This is a continuing feature for Season Eight 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, newly custom made for this season by Cuthraxys! 
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 (note that all stats are from before the start of Season Eight):
Mansa Musa of Mali
Traits: Financial, Spiritual
Starting Techs: Mining, Wheel
Peace Weight: 9
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: Season Six champion, two Championship losses, one playoff round elimination, three opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 8 First Places 
Total Kills: 8 
Overall Power Ranking: 48 points, 2nd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Mansa Moneybags is the best AI leader in the game when it comes to pure economy and it's not a close comparison. He is an absolute fiend when it comes to research, even under our settings where Mansa's well known propensity to engage in tech trading gets disabled. Mansa Musa benefits from an amazing pair of economic traits, Financial for endless cottage cheese and Spiritual to avoid ever wasting turns with the AI's frequent civics shifts. The Malinese civ has an excellent unique unit in the Skirmisher and a passable unique building in the Mint. The biggest downside here comes from the poor starting techs, and if Mansa chooses to chase after an early religion, he can lock himself out of connecting early food bonuses for quite some time. On that note, Mansa has a surprisingly heavy religious preference including a lesser Religion tech preference paired along with his dominant Gold flavor. He's one of the most likely leaders to found a religion despite not starting with Mysticism tech. Mansa's strategy otherwise tends to be predictable: blanket the landscape in cottages and tech like a banshee. He's extraordinarily good at doing this even on a limited number of cities; we've repeatedly seen a Malinese empire with five cities still leading the pack in tech. If Mansa ever manages to amass a large amount of territory, may god have mercy on your soul, because he will plot war at "Pleased" and isn't afraid to lay the smack down despite his 1.6/10 aggression rating. Mansa Musa is always a dangerous opponent and will usually win the game if he doesn't get roughed up by his neighbors.
Past Performance: Mansa is widely recognized as the premier economic leader in this competition, and his overall prowess and achievements are only rivaled by those of Huayna Capac. Aside from Huayna, no other leader has won more than half of the games Mansa has! Mansa was especially strong in the early seasons of AI Survivor before the free Deity starting techs were removed, making the playoffs in three straight seasons and reaching the Championship twice. He was denied a full victory in these seasons, however, thanks to playoff fields full of low peaceweight leaders who wanted a piece of him, and most recent seasons have seen him get attacked too early in the opening round to really get going and open up the tech leads he relies on. The removal of the free techs seems to have hurt him a fair amount, making it much harder for him to survive these early assaults - but Season Six showed that he's still dangerous if he makes it through the early game, as he performed a full season sweep with three economically dominant victories to finally claim a title. While he's been roughed up quite a bit lately, Mansa still very much fills the "ticking time bomb" role, and nobody else can technologically torch the competition quite like he can.
Elizabeth of England
Traits: Financial, Philosophical
Starting Techs: Fishing, Mining
Peace Weight: 9
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: One Championship loss, six opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 2 Second Places 
Total Kills: 3
Overall Power Ranking: 7 points, tied 42nd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Elizabeth is an easy AI personality to understand, a pacifistic economic leader who will always seek out some kind of non-military victory condition. Elizabeth has one of the best trait combinations for teching in the Financial/Philosophical pairing, and while it's true that there's some anti-synergy there between running cottages and running specialists, there's little doubt that this setup will output a lot of beakers. If Elizabeth ends up getting a solid portion of the map under her control, she's one of the toughest leaders in the game to stop. She ranks no better than a mediocre leader for AI Survivor purposes precisely because this happens so rarely; Elizabeth has an exceedingly low aggression rating (1.9/10) and a low build unit preference (2/10). Surprisingly, she will indeed plot war at "Pleased" relations, but in most games you're more likely to see someone else invading England as Elizabeth frantically researches everything except the military technology which would save her. Elizabeth's Gold and Culture research preferences often cause her to ignore the Redcoats that she desperately needs for safety. In summary, Elizabeth performs far better in games with other high peace weight leaders where she's left alone to build in peace. She's a better version of Frederick and a weaker version of Mansa Musa.
