Sullla's AI Survivor Season Eight - Game 1 Thread

[Nick723]

Don't feel you have to back the English. I want them to win but peace weight is a killer. Silly religion moves could be too. Avoiding key techs for religion would be annoying.

I think gold starts (particularly with mining as a starting tech) are so valuable because they ‘de-risk’ the early tech path and make these detours way less costly.

 

[SittinDown]

(MOO also is Master of Orion), and SULLA does a nice job covering that game as well.

My picks were pretty basic as well.

I'm curious to see how the religion breaks on this map and whether Mao and Kublai get in an early fight or not.

 

[lymond]

Don't feel you have to back the English. I want them to win but peace weight is a killer. Silly religion moves could be too. Avoiding key techs for religion would be annoying.

Churchy gonna bring the pain this time

 

[Plains-Cow]

Churchy gonna bring the pain this time

I kinda wish Churchill won his championship game. Would have been amazing.

 

[The Rook]

You can drop your CFC handle sometime so people know where to find you here when/if they come over. I'm surprised you didn't include "The Rook" anywhere in your post! There are already those coming over to CFC to talk more since S7 started. I'm sure they'd love to read everyone's posts (those who are into that kind of thing, at least).

There were a few reasons I didn't mention my CFC alias:

1. I never thought Sullla would publish my comment, since it wasn't even remotely a prediction.
2. Although I've been around CFC since 2007, nearly all of my posting history pre-dates 2010. Apart from a couple of Deity playthroughs I did around 2009 (which have since been massively obsoleted by better players using better media), I can hardly remember any of my posting history - and that is probably for the best!
3. I think Plain Cow has more cIV pedigree than The Rook now, especially since that glorious day in the summer of 2020 when Plain Cow won Survivor Season 5 game 8! I'm sure that this moment is firmly etched in the memory of all CFCers, at least it will be if I keep on repeating it!

 

[lymond]

There were a few reasons I didn't mention my CFC alias:

1. I never thought Sullla would publish my comment, since it wasn't even remotely a prediction.

I believe he just looks for interesting comments - predictions or not. The few times I've been up there are usually when I try to be funny.

 

[The Rook]

(MOO also is Master of Orion), and SULLA does a nice job covering that game as well.

I even consider Master of Orion to be a distant relation of Civilization. It is remarkable that the long defunct Microprose created 3 amazing 4x franchises in as many years (that's excluding Railroad Tycoon and X-COM):

1991: Civilization
1993: Master of Orion
1994: Master of Magic

The latter has received several remakes in the last couple of years. For old school 4x players I particularly recommend "Master of Magic: Caster of Magic for Windows". I'm not a big fan of fantasy games, but mechanically the Seravy updated version is absolutely superb with genuinely challenging difficulty levels.

 

[ManiaMuse89]

Had to look up what I predicted:

1st - Mao
2nd - Kublai Khan
FTD - Hammurabi
10 Wars
Space
Turn 319

People are seriously sleeping on Mao. He is a decent leader and I am in the KK is overrated camp.

Hammurabi has no hope in this set up, he attracts a lot of hate from the other leaders and has a very high chance of being dogpiled which will be the end of him. The other protective/warmonger AIs have more chance of lasting longer or peacing out if they get attacked. I give Hammy a 50%+ chance of being FTD which is pretty high in a 6 leader setup.

Space/Domination is a 50/50. Probably dumb luck which it ends up being. I doubt there will be an obvious run away winner. I think it ending up with 2 strong leaders at the end is fairly likely, just a question of whether they attack each other during the space race or not.

 

[Gumbolt]

Let's go off script and assume Kublai Khan does something silly and ends up very backwards.

1st English. Pure Bias pick and hope the gold resource works out. Hopefully the AI will actually use it.
2nd Peter.purely as he is other side of map and may quietly do something useful.
FTD Hammurabi. Well English will need the land.
12 wars.Hopefully Mongols end up suicing on Hammy or Mao. Both would be tough targets with UU and traits.
Space 305.

I will finish work tomorrow at 5 and pretty much turn on the PC to watch.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Let's go off script and assume Kublai Khan does something silly and ends up very backwards.

1st English. Pure Bias pick and hope the gold resource works out. Hopefully the AI will actually use it.
2nd Peter.purely as he is other side of map and may quietly do something useful.
FTD Hammurabi. Well English will need the land.
12 wars.Hopefully Mongols end up suicing on Hammy or Mao. Both would be tough targets with UU and traits.
Space 305.

