The AI Horatius League

[Genghis the Barbarian]

I’m glad to read Pacal as a fraud, to know Darius would destroy AC, and that Ragnar v Hatty would have been very close with Ragnar coming on top.

KK upsetting Justin isn’t THAT crazy - KK is a blue blood too.

Game 1: Mansa. For the clear cut top three (Mansa-HC-Justin) I see some sort of rock paper scissors here. Mansa is just better at the culture thing than HC; HC is better economically than Justin; Justin’s religion+military combo is a good counter to Mansa.

Game 2: Louis, mainly because 300 turns to win > 350 turns to win

Game 3: Willem. Willem’s biggest weakness (Rifling avoidance) is not a problem because I’ve seen DG have this propensity. Thus, we give this to the better economic leader.

Game 4: Ragnar. Darius is an even better matchup than Hatty.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 3, Quarterfinals

Spoiler Quarterfinals 1 :

Game 5 was the turning point, with HC failing to convert a strong mid-game into a win, and Mansa managing to rally back.
That said, I had a hunch HC would fare poorly, as the map drawn for those games was S3 Playoff 1, where I'd seen him inexplicably fail hard.

Spoiler Quarterfinals 2 :

It was actually pretty close between these two, as hinted at by the very late victory dates for half the games.

Spoiler Quarterfinals 3 :

This was unfortunately another very unbalanced map: S4 Game 7, where HC's start (in Sullla's game) was completely busted.
And here as well, the leader in that start invariably won the game.
Well, except for game 6: one of the main reasons I'm disabling barbs is because of the leader-stuck-at-war-with-a-one-city-leader-it-cannot-reach bug. In 90+% of the cases, the city in question is a former barb city.
This was the other 10%: the stronger De Gaulle was stuck at war with a one-city Willem, made unreachable by the other remaining Willem's culture.
Luckily, it didn't change the overall result as the other De Gaulle managed to win by Space.

Anyway, owing to the map, it all came down to the tie-breaker game, which went De Gaulle's way here.

Spoiler Quarterfinals 4 :

I must confess that I was expecting a rather easy Ragnar win as well.
Is it really Darius's moment?

Spoiler Current Bracket :

 

[Keler]

Interesting concept. Great work!
So in this way there is no bad draw for leaders in both kind. PW outcast, Starting positions.

Fratricide wars are a very real possibility.

So you rejected the team option. Because otherwise there would be no difference than a duel 1v1 game probably?

The games here were played on the Season 1, Game 7 map... which happens to be one of the most unbalanced maps to ever feature in AI Survivor.

Good catch, funny I actually wanted to make a map conclusion based on my switcheroo results but I never shared, maybe I do it today
Everybody hates a start here to %100 win maps.. makes the whole effort pointless.
Among 6 player maps I found Season 6 Playoff 1 the worst, most unfair map by my basic math statistics hehe. But season1 game 7 is definitely up in my list too.

As for ranking method, I will probably go with number of wins for this one, it is just my preference
Justinian 44 wins the best.

Keep up the good work, it is fun to check it here and follow you, even though if there is nothing to comment, I will leave a like still.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Good to see you back.

So you rejected the team option. Because otherwise there would be no difference than a duel 1v1 game probably?

Essentially because it's a setting very few people use (I've certainly never done so: I don't even know how the cooperation is supposed to work).
Here it's simple: the same AIs we play against (or watch in AI Survivor), under - mostly - the same rules... just three of them.

About map balance data, you had expressed an interest in the latter seasons: I've posted the results of an another experiment, which you might have missed.

I actually wanted to make a map conclusion based on my switcheroo results but I never shared, maybe I do it today

That'd be nice, although with the way the servers seem to be mishaving doing, today might be tricky.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 3, Semifinals and Finals

Spoiler Semifinals 1 :

Kublai had a good run, but well. Mansa.

Spoiler Semifinals 2 :

Darius's unexpected successful tournament run also ends here, stopped cold by a De Gaulle who confirms he's pretty damn good at this excercise.

This last match-up has to have the easiest outcome to guess so far.

