Civ4 AI Survivor Season 9: Game Six Writeup

1) A total lack of improvements anywhere
2) An inability to connect any quality capital resources for a further 15+ turns, as her next tech was a 15 turn Agriculture research that was only going to improve a dry rice
3) A completely wrecked economy
4) A total failure in fogbusting, which would cause TWO barbarian cities to spawn in Spain's vicinity by Turn 50. This was giving shades of her Season 6 game, where she also had an excellent spacious corner starting position only to prioritize faith over fundamentals and get her game wrecked by barbs.

While the early tech choices were questionable at best (especially a Mehmed Archery beeline when he had a Gold in his capital), the second city placements were mostly solid, as most cities were settled either towards the center of the map or in contested territory. I especially liked the location of the Hindu holy city, which essentially secured most of the territory between India and the Ottomans for Gandhi, although Mehmed's second city which went towards the middle and was on a plains hill that immediately began work on the next settler was not half bad either. The one exception to this was Shaka, who settled his second city in a coastal spot and queued a 22 turn settler in it. Indeed, Shaka was the other major loser of the early game alongside Izzy, as not only did the subsequent Azteclamic Holy City get spawned in his purview, but also Bismarck was settling towards the Zulu and leaving them even more squeezed than the community had predicted. At least he secured the double gold region near his territory, but that was about the only positive development in his game.

Meanwhile, after taking a break last week, the barbarians were back in action in this game, with them MURDERING BRENNUS' 4TH CITY SETTLER as it was trekking to found a city to the North. Sullla had chosen a Brennus/Izzy playoff ticket, and alongside Izzy playing like she had joined the Jonestown cult, the AI Survivor gods were doing everything they could to enforce the Curse of Sullla. DAMN YOU FEATHERKNIGHT!!! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!

The first fifty turns were generally pretty quiet for the leaders who were not conspiring to blow up Sullla's picks. Notably, however, some relatively overlooked leaders were actually having strong openings. Bismarck was the first to five cities, had made shrewd teching choices (particularly an early Bronze Working with all those forests he had), and a VERY weak Shaka to eat. While his economy was atrocious, with the Germans being this game's resident "Observer level" economy, against this field that was no big deal at all. By proxy, a strong Bismarck was also great for Gandhi, and I would deign to say the peacenik was the biggest winner of the first 50 turns when also considering how much Izzy was flailing about. Gandhi had built Stonehenge while expanding well, and he had a massive leg up religiously with his two rivals being imploding Izzy and maniac Monty. The maniac himself, though, was honestly having an impressive opening in his own right. He had also aced the expansion phase both regarding the quality and quantity of his settlements and made excellent teching decisions. Mehmed was also extremely strong, as he was expanding like a monster himself and had teched Mysticism to quash any concerns about getting culturally squeezed in his position. By and large, this was a WIDE OPEN contest. Even Brennus had so much space that he could easily recover from his barbarian setback.

By Turn 60, any hope of a Zulu recovery had been dashed when Monty settled Tlaxcala right in Ulundi's backyard, and Shaka was forever stuck in his little Mickey Mouse shaped three city empire. He tried to sneak a fourth one past the Aztecs, but Tlaxcala's borders expanded and the Zulu settlers were teleported back home. Unfortunately, in these seven player contests, it is extremely difficult to prevent at least one opponent from getting the short end of the stick landwise. To add further insult to injury, Spanish traders through Sailing trade routes brought the word of the Jonestown cult to Zululand, and Shaka had aligned himself religiously with the other runt of this map.

Over the next few turns, the map would fill up quickly, with Gandhi, Mehmed, Monty, and Brennus filling up every possible nook and cranny they could find. While it was so early, it really felt like two of these four would constitute the playoff ticket for this game. Bismarck, despite such a strong start, had fallen off expansion wise and was now second lowest in score, only ahead of Shaka. His early Bronze Working research had turned out to be quite meaningless, as he had done a shoddy job at clearing his territory of forests. Conversely, Brennus' barbarian disaster was now just a footnote in history, and he had seven cities and counting. If it were not for such horrid diplomacy though, Gandhi would have easily been the frontrunner, as he had nine cities and counting and had spread Hinduism to both Mehmed and BRENNUS. Brennus in particular was key, as if Gandhi could somehow get the peaceweight polar opposite Celts to Pleased relations - not entirely impossible as Brennus gives large shared faith bonuses - the two would have a formidable partnership.