Past Performance: Elizabeth looked like a top leader in Season One, where she made the Championship while consistently being a top techer in her games, even though she didn't actually win any of them. She was still credible for the next couple of seasons as well, starting strong in Season Two only to lose to a two-front war, then coming extremely close to winning her Season Three opener via culture. However, that game ended with Julius Caesar conquering one of her Legendary cities just five turns away from her win, and that seems to have broken her spirit in this competition. Since then, each season has featured her getting off to a slow start, usually with poor expansion, before inevitably getting picked off before the end of the game. She hasn't survived a match since Season One and has only scored a single point in that time. It is worth noting that she hasn't received great starting positions in these games, usually getting rather hostile draws that force her into conflict and don't give her a good chance to get her economy going. When left alone, she can be a legitimate threat, but she's also shown serious weakness in both expansion and combat, and that's resulted in a poor overall showing.
Augustus of Rome
Traits: Imperialistic, Industrious
Starting Techs: Fishing, Mining
Peace Weight: 8
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: Three playoff round eliminations, one wildcard elimination, three opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 1 First Place, 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 1
Overall Power Ranking: 10 points, tied 33rd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Augustus is one of the less noteworthy AIs in the game. His traits are Imperialistic and Industrious, which is a combination seriously lacking in synergy: Imperialistic wants you to get out there and claim the map, while Industrious wants to build wonders instead of settlers. He also gets the uber-swordsmen in praetorians and the less powerful forum, though the increased great people points do synergise with Industrious wonders. Lastly, Augustus starts with Fishing and Mining, a generally poor pair unless he starts on the coast. Augustus has a personality full of synergies and anti-synergies. To start with his synergies, the most notable thing about the Roman Emperor is his love of wonders (8/10), which works well with Industrious. He also gets the forum, which isn't fantastic but does allow him to generate more great people with those wonders. Lastly, his low aggression rating (4.6/10) means he is generally in a position where tying up his cities on large projects isn't a total disaster. However, because of that low aggression rating, Augustus typically doesn't make use of the biggest reason to play the Romans: Praetorians. Sure, they can stabilise a defence if he's attacked early, but Augustus is pretty unlikely to go on the offensive. He tends to ignore the Imperialistic half of his trait combination, and Augustus is unlikely to claim the lion's share on the map. Other than that, Augustus' numbers are in about the middle of the scale, and he has production and military flavours. He's a generally run-of-the-mill AI with a particular penchant for wonders. Augustus has a strong and mediocre trait, and a strong and mediocre unique item. Unfortunately, he focuses on the wrong half of both.
Past Performance: Augustus has had more success at reaching the playoffs than many high peaceweight leaders, but his overall performance still hasn't been very impressive. Two of his three "placing" games, including his only win, were the result of very favorable setups where he got an isolated start and the chance to peacefully expand to a large size, then enter the global stage at a time of his choosing. While he was competent enough to not screw up these opportunities, the fact that he scored only a single kill between those two games speaks for itself. His first-ever game did see him successfully use his Praetorians to stave off multiple early assaults until an ally came to help, but there he similarly couldn't actually finish off any opponents on his own. Augustus has accomplished little of note in his other appearances; basically, he has the potential to capitalize on a favorable start, but otherwise will probably not be very important.
