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61 Artificial Intelligences Fight for World Domination in 'Civilization V'

We're rooting for the Kimberley Aborigines.
The starting positions for the Battle Royale Mk. II. Credit: TPangolin

Reddit user TPangolin is getting ready to kick off "Battle Royale Mk. II" in the strategy game Civilization V, pitting 61 of its built-in, computer-controlled players against each other for world domination.

If you've never played it before, Civilization V is a grand strategy game in which players choose a civilization and take turns guiding it through the ages by establishing cities, securing resources, and choosing between different technologies, religions, and forms of government.

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If this all sounds a little familiar, that's because TPangolin put on the first Battle Royale earlier this year, which included 42 civilizations.

It was a fascinating experiment, a kind of alternate, computer-generated history where Poland was giving the Germans hell for a change, the Kingdom of Israel spread as far as Oman, and other crazy history fan-fiction happened.

Unfortunately, the whole thing came crashing down after two hundred turns. TPangolin set the first Battle Royale on the largest Earth-shaped map, with plenty of custom-made modifications, which together with the added pressure of all the moving pieces involved in a 42-civilization game, eventually made it impossible to run.

There are several ways in which players in "Civilization V" can dominate each other, but armies and nuclear bombs are the easiest solution

This time, TPangolin said in a post announcing Battle Royale Mk. II, he's not going to make the same mistake. The game is still modded with aggressive, expansionist AI (we want to see some action, after all) and many civilizations not included in the original game, but he's also reduced the number of units and will run the game as one session instead of saving, shutting it down, and loading it back up every time he wanted spectate a few more turns, which caused a lot of issues in the first Battle Royale.

TPangolin didn't set a specific time, but the first livestream of Battle Royale Mk. II, which you can watch on Twitch, should start on Sunday. Detailed slideshows of the game with commentary will follow.

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It'll be interesting to follow from the jump, but things will get very apocalyptic soon enough, just like the real world!

TPangolin configured Battle Royale so the only winning condition is Domination, meaning that civilizations will continue dominating each other for many hundred of turns until only one remains standing over the ashen plains we once called Earth. There are several ways in which players in Civilization V can dominate each other, but armies and nuclear bombs are the easiest solution.

Each turn takes at least a few minutes to complete because of the number of civilizations that have to make their moves, and since TPangolin only plays a few turns every weekend, it could take month, maybe even years for the game to end or reach a stalemate, assuming it doesn't crash first.

For now, you can see the starting positions of all the civilizations that will take part in the Battle Royale on this map, and the list of all the civilization included here.

I'm personally rooting for the Kimberley Aborigines civilization, led by Jandamarra, who organized one of the few documented armed insurrections against European settlement in Australia. It's one of the modded civilizations that aren't included in the original game, and part Colonialist Legacies, a series of mods produced by TPangolin that focus on adding colonial and pre-colonial civilizations.

It's not likely to beat heavy hitters like Texas (which is, rightfully, a separate civilization from America in the game), but anything can happen in Battle Royale's alternate history.