Meanwhile, Izzy... does something! Somehow her ragtag band of warriors was able to capture one of the barb cities, and she still had some room to expand. She then used the Oracle to pick up an early Monarchy for Hereditary Rule happiness, and there was the tiniest glimmer of hope for her to salvage her game. No, you do not get a cookie. Surprisingly, the first war horns were blared by... SHAKA! Yes, three city Shaka was trying his luck, in a desperate gamble to attack the much stronger Aztecs. Despite the city count disparity, though, the Zulu-Aztec war would stalemate for the time being, as Shaka was keeping himself economically relevant with the Great Lighthouse and the Aztecs would not have Catapults for quite a while.

Soon afterwards, the REAL showdown would occur: Mehmed would make his move against the Indians, as expected. The Ottomans had a frighteningly large army, nearly twice the size of any other leader, but Gandhi still had an equally sized empire and was a capable defender, and the Ottomans' initial target was the Hindu holy city of Vijayanagara which had immense cultural defenses. With that said, Mehmed had made an ingenious and ultra early Construction beeline in preparation for the war, and he was four turns from the Catapults that would surely swing the tides in his favor. Right? Not quite. Mehmed was being way too cowardly with his large army, meandering it around Indian territory rather than trying to utilize his production advantage. When he finally launched his attack, the Battle of Vijayanagara was a catastrophe for the Ottoman invaders. Gandhi's defense was just too well prepared. Mehmed would have to regroup his next stack with Cata-

OH NO!!!! THE POOL 1 CURSE STRIKES BACK WITH A VENGEANCE! Brennus swoops in with a BRUTAL backstab on his fellow Hindu brother. Unfortunately, it seemed the Ottomans got a terrible peaceweight roll for this setup, as despite sharing a religion with Brennus, he was still Cautious and thus willing to declare war on Mehmed! While Brennus was unequivocally a world power now, this was a risky all in move against a powerful foe, and there were easier targets: the now pathetically weak Bismarck, a metalless Izzy, or even marching across the map to swipe the Indian holdings for himself. For now though, the die was cast, and it remained to be seen if Brennus could channel his inner self and ransack a city that once called itself Rome.

However, Brennus' surprise could not have come at a worse time for the Ottomans, who had lost their entire main army and were completely scrambling. The border city of Gaziantep was extremely poorly defended, and the roving band of Celtic Gaelic Warriors easily trampled through it, and Mehmed's attempt at a counterattack got pulverized against all those Guerrilla promoted units. Mehmed's power lead had evaporated, and in fact he was going against the two strongest armies - yes, the Indians had assembled a formidable force of their own, and were now on the offensive, threatening the gates of Samsun. In the span of just five turns, Mehmed had gone from the game leader to a collapsing civ.

He did get some reprieve - barely. Izzy joined the Great Western Conflict on his side, sending a paltry force to pressure India's northern front. She was so weak, however, that she was little more than a nuisance, a mere housefly that Gandhi had to swat away once in a while. Why she was not trying to capture the other barb city instead was a mystery. Despite the spoiled princess throwing a tantrum and soiling his northern borders, Gandhi eventually pushed through Samsun, and once Konya (which had way too many Horse Archers and Catapults on defense) fell to the Celts, Mehmed was a marked man.

Over in the East, the still-yet-to-research-Construction Monty was flubbing his war effort against the weak Zulus, and Bismarck (who had adopted Azteclamism) put his hat in the ring to try and capture those three cities. While Shaka was doomed, he was determined to at least NOT be First To Die, marching two Horse Archers across the map to take that one barb city near Spanish territory! In fact, in the current state of things neither one of his conquerors had the requisite rite of passage to be able to travel all the way to the Northwest to finish Shaka off, making it virtually impossible for him to be the first one out. Nevertheless, the Germans quickly vultured Nobamba and Shaka only had two real cities remaining.

