Civ 4 Tournament Idea

[TheMeInTeam]

I still rate justinian as favored here. AP and a good tech rate means he'll get some wonders. He's likely getting a good shrine but more importantly good relations with neighbors + an easy target.

At this point justin + JC are still the favorites. JC also gets a strong religion presence, we'll see if they turn into a group hug. I doubt it though, peace weights probably send that continent into war despite religion similarity. I'd say based on AI targeting tendencies that it is likely that continent that has the first war...though whether it's JC on ram or hammy or toku on ram remains to be seen .

Whether Stalin or Justin takes down liz first will go a long way to deciding the outcome of the game, but IMO it still looks like justin space or culture.

Anybody have music/sistine yet?

 

[madviking]

What level is this on? Seems like it's in the middle...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's obviously deity...the only level where the AI can found a buddhism or hinduism religion in its 2nd city.

Edit: That, and DMOC says so in his post.

 

[madviking]

Oh whoopsies. Didn't pay particular attention to the turn numbers.

 

[DMOC]

Justinian won the music race in 200 AD ish (that's in the next update, I think).

The first war is, indeed, Tokugawa vs. Ramesses II.

I'd post the second part, but I'm protecting my comp. from viruses, so later tonight.

 

[Everyday]

This idea really intrigues me and I would like to offer my services if u want any help or to run any games.

(Also, I would like to add that while Neal inspired me to join this thread encouraged me to post so kinda congrats on that)

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Justinian won the music race in 200 AD ish (that's in the next update, I think).

The first war is, indeed, Tokugawa vs. Ramesses II.

I'd post the second part, but I'm protecting my comp. from viruses, so later tonight.

I'll be here wating. I have a snow day tomarrow, so I'll wait as long as a want!

 

[DMOC]

This idea really intrigues me and I would like to offer my services if u want any help or to run any games.

(Also, I would like to add that while Neal inspired me to join this thread encouraged me to post so kinda congrats on that)

I'll be here wating. I have a snow day tomarrow, so I'll wait as long as a want!

Thanks for both of your encouragement! Everyday perhaps you can help me decide which of the AI's should advance to the next round. I'm planning on sending the top 2 from each game to the next round, and then have about 7-10 other "wild card" AI's advance (maybe 0 from one game, 3 from another, etc).

Anyway...

Round 1, Game 1

Part 2


(Just for fun )

Spoiler :

Anyway, as I said before, Tokugawa declared war on Ramesses II on turn 101 (too bad Ramesses II just finished the Mausoleum of Maussolos). I saw the stack Toku sent and didn't think he'd do any damage. I was wrong.

Spoiler :

Then, something happened that would change the course of the game.

Ramesses II friendly-vassal-ed to Julius Caesar, which meant Rome was at war with Japan! And Rome happens to be tops in power.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

JC captures Memphs back! You can see how Toku's struggling with tech - he's researching Meditation vs. JC's Machinery.

As a side note, I think JC's stack composition is a bit better than Toku's (and he uses city raider too, that's good), but he could use more praets and fewer spears.

Spoiler :

Meanwhile, the other continent finally started having wars. Stalin DoW Elizabeth. Check out his stack of doom. Stalin had a 16-unit stack of catapults and swordsmen in Moscow, and this is what he sends. At least Elizabeth was wise enough to build the Swedagon Paya (I think that's what she built) so she's not a religious heathen.

Spoiler :

Back to the other continent. JC was able to capture Satsuma AND Elephantine (formerly Egyptian) after Toku took it! How convenient, waiting until Ramesses II loses his cities, then reclaiming them for himself. Kind of human-like! Oddly enough, Justinian I and Sitting Bull are still ahead of JC in score even with JC's vassal taken into account.

Spoiler :

It really sucks to be Liz. Sitting Bull and Justinian dogpiled, so it's a 3 v 1 situation. Justinian performed better in this war than Stalin and Sitting Bull combined.

Spoiler :

However, while Justinian had a monster stack ready to take London, he for some reason decided not to attack but bombard city defenses for about 10 turns! Justinian was only bombarding 4% away or so each turn, so you can imagine how frustrated I was with the AI's failure to attack immediately. At least his stupidity was equally matched by Liz's, who built a stock exchange in London after the pikeman.

Spoiler :

By the 150 turn / 800 AD mark, it's become clear who the powers are.

Maps and Graphs! (Yes, Julius Caesar captured Osaka.)

