Civ 4 Tournament Idea
- Thread starter DMOC
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gagnarath
Chieftain
Very cool idea, great write up too, will be watching for this to continue.
DMOC
Mathematician
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Thanks for all the encouragement, guys! 
Round 1, Game 1 Recap
The result - Justinian I's space race victory - was expected. On the other hand, Julius Caesar's rampage over his continent and Stalin on the other was not expected.
Julius' conquest was facilitated by Ramesses II's peaceful vassalziation to Caesar - which then caused JC to vassal Tokugawa via warfare in a short amount of time. The snowball effect meant that Hammurabi had no chance vs. Caesar & co. and Caesar quickly took control of his continent. He often had double Justinian's power throughout the game, but failed to put a dent in Justinian's victory because of his weakness in overseas invasion.
Justinian performed well this game, having Elizabeth and Sitting Bull as his vassal at times. Even Stalin peacefully vassaled to him once.
In the end, it was Hammurabi's act of capturing Moscow that sealed Justinian's victory. Had Julius Caesar been able to capture Moscow, he almost certainly would have won a diplomatic victory just before Justinian's ship landed. All in all, it was a fun and exciting game to watch! Too bad there were no nuclear wars occurring.
Now that the game's over, it's time to decide which of the AI's get to advance to the next round and which ones are eliminated.
In my opinion, Julius Caesar and Justinian I were the two clear winners in this game, both controlling or practically controlling their continents throughout the game. The AI's who should be eliminated from this round are Elizabeth, Tokugawa, and Ramesses II. Elizabeth decided to expand south rather than in the north, which caused her to have 5 cities throughout the game. Furthermore, founding Hinduism and Judaism and being a heathen in a continent filled with Buddhists is also not a wise thing to do. Ramesses II on the other continent failed to expand fast enough, getting boxed in by the AD's. Furthermore, he was building wonders while Tokugawa was preparing to attack him - not a good idea. The third AI who doesn't deserve to advance - Tokugawa - performed well initially with his conquest of Memphis, but collapsed under Caesar's forces, a puzzling phenomenon when considering Tokugawa's traits and that Tokugawa and Caesar had similar land area.
There are 3 AI's left - Hammurabi, Sitting Bull, and Saladin. Those three are left for me to decide as "wild cards" to advance. In other words, we need to decide which of these three mentioned AI's deserves to have a chance to play in the second round. The key to this is deciding which AI performed best under their given circumstances. I think Sitting Bull performed rather well - he had lots of tundra land and was culturally pressured by Justinian I, but remained tops in city count and was competitive until he warred Justinian I. Hammurabi also performed somewhat well - he was a competitor in the space race victory and captured 2 of Stalin's overseas cities. Stalin is probably the weakest of the three in question, but still performed well this game, often winning "races" (to be discussed below) out of nowhere. However, his collapse vs. overseas forces puts his chances of advancing to the second round in jeopardy.
So I need your help in ranking those 3 AI's. The way this works is that in the 7 first-round games, the top 2 AI's advance (if the winner is someone not first in score, like in this game, then the top civ in score advances) which makes 14 AI's left in the semifinals. Then, along with those 14, I think we should have maybe 10-15 other AI's who might not have won their games, but performed best under their circumstances and deserve to play another game. After all 7 games have been played in the first round, I'll begin the task of deciding which of the "wild card" AI's will advance and which will not - which is why I need some kind of a ranking system. In other words, perhaps all 3 (SB, Stalin, Ham) will get to play again, and perhaps all 3 won't.
My ranking:
1. Sitting Bull
2. Hammurabi
3. Stalin
Here are the "races" in the game:
Now I leave part of the decision making to you guys. I'm going back to playing round 6 of the ALCs.
PS: From the stats so far, it appears that Imperialistic AI's have a 100% chance of advancing to the next round. We'll see what happens with the NEXT matchup:
1. Churchill
2. Montezuma
3. Wang Kon
4. Lincoln
5. Suleiman
6. Peter
7. Pericles
8. Pacal II
I haven't set the map yet, but my money is on Montezuma.
(This all purely the randomizer's work - I had to replace Mehmed II in this game with Wang Kon because I don't want 2 of the same civs in the game - the randomizer set Mehmed to be in pot #6. This means that Hatshepsut is alone in that game vs. 6 other aggressive AI's.)
