Groovy-based solution to the generalized Josephus problem

JosephusProblem.groovy

/*
  "Flavius Josephus was a roman historian of Jewish origin. During the Jewish-Roman wars of the first century AD, he was in a cave with fellow soldiers, 
  40 men in all, surrounded by enemy Roman troops. They decided to commit suicide by standing in a ring and counting off each third man. Each man so 
  designated was to commit suicide...Josephus, not wanting to die, managed to place himself in the position of the last survivor.

  In the general version of the problem, there are n soldiers numbered from 1 to n and each k-th soldier will be eliminated. The count starts from the 
  first soldier. What is the number of the last survivor?"
*/

int solveJosephusProblem(int n = 40, int k = 3) {
    def soldiers = [] + ((1..n) as List)
    int deathIndex = 0
    while (soldiers.size() > 1) {
        int unluckySoldier = soldiers.removeAt(deathIndex)
        println "Killed soldier ${unluckySoldier}. Now ${soldiers.size()} remain."
        deathIndex = (deathIndex + k) % soldiers.size()
    }
    soldiers[0]
}

println solveJosephusProblem()