Community predictions added to the Game Three preview page: http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor6-3-preview.html
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This was the third game in a row where the community was picking a heavy favorite. Gilgamesh was the selection to win for approximately two thirds of the contest entrants - for his sake, I hope that Gilgamesh fared better than Caesar and Huayna Capac in the first two games! The AI Survivor hive mind wasn't having a stellar start to the opening of this season. For the second place spot, the community favored one of the two leaders at the southern end of the map, with a preference for Qin over Augustus. First to Die was another interesting category with three different leaders all attracting significant votes. Ramesses was a slight favorite over Asoka but Shaka also collected more than his share of picks. Almost everyone expected one of these three leaders to be the first to go but there was little consensus on which one it would be. Finally, this didn't feel like a Cultural map to most people and therefore the victory condition was split evenly between Spaceship and Domination.
Finally, here are some of the best/craziest written predictions about what would take place during the game. There were many other excellent entries but I had to pick and choose my favorites to keep this from running on too long. Thanks again for the submissions!
nabaxo: You know what? I'm done picking the "obvious" picks. I'm going crazy for this one. I think Shaka has the field set up for him to take home the game. I believe!
delan: Gilgamesh has some really nice territory near his capital for his first few cities, and I like the combination of his aggressive, warring personality with the Creative trait. I'd like Shaka a lot more if he didn't land the seafood start, so while I expect him to make Asoka's life difficult, I don't think he'll be able to roll Asoka over and snowball from there. I also don't trust Augustus Caesar to leverage his relatively isolated start into a strong economic game. Ultimately, calling for a later finish date, where Gilgamesh pieces together the win and Qin comes in second by virtue of his isolated start and his peace weight playing the diplomatic game for him.
Duizhang_Lu: Gilgabro has himself a nice start here and some juicy neighbors to munch on (as well as not starting near the tundra, preventing bad settling decisions) and seems shoo-in to win this barring laughable incompetence. Shaka also has a decent start, but he doesn't have copper and has a sea food start, which I think will make him too slow out of the gate to compete with Gilgabro. They may be best friends this game, or perhaps there can be only one.
ManiaMuse: Shaka goes Shaka and does Shaka things. First goes straight for Gilgamesh's throat and takes him out straight away. Then bounces around the other leaders taking them out one by one. End is a bit messy and later wars drag on for a while but has enough territory to win by sheer quantity of units.
Tristan Cox: Its hard not to pick Gligamesh with his gorgeous land surrounding him and he starts with agriculture for his wet corn. I think its a good chance that Ramesses’s religion could spread to him since Thebes and Uruk are on the same river and they could be friends in the game. Not a fan of Shaka’s position. He needs to tech to iron working for metal units while Asoka only needs bronze working so the window for the early rush for Shaka isnt very wide.
Bobchillingworth: What I think should happen this game: Gilgamesh devours a metal-less, wonder-obsessed Ramses and propels himself to an insurmountable lead. Shaka beats up Asoka, but doesn't make much headway until Qin or Gilgamesh intervenes. Augustus claims a good chunk of the map, but is otherwise inert and preoccupied with stuffing his cities with every available infrastructure build, until a late-game alliance of Gilgamesh, Qin, and possibly Shaka kicks over his sandcastle. What will probably actually happen: Shaka devotes himself with frenzied energy to dragging down Gilgamesh; the latter eventually prevails in a series of duels, but by then he's effectively crippled and too backwards to matter. Qin spends most of the game being isolated and irrelevant, until he is gradually obliterated by a coalition of his more peaceful neighbors. Everyone forgets Asoka exists, and he wins a backdoor culture victory.
ljubljana: qin to win because i have him in the fantasy draft and i also live in a fantasy. but i mean he does stand to benefit from an early asoka dogpile and has the peace weight to join in. gil is squeezed badly and next to shaka, ouch. and then augustus for second bc he is one step below charley on the second-place-itis scale. and bad leaders means late space lol
Amicalola: My pick (Ramesses 1st, Augustus 2nd) stem from three starting positions. The two most important are Shaka's (terrible for him tech-wise), and Ramesses (absurd). This means that Shaka can't rush anyone effectively, and Gilgamesh can't kill Ramesses 1v1. Qin and Augustus will stay out of things at the bottom, with Augustus getting the edge for 2nd as Qin will be the odd one out in peaceweight to who I expect to be the leader (Ramesses).