I will finish work tomorrow at 5 and pretty much turn on the PC to watch.

I'm going to make a special meal! I'm thinking hummus!

 

[Keler]

I am afraid Kublai can go culture victory turn 380 today and ruin the game
I believe Kaitzilla explained what triggers the thresold for AI to turn on culture slider in one of previous season's threads somewhere. Is there a strategy article about this?

 

[Plains-Cow]

I am afraid Kublai can go culture victory turn 380 today and ruin the game
I believe Kaitzilla explained what triggers the thresold for AI to turn on culture slider in one of previous season's threads somewhere. Is there a strategy article about this?

I believe it's when their terminal brainworms kick in and they decide that they want to actually throw the game because otherwise the demons inside will win.

 

[AcaMetis]

I'm not aware of a strategy article about it, but IIRC the main deciders are how many holy cities the AI controls and their leader traits (specifically Kublai's Creative does push towards a culture victory, but his Aggressive trait does not).

 

[The Rook]

I am afraid Kublai can go culture victory turn 380 today and ruin the game
I believe Kaitzilla explained what triggers the thresold for AI to turn on culture slider in one of previous season's threads somewhere. Is there a strategy article about this?

I don't know about an article, but I think what you are referring to was discussed in S7 playoff G1 thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...or-season-seven-playoff-game-1-thread.684175/

I think Slashninja1467 made the relevant post (quoted below):

Just to illuminate because i havent seen this discussed but the two factors related to whether an ai will pursue cultural victory are traits and # of holy cities. Credit to Aethylwind in twitch chat for explaining it right here:

"In particular, the AI progresses to the next "culture victory stage" 1 era later if the X/Y values of its capital city add up to an odd number than if they add up to an even number.
It has to value culture at 10 in order to pursue cultural victory, it starts at -3 because of Aggressive AI, gets 4 points for any of the traits Spiritual, Creative, Philosophical, Financial, and Industrious, 1 point for every holy city, and a random value from 0-6 depending on the location of its capital city. There's also another -3 I can't identify related to the AI's favorite civic - my best guess is Theocracy penalizes them another -3 (It's coded as isNoNonStateReligionSpread, which would suggest Theocracy).
So with only one Culture-valuing traits, you'd always need at least 3 holy cities to pursue cultural victory (-3+4+3+6 = 10). You'd have a lot better "chance" with another 2-3 though."

So basically, if a leader owns two of any of the above traits and has the early game commerce to pursue founding religions, there's a high chance for them to turn on the culture slider down the road. This is why we see Gandhi, Hatshepsut, Willem, Huayna Capac, Louis, and the like pursue cultural victory so vehemently, because they are double culture traiters who tend to found religions and turn on the slider while we see leaders like Pacal go space more often because they only have 1 culture trait and often can't found the requisite number of holy cities to make up the difference. This also has the hilarious knockoff effect where we've seen leaders like gilgamesh and kublai khan get huge and inexplicably turn on the culture slider 5% off domination because they are 1 culture traiters and have conquered the number of holy cities to trigger going into the first stage of cultural victory.

As a result, If you have rammy to win, culture is a good call. Hammurabi despite having a culture research flavor and having a love for wonders will almost never go cultural victory because he has no culture traits , and under aggressive ai, needs 7 holy cities for even the very low low chance of considering culture. He'll almost always go space as a result.

 

[0urBall]

First time I'm getting in on this amazing series early enough to make predictions, so:

1st - Kublai Khan
2nd - Churchill
FTD - Hammurabi
11 Wars
Domination
Turn 325

 

[Plains-Cow]

First time I'm getting in on this amazing series early enough to make predictions, so:

1st - Kublai Khan
2nd - Churchill
FTD - Hammurabi
11 Wars
Domination
Turn 325

I hope that you're able to watch it live on Twitch and/or post here with us as it happens on the stream! It looks like the turnout's bigger than ever!

 

[Fippy]

I'm on team churchy, down with Kublai!

 

[Mentalrock]

1 - Churchill
2 - Peter
FTD - Boudica
11 Wars
Spaceship
T330

I believe in you Churchill!

 

[lymond]

I'm on team churchy, down with Kublai!

I don't see your picks here, young lady

 

[Fippy]

Think i have Boudi 2nd, Peter FTD and Space.