EDIT: I think this is the right save (acctually Just. might have won 1925 AD)
Round 1, Game 1 Recap
The result - Justinian I's space race victory - was expected. On the other hand, Julius Caesar's rampage over his continent and Stalin on the other was not expected.
Julius' conquest was facilitated by Ramesses II's peaceful vassalziation to Caesar - which then caused JC to vassal Tokugawa via warfare in a short amount of time. The snowball effect meant that Hammurabi had no chance vs. Caesar & co. and Caesar quickly took control of his continent. He often had double Justinian's power throughout the game, but failed to put a dent in Justinian's victory because of his weakness in overseas invasion.
Justinian performed well this game, having Elizabeth and Sitting Bull as his vassal at times. Even Stalin peacefully vassaled to him once.
In the end, it was Hammurabi's act of capturing Moscow that sealed Justinian's victory. Had Julius Caesar been able to capture Moscow, he almost certainly would have won a diplomatic victory just before Justinian's ship landed. All in all, it was a fun and exciting game to watch! Too bad there were no nuclear wars occurring.
*****
Now that the game's over, it's time to decide which of the AI's get to advance to the next round and which ones are eliminated.
In my opinion, Julius Caesar and Justinian I were the two clear winners in this game, both controlling or practically controlling their continents throughout the game. The AI's who should be eliminated from this round are Elizabeth, Tokugawa, and Ramesses II. Elizabeth decided to expand south rather than in the north, which caused her to have 5 cities throughout the game. Furthermore, founding Hinduism and Judaism and being a heathen in a continent filled with Buddhists is also not a wise thing to do. Ramesses II on the other continent failed to expand fast enough, getting boxed in by the AD's. Furthermore, he was building wonders while Tokugawa was preparing to attack him - not a good idea. The third AI who doesn't deserve to advance - Tokugawa - performed well initially with his conquest of Memphis, but collapsed under Caesar's forces, a puzzling phenomenon when considering Tokugawa's traits and that Tokugawa and Caesar had similar land area.
There are 3 AI's left - Hammurabi, Sitting Bull, and Saladin. Those three are left for me to decide as "wild cards" to advance. In other words, we need to decide which of these three mentioned AI's deserves to have a chance to play in the second round. The key to this is deciding which AI performed best under their given circumstances. I think Sitting Bull performed rather well - he had lots of tundra land and was culturally pressured by Justinian I, but remained tops in city count and was competitive until he warred Justinian I. Hammurabi also performed somewhat well - he was a competitor in the space race victory and captured 2 of Stalin's overseas cities. Stalin is probably the weakest of the three in question, but still performed well this game, often winning "races" (to be discussed below) out of nowhere. However, his collapse vs. overseas forces puts his chances of advancing to the second round in jeopardy.
So I need your help in ranking those 3 AI's. The way this works is that in the 7 first-round games, the top 2 AI's advance (if the winner is someone not first in score, like in this game, then the top civ in score advances) which makes 14 AI's left in the semifinals. Then, along with those 14, I think we should have maybe 10-15 other AI's who might not have won their games, but performed best under their circumstances and deserve to play another game. After all 7 games have been played in the first round, I'll begin the task of deciding which of the "wild card" AI's will advance and which will not - which is why I need some kind of a ranking system. In other words, perhaps all 3 (SB, Stalin, Ham) will get to play again, and perhaps all 3 won't.
My ranking:
1. Sitting Bull
2. Hammurabi
3. Stalin
Here are the "races" in the game:
- Justinian I won Music in 200 AD
- Stalin won Economics in 960 AD
- Stalin won Liberalism in 1020 AD (Free Tech: Astronomy)
- Stalin won Physics in 1350 AD
- Justinian I won Communism in 1390 AD (He beat Stalin by ONE turn)
- Justinian I won Fascism in 1510 AD
- Justinian I won Fusion in 1878 AD
Now I leave part of the decision making to you guys. I'm going back to playing round 6 of the ALCs.
PS: From the stats so far, it appears that Imperialistic AI's have a 100% chance of advancing to the next round. We'll see what happens with the NEXT matchup:
1. Churchill
2. Montezuma
3. Wang Kon
4. Lincoln
5. Suleiman
6. Peter
7. Pericles
8. Pacal II
I haven't set the map yet, but my money is on Montezuma.
(This all purely the randomizer's work - I had to replace Mehmed II in this game with Wang Kon because I don't want 2 of the same civs in the game - the randomizer set Mehmed to be in pot #6. This means that Hatshepsut is alone in that game vs. 6 other aggressive AI's.)