Spoiler Finals :

Or not.
Second time the much maligned De Gaulle wins one of my "events" (he won Jumbled Rumble S2).

Spoiler Final Bracket :

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 3, Rankings and Ratings

Spoiler Rankings :

Top 16 (seeded for Tournament 4):

The rest:

Spoiler Adjusted Elo ratings :

Above average:

Below average:

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 4, Pool Composition

Spoiler :

I'm planning on running a total number of tournaments between 4 and 6.
So depending on how soon I'm ready to start another of my projects, this might be the last one.

 

[Genghis the Barbarian]

I’m ready to join you into the DG train. I think he’s a solid at worst leader tragically dragged down by being PW0.

Running S3P2 AHs and S8WC2 AHs solidified this. Especially S3P2, those had some incredibly impressive games from DG considering his formidable competition.

Also, might as well go over the fields he’s been in:

S1: One of the worst spots in a high PW dominated field. Gandhi or Lizzy would get eaten alive if you reversed the scenario. It’s no different here.

S2: AHs TBD, but DG literally got APed out of the game by a runaway HC.

S3: We all know what happened here. This season revealed that he has hidden strengths.

S4: Another point in DG’s favor. The start was absolutely CRACKED for Julius Caesar, yet in AHs DG was the clear cut #2 and had one of the only non JC wins.

S5: Pretty bad admittedly. He’s not a top tier AI, after all. This set did expose his flaws - he’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none type.

S6: HORRIBLE, zero commerce land. I think the opening round AHs were being too harsh on him.

S7: Opening Round game and AHs showed how good DG can be in a favorable diplo situation. He was also solid in the playoff game and mid in the AHs, although it revealed how much of a liability PW0 is (it doesn’t help that DG does have Willem tendencies…)

S8: He was admittedly terrible in the opening round. I’m not sure why honestly, maybe he was just too close to shoulda-been-runaway Cyrus. But he redeemed himself and then some in his wildcard game even if the real game wasn’t so good.

The perception of DG appears to be basically a low PW Frederick who meanders around before turning into fodder. I think the reality is closer to a Mao, Mehmed or Churchill type, someone who can hang around for a tenacious 2nd place and even contend for a win. Give him PW2 and he is definitely seeded leader potential.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 4, Pool Phase

Spoiler Pool 1 :

For once, Gandhi makes it.
Ramesses finds a clever way of dealing with his curse: can't get eliminated in the very next round if you don't qualify for it.

Spoiler Pool 2 :

Viccy is an unexpected pool winner, Qin does the job, Genghis flounders.

Spoiler Pool 3 :

Losing to Freddy must have bruised HC's ego badly... especially as it costs him his qualification!
Lincoln, after two tournaments where he did well, is back to mediocrity.

Spoiler Pool 4 :

Justinian in a class of his own...

Spoiler Pool 5 :

Gilgamesh keeps failing, harder this time actually.
Sitting Bull crushes Ragnar.

Spoiler Pool 6 :

Kublai is unforgiving.
Second place should be disputed between Darius, Suleiman, and Hannibal... and goes to Asoka.
Lizzy gave up, apparently.

Spoiler Pool 7 :

Napoleon is ruthless.
Cyrus, a pretty strong AI Survivor leader who'd so far been pretty bad at this, suddenly gets good.
Hatty, in spite of a decent showing, pays the price.

Spoiler Pool 8 :

Pacal severely underperforms here, which allows Sury to make it to the next round for the second time.

Spoiler Current Bracket :

The Egyptian leaders had been so far powerhouses in the Pool phase... and this tournament sees both of them flounder.
Quite the opposite of the Indian leaders, who both make it here, while they had failed so far.
But the real success story here is France: all three leaders qualify for the next round!

 

[Keler]

Ok let me guess.
Mansa vs Victoria
Saladin vs Justinian
De Gaulle vs Kublai
Napoleon vs Willem

And then
Mansa vs Justinian
De Gaulle vs Napoleon

Justinian vs De Gaulle
This time Justinian wins <3

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 4, Prefinals Round

Spoiler Prefinals 1 :

This was SB's second foray into the knockout stage, and it was as spectacularly unsuccessful as the first one.