Izzy was the most useless war ally, being more interested in burying religions than in fighting, and peaced out after accomplishing nothing save for letting Shaka get the last barb city. Mehmed quickly collapsed once Brennus and Gandhi researched Horseback Riding to secure themselves War Elephants, as Brennus had the Ivory monopoly and was trading a source to THE INDIANS. Indeed, the most valuable prize Gandhi got from this war was the friend he made along the way; Brennus was +14 with Gandhi (and, hilariously, still just Pleased) through mutual military struggle, shared religion, and SHARED CIVICS, as both leaders were in Brennus' favorite civic of Organized Religion. While Brennus got by far the most spoils, his gambit being a smashing success, GANDHI actually netted the final blow on poor Mehmed. The Ottomans had played an exceptional opening, showing why they were a Pool 1 seed, but unfortunately in a central position surrounded by warmongers and peaceweight enemies, there was always the risk that Mehmed could find himself on the wrong end of a dogpile and collapse like that. That's just AI Survivor for you! So far this has been the most disastrous season of all time for Pool 1 leaders. Even in other seasons like Season 7 where seeded leaders fared poorly, we have had at least one pull through with a dominant performance. This season, however, we have seen FOUR Pool 1 leaders be First To Die, with the other two being relegated to the Wildcard after barely missing out on playoff spots.

Over in the east, the only offensive part of the German-Aztec Coalition was in how insulting it was to the sanctity of warfare. The two nations had done such a pathetic job in killing Shaka's two remaining mainland cities that even without the faraway barb city capture, Mehmed would still have been the first leader eliminated. They were failing EVEN WITH CATAPULTS. Monty and Bismarck were probably out of victory contention even with a successful conquest at this point, as Brennus was by far the biggest winner of this round of warring, having garnered so much territory for himself that he was all but locked into one of the top two spots for this game. Gandhi, for the time being, had garnered for himself a powerful ally - in fact the pair, consisting of a PW0 [peaceweight 0] and a PW10, would eventually reach FRIENDLY relations with each other! (It only took Brennus getting to +19 to reach that.) Whether this was sustainable or not remained to be seen. This unlikely bromance was being propped up by shared faith and civics, and if Gandhi switched to Free Religion as he often liked to do later on, both of those bonuses would evaporate in an instant. The other concern for Gandhi was that Izzy in typical fashion had swiped away three of the four post-Monotheism religions, and the Indians did not have enough holy cities to cash in culturally, especially if Brennus, who turned his 73 unit strong army against Spain almost immediately after killing Mehmed, took them all for himself - Barcelona, the Christian Holy City, was his first conquest.

At a certain point, the Aztec-German coalition could not fail even if they were trying their darndest to, and Shaka's entire core fell to... the GERMANS. While Monty did march across the map to net the finishing blow, he essentially got nothing from over a hundred turns of fighting, and for the first time this season the community failed to correctly predict this game's Runner Up. Shaka's land was just such a poor fit for him, and it lacked the production to settle fast enough before he got completely boxed in on his three cities. Alternate Histories will reveal if that was just an epically bad expansion phase or if he just had an unviable spot that should have warranted a map reroll.

Love or hate him, you cannot deny that Gandhi has a winning AI Survivor mindset. While the rest of the world was fighting, he was quietly settling cities in the Antarctic, to the point that a portion of India's purple borders were now touching Aztec territory. Then, he repaid the favor to Brennus, joining Brennus in the Hindu crusade of Spain. His army was no joke, and soon he had captured the beautiful city of Shangian (a former barb city), which netted him a third Holy City. Just like that, a Gandhi Cultural victory was in the mix. In the Ottoman conflict, Brennus came out the big winner while Gandhi got the kill credit; here, in a role reversal, Gandhi was the biggest beneficiary of the dissolution of Spain, even though Brennus got the kill credit. First, he sniped a fourth Holy City right from Brennus' nose. Then, through a frighteningly effective Sistine-boosted Cultural machine, Gandhi quickly flipped the Celtic border conquest of Cordoba (with the help of a perfectly placed Music Great Artist in the border town of Patilaputra), which contained YET ANOTHER HOLY CITY. All Brennus gained were a few culturally crushed holdings, while Gandhi effectively gained all of Spain and, for the third week in a row, we had a Cultural countdown within our midst, especially since the tech pace was INCREDIBLY slow.

