Civ4 AI Survivor Season 4: Game Eight Alternate Histories


Introduction

Game Eight Alternate Histories Online Spreadsheet

One of the recurring features of past seasons of AI Survivor have been our "alternate histories", running additional iterations on the same maps to see if the same events would play out again. Game Eight saw an out of character cultural win from Stalin after he and Hannibal sliced up the high peaceweight leaders. Was that something which would unfold in each game? This was a topic that called for more investigation with alternate history scenarios. Following the conclusion of previous seasons of AI Survivor, I had gone back and investigated some of the completed games and found that they tended to play out in the same patterns over and over again. While there was definitely some variation from game to game, and occasionally an unlikely outcome took place, for the most part the games were fairly predictable based on the personality of the AI leaders and the terrain of each particular map. Would we see the same patterns play out again and again on this particular map?

The original inspiration to run these alternate histories came from Wyatan. He decided to rerun the Season Four games 20 times each and publish the results. The objective in his words was twofold:

- See how random the prediction game actually is. There's a natural tendency when your predictions come true to go "See! Told you!", and on the contrary to dismiss the result as a mere fluke when things don't go the way you expected them to (pleading guilty there, Your Honour). Hopefully, with 20 iterations, we'll get a sense of how flukey the actual result was, and of how actually predictable each game was.

- Get a more accurate idea of each leader's performance. Over 6 seasons, we'll have a 75 game sample. That might seem a lot, but it's actually a very small sample, with each leader appearing 5-10 times only. With this much larger sample, we'll be able able to better gauge each leader's performance, in the specific context of each game. So if an AI is given a dud start, or really tough neighbours, it won't perform well. Which will only be an indication about the balance of that map, and not really about that AI's general performance. But conversely, by running the game 20 times, we'll get dumb luck out of the equation.

Wyatan did a fantastic job of putting together data for the Season Four games and we have since used the same general format. This particular set of alternate histories were run by Myth - many thanks for spending so much time on this task! Myth posted the resulting data from the alternate histories and then discusses some of the findings below in more detail. Keep in mind that everything we discuss in these alternate histories is map-specific: it pertains to these leaders with these starting positions in this game. As Wyatan originally noted, an AI leader could be a powerful figure on this particular map while still being a weak leader in more general terms. Now on to the results:

Season Four Game Eight

Game One | Game Two | Game Three | Game Four | Game Five

Game Six | Game Seven | Game Eight | Game Nine | Game Ten

Game Eleven | Game Twelve | Game Thirteen | Game Fourteen | Game Fifteen

Game Sixteen | Game Seventeen | Game Eighteen | Game Nineteen | Game Twenty



(Note : "A" column tracks the number of war declarations initiated by the AI, "D" the number of times the AI is declared upon, "F" the points for finish ranking, and "K" the number of kills. Also, in accordance with recent changes, the Apostolic Palace was turned OFF for these tests.)

Myth: Turns out that yes, we did in fact see a likely outcome in the Actual Game: Stalin and Hannibal were the best two leaders on this map. The ways they got there, however, were pretty different: Stalin won most often, sputtering out quite a bit more, while Hannibal scored at least 1 point in 18 of the 20 games and possessed a 95% survival rate. There was also a very strong Pericles in many games that just found himself on the wrong side of the western duo, often being eliminated late on either leader's path to domination. So what were the main stories on this map?

First and foremost, Ragnar was absolutely and utterly screwed on this map. His start was awful, and he often found himself boxed in by Pericles, Lincoln, and Hammurabi. Almost every game was a story of him declaring on Pericles (or, more rarely, Hammurabi) and dying, finding himself First to Die 40% of the time. With Ramesses and Lincoln being the targets of the other low Peace Weights' aggression, Ragnar had no one to save him from the Greek and Babylonians. That isn't to say he didn't try to get out of his corner - for someone who was First to Die more than anyone else, he declared an awful lot of offensive wars (of course, most of them backfired, but that's why we love Ragnar!). This propped Pericles up to a great position in most games, even if his score doesn't reflect it. In fact, all of Pericles' seconds were with him being the dominant AI, only to have his victory snatched away from him by either Lincoln or Ramesses. Ragnar's early collapse set Pericles up to take victory, only for it to be snatched away from him by... literally every other leader except for Hammurabi.

