Sullla's AI Survivor Season Six Announced

[krikav]

The diff in peaceweight between Hatty/Sally isn't astronomical, if she lucks out and gets religion from Sally, I think that Hatty can have a functional game.
Would for sure be fun if she gots that flank safe from that reason, and then wins a war against some of the western guys.

 

[ManiaMuse89]

That was an entertaining, mostly peaceful game and extremely close. JMan was so annoying right at the end even though he had not really done anything in the whole game.

My pic was Pericles 1st and Julius 2nd so was pretty doomed there with the terrible barb defense and Julius' incompetent warring.

Looked at the scoreboard and was surprised to see myself quite near the top with 10 points. I thought I had failed all my picks completely but apparently I was the only one to get the exact finish date correct

Joao screwed Gandhi with that early U.N. Free Speech defy.
And Gandhi fell 1 turn short with his culture bomb! (Or a settled GA dud, but Sulla likes to leave us wondering)

Loved how Sitting Bull got denied the space tie AND lost out on 2 kills due to timidness and the U.N stopping him.


My Pericles with U.N. win was a longshot.

What is the turn order of civs again?
Counter-clockwise or left-to-right in the foreign advisor screen (F4) right?

Turn order in games is 1st seed (Julius) -> 2nd seed (Ghandi) -> Other leaders in alphabetical order

 

[Kaitzilla]

That was an entertaining, mostly peaceful game and extremely close. JMan was so annoying right at the end even though he had not really done anything in the whole game.

My pic was Pericles 1st and Julius 2nd so was pretty doomed there with the terrible barb defense and Julius' incompetent warring.

Looked at the scoreboard and was surprised to see myself quite near the top with 10 points. I thought I had failed all my picks completely but apparently I was the only one to get the exact finish date correct


Turn order in games is 1st seed (Julius) -> 2nd seed (Ghandi) -> Other leaders in alphabetical order

I went for Pericles -> Julius too!
Congrats on predicting the finish date.

Cool to see past winners get to the front of the line in the case of a tie.
Makes Gandhi's loss even more tragic.


The AI all starting with no techs seems to really give the deity barbarians a boost.
Hunting and archery are far away, and lack of roads slows down axemen appearing.

It also super charges Huayna Capac.
He mows down barb archers easily and can effortlessly expand into open space compared to the competition.
He also has a stack of quechuas ready to go as soon as a barb city spawns due to lack of archery, and he tears the barb city apart even easier than a human due to deity AI combat bonuses vs. barbarians.

Glad to see him in a game with 7 AI total while on the coast to make it more fair.

 

[ManiaMuse89]

I went for Pericles -> Julius too!
Congrats on predicting the finish date.

Cool to see past winners get to the front of the line in the case of a tie.
Makes Gandhi's loss even more tragic.


The AI all starting with no techs seems to really give the deity barbarians a boost.
Hunting and archery are far away, and lack of roads slows down axemen appearing.

It also super charges Huayna Capac.
He mows down barb archers easily and can effortlessly expand into open space compared to the competition.
He also has a stack of quechuas ready to go as soon as a barb city spawns due to lack of archery, and he tears the barb city apart even easier than a human due to deity AI combat bonuses vs. barbarians.

Glad to see him in a game with 7 AI total while on the coast to make it more fair.

The AI usually deal with the barbs fine. I might be wrong but I think this is the first normal barbs game where an AI city (well two actually) has been captured multiple times by the barbs. The AI gets 40% bonuses against the barbs (same on all difficulty levels actually) and with the deity production bonuses it is really silly for them to leave an insufficiently defended city which can be taken by wandering barbs.

For the Wildcard rounds Sulla runs raging barbs and I think a few AI cities have been captured by the barbs in those games.

The AI isn't particularly great at taking barb cities as well. They often seem to target barb cities that are the other side of the map instead of going for ones that are closer and often suicide units at the barb cities before they have built up a big enough stack to take it in one turn.

 

[Fippy]

I usually like most underdogs, JC was in a weak position last game and still ~60% picked him.
Shows how peoples are going with the flow.
Gandhi's loss was tragic yup, not cos i had him and culture but he was the "counter pick" for JC and first to die.
Buuuut picking Freddy was also brave, so i cannot be "angry"

 

[Fippy]

I also expect the same picking results (60%+ for HC) next game,
which would be in no way a reflection of Civ4 knowledge.
Most likely result is he struggles with this start.

 

[lymond]

I also expect the same picking results (60%+ for HC) next game,
which would be in no way a reflection of Civ4 knowledge.
Most likely result is he struggles with this start.

True dat....but HC does amaze me how he performs in the games I've seen, even in not so great positions. He's the one leader I'd say that is truly dominant. Still I ain't gonna pick him here. Nappy is my man this game. He will probably fail miserably , but I think there is some logic to the choice.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The AI all starting with no techs seems to really give the deity barbarians a boost.