Gandhi of India
Traits: Spiritual, Philosophical
Starting Techs: Mysticism, Mining
Peace Weight: 10
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: Five playoff round eliminations, one wildcard elimination, one opening round elimination
Total Medals: 4 First Places, 1 Second Place
Total Kills: 3
Overall Power Ranking: 25 points, tied 12th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Gandhi is without a doubt one of the most unique leaders in Civ4. For traits, he plays with the powerful Spiritual, and the terrible (for AI Survivor) Philosophical, an overall unremarkable pair that lands at about average, the most important point being that Gandhi gets several half-cost cultural buildings. He also has access to the above average Fast Worker and Mausoleum. Lastly, his starting techs are Mysticism and Mining, a generally weak pair useful for pursuing an early religion and not much else; like many religious leaders, Gandhi often takes a long time to improve his tiles and connect his resources. Gandhi is the leader least likely to declare war in the entire game, with an aggression rating of 0/10. He also has the lowest possible rating for building units (0/10) and demanding tribute (0/10), essentially making Gandhi a hyper pacifist who entirely neglects his military and prays it won't come back to bite him in the rear. Surprisingly, Gandhi is also quite unlikely to build wonders (2/10); he doesn't waste time with those either. Rather than units and wonders, Gandhi spends the entire game laser-focused on one thing: cultural buildings. Gandhi is a rare leader with only one flavour in Civ 4: CULTURE. He pursues religions like a man possessed and puts his production bonuses to extremely effective use. It's not uncommon to see Gandhi desperately fighting wars of survival whilst simultaneously building his third or fourth temple in each city. It usually doesn't end well. Gandhi is probably the most feast-or-famine type leader in AI Survivor. If he is not attacked by his neighbours, he can rush out a cultural victory like nobody's business, but if he is, he collapses faster than any other leader in the game. An early war declaration from a neighbour can often ruin any chance of a Gandhi victory on the spot.
Past Performance: Gandhi has long enjoyed a position as a seeded leader thanks to consistent success in the opening round - he's one of only five leaders to have made the playoffs in five separate seasons, and his only opening round elimination took place in the very first season. He also won his opening round game for an impressive four consecutive seasons, all in games that followed similar patterns: he was allowed to culture in peace for long periods of time until becoming unstoppable. On the other hand, things haven't been so rosy in the playoffs, where he routinely finds himself up against fields full of warmongers who want him off the map ASAP. Only one of Gandhi's five playoff games gave him a position that he really had a fair chance to win, and he wasn't able to deliver in that single game. More doubt has been cast on his true skill in recent years, too, as alternate histories suggest that his successes have been somewhat lucky, and in his Season Seven opener, he threw away an easy victory by inexplicably attacking and crippling his religious ally early in the game. But while he might not be quite the unstoppable juggernaut that his opening round stats suggest, he clearly has something figured out, and it bears remembering that if left alone to pursue his cultural gameplan in peace, he is extremely likely to win the game.
Churchill of England
Traits: Charismatic, Protective
Starting Techs: Fishing, Mining
Peace Weight: 6
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: Season 6 runner-up, one additional Championship loss, one wildcard elimination, four opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 1 First Place, 4 Second Places
Total Kills: 3
Overall Power Ranking: 16 points, tied 25th 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 was just another nobody with zero accomplishments to his name, until he made everybody sit up and take notice in the past two seasons. His Season Six opener saw him shockingly win against an entirely low-peaceweight field, thanks to a fantastic starting position and the fact that nobody attacked him early on. He then followed this up with a streak of four consecutive second-place finishes across two seasons, including scoring both kills of the Season Six Championship! Now, to be fair, it took him five seasons of failure to reach this point, alternate histories have indicated that multiple of these results were rather unlikely, and Churchill hasn't actually come close to winning a second game; he's proven quite weak in the early game in particular. But he's proven to be quite dangerous in the later game, if left alone until that point, and if the map looks favorable, he should absolutely be kept in mind as a candidate for Second Place.
