This summary for Playoff Two was written by Eauxps I. Fourgott with some assistance from TheOneAndOnlyAtesh. Many thanks for volunteering to put this report together! 
The second playoff game would be played on an unusual map for AI Survivor, one which formed a large curve from southwest to northeast, instead of the normal "blobby" shape that most games see. Most of the community agreed that this continent would favor those leaders who started at either end of the curve, as they all started fairly far from the actual ends of the continent, leaving them with a healthy amount of backlines available to settle and more overall land to work with than the leaders in the center. There were three such leaders: Justinian in the south, and Ramesses and Augustus Caesar in the east. Over 80% of all picking contest entries chose one of these three leaders both for first and for second place, and less than 5% thought that any of them would be the first eliminated. Justinian was the heavy community favorite, with 55% of votes to win; despite being one of the only lower peaceweights on the map, he had a sheltered yet spacious position, and Brennus nearby to draw aggression. This combined with his strong reputation to make many believe that he was still in a good position. Ramesses and Augustus both had plenty of room to expand into themselves, but it seemed likely that only one of the two would be able to prosper enough to advance. Would it be Augustus with the Imperialistic trait, Praetorians, and nice terrain for a builder's game? Or Ramesses with Spiritual, war chariots, and the biggest cultural focus of this field?
There was considerably less support for the three central leaders. Frederick, occupying a north central position, was the most popular, but barely scraped up 15% of votes to move on. He had a promising capital location, with double gold resources that paired perfectly with his starting Mining tech, but he wasn't a leader to inspire much confidence, and would have considerably less space to expand into than the outer three leaders. Still, at least he was in a good position diplomatically, unlike the other two leaders, who combined for most of the First to Die votes. Brennus, starting in the northwest, seemed doomed to be the least popular leader on the map due to his very low peaceweight in a largely high peaceweight field, while Gandhi had an unenviable position in the center of the continent, which didn't seem to be a winning combination with his 10 peaceweight and low unit build preference. Too add on to their plight, both of these leaders had rather weak local terrain at the outset, and it certainly seemed like one of them would draw the short straw.
One unique feature of this game's diplomatic landscape was that NONE of the six leaders will plot war at Pleased relations!!! 
With this in play, as well as four different leaders with a heavy focus on religion, this promised to be a game where the founding and spreads of the various faiths would be critical to how the game unfolded. It was thus with great interest that we watched the race for an early religion, which had been completely unpredictable with four different leaders likely to go for one out of the gate. It would all come down to which leaders aimed for which techs. Brennus ended up opting out of the race altogether, instead pulled to research a questionable Masonry first to unlock his unique building and connect a marble resource at his capital. Gandhi and Justinian both targeted Meditation, but Justinian had a river at his capital and Gandhi did not; this, combined with Justinian enjoying the advantage in turn order, meant that he was able to win the race and found Christianity. This also opened the door for Ramesses, who was the only one to open with a Polytheism beeline, and thus founded Buddhism as the other early religion despite having not started with Mysticism. We thus would start the game with two major religions on opposite ends of the map, where it would be hard for them to fuel much conflict.
The biggest loser in this sequence was Gandhi, who came up just one turn short in the Meditation race, then chased Polytheism instead and lost THAT race by a mere four turns! He thus ended up with no immediately useful techs for the first twenty turns, no religion to show for it, and to add insult to injury, his land was extremely low on commerce to further slow his early tech rate. Already he found himself in a hole that he would have to dig his way out of. Meanwhile, Ramesses decided to pursue a cultural gameplan right away, following up his successful Polytheism bid by immediately beelining Monotheism as well! While this did give him a second Holy City nice and early and bury a potential competing religion in Islam, it also delayed him from getting more practical techs early on, and his internal development lagged as a result. Later, he prioritized techs like Masonry and Sailing over Animal Husbandry despite having a cow resource at his capital; he also wasn't building settlers very fast, failing to take proper advantage of his spacious start, and often choosing to found in less than ideal locations. While Ramesses had a fairly safe position and was establishing himself as a serious threat for a fast Cultural victory - also building Stonehenge early, the Buddhist shrine by Turn 60, and the Islamic shrine by Turn 75 - he was setting himself up as a bit of a lightweight in all other respects. Elsewhere on the map, Justinian and Augustus were utilizing their Imperalistic trait well and expanding at a good rate. Augustus in particular was able to settle an important city site in the no-mans-land between his and Ramesses's starts, securing a lush river valley and access to the east coast of the continent. Brennus was not doing so well, leading the game off with Masonry and Archery research for a very slow economic opening. By contrast, Frederick tore through all of the early techs with his double gold resources, but his early expansion was very poor, leaving him sitting on only three cities for quite some time, and especially with Gandhi sending his starting settler straight towards Berlin, he was very quickly running out of available space. While he had the early jump in technology, his ability to keep up as the game progressed remained in question.