NotSpamBot: Now logically speaking I should have voted for Asoka First To Die and Gilgamesh for First Place... but I expect Asoka's plot armor to kick in and prompt Shaka to attack Gilgamesh first despite Asoka's peace weight, proximity, weak military, and cultural pressure waving a red cloth in the face of the mad man. I also expect this attack to flounder at which point Shaka will promptly attack and kill Ramses.
Mansa da man: Gilgamesh has some very good land with floodplains and gold, and Ramesses to the South does not usually expand well on what is a very cramped map. His Western neighbor is a bit more concerning but the similar peaceweights will probably save him here, plus Protective + Creative means he can probably hold out on a surprise early war before catapults. In addition, Gilgamesh is quite aggressive himself and will most likely add Ramesses's wonder filled lands to his own, share in the India conquest with Shaka or turn on Shaka himself who will probably have his armies away annoying someone else. The last two games have shown how unpredictable this competition can be but I certainly expect one of the two Northern leaders to snowball off a conquest. That leaves Qin as the second place pick for me with a similar peaceweight, he'll just hope to be left alone and build wonders in peace. Asoka is the most likely FTD as Shaka is just that bit more aggressive but Ramesses is a likely candidate too. Now for Shaka to declare first on Gilgamesh and torpedo both their chances
Isidora: I just want to see Shaka flip out at everyone for no reason.
Bernn: Here's how I see this one going: Gilgamesh wisely avoids sending his settler directly south into the jungle and instead moves southwest, putting early cultural pressure on Shaka. The Zulus try their best to dig themselves out of the hole they're in with that heavy seafood peninsula of a capital, but struggle massively and end up with a crashed economy and a scattershot set of cities until the border tension reaches a boiling point and the Sumerians roll over poor Shaka. Now in the driver's seat of the game, Gilg quickly eats up Asoka, grinds down Ramesses and begins biting into Augustus before he ticks over the land area threshold and takes home a decisive Domination victory. I've been very impressed with Gilgamesh's performance over the last few seasons, and I think everything is in place for him to do excellently here too.
Schmun: This is a low peace weight field, so unfortunately I think Asoka's chances of surviving the game undisturbed are slim. Out of the low peace weight leaders, Gilgamesh seems like the most likely candidate purely through being a stronger AI. Shaka will torpedo his game and someone elses with early wars and I don't think Qin will expand enough to have a chance. It's unlikely, but possible, that Augustus managed to sneak out a cultural victory in the south east if he doesn't get in too many wars. I think religion will have a lot of influence in how this game works out. I chose Ramesses FTD because there's a chance that Asoka's religion will reach Shaka and give them better relations, although it's a real toss-up between the two. Similarly, religion will influence whether Augustus gets mauled. My prediction is that the low peace weight leaders will take out the two high peace civs but then it will be fairly peaceful and end in a slow march to space.
Dark Savant: Shaka and especially Asoka have poor starts. Shaka has all clams and no copper; Asoka is between two low-peaceweight leaders and has a lot of jungle and mountains, and both of them are low on expansion space. Augustus has to be the clear choice for second, since he has a ton of space to do his usual "expand, then do nothing" shtick that's delivered him second place before. Ramesses I'm not sure is a great choice for first, but Gilgamesh is going to be squeezed on territory and has a good chance of being randomly attacked by Shaka.