Izzy's game was probably doomed the moment she lost Polytheism by one turn, and she did not help matters with her subsequent Monotheism beeline. The truth is, all the other zealots try to complement their game with something else. Justinian and Brennus also emphasize military, Hatshepsut and Ramesses emphasize culture, Mansa emphasizes economy, even a middling performer like Zara also complements his game through diplomacy. Izzy ONLY cares about religion, and her personality is just too one dimensional to do well. While I would not be surprised if this is yet another game where she looks terrible and then has a decent Alternate Histories outcome, with just a 10% survival rate it is safe to say she has been one of the worst performers in this competition. Even Monty has shown glimmers of competency once in a while!

A little bit before Izzy's final downfall, Monty did what everyone expected him to do: attack Gandhi. While the Indians temporarily lost Shangian in the initial strike, Gandhi actually had a stronger army and the Aztecs were immediately banished from the West. Then, the game REALLY plunged into chaos: BISMARCK attacked Brennus from the East while the Celtic forces were on the complete opposite coast! This was likely suicidal, but for now, Bismarck had the surprise advantage and the most advanced military tech due to an ultra-early Grenadier beeline. With Brennus still happy with Gandhi, the Indians slowly but surely catching up in territory and tech (even the Ottoman holdings were not very useful anymore for the Celts!), and the Aztecs not looking good, a Gandhi Domination victory was actually not that outlandish a possibility!

The problem though was, Gandhi fell into a trap familiar for any warmonger: THE ONE CATAPULT OF DOOM. With a massive army at the gates of Texoco that would have easily run it over, Gandhi was instead stuck bombarding Castle defenses at a rate of <1% per turn, and his military advantage was going to waste, especially after a Monty Rifling beeline. The other danger now was, Gandhi adopted FREE RELIGION, and relations with Brennus plummeted to Cautious. Then, Gandhi went all-in on his cultural roulette, flipping on the Culture slider at... REPLACEABLE PARTS?!? This meant that Gandhi WAS NOT GOING TO HAVE RIFLES! He DID have Grenadiers, but would that make a difference, especially if Brennus came calling with Infantry level units?

This was especially dangerous because Bismarck's army had been predictably ripped into shreds and it was a matter of if, not when, the Celts would destroy the Germans. Fortunately for Gandhi supporters like myself, and unfortunately for his detractors and haters, Brennus was not exactly putting in a masterclass at offensive warfare himself. He wasted a lot of time upgrading his military into Rifling-based equipment, and then instead of running over the Germans, he was bombarding their cities with the few Trebuchets he still had. By the time he got Cannons and was finally acting with urgency, Bismarck had Rifling for himself, and he was putting in his best defensive effort, which of course was crucial time for Gandhi, who was around 60 turns from victory.

Speaking of which, Gandhi's offensive eventually was routed, and Gandhi was actually on the defensive despite his power advantage. Thankfully, after losing one Antarctic outpost he managed to get peace with the Aztecs, which meant he could fully concentrate on his cultural push instead of building units in all his cities. He really needed that reprieve, but Brennus had finally gotten sick of Gandhi's bullshit, and was now Annoyed with him; Bismarck gaining all of Zululand was pretty significant when it came to buying time. Eventually though, after stalling even longer to upgrade his troops to Infantry, the Celts pushed through and Bismarck's season was over. The Germans had started strong, but ultimately they played a mediocre game and in their diplomatic situation mediocre just did not cut it. His main role here was to be strong enough to buy some time for Gandhi. Not too much else to say here.

It was Turn 300, and although Brennus had Tanks he needed to attack Gandhi ASAP to stop the Indian victory, which would hit around Turn 325 at the very latest. Naturally, this meant he sat on his butt and watched the countdown get closer and closer to zero instead of running over Muskets with Tanks. Monty at least heeded the call, returning to fight with a fresh and more advanced army, but he alone would not be remotely enough to stop our little purple friend in time.