In the early going, this had felt like Ramesses's game to lose, but as the map filled up, his position started to look more shaky. In the end, he did not expand very well at all; not only was his early expansion slow, but he also stayed close to his capital, failing to proactively claim land. Most glaring was the city of Elephantine, whose settler he'd sent towards a riverside location near ivory... only to found two tiles away from the river, with the ivory out of the city radius. Augustus would go on to found his own city on the other side of the river, on land that could have easily been Egyptian, and halt any further expansion in that direction by Ramesses. As for Augustus, he had continued to expand well throughout this phase, sending out settlers in every direction as Ramesses sat around. He ultimately claimed the vast majority of the land east of his and Ramesses's positions; he further teched Pottery nice and early, which combined with a gems resource at his capital to keep his economy afloat throughout this phase. Once he could hack down all the jungle around his southern cities, he'd have an empire full of juicy grassland and floodplains tiles to power a very strong economy. He had clearly done a much better job at the landgrab than his Egyptian neighbor. Ramesses also dropped the ball with regard to the barbarians, as three barb cities had spawned on the east coast; despite having access to War Chariots, Ramesses failed to take any of them! Augustus took two of them easily after unlocking Praetorians, while Frederick managed to capture the third, thus keeping Ramesses off the east coast entirely despite having started with nobody in that direction.
There was more, though. Not only had Ramesses expanded poorly, he'd also not built much on his cultural attempt after his roaring start. He had won the race to Theology to secure a third Holy City, but he hadn't been able to bolster his bid with wonders; he eventually built the Great Lighthouse, but his rivals took all of the other ancient ones. He also ended with a final city count of eight - one short of having enough to build three cathedrals for each religion, one for each cultural city. While his culture was still dominant over that of his neighbors and his strong start kept him as a threat to sneak out the win by that route later, it was hardly a guarantee, and he was fast falling out of contention for the other victory types: while he was very strong on the demographics in GNP and culture come Turn 100, he was one of the weakest civs in the game in the other categories. Instead, it was Augustus who was topping those charts; he ultimately was able to peacefully expand to a very strong twelve cities, and barring a snowball from somebody else, he was in excellent position to advance to the Championship.
However, the score leader after 100 turns was Justinian. He was the closest leader to Augustus in total city count... but his overall position was a lot more shaky. His land wasn't as strong as Augustus's, he didn't have quite as much of it, and unlike Augustus, he had failed to balance expansion with development, crashing his economy for a time. While he was in the process of building it back, this did set him behind in early technology, and it was unclear if he'd be able to catch back up again. He was at least in a better position than Brennus, though, who had nearly as poor of technology and about 60% of his city count. There was no repeat of his strong Wildcard opening here; this was the more familiar Brennus, starting too slow economically to ever be really competitive. Meanwhile, the two central leaders were in fairly average positions and would need some luck to squeeze ahead. Frederick and Gandhi both ended up with seven cities (plus that eastern barb city for Fred), enough to keep them in the hunt if things swung their way but not enough to vie for a top-two position on their own. Fred's early tech lead was dwindling as the other leaders developed their economies and his double gold lost its importance, but Gandhi had done an impressive job of resurrecting his economy, and by Turn 100 was actually not far behind Fred in tech at all. He had also managed a major coup by using a single random warrior to capture a critically-placed barbarian city after others had redlined the defenses. Vandal had appeared in the space between him, Justinian, and Brennus, in a spot that had been identified as very important for Justinian to be able to break out of his starting peninsula. With Gandhi capturing it instead, Justinian was kept from expanding as much as Augustus, and the extra quality city went a long way in keeping the Indian civ viable. This was one of those major swings in the game that ultimately come down to random factors, but would prove to be a critical moment in the game.
