Sullla's AI Survivor Season Three Alternate Histories

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Hi everyone,

After the S8 season came to an end, I started knocking out some of the S3 AHs that Amicalola was unable to do. Here are the links to the writeups, some of them done by Amica:

S3O1 - done by Amica

S3O2 - done by Amica

S3O3 - done by yours truly
S3O3 Amica's Version

S3O4 - done by yours truly
S3O4 Amica's Version

S3O5 - done by yours truly

S3O6 - done by Amica

S3O7 - done by Amica

S3O8 - done by yours truly

S3WC - done by Amica

S3P1 - done by yours truly

S3P2 - done by yours truly

S3P3 - done by yours truly

S3CH - done by yours truly

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

First teaser - S3O3.

Sullla's Writeup

A clear Big Three, and three scrubs. The question was, who was Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen/Dennis Rodman, and who was Dumb/Dumber/Dumbest?

 

[Thrasybulos]

I'd say:

1. Hannibal
2. Peter
3. Mao
4. Genghis
5. Sury
6. Sitting Bull

4&5 could be the other way round, their stats are pretty similar...

 

[a pen-dragon]

Hanni - Peter - Mao - Genghis - Sury - SB

SB last due to peaceweight, Sury seems to have the most cramped start and is next to Genghis. Genghis is probably not doing that well due to being too aggressive, but could ruin some games. Genghis fourth due to less second places, he probably either snowballs or dies.

Peter second due to being next to Genghis, and thus liable to go out early. Mao really has lots of land and I do not see him getting eliminated half the time. Will he score more kills than Hanni? I do not think so due to Hanni not killing someone probably taking him out of the game, thus third with more wins than kills is probably not him.

The stats for the third do surprise me in this setup, due to having so few kills. I think that anyone, except SB, is able to win some medieval wars here and the people winning will either have some domination victories, requireing kills, or go to space, making some decisive late-game wars likely. I think that only Peter is likely to go culture in this bunch and Diplo is unlikely as always. Peter being third would mean him having a way better survival rate than Mao, which I find unlikely.

 

[Keler]

Ok we agree , Peter is second with lower survival rate.
But only 6 kills? Isn't that pleased locked Hanny?
1) Mao
2) Peter
3) Hannibal
4) Suryavarman
5) Genghis
6) Sitting Bull

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Here is the actual writeup. Note that I will wait to actually submit it to Sullla as I think the guy has a LOT going on, like his wife is about to have his second kid.

Overview

This was one of those sets with a clear and obvious divide between three winners and three losers. In these replays, the Big Three (Hannibal, Mao, Peter) continuously bullied the three has-beens and never-weres of the map (Sury, Genghis, Sitting Bull). Every single replay would see at least one of Mao, Peter, and Hannibal become formidable contenders who would dictate the events of a game.

Leader Dynamics

For obvious reasons, this analysis must start with poor Sitting Bull, or as they say, Sitting Duck. In what should come as no surprise to everyone and their mothers, the Native Americans were utterly screwed in this world. This had little to do with Sitting Bull’s lackluster abilities; Mansa Musa would have suffered a similar fate in his position. While the Native Americans were obviously in an untenable diplomatic position, their dry, resource-sparse, and jungle-choked land was just as bad, if not worse. Like in the Actual Game, these replays generally saw Sitting Bull’s economy sputter before the Big Three collectively put him out of his misery, and Sitting Bull did not even come close to surviving a single game.

A key factor in the success of the Big Three came from their easy access to Sitting Bull, and conversely, a major problem for Sury and Genghis was the fact that they were on the opposite side of the world from the Native Americans. Delving deeper into the Big Three, each contender had their own intricate set of advantages and disadvantages. The community favorite Mao certainly redeemed himself after his poor performance in the livestream. Although the Chairman usually started slow to his propensity to avoid early culture and his mediocre-at-best traits, he had a vast amount of high-quality land available to him and an easy snack in Sitting Bull which helped him become a formidable player no matter how slow his first 50 turns were. Despite not being the best economic leader – although he was competent enough – he more than compensated by being the best politician, being shrewd with his alliances and military timing. Mao's biggest problem in this setup was his corner position that gave him many tough choices after killing Sitting Bull. Invade a more technologically advanced Hannibal? Attack an equally strong and sometimes larger Peter in the era of Castle defenses? March across the map to attack one of the Western leaders? Do nothing and risk another leader run away with the game? Throughout these games, Mao attempted all of these strategies to varying degrees of success, although he certainly made the right choices more often than not.

Hannibal was unsurprisingly the best economic leader of the Big Three due to being Financial and having a synergistic Fishing start. He was also the best at timing his invasion of Sitting Bull, usually waiting to strike until Construction and using Elephants to mow down the Native Americans in vintage Carthaginian fashion. There were games where he had two empires worth of territory by Turn 150 and was thus completely unstoppable. However, he was cramped on territory by his Creative Khmer neighbor, and if he failed to take out the Native Americans quickly enough, or did not get as much territory in the dogpile, the Carthaginian leader could find himself having to compete with much larger rivals. Sometimes, this did not matter and Hannibal still just ran away with the game, but other times it was apparent that even the quality of Financial/Alive cannot outcompete sheer quantity. To tack on, Hannibal's inability to plot at Pleased relations would come back to bite him multiple times, as will be discussed in the individual leader section.

Finally, Peter was the boom-or-bust member of the Big Three. His highs were incredibly dominant, but his lows, including one First To Die performance, were quite embarrassing. Peter's biggest advantage over Hannibal and Mao was that he had far more opportunities for conquest after Sitting Bull, as his two Western neighbors of Genghis and Sury were generally weak, technologically backwards, and prime dogpile candidates. Thus, Peter did not necessarily need to partake in the sitting duck hunt to succeed in this map. Unfortunately for the first czar, Peter had a Copper resource in his capital, and early Copper-based wars proved to be a double edged ax for the Russians. Peter spent quite a few games wasting time and resources flinging Axes and Chariots at his opponent’s walls, causing him to fall behind and become mid or late game cannon fodder for a much bigger and more advanced rival.

Even though Sury and Genghis were by-and-large pretenders in this map, their dynamic was a noteworthy sideshow which did have implications for the wildcard and even the playoff round. To start with Sury, he was mostly screwed due to one reason:

Where in Sid’s name are Sury’s metals?

This was a dicey situation to be in when a Temujin is nipping at one's heels. Unfortunately, Sury's one source of Copper was in a bad spot, and Sury understandably preferred to settle more lush areas of the map. Moreover, due to his Culture and Gold research preferences, he took a long time to research Iron Working. There were moments where he was defending himself with Chariots and Catapults against the Mongolian horde, and this did not end well for him. It spoke volumes that it was not Sitting Bull, but Sury who had the earliest First To Die of the set, dying on Turn 107 which would have been a record during Season 3. Naturally, Genghis was the prime beneficiary of Sury’s predicament, and running over the metalless Khmer early was the catalyst for all his best games, including his two victories.

Side note: due to forgetting to account for the hurry cost of the AP (these games were run under modern AI Survivor settings), I had to discard the first game I ran where Genghis killed Sury on turn 96 and was about to run away with the game when Hannibal Great Engineered the AP, used it to end the Mongolian invasion of his lands, and then started re-assigning Mongolian cities to himself.

However, Sury was not completely dead meat on this map, for he had a golden lifeline:

Note that Genghis often crashed his tech rate when trying to beeline Iron Working super early

Quite the eKhanomy you got there, Temujin!

Over these twenty games, Genghis Khan produced some of the most horrific economic displays I have ever seen in an Alternate Histories. Even if Sury was too slow to acquire metals, Genghis Khan would sometimes crash his economy so hard that he would be unable to launch his attack, and Sury would be left unpunished. Game 14, in particular, showcased one of the most hilarious events I have ever witnessed in all my time interacting with AI Survivor: Genghis Khan sicced his forces onto the Khmer lands, ONLY TO WATCH HIS ENTIRE INVADING ARMY DESERT HIM DUE TO A LACK OF FUNDS:

The Mongolian forces vaporized without a single drop of bloodshed

In that particular game, Genghis was lucky to have one Archer guarding his cities in the end, leaving him defenseless to Sury’s counterattack. Unsurprisingly, the two leaders' performances were inexorably linked. When one had a strong game, it always stemmed from the spectacular demise of the other, and the two never survived in the same game. To tack on, Genghis Khan was First To Die in 75% of Sury’s playoff worthy performances, while Sury held that ignominious distinction in both of Genghis’ victories. Their offensive and defensive war counts were also inverses of each other. Unfortunately, the Khmer-Mongolia conflict was more often than not a sideshow, as even if one party was able to win, they were often too far behind, both in economy and in territory, to compete with whichever one of the Big Three was the strongest.

Map Dynamics

These were down-to-the-wire games, many of them seeing at least two leaders in contention even in the final turns. There were no backdoor seconds; every playoff spot was well earned, and there were numerous games in which the Runner Up was either in a game leading spot or just a few turns from victory. In the early game, Sitting Bull and at least one of the western leaders would get carved up, while in the later stages, there would be some sort of victory race between the 2-3 strongest remaining leaders. Some games were surprisingly peaceful considering the violent and backstabbing nature of these leaders - once the dust had settled, the remaining leaders had generally accumulated enough mutual military struggle and other diplomatic bonuses on top of shared peaceweight to quiet things down. This was especially so if Hannibal was one of the strong leaders, due to his inability to plot at Pleased relations. Game 5, where after yeeting Sitting Bull and religious pariah Sury out of the game, the four remaining leaders held hands in a Jewish lovefest until Hannibal launched his spaceship, was an extreme example of this with a staggering FIVE wars. This is not to say that every game turned into lategame peaceful builder-fests: there were games where the global state of affairs devolved the moment some leader’s relations dropped to Pleased or Cautious due to spy shenanigans and/or religion and civic swaps.

