Multiplayer Let's Play: Bringing Together Humans and AI!

[glov0044]

Final 6/10/14: Russia finally wins the game via Diplomacy. Russia almost had the Domination victory first, but Portugal took the Greek capital of Athens one turn before Lisbon fell. The after action report video shows that Russia's march to victory started early and left a trail of vanquished empires in its wake. Portugal's economic empire collapsed early on with the world congress embargo and was always a step behind on the military scale.

For our next game, I might post more details such as gold/science/happiness stats and social policy choices. Would people like any additional details from these posts? Will also be changing to two shorter (15-20) episodes a week and possibly including a narrative as well.

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Lessons learned from this game:

• The AI Allies appear to always vote for their human partner for a Diplomatic victory
• Don't underestimate the ability of your AI to embargo your every need, allied or no
• Just cause your AI is an allied one, doesn't mean they won't take an arm and a leg for simple trade deals.
• Trading with your AI buddy for votes is only worth 5 votes! Not their entire voting block!
• Shoshone's biggest impact was against its teammate, Portugal, when it embargoed city states. Necessary to spy on your AI partner in order to ensure the correct votes in the World Congress.
• World Fair Production does not stack.
• Wars are far shorter as AI partners continually declare peace without consulting their human counterparts.
• AI's can stunt growth early on if they are in position to steal undefended settlers and workers.
• Only one teammate can start wonder construction.

Season 2 of our Civ series features Rich and I on different teams and paired with an AI on Prince difficulty. The result is an AI influencing our strategies in ways we didn't intend!

Here's the latest video, the After Action Report...

Link to video.

Full Season 2 Playlist

Settings:
Small, Shuffled World
Time Victory Disabled
Randomized Civs
Prince AI Difficulty
3 Permanent Teams
Rich (Russia) - AI (Greece)
JJ (Portugal) - AI (Shoshone)
AI (Spain) - AI (Iroquois)

 

[glov0044]

Here's the first episode of the season - Eternal Barbarian Wars


Link to video.

Rich uses his AI to strike first and takes a settler from Portugal. Find out in this episode 2 how JJ responds.


Link to video.

 

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In this episode, both sides make the realization that war is coming and begin arming themselves accordingly.

In next Tuesday's episode, Rich's video will finally be included!


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

Video for the Russian Empire is finally available, and just in time too. While Portugal has been busy building a strong economy, Russia decides to take a different route.


Link to video.

 

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The Russian army wasn't for show. They launch they're offensive in this episode. The rest of the world was woefully unprepared for the onslaught.


Link to video.

 

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The Russians put their army to good use and launch their campaign against the world. Who is their worst enemy? Their teammates, the AI Greeks.

This is the second event where the AI teammate has an effect on the game, this time negatively for the aggressors, Russia. Leads both of us to question whether a Domination victory is possible if the AI is always around.


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

The AIs decide that too much blood has been shed and continually go behind the backs of their human partners to declare peace. Russian attempts at Domination are very much short lived! But that doesn't stop the constant military build up from both human players.

Check it out in the video here:


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

Portugal goes on the counter-attack to try and take Braga to try and stem Russia's military expansion. How long can Portugal go before the peacenik Greek and Iroquois enforce another peace?


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

The AI teammates continue to be a pain! This time its in starting wonder building and preventing us humans from building the same building faster. So our only recourse is to continue building advanced weaponry.

Check it out here!


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

The Russians continue with their war machine plans despite all the attempts at enforcing peace. Meanwhile, the Portuguese suffer their biggest loss yet, and its from their allied AI partner the Shoshone!


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

Once again, Pocatello and Alexander sign a peace treaty, most likely due to the fact that Portugal started lobbing artillery shells at the Greek capital. However, this is only a temporary respite as the mighty Russian army simply moves to cause trouble for the lone member of Team 3.


Link to video.

 

[Tabarnak]

Interesting concept! At which AI difficulty do you play on?

Edit : Ah ok it's prince.

What are the best AIs for team games? Strong sp ones like Incans or Greece or it's completely different?

 

[glov0044]

I'm not sure which ones would be the best. Normally I would guess that you'd want to pick one that compliments yours and your civ's play style. However, the play style of the AI at this difficulty seems to differ. Greece had a powerful army at one point, but once wars got declared, his army went to non-existent as if they went bankrupt. The Shoshone have been real good to me, going wonder building for the most part. At one point however, they shifted their focus to military production when the warring started (a possible warmonger consequence).

And of course, all this could differ if another AI difficulty was used.

Whatever the difficulty, if an AI is in charge of the World Congress, try and diplomat them. That includes your ally (something I don't know for sure can be done). I'd be in a much better position if my own teammate didn't embargo the city states I was trading with and it was disappointing to find out that I didn't have some sort of ally ability to influence my AI friend's thinking at the WC.

 

[simland]

On the plus side, you get to join the glorious nation of Russia!

 

[glov0044]

This episode shows the final war between the Russian empire and the Iroquois Indians. Russia's savagery is on full display here with a relentless display of unlawful aggression towards a largely defenseless people. And with the peace treaty from the 5th Russo/Portugal war still in effect, the Portuguese and Shoshone nations could only watch in horror from the sidelines.


Link to video.

Lesson learned: World Fair production does not stack in team games.

 

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The World (Shoshone) Congress acts again, this time embargoing the sprawling Russian empire. The Russians are taking this peace time to rearm and consolidate their forces. The Portuguese desperately try to prepare their own defenses.


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

The world has been plunged into War! Russia begins their offensive against the Shoshone and Portuguese. Both teams try to make gains before the AI teammates decide to give peace a chance!

Southwest front - Russia vs Shoshone cities
Northwest front - Russian siege of Portuguese city of Coimbra
Northeast front - Russian and Portuguese navies and armies skirmish near Lisbon
Southeast front - Portuguese siege of Greek capital of Athens


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

A moment of peace as Russia can't turn its wrath on anyone else until the peace treaty expires once more. Portugal tries to pick up the pieces with only 2 cities remaining and tries to come up with ways to defend itself and the Shoshone from Russian aggression.


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

Russia mounts up again against the Shoshone and Portugal. This time the Cossacks have been replaced by metal monstrosities! The Russian navy also gets some upgrades and finally starts to push back the Portuguese fleet.


Link to video.

 

[glov0044]

The Russian empire again fails to take Te-Moak and the Portuguese Civ fails to take Athens. At the World Congress, Portugal traded its votes to its Shoshone partner in exchange for strategic resources. As a result, Shoshone uses the votes to embargo crabs but fails to use any votes to maintain the Russian embargo.


Link to video.