On the diplomatic front, Ramesses's Buddhism had spread to Augustus and Gandhi, forming an ironclad bond between the three leaders and making Ramesses's position much safer; he had good odds of being able to ignore his civ's weakness and just focus on culture, which was what he needed to have a shot here. Meanwhile, with his two neighbors as close friends, it appeared that Augustus wouldn't be leveraging his stronger civ much on the battlefield. Justinian had experienced much worse luck with religious spread, seeing nobody adopt Christianity. He was a lone wolf now, and would need to quickly execute some effective conquests on his own to have any hope of competing for the win. The surprising leader of the third religious bloc was Frederick, who had founded Hinduism at Code of Laws and seen it spread to Brennus immediately. Given the massive peaceweight gap between the two, this left Frederick without any close friends, and thus a free agent in the diplomatic landscape. At least for a while: he was still Pleased towards Ramesses at -2 relations, and it wouldn't take much for him to bond with the other eastern leaders permanently! He would have to act soon to shake things up over here, and given that we were dealing with Frederick here, that wasn't terribly likely.
The first war of the game came when Brennus launched an attack on Justinian, which came as a deathknell for the Celtic leader's chances: his best chance at making something with this game had been to ally with Justin, but without any bonds from shared religious faith, even the only two lower peaceweights on the map weren't particularly inclined to be friendly with each other! This move thus soured relations with the most likely ally he'd had, and to make matters worse, he made another huge strategic misstep shortly thereafter. The actual fighting was inconclusive, lots of units traded in the jungle belt between the two nations, but when they went to sign peace after about twenty turns of such fighting, Brennus evidently felt that he was doing poorly, as he handed over a city for the peace treaty! While getting out of the war was good, this move set him back to just five cities, now the clear runt of the map, and the war thus ended up slightly benefiting Justinian, who got an extra city at low cost.
Meanwhile, over to the east, Ramesses found that he now had stiff competition in the cultural race. Gandhi's economy had recovered completely from its slow start, and he was building classical era wonders like a man possessed. It was Gandhi, not Ramesses, who was first to research up the Aesthetics line to Music, claiming the free Great Artist and building all of the wonders there (except the all-important Sistine Chapel, which remained unbuilt for now), and it was Gandhi and later Augustus, not Ramesses, who reached Philosophy and Divine Right first and founded the religions there. Gandhi's overall position had become surprisingly competitive and a cultural victory for him was starting to look like a real possibility. Ramesses himself had largely stagnated, clearly a second-rate AI in most respects. He had built only four or five wonders in the entire game and it was now very much in question if he'd done enough to be competitive for a culture win himself; his biggest advantage at this point was the fact that he was still totally safe from being attacked by his neighbors. Augustus was developing his many cities, surging ahead in score and starting to clean up medieval techs at a rapid rate; he was by now the runaway favorite if nobody else won by culture. Frederick was the least notable leader at this point, falling behind in score, losing his tech lead, and having done nothing of importance with it.
As mentioned, Brennus and Justinian had signed peace after only about twenty turns of fighting, and it didn't take long after that for the game to swing in a new direction. Brennus almost immediately declared war again - on Gandhi! Gandhi's adoption of Buddhism, high peaceweight, and central position had painted a giant target on his back for the western leaders, and it wasn't long before Justinian too was plotting, then attacking Gandhi to make it a dogpile. While his first attack stack lacked catapults and was brutally slaughtered, he was soon putting serious pressure on India, whose overall position had suddenly become much worse. Gandhi defended ably against early attacks, following up his initial defense against Justinian by killing a stack from Brennus, then from Justinian again, then from Brennus again. But he was having to deal with constant incursions from sizable stacks, and while Brennus was a weakling, Justinian was far more of a threat, with eleven total cities to Gandhi's seven. Gandhi was doing quite well in these unfavorable circumstances, but the deck was stacked against him, and his garrisons were soon dwindling. Finally, after successfully killing off five enemy stacks, it became too much for him, as Justinian captured the ex-barb city of Vandal on his western border. This major blow seemed to confirm that Gandhi would be the first to die.
