This is a continuing feature for Season Six of Civ4 AI Survivor: a preview of each game before it begins, providing a quick summary of the leaders involved and how the community expects the game to shake out. We start as always with an overview of the map:
We've had requests in past seasons for an overview screenshot of the map with the resource icon turned on:
It's hard for me to see much of anything with all of those little icons but you guys asked for it, you've got it! Now for a look at our individual leaders:
Kublai Khan of the Mongols
Traits: Aggressive, Creative
Starting Techs: Hunting, Wheel
Peace Weight: 1
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: 2 First Place Finishes, 5 Second Place Finishes 
Best Finish: Season Four Championship Runner Up
Total Kills: 10 
Overall Power Ranking: 30 points, tied 6th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Kublai Khan is a much more successful version of a Mongolian leader. His warmongering benefits from the Aggressive trait while the Creative trait helps to push out early game borders and provide at least some degree of research support with cheap libraries. This is an early game setup but those are the most important turns in any Civilization game. Kublai's Mongolian civ is well above average, with strong unique features in the Keshik and Ger paired with subpar starting techs. As an AI leader Kublai Khan tries to balance cultural and military goals, generally doing a pretty good job at both of them. He has average ratings for training units, building wonders, and an average aggression rating (6.4/10). Kublai does have a low peace weight and he has an additional diplomatic penalty for anyone who refuses his demands. He doesn't make those demands very often though, and he doesn't care very much about religion in general. Kublai's tech preferences are expectedly Military and Culture in nature, and he lives up to his Mongol heritage by plotting war at "Pleased" relations. Long story short, Kublai Khan is the military + culture leader done correctly, unlike several others who try and fail at this combination.
Past Performance: Kublai Khan is the unquestioned winner of the runner-up award, taking home five different second place finishes including coming in second place in all three of his Season Four appearances. There's a reason for this, as Kublai often isn't dominant enough to win outright but successfully manages to ride the coattails of a low peace weight ally. Kublai has appeared in twelve different games in all, the most of anyone in AI Survivor, and has taken home a medal of some kind in seven of them. He's also been a scrappy fighter that rarely gets eliminated outright, including battling back from the Wildcard game in Season Three. Kublai's most impressive achievement has been making the championship game on three separate occasions in Seasons Two, Three, and Four, the only AI leader to pull off that accomplishment. He had an overall victory in hand in Season Four and should have been the season's champion before bizarrely throwing away his win by chasing after a longshot Cultural victory. While Kublai tends to sneak under the radar a bit, he has a consistent track record of success that exceeds almost everyone else in the field.
Cyrus of Persia
Traits: Charismatic, Imperialistic
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Hunting
Peace Weight: 3
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: 1 First Place Finish, 3 Second Place Finishes
Best Finish: Season Two Championship Runner Up
Total Kills: 6
Overall Power Ranking: 17 points, 14th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Cyrus has Charismatic and Imperialistic for his traits, with Imperialistic being so good that it makes this a pretty good combination. There's also some synergy there, as Charismatic happiness is a bigger deal with more cities to use it in. He gets the notably less useful Immortal and Apothecary unique items, but he has very good starting techs with Agriculture and Hunting; Cyrus will quickly be able to improve basically any food resource he has. Cyrus has a pretty high aggression rating (7/10), builds a fair number of units (6/10) and loves wonders (8/10); this guy does it all. He cares an average amount about religion (big bonus for sharing, small malus for difference), and his flavours are Military and Growth. It creates the image of another of the snowball leaders, and Cyrus' game plan seems to be building a lot of cities with Imperialistic, getting them tall with Charismatic and his Growth flavour, and then crushing a neighbour or two once he has an advantage in food and production.
