Sullla's AI Survivor Season Eight - Playoff 2 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 Playoff Game 2! The real game saw Augustus snowball off an exceptional landgrab to win easily, as Ramesses made the lamest cultural attempt ever, Justinian put forth a good effort but couldn't keep up in tech, and Gandhi miraculously hang on for a Championship ticket. But was this "supposed" to happen?

Writeup: https://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor8-11A.html

Short version: As most of us expected, this map largely came down to the three leaders on the ends of the continent, all of whom were strong contenders, while the poor scrubs in the middle were largely dead meat. Augustus was indeed the strongest leader on the map and the most likely to win, but Ramesses and Justinian also tended to perform rather better in the replays than they did in the real game. Brennus in particular had a horrible set of results and those of us who thought he had a chance were very wrong.

Discuss below!

 

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

I will gloat a little bit here by reposting what I predicted about a couple of leaders before the original stream:

Perhaps a Ramesses culture train or Justinian conquering on the other end of the map beat him out for first place, but I think something has to go horribly, horribly wrong for Augustus to miss out on a top two spot. I've convinced myself here that he's going to be one of those clear map winners in the alternate histories when the time comes; we'll see if I'm correct!

Maybe if [Frederick] gets really lucky with some dogpiles, he'll have a shot at second place, but I think he's extremely likely to be an irrelevant this game, and would be completely shocked if he pulled out in front. And I say this about my fantasy leader!

I've had some pretty bad misreads this season, but I was at least dead-on about those!

Justin turned out to be viable as an overall contender, if not as a winner. Gandhi was I guess pretty dead, but I was surprised that Brennus was so much worse/likely to die earlier than him. I also didn't expect Ramesses to be quite such a culture-or-nothing leader, but I guess it makes enough sense given what we saw in the real game. Two of the other religious leaders being busy getting killed would help his odds.

 

[Keler]

When I look at the map, I imagine there was a 7th capital on coast east of Ramesses.

Overall expected results. Playoff maps this season were all more straightforward and so less balanced than opening round maps.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Yes, pretty much what I expected (including the one Gandhi win), with two exceptions:

• I'm surprised at Justinian winning so few of the games: I thought his odds of winning would be comparable to Augustus and Ramesses.
• Also surprised at Ramesses's results being so feast or famine, but I guess that's a consequence of the first point: Ramesses would be Justinian's runner-up. But if Justinian doesn't win...

Will be interesting to see whether I get the same results or something different in a coupla weeks.