Another fun read. It seems there are some leaders that are real 'winners' regardless of start position, and some that are 'losers' regardless as well. But a reasonably-sized band of leaders in between who perform largely based on map conditions, as well as the strength/Diplo of their neighbours. Bismarck is probably in that category, and has just been unlucky so far. I'd guess he's on the weaker end of that group, though.
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Civ4 AI Survivor Season Six
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Thanks for another fun alternate history write up, Sullla!
 I was among those who expected a lot stronger performance from Suryavarman. His slow teching turned what should have been a pretty good diplomatic situation and somewhat sheltered start into a losing position. It sounds like Sury often did manage a solid land grab, only to fall apart.
That alt history feels very season 6, where we finally discovered Bismark. I'll say it one more time since this conversation is a bit disjointed over the course of a year or so, but a relatively --but not too-- peaceful builder, military-fluent AI is the recipe for success. The fact that he's middle peaceweight is all the better.
Guys like Qin and Bismark and Stalin, etc., are solid bets for any game. Any of that type of AI can easily win with good land. The step up is the ultra dominating guys like HC and Mansa that can win with ANY land. The step down are the peaceful builders like Willem, Ghandi, and Victoria that can ONLY win if they're left alone. Kind of rephrasing what Amicalola said. (January 8th, 2022, 22:29)Kofiman Wrote: I was long on Bismark before then, but I think that game overrates him a little. He doesn't seem to be able to close the deal properly when he's up on an opponent. He won most of the alternate histories via domination, and he attacked 47 times in 20 games! What are you talking about? His clear strength over other builder AIs is that he's so militaristic. 
Yeah, and his two favorite opponents were the poor defender Willem and the hopelessly-behind Ragnar. I'm saying that when he's up he's slow to finish the job and cash in the win.. not that he can't do it.
Mind you, I think he did a fine job, but I think it was the equivalent of a S4 G3 starting position. A bad AI might have blundered it, but a better one would have won even more.
There's an alternate history writeup for Game 6 up now: https://sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor6-6A.html
Not related to this game, but I wanted to mention it somewhere: aside from the AI failing to research Rifling, The Wheel, and Mysticism, another tech the AI often fails to get is Sailing -- which however just isn't that important in a Pangaea game like these all are, so the subject doesn't come up. If you're playing on an islands map, however, you can often tell an AI failed to research Sailing because it crams a ton of wonders onto its tiny starting landmass.
Finally found time to read through the game 6 alternate histories -- thanks for writing this up.
Without that amazing start for Churchill, this would have been a real muddled mess of a game. None of these leaders really performed very impressively. I did find it interesting that everyone but Boudica was first to die at least once; usually there are one or maybe two leaders who dominate that stat. |