Past Performance: Well, if that's Cyrus' game plan, it worked out pretty well for the first two seasons... and not so well since then. Cyrus has only won a single game, but he's placed a strong second three times as well, never too far from the game's victor. Cyrus was runner-up to Mao in his Season One opening game, and was almost able to pull away from his neighbours before getting dogpiled in Playoff Game One. Then, in Season Two, Cyrus had his best year, again getting a strong second in his opening match, before a deserved first place in his playoff game. He was even nearly crowned champion that year; stupid Huayna Capac and his upset Cultural Victory. Several longtime AI Survivor fans still refer to Cyrus as the "True Season Two Champion." Still, the point remains that Cyrus tore up the competition in his first two years, and we were expecting big things from him in the following seasons. Unfortunately, Cyrus repeatedly failed to deliver on those expectations. He hasn't survived an opening game since Season Two, though he's been pretty unlucky. In Season Three, Cyrus was afflicted with constant attacks from both sides, first in sensible wars by Brennus, then nonsensical sabotage from across the map by Zara, in a game any leader would have struggled in. Then, in Season Four, Cyrus expanded out to a strong size and was one of the "Big Three" in the midgame, before a couple of unlikely attacks by fellow Big Three member Catherine set both of them back. This resulted in both of their eventual deaths at the hands of Isabella, who they should have been working together against in the first place! In Season Five, Cyrus was undone by a failure to settle for metal resources in the face of an aggressive Genghis Khan. When he's allowed to actually play the game, Cyrus has put out some very consistent results, and he's definitely not a leader to underestimate if he can get rolling.
Boudica of the Celts
Traits: Aggressive, Charismatic
Starting Techs: Hunting, Mysticism
Peace Weight: 2
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: 1 First Place Finish, 2 Second Place Finishes
Best Finish: Season One, Two, and Four Playoffs
Total Kills: 4
Overall Power Ranking: 13 points, tied 21st place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Boudica has the second most combat oriented trait combination in the game, with Aggressive and Charismatic. Her units will acquire promotions faster than any other AIs in the game, and it's a good thing too, because Boudica means to use them. A lot. She gets the mediocre Gallic Warrior and Dun for unique items, and lastly starts with Hunting and Mysticism. Boudica is one of the serious warmongers in Civ 4. She has an extremely high aggression rating (8.8/10), and Boudica is one of the AIs that uses their traits to full effect. She will not declare war at "Pleased" relations though, one of the stranger aspects of Boudica's AI personality. She has a middling build unit preference (6/10) and a low wonder build rate (2/10), and Boudica will often build a more balanced mix of units and buildings than most of the warlike AIs. Her flavours are also a little more balanced, with military and growth, and for one of the serious aggressors, Boudica can build a surprisingly competent economy in her downtime. Lastly, Boudica is less likely to waste her time on a religion than a lot of the other Mysticism-start leaders; it happens sometimes, but usually she'll move straight onto the key worker techs thanks to not having a religious flavour.
Past Performance: Alongside Shaka, Boudica is the other best-performing warmonger, with the two of them sitting in the top third of leaders. Boudica scored a dominant win in her opening game of Season One (admittedly, the weakest opening game that season) after crushing game-rival Isabella. She's also scored two strong second-place finishes in Seasons Two and Four, interestingly both behind Huayna Capac. The Celts fared poorly in the opening round of Season Five, however the alternate histories of that map revealed that Boudica was actually the leader most likely to win and had simply gotten unlucky. Boudica's often been successful at running over her early neighbours in a way that most of the warmongers seem unable to do (see Season One Louis or Season Four Napoleon), probably as a result of her extremely aggressive traits. Both of her second-place finishes have been far from distant, and Boudica has performed consistently well in the opening round. However, she's struggled far more in the playoff games, dying in all three seasons she's got there. Again like Shaka, Boudica seems unable to compete against the stiffer competition of more balanced leaders. Expect her to attack early and often, and don't be surprised if those early attacks succeed where most would fail.
Churchill of England
Traits: Charismatic, Protective
Starting Techs: Fishing, Mining
Peace Weight: 6
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: No First or Second Place Finishes
Best Finish: Season Four Wildcard Game
Total Kills: 1
Overall Power Ranking: 1 point, tied 47th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Churchill has arguably the second-worst trait pairing in the game, with the below-average Charismatic and the terrible Protective. His English civilization is much nicer though, with the powerful Redcoat and Stock Exchange, which might help to make up for his traits. Lastly, he starts with Fishing and Mining, a weak pairing unless his capital is on the coast. Churchill is a little interesting in the sense that he has a low score in basically every category. He doesn't build a lot of wonders (2/10) or units (4/10). He doesn't demand tribute (1/10) and he has a pretty low aggression rating (4.3/10) too. In fact, the only thing this guy does is spend espionage (7/10); that's literally the only number above a 5/10 in his personality. He also has a neutral peace weight, so Churchill is fair game for attack from the good or evil leaders. Lastly, his flavours are Military and Gold. It all makes for an uninteresting personality that's more likely to sit in a corner plotting than anything else.