The second important story on this map was a major shortcoming of Hannibal's AI: his inability to plot war at Pleased Relations. His best games were actually the ones in which he murdered Stalin; he just couldn't do so most of the time! The two were cautious at -1 relations, preventing Hannibal from overcoming his greatest hurdle, and forcing him to have empires that often included cities halfway across the map. The games where they wound up with different religions and fought - Games 4 and 12 - saw Hannibal do much, much better than all of his other games. Without Stalin getting dogpiled, he usually was able to 1v1 one of his neighbors and just win based on his territorial advantage.

The final major factor in these games was who got the land in the region circled below:

This region was extremely important in setting up the big dog of the west. If Hannibal got it, he was able to more easily absorb Ramesses's lands. If Stalin got it, it cut off Hannibal from the rest of the continent. And if Ramesses got it (which was rare indeed), then both of our southwestern leaders were much, much weaker than usual. I can't emphasize enough that whoever got the 2-3 cities in this region was set up to do extremely well for that particular game.

As for our other leaders, Ramesses was by far the most consistent of the 4 high Peace Weight AIs. He seemed to get ignored more often than the other 3, only getting eliminated 11 times; more often, Lincoln was the first target of Stalin/Hannibal, and then they ate Pericles and Hammurabi. This is due to religious spreads - Ramesses often founded a religion and spread it to both Stalin and Hannibal, giving him at least a minor shield to aggression compared to the eastern trio. When Ramesses was left alone, he teched as well as or better than Hannibal, which led to him being a major dark horse candidate to take the game through either Culture or Space. Pericles, as aforementioned, was often the strongest of the high Peace Weights, only to be dragged down and eliminated by whomever the strong low Peace Weight leader was (or both!). He wasn't helped by some absolutely bizarre war declarations from Ramesses in 3 different games, dooming them both to irrelevancy. Lincoln was an insane techer if he survived - his issue was, well, surviving, often finding himself dogpiled by our dynamic duo (and even Ragnar sometimes!). Finally, Hammurabi was absolutely useless on this map - all he managed to do was steal the kill on Ragnar from Pericles, last hitting the Viking capital after the rest of his territory was Greek a whole 5 different times. He otherwise just sat there and didn't tech well enough to keep up, usually dying in the mid to late game.

Now for a look at the individual leaders:


Stalin of Russia
Wars Declared: 58
Wars Declared Upon: 25
Survival Percentage: 50%
Finishes: 8 Firsts, 2 Seconds (44 points)
Kills: 23
Overall Score: 67 points

Stalin was the undisputed General Secretary of First on this map, though his situation was much more precarious than Hannibal's. His greatest games came from solo killing Rammeses or Lincoln, then steamrolling through the other three high Peace Weights on the path to domination. His worst came at the hand of his usual ally, Hannibal, and games where he wasn't able to get the critical first kill, eventually getting dogpiled by the goody-two-shoes. He came first or second in all of the games he survived to the end, but died the other half. Talk about feast or famine!


Hannibal of Carthage
Wars Declared: 59
Wars Declared Upon: 12
Survival Percentage: 95%
Finishes: 4 Firsts, 10 Seconds (40 points)
Kills: 24
Overall Score: 64 points

Having 14 Top Twos, Hannibal was an absolute beast on this map for all of the reasons detailed above. He had a very isolated start and a secure flank with his neighbor, allowing him to safely attack multiple different targets and snowball that land to a first or second. Often the best techer of the group, it was not at all unlikely for Hannibal to have rifles 50 turns before anyone else and run over a target with them. This was the most likely fate for poor Pericles: he often had a large empire and was starting to consolidate it when Hannibal poured over the border with 50+ rifles and cavalry. Hannibal played his cards well again and again, his one major Achilles's Heel not being able to attack Stalin for a more logistically sound empire. His overall consistency really shows his strength as a leader and on this map.


Ramesses of Egypt
Wars Declared: 20
Wars Declared Upon: 36
Survival Percentage: 55%
Finishes: 5 Firsts, 2 Seconds (29 points)
Kills: 6
Overall Score: 35 points

The First of the leaders I would call the "Tier Two" of this map, Ramesses was a monster at teching and culture. In all games he survived, he was a major threat to take the overall victory, often backdooring into a win after doing absolutely nothing for the entire early- and mid-game. This Egypt was way more impressive than the one we got in the actual game, where he declared war on Stalin and immediately curled up into a ball and lost his entire empire. His religious foundings were the crux of his game plan, with unluckiness on their spreads leading to a very dead Egypt.