Whoever won depended on how diplomacy played out (especially who ended up being on the wrong side of a 2v1 in the lategame), the speed and success of the partitions of the weakest leaders, and the extent to which Hannibal’s teching was able to overcome another leader’s size. One noteworthy tidbit of this map: Hannibal's primary wincon was actually Cultural. He certainly did his best Huayna Capac impression here. Amongst the other leaders, Domination was the overarching victory type, as outside of Hannibal, this was not the most inspiring group of techers. Even though there were only two Diplomatic victories (both of which were early coronations of the deserving winner), there were a few close calls, as the top two leaders were often large and relevant enough to have a voice in the UN. Religion had a relatively minimal effect on these games, as the leaders did not care a great deal about religious matters – in fact, going into Mao’s favorite civic of State Property was a better source of comradery than religion.

How Typical Was The Actual Game?

On a scale from 1 to 10, I would give this an 8.5. The livestream was essentially a cookie-cutter Hannibal win, down to the Cultural victory, and although Mao's terrible game was on the bottom of the spectrum of outcomes, I did see similarly moribund Mao games in the replays. Meanwhile, Sury's limping to the Wildcard game was also a reasonable, if somewhat infrequent, outcome.

Individual Leader Discussions

Mao Zedong of China
Offensive Wars: 46
Defensive Wars: 18
Survival Rate: 75%
Finishes: 6 Wins, 5 Runner Ups (40 Points)
Kills: 19
Overall Score: 59

With the best land, a Northern neighbor to turn into a Peking duck dish, and a great diplomatic setup, it should come as no surprise that Mao would be a top performing leader. Score-wise, things were close, but ultimately Mao's consistency and controlled aggression gives him the highest score here (although there was essentially no difference in performance between him and Hannibal). Mao’s best games usually involved him getting most of the spoils from the Native American dogpile. If Hannibal chose to stay peaceful while Mao conquered all of Native America, it was smooth sailing for the Chairman. Mao was excellent at choosing his friends, and even better at selecting his enemies – in every game he won, he went on to conquer at least one other leader, sometimes having dominion over the entire West and East coast.

Mao's did have two issues in this setup that had presented themselves in the livestream. In some games, Mao's early game would be so bad that he would fall behind, fail to conquer Sitting Bull, and become irrelevant. More notably, like in the Actual Game, he had a tendency to avoid Rifling. Perhaps his Growth and Production research flavors lended themselves to a Rifling allergy, as in game after game, Mao would research the Biology, Assembly Line, and Combustion lines before finally realizing that he needed to equip his troops with rifles. Luckily, this folly tended to go unpunished due to Mao’s massive size and friendly diplomatic environment — note the less than one defensive war per game average — but occasionally, like in Game 1, Mao’s Rifling allergy directly led to his doom. All in all though, this set reinforced why Mao is an above average leader for AI Survivor purposes: he is good at diplomacy, he is a strong and decisive military leader, and he has, at the very least, a baseline level of economic competence, perhaps aided by China’s incredible Agriculture/Mining starting techs and decent uniques.

Recall that these games were run with Deity starting techs removed, while the Actual Game did not have this feature yet. Considering the amazing Chinese starting package of Agriculture/Mining, this was a great advantage Mao had in these Alternate Histories that he lacked in the Actual Game.

Best Performance: Game 15, in which Mao executed a brilliant cross-map backstab of an about-to-snowball Genghis Khan en route to a strong Domination victory. Game 9 was a noteworthy Honorable Mention. In that game, Mao invaded Carthage when Hannibal was in the middle of a culture victory run, bypassed the Carthaginian border cities, and gunned for Hannibal’s Legendary cities, eventually capturing one to slam the door shut on Hannibal’s winning chances.

Worst Performance: Game 14 was essentially a repeat of his awful livestream performance.

Finding Out That Political Power Indeed Does Come From The Barrel Of A Gun Award: In Game 17, Mao did the aforementioned Assembly Line before Rifling thing. He should have easily won, but because he was still fighting with Knights on Turn 250, he allowed Hannibal to get enough of Mongolia to block a Chinese Domination win. Making matters worse, by the time he finally researched Rifling, the Chairman had to spend eons upgrading his Maces and Muskets through two eras of tech into Infantry, causing his offensive to further stall out.

Peter of Russia
Offensive Wars: 43
Defensive Wars: 35
Survival Rate: 55%
Finishes: 4 Wins, 6 Runner Ups (32 Points)
Kills: 21
Overall Score: 53

Although Peter technically outscored Hannibal due to his high and somewhat inflated kill count, he was more Dennis Rodman than Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen when it came to this set’s Big Three. The biggest issue with Peter should be apparent from his 78 total wars (for reference, that was more than Temujin). The Russian leader was just too reckless with his warring, repeatedly wrecking his own game with fruitless pre-Catapult warring. Game 17, for example, saw him copper-dec and cripple Sitting Bull, but his inability to finance his conquests eventually led to his elimination. I occasionally noticed him launch foolish early attacks against Genghis Khan, when the Mongolians already had a massive army prepared in preparation for a Khmer campaign.

Even when Peter’s early attacks were successful, he still often fell permanently behind a Hannibal or a Mao who had patiently waited until Elephants and Catapults to start fighting. Peter’s victories relied on him benefitting the most from dog piles, unlike Mao and Hannibal who could carve out victories without any outside help – and even then, he usually needed Mao to have a bad game or to avoid Rifling for too long in order to leverage his conquests into victory. Otherwise, he just dragged himself down with another leader. Despite Peter’s relatively high score here, this set did little to convince me that the Russian leader is anything more than a middling low peaceweight backstabber.

Best Performance: Peter had an excellent economic and military performance in Game 1. In that game, I noticed the Russian Research Institutes prove to be nifty for space races, both due to their inherent science bonuses and from how they steered Peter away from spaceship delaying techs like Stealth.

Worst Performance: Peter’s poor expansion and erratic behavior led him to become First To Die in Game 11.

Hello Kitty Award: Peter should have won Game 20. However, when he had a massive stack of Cossacks at the gates of Karakorum, his siege consisted of the dreaded One Catapult. He proceeded to bombard the gates of Karakorum, one percentage point at a time, when he easily could have run over the Medieval units guarding the city. Those extra 50 turns at war cost him dearly – Hannibal won a Culture victory when Peter’s Spaceship was one stop away from Alpha Centauri.

Hannibal of Carthage
Offensive Wars: 30
Defensive Wars: 23
Survival Rate: 75%
Finishes: 7 Wins, 5 Runner Ups (32 Points)
Kills: 6
Overall Score: 51

I have always wondered if Hannibal’s inability to plot at Pleased was an advantage or a hindrance. At first, when Hannibal reeled off four victories in a row, proving the Actual Game to be a typical result, I thought that we had a juggernaut in our hands. However, Hannibal greatly cooled off in the remaining fifteen games, although he came close to winning multiple times. My verdict: Hannibal’s loyalty to his buddies is his singular greatest weakness, a handicap that ensures that he is not quite in the Huayna Capac/Pacal/Justinian league of leaders. (Yes, Justin cannot plot at Pleased, but that meshes well with a religious strategy) Hannibal did not fight too often after killing Sitting Bull, and this left him at risk of letting his rivals get too strong. Some games proved that even Financial cannot overcome sheer quantity, with Hannibal getting run over by a gigantic Genghis (Game 6) or a massive Mao (Game 9). Against this group of leaders, six kills in twenty games feels like an inexplicably small amount, particularly for a militaristic leader like Hannibal.

Now, Hannibal was likely the strongest leader in this map. Do not be fooled by his “third place” here — his finish score was the highest, and he would have had more kills (and wins, honestly) had Culture not been his favored wincon here. However, if Hannibal was able to plot at Pleased, I truly believe he would have won at least 12 games. In most of his Runner Up games (Games 7 and 8 in particular), Hannibal was close to victory — sometimes as close as three turns — when a rival beat him to the punch. A larger empire would have certainly made a difference in these games. In multiple games that Hannibal did not survive, he would have won or at least gotten a strong second place had he continued to press his advantage - Games 9, 15, 19, and especially 16 in which he became Pleased with Sitting Bull from shared religious bonuses were examples of this. Nevertheless, there should be no doubt that Hannibal is a strong leader, and he should never be counted out in any game.

Best Performance: Game 13 was a Hannibal masterclass, in which he essentially solo conquered Sitting Bull and coasted to victory. He also nearly made an incredible comeback in Game 18 after getting caught without metals in a Sury attack.

Worst Performance: Hannibal foolishly aligned himself religiously with the sitting duck in Game 6 and got chomped to bits by a Genghis and Peter coalition. Dishonorable mention goes to Game 10, where Hannibal uncharacteristically attacked Sury early and ruined his own game in the process.

Hippopotamus Award: Despite being on the right side of a 2v1 in Game 11, Hannibal inexplicably gave up the city of Hippo to Sitting Bull for peace just when he was about to break through. Even the so-called “Chadnibal” was capable of face planting in these games.

Wang Kon Award: In Game 14, Sury was for once in a pole position to win. However, the poor Khmer leader ended up in two 2v1s late in the game due to Hannibal twice signing Defensive Pacts with Peter, preventing Sury from making any military headway. Just when it seemed Sury was going to break through… Hannibal handed Peter a Diplomatic victory. I have to say, Game 14 was one of the best games I have ever witnessed.