Spoiler :

Boy, do I feel sorry for Tokugawa. Julius Caesar is basically ripping him apart. The only thing JC needs to add to that stack is a medic unit.

Spoiler :

------------

Now for a switch in thought. In terms of technology ...

1. Justinian won the Music race in Turn 123/200 AD
2. Stalin won the Economics race in Turn 158/960 AD
3. Stalin (yes, Stalin ... no joke) won Liberalism in Turn 162/1020 AD - Free Tech: Astronomy

Of course, that list can't just be said without more AI stupidity. As Stalin was one turn away from winning Economics, he switched civics. I mean, come on! If you want to win a race, you need to switch civics AFTER you win the prize!

And of course, Stalin pulled off an upset by winning Liberalism. It was more of an opportunistic moment than anything else since Caesar and Justinian were busy with military and religious techs respectively.

------------

Tokugawa vassalized to Julius Caesar on turn 156/920 AD.

The funny thing is ... ONE TURN LATER ... (no joke) Julius Caesar is back in WHEOOHRN mode. Guess who the only target left on the continent is? And despite their shared religion, Caesar is pleased with Hammurabi. Heh heh heh ...

Thus concludes Part 2. Part 3 will be up shortly. I hope you're enjoying the AI stupidity.

 

[madviking]

WHOO! My prediction is coming true!

 

[DMOC]

Round 1, Game 1

Part 3


Finally! Elizabeth vassaled to Justinian.

Spoiler :

Julius Caesar, as expected, declares war on Hammurabi [Turn 169/1090 AD]. I don't think Hammurabi stands a chance. You can see how JC has lots of production.

Spoiler :

Akkad falls.

Spoiler :

Hm ... seems like Justinian's doing a little wonder-whoring.

Spoiler :

By turn 200, here's the situation.

Spoiler :

May I just point out how awesome Julius Caesar's tech path was? He went Gunpowder - Printing Press - Replaceable Parts - Rifling - Chemistry - Steam Power. Wow, focusing quite a bit on military.

As expected, Julius Caesar capitulates Hammurabi on Turn 179 / 1190 AD. He now has control of his entire continent.

And ... if you can believe it ...

TWO turns after vassalizing Hammurabi ... JC is back in WHEOOHRN mode! In fact, JC got Astronomy by (probably) telling his vassals to research it, then trading it to him since I never saw JC manually research it. Smart guy.

Spoiler :

JC declared war on the Byzantium/England team in 1535 AD. JC didn't do much damage since for some reason he never sent his full force overseas. The teams made peace soon.

Spoiler :

JC is building the Apollo Program. Oh, and he's back to WHEOOHRN.

Spoiler :

Stalin builds his Ironworks in a hilarious spot.

Spoiler :

Creative Constructions founded in Goth, and Sid's Sushi is founded in Rome.

Spoiler :

By Turn 251 / 1705 AD, the situation:

Spoiler :

The space race is on. Who will reach Alpha Centauri first?

Or will there be a surprise in the mix ...?

 

[DMOC]

Round 1, Game 1

Part 4 - The Astonishing Conclusion

Sucks to be Sitting Bull. Justinian's team and Julius Caesar's team both declared war on him! I have to give credit to Stalin, though. Stalin was wise enough to stay with Buddhism, while Sitting Bull switched to Free Religion. Not quite a wise move. Both JC and Justinian captured 2 cities each (yes, even JC's overseas attacks worked) but SB vassalized to Justinian due to more kills from him. Sitting Bull was no slouch, though, and captured York, which would later cause Elizabeth to break free from Justinian I.

Spoiler :

Stalin's been the oddball this game, and he's doing it again. He was somehow first to Radio and Mass Media. You can see he's building the United Nations. Uh ... he does know he has no chance to win, right?

Spoiler :

Caesar, naturally, won Secretary General. And he tried for a diplomatic victory.

Spoiler :

He didn't get it.

And as you can see, by 1836 AD, Constantinople was Legendary. Would Just. threaten to win by both space and culture?

Spoiler :

Naturally, Caesar couldn't let Justinian just sit by and win. Caesar declared war on Justinian (for the third time, I think!) and captured the formerly English city of Hastings. However, Justinian re-captured the city the following turn.

Spoiler :

I just thought this was funny. The resolution was to stop the war vs. Justinian. Caesar voted yes, but Toku defied it!

