[BTS] AI vs AI map - balancing issues?

[Choeimok]

I was messing around a bit and built a map for all 9 SPI AIs (realizing a bit too late there actually are 10, so I kicked out Mansa because I thought him to be the most OP of the bunch) to duke it out. It's vaguely octagonal with starting positions on a ring around the main landmasses and one AI (Gandhi ) in the dead center. Tried hard to keep things symmetric and balancd (only the middle position is asymmetric and I think a bit underpowered despite high resource density, direct access to the best lands on the map and the trenches and "badland arrows" to protect it), but Asoka (far south) has ran away with all 3 games I played on it. (Deity but everyone only has their Civ's techs, no trading, nhnenv, r.barbs)

(Ram is red/"Russia", Asoka is blue/"France"; I probably should have changed Brennus' color to Dark Green or Cyan or something)

Spoiler :

game 1, until 1600 AD
Hatty: strong, killed Monty, ~28 cities
Brennus: mediocre, was doing fine but lost several cities in med/res war to Izzy
Monty: dead, futile war against Gandhi, declared on Hatty and lost severely
Izzy: started the weakest of the corner AIs, but was a solid fourth after getting upper hand on Brennus
Asoka: Same size as Hatty or bigger but an era ahead of everyone, few barbs at start, great wall, lots of wonders. (I think he had 18c, 2 of which former barb cities close to Saladin, high 20s after his war)
Sala: severe barb issues at start, somewhat recovered and got a middling number of cities, partially from Gandhi but stayed behind in tech.
Justi: dead, early barb issues, didn't get a lot of settlers but hurt Gandhi a lot in medieval, then declared on Asoka and got destroyed
Ram: got ~20 cities peacefully, slightly more than Asoka got, and the closest to keeping up in tech... but even he was far behind.
Gandhi: good start, no issues with Monty's attack but lost ~ a third of his land to first Justi and later Saladin.

game 2, until 1000 AD
Hatty: Unremarkably hovering around fourth place this time
Brennus: Unremarkable again
Monty: Got a lot of land for free (captured Gandhi's second city from barbs), but blew his wars - did nothing against Hatty and got himself into a fight with one-era-ahead Asoka
Izzy: Lost Madrid early on for a while and her expansion suffered badly. Saladin grabbed a lot of what would have been her backyard, but Brennus couldn't capitalize because of a barb city blocking the direction for him.
Asoka: had very low amounts of barbs, got 20 cities peacefully, lots of wonders, ridiculous teach lead, poised to take over Monty, AP reli founder -> complete runaway
Sala: got early Archery and shrugged off the barbs, got a lot of land (18 cities) in Izzy's direction after barbs crippled her. But still not as much as Asoka, and more "normal" in tech.
Justi: Too slow in the settling phase even though he wasn't losing cities, especially compared to how he normally place. He's part of the reason Asoka got so strong.
Ram: still in top 3
Gandhi: got the worst of the barbs and didn't get Archery for a long time, Monty snagged his second city early. Late expansion phase was his saving grace because Izzy was ailing.



game 3, around 1300 AD
Hatty: 27 cities peacefully (apart from captured barb stuff), but not the tech and score leader...
Brennus: weird snaky expansion into the middle (allowing Hatty to get so big), dogpiled on Gandhi and eventually wiped him out. Still one of the smallest and weakest civs.
Monty: founded Buddhism but dead by 3000 BC
Izzy: Weak, small and behind. her #2c seems to have gotten razed.
Asoka: actually lost a city to barbs 2000 BC, but built GTW again - in the very same city. Then tons of wonders, AP, car roads in 1200s, yet again tech leader... He only got slighly more land (21c) than in the other games despite Monty's death as Justi didn't screw up as much though.
Sala: had a great prospect for expansion (due to Gandhis and, again, Izzy's weakness) but declared on Gandhi too early while there was still open land to settle, ended up middle of the pack.
Justi: another weak early game, but he managed to squeeze a few cities on the edges of the quarters he shares with Asoka and Ram, giving him a middle position.
Ram: his weakest game. a distant but solid third place.
Gandhi: again lost 2 cities to barbs, including the one directly in Monty's direction. Sala attacked, but it was Brennus who later dogpiled and did the most damage. Dead 1200 AD.

Of course the third game is probably a bad representative, but aside from the corner positions (Hatty, Ram, Izzy, Asoka) having a bit less barb influx than the ones between them (yet Izzy has done considerably pooerer than the other 2 every game), every time Asoka got a ton of land, wonders (GTW every time!) and tech. And... I don't see why he outperforms the rest so much?

 

[ArchGhost]

Asoka is the best techer of the bunch based on flavors (Religion + Science). It's not really that surprising that he ends ups with the tech lead in any comparable position, and he can tech well even when small. Culture or Religion flavors also have potential to be good techers but Science and Gold are the most powerful and consistent tech flavors, and Asoka is a the only AI with either. If you put Mansa (Religion + Gold) on this map he'd seriously contend, and having an Archer UU in this situation (no starting Archery + barbs on), probably dominate.

The map is also not symmetric across all axes, especially due to the fact the game is orthogonal, not isometric (diagonals are effectively 1.5 distance). The corner positions are the most powerful because they reduce barb spawn angles (as you pointed out) and contest less land with side spots than vice versa since they are already withdrawn a bit, but can easily cut off both side spots if they expand into the center.

The rest seems to be rather random shaking out. Fast workers are indeed a boon for both Indians, but so is Hattie's CRE, Justin's IMP, and with barbs in the picture, Monty/Saladin's AGG/PRO as well. The interesting choice of not giving them the deity techs to keep them in more parity has shown curious results, like an AGG AI getting owned by barbs or Izzy losing her cap to them (assuming it was barbs if that early anyway)

 

[Keler]

I rennovated your map for my fun out of boredom. But it is for 8 leaders only.

 

[need my speed]

How do you watch such an AI versus AI map? How do you not have a human player in there, how can you watch everything turn by turn?

 

[SnipedSoul]

How do you watch such an AI versus AI map? How do you not have a human player in there, how can you watch everything turn by turn?

The way I do it is put the human player off in a corner surrounded by peaks and then use worldbuilder to give all AI +100 relations so they'll never declare war on the human. Use debug mode to reveal entire map and watch the AI go nuts.

It looks like this map has a player tucked away in the bottom right.