Slashin': 3 high PW and 3 low PW leaders, but the direction of the game seems to ultimately favor the high PW leaders. The main reason is that Shaka is cramped on land and has drawn the misfortune of yet another difficult starting position for the second time in a row. Shaka either settles a mediocre second city choked by jungle or places it in a direction that crowds out Gilgamesh, who has great quality land but is crowded as well. The other 4 ais have great opportunities for expansion, and I believe Shaka loses the duel versus Asoka if he cannot pull qin in, who for a number of reasons, whether it be same religion, wonder whoring, or general inertness, may just sit back and let the two duel. Gilgamesh had a fast start, but it will be contested by both his neighbors, especially by the equally fast start of ramesses. The biggest risk to the high peaceweights is if ramesses founds the second religion and spreads it around to his opponents before Asoka gets the opportunity to, but I believe ramesses will ultimately stagnate in a war with Gilgamesh, leading to Augustus developing peacefully into space while one of the runner ups ends up being any of the other builders who can hold their own in the meantime.
bellarch: This is a hard one and I'm not confident at all about my answers (which probably means I'll get everything exactly right this time lol). The easiest is First to Die - Shaka is a dead man walking. His start is awful, especially given his starting techs, and he doesn't have the commercial or productive potential to do his usual gameplan of SHAKA SMASH. However, he settles towards Gilgamesh and eventually provokes war with him due to border tension, which messes up Gil's game, too. Gil does eventually crush Shaka, and subsequently eats Ramesses - but while he manages to be the score leader, he's unable to become dominant in time to stop Asoka's plucky underdog cultural victory, leaving Gil in second place. (Though you could tell me that literally any of these AIs not named Shaka comes in second or wins culture and I would believe it!)
Zigzagzone: On this map, there are three civs with much space, and three cramped ones. Qin definitely has land to expand into and maybe get more than he deserves towards Ramesses and Augustus. Then, he can take a few cities from doomed Asoka. This makes him the biggest dog with solid econ skills, enough for a victory (after helping in destroying Ramesses, probably).
Arnout: Shaka ruins ramsess and his own game, Augustus does nothing all game long, Gilgamesh and Qin take 1 and 2.
smithy: This is my favourite map this season, it could not be more perfectly set up for these 6 leaders- to lure them in with the chance of riches yet still taunting them all with the memory of past failure and tempting them to repeat these failures all over again for our amusement. Take Ramesses as the perfect example- oodles of lush green riverland, and food aplenty in the wide open space in the middle; with the added bonus that a holy city could claim so much land... and yet there is the marble... it's just sitting there- calling to him to once more stay at 3 cities and throw the game for one more Wonder. Asoka has also got green land, food, rivers and many vital resources. All that the best techer in the field could possibly need to run away with this game with ease. There is but one catch- its all covered in jungle. All he has to do is get to Iron Working to release all that potential before the neighbours pop over. How hard can it be? Give a man a fish, and he will feed himself for a day: give Shaka a fish and he will merrily slap Asoka with it. Now take away even his fish and watch him try to start a fight with clam shells and incense sticks See the lake in the middle? and the river running south? That river is Augy's Rubicon. So often before he has grown his civ well, and been poised to become a major player: then done precisely diddly squat until the game passed him by. Will he finally cross his Rubicon with an army before the Praetorian window closes and restore some Roman pride? Qin has a decision to make. He could move north to the luxurious Indian lands, but may have to fight for these. Or he could settle east to the open lands there and build a meaningful empire? Or he could just possibly turtle up in the SW peninsula and hang up a 'do not disturb until the wildcard' sign. Will Qin ever even make a decision? Finally the people's favourite: Gilgamesh. He has built his success with dominant early landgrabs- yet will find himself starved for space and deprived of iron by the Egyptian holy city and the encroaching Zulu's with their sharpened whelks. Can he overcome this and be the hero we need? or is Frederick truly the one we deserve.
Game Three Picking Contest Entry Form
There's a little under 48 hours remaining to get in predictions for the first game. Hope to see a bunch of you on the Livestream this upcoming Friday, May 21st starting just after noon EST!