Except... Justinian decided to sign peace just a few turns later - and HANDED VANDAL BACK!!! 
What in the world? He had double Gandhi's cities and was on the right side of a 2v1 - why would he do this? We didn't know, but this move doomed Justinian's chances to win the game, although his large size made him still a contender for second place. It also salvaged Gandhi's game right when it had been about to fall completely apart; one has to imagine that he would have already been irreparably damaged had he not captured Vandal earlier, but the city did buy him some needed time, and with Justinian out of the war, he was able to stabilize against Brennus. Soon there were Indian attackers in Celtic territory; while the 2v1 had ended Gandhi's chances of winning the game, he was at least still alive and kicking. Meanwhile, Frederick was sitting inertly in the north of the map, in third place on the scoreboard but doing nothing to advance his position. He'd started plotting war at one point, only to cancel his plans; right now his role instead seemed to be to potentially play spoiler, as he managed to build the Sistine Chapel and deny it to Ramesses. Ramesses was at least able to secure the Liberalism prize, for what that was worth, but while he was doing that, Augustus beelined a very early Democracy and set about building the Taj Mahal and Statue of Liberty - very valuable wonders given his large number of cities. He was accelerating further and further ahead.
Justinian did not sit idly by after signing peace with Gandhi. Instead, he went for Guilds tech to unlock his cataphracts, and then almost immediately declared war on Brennus, reviving their old conflict. This broke Brennus's back; he'd already spent tons of military strength in all of his failed attacks on Gandhi, thoroughly exhausted. Add in a giant army of cataphracts coming in against him, and he had no chance. His few cities now swiftly fell, and while Gandhi's persistence was rewarded as he got the chance to take two cities (one of which would eventually flip to Frederick), it was Justinian who took his coastal holdings and scored the kill credit. This was a poor game all around from Brennus, who started slow and didn't have the skill to rebound. His position was unfavorable and didn't leave him with much of an option for this game except for allying with Justinian; unfortunately, it was Frederick's Hinduism that instead spread to him and sealed his fate. In the wake of his demise, Justinian was in a clear second-place position, but just as clearly had no hope of catching Augustus, who was about an era ahead in tech. He had decent odds of moving on to the Championship behind Augustus, but only if the Roman leader - who liked everybody left on the map except for Justinian - didn't attack him. If he did, then it would open the door for somebody else to backdoor second place.
A brief interlude of peace followed. After Justinian and Augustus, the other three leaders were all very close on the scoreboard, all at roughly similar levels of performance. Justinian was far ahead of all of them on most of the bar graphs... but not in GNP, as he still had the worst tech rate of any leader on the map. Perhaps realizing that he needed to make the most of his advantage before it was too late, he soon was plotting war again, and shortly thereafter attacked Gandhi a second time. This time Justin had a stack about 80 strong, full of cataphracts, and Gandhi had no answers; he was well into the Renaissance era in tech, but had predictably ignored Rifling, and while he was soon fielding grenadiers, they were not enough to turn the tide. His lone Celtic conquest of Vienne soon fell, followed by Vandal again, and Gandhi did not appear to be long for this world. Until the miracle happened:
Augustus came riding in to save the day! This was VERY bad news for Justinian. Augustus had a fresh army that had never fought since the days of the barbarians, and while Justinian was still trying to pick up Rifling, Augustus had just unlocked INFANTRY and popped a very well-timed golden age. The game was now transformed, as Justinian would clearly not last long in second place. The race was now on: who would backdoor a spot in the championship? Frederick bordered Justinian and could hope to grab some cities culturally. Gandhi had been battered, but since he was still at war, he had the chance to vulture the needed cities himself. Ramesses wasn't going to gain ground on the battlefield, but he had turned on the culture slider, so he would be gaining points as his borders encroached on those of Augustus and Frederick. (A victory was out of the question, though; even at 100% culture, his CLOSEST city wasn't due to go Legendary until after Turn 400. Despite his strong cultural start, Ramesses had been utterly unable to keep it going. It was even Gandhi, not Ramesses, who was showing as the closest to a Cultural victory on the F8 screen!)