Past Performance: Churchill has so far been unable to overcome his weak traits and bland personality. Churchill died in his opening game during the first three seasons of AI Survivor, and was first-to-die twice to boot. Then in Season Four, Churchill played his best game yet: he hid in a corner and got his butt saved by the Apostolic Palace numerous times, until he got to the Wildcard Game and, err, died miserably. Yikes. Season Five was no better as Churchill was a brief speed bump on Alexander's path to world domination. Yeah, this guy hasn't just failed to score many points on the power rankings. He's also boring, and more than almost any other leader, you should probably expect Churchill to do nothing at all; he never has before.
De Gaulle of France
Traits: Charismatic, Industrious
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Wheel
Peace Weight: 0
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: 1 First Place Finish
Best Finish: Season Three Playoffs
Total Kills: 4
Overall Power Ranking: 9 points, tied 26th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: De Gaulle's AI personality seems to have been created by a designer who was poking fun at various different French sterotypes. De Gaulle's trait combination of Charismatic and Industrious is underwhelming for AI Survivor purposes and doesn't appear to have much in the way of synergy. He does get to take advantage of France's excellent starting techs and solid Musketeer unique unit but that's about all that this leader has working in his favor. De Gaulle has a very low wonder-building preference (2/10), which largely serves to waste his Industrious trait, and mixes this together with obnoxious behavior towards his neighbors. He will make constant tribute demands (10/10) and civic change requests (8/10) that tend to make him unpopular with the other AI leaders. De Gaulle also infamously has the lowest resistance to capitulation in the game (0/10), and while that doesn't matter as much in a game without vassal states, he still makes few friends thanks to his peace weight score of zero. It's a confusing and incoherent AI personality that combines annoying behavior with a lack of the requisite ruthlessness needed to be a true conquerer.
Past Performance: De Gaulle had a terrible performance over the first two seasons of AI Survivor, suffering a quick elimination as First to Die in both of his opening round matches. He was ranked dead last, 52nd out of 52 leaders, following the conclusion of Season Two. Thus it was a gigantic shock to everyone when De Gaulle played a dominant match in the opening round of Season Three, scoring a first place finish and racking up three kills in the process. It was a game where De Gaulle devoured perennial doormat Frederick and then snowballed into runaway AI status with no one else even close at the end. He had no such luck in the playoff round as De Gaulle ended up being a speedbump to another impressive Mansa Musa win, and then in Season Four he couldn't manage to overcome stronger, better warmongers in the form of Caesar and Shaka. Season Five was another dud performance as De Gaulle was overrun in the midgame by Tokugawa and Pacal. De Gaulle has therefore been outright eliminated in four of his five opening round games, scoring 7 of his 9 total points in his one strong performance. De Gaulle is far from the worst AI but he's pretty much had one good game and otherwise been terrible.
Genghis Khan Temujin of the Mongols
Traits: Aggressive, Imperialistic
Starting Techs: Hunting, Wheel
Peace Weight: 0
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: No First or Second Place Finishes
Best Finish: Season One and Five Wildcard Game
Total Kills: 4
Overall Power Ranking: 4 points, tied 39th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Temujin is a comically over-aggressive leader who routinely self-destructs with ill-advised military ventures. His Imperialistic trait is good for expansion but the pairing with Aggressive carries no economic benefits at all, leaving Temujin to crash his economy in game after game. The great khan is routinely one of the most technologically backwards leaders, inevitably causing him to flame out and lose to more advanced neighbors in the later stages of each match. The Mongolian civ is well above average thanks to the Keshik and Ger unique items, and Kublai Khan has been able to use them to good effect in his appearances. However, Genghis Khan is fatally undercut by his obsession with all things involving war. He has an exceedingly high aggression rating (9.5/10), he builds tons of units (8/10), he will demand tribute constantly (10/10), and he has the lowest peace weight in the game. Temujin only has a single flavor for his tech research, Military, and he'll go to great lengths to beeline Military Science for his grenadiers while still lacking Aesthetics. This is not a complicated leader to understand: Temujin is going to attack his neighbors early and often.
Past Performance: Like many of the other obsessive warmongers, Temujin has also struggled in his AI Survivor history. His most impressive performance came in Season One where he was handed an unfairly weak starting position and managed to survive against adversity into the Wildcard game. This was the Mongol leader at his best, churning out endless units to keep himself alive in the wake of repeated invasions. However, Temujin was never close to competing for a win in that game, and he's never been in contention in any of his other games either. The Wildcard game from Season One served as a perfect example of Temujin's self-destructive tendencies, as he picked a fight with a much stronger Zara Yacob and found himself booted out of the competition. The same result played out repeatedly in the following seasons, with Temujin attacking his neighbors again and again, stunting his economic development through endless wars, only to be rolled up and eliminated sometime towards the end of each game. The Mongol leader amusingly killed both Persias in his opening round game of Season Five but still couldn't do better than another Wildcard appearance. Mindless aggression rarely works well in the long run, and Temujin only has four kills to his name despite all of those many invasions.