Genghis Khan of Mongolia
Offensive Wars: 46
Defensive Wars: 24
Survival Rate: 30%
Finishes: 2 Wins, 1 Runner Up (12 Points)
Kills: 10
Overall Score: 22

When it came to entertainment, Genghis Khan certainly did not disappoint! His two victories were won in style, running over Sury before going on to kill the rest of the world. Of course, it is a bad sign for a leader’s competence when his only shot at victory stems from being lucky enough to catch Sury without metals - that is, if he were ever able to research metals himself. It may sound outlandish to say this, but Genghis Khan’s economic issues were not entirely his fault. Genghis’ land exhibited the dangerous combination of having too much production yet too little commerce. The Mongolian backlines in particular were heavy in tundra and sparse in rivers, and Genghis was prone to expanding too much too soon and irreparably crashing his economy. Although Imperialistic is normally considered one of the strongest AI Survivor traits, this was one of those scenarios in which it turned out more harmful than good.

I will say, Genghis was a bit unlucky here. There was the discarded game, I saw Genghis get attacked by Peter and/or Mao at the worst possible times, and some of his most ridiculous economic fails may have stemmed from unlucky faraway barb city captures. However, it should be apparent that Genghis Khan’s incompetence at managing anything that does not involve violence and bloodshed drags him down, much like it hinders other similarly crazy leaders. No matter the circumstances, it was hilarious yet embarrassing to witness a Deity AI have an economy go on strike in a quarter of the games played. Good thing the Mongolians start with the Wheel, or else things could have been even more dire.

Best Performance: Game 8 was Genghis at his peak, running over Sury on Turn 107 before methodically picking off the remaining competition en route to a pre-Turn 300 Domination victory, made even more impressive by the fact that Hannibal was less than five turns from winning by Culture.

Worst Performance: While Genghis’ comical Game 14 combustion that I talked about in the overview could at least be attributed to a faraway barb city capture from a wandering Mongolian Warrior, Game 7 was a much more inexcusable economic performance - Genghis Khan did not research Writing until Turn 178!

Wang Khan Award: While he pretty much was a non-factor in Game 12, Genghis Khan was somehow able to ruin Hannibal’s game by sacking one of his legendary cities.

Suryavarman II of the Khmer
Offensive Wars: 26
Defensive Wars: 40
Survival Rate: 30%
Finishes: 1 Win, 3 Runner Ups (11 Points)
Kills: 10
Overall Score: 21

As a leader with no easy access to metals and Genghis Khan as a neighbor, Sury was truly cursed in this setup. Yet, the Mongolians were not his only problem. Sury often founded an early religion but was never able to spread it due to having to focus on fighting early. Being a religious pariah left him susceptible to dogpiles, contributing to a surprising number of games where he ended up being First To Die instead of Sitting Bull, even if he survived the initial Mongolian invasion. Although Sury was sometimes able to conquer Mongolia for himself, it came at a cost, as he would fall behind both in technology and in territory. It was telling that it took Genghis Khan reaching unprecedented levels of economic failure for Sury to have his best games - put someone like Gilgamesh or Julius Caesar in Genghis’ spot, and Sury would be almost as screwed in this map as Sitting Bull.

However, if Sury was able to deal with the Mongolian threat and be left alone for long enough, he could make something of his situation and keep up with the Big Three. However, these games exposed a major weakness for the Khmer leader, one that I have observed in other games: Sury is a warmonger with builder tech preferences. Although this could sometimes make him a dangerous player as an economically competent warmonger, in this scenario it ended up biting him in the rear end. Sury needed to get to Iron Working ASAP, but instead he mucked around too much on Calendar and Currency and generally got to Iron Working too late to chop his jungle and to defend himself. I am not exactly sure what to think of Sury; I have seen him play amazingly well, but I have also seen some terrible sets from the Khmer leader.

Best Performance: Game 19 was a very cathartic performance for Sury, in which he rolled over Genghis Khan, became the dominant leader, and unleashed a wild nuclear outburst to make up for the bullying and trolling he had endured over the previous 18 games (19 if you count the one ruined by the AP):

Worst Performance: Game 8. Being First To Die on Turn 107 is pretty bad no matter the circumstances.

Angry Pacal Award: Getting shafted out of a victory by the Russian-Carthaginian alliance in Game 14, involving TWO Defensive Pact triggered 2v1s.

Sitting Bull of the Native Americans
Offensive Wars: 2 (Yes, seriously)
Defensive Wars: 58
Survival Rate:

Finishes: Surely, you must be joking…
Kills: Surely, you must be joking…
Overall Score: -Infinity

There is nothing to say here that has not already been said. Give the sole high peaceweight in the field the worst land and surround him with backstabbing warmongers, and, well, this is the result you get.

Conclusions

All in all, this was a very intriguing set of games. Most Alternate Histories usually involve the same 1-2 leaders consistently snowballing ahead of the competition over and over again, but this one was unique in that there were multiple leaders who had a chance, with most games being close nail biters in which 2-3 equally strong leaders consolidated their positions before engaging in a showdown or a race. When it comes to predicting future season games, we should derive the following lessons from this set:

1. Neighbors matter a lot. Switch Sury and Hannibal’s starting locations and Hannibal gets sewed into a horse and Sury is one of the top performers.
2. As we saw with Peter and Mao, central positions are more likely to be boom-or-bust while corner positions are much more consistent. This is especially so when the central leader has early access to Copper.
3. A notable exception to this is when a leader is Financial. However, note that even the best of techers may have difficulty competing against much larger empires.
4. Being unable to plot at Pleased may be quite a roadblock for more military-minded leaders.
5. It is remarkable how not being overly swayed by religion and religious differences can allow for much more strategic flexibility.

Amica's AHs

Comparison

Essentially, turn most of Hannibal's near wins into wins, and take out all the good GK and Sury games. Hannibal was clearly the strongest in this map, with Mao as his Robin and Peter the only other truly viable leader.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Ok we agree , Peter is second with lower survival rate.
But only 6 kills? Isn't that pleased locked Hanny?
1) Mao
2) Peter
3) Hannibal
4) Suryavarman
5) Genghis
6) Sitting Bull

Good catch!

 

[a pen-dragon]

Finding Out That Political Power Indeed Does Come From The Barrel Of A Gun Award:

I really enjoy reading those additional awards and especially their names. Thank you for writing them!

 

[Thrasybulos]

Neighbors matter a lot

Yes, most definitely.
Although, in this case... when I played this game 20 times last year while switching the leaders around, that didn't really improve Sury's performances: see here.

 

[Thrasybulos]

mainly because removing huts could be a bit of a pain and mistakes could easily be made

By the way, it's easy to do from the wb file: just search all instances of "goody" and delete those lines. Then add the relevant option (Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_GOODY_HUTS) at the beginning.

Doing through the worldbuilder would indeed be error-prone.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

By the way, it's easy to do from the wb file: just search all instances of "goody" and delete those lines. Then add the relevant option (Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_GOODY_HUTS) at the beginning.

Doing through the worldbuilder would indeed be error-prone.

Lmao I don’t know why I just didn’t think of find and replace

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

A quick update -

So... Amica actually ALSO did O3 and O4 Alternate Histories. LOL! Sullla had just forgotten to update his HTML code - no worries, we all make such mistakes! At least, we have 40 games for two sets. You can see the links to Amica's version on my first post.

Note that Amica forced all the AIs to have their listed peaceweights, so take that into mind when comparing his and mine.

As you can see, however, for O3, the Big Three was still the Big Three, although Hannibal was much more dominant, (and that makes sense, as in my games Hannibal was within ten turns of winning in most of his Runner Up finishes), while Sury/GK were essentially NPCs. Most hilariously, Sitting Bull still has not survived. Amica was correct: SB would probably still have a 100% death rate in a 100 game AH set.

Amica's O4 AH

Amica's version had Justinian as the clear cut king of the hill with Saladin as his right hand man, and everyone else were just on the sidelines (with the exception of a couple random Darius wins). This was pretty much what I got, except the high PWs were more viable and Louis got much luckier.

Note: I discarded what would have been a cookie cutter Justin 1st Sal 2nd Monty FTD game due to screwing up with the AI Autoplay. I also changed Louis’ color to the Spanish pink as there were already two other leaders with blue-colored borders.

Overview

After seeing Sullla run five games, I was expecting this to be a complete Justinian stomp. That... didn't quite happen. Yes, Justinian was incredibly strong here, securing a playoff spot in 80% of my test games. However, some of his 2nd place (and even 1st place) finishes were not all that impressive, and there was occasionally the feeling that his success stemmed less from him earning it and moreso from the incompetence of his competition. Thus, this was a more open-ended setup than expected, with Saladin and Louis proving capable of pulling off good games and Darius and FDR displaying a few shockers. Nevertheless, Justinian was still the ruler of the roost, and he more or less dictated how these games went.

Map Dynamics

Although Justinian’s performance was not as dominant as I predicted it would be (seriously, I thought he’d win 15/20 games or something), what was more surprising was how well Darius and FDR performed considering their diplomatic situation (a high peaceweight leader made the playoffs in 40% of these replays). Moreover, a “Good” leader did not necessarily need the other to do well in order to advance; Darius and FDR each won a game despite the other being First To Die.

