Sullla's AI Survivor Season Eight - Game 3 Alternate Histories Thread

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Sullla has posted the latest set of alternate histories for the ongoing season, this time completed by TheOneAndOnlyAtesh for opening Game 3! The real game saw an unexpected (to most aside from @Plains-Cow, that is) strong performance by Sitting Bull, who took on and knocked out both Huayna Capac and Hannibal en route to an unusual cultural victory, while Frederick took care of Shaka in the north to glide into second place. But was this "supposed" to happen?

Writeup: https://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor8-3A.html

Short version: For the third time so far this season, the high peaceweights' success was proven to be an unusual result. Fred and Sitting Bull were two of the lesser leaders in this game, frequently getting ganged up on and unable to handle the heat in the same way they did in the real game; they weren't total cannon fodder but they weren't that strong. Instead, it was Huayna Capac and Willem van Oranje who were the main contenders on this map, rarely fighting early in the same way that they did in the actual game. Shaka's promising start that had a bunch of us believing in him for this game also turned out to be largely a dud.

Discuss below!

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

My thoughts:

I can't exactly post what I thought when I first saw and read this, since Atesh passed me a copy for help with revision about a month ago. But I'll go through what I noted down at the time and post relevant thoughts here:

Willem outperformed my expectations, although it wasn't a great shock to see him do so well. As I recall, I'd thought he had a fairly good spot but would mainly get in trouble with Shaka. But it seems like that wasn't such an issue. I was surprised how few wars he faced despite his central position. Overall definitely a result that reflects more favorably on him.

Huayna reinforced his position as a top tier AI Survivor leader after some recent performances had opened up some room for doubt. His starting position wasn't good but he was able to win about a third of the time regardless. Never count him out!

Hannibal had an interesting set, and I think the most relevant stat was his absurdly low number of defensive wars. He very rarely came under attack and that gave him a nice safe position; not enough land to vie for the win, but his high runner-up rate makes sense in that light. As I noted at the time: "An interesting set for a leader who generated a lot of discussion."

Frederick was a major disappointment and I am sad that what I had thought was a smart fantasy bid on him had, in fact, ended up being pretty lucky. He had a dreamily spacious and protected start for a peaceful leader and could still only advance a quarter of the time?!? Ugh. Of course, his shockingly high invasion rate was a major part of that and I was surprised that the others seemed to often skip Sitting Bull to attack him directly. Of course, the extra experiments also suggest that the position itself may have been part of the problem. In any case, though, this was a lousy result and didn't do anything to improve my low opinion of Fred's abilities.

Shaka was perhaps the biggest shock for me as I'd thought this was a fantastic setup for him - and he's done much better with seemingly much worse starts! Yet he was mostly a failure here. That lends credence to the idea that "too much space" is very much a thing for warmongers. In any case, I thought Shaka and Fred had the best positions for this map so I clearly didn't read it that well. As usual.

Finally, I was completely unsurprised that Sitting Bull's win wasn't a common result. He overall did better than I had expected pregame, though, as I'd more or less dismissed his chances, yet he had a real if low chance to win thanks to the strength of his start. Probably one of the best setups he'll ever get.

 

[Thrasybulos]

It might be that Shaka and Freddy's disappointing performances were linked: Freddy's starting position was strong enough to enable him to withstand Shaka's assaults, thus stalemating both.

Although, to be honest, it takes a lot to sustain hopes about Freddy: when I replayed, jumble-style, S4's map where JC had an overwhelming position, every leader in that game was able to get crushing wins from that start... except Freddy.

 

[Plains-Cow]

thanks to the strength of his start

Witnessed.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I definitely expected Willem and Huayna Capac to do well. The results confirm at least one anomaly to the game we saw: Willem surviving without placing! Note from the chart that Willem placed in every single game where he survived. Huayna Capac came in at 75% and Hannibal at two-thirds. It's more of a mystery why Shaka couldn't do more with this start, especially after last season's opening round. It's possible that the better leaders simply squeezed out the good starts on the periphery.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I definitely expected Willem and Huayna Capac to do well. The results confirm at least one anomaly to the game we saw: Willem surviving without placing! Note from the chart that Willem placed in every single game where he survived. Huayna Capac came in at 75% and Hannibal at two-thirds. It's more of a mystery why Shaka couldn't do more with this start, especially after last season's opening round. It's possible that the better leaders simply squeezed out the good starts on the periphery.

Warmongers who roll an extra-war-y personality start go off the rails as soon as they possibly can. Those rails are like chains for a man who just wants to take a 4-ax stack and slam it into a walled hill city. Think of Stalin's game for an example.

 

[Keler]

I guessed Shaka/Hannibal pre season yet voted Shaka/Huayna Capac when right time came for an in case 2.5/2.5 points.
Everybody's HC vote kind of influenced me too in that direction

I expected Frederick to dominate AHs after live stream, which turns out did not happen.

True dominat leader is Willem van Oranje as it seems, he is a weird AI.
He has a nice pw 4 but he never has an ally and this map is no exception. Anyone can plot war on him due to cautiousness.
Sometimes I wonder, for 6/7 leader games he could be a better AI if he actually had a higher pw such as 6 or even 8, and ofc much better with a pw 2.
I thought Shaka could ruin his game in a 1v1, which seemed like he did in live stream. Lucky for him Sitting Bull distracted somewhere else and Huayna Capac is not a good fighting AI early game. Normally central positions are scary for him. His success in AHs is a surprise I did not see coming.