Tokugawa of Japan
Traits: Aggressive, Protective
Starting Techs: Fishing, Wheel
Peace Weight: 1
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: 1 First Place Finish, 1 Second Place Finish
Best Finish: Season Two and Four Playoffs
Total Kills: 6
Overall Power Ranking: 13 points, tied 21st place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Tokugawa is infamous for being the most isolationist leader in Civ4. He won't sign Open Borders with anyone else unless relations warm up to "Pleased", and he generally refuses to trade or interact with anyone else unless they share a mutual military struggle. Tokugawa suffers from one of the worst leader trait combinations in the game, with lots of unit promotions but little else to recommend it. He's also saddled with a weak civilization in Japan, which suffers from poor starting techs and the uselessly-late Shale Plant. Unfortunately the Samurai unit is nothing special in Civ4. Tokugawa's AI personality reflects his generally militaristic bent, with an above average aggression rating (7.3/10) and train unit emphasis. He makes it clear that he wants to be left alone by never asking for help (0/10) or demanding tribute (1/10) or making religious conversion demands (2/10). Tokugawa's best feature is probably his tech flavor, where he has the rare Science preference to go along with a lesser Military emphasis. This is likely the reason why Tokugawa has been somewhat decent at building an economy despite his atrocious leader traits. Long story short, this guy is basically an old man telling everyone to stay out of his yard while shaking a rolled-up newspaper.
Past Performance: Tokugawa is widely viewed as one of the worst possible choices for a Single Player game of Civ4, and he's exceeded expectations to date with two different trips to the playoffs. Tokugawa scored a runner up finish behind Shaka back in Season Two, and when we did some repeated playthroughs of that same setup, it emerged that he was clearly a top pick in that specific circumstance. In a very weak field of competitors, Tokugawa and Shaka repeatedly proved to be stronger than their peers. Tokugawa's best performance took place in Season Four where he stunned everyone by winning a dominant runaway victory. Again, this was another group of generally weak opponents but Tokugawa nonetheless smoked them well and good. Of course this doesn't mean that Tokugawa is one of the better AI leaders, as he's also had multiple opening round games where he stewed around not achieving anything with his isolationist ways, and Tokugawa actually managed to die to the Apostolic Palace (!) during his second playoff appearance. Still, this is a leader that has shown at least basic competency in past seasons, which is more than many of the other AI leaders can claim.
Here's what the community was thinking based on the prediction contest before the game took place:
Game Six was another match that the community perceived to be completely wide open. With a field of generally underwhelming leaders, almost all of whom had extremely low peace weights, there was a sense that this was anyone's game to win. Kublai Khan and Cyrus received the most points in the community although neither of them could exceed a third of the total votes. Both the first place and second place pie charts were a rainbow of different colors representing all seven of the leaders. The only two leaders that lacked real support were Churchill and De Gaulle; unsurprisingly, they topped the list of the leaders expected to be First to Die on this map. Churchill as First to Die was about the closest thing to a consensus in the community. As for the victory condition, Domination led Spaceship by roughly a 2:1 margin. We haven't had any Cultural or Diplomatic victories thus far in Season Six - would this be the game to break the trend?
Finally, here are some of the best/craziest written predictions about what would take place during the game. There were many other excellent entries but I had to pick and choose my favorites to keep this from running on too long. Thanks again for the submissions!
Amicalola: Talk about being the best of the worst. Kublai Khan's start is absolutely gimped (zero non-capital food). Churchill's got a terrible diplomatic situation, but a corner spot with the most space. Cyrus has a tonne of food at the capital, but is next to two leaders (Boudica/Khan) who can wreck his game at any time. The two worst leaders (De Gaulle/Churchill) are the ones with the advantage of anemic Kublai, yet how likely are they to use it? What a mess! Ultimately I think Tokugawa comes out ahead - he's best placed to take advantage of a midgame Churchill dogpile, and he also has a nice capital + space. Cyrus for second, only because everyone else is so terrible. But honestly, this game could go 10 different ways. Finally, spaceship because even though this game has a bunch of crazies, they're predisposed to like each other. Diplomatic is probably a good pick here, too.
