Civ4 AI Survivor: Season Four

[haphazard1]

Another interesting game. My picks were completely wrong (again), but still a lot of fun to watch.

A few thoughts, spoilers for those who have not had a chance to watch the game yet.

Did I see correctly that Sury built the Temple of Artemis on his final turn, just as the last city was captured? Sort of a "Here, have a parting gift for conquering my civ!" bit of weirdness.

While there was a lot of AI ineptitude, Charlemagne really executed quite well throughout. I thought he would get off to a terrible start as he chased religion without having any techs to improve his start. But he expanded well, gained territory through successful wars, and eventually caught up to and passed Darius when Persia decided to throw the victory away.

Darius always disappoints. Always.

On Darius running less than 100% culture late while he had a gold surplus, I think he was raising money to keep spreading his corporations.

[pindicator]

I'd bemoan the fact I got used to putting in my picks on Friday and missed the deadline for this one, but I'm not sure I would gave scored any points anyway

[thestick]

Sullla, there is an aluminum in the water 2S4W of Mongolia's start. Also, the info blurb gives 9 kills, but the summary gives 10 kills.

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

Some thoughts after the last game:

-Surprised that Burger King managed to actually pull out a win. A good game by him but in the past he's had lots of trouble actually securing the victory...

-Roosevelt went from playing the best game he could with a terrible starting position, to a game where he got a great starting position and completely wasted it. How poetic.

-As somebody who stopped taking the picking contest seriously back in the opening round of Season 3, it always entertains me when the AIs troll Sullla's predictions.

-What a champsionship field! Willem, Darius, Gilgamesh, and Charlemagne are hardly the leaders I would have picked to make their first finals appearances this season, especially when there's ones like Boudica, Gandhi, and Shaka who have been significantly more successful in the past. Kublai Khan is a fraud, three championship appearances or no. Former champion Stalin is by far the most impressive leader in the field, and even he had to get lucky to get here and had an unimpressive first two seasons...

[Charriu]

I think on major factor for this years different championship game is the fact that we use only the real starting techs and not all deity techs. This for example is a big nerf for leaders like Justinian.

[Brian Shanahan]

I didn't really pay attention to the last map. If I had I'd have put resourceless Sury as FtD rather than Charlemagne.

[Fluffball]

I didn't really pay attention to the last map.  If I had I'd have put resourceless Sury as FtD rather than Charlemagne.

I find it fairly difficult to get a feel for the maps from the preview images and video. If we ever get like thousands of people watching this I'll suggest we have an HTML5 website that we can zoom in and around and see all the resources on. 

[Brian Shanahan]

I didn't really pay attention to the last map.  If I had I'd have put resourceless Sury as FtD rather than Charlemagne.

I find it fairly difficult to get a feel for the maps from the preview images and video. If we ever get like thousands of people watching this I'll suggest we have an HTML5 website that we can zoom in and around and see all the resources on. 

I'm sure Sulla's loving that suggestion right now.

[haphazard1]

I think on major factor for this years different championship game is the fact that we use only the real starting techs and not all deity techs. This for example is a big nerf for leaders like Justinian.

Agree that this has been a factor this season. I think it has particularly affected the leaders who chase an early religion, as they delay getting the worker techs they need to develop their starts by several turns compared to their rivals. I like the change, and think it has helped separate the field a bit more than in past seasons.

[Fluffball]

I had a random, relevant team game with Kublai a few days ago. I drew him and Victoria as allies, which I thought was a pretty lucky combo. I envisioned her and I teching and KK being the muscle a bit. Got over an era ahead of our competition, so we were fielding rifles, cannons, cavs, against maces and catapults. Hatty (and her team) of all the AIs declares on us, which was immediately suspicious because I knew I had a massive lead in the power charts. All three of us had a huge number of cities as well, so production was no issue (especially with state property and levees coming online.)

After some digging, it turns out KK was the cause of the declaration because his power was so low. No problem, we're in the early industrial and Hatty can't even build knights. Well she then proceeded to whoop the hell out of him, taking ~ a city every turn. He's defending with literally 1 rifle per city, and maybe some scattered swords and longbows. I looked at the civ wiki to figure out what the heck was going on. Turns out KK has the same unit build number as people like Victoria and is actually lower than some of the peaceniks.

I've never been all that impressed with KK, but this was absolutely pathetic. Every other AI in the championship has a higher build unit preference than him other than Willem. Darius has a higher build unit preference.