It took a couple of turns for Augustus to march his main stack over, but soon enough it met Justin's large cataphract stack in Indian territory - and then there was no more cataphract stack. Gandhi was instantly out of danger, signing peace with Justinian shortly thereafter, and the rout was on. Justin had no answer to Augustus's large stacks of infantry, cavalry, and soon tanks, and soon the Roman army was rampaging through his lands, taking each city after no more than one or two turns of siege. To add insult to injury, all three other leaders ended up declaring war on Justinian as well, underscoring his hopeless diplomatic position. That hardly mattered, though, as none of them were able to grab so much as a single city! Augustus was there first and was too strong, taking everything for himself, save for Vandal which was liberated back to Gandhi. He even took three cities in the same turn at one point, and a handful of turns later, on Turn 276, it was all over.
Justinian has repeatedly proven himself in the past to be one of the competition's best leaders, but it wasn't on display in this game. The large amount of land available to him here seemed to end up as a curse, causing him to crash his economy in the expansion phase and never quite be able to recover from that; while that same territorial edge did prop him up later in the game, this still had been enough to rule out a win. I think this was also a poor field of leaders for Justin to prosper in; part of what makes him so good is that he's one of the best warmongers from an economic standpoint, but in this field of peaceful leaders who could just sit back and tech, Justinian didn't have the chance to pull ahead or even keep up in tech. Still, he did conquer one rival and was on the road to easily conquering a second; even as a second-rate leader, he proved himself to be quite dangerous, and with one or two warmongers in the east (say, in Augustus's position), the outlook here could have been much different. Possibly he could have even changed his fortunes by not ridiculously giving Vandal back to Gandhi, although I think by that point Augustus was already too far ahead, and that move saved Gandhi more than it doomed Justinian. In any case, Justinian at least finally made the playoffs again for the first time in years, and that was a step in the right direction. Maybe next season he'll finally be able to put it all together again.
Two things were now very clear: Augustus was going to win the game, and no more fighting was going to happen, as this entire group was Pleased or Friendly towards each other. The big question now was: who would come in second place? Frederick had been in the pole position for a while, but after researching Steel and Assembly Line, he started plunging his cities into unhealthiness-fueled starvation, and his score dropped like a boulder. That put Gandhi in the slight lead on the heels of Justinian's exit; he and Fred would also be advancing in tech, compared to Ramesses gaining more land via the culture slider. Could Gandhi hold onto his lead? Could Frederick jump back into contention once he researched health-granting techs? Or would Ramesses's slider gambit gain him a spot in the championship, even if it couldn't give him the win?