EDIT: I think this is the right save (acctually Just. might have won 1925 AD)
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Actually, it's far from almost certain. The AI chooses a resolution to call AT RANDOM! Unless 3.19 changed something it's not even weighted...It would take a good bit of luck for JC to win that way even IF he took the UN himself. That's why I called it a luck box in the first place
.Depending on the layout Peter and Sully (military or space, rarely culture) or Pacal/Pericles (space, culture if left alone) could take it too.
Sully/peter are the most consistently dangerous AI in that set to actually win. Monty probably has a higher chance of causing the player to lose (IE dow and slow him down), but one of those two is more likely to actually cross the finish line first.
Of course it depends on the map too. If you're doing continents again the layout could make all the difference. If you choose pangaea, whether monty targets lincoln or pacal instead of a possibly heathen wang kon or peace-weight-hate churchill (he will hate lincoln from that too) will make a good bit of difference. If monty gets on a roll on pangaea he'll probably chain cap FTW (though beware him getting friendly with pacal, peter, or sully and watching them win anyway). If he trips up on the first war, he likely falls behind enough that an ensuing DoW is jags/axe/cat vs longbow/mace, where he'll promptly get ownt even by softies like mansa.
Sully and peter are above average AIs. W/O a map I can't pick between them.
ahmedhadzi
Relocation Consultant
Wow, this whole thing is amazing idea. When can we expect match number 2?
Awesome thread, keep 'em coming.
I agree with a wildcard playoff game or two. Or, seeing as how popular your games are, just advance all 3 (only eliminating obvious losers like Liz in this game) and run a few extra games. Looks like you have enough volunteers to help you.
This reminds me of when my old roommate got FIFA 2008 and we set up an AI vs. AI game, and watched the whole thing. Couldn't tell the difference from regular soccer to be honest. Maybe a little less whining over calls.
I agree with a wildcard playoff game or two. Or, seeing as how popular your games are, just advance all 3 (only eliminating obvious losers like Liz in this game) and run a few extra games. Looks like you have enough volunteers to help you.
This reminds me of when my old roommate got FIFA 2008 and we set up an AI vs. AI game, and watched the whole thing. Couldn't tell the difference from regular soccer to be honest. Maybe a little less whining over calls.
bestrfcplayer
Steppin' up!
Nice. I say that in the next game, it will be Monty winning in Modern Era with an Infantry rush. And did YOU get in any wars with the AI???v
DMOC
Mathematician
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Actually, it's far from almost certain. The AI chooses a resolution to call AT RANDOM! Unless 3.19 changed something it's not even weighted...It would take a good bit of luck for JC to win that way even IF he took the UN himself. That's why I called it a luck box in the first place
Depending on the layout Peter and Sully (military or space, rarely culture) or Pacal/Pericles (space, culture if left alone) could take it too.
Sully/peter are the most consistently dangerous AI in that set to actually win. Monty probably has a higher chance of causing the player to lose (IE dow and slow him down), but one of those two is more likely to actually cross the finish line first.
Of course it depends on the map too. If you're doing continents again the layout could make all the difference. If you choose pangaea, whether monty targets lincoln or pacal instead of a possibly heathen wang kon or peace-weight-hate churchill (he will hate lincoln from that too) will make a good bit of difference. If monty gets on a roll on pangaea he'll probably chain cap FTW (though beware him getting friendly with pacal, peter, or sully and watching them win anyway). If he trips up on the first war, he likely falls behind enough that an ensuing DoW is jags/axe/cat vs longbow/mace, where he'll promptly get ownt even by softies like mansa.
Sully and peter are above average AIs. W/O a map I can't pick between them.
The AI chooses resolutions at random?
So if an AI is clear to win a diplo it might not ever run that vote? Sounds like a needed fix.You have a good point about the AI's. As much as I'd LIKE to see Montezuma win I know it's slim unless he starts next to Lincoln.
I probably won't do continents. For this next map I'm thinking more of a pangea as well.
Well, I'm busy tomorrow and ... thurs, fri, sat ... wow. Maybe Sunday?
Maybe earlier if I get lucky.I, unfortunately, did not save the 4000 BC. I'll make a note of that for the next game.
Yes, I was thinking along those lines.
Yeah, I'm thinking about letting Ham, SB, and Stalin all go to the wild card pool. If anyone wants to help run a game, by all means do so (but tell me in advance so we don't do the same game).
Oh noes! You mean I'm going to have to choose between rooting for Pericles and Suleiman?