Qin Shi Huang
Traits: Industrious, Protective
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Mining
Peace Weight: 2
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: Three playoff round eliminations, four opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 3 Second Places
Total Kills: 3
Overall Power Ranking: 9 points, tied 36th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Qin Shi Huang has the unfortunate penalty of being saddled with the worst trait combination in Civ4 for AI Survivor purposes. The Industrious trait seems to cause the AI leaders to tie up their cities on wonders in lieu of expanding out across the map, while the Protective trait is well-known for being the weakest of the bunch. Defensive promotions and cheaper walls can help string out a losing game but won't do much of anything to help win a game. Qin's saving grace is the Chinese civilization, with its amazing starting tech combination and powerful Cho-Ko-Nu unique unit. The extra promotions on this unit are about the only useful thing that Qin gets from his traits. Qin's AI personality is mostly that of a peaceful builder, as he has a low aggression rating (3.9/10) and a fairly high wonder emphasis (6/10). Qin generally won't pick a lot of fights as he doesn't make a lot of demands and he has a low train unit emphasis (2/10). This economic setup is oddly paired with a low peace weight and the ability to plot war at "Pleased" relations. This is likely the reason why Qin has outperformed his terrible trait combination, as low peace weight leaders who can successfully pull off economic development tend to be some of the strongest competitors in AI Survivor. It's too bad for Qin that he doesn't get more useful traits to pair with his otherwise promising setup.
Past Performance: Qin was a mediocre leader even at his peak in Season One, and has never truly risen to greatness. He's turned in middle-of-the-road performances most of the time, not playing really disastrously or sinking his own game (except once, when he overexpanded from a poor start and dramatically crashed his economy), but also never enjoying any great successes. He's managed to complete a few joint conquests to build into decent positions, but that's it - none of his games have seen him really pull out in front or become a dominant leader. Probably his best showing was one of his most recent, in his Season Seven opener, where he took the majority of cities from an early dogpile and rode that and a strong start to the tech lead at the end of the game. Even then, though, his overall position was about even with two other leaders, and he ultimately finished in Second Place. Qin's low peaceweight has perhaps been his biggest asset, helping him to hang around and secure some Second Place finishes that he otherwise would not have gotten. Don't be surprised if he manages to slip through, but don't expect him to be one of the big movers in his games either.
Here's what the community was thinking based on the prediction contest before the game took place:
There was a clear favorite in the picking contest as close to half of the entrants chose Mansa Musa to become the first two-time champion. Seeing as how Mansa had taken over the all-time top scoring spot from Huanya Capac this season, it was hard to argue against their logic. Gandhi and Elizabeth also had some support in this category while virtually no one expected Qin or Churchill to claim the victory. The Runner Up category was the most closely divided with Augustus in a narrow lead over Elizabeth and Mansa Musa. As usual, this was proving to be the toughest category to predict. The overwhelming consensus was that Qin would be the first to die with almost three-quarters of the votes, and then the victory condition was a nearly-even split between Culture and Spaceship. This did not appear to be a Domination map based on all of the high peace weight individuals involved and I think the 2.5% of the vote going to that condition is the lowest we've ever had for Domination.
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!
danjuno: Mansa Musa reclined as he saw that the spaceship was two turns from Alpha Centari. Truly, this was a Double Championship well earned. 19 years of being mocked by the player base as a tech whore. 19 Years of being stomped on by bullies like Alexander and Montezuma. But none of it mattered. Not now. Now, no one could ever criticize him again, for truly he was the best leader in the best Civ game, a truth that would ring through all of eternity. "Ghandi wins a Cultural Victory!" The only thing Mansa heard over his own wails of agony as he curled into the fetal position was the maniacal cackling of Elizabeth, followed by "Oi, how's it feel ya bastard?"
ZincAlloy: Nothing makes sense any more, I'm predicting a diplo victory where nobody dies.
Vader_555: Elizabeth and Mansa will get the same religion thus not going to war and as a result one will get first and the other will get second. Meanwhile the rest of the world will be chaos, as Gandhi will get killed by barbarians and the others will fight because of Qin. This is all speculative of course
LinkMarioSamus: Mansa has a weak neighbor in Qin who will likely be dogpile bait - how Mansa chooses to handle this opportunity is his choice alone, and I think both building up and joining a dogpile early (assuming Augustus starts the war) are viable choices. Elizabeth I think is likely to not only fall behind early, I think there's a non-trivial chance she clashes with Gandhi over border and possible religious tension given she plots war at Pleased, and that could bring them both down. I do however think every leader aside from Qin is a viable choice for second place behind Mansa, but I'm going with Churchill for the following reasons: he's furthest away from Mansa, he might be able to befriend his neighbors and sit out of conflict entirely (helps he's tied with Mansa and Augustus for most likely to build military of this group, while ALSO being less likely to build wonders than both of them) OR take advantage of a war between Elizabeth and Gandhi to dogpile the latter, and I just want him to finish 2nd the most. Flawless logic! Meanwhile Qin is FTD because he sucks and everyone will hate him.