One last note: the Game Two written report is also posted for those who want a quick recap: https://sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor6-2.html
This was the third game in a row where the community was picking a heavy favorite. Gilgamesh was the selection to win for approximately two thirds of the contest entrants - for his sake, I hope that Gilgamesh fared better than Caesar and Huayna Capac in the first two games! The AI Survivor hive mind wasn't having a stellar start to the opening of this season. For the second place spot, the community favored one of the two leaders at the southern end of the map, with a preference for Qin over Augustus. First to Die was another interesting category with three different leaders all attracting significant votes. Ramesses was a slight favorite over Asoka but Shaka also collected more than his share of picks. Almost everyone expected one of these three leaders to be the first to go but there was little consensus on which one it would be. Finally, this didn't feel like a Cultural map to most people and therefore the victory condition was split evenly between Spaceship and Domination.
Finally, here are some of the best/craziest written predictions about what would take place during the game. There were many other excellent entries but I had to pick and choose my favorites to keep this from running on too long. Thanks again for the submissions!
nabaxo: You know what? I'm done picking the "obvious" picks. I'm going crazy for this one. I think Shaka has the field set up for him to take home the game. I believe!
delan: Gilgamesh has some really nice territory near his capital for his first few cities, and I like the combination of his aggressive, warring personality with the Creative trait. I'd like Shaka a lot more if he didn't land the seafood start, so while I expect him to make Asoka's life difficult, I don't think he'll be able to roll Asoka over and snowball from there. I also don't trust Augustus Caesar to leverage his relatively isolated start into a strong economic game. Ultimately, calling for a later finish date, where Gilgamesh pieces together the win and Qin comes in second by virtue of his isolated start and his peace weight playing the diplomatic game for him.
Duizhang_Lu: Gilgabro has himself a nice start here and some juicy neighbors to munch on (as well as not starting near the tundra, preventing bad settling decisions) and seems shoo-in to win this barring laughable incompetence. Shaka also has a decent start, but he doesn't have copper and has a sea food start, which I think will make him too slow out of the gate to compete with Gilgabro. They may be best friends this game, or perhaps there can be only one.
ManiaMuse: Shaka goes Shaka and does Shaka things. First goes straight for Gilgamesh's throat and takes him out straight away. Then bounces around the other leaders taking them out one by one. End is a bit messy and later wars drag on for a while but has enough territory to win by sheer quantity of units.
Tristan Cox: Its hard not to pick Gligamesh with his gorgeous land surrounding him and he starts with agriculture for his wet corn. I think its a good chance that Ramesses’s religion could spread to him since Thebes and Uruk are on the same river and they could be friends in the game. Not a fan of Shaka’s position. He needs to tech to iron working for metal units while Asoka only needs bronze working so the window for the early rush for Shaka isnt very wide.
Bobchillingworth: What I think should happen this game: Gilgamesh devours a metal-less, wonder-obsessed Ramses and propels himself to an insurmountable lead. Shaka beats up Asoka, but doesn't make much headway until Qin or Gilgamesh intervenes. Augustus claims a good chunk of the map, but is otherwise inert and preoccupied with stuffing his cities with every available infrastructure build, until a late-game alliance of Gilgamesh, Qin, and possibly Shaka kicks over his sandcastle. What will probably actually happen: Shaka devotes himself with frenzied energy to dragging down Gilgamesh; the latter eventually prevails in a series of duels, but by then he's effectively crippled and too backwards to matter. Qin spends most of the game being isolated and irrelevant, until he is gradually obliterated by a coalition of his more peaceful neighbors. Everyone forgets Asoka exists, and he wins a backdoor culture victory.
ljubljana: qin to win because i have him in the fantasy draft and i also live in a fantasy. but i mean he does stand to benefit from an early asoka dogpile and has the peace weight to join in. gil is squeezed badly and next to shaka, ouch. and then augustus for second bc he is one step below charley on the second-place-itis scale. and bad leaders means late space lol
Amicalola: My pick (Ramesses 1st, Augustus 2nd) stem from three starting positions. The two most important are Shaka's (terrible for him tech-wise), and Ramesses (absurd). This means that Shaka can't rush anyone effectively, and Gilgamesh can't kill Ramesses 1v1. Qin and Augustus will stay out of things at the bottom, with Augustus getting the edge for 2nd as Qin will be the odd one out in peaceweight to who I expect to be the leader (Ramesses).