I observed two main reasons for this impressive display by the high peaceweight tandem. First, calling this a 2 v. 5 good vs. evil split turned out to be a tad deceptive. In reality, there were three equally sized factions of leaders: the Good (Darius, FDR), the Bad (Monty, Cathy, Louis), and the Fanatically Handsome (Justin, Sal). Depending on religious spread, a Good leader could align with a handsome fanatic to ensure a Robin-esque playoff spot (8, 11). In a select few situations, the fanatics found themselves so mired in fighting that one or more of the Good leaders were able to outscale everyone and come out on top (6, 19). Something to note is the shockingly low defensive war count from the two. One would have expected the two to face upwards of 60-70 invasions considering the "2v5" situation. However, both FDR and Darius faced fewer than fifty invasions in this set, which was particularly noteworthy for the centrally-located Darius who was First To Die in the Actual Game.

Justinian cosplaying as a high peaceweight leader. An important caveat to this set: Justinian may have high-rolled if he was Pleased with FDR at only +2 relations.

The other reason for FDR and Darius' relative success: the Bad leaders were bad in every definition of the word. Monty being terrible was no surprise: he may very well be the most incompetent leader in Civ IV. The ineptitude of Louis and Cathy, however, was perplexing. The final results way overstate Louis’ true strength in this setup; all four of his wins were fool's gold, where he turned on the Cultural slider before Rifling and was somehow not punished for it. Cathy was even more of a dud here, barely mustering two backdoor second-place finishes. The biggest issue with the Evil leaders was that in a world defined by the unbreakable bonds of shared religion, aggression and backstabbing was not a good pathway to success. Most games saw these three weaken themselves with fruitless pre-Catapult warring and silly cross-map wars, make too many enemies from unnecessary betrayals, and eventually become backward and isolated rump states destined to be conquered.

There were also games where fanatics just decided to work together (10, 14, 18), as even with different religions the two were predisposed to like each other due to identical peaceweight. Naturally, this was bad news for everyone else, as the handsome fanatics joined forces to wipe out those who just didn't believe hard enough.

Leader Dynamics

There were three key pairings of leaders that shaped these games. The first pair was Justinian and Montezuma: the two fought early in all twenty games, and Justinian’s success was predicated on the efficiency in which he was able to conquer the Aztecs; he won every single game in which Monty died before Turn 150. However, there were games in which Monty was pricklier than expected, slowing down Justin’s game enough that another leader would instead occupy the top spot. The ease in which Justinian was able to conquer the Aztecs often hinged on the location of Justin’s second city – see the individual leader discussion for more details.

The second key pairing revolved around the contentious relationship between Louis and Saladin. The early cultural emphasis of the two created massive border tensions that often derailed any chance of cooperation, even if they shared the same religion. Louis, one of the most unreliable allies in Civ IV, was almost always the instigator, and the result of his fighting against Saladin had the entire gamut of results. Sometimes, Louis destroyed Saladin early on, usually with help from other leaders, giving him enough momentum to win (7, 20). Other times, Louis would foolishly attack a more advanced Saladin in the midst of an early culture gambit, leading to his demise (9, 15 – Louis only survived Game 15 because Saladin decided to forgive the French monarch when he had just one city left). Finally, the two could just war each other into irrelevancy (5, 14). No matter the outcome, one leader always provided both an opportunity and a trap for the other.

Finally, there was the hostile and antagonistic relationship between FDR and Cathy. While Justin v. Monty was an entirely one-sided conflict and Sal v. Louis encompassed a wide range of outcomes, FDR v. Cathy tended to be a fight where both contestants lost. FDR’s territory, with lots of rivers and hills, made for a fortress, and Cathy almost always struggled to break through his defenses. Unfortunately for the Americans, they were squeezed on territory and thus lacked the production queues to make any meaningful military headway against Cathy. By the conclusion of the Russo-American deathmatch, the victor was typically too exhausted to contend for anything more than a Runner Up finish.

Cathy and FDR were not at war at the time of this screenshot.

The two also had a tendency to fight way too early, thus ruining both of their games. Cathy attacked FDR before Turn 50 on three separate occasions, including on Turn 38 in Game 12. Two of these games saw FDR caught without metals and ultimately eliminated. The true winner of these conflicts was Darius, and two of his wins (12, 13) were direct results of Cathy completely ceding contested expansion opportunities to the Persians in order to bash her skull against New York City. In some rare circumstances, Cathy and FDR were able to work together due to shared religion, but the outcome was not much better for either of the two for a couple of reasons. First, this tended to mean that they had a different religion than Justinian, and second, Cathy was a shoddy ally, often dragging her friend into Defensive Pact triggered wars against much stronger leaders.

Despite the violent nature of these games (an average of 12.5 wars) and the presence of only one Financial leader, the tech pace was quite fast, as shrine income provided a pretty significant economic boost to these games. These were quick games, which helped inflate survival rates as dying civs would often hold on long enough for a victory condition to be triggered. Games tended to go three ways:

1. Justin killed someone early (almost always Monty, but occasionally Darius) and became an unstoppable runaway.
2. Justin stalled out warring and another leader, usually Saladin or a Good leader, took advantage.
3. Justin played well but Louis got enough territory and was sane or lucky enough diplomatically to sneak out a Cultural victory.

Justinian was also a contender for culture victories, as if he conquered or founded enough Holy Cities he could be tempted to switch on the slider. Notwithstanding the Louis games, there was otherwise an even split between Spaceship and Domination finishes, depending on how strong the 2nd or 3rd place leader was.

How Typical Was The Actual Game?

6/10. Justinian winning and Darius getting ripped apart early was quite normal, but some factors were quite strange. Monty, for example, survived to the Wildcard Game, while he died in every replay. His stronger performances tended to coincide with Justin's weaker performances, so Monty surviving reasonably intact while Justin was still a monster was certainly an anomaly. Louis was also unusually docile in the livestream and managed to secure a (not very impressive) second place finish; he either won, died, or almost died in the Alternate Histories.

Delving deeper into individual performances:

Justinian of Byzantium
Offensive Wars: 38
Defensive Wars: 43
Survival Rate: 100%
Finishes: 9 Wins, 7 Runner Ups (59 Points)
Kills: 27
Overall Score: 86

I can come up with two reasons for Justinian’s relative lack of dominance as compared to Sullla's five replays. First, having the Apostolic Palace really seemed to rig this setup in favor of Justinian, as with Saladin generally starting slow (more on that later), Justin was almost certain to get to Theology first, secure the AP, and use it to take complete control of the game, if he had not already. That especially made a difference in the livestream game, where Justinian still won easily despite failing to conquer Monty. The other explanation could simply be that a five-game sample size is too small to make any conclusions. After all, Games 14 to 19 was a five-game stretch in which Justinian won four games.

The predictability of these games almost solely hinged on one factor: the location of Justinian’s 2nd city, which was a Holy City in the vast majority of games.

The two possible locations of Justin’s 2nd city

More often than not, Justinian settled his Holy City in the amazing Spot 1. This was an incredible city in every way imaginable, from its resources to the river for natural religious spreading to essentially rendering Monty irrelevant and easy pickings from the get-go. Such games were all but decided by Turn 120 as Justin ran over Monty and snowballed out of control.

If Justin instead settled the far inferior Spot 2, these games got a lot more interesting. With more breathing room, Monty became a significant problem for Justin. Moreover, the complete lack of rivers in that area gave the Byzantines a much harder time spreading their religion. When combined with his central position, this created dogpile opportunities for Justinian’s rivals that gimped the Byzantines, forcing Justin to settle for a Runner Up spot, or in some rare circumstances, the Wildcard game. Sullla spends lots of time analyzing 2nd city spots during the livestream for a good reason.

Altogether, this was one of the stranger Justinian sets that I have run, one in which the Byzantine emperor was simultaneously dominant and disappointing. Even after Monty, Justinian frequently benefitted from an equally as insane and technologically backwards Louis as well and the perfect anti-Cathy buffer zone in his American neighbor, and this directly factored into his more undeserved Runner Up finishes. Although a 100% survival rate in a central position surrounded by this bloodthirsty bunch of leaders is ridiculous, and Justinian was a contender in every single game, this felt like an underwhelming result when considering his lofty standards and this seemingly perfect setup.

Best Performance: Game 14 was vintage Justinian.

Worst Performance: Justin’s fighting was not great in Game 4, and he missed the playoffs as a result. Dishonorable mention to Game 9:

For what it's worth, Justin advanced to the playoffs in this game.

Louis Award: Justin nearly threw away a certain victory in Game 11 by going for a slow and ill-advised Culture victory attempt. He did occasionally have moments of waffling between Culture and Researching mode, especially if he had captured enough Holy Cities.

Saladin of Arabia
Offensive Wars: 38
Defensive Wars: 40
Survival Rate: 65%
Finishes: 3 Wins, 6 Runner Ups (27 Points)
Kills: 15
Overall Score: 42

Saladin is regarded as a budget Justinian for good reason. They have identical peaceweights and research preferences, they are both hyper-religious leaders, they both cannot Plot at Pleased, and they have the same starting techs, a culturally focused unique building, and a Knight replacement. However, Saladin trades the excellent (for the AI) Imperialistic for the completely worthless Protective; his Madrassa, while solid, does not provide the same happiness benefits as Justinian’s Hippodrome; his Knight replacement is far inferior to the Cataphract (Let’s just say that his Camel Archers are a far cry from their Civ 5 counterpart, which is one of the most overpowered unique units in Civilization history.) However, Justinian-lite is still really, REALLY good. Saladin’s three wins very much mirrored Justinian’s, although he usually won much later than Justinian would have, while five of his six second place finishes saw him play the role of Justin’s right-hand man. The other one, Game 5, was a game that Saladin played well enough to win, only getting edged out by an unusually strong FDR.