Yeah, but if you get lucky both advance.
No because I have +90 "past events have strengthened our relations."
However, the important thing for me was to consistently refuse their demands. I.e. if someone wanted to trade world maps, I needed to decline, I wanted the game to be almost without the human player.
Everyone, I'm posting up all of the first 7 games (should have done that immediately) and the civs in them.
I'll put up starting screens + save for game 2 maybe tonight. Then ALC update maybe tomorrow night (the last round was quite slow).
DMOC
Mathematician
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Okay, first post is updated with all the future game civs.
It looks like games 5 and 6 will be very interesting to watch. Game 5 has 5 peaceful leaders while game 6 has 6 militaristic leaders.
I bet that the winners will be:
Game 2 - Montezuma
Game 3 - Huayna Capac
Game 4 - Cyrus
Game 5 - Mansa Musa
Game 6 - Gilgamesh
Game 7 - Zara Yaqob
It looks like games 5 and 6 will be very interesting to watch. Game 5 has 5 peaceful leaders while game 6 has 6 militaristic leaders.
I bet that the winners will be:
Game 2 - Montezuma
Game 3 - Huayna Capac
Game 4 - Cyrus
Game 5 - Mansa Musa
Game 6 - Gilgamesh
Game 7 - Zara Yaqob
madviking
north american scum
Mine:
Spoiler madviking's Wildly Accurate Predictions (TM) :
)
madviking
north american scum
As you can tell, war will influence every game, but I don't think unless the continents were vastly different in size, or it was a Pangaea map, AI will not win a conquest or domination. Maybe I'm giving the Civ4 AI too little credit here... but I think there will be two dominant AI in each game... but as we saw, the AI can't do a successful large scale naval invasion of an equally powerful AI. Game 6 is the game most likely ending in a military victory.
DMOC
Mathematician
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Here's the Map for Round 1, Game 2
Here's the map before I did anything. It was a Fractal map, Standard size, low sea level, everything set to defaults. I started near that small isthmus between Korea and England.
It was clear to me that Suleiman needed to be moved, so I moved Suleiman to the place where I started. I then had to beef up certain areas of the map. I needed to beef up the capitals of Montezuma, Peter, Churchill, and Pericles and add more land for Montezuma and Peter while removing some of the land south of Lincoln and Pacal II.
Final map.
Here are the starts in-depth.
Montezuma
Peter
Pericles
Lincoln
Pacal II
Churchill
Suleiman
Wang Kon
Hopefully I didn't mess this one up too badly. It's not perfectly balanced, but then again, the wild card thing is there to help those civs who performed well despite their territory. I think Peter has the worst start personally (even after beefing up his starting land) so that will definitely be taken into consideration.
4000 BC save here.
Now back to the ALC for me.
I'll write my full prediction of this game later. I'll play it out but anyone else is free to try and see what happens for themselves.
EDIT: The first save isn't exactly what I had, it's before the modifications (screenshots above may be a bit off). The second one is what I used, just be sure to add wealth so your spies don't get disbanded.
Here's the map before I did anything. It was a Fractal map, Standard size, low sea level, everything set to defaults. I started near that small isthmus between Korea and England.
Spoiler :
It was clear to me that Suleiman needed to be moved, so I moved Suleiman to the place where I started. I then had to beef up certain areas of the map. I needed to beef up the capitals of Montezuma, Peter, Churchill, and Pericles and add more land for Montezuma and Peter while removing some of the land south of Lincoln and Pacal II.
Final map.
Spoiler :
Here are the starts in-depth.
Montezuma
Spoiler :
Peter
Spoiler :
Pericles
Spoiler :
Lincoln
Spoiler :
Pacal II
Spoiler :
Churchill
Spoiler :
Suleiman
Spoiler :
Wang Kon
Spoiler :
Hopefully I didn't mess this one up too badly. It's not perfectly balanced, but then again, the wild card thing is there to help those civs who performed well despite their territory. I think Peter has the worst start personally (even after beefing up his starting land) so that will definitely be taken into consideration.
4000 BC save here.
Now back to the ALC for me.
I'll write my full prediction of this game later. I'll play it out but anyone else is free to try and see what happens for themselves.EDIT: The first save isn't exactly what I had, it's before the modifications (screenshots above may be a bit off). The second one is what I used, just be sure to add wealth so your spies don't get disbanded.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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This one is wildly unpredictable. It depends which AIs get the religion. If monty opts to blow right by peter to attack someone else Peter has a very good chance (he himself will also want to DoW on pericles and lincoln and has the positioning to do that effectively). IMO peter being there and starting with metal hurts monty's chances...peter has a mere 5 less unitprob than the featherhead and techs far better (and is equally untrustworthy).