NotSpamBot: Now logically speaking I should have voted for Asoka First To Die and Gilgamesh for First Place... but I expect Asoka's plot armor to kick in and prompt Shaka to attack Gilgamesh first despite Asoka's peace weight, proximity, weak military, and cultural pressure waving a red cloth in the face of the mad man. I also expect this attack to flounder at which point Shaka will promptly attack and kill Ramses.
Mansa da man: Gilgamesh has some very good land with floodplains and gold, and Ramesses to the South does not usually expand well on what is a very cramped map. His Western neighbor is a bit more concerning but the similar peaceweights will probably save him here, plus Protective + Creative means he can probably hold out on a surprise early war before catapults. In addition, Gilgamesh is quite aggressive himself and will most likely add Ramesses's wonder filled lands to his own, share in the India conquest with Shaka or turn on Shaka himself who will probably have his armies away annoying someone else. The last two games have shown how unpredictable this competition can be but I certainly expect one of the two Northern leaders to snowball off a conquest. That leaves Qin as the second place pick for me with a similar peaceweight, he'll just hope to be left alone and build wonders in peace. Asoka is the most likely FTD as Shaka is just that bit more aggressive but Ramesses is a likely candidate too. Now for Shaka to declare first on Gilgamesh and torpedo both their chances
Isidora: I just want to see Shaka flip out at everyone for no reason.
Bernn: Here's how I see this one going: Gilgamesh wisely avoids sending his settler directly south into the jungle and instead moves southwest, putting early cultural pressure on Shaka. The Zulus try their best to dig themselves out of the hole they're in with that heavy seafood peninsula of a capital, but struggle massively and end up with a crashed economy and a scattershot set of cities until the border tension reaches a boiling point and the Sumerians roll over poor Shaka. Now in the driver's seat of the game, Gilg quickly eats up Asoka, grinds down Ramesses and begins biting into Augustus before he ticks over the land area threshold and takes home a decisive Domination victory. I've been very impressed with Gilgamesh's performance over the last few seasons, and I think everything is in place for him to do excellently here too.
Schmun: This is a low peace weight field, so unfortunately I think Asoka's chances of surviving the game undisturbed are slim. Out of the low peace weight leaders, Gilgamesh seems like the most likely candidate purely through being a stronger AI. Shaka will torpedo his game and someone elses with early wars and I don't think Qin will expand enough to have a chance. It's unlikely, but possible, that Augustus managed to sneak out a cultural victory in the south east if he doesn't get in too many wars. I think religion will have a lot of influence in how this game works out. I chose Ramesses FTD because there's a chance that Asoka's religion will reach Shaka and give them better relations, although it's a real toss-up between the two. Similarly, religion will influence whether Augustus gets mauled. My prediction is that the low peace weight leaders will take out the two high peace civs but then it will be fairly peaceful and end in a slow march to space.
Dark Savant: Shaka and especially Asoka have poor starts. Shaka has all clams and no copper; Asoka is between two low-peaceweight leaders and has a lot of jungle and mountains, and both of them are low on expansion space. Augustus has to be the clear choice for second, since he has a ton of space to do his usual "expand, then do nothing" shtick that's delivered him second place before. Ramesses I'm not sure is a great choice for first, but Gilgamesh is going to be squeezed on territory and has a good chance of being randomly attacked by Shaka.