Donaithnen: Hoping that since Kublai Khan is sandwiched between De Gaulle and Churchill that De Gaulle will get off to an incompetent start, get gobbled by Kublai Khan, who can than pivot and consume Churchill as well, while the east has more of a stalemate between more evenly matched Civs. Hoping that Tokugawa will live up to his more isolationist reputation and quietly build up to the point where he will outlast the others as Kublai Khan expands eastward.
Duizhang_Lu: Well, the only thing I'm confident of is that whoever emerges the winner of this world of warmongers will do so atop a pyramid of skulls. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GODS
NotSpamBot: Genghis Khan has Copper in his capital and easy access to Horses. Which means he will declare an early war. And his obvius target is Cyrus. I think that conflict will stalemate, but it will ruin Persia. Enter Kublei Khan. Who is next to the diplomatically isolated and unimpressive Churchill for him to feast upon. Further, he has a partner in crime for this attack in Tokugawa and possibly even De Gaulle. Now, after the Genghis Khan impales himself upon Cyrus and the ineviatble demise of England this world should get divided among the religions of Kublei and Boudica and uh... I have no idea how that will turn out. Probably more wars. Of course, all of this analysis is irrelevant in the face Churchill and this season being this season. I honestly somewhat expect him to run away with the game here. I can't see how, but I still expect it to happen.
delan: This map has no easy answers. I hate Kublai Khan's seafood start without easy access to metals, but none of his immediate neighbours are the type to take advantage of that and kill him first. Cyrus has double wet corn, Imperialistic trait, and some room, but both his neighbours are the type to throw hands. Churchill has an incredible capital and if literally any other leader had that capital, I would pick them to win, but Churchill's peace weight situation is so dire and his AI personality so bland that I cannot believe in him. Genghis Khan has a very nice capital, Imperialistic trait, and lots of land to start, the kind of setup where he could steamroll over Cyrus and then dominate the map, but betting on these warmongers is such a feast or famine proposition. Tokugawa has a decent capital without the starting techs to truly exploit them. He also has a lot of land to expand into. He also has the wolverine Temujin as a neighbour. De Gaulle has a mediocre personality to match his mediocre capital, but peace weight could insulate him from early aggression, and the way this season's been going, de Gaulle will probably win the whole thing by Diplomacy. I know Boudica's going to get a religion. I know that! Otherwise, gonna flip some coins here and make my picks on that basis.
Dagoth Gares: Anyone familiar with the Earth18 scenario knows how big a threat Cyrus can be. Khan the Younger comes in second, like always, and DG finds himself in an untenable position between him and Boudica....Which of course means that what will ACTUALLY happen is a Temujin/Toku Diplo victory, with Kublai FTD, because this season is adamant about making zero sense.
LinkMarioSamus: Here's a fun fact: This is our first game this season with no one who was in the playoffs last season. While I have zero confidence in any pick I make from here on out, I'm going with Tokugawa to win because he has good traits for this field full of nutjobs and has proven himself successful in this kind of match before, plus Churchill is nearby for an easy snack. For 2nd I'll go with Genghis Khan in the hope that he hamstrings Cyrus early and eventually wears him down. I will straight-up admit that part of it is I think they're the two most underrated leaders in this line-up and that they have faced many leaders in the past who did well this season, notably Bismarck, Frederick, Shaka, and Napoleon among others. The other leaders will, uh, just squabble amongst each other while Tokugawa and Genghis Khan get all the prime real estate? Like I said, I have no real idea how this game will play out and this is the best prediction I can come up with. Maybe Kublai Khan's and Cyrus's wonder emphasis will do them in? I considered De Gaulle but he doesn't have the easy conquest opportunities Tokugawa and Genghis Khan have, plus honestly there is no way he deserves 9 points.
Colors: The only thing I know is that everyone is gonna hate Churchill, who stinks and will likely fold when they start attacking him. After that it's anyone's guess, but I like Kublai's potential for a good landgrab + land from England, and I think Cyrus is the strongest leader in the field.