Sully is stuck between protectives but otherwise powerful. I nevertheless give him a minus thanks to his positioning, rating him #2 on the map.
Ranked predictions by likelihood:
1. Peter - Military (conquest, diplomation, or domination)
2. Peter - Space
3. Sully - Space
4. Pacal - peacevassal culture
5. Sully - military
Pericles is a reasonably strong leader but he's too likely to be harassed (monty and peter are both likely to target him), however he's the dark horse (if they somehow leave him alone, he could become very dangerous as a techer and win culture or space).
Lincoln is toast on this map. Churchill will not be liked due to peaceweight except by lincoln. While less of a punching bag it's hard to see him winning. It *is* possible if something weird happens and he gets some cities via dogpiling (his unitprob is also 30 IIRC), but I can hardly predict such an upset.
Wang doing culture is also possible but similarly unlikely. I can see it happening if he monopolizes religions though.
Overall, this one is far more difficult to predict than the last map, which was almost instantly obvious to me.
Sully is stuck between protectives but otherwise powerful. I nevertheless give him a minus thanks to his positioning, rating him #2 on the map.
Ranked predictions by likelihood:
1. Peter - Military (conquest, diplomation, or domination)
2. Peter - Space
3. Sully - Space
4. Pacal - peacevassal culture
5. Sully - military
Pericles is a reasonably strong leader but he's too likely to be harassed (monty and peter are both likely to target him), however he's the dark horse (if they somehow leave him alone, he could become very dangerous as a techer and win culture or space).
Lincoln is toast on this map. Churchill will not be liked due to peaceweight except by lincoln. While less of a punching bag it's hard to see him winning. It *is* possible if something weird happens and he gets some cities via dogpiling (his unitprob is also 30 IIRC), but I can hardly predict such an upset.
Wang doing culture is also possible but similarly unlikely. I can see it happening if he monopolizes religions though.
Overall, this one is far more difficult to predict than the last map, which was almost instantly obvious to me.
Game 2 punditry:
Wang's starting area is very nice but I don't see him winning it, I just think he's a weak AI. If Pacal was there it would be a different story as being tucked away at the end of the world would suit his supertech peacemongery. Or Pericles.
Pericles as it is has good land nearby but his success is highly dependent on which way both Peter and Abe expand at the start. Unfortunately Peter starts with mining so I expect he will settle the nice copper site towards Pericles. Bad for Peri, good for Monty.
The most eyecatching feature is of course Monty v Peter on the western lobe of the peanut, and you have to think how that turns out is going to be a major factor determining the result. It's a big wildcard and I have no guesses.
It seems fairly well balanced map (good tweaking DMOC) so it's hard not to go with the percentages and predict the civs best known for winning games to take it somehow. Peter or Sully. I go with Suieman just because he has a less complicated neighbour situation. It will take him a while to clear the jungle but will finish strongly.
(Edit: Lincoln and Pacal have some of the best land around them - lots of gold and floodplains - but you still really can't pick them to win because they're such milquetoasts. Maybe Pacal by culture if he's really lucky and stays out of trouble).
Wang's starting area is very nice but I don't see him winning it, I just think he's a weak AI. If Pacal was there it would be a different story as being tucked away at the end of the world would suit his supertech peacemongery. Or Pericles.
Pericles as it is has good land nearby but his success is highly dependent on which way both Peter and Abe expand at the start. Unfortunately Peter starts with mining so I expect he will settle the nice copper site towards Pericles. Bad for Peri, good for Monty.
The most eyecatching feature is of course Monty v Peter on the western lobe of the peanut, and you have to think how that turns out is going to be a major factor determining the result. It's a big wildcard and I have no guesses.
It seems fairly well balanced map (good tweaking DMOC) so it's hard not to go with the percentages and predict the civs best known for winning games to take it somehow. Peter or Sully. I go with Suieman just because he has a less complicated neighbour situation. It will take him a while to clear the jungle but will finish strongly.
(Edit: Lincoln and Pacal have some of the best land around them - lots of gold and floodplains - but you still really can't pick them to win because they're such milquetoasts. Maybe Pacal by culture if he's really lucky and stays out of trouble).
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