Saladin’s problems were not merely limited to his subpar package, however. His land was not great, especially for the early game, and Saladin frequently struggled with expansion and barbarian activity. His poor-quality land also made him prone to wasting early beakers on failed religion attempts. Adding insult to injury, Saladin was prone to facing dogpiles from peaceweight enemy Darius, religious enemies to his north, and the untrustworthy Louis. One particularly tragic scenario for the Arabians came in Game 20, in which Saladin was effectively in a 3v1 due to being at war with FDR and Cathy yet also losing cities to the encroachment of French culture. Even if Darius was out of the picture, Saladin next had to contend with yet another Creative backstabber on his borders in the form of Cathy. For Saladin to have had a nearly 50% advancement rate in such hostile conditions is a testament to his competence and toughness as a leader.

Best Performance: Game 10 was by far Saladin’s best teching performance, and the late finish date stemmed from the final battle between Justin and Saladin devolving into a nuclear apocalypse.

Worst Performance: Saladin attacked Darius too early in Game 7 and fell victim to a brutal backstab from Louis, leading to his one earliest elimination game.

Challenger Award: This happened in Game 18:

The Real Poverty Point Award:

What kind of tundra 3rd city is that?

Louis XIV of France
Offensive Wars: 40
Defensive Wars: 18
Survival Rate: 40%
Finishes: 4 Wins, 0 Runner Ups (20 Points)
Kills: 9
Overall Score: 29

To start with Louis, every single one of his four victories were backdoor Hail Mary Culture victories in which he was extremely lucky to not get attacked by Infantry and Tanks while Cuirassiers still formed the backbone of his army. In fact, the Sun King was terrible more often than not, his overly aggressive personality causing him to self-combust in game after game after game. The overarching issue with Louis was that, much like in real life, he blew himself out trying to place all his eggs in the military and cultural basket at the same time. He declared reckless wars, committed unnecessary backstabs against loyal religious allies, and still tried to accomplish every cultural objective under the sun. There were multiple instances of him being 20 or so turns from three legendary cities, before throwing it all away by siccing Grenadiers against a Modern Era Justinian or Saladin. The Sun King truly was his own worst enemy in these games. Had he just chosen to be only a warmonger, or only a culturemonger, he may have been much more successful. With all that said, Louis did have a clear win condition, and he should always be viewed as a ticking time bomb in any game he is in.

Best Performance: Probably Game 20, when his culture was so good that he effectively culturally conquered Saladin, leading to a quick victory for the French. He needed time to be on his side, as Justinian was knocking on the gates of his cities with Tanks. He also made an extremely savvy military maneuver for once, seizing the valuable Islamic Holy City for himself before peacing out right as Saladin was going to unlock Rifles.

Worst Performance: Louis made the throw to end all throws in Game 11 with an invasion of Justinian as he was turning on the slider still holding a Medieval army.

Willem Of All Time Award: Louis went RADIO before Rifling in Game 4… and somehow still won.

Darius of Persia
Offensive Wars: 20
Defensive Wars: 48
Survival Rate: 30%
Finishes: 3 Wins, 1 Runner Up (17 Points)
Kills: 8
Overall Score: 25

In many ways, Darius was a foil to the French. Like Louis, he had four strong games and was irrelevant, dead, or dying in the remaining 16, and his offensive-to-defensive war ratio was inverse to Louis'. Moreover, his best performances were also somewhat lucky – as previously mentioned, two of his wins were aided by Cathy’s utter insanity. However, this set actually boosted his image in my eyes. Darius has been much maligned for good reason: despite having what might be the best pure economic trait combination in the game, he has become infamous for churning out extremely moribund performances. His propensity to forget to expand or build military is well known, but I also observed another key weakness: Darius is the rare high peaceweight leader who is prone to ignoring early game culture for too long.

Due to the above, his central starting position and peaceweight isolation, and his other well-documented early game weaknesses, I fully expected this to be a total massacre for Darius. However, Darius was more competent than expected in these replays. Even his “bad” games were not all that bad all things considered. In many games, he just got dogpiled into oblivion, as is the nature of the game. His biggest issue in this setup was his neighbor situation. Having Cathy and two religious leaders was an unenviable position to be in, and the constant 2v1s that resulted from this were the primary factor in his netting the highest First To Die rate of all the non-Monty leaders. Despite that, Darius was surprisingly effective at seizing what opportunities he did get and was a scary force when he was able to vulture territory from a Cathy or a Saladin (or even a Monty). This version of Darius was one that could keep up with anybody in almost any game.

Best Performance: A tie between his Game 13 and Game 19 wins. Game 13 was the best economic performance of the entire set – he would have landed his Spaceship on Turn 305 – while Game 19 was the only game in which he won without getting lucky that Cathy eschewed settling cities to throw Axes at FDR.

Worst Performance: Darius had his most “Darius-esque” game in Game 10, not expanding and then launching a pointless cross map war against Louis, before eventually getting yeeted out of the game by Cathy and Saladin.

When American Interventionism in the Middle East Goes Awry Award: Darius dragged FDR into a Defensive Pact triggered war in Game 14 against Justinian, costing FDR a likely playoff spot when Justin predictably ran them over at the same time. Ironically, that may have ensured his survival, as Justin reached Domination before he could kill two players at once.

Roosevelt of America
Offensive Wars: 29
Defensive Wars: 45
Survival Rate: 45%
Finishes: 1 Win, 4 Runner Ups (13 Points)
Kills: 5
Overall Score: 18

FDR played quite well considering his low score, and with more expansion room, he would have been more of a contender. Unfortunately, being sandwiched between two Imperialistic culture pumpers, he only had room for 6-7 cities, and although he was great at developing them, that was just not enough to compete for a top spot. FDR did have three other factors in his favor:

1. His proximity and river connection to Justinian gave him easy access to Byzantine Christianity, thus securing him a steadfast and powerful ally.
2. His corner gave him relative safety against the Eastern leaders, as long as they did not march across the map to attack him, which did happen quite a few times.
3. Cathy was in many ways FDR’s “Monty”, someone who would veer into insanity and eventually become a free source of territory. That is, if she did not bum-rush and cripple him in a pre-Turn 50 war-dec.

As a result, FDR was a playoff contender when he was able to overcome his early game difficulties. However, since his best games tended to coincide with Justin's, he was more often a second fiddle, while in his sole Game 5 win, Justin was significantly hampered by a T58 Monty invasion while the Americans ended up marching east and conquering the Aztecs, giving them two empires worth of territory to coast off of, literally. He was also lucky enough in that game for Cathy to choose to fight Darius instead – by the time she attacked him, FDR had Infantry and easily ran her over (she survived with one city due to Saladin coming to her rescue late).

FDR’s peaceweight outlier status still haunted him, much like it did Darius. Although he could handle Cathy alone, dealing with Cathy and Justinian and one or more of the Eastern leaders was more than he could handle. His deaths either stemmed from dogpiles or from ridiculously early wars, and there were multiple instances of him trying to recover, only to face a fatal attack from a leader on the opposite side of the map. Occasionally, he got run over by a 20 city Justinian or Saladin once modern ideologies and spy shenanigans caused old historical alliances to fade. Nevertheless, this was a gutsy performance from the normally moribund American leader, and to have secured five playoff worthy finishes in this hostile field should be something that FDR can hang his hat on.

Best Performance: Other than his win, he managed to outtech and defeat Justinian in his Game 19 Runner Up performance. He played well enough to win and probably would have if he were not at war with Justinian for most of the lategame.

Worst Performance: I am not counting Game 12 as there was nothing he could do about a Turn 38 war declaration, while his other First To Die performance in Game 2 stemmed from an early dogpile that would destroy any leader. He was pretty bad in Game 6, however, where he stubbornly stuck to his own self-founded religion and was quickly made into cannon fodder.

Judas Award: FDR shockingly backstabbed his religious ally Justinian late in Game 13, helping pave the way for a Darius victory.

Catherine of Russia
Offensive Wars: 50
Defensive Wars: 25
Survival Rate: 50%
Finishes: 0 Wins, 2 Runner Ups (4 Points)
Kills: 9
Overall Score: 13

To address the elephant in the room: Cathy was terrible, and even her kill count was inflated by last minute vulture kills. The worst part was, she was also boring, a far cry from her usual entertaining self. I noticed a few factors in her disappointing performance. First of all, she enjoyed starting wars more so than actually fighting them and would frequently meander around with a halfheartedly formed stack before signing peace with absolutely nothing accomplished except for making a lifelong enemy. Secondly, she jumped into wars way too early (she died in all three games where she attacked FDR before Turn 50). Most embarrassingly, in Game 12, when she attacked a metalless FDR on Turn 38 and almost immediately seized his capital, she somehow was unable to finish him off until Turn 129 – that’s 91 early game turns at war – and by the time she had completed her conquest, she was too far behind to be relevant.

I observed three reasons for this being such a bad setup for Cathy:

1. She had no good targets. FDR's territory was too defensible, and Darius was enough of a dogpile magnet that attacking him brought little reward to the Russians.
2. She had a coastal corner capital, and I have seen similar leaders struggle in such situations. Cathy’s traits and personality lends itself to getting in her opponents’ faces and conquering them, but this was not a good setup for such a strategy. I saw her open the game with a SAILING beeline a few times, despite not having any coastal resources in her capital.
3. Somewhat paradoxically, I think her Creative trait actually hurt her here, as she did not settle as many cities because her culture would swallow everything up – the AI are not smart enough to settle viable cities within their cultural borders. Moreover, the ensuing Creative border tensions would race ahead of her ability to prepare for the resultant conflicts.