I was incorrect.

The AI deity bonus techs of The Wheel, Agriculture, Hunting, and Archery were removed.
But the AI still get their 2 starting techs based on their leader. (Huayna Capac will start with Agriculture and Mysticism)

Only the barbs start with no techs.


Also, Sulla has nice write-ups for Season 5 and each game has 20 simulations to see what the average results would have been. (Alternate Histories link)
That's a huge extra effort and absolutely helps out the curious!
https://sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor5.html

The Season 5 conclusions at the top of the page also has all the starting saves in a .zip file.
https://sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor5-14.html

Not sure if there is any place to view who won the picking contest with the most points last year.
Might have to watch the championship video.

 

[lymond]

Also, Sulla has nice write-ups for Season 5 and each game has 20 simulations to see what the average results would have been. (Alternate Histories link)

Thanks for pointing that out. The alternate history write-up is almost as interesting as the live game

Not sure if there is any place to view who won the picking contest with the most points last year.

If you download the excel spreadsheet at top, go to the "Contest" tab to view the picks. If you don't have Office, xls spreadsheets convert nicely into Google Sheets.

edit: when I say top, I mean top of the "Conclusions" page for Season 5. The link being at the bottom of the main page.

I think Sulla could at least do a screen grab of the Top 10 pickers in the contest for that page.

432 folks in the contest with at least one submission. I place 340th , but only had one submission. Our Kjotleik finished 3rd.

 

[lymond]

Game 1 picks for CFC -

(1st place) - 21
Keler - 16 (2nd place)
ManiaMuse - 10
lymond - 7 (well, I picked the right victory and I think I got points maybe for # of wars)
Kjotleik - 6
My - 4
krikav - 4
Noble - 4
Kait - 3
(Sullla) - 2

I did not see fishman or acametis in the list. I saw a few old cfc-ers in there.

 

[krikav]

Almost everything I had was off, think I got some points for saying 8 war declarations and victory date 320.
I had Pericles #1, Julius #2 and Gandhi first to die.
I imagined Julius would perform good, but that Pericles could win even though Julius was ahead in score by culture.

So I rooted abit extra for Gandhis culture in the end..

 

[Fish Man]

Game 1 picks for CFC -

(1st place) - 21
Keler - 16 (2nd place)
ManiaMuse - 10
lymond - 7 (well, I picked the right victory and I think I got points maybe for # of wars)
Kjotleik - 6
My - 4
krikav - 4
Noble - 4
Kait - 3
(Sullla) - 2

I did not see fishman or acametis in the list. I saw a few old cfc-ers in there.

I got 8 points! I used “The__Babayaga” for my submission name.

 

[Conquistador 63]

I can't believe it took me so long to discover this fun event.
Bookmarked it and plan to follow the next iterations.

 

[dankok8]

I missed the start of the season and just caught up on Game 1 this weekend. That was an exciting game!

Sitting Bull from my experience is the kind of guy who never wins but usually torpedoes someone else's game, usually a warmongering neighbor. A guy like Shaka or Napoleon is pretty screwed if hey start next to Bull because of his spam of uber-promoted Archers. Even with a big empire, he's generally too peaceful and rarely starts wars when he should. Freddie too.. way peaceful and lucky that Pericles bombed early on. Peri actually could have been quite a monster had he just handled the barbs and expanded north. Or hell if he didn't fight those bizarre and exhausting wars with Joao he would have been the one winning by culture.

For Game 2 I got HC winning. Why? Yes his start is coastal and AI can mess that up but Fin still makes those coastal tiles good to work. Second his immediate neighbors Sully and especially Hatty just aren't threats. I don't see him declared on early and he should be able to get his economy revving and build a respectable army at the same time to keep him safe while he goes for space or culture. He is also opportunistic and will usually strike when he should (ex. dogpile Hatty with Sal/Nappy). The way I can see him losing if if Sully attacks him early for some reason or if he completely fails to expand and stays on like 5 cities or something. You never know with the AI but he still seems like the safest pick to me. He is the best AI in the game IMO.

Nappy is a solid pick too but he is just too aggressive for his own good most of the time and doesn't have any major military or economic advantages as a leader. Gems start is nice though as is Hatty and Pacal as neighbors, both soft targets. Hmm... he does seem like a good pick. If he's ever going to win it's in this game.

Hatty could pull of a miracle and has a strong start but I simply don't see her surviving here. Nappy not attacking her... Sal having the same religion somehow and also not attacking her... HC not attacking her... Too many things have to go right diplomatically for her to win.