Spoiler Prefinals 2 :

Beaker fight.

Spoiler Prefinals 3 :

This was Cyrus's first decent performance in a tournament... but he's still struggling with that format.

Spoiler Prefinals 4 :

Closer than expected.

Spoiler Prefinals 5 :

And thus ended India's adventure.

Spoiler Prefinals 6 :

- Give my portrait back!
- Nope.

Spoiler Prefinals 7 :

This one was a bit of a steal: one of Louis's victories (don't remember whether it was game 2 or 3) should have been a Napoleon's win.
Napoleon was much stronger, and at the same tech level, but he launched his last war at the worst possible moment: too late to prevent Louis from launching, but before launching himself (Naoleon getting into warmode allowed Louis to slip ahead in the ship race).
Louis was getting run over when the game ended, but he still won.

Spoiler Prefinals 8 :

Closer than expected, but almost certainly a map balance issue.
What was definitely unexpected: a Willem vs Pericles match which never ended with a Culture win!

Spoiler Current Bracket :

What's remarkable here is that apart from the Napoleon vs Louis match (which should have gone the other way), the pool winners prevailed every time.

Ok let me guess.
Mansa vs Victoria
Saladin vs Justinian
De Gaulle vs Kublai
Napoleon vs Willem

Spoiler :

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 4, Quarterfinals

Spoiler Quarterfinals 1 :

Mansa actually got a tad lucky there.
Game 2:

Yes, that's right: he won a Cultural Victory, and then, on the very same turn, one of his Legendary cities was captured!
And his whole civ was gone within 15 turns.

And another of his Cultural wins happened as Viccy's ship was well on its way to Alpha Centauri.

Spoiler Quarterfinals 2 :

While Justinian's win bears no argument, the score is a tad harsh.
Game 2:

Justinian pulled a Wang Kon here and only won because Saladin launched with a single Engine.
And by the way, that's how the minimap looked (Justinian(s) in red, Saladin(s) in blue):

Spoiler Quarterfinals 3 :

These two were closely matched, but the tiebreaker was a one-way affair.

Spoiler Quarterfinals 4 :

Turn 437 culture from Willem.
It was a fairly bloody game.

Spoiler Current Bracket :

Amazingly, the top four seeds all make it to the semifinals.

Is Justinian going to get his first tournament win, or are we going to get our first repeat winner?

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 4, Finals

Spoiler Semifinals 1 :

Justinian has been the most consistent, but the final win escapes him, once again.

These games were played on the most unbalanced map, as identified by Keler: S2, Playoff 3, where starting position number 4 accounts for two thirds of the wins on this map in his dataset.
That exact proportion was observed here: all of Justinian wins were from that spot, and while the "conquest" victory condition cut the last non-tiebreaker game short, the team 4 Mansa was well on his way to an easy win.
Both culture victories by Mansa were from a different spot, though.

Spoiler Semifinals 2 :

Another close match, going to the tiebreaker as well.

Spoiler Finals :

And yet another very close match: the first time a tiebreaker is required for the finals!
I would have bet on Mansa here, and Willem ends up instead as the first repeat winner.

Spoiler Final Bracket :

Spoiler Ranking :

Ramesses drops out of the top 16, Viccy moves in.

Spoiler Ratings :

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 5, Pool Composition

Spoiler :

I'm getting ready to start on League 2.0 and maybe a coupla "one-shot" events (including a follow-up to this), so this will be the last run for this format.

 

[ManiaMuse89]

Tournament 5, Pool Composition

Spoiler :

View attachment 733959

I'm getting ready to start on League 2.0 and maybe a coupla "one-shot" events (including a follow-up to this), so this will be the last run for this format.

I have been running a competition with completely random groupings of leaders per each round of 8 games but I will say that my leaderboard based on my completely abitrary scoring system is quite similar to yours. My scoring system mostly rewards winning games but also gives a few points for surviving games (my theory being that you need to be in it to win it).

The main difference in my leaderboard is that Huayna Capac is the runaway leader at the moment. There is a big gap between him and the chasing pack.

Also Cyrus is very strong in my leaderboard. Not sure why he is so low down on yours.