As we moved closer to the win, Ramesses dropped out of contention. His meager cultural gains were not nearly enough to offset the lack of new techs; he flipped no cities, and fell several hundred points behind both Fred and Gandhi. He really had messed this game up in just about every way possible. It thus was a very tight two-leader race. Fred was able to regrow his cities and rebuild his score, and some freed-up space around ex-Byzantine territory, plus a city he founded on the border with India, helped drive it up some more, putting him back in second place. While Augustus had secured most of the modern wonders easily, he'd ignored Mass Media tech, and Gandhi took advantage, building Hollywood and the United Nations to boost his own score further and putting the two leaders within fifty points of each other. The United Nations also opened up the prospect of a diplomatic victory, nominating Gandhi against Augustus; Caesar enjoyed the support of both Fred and Ramesses, and apparently decided that he was ready to have this game over with, because after being elected Secretary-General, he surprisingly called a victory vote on the very first ballot! And the results were conclusive:
Augustus wins in a landslide! And look at the scoreboard for second place! Two turns before the victory, Frederick had been ahead by about 30 points. The next turn, Gandhi finished researching Rocketry, jumping up by 60 points to himself be ahead by 30... and he held on in the final interturn! Fred was just one turn from finishing Flight and probably jumping right back ahead, but instead it will be Gandhi moving on to the championship. And Gandhi definitely deserved it more! Frederick did absolutely nothing the entire game, just sitting back on his initial set of cities and strong early economy and never leveraging what he had in any way, shape, or form. It was a typically unimpressive Fred game, and I think a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief when he missed the finale. In direct contrast, Gandhi had been through a lot of hardship in this game, but persevered through it all and fought his way back into contention. He'd had to deal with an extremely commerce-poor start, losing the race to two straight religions to start with, and getting attacked three separate times, including twice by a rival with far more cities. But he did an excellent job of resurrecting his economy, and defended well enough against the early wars to make it out unscathed and even capture a city from Brennus - one that would later help buy him enough time to be bailed out and move on. Gandhi had also encountered a lot of lucky breaks, to be sure: capturing the city of Vandal with a random warrior, getting it back for free when Justin decided to switch sides instead of finishing him off, and then, when his fate was otherwise sealed, having Augustus finally enter the conflict and save his hide. I suspect that the alternate histories will show that this was yet another game where Gandhi was lucky to advance. Still, he did, and at least in this replay, it was well-earned. Gandhi is thus finally going to make his first appearance in the Championship after five failed attempts in the playoffs! Will he be able to culture his way to the overall crown, or will the Financial threats of Mansa Musa and Elizabeth prove too much to overcome?
He certainly did more to earn this position than Ramesses had. Ramesses's game here went as if a novice human player was trying for a cultural victory from the start. He beelined DOUBLE religions out of the gate, delayed his internal development in the process, forgot to settle enough cities despite having a ton of available space, chose an odd tech path that didn't help his victory, failed to prioritize wonders properly, only ending up with a handful despite the Industrious trait, built his cathedrals in random cities instead of stacking them in his three Legendary cities, and then did a Hail Mary move by turning on the slider when he was far, far away from actually winning. It was an extraordinarily sloppy game that left him without any hope. Keep in mind that Ramesses had a ton of space nearby, had two shrines by Turn 75, and was never in any danger of coming under attack for the entire game - he should have taken the Cultural victory in a cakewalk, or at least been a strong contender for second place! Instead, he was the clear runt in the final four, and his exit from the season at this juncture is well-deserved. It was one of the most embarassing Cultural attempts we've ever seen.
As for our winner, Augustus didn't play an especially impressive game here - he just played competently, and that combined with his favorable position was enough for him to coast to victory easily. While I think his starting position was good in any case, Ramesses' poor expansion was the really critical factor here, allowing Augustus to take more than his fair share of land and become a monster without having to fight anybody. From there he just avoided making any big mistakes; he did conquer Justinian later, of course, and that certainly didn't hurt him, but he was well on the way to winning in any case. It was the total opposite of his opener, where he'd had a slow start and had to fight his way into a winning position; this one was more like his stronger performances in past seasons, also games where he was sheltered and able to peacefully expand to a large size. While no top leader, he's clearly capable of getting it done from a good start, and so is now moving on to his first Championship. Will he go aggressive with his Praetorians to counter his opposition's superior economic skills, or will he simply be left in the dust?
The picking contest saw a four-way tie for first place from this game; nobody guessed the Augustus first-Gandhi second-Brennus FTD combination correctly, but Cyneheard, jukesey, haphazard1, and Powerfaker were all able to rack up 23 points regardless. In the fantasy contest, this game was a critical one that finally ended some coaches' seasons. Last season's champion Amicalola is completely done and already tied for last place with just 14 points, while jdpElGrillo also lost his last leader in Brennus, for a final total of 20 points. Gandhi's runner-up finish put Kjotleik in a fragile lead with 22 points; antisocialmunkey is just two points behind and has both Mansa Musa and Pericles still alive. Eauxps, Henrik, and j_mie6 are also within striking distance with 17 points, and all have at least one leader in the final playoff game; who wins next week will determine who sits in the lead entering the Championship game. Tune in Friday to find out if we indeed get a field of six high peaceweight leaders in the finale, or if Mehmed or Qin Shi Huang manages to sneak in!