Cathy’s most successful games came when she was lucky enough to get multiple cities off of a Darius or FDR dogpile, but such cases were few and far between. Of her two playoff finishes, one of them saw her as the score leader but too far behind to do anything about Louis’ culture run (her strongest games tended to coincide with Louis’ for some reason), and another was a backdoor finish behind a Justinian who had killed everyone else. This was just an awful setup for Cathy, and I do think many leaders would have struggled in her position; the land was not good at all.

Best Performance: Cathy was really only ever close to winning one game, Game 20. There, she killed Darius early and was actually the tech leader… except Justinian was larger and everything went right for Louis, so she was still relegated to the Wildcard game. Yeah, this was not a great setup for her.

Worst Performance: Being First To Die despite catching FDR off guard in Game 13.

Femme Fatale Award: In the game I had to discard, I witnessed Cathy ruin Louis’ culture attempt by dragging the French into a Defensive Pact triggered war against a runaway Justinian.

Montezuma of the Aztecs
Offensive Wars: 34
Defensive Wars: 30
Survival Rate: 0%
Finishes: Surely, you must be joking…
Kills: 0. Yeah…
Overall Score: Lol.

This farcical output represented a new low, even for someone already as inept as Monty. In all fairness, anyone would have struggled in his spot, as it had little in the way of quality land and was sandwiched in between a Creative culture-monger and a religious fanatic. Nevertheless, this was a comically bad showing by Monty, and it speaks volumes that someone as aggressive as him had only 34 offensive wars, a nearly 1:1 offensive-to-defensive war ratio, and ZERO kills – Monty could not even muster a troll kill snipe. Monty’s problems were on full display here: his starting techs are horrible, he spams a unique unit that is worse than its vanilla counterpart (at least in the manner the AI use it), he founds a religion but never spreads it because he is devoting all of his resources to fighting, and he could not maintain a functioning economy to save his life. It was no accident that the three leaders closest to him combined for 17/20 of the victories in this set.

Best Performance: Well, he did come close to killing Justinian in Game 9. (Side note: Monty was a LOT better in Amica's set)

Worst Performance: There are too many contenders for me to make any sort of judgment.

Wang Kon Award: In Game 17, FDR had valiantly WON a 2v1 against Justinian and Cathy, even getting Justinian to cede one of his core cities for peace. Until, suddenly, Monty came charging in from the other side of the world, stole that Byzantine city FDR had worked so hard for, and handed it back to Justinian. That sudden cross map invasion was the first domino to FDR’s eventual exit. Poor FDR.

Conclusions

There were two major takeaways that I got from observing these games. First, this set made it more clear than ever how destructive and pointless pre-Catapult warring really is. The contenders usually waited patiently till Construction to start fighting, while the pretenders wasted precious development time on early wars that netted little to no gain, and a whole lot of loss. It was sometimes good to be invaded, as the initial aggressors would throw away their stacks, leaving their cities undefended and thus vulnerable to counterattack. This happened to Cathy, Monty, and Louis multiple times.

Secondly, with the right field, religious bonds can and do overcome peaceweight differences. One should pay attention to context regarding peaceweight split: a 2 v. 5 situation may seem hopeless for the goodie two shoes, but not when those five baddies consist of religious fanatics and crazy backstabbers. It turned out to be the low peaceweight backstabbers who were diplomatically isolated in this setup, as they made too many enemies and did not manage their economies well enough to succeed, while the good leaders were generally able to align themselves with the fanatics to at least ensure their survival. No matter the setup, a game with Louis, Justinian, Cathy, and Monty in it is always going to be riveting, and this game certainly did not disappoint. This was a fantastic choice by Sullla for the OG Alternate History.

O5 teaser coming soon this week!

 

[Thrasybulos]

Note that Amica forced all the AIs to have their listed peaceweights

At work so will read it all later, but this piqued my interest. Care to expound?

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

At work so will read it all later, but this piqued my interest. Care to expound?

Just a “self created mod” (his words), you probably have to dig into the xml or something

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Ok, here is the teaser for Opening Game Five, one of the all-time classic Mansa Musa stomp games.

I am switching it up a little bit, as I think the answer to the standard teaser would be blatantly obvious. Instead:

See if you can determine the victory condition and turn for each of these games.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Nah, not gonna try and guess at end turns.

For victory condition:

• Lincoln / Hammy: Space
• Gilgamesh: Domination (but could be any, really)
• Mansa: wars <= 6 Culture else Space (bet there's a coupla Domination in there though)

(Ignoring troll Diplo)

Now, what's more interesting is that Lincoln's only won once. That's actually a pretty shocking result, since he had by far the best start on the map, and when I played this last year jumbled-style, he won convincingly the one game in that configuration.
Mansa had the second best start, next to the worst leader on the map, so no surprise that he'd prevail overall though.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

Nah, not gonna try and guess at end turns.

For victory condition:

• Lincoln / Hammy: Space
• Gilgamesh: Domination (but could be any, really)
• Mansa: wars <= 6 Culture else Space (bet there's a coupla Domination in there though)

(Ignoring troll Diplo)

There were two Diplo wins but they were not troll wins, thankfully.

Now, what's more interesting is that Lincoln's only won once. That's actually a pretty shocking result, since he had by far the best start on the map, and when I played this last year jumbled-style, he won convincingly the one game in that configuration.
Mansa had the second best start, next to the worst leader on the map, so no surprise that he'd prevail overall though.

We'll soon see if it was the land or the leader/setup that was the issue.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

S3O5 Writeup

My O5 writeup, AND the first game that had not yet been touched, is ready! Hopefully it is obvious why I switched up the teaser a bit.

Overview

On one hand, this was a Mansa Moneybags masterclass, but on the other hand, this was an incredibly un-Mansa like showing for the fan favorite. When displaying the teaser (the first table with the victory conditions omitted), the consensus was that most of Mansa’s victories were Cultural finishes, as one would expect from the Malinese leader. However, in an extreme bizarre twist, Mansa only ever attempted a Cultural victory once, in Game 14. Moreover, that one attempt was strange in of itself; for some reason, he decided to switch on the cultural slider at Optics tech.

Instead, Mansa wisely preferred to steamroll through the tech tree and/or through his rivals. In game after game after game after game after game, Mansa expanded like crazy, exploded into a military tech lead, and then Thanos snapped another leader’s lands into fine additions to his own. Most often, that unlucky sap was Alex, but no leader save for Hammurabi was fully safe from Mansa's wrath here. In fact, Mansa cared little for culture in this map. He was relatively uninterested in the first three religions – Suleiman, Hammurabi, and Lincoln all went for those more often – and he also eschewed other cultural pursuits like later religions and the Sistine Chapel in favor of pure commerce tech paths like Currency and Economics and military beelines like Guilds and Rifling. (Something I would later come to realize is that Hammurabi's pure Culture research flavor may have caused him to hoard all of the cultural elements of the game, which may have been a factor in Mansa's apathy towards culture in this setup).

Map Dynamics

This was a map where the good guys absolutely bullied the bad guys. Even in Mansa's weaker performances, Hammurabi and Lincoln were still able to impose their wills on the hapless evil leaders, and Team Good would combine for 19/20 victories, 37/40 possible playoff spots, and more than 85% of the total kills. This high peaceweight dominance was stunning considering the even good-to-evil split in this map.

Why was there such a disparity between good and evil? The simple reason was that the high peaceweights had far better land than the low peaceweights. Lincoln had the best land, with an excellent capital and ample room for 10+ good quality cities; Hammurabi's corner was rich in resources and commerce and scaled well; Mansa's land was fine, perhaps not as good as the others, he was Mansa, so of course it did not matter.

Meanwhile, Alex's land was sparse in resources, especially strategic ones. When combined with his propensity to treat Mysticism as if monuments would give him leprosy, Alex frequently found himself without metal units to defend himself against the Mansa death machine. Gilgamesh, meanwhile, had an ill-fitting seafood capital and a tundra-infested corner that had room for seven cities at most. To tack on, his neighbors were the aforementioned death machine and the guarenteed-to-be-strong Americans. Finally, the Silly Man’s corner was choked in jungle, and making matters worse, the Ottoman sultan was drawn to a horrible jungle location for his 2nd city that he always queued his next Settler in, rendering him essentially irrelevant from Turn 0.

Leader Dynamics (aka the Mansa Story)

The sixteen Mansa victories had two sub-categories: the fast and slow Mansa games. Similarly to Justin and Monty's Game Four dynamic, Mansa's speed generally depended on his ability to quickly conquer one of his neighbors. Also like in the previous game, the location of his second city was important. Mansa always considered two spots: a flood plains river spot to his east that secured him elephants, and a jungle spot to his south redeemed by a corn resource and its good long-term prospects. The correct choice which almost always led to the fast Mansa games was the first spot. It gave him Elephants for conquest, guaranteed him a fast start – he is freakin’ Mansa Musa, he will scale long-term anyway – while making Alex an easier target by locking him out of what little fertile land he had. The southern spot was alright, but it did afford Alex more breathing room while also running the risk of forcing Mansa to settle in a straight north to south line, making it trickier for him to defend and thus slowing him down. Naturally, Mansa's slower games stemmed from having to fight more than he was hoping to, especially if he got into an early 2v1 against Gilgamesh and Alex. This was where being Mansa Musa was especially important; while most other leaders would have stalled out and failed, Mansa would eventually econ well enough to overwhelm his enemies and win, even if he limped to victory. It was not a totally uncommon occurrence for Mansa to miss out on key Renaissance prizes like Liberalism or the Taj Mahal, and only finally establish a tech lead deep in the Industrial Era.