Some other common things though.

- The 3 French leaders are also in my top 10
- Willem and Kublai Kahn are right up there flipping between being best of the rest.
- Ramesses is also 9th in my rankings.
- Frederick is also my worst leader by far. He is the only leader yet to win a game in my contest and rarely survives to get any points. The next worst leaders have 2 wins each.

 

[Thrasybulos]

That's interesting.
This format wasn't meant to be representative of the AIs' strength in an AI Survivor context, as there are some glaring differences (the biggest one being high peaceweights not crippled), so it would be an unexpected outcome that it should end up yielding very similar results.

We'll see whether that holds true with the results provided by the League format (which is meants to be representative).

There are indeed some differences between the list provided by the ratings here and what my other experiments have led me to expect: in a more traditional setup, I would indeed expect HC at the top. I would also expect for instance AIs like Gilgamesh, Cyrus, and Suleiman to perform way better.

 

[ManiaMuse89]

That's interesting.
This format wasn't meant to be representative of the AIs' strength in an AI Survivor context, as there are some glaring differences (the biggest one being high peaceweights not crippled), so it would be an unexpected outcome that it should end up yielding very similar results.

We'll see whether that holds true with the results provided by the League format (which is meants to be representative).

There are indeed some differences between the list provided by the ratings here and what my other experiments have led me to expect: in a more traditional setup, I would indeed expect HC at the top. I would also expect for instance AIs like Gilgamesh, Cyrus, and Suleiman to perform way better.

My scoring system is also quite skewed against high peaceweight leaders and leaders which tend to go for cultural victories. For example, Gandhi has the 2nd highest number of wins but is only 12th in my score ranking. He has a ridiculous 80% win ratio if he survives but also has one of the lowest survival to death ratios.

In my scoring system the survival points are split between the number of surviving AIs so that tends to give more points to leaders which win by domination more frequently. I think my reasoning was that I was looking at which leaders were most consistently strong so leaders which died frequently were unlikely to fit that description.

That being said, I think it is true that there are leaders which are consistently bad.

- Tech flavours, especially in the early game which can cripple leaders if they prioritise the wrong techs (I think Frederick falls into that) plus the infamous Willem avoiding rifling beeline leaving leaders vulnerable to mid-game DoWs.
- All the XML parameters around warfare. It's way more complicated than just the high vs low peaceweight thing. It's build unit flavour (especially if they build siege) and build unit probability, attack bravery and power ratio considerations/DoW probability, willingness to peace out to survive another day (HC is good at peacing out), willingness to dogpile, distant war probability (why Napoleon declares insane wars on the other side of the map) etc. Leaders which take some risks are more likely to snowball than leaders which are indecisive during warfare I think.
- The other XML stuff which affects relations. Leaders which are frequently hated and get dogpiled all the time are always going to have a harder time at winning games.
- My results definitely show a tier list with which traits are strong and weak. There is a very big gap even when averaged out between the top 5 traits (financial/charistmatic/creative/spiritual/industrious), imperialistic in the middle and the other 5 traits well behind.
- With the cultural victory leaders, most of them (although not really HC) manage to win by culture because they get triggered into culture mode really early because of their traits, tech flavours and controlling holy cities.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 5, Pool Phase

Spoiler Pool 1 :

The final ranking somewhat makes sense: Lincoln has been pretty much feast or famine throughout those tournaments, this was his feast phase. Willem underperformed, but makes the top 2.
But the detailed game results are all over the place. Pretty hard to parse.

Spoiler Pool 2 :

This was yet again a very unbalanced map. Qin never found a break, contrary to Louis.
Washington had come close previously, this time he made it. Stalin thrashing Mehmed just feels wrong.

Spoiler Pool 3 :

Ramesses performed decently, but losing both his games to Sury ends up costing him his qualification, to the tie-breaker.
Shaka had had a good first tournament, but nothing ever since: he gets another shot at seeing how far he can Shaka-Smash his way through.