Pericles of Greece
Wars Declared: 29
Wars Declared Upon: 43
Survival Percentage: 35%
Finishes: 1 First, 3 Seconds (11 points)
Kills: 15
Overall Score: 26 points

The other of our Tier Two leaders, Pericles had the boon of starting near both of the two weaklings on this map, Ragnar and Hammurabi, and capitalizing on their weakness. The early game often played out with Pericles killing Ragnar and then having a large empire to tech away with, then getting attacked by Stalin, Hannibal, or both. Greek + Viking lands just were not strong enough to keep up with Russian and Carthaginian lands that had absorbed the much superior quality American and/or Egyptian territory. Poor Pericles also found himself unable to win before his high Peace Weight neighbors either reached the end of the tech tree or snuck in a cultural victory on three separate occasions despite being the strongest leader on the map. There was also Game 6, where Pericles was in the middle of killing a higher score Hannibal and Ramesses won Culture before Pericles could take over first place. He deserved at least 4 more kills, as well. I would rank Pericles as slightly higher than these Alternate Histories show: he was probably the third strongest leader on this map in terms of how he actually played.


Lincoln of America
Wars Declared: 10
Wars Declared Upon: 50
Survival Percentage: 25%
Finishes: 2 Firsts, 1 Second (12 points)
Kills: 3
Overall Score: 15 points

The Great Emancipator had 2 great games and a bunch of extremely poor ones. Poor Lincoln had the misfortune to start next to the strongest AI on this map and possess the highest Peace Weight in the game, leading to many early exits (though usually not first to dies). He usually was able to hold at least somewhat against just Stalin, it was the intercession of Hannibal or Ragnar that led to his doom. The few games where he was able to be ignored until he had a tech advantage were his best, leading him to take out Stalin in both and have a fantastic tech lead over everyone else. The problem for the American was that this was an unlikely scenario.


Ragnar of the Vikings
Wars Declared: 42
Wars Declared Upon: 29
Survival Percentage: 25%
Finishes: 0 Firsts, 2 Seconds (4 points)
Kills: 3
Overall Score: 7 points

Poor Ragnar didn't really stand a chance in this one, but by God did he try. He was stuck in a subpar corner, unable to break out of it due to the strength of the neighbor he fought the most. 42 offensive wars for the most common First to Die is incredible since he didn't usually survive much into the Renaissance! His best games came from just surviving until Stalin or Hannibal came to his rescue and backdooring second place if the two juggernauts came to blows.


Hammurabi of Babylon
Wars Declared: 13
Wars Declared Upon: 36
Survival Percentage: 25%
Finishes: 0 Firsts, 0 Seconds (0 points)
Kills: 5
Overall Score: 5 points

Hammurabi was somehow even more disappointing than Ragnar! The Babylonian did pretty much nothing - the only offensive wars he started were against a Ragnar with 1-3 cities left, and half the time he vultured the kill from Pericles! Without these last-hits, Hammurabi would have nothing going for him. All he did was sit in his corner until one of the stronger leaders in the west came and knocked him out. He also never was in a strong enough position to backdoor into second; there was always a stronger high Peace Weight leader to take the silver medal behind whichever one won. He also was attacked often in Pericles's dominant victories, dying somewhere in the mid-game. Hammurabi only scored once in our three main categories, and it was a singular First to Die after attacking Pericles and getting rolled up in return. This guy just wasn't interesting and I forgot he existed most of the time.

Conclusions

The Actual Game 8 played out pretty similarly to how it should have: Stalin first, Hannibal second. The main deviation from the norm came from Ragnar living to the end of the game and making it to the Wildcard after an extremely poor showing, and ergo we did not see the strong Pericles that emerged in most of the other games, which is a tad disappointing. First to Die favorite Lincoln turns out to be the wrong choice, though definitely not a poor one, all things considered. Overall, this game was pretty standard most of the time due to Hannibal's 95% survival rate, and there wasn't a ton of variation outside of whether Stalin faltered or not.

Onto the Wildcard!