I picked Sal for second place and I might see him as the second most likely to win after HC. He's got tons of room to expand and I noticed that religious nuts do reasonably well in the AI survivor setup. He will convert at least a few neighbors to secure his flanks then usually attack a weaker heathen and can easily snowball from there.

Pacal is another darkhorse pick that could win somehow. If Nappy gets dragged into other wars he could emerge as a the frontrunner. Louis just seems irrelevant in most games. Ditto for Sully.

 

[Fippy]

I'm really curious, what makes HC better than others in peoples opinion
I remember some games he lost, one where he suicide attacked Kublai i think was very funny.
So it's not like he makes better war decisions.

Qs are good against barbs, not that significant usually for AIs thou.
Terrace culture shouldn't matter, they all equally start with monuments in new cities.
IND was considered a weaker trait for those games i think, like PHI?

So we have FIN + peaceweight of 2. He gets along better with warmongers.
But..i seem to remember several games where he was either given great starts or weak neighbors.
Justi is one of those other better AIs. Here i also remember how he was rushed by Kublai after overexpanding, defending with warriors..on deity.

I think they all do equally silly stuff, and sometimes they do okay.
In my solo games i have not noticed especially good performances from HC.

 

[dankok8]

^ Good post. He has been a monster in some of my offline games but not always. I think if HC has one weakness it's a tendency to under-expand. In games he doesn't do well, I see him with a small empire. Maybe it's something in his AI personality or maybe it's just sampling bias on my part. I think someone would have to run hundreds if not thousands of trials on balanced maps to really find definitive trends.

But still. FIN in general is a top AI trait. Couple that with an AI personality that isn't overly aggressive (Ragnar) or overly peaceful (Elizabeth) and you've already got a very dangerous AI. In fact Huayna may even be classified as slightly dangerous. IIRC he is above average in aggression, above average in unit building and able to declare at Pleased. Terrace culture does help IMO as it makes him able to hold borders even against Creative AI's or those with religions. It functions as pseudo-Creative trait. And I think that trait is so good for AI because it punishes them less for their usually terrible city placements. Quechua as you said don't help much with barbs because AI's start with Archery on Deity anyways. But overall his package is very strong. Anyone can lose and diplomacy with 7 AI's can turn out every which way which is the biggest factor that makes these games unpredictable. When I said Huayna is the best AI I meant so far in AI survivor. Then again like I admitted it's a small sample size.

One AI who has been unlucky so far in the competition is Zara IMO. He is a top tier AI who dominates in my offline games.

One AI whose suckiness I can't explain is Victoria. FIN is really strong, IMP is also good for AI and she's not as big of a peacenik as Liz but she's terrible.

 

[sampsa]

So we have FIN + peaceweight of 2. He gets along better with warmongers.

I think this is the main virtue of HC as an AI. Games can shape up in a way that is good for him as he's on the right team, but focusing on empire development. I do agree though that there are AIs that do nearly everything better than HC does (Justinian and Zara spring into mind), but can suffer a bit from high peaceweight.

above average in unit building

According to Civ Illustrated #1 unitbuild is only 4/10. Looking at it, maybe HR as a fav civic is good for the AI? It's a good civic, so beelining for it isn't awful and boosts relations with many leaders.

 

[krikav]

I think that IND are a rather good trait for the AIs as it helps them alot to recover (or at least not suffer as much) when they do moronic wonderbuilding choices.
In my view, Pericles last game was hurt at least as much by his choice to go for Moai in capital and ToAr in second city, without any wonder resource, as he was by losing city to barbs.
Had he been IND in that case, he would have gotten out of that wondercurse faster and could have resumed sensible builds like settlers/units.

Good point about monarchy too @sampsa, could certainly play a role. Not only for HR but I imagine that most AIs that are tilted for monarchy abit earlier also have higher odds to get feud in time to not get rolled over by a early war declaration.

Then he favours production/gold which is nice, and being financial and having cottages as favourite improvement also helps.

I think it's the collection of small advantages that make him rise above the pack often enough, not always but often enough that players have built up intuition about him being good. And... Past performance is not indicative of future results.

 

[Fippy]

Vicky often had coastal or boxed in starts, i still believe starting posis are the most important factor.
HC has 25% in DanF charts, so not sure about 4/10. Illustrated is great, but i usually prefer Dan's charts for accuracy.
Kublai 25% too, and we saw his big stacks in some games
Prolly depends on plotting time, with agg. AI on.

So start + peaceweight, thou pleased can be "overruled" by agg. AI.
I guess we will see, going against Vicky if she gets a good inland start could still end up as wrong decision.

 

[krikav]

I'm 100% sure that Vicky was absolutely toasted by Moai. Don't remember if it was last season or the one before that.
She got stuck at 3 cities and went Moai in her starting capital which took forever to finish.

@Fippy What are the DanF charts you mention? Nothing I know of I think.