Spoiler Pool 4 :

And we get the first real shocker: Justinian is out!
He'd been the most consistent so far, but no one's safe.
Gilgamesh takes advantage and reaches the knockout phase for the first time, after several 3rd place finishes.
And I believe Roosevelt is the second AI, after Freddy, to fail to score even a single win in a pool phase.

Spoiler Pool 5 :

Mansa crushes the competition, Gandhi takes advantage of a fairly peaceful line-up, Pacal disappoints.

Spoiler Pool 6 :

Not much to say here: it pretty much went according to expectations.

Spoiler Pool 7 :

Complete Genghis collapse: was his first tournament a fluke?
Toku won his first four games, and then also collapsed.
HC seemed headed for an easy first place: 6/6 after 3 rounds, but when he lost his two games versus JC, he was suddenly in danger while JC was the one whose qualification was all but certain.
In the end HC does finish first, while JC slips to 4th.

HC did beat a record here, I believe: the narrowest and luckiest win.

In the previous tournament, we also had Mansa win by culture and lose one of his Big Three in the very same turn.
Not only did HC repeat that feat, but he was down to 4 cities total at that point, and his civ was entirely gone a mere six turns later!

Spoiler Pool 8 :

De Gaulle was ahead after three rounds and a 5/6 score: he seemed to be cruising to an easy qualification.
And then Monty happened.
Cyrus, after underperforming in the first three tournaments, makes it to the next phase for the second time in a row.

Now... what happened to Zara?

Spoiler Current Bracket :

Mansa vs Willem was the previous tournament's final!
HC vs Kublai also looks like a match-up which should happen at a later stage.
The top half couldn't be more contrasted: we could end up with a Hatty vs Gandhi (or Lincoln) quarter-final... and a Shaka vs Monty match-up!

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 5, Prefinals

Spoiler Prefinals 1 :

Lincoln did as well here as he did vs Hatty in a previous tournament...
If you're wondering why I wasn't exactly looking forward to this set of games, this is why:

Spoiler Prefinals 2 :

Hatty surprised Louis in the first game by treading the warpath, but he responded in kind in the second game.
The other two games went the same way, but slower: Hatty hit a culture win before she could finish off Louis, and next when Louis had the upper hand, he wasn't fast enough.

Spoiler Prefinals 3 :

No Shaka-smahing his way to the finals.
The games were played on the S4 game 7 map with the infamous HC OP start. Shaka spoilt his second go at that start by fighting a strong Shaka neighbour instead of Pericles.

Spoiler Prefinals 4 :

End of the road for Monty too, but I wasn't exactly expecting otherwise.

Spoiler Prefinals 5 :

Another close match between these two, with Mansa getting his revenge for the previous tournament's lost finals.
The tiebreaker looked like it was going Willem's way: two Mansas were dead, and the last one wasn't taking up much of the map... but simply being alive is often enough for Mansa.

Spoiler Prefinals 6 :

Washington held off better than expected, pushing Napoleon to the tiebreaker.
Funny how both Washington wins happened on the exact same turn. Had me check the saves.

Spoiler Prefinals 7 :

I would actually have pegged Kublai as the favourite here (with this format). But HC remains HC, I guess.

Spoiler Prefinals 8 :

Close.
The tiebreaker wasn't, though.

Spoiler Current Bracket :

 

[Thrasybulos]

Tournament 5, Quarterfinals

Spoiler Quarterfinals 1 :

I remember writing that unless you're called Mansa or Gandhi, the peaceful approach is the wrong approach with Hatty.
Well... that apparently remains true even if you're called Gandhi.

Spoiler Quarterfinals 2 :

Ouch.
We've had 4-0 scores at the prefinals stage, and 5-1 scores in the later stages, but I believe this is a first.

Spoiler Quarterfinals 3 :

These two traded blow for blow, and as you can see from the late (for a strong eco leader like Mansa) spaceship date on the rich tiebreaker map, the tiebreaker was also a disputed affair.

Spoiler Quarterfinals 4 :

Another disputed match, but HC ruled the tiebreaker.

Spoiler Current Bracket :

Hannibal is the only newcomer at this stage of the competition.
A Mansa vs HC semifinal happened previously, in tournament 3, and Mansa won that 4 to 2.