It was Turn 317, and AT LAST Brennus turned on his former friend. He did have a modern army near Agra, Gandhi's 3rd city, but despite that it was too little too late, especially as his pathfinding was not especially efficient. Just like that, against ALL ODDS, Gandhi had pulled a fast one on all of us, winning a Turn 324 Cultural Victory. The Indians were collapsing rapidly, and would have probably lost if the game went five turns longer, but instead we all were collectively ripping our hairs from our scalps, wondering how this silly little troll did it again. With that, Gandhi makes an incredible 7th trip to the playoffs, and he has a VERY diplomatically friendly field so far. That is what total dedication to the quickest victory condition will do. In all fairness, Gandhi's path to victory was far more respectable than the previous two winners, who had both played games ranging from awful to middling and just sort of won by accident. On the other hand, Gandhi played probably the best early game of any leader, and was even relatively decent on the military side, only being hampered by typical AI foibles like the one Cat trap. I would say, however, that his flipping on the slider ridiculously early was nearly a blunder. He was close to outscaling Brennus, and at one point had the most territory of any leader - I think his victory, or at the VERY least a playoff spot, was secure if he just continued teching and instead turned the slider up at Plastics. Instead, Gandhi was teetering on the edge of disaster. He definitely needed some luck, but I would not necessarily say he had Hammurabi Season 8-level luck. If Izzy is as weak as she was here, and Gandhi is able to successfully convert Mehmed and/or Brennus, then Alternate Histories could definitely legitimize his win here.

Brennus played a winning game, but in all honesty he played a mediocre game with a fantastic start. He had so much land that an early barbarian disaster ultimately meant nothing, and by Turn 100 his position was so strong he could attack anyone and become the game runaway. With that said, despite his runaway status, his teching was PAINFULLY mid, and he just lacked that winning instinct that the Justinians and Gandhis of the world seem to have.

After Opening Game 4, there definitely was worry that the Wildcard game was going to be boring, but now with Monty joining Huayna Capac and Tokugawa in the Wildcard, things just got that much more intriguing. Despite being a complete psycho, Monty was surprisingly tame this game, and his early game in particular was strong enough that it did look like for some time that he could win. For him to completely fail to conquer Shaka like that, however, was completely embarrassing, and the guy just was not able to put it all together at all. Hey, at least we will get to see him at least one more time! Any game with Monty in it is guaranteed to be a real treat.

Amusingly, 67SixSevenVIVIISeisSiete (yes, this person makes EVERY pick based on the 67 meme) won this week's picking contest with 21 points, mainly due to hitting on all three main categories! Not only did he ascertain the Gandhi (6 letters) and Brennus (7 letters) playoff ticket, but he was also one of FIVE (out of around 350 entries) to choose Mehmed to be First To Die! After all, Mehmed's greatest glory came in the year 1453, l+4+5+3 = 13, 6+7=13. It was spoken into existence. Overall, this was not a great week for the community, with a 7.8 point average, the lowest so far. Season wide, Smart Random.org is now the new frontrunner with 84 points, taking advantage of CFC's overall down game here. Thrasybulos is in 2nd with 82 points, and Kuro (a fantasy contestant as well!) has roared up to third place with 81 points, greatly bolstered by having hit the correct victory date THREE GAMES IN A ROW. That's 30 points just from one category!

Fantasy wise, I was practically dancing. After scoring 6 points on my Gandhi bid, I was running away with the contest, and I am yet to have my heavy hitters play! Things are strong enough that I don't even need a great result from my combined 84 gold bid next week to still be a frontrunner! While my extremely cheap Izzy bid was a bust, so far she remains my only eliminated leader out of seven. Conversely, Jol Nar Binks fantasy chances were in big doo doo, with him joining the "pay immensely for First To Die points" club. Even worse was that his 35 gold bid on Shaka netted him absolutely nothing. Vincarius was the other big winner here. His 15 gold on Brennus paid off well with four points and a playoff chance, and he should also be extremely happy with his Monty bid, which netted him a kill point and a Wildcard shot. I think he has a real chance here too, and in particular if his Pacal bid had paid off we would be talking about Vincarius, not myself, as the runaway.

While this was the game of crazies, do not overlook the next one! With three fanatics, plus Gilgamesh and Genghis Khan - when Chairman Mao looks like the sane one, you know you have enough on your hands here - it is sure going to be a spicy one. Will Justinian not being a Pool 1 (or even seeded) leader turn into a galaxy brained move? Tune in next week to find out!