Spoiler :

Julius Caesar soon made peace with Justinian, but went into WHEOOHRN mode yet again! This time, his target was Stalin. JC must know that Justinian would be too tough to crack. JC ended up taking 2 quick Russian cities. Could we possibly see another vassal for JC soon?

Spoiler :

By the late 1800s, Justinian was the favorite to win. However, Julius Caesar was making it close. JC was behind in tech so he was behind in space race parts - but this would certainly help. In fact, after this, Caesar was displayed in the victor conditions screen as the leader in the space race.

Spoiler :

In 1892, Thessalonica achieved Legendary culture. There was still time for Julius Caesar, though.

Spoiler :

Caesar captures yet another Russian city.

Spoiler :

As Caesar was about to attack (and take) Moscow, his vassal, Hammurabi, did something that probably sealed the fate of the game.

Hammurabi took Moscow - and the United Nations - rather than Julius Caesar.

You'll see why this matters later.

Oooo, Justinian completes the Manhattan Project. (The odd thing is, though, Justinian was the only one who was building nukes - what happened to Caesar?)

Spoiler :

Stalin actually got eliminated in 1911 AD! Our first casualty! And proof that an overseas invasion by an AI can work.

Spoiler :

However, Justinian launched his spaceship.

Spoiler :

But wait! There was still hope! JC had the United Nations ... so naturally, he called up a diplomatic victory.

BUT ... thanks to Hammurabi's act, JC was up against his vassal!

Julius Caesar's last hope of victory vanished. He failed to win the diplomatic victory, and Justinian ends up winning a space race victory in 1925 AD! Kudos to him! Had Julius gotten Moscow, the result might be different, since JC would have had maybe 10-14 population from Moscow added on to his votes, as well as all of Hammurabi's votes.

Spoiler :

Final power graph and map.

Spoiler :

I'll post an analysis later, as well as all of the future matchups and who gets to advance.

 

[peapd]

Cool report. First of it's kind?

I was gonna say that there are some maps used in multiplayer that are totally equalized - everyone starts with identical areas. IIRC it's either a type of Pangea or Islands, which would obv. help or hurt some civs, but it would give better balance for this type of experiment than a random fractal/etc...

It's been a while since I tried multiplayer and I'm not sure if they're built into the game or you'll need to download them.

A good example: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/reference/map_scripts_guide.php#hub

There's also a script that gets used for a MP game called a 'CTON' - totally equalized - someone else can probably explain that better than I.

 

[DMOC]

Yeah, that would have been a good map. It might make things unfair for creative civs since they don't get to culturally pressure as much, and might make warring difficult with 1 choke point.

 

[Lyoncet]

Heh, that was fun to follow! Interesting near-miss for Jules there. I feel like I should say some variation of "good game" but since you didn't play, I guess I'll just say "good analysis/commentary!"

This also gave me an idea for a great grudge match setup: Julius vs. Justinian vs. Charlemagne. Who's the real Roman empire?

 

[TWSqueaks]

Awesome write up there, really appreciate that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hmm, looks like I predicted correctly other than JC's target...but the assertion that Justin's continent would tech faster and that JC would slow space down by DoWing there was true .

 

[Grashopa]

Great stuff.

 

[Anar]

Some time ago I did similar experiment. I staged couple of games (deity) featuring what I thought to be the best leaders. To observe the game I planted one unreachable city and put plenty of great spies to see what's going on around the world (this probably made AI put quite a lot of money into espionage). Anyway the results would look like this:

1. Justinian (he was dominating most of the games; early rex due to cheap settlers + deity low maintenance really helped him; also he spams enough units to protect himself, but not to many to slow him down; early religion means he is usually leader of one religious fraction making him quite safe diplomatically, it also helps with culture wars)

2. Asoka (incredible techer, if no one attacks him early he usually runs away technologically; early religions helps diplomatically and culturally)

Other good leaders: Zara, Suryavarman, Gilgamesh

Big fail: Ragnar, Shaka, Monte (spams a lot of unit, doesn't expand fast enough -> start war early that will usually fail and from there on they cannot keep up technologically)

 

[eireksten]

Very interesting writeup! Would love to read more such games.

Just a thought though. Do you guys think deity is the best difficulty for this kind of analysis? Considering that the bonuses the AI gets could potentially unbalance the traits/UU/UB. I'd think something around monarch would be more balanced considering the AI personalities/traits. But that's just a feeling I've got, and could obviously be wrong...

 

[magicwalker]

Good analysis. Keep 'em coming!