second with 5 wins each.

Well, there's only one guy in the picture here, and that's Louis.
According to Keler's data, it should come as no surprise, as his starting position was one of the most brokenly good ever.
HC did HC things and managed to pull a few wins nevertheless, and gets the runner-up spot. It should be noted that he never made a culture attempt. Not once in 20 games.

Wow. Table really was tilted in Louis's favor here, wasn't it?

 

[Thrasybulos]

Season 7, Final Rounds

Spoiler Wildcard Game :

Once again, a surprising 9-player map leading to a clear result, with Augustus and Kublai way ahead of the rest of the field.
Kudos to Lizzy for pulling off a win from that death trap of a starting position.
Amicalola ran the AH on that map and noted Gilgalmesh's disappointing performance: well, Pacal had his spot here, and didn't fare any better. Of course, it's pretty hard to read any conclusions from that, since the fact Pacal was bordering three crazies and the powerful, opposite peaceweight AI, might have more to do with it here than available land quality.

Spoiler Playoff 1 :

Just looking at game composition: 3 low peaceweights, 3 high peaceweights, you'd think Hatty would have a shot... except she was stuck behind Hannibal and HC, so was pretty much doomed.
To be fair to her, the result table doesn't reflect was happened in-game: HC tended to be busy East, fighting with Churchill a lot, so that left Hatty in a 1v1 situation vs Hannibal in most games... and she won quite of few of those fights, either killing Hannibal or crippling him into unrelevance. Unfortunately for her, that was usually the point in the game where Qin and HC would team up against her.
Hannibal had a good run in the middle of the set, winning 4 in a row, but apart from that, Hatty's surprising tough opposition tended to scuttle his game as well.
Qin and HC were friendly rivals: they rarely fought (except at the very end of the game), but one tended to do well when the other faltered (for instance Churchill getting the upper hand against HC meant Qin had a good chance to win the game).
As noted elsewhere, Qin and Hannibal being exactly tied for most of the run was pretty unbelievable.

Spoiler Playoff 2 :

The first two games had me think that replacing Mehmed by Darius was enough to change the game dynamics and that De Gaulle would be the heavy game favourite: he was absolutely dominant in both games, only losing the first one by one turn to Louis's Culture, and only because he'd pulled a Charlie and launched with a single Engine when he'd built both!
And then... nope.
That was an illusion: Louis remained the dominant AI on this map.
Cyrus did way better that his results suggest, usually growing into a very strong position... only to get whacked game after game by the two French leaders working together.
Darius was doomed both by his peaceweight and poor starting position, Suleiman and Kublai had bad starts and couldn't find an opening.

Spoiler Playoff 3 :

I'm actually a bit disappointed at Shaka here: according to Keler's data, he had a strong spot, and was neighbouring the dead map walking: that seemed like a pretty strong setup for him.
But somehow, he seemed to always end up at war with Justinian at the wrong moment (either Justinian attacking when Shaka was stuck in praetorian land, or Shaka peacing out with Augustus after exhausting his forces and then attacking Justinian who had been able to develop peacefully).
Either way, the winner of that Justinian vs Shaka conflict (usually Justinian) tended to become the strongest AI on the map, with Willem as the only potential rival.
Cathy and Gilgamesh were mostly irrelevant.

Spoiler Championship :

And then we got to this game, which makes no sense whatsoever!
Maybe running an extra 30 or even 80 instances would clarify the picture, not even sure about it.

Going into this game, I though that Louis and De Gaulle didn't belong. That Qin would have a solid performance but would never be in contention for the win. And that Willem and Justinian would prove worthy opponents for HC.
Turned out Willem and Justinian were the two weaklings here (especially Willem).
De Gaulle took up the role of the resident warwonger (it evened a bit towards the end, but for most of the run he was way ahead in kills).
And Louis was a culture beast here.
Only Qin performed about as I'd expect, but even then... he was actually the strongest AI in the latter half of the run!
HC got a bit unlucky, losing twice to Louis's culture as his ship was about to land, but what happened in his playoff game was repeated here: he never turned the slider, why? (He did turn it in one game, game 8, but that was the one case he shouldn't have: he was way ahead in tech and would have comfortably won by space, but his culture attempt was slow and he nearly lost to De Gaulle's ship as a consequence, winning only because the French suffered some extensive sabotage).

I thought that this map was somehow turning Louis into a monster... but checking the AH for the actual championship, Louis actually performed poorly there!
Also, he got eliminated in the last 6 games.
So... not sure I got the real story, there.

As for Willem and Justinian's performance: that seems a repeat of Jumbled Rumble Season 1 Championship (HC, Qin, Justinian and Willem were there too, with Shaka and Gilgamesh instead of the French leaders). They performed horribly there too (again, especially Willem).
But Jumbled Rumble Season 2 Playoff 1 also featured HC, Willem and Justinian along with Pacal, Asoka and Mansa: and there they did alright, while HC floundered.
Still too small of a sample to draw any firm conclusion, but it would seem they do better if the game composition features some high peaceweights?