Nevertheless, most Mansa victories followed the general pattern of the Malinese knocking out a weak Alex and completely snowballing, just like in the Actual Game. Gilgamesh and Suleiman would usually get picked off next, while the remaining high peaceweight leaders would sit together and sing Kumbaya in a Next Turn fest. Despite the seemingly static nature of these results, there was a surprising amount of variation and intrigue in these games, especially regarding Lincoln's performance. Lincoln’s central position rendered him vulnerable to dogpiles, and he faced attacks from every other leader multiple times over the course of these twenty games. However, due to his abundant land and his ability to overrun Giggles sooner or later, he was the most successful at riding the Mansa wave into a respectable playoff appearance. The performances of Hammurabi and Suleiman also varied, albeit not to the same extent as Lincoln’s. In most games, the two fought stalemated wars into irrelevance, but occasionally, Hammurabi would conquer Suleiman to become the clear second place leader, or Suleiman would partition Alex with Mansa to ensure that he had curried enough favor with the Moneybags machine to survive to the Wildcard game.

There were three oddities among the 16 Mansa games. One of them was his Cultural win that I already mentioned. Another one was Game 3, where a multitude of inopportune backstabs just as one leader seemed to be about to break through led to a prolonged global stalemate, only broken when Mansa had at last built enough of a tech lead to conquer Sumeria and limp to a Turn 364 spaceship. Note how ridiculously late Gilgamesh’s First To Die came, on Turn 309, which would have shattered the “latest First To Die” record as of this writing, which was done post Season 8. In all honesty, I think a T300 First To Die is more unusual than having no leaders die in a game. Finally, there was Game 10, which veered into the opposite extreme with a T251 MANSA DOMINATION victory. That game saw Giggles benefit the most from a dogpile of a weaker-than-usual Lincoln and then bring Hammurabi to the brink of death. Once the Mansa-Musa-ninator came calling, Gilgamesh had just enough to hold onto a playoff spot.

The four non-Mansa wins all shared one trait: for whatever reason, Mansa completely bungled his conquests and ended up permanently gimping his game. Usually, a combination of the following lead to this:

1. Alex researching Mysticism in a reasonable timeframe, and thus being stronger and more evenly matched – those extra cultural defenses made a significant difference
2. Mansa making questionable expansion choices, either getting squeezed on territory or overextending into the South and making his border cities difficult to defend
3. Mansa getting into an early 2v1
4. Mansa getting overly-invested in early wonders to the detriment of everything else

In three out of the four non-Mansa wins, Mansa remained a contending leader, but it became apparent that even Mansa Musa cannot outscale someone with 2-3x as much territory. He would often end up with such a small empire that he would fail to clinch the playoffs; he only advanced in one game where he did not win. There was also the utterly bonkers Game 19, where Mansa of all leaders became First To Die. In that game, Mansa utterly fumbled his attack against Alex, and was subsequently run over by Gilgamesh. That game was a 1 in 100 type of game that nevertheless made this entire set worthwhile for me.

Religion played a larger than expected role in diplomacy. For example, Suleiman’s ability to salvage a Wildcard spot generally depended on if he religiously aligned himself with the good guys. Moreover, Lincoln had a tendency to be in a minority religion, leaving him vulnerable to backstabs (especially since Mansa can plot at Pleased). However, religion generally did not overcome peaceweight differences. With Mansa ignoring culture and this being a high peaceweight fiesta, Spaceship was the runaway victory condition. and there were as many Diplomatic as Domination wins (three apiece).

How Typical Was The Actual Game?

9/10. I saw many patterns from the livestream repeat themselves in the replays. Like in the Actual Game, the first 200 turns tended to be quite bloody, while the end stage was much more peaceful. Mansa had one of his "fast" games, running over Alex, steamrolling Gilgamesh, and then coasting to a fast Spaceship. The one thing preventing me from rating this a 10 was that Mansa attacked Lincoln at the last moment in a heartbreaker, causing Hammurabi to instead take the Runner Up spot. This was by no means unusual, as Mansa betrayed Lincoln quite a few times in the replays.

Delving into individual leader performances:

Mansa Musa of Mali
Offensive Wars: 30
Defensive Wars: 34
Survival Rate: 95%
Finishes: 16 Wins, 1 Runner Up (82 Points)
Kills: 23
Overall Score: 105!!!!!!

Scoring more than 100 points is a rare yet impressive feat. It could have been more had Mansa not choked in the final two games of the set. This was the most aggressive I have ever seen Mansa, and his staggering 23 kills would have made any warmonger happy, let alone a peacenik like Mansa. He should have had more kills, by the way, as Suleiman and Hammurabi would snipe some kills after Mansa had done all the heavy lifting.

Mansa’s aggression was also controlled and smart. I can recall just one foolish Mansa attack, where in Game 2, when Alex had only Chariots defending his cities, Mansa sicced his forces on… a Protective Gilgamesh with Vultures and Creative culture defenses. This got Mansa dragged into an early two front war when Alex inevitably jumped in, and in the end, he was relegated to the Wildcard game. Otherwise, there were still hints of Mansa’s weaknesses, namely his propensity to struggle early if he got too bogged down by wonders or was unable to establish military superiority. The removal of Deity starting techs definitely hampered Mansa, as he never had quite as good of an economic game as in the livestream (although he did come pretty close). Mansa benefited a lot from Alex's extreme weakness, and a slightly stronger Alex could have meant a drastically worse Mansa, as Game 19 showed.

Nevertheless, I wish I saw this version of Mansa more often. He would actually be a better leader in this form than as the culture-monger we know him as. Going for culture is a glass cannon strategy, and considering Mansa's high peaceweight, he might be better off focusing purely on commerce and military like he did in this setup. The results say everything.

Best Performance: Either his stunning Turn 251 Domination win in Game 10 or his almsot as amazing Turn 286 Spaceship win in Game 13.

Worst Performance: Other than the obvious Game 19, Mansa was quite bad in Game 20, requiring a bailout from other leaders in order to deal with Alex. That was a true backdoor 2nd place finish, a rarity for Mansa.

Gandhi Award: Mansa sparked his snowball in Game 5, not through military conquest, but through settling a bunch of cities in open spaces while other leaders were murdering each other.

Lincoln of America
Offensive Wars: 14
Defensive Wars: 40
Survival Rate: 75%
Finishes: 1 Win, 10 Runner Ups (25 Points)
Kills: 16
Overall Score: 41

Although Lincoln's performance was ostensibly good, it became apparent why he is an AI Survivor bottomfeeder. An initial disclaimer: Lincoln was actually quite excellent at playing Civ IV. He expanded well, managed his economy, and was a surprisingly effective fighter (when pressed into conflict). So why do I think so lowly of Honest Abe’s AI Survivor capabilities? Well, there was one major caveat: Lincoln’s ultra-pacifistic personality - which, by the way, could not be more historically inaccurate - was extremely detrimental to his chances. Unfortunately, his approach to all things military was to pretend it did not exist. Lincoln did just about everything he could to not fight, launching a paltry 14 wars despite his strong position and an abundance of weak targets. He had to wait for others to attack him, and this was a dicey proposition, as dogpiles were the primary catalyst for his eliminations. In fact, Lincoln had more kills than offensive wars (Alex and Gilgamesh were quite suicidal neighbors), a rarity in these sets. Moreover, I witnessed him do everything he could to NOT research military techs over the course of these replays. In a select few extreme cases, he was deep into the Renaissance Era in the tech tree, yet still lacked Gunpowder tech. Not Rifling. Gunpowder.

Luckily for Honest Abe, his land, suicidal enemies, and natural diplomatic bond with Mansa ensured that he was the runaway pick for second place. To his credit, he proved adept at actual fighting when pressed into conflict. If left in a one-on-one situation, it was a matter of when, not if, he would conquer his foe. There were some crazy situations where Lincoln had upwards of 150 units on Turn 150 due to his dozen production queues, and he certainly had the means to keep the military momentum going into crushing wins if he just had the willingness to do so. Unfortunately, the Civ IV iteration of Lincoln was saddled with the cowardly George McClellan rather than Ulysses S. Grant or William T. Sherman as his commanding officer. Overall, Lincoln failed to take any sort of initiative to win, preferring to sit back and watch Mansa go to space, and with his land, he should have had more than one win even with Mansa in this game. It is no wonder that Lincoln has done little of note beyond Opening Round fodder since Season One: in the majority of situations, his stubborn refusal to fight becomes a fatal flaw for the Great Emancipator.

Best Performance: I really thought his Game 2 win was rather lucky, as it saw a weak Suleiman suicide into Lincoln. His Game 16 near-win was more impressive to me, as he nearly outteched Mansa and lost the space race by one turn.

Worst Performance: His near First To Die finish in Game 10 was quite embarrassing, to say the least.

Shaka Award:

That’s a gigantic army for 740 AD.

Hammurabi of Babylon
Offensive Wars: 28
Defensive Wars: 13
Survival Rate: 95%*
Finishes: 2 Wins, 7 Runner Ups (24 Points)
Kills: 8
Overall Score: 32

*This survival rate is fool's gold; Hammurabi was saved by Mansa multiple times, either through the UN or through military liberation.

Hammurabi was clearly born in the wrong universe. His Aggressive/Organized trait combination is a warmonger’s dream, combining the stronger units from Aggressive with the ability to maintain and quickly develop one’s conquests with Organized. Unfortunately, Hammurabi preferred to play peacefully, and he was ill-equipped to do so save for a good-but-not-great unique building – even his defensive unique unit is just an inferior version of Mansa’s Skirmishers.

