America vs England vs France vs Russia

[Thrasybulos]

As I'd mentioned a few months ago, I wanted to run an AI Survivor-style mini-tournament between the four 3-leader civs.

Finally got round to doing it.

So I did a round-robin tournament between the 4 civs.
Each match-up would consist of 6 games : I picked AI Survivor maps with two well-defined "sides", and shuffled the AI positions to that at the end of the 6 games, each AI would have started from each of the 6 starting positions, with the same civ AIs on its side of the map, and the other civ AIs on the opposite side.
The winner of a match-up would score 1 point. In case of a draw (3 wins each), each would score 0,5 point.
The tie-breakers would be total wins, then totals wins by the team's "MVP".

The games were played with AI Survivor S5 rules (Deity but no bonus techs, no huts, no events, no tech trading, no vassals, Aggressive AI on, no AP) with the addition of no UN and no barbs.
These were not team games : although scoring is per civ, the 3 leaders of each civ were not in a permanent alliance. Civil war was very much on the table.

My expectations were : France > Russia > England > America with a slight possibility that balanced peace weights would make England a dark horse.
As for individual leaders, I thought Cathy would prove the best, Roosevelt the worst.

Here's how it went.

Spoiler America vs France :

Spoiler England vs Russia :

Spoiler America vs England :

Spoiler France vs Russia :

Spoiler America vs Russia :

So far, the games had gone more or less according to expectations.
But this one was a shocker.
The American leaders crushing the Russians ??
Roosevelt, imo the weakest American leader, and one of the worst Civ4 AI leaders overall, roflolstomping those games ??

Then it dawned on me that the map choice had been very poor.
Sure, it does feature the two opposite "sides" I required, but here those two sides are very far apart, while the AIs on the same side are clumped together.
So that meant the aggressive Russians would start getting border tension with one another early on, making civil war all but inevitable. Meanwhile, the far more peaceful American leaders would get to tech and build up undisturbed.

So, that was the explanation.
But just to make sure, I replayed this match-up afterwards, on a more suitable map.

Spoiler America vs Russia - Alternate :

At least, this time, it wasn't Roosevelt.

Spoiler England vs France :

The last match-up turned out to be the finals between the two best civs... and a draw.

Spoiler Results :

So France wins, thanks to the tie-breaker.
Cocorico, I guess ?

Spoiler Leader results :

Not exactly what I expected.
Louis ends up with an impressive 50% win rate !

 

[Thrasybulos]

Now, since Sullla has postponed AI Survivor Season 9 until next year, my thinking was that if we want to have an AI Survivor-style thingie this year, this could be one possibility.

4 participants pick 3 AI leaders to form their team.
And we run this format as a tournament between those teams.
With aiplay, each game takes 20-30 minutes, so that would be a 2-3 hour video/stream for each of the 6 match-ups, which seems manageable.

Might even be extended to a 5th team, bringing the total match-ups to 10, which remains reasonable.

@Fippy could come up with a betting contest to entertain the peanut gallery.

As for the team selection, I had thought of this:

• Each participant sends the organizer their 3-leader wish list.
• If no one else picked any of the leader on that list, that leader is theirs. Otherwise, no one gets that leader, and it becomes unavailable.
• Then the procedure is repeated for the participants who didn't get their full roster.

Anyway, that's a possibility.

 

[Fippy]

My thought was that single games (no full tournament needed with playoffs etc), whenever the one streaming them has time, could be successful.
Leaders could be left to rng..after the map & AIs are set we discuss (and pick).

I don't really need commentary, just next turn speed & scrolling around at about the same rate as Sulla.
Depends on how much effort somebody wants to put in.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

As I'd mentioned a few months ago, I wanted to run an AI Survivor-style mini-tournament between the four 3-leader civs.

Finally got round to doing it.

So I did a round-robin tournament between the 4 civs.
Each match-up would consist of 6 games : I picked AI Survivor maps with two well-defined "sides", and shuffled the AI positions to that at the end of the 6 games, each AI would have started from each of the 6 starting positions, with the same civ AIs on its side of the map, and the other civ AIs on the opposite side.
The winner of a match-up would score 1 point. In case of a draw (3 wins each), each would score 0,5 point.
The tie-breakers would be total wins, then totals wins by the team's "MVP".

The games were played with AI Survivor S5 rules (Deity but no bonus techs, no huts, no events, no tech trading, no vassals, Aggressive AI on, no AP) with the addition of no UN and no barbs.
These were not team games : although scoring is per civ, the 3 leaders of each civ were not in a permanent alliance. Civil war was very much on the table.

My expectations were : France > Russia > England > America with a slight possibility that balanced peace weights would make England a dark horse.
As for individual leaders, I thought Cathy would prove the best, Roosevelt the worst.

Here's how it went.

Spoiler America vs France :

View attachment 728564

Spoiler England vs Russia :

View attachment 728565

Spoiler America vs England :

View attachment 728566

Spoiler France vs Russia :

View attachment 728567

Spoiler America vs Russia :

View attachment 728568

So far, the games had gone more or less according to expectations.
But this one was a shocker.
The American leaders crushing the Russians ??
Roosevelt, imo the weakest American leader, and one of the worst Civ4 AI leaders overall, roflolstomping those games ??

Then it dawned on me that the map choice had been very poor.
Sure, it does feature the two opposite "sides" I required, but here those two sides are very far apart, while the AIs on the same side are clumped together.
So that meant the aggressive Russians would start getting border tension with one another early on, making civil war all but inevitable. Meanwhile, the far more peaceful American leaders would get to tech and build up undisturbed.

So, that was the explanation.
But just to make sure, I replayed this match-up afterwards, on a more suitable map.

Spoiler America vs Russia - Alternate :

View attachment 728569



At least, this time, it wasn't Roosevelt.

Spoiler England vs France :

View attachment 728570

The last match-up turned out to be the finals between the two best civs... and a draw.

Spoiler Results :

View attachment 728571

So France wins, thanks to the tie-breaker.
Cocorico, I guess ?

Spoiler Leader results :

View attachment 728572

Not exactly what I expected.
Louis ends up with an impressive 50% win rate !

Spoiler :

I think we learned that Louis is a former champion for a reason.

Also, Russia forms a terrible team here with three very aggressive leaders but who are pretty shoddy techers, who will betray each other, and who are not very good culturally either. It’s like having a basketball team where all five players are back to the basket big men who can only dunk and rebound. They will get absolutely punked by the more balanced team that can shoot, pass, and actually plays like a team.

The other three teams have far better synergy - a muscle man (Washington, Churchill, Nappy), a win condition (Louis, Lincoln in theory, Lizzy) and a do-it-all player (FDR, DG, Vicky although as a Fin leader she is also a win con)

Russia is just three muscle men (and woman), who are just as likely to beat each other up

Moreover, England has two Financial leaders who will NOT Willem games away due to Redcoats.

France has two leaders in DG and Louis who are much better techers and a T300 death clock

America completely sweeping is a shocker but them winning is not surprising because as a tandem they work MUCH better together than the Russians. I personally think Lincoln is the worst of the Americans (mainly because he completely ignores military) and FDR is barely better, but together they are greater than the sum of their parts.