Bernn: This game very well could be decided in the first 100 turns - with a field this aggressive, just about anyone could snowball hard from a single kill. The biggest question is who collapses first. Churchill is a pretty natural FTD choice because of the heavy peaceweight difference, but his Protective trait plus the guaranteed copper source will make him tough to chew through. Though I'm sure at least one of these warmongers will try their luck. Instead, I'm looking in Cyrus's direction. That double wet corn is an incredibly lush start, but I worry the stone could lead to an early Masonry and a bunch of questionable wonder builds when he really should be working on settlers instead. He has copper, but it's in a somewhat awkward spot and if Genghis Khan strikes him from the south his metal supply could easily get cut off. And even outside of an early attack, he could potentially get boxed in after Boudica drops a holy city between the two of them. The poor guy just can't catch a break - one way or another, I think he's going to be the first to leave this game.
Guanidine: Competent leaders in solid starting positions? Could this be the first normal game of the season? If Kublai can grab that southern iron, he has a chance to kill a neighbor or two and win this thing - and I would prefer a leader far from him then for second place.
Zigzagzone: I have this nagging feeling that I'm gonna back another leader that will disappoint me, but I just like Tokus land. There's just so much river commerce, and with a lot of competent war mongers around, I'm just not sure that anybody can run away with the game from conquering. And Toku sits just right to gain from Bismarks peace weight / incompetence death, and then tech better than the rest (not that hard!). Hopefully, Genghis is just friendly enough by peace weight that this can work out. Famous last words...
Fluffball: This is another game that looks totally up in the air. I could see most of these leaders winning, but I think I have to go with the 2 guys closest to the weak and vulnerable Churchill. KK for first since he can also probably run over dG anytime he chooses. Toku will get battered by Genghis, but he seems to have enough room, will absorb Churchill territory almost no matter what, and he has the best units in the game.
Keler: De Gaulle is the best AI here when it comes to economy and teching ahead, a balanced AI with wonder spam and militaristic enough but I suspect he gets polytheism first and Boudica gets meditation so he might be in race to first to die here with Churchill I think. Cyrus looks terrible with land, he will probably die 1v1 to anyone but depends on Genghis chosing to attack or not. I guess Kublai will go to wildcard, Tokugawa has enough land to sit down and win while bodyguarding himself against Genghis who will be left behind in tech, then Boudica sits down with a bigger land than Kublai coming as runner up position.
eyser24: Cyrus's start would be really good for a human to implement an immortal rush with a few very strong and fast growing cities, but its not so great for an AI. Kublai's start is so bad that I don't see him being much of a factor this game. Not only is it a fishing start, but there is no other food nearby. Even worse, he can't share any of that Capital fish with any of his other cities! I think Tokugawa has one of the better starts and has very poor neighbors who will definitely die to someone this game, and he has a great chance of taking advantage of this. First to die is really tough on this map, but I think Churchill is still the best bet just because he is the most likely victim of a dogpile. I am really worried Boudica won't get that iron, but as long as she does I think she will be second. Was tempted to choose Cyrus as first to die because I think he will be the target of a strong Boudica, but I still think overall Churchill is more likely for that.
Delta-07: The quality of the land is equally bad for all the leaders, so I don't think there is a clear favourite in this game. Every leader is kind of screwed. Kulai starts with a slow seafood and gold in the north that has no food nearby. De Gaulle and Cyrus have no river and thus no commerce river tiles. Genghis Khan has a desert in the north and the sea in the south. Boudica is almost already sitting in the tundra and her metal resource might get claimed by De Gaulle. I like the land of Churchill and Toku the most, but since Churchill is such an incompetent AI, I see a chance for Toku here if doesn't get dragged down by Genghis Khan. In the last game it was the good land that won Bismrack the game, so I pick the leadrer with best land: Toku. I still see some potential for Kublai that he might snipe a space ship victory.
Slashin': Upon reconsideration, I really do think boudica here has a golden opportunity to leverage her position here. A semi isolated start along a riverside capital and flood plains to keep her economy afloat early game, while also being the only mysticism starter means it’s good odds she founds a religion and spreads it to her neighbors.she also has quite a bit of room for expansion, and I think her inability to declare war at pleased is going to be a real boon here as her neighbors get bogged down in while she expands and builds up a moderate infrastructure base to leverage her isolated position. Temujin is likely to bog down in a war with Cyrus, and a copper capital could very well mean a snowball, but it’s more likely he gets bogged down and brings the Persians down with him. Toku then is the most reasonable second placer to me, as he has a multitude of opportunities for expansion by teaming up on Churchill or exploiting a weakened Temujin. A boudica win to me makes space the most likely victory condition, but I’ll hedge my bets on this one and go for domination in case another one of these insane warmongers come out on top.
BohemianSpoonyBard: Tokugawa is sure bet because he has power of God and Anime on his side.