Slashin': 3 high PW and 3 low PW leaders, but the direction of the game seems to ultimately favor the high PW leaders. The main reason is that Shaka is cramped on land and has drawn the misfortune of yet another difficult starting position for the second time in a row. Shaka either settles a mediocre second city choked by jungle or places it in a direction that crowds out Gilgamesh, who has great quality land but is crowded as well. The other 4 ais have great opportunities for expansion, and I believe Shaka loses the duel versus Asoka if he cannot pull qin in, who for a number of reasons, whether it be same religion, wonder whoring, or general inertness, may just sit back and let the two duel. Gilgamesh had a fast start, but it will be contested by both his neighbors, especially by the equally fast start of ramesses. The biggest risk to the high peaceweights is if ramesses founds the second religion and spreads it around to his opponents before Asoka gets the opportunity to, but I believe ramesses will ultimately stagnate in a war with Gilgamesh, leading to Augustus developing peacefully into space while one of the runner ups ends up being any of the other builders who can hold their own in the meantime.
bellarch: This is a hard one and I'm not confident at all about my answers (which probably means I'll get everything exactly right this time lol). The easiest is First to Die - Shaka is a dead man walking. His start is awful, especially given his starting techs, and he doesn't have the commercial or productive potential to do his usual gameplan of SHAKA SMASH. However, he settles towards Gilgamesh and eventually provokes war with him due to border tension, which messes up Gil's game, too. Gil does eventually crush Shaka, and subsequently eats Ramesses - but while he manages to be the score leader, he's unable to become dominant in time to stop Asoka's plucky underdog cultural victory, leaving Gil in second place. (Though you could tell me that literally any of these AIs not named Shaka comes in second or wins culture and I would believe it!)
Zigzagzone: On this map, there are three civs with much space, and three cramped ones. Qin definitely has land to expand into and maybe get more than he deserves towards Ramesses and Augustus. Then, he can take a few cities from doomed Asoka. This makes him the biggest dog with solid econ skills, enough for a victory (after helping in destroying Ramesses, probably).
Arnout: Shaka ruins ramsess and his own game, Augustus does nothing all game long, Gilgamesh and Qin take 1 and 2.
smithy: This is my favourite map this season, it could not be more perfectly set up for these 6 leaders- to lure them in with the chance of riches yet still taunting them all with the memory of past failure and tempting them to repeat these failures all over again for our amusement. Take Ramesses as the perfect example- oodles of lush green riverland, and food aplenty in the wide open space in the middle; with the added bonus that a holy city could claim so much land... and yet there is the marble... it's just sitting there- calling to him to once more stay at 3 cities and throw the game for one more Wonder. Asoka has also got green land, food, rivers and many vital resources. All that the best techer in the field could possibly need to run away with this game with ease. There is but one catch- its all covered in jungle. All he has to do is get to Iron Working to release all that potential before the neighbours pop over. How hard can it be? Give a man a fish, and he will feed himself for a day: give Shaka a fish and he will merrily slap Asoka with it. Now take away even his fish and watch him try to start a fight with clam shells and incense sticks See the lake in the middle? and the river running south? That river is Augy's Rubicon. So often before he has grown his civ well, and been poised to become a major player: then done precisely diddly squat until the game passed him by. Will he finally cross his Rubicon with an army before the Praetorian window closes and restore some Roman pride? Qin has a decision to make. He could move north to the luxurious Indian lands, but may have to fight for these. Or he could settle east to the open lands there and build a meaningful empire? Or he could just possibly turtle up in the SW peninsula and hang up a 'do not disturb until the wildcard' sign. Will Qin ever even make a decision? Finally the people's favourite: Gilgamesh. He has built his success with dominant early landgrabs- yet will find himself starved for space and deprived of iron by the Egyptian holy city and the encroaching Zulu's with their sharpened whelks. Can he overcome this and be the hero we need? or is Frederick truly the one we deserve.
Game Three Picking Contest Entry Form
There's a little under 48 hours remaining to get in predictions for the first game. Hope to see a bunch of you on the Livestream this upcoming Friday, May 21st starting just after noon EST!
One last note: the Game Two written report is also posted for those who want a quick recap: https://sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor6-2.html
Scoring was pretty good for Game Three with an average of 9.79 points across the field. We continue with our normal Friday schedule for next week's game. This time we have a showdown between two former champions in Stalin and Charlemagne together with five other unseeded leaders - who do you have this week?
Qin surely had a noteworthy economy