In many games, Hammurabi stubbornly stuck to his favored “sit-back-and-devlop” strategy, to generally mediocre results. He was excellent at surviving due to his corner position, his easy-mode neighbor situation, and his ability to befriend Mansa (if I remember correctly the two never fought once), but there was still much left to be desired. His wars were usually of little note, either a half-hearted attempt at conquering the Ottomans or a cross-map war against a dying civ. Hammurabi was in many ways the troll of the map, either twiddling his thumbs on his way to an undeserved playoff appearance (like in the Actual Game) or stealing kill points from others who had done all the heavy lifting. In the unusual Game 19 where Mansa died, Hammurabi’s small size also came back to bite him, as despite his tech lead, the combined efforts of the much larger Gilgamesh and Alex would overwhelm him to bring the evil leaders some success.

In the rare cases where Hammurabi utilized his warmonger traits, he was able to succeed in this friendly diplomatic environment. His primary avenue to success was to murder Suleiman – his three strongest games all saw the Ottomans as First To Die – and when he had the entire Eastern slice of the map to himself, his Organized trait made him a viable economic contender, occasionally allowing him to outscale Mansa. He was certainly more impressive than Lincoln. Nevertheless, Hammurabi still proved to be a tragic case of a leader who continuously tries to jam his square peg into round holes to no avail.

Best Performance: His Game 20 teching performance was legitimately strong, and he was on pace to win around Turn 310 when he was prematurely elected World Leader.

Worst Performance: Nearly suiciding into a much stronger Lincoln in Game 8, requiring Mansa to swoop in and save him.

Wang Kon Award: Somehow losing a war against five city Suleiman while Suleiman was stuck in a 2v1 yet still making the playoffs in Game 12.

Chivalry Is Dead Award: Hammurabi’s Game 10 teching was uncharacteristically terrible – he did not have Knights until Turn 230, and had to be saved by Mansa to survive.

Gilgamesh of Sumeria
Offensive Wars: 29
Defensive Wars: 20
Survival Rate: 20%
Finishes: 1 Win, 1 Runner Up (7 Points)
Kills: 2
Overall Score: 9

I must say, this was the most impressive single-digit Alternate Histories performance I have ever witnessed. Gilgamesh was the only evil leader who ever had a chance at doing something in this setup for two reasons. First, he was by far the most competent of the low peaceweights in this field, scratching and clawing his way towards what little success he could get. He was the only evil leader to win, the only one to make the playoffs with a high peaceweight, and the only one who could maintain a semblance of an economy and accomplish anything militarily. Secondly, he was the best positioned to benefit if Mansa or Lincoln faltered. His second place showing saw him run over Lincoln relatively early and use that to hold on when Mansa came calling, and the wild Game 19 of course saw him attack Mansa at the perfect time to become the game leader and eventual winner. His economic management was not great in that game – he was on pace for a post-Turn 400 Spaceship had Alex not suicided into him – but it did the job and was still impressive considering his horrible land and situation.

His issues did not stop at his cold land. He was always atop the hit list of a much more advanced Mansa or Lincoln, and his fellow low peaceweights were so utterly useless that he was effectively in a 1v3. Of course, his local situation was not good either, as he could get into a 2v1 against Mansa and Lincoln at any moment. Despite this, he still toughed it out and managed two miracle playoff finishes, demonstrating why he is regarded as an above average leader for AI Survivor purposes.

Best Performance: I have to shoutout his playoff appearances once again here.

Worst Performance: Getting shredded early by Lincoln in a war he started in Game 13.

Apostolic Palace Cheese Award: Being denied an easy kill on Hammurabi by the UN in Game 10.

Suleiman of the Ottomans
Offensive Wars: 24
Defensive Wars: 27
Survival Rate: 35%
Finishes: 0 Wins, 1 Runner Up (2 Points)
Kills: 3
Overall Score: 5

Season Three was played on a Tropical map, and an unfortunate side effect was that many games saw a leader doomed from Turn 0 due to having too much crappy jungle. In this game, that leader was Suleiman, who settled this exact city and queued a 30-turn Settler in every single replay:

This was emblematic of the HURR DURR MUST GET RESOURCES mindset ingrained into the Civ IV AI coding, which baited the Silly Man into believing that a location with only Calendar resources locked underneath jungle was a viable one for a second city. Making matters worse was that his third city was usually not much better, as he opted to settle a food poor coastal spot that claimed zero contested land. If Suleiman was not Imperialistic, things would have been even uglier.

As a result, by the end of the expansion phase, Suleiman had just 5-6 weak cities and was a complete non-factor. There is little else for me to say, as otherwise, he was a boring and irrelevant leader. Sometimes he helped dogpile Alex or Lincoln, other times he launched random wars against Mansa and Ham, but I neither paid much attention nor cared to pay attention to him. I noticed myself multiple times nearly forgetting to record when Suleiman had declared war; he was that bland. I guess he did make the playoffs once, when Gilgamesh had murdered everyone else in the outlier Game 19.

Nonetheless, one should not make any assertions about Suleiman’s merits as a leader from this set. Even Mansa Musa would have failed in his spot due to the quirks of AI programming.

Worst Performance: His Game 20 exit was peak embarrassing Silly Man, dying on Turn 144 to pave the way to a runaway Hammurabi.

Frederick Award: Still getting murdered by Mansa on Game 14 even when Mansa had turned on the Culture slider with just a Cuirassier army.

Alexander of Greece
Offensive Wars: 36
Defensive Wars: 27
Survival Rate: 5%
Finishes: 0 Wins, 0 Runner Ups (0 Points)
Kills: 3
Overall Score: 3

Like the Silly Man, Alex was screwed by his land, but unlike Suleiman, he was entertaining. Alex was plagued by the same affliction that other ultra-warmongers suffer from: a complete aversion to Mysticism. This was even more apparent in this setup, as Alex’s only source of Copper was in a faraway peninsula, and he would always settle his cities in such a way that his iron was in the second ring, like in the livestream. Thus, Alex was a car without an engine, unable to fight the wars that he lives and breathes for. If Mansa was typical Mansa, Alex might have fared a little better, but this was an aggressive Mansa who was more than glad to continue spanking Alex in these replays.

Notice the Iron resources outside of the Greek borders

Even if Mansa was feeling more forgiving, Alex was still running on borrowed time. Mansa could culture flip cities, he could tech up and run over Alex whenever he wanted, or someone else could bring an end to the Greek farce. All Alex could do was play the role of spoiler, whether it was slowing Mansa down or helping out with dogpiles. With such a start, this was just not Alex's time to shine.

Best Performance: Believe it or not, Alex did come close to winning the crazy Game 19, as he was within 20 delegates from being elected World Leader of the UN. Perhaps if he had patiently developed his Babylonian conquests, he could have won or at the very least punched a ticket to the playoffs. However, being Alex, he instead threw away his ticket trying to attack a much more advanced Gilgamesh.

Worst Performance: Getting rekt by Mansa on Turn 137 in Game 10.

Ooga Booga Award:

A nice attacking force you got there, Al!

Conclusions

Putting it simply, the best economic leader in Civ IV had easy conquest opportunities which he gladly took advantage of. Combine this with some incredibly mediocre competition, and well, you have the recipe for a 100+ point Alternate Histories showing.

 

[Thrasybulos]

I did suspect something fishy about Mana's victory conditions, since you were asking.
But that would have been pure guesswork based on a hunch.

You do have a seemingly plausible explanation here, but I've certainly seen my fair share of games where a leader who'd normally aggressively pursue a culture victory condition ignores it most of the time, for no apparent reason.

It's funny how AI Survivor's games have ingrained some preconceptions about some leaders.
Both Keler's and my various experiments have shown "Silly Man" to be a strong and successful leader. But setting aside Season 1 (not broadcast, so didn't leave a strong impresion), Suleiman's AI Survivor history is a bit similar to Hatty's: screwed time and time again by the game draw, and when he finally got a favourable draw (S7), the live game went horribly wrong for him.

When I played this map by switching the leaders around for each run, Mansa won the most, but Suleiman scored similar (sligher higher with scoring system I used, a bit lower with Sullla's):

And Lincoln's start was clearly the strongest, with a 45% win rate:

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

I did suspect something fishy about Mana's victory conditions, since you were asking.
But that would have been pure guesswork based on a hunch.

You do have a seemingly plausible explanation here, but I've certainly seen my fair share of games where a leader who'd normally aggressively pursue a culture victory condition ignores it most of the time, for no apparent reason.

It's funny how AI Survivor's games have ingrained some preconceptions about some leaders.
Both Keler's and my various experiments have shown "Silly Man" to be a strong and successful leader. But setting aside Season 1 (not broadcast, so didn't leave a strong impresion), Suleiman's AI Survivor history is a bit similar to Hatty's: screwed time and time again by the game draw, and when he finally got a favourable draw (S7), the live game went horribly wrong for him.

I do agree Sulei has been a bit unlucky, although I was still shocked that he was the dominant 2nd place finisher in S8 (which I guess should have been determined from most games being “Cyrus kills everyone else” games)

And Lincoln's start was clearly the strongest, with a 45% win rate:
View attachment 710147

Yeah Lincoln’s was easily the best, if for nothing else than it had the most space. Lincoln the leader IMO was a poor fit for it, however, and any more competent leader would have done WAY better. All Lincoln could do most games was ride Mansa to the playoffs