AAAking117: I mean, no one expects diplo. But august won both games diplo so why not a third time.
NotSpamBot: The two guys from Playoff Game 3 aside this is a rather pure culture-off. So, peace and love right? Ha ha, no. The thing about culture techs is that they come with religions, and religions equals crusades. Because everyone here kind of suck at combat I expect these wars to be inconclusive and flare up repeatedly, driving up the war counter. The most conclusive war will probably be when everyone realises Qin shouldn't be in this game and kill him. Not fastly or competently, but they'll get there in the end. I expect Churchill to get second, because he is the best fighter here and he should get some results before someone else wins. Look, all is relative and compared to the rest of the field this doofus actually looks competent. Not competent enough to get first though. That will go to one of the economic/cultural powerhouses and none of them are better than Mansa Musa himself.
Smosism: In one of the weirdest seasons to date, it is only appropiate that we get one the weirdest results on the championship as well. Gandhi, AC and Churchill will share religions, after AC conquers Qin in The Great Dogpile of the feudal age, the please-locked neighbours will vote a stupid diplo win towards AC before Mansa can get his spaceship and gandhi his cultural victories. A win for ages!
muppet70: The Mansa engine will propel this land and slingshot his people into space and everyone else into a murky watery grave.
Sir Colville of the Dale: According to my calculations, every civ gets nine cities uncontested. And what is nine the magic number for? A Cultural victory. That makes it a two horse race between Mansa Musa and Gandhi. What will decide this two-horse race? Whether Elizabeth gets Hinduism or Islam. Because Gandhi has Mysticism, he has the advantage in that race. Elizabeth will spoil Mansa Musa's chances on her way to a not fast enough Spaceship but an easy second. Qin will get destroyed by Augustus and/or Churchill, in turn scoring their one highlight. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Gandhi has done it, beating four Pool One leaders to a First Championship.
Vesper: Too much land per natural AI Survivor game makes everyone free to expand peacefully to a really meaningful number of cities, and all but Qin having peace weight of 6 and above would tend to a decently peaceful buildfest. Thus, a cultural win is most likely here; with Gandhi being the strongest cultural player of the bunch. The score leader would be someone non-cultural, and with Mansa likely going for culture as well, Augustus would have chances due to being imperialistic, close to Qin and sporting Praets. Of course Qin FTD because of being PW pariah. Yet AIs do stupid things at times, and as I've seen a barb spook Ramesses into building a city on top of gold and thus breaking his back in P2, it'll be pretty random on who would fail expanding and who would take barb cities, on top of the usual randomness of religion spread. PS: I expect Sullla to take Mansa as #1 pick and DOOM him of the way.
delan: Gandhi to win it all in the season of the peaceniks. You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?
Bernn: All memes and jokes aside, Gandhi genuinely does look pretty great here. He's the only one with Mysticism to start and virtually guaranteed an early religion, and that plus this super peaceful field gives him carte blanche to just hunker down and go full culture ASAP. Will he face any pressure whatsoever? There's a good chance his neighbors stay Pleased-locked even with different religions, and he can probably rush out a culture victory before Mansa gets there himself. This really seems like a near perfect setup for India and I'm excited to see how they perform when they're given free reign. Gandhi struggling through the opening rounds before landing a victory in the championship would be the perfect finale to this oddball season too. This is gonna be a fun one.
Zigzagzone: "Third times' the charm", said Churchill, with a cigar hanging from his mouth. "You see, they fight over the religions and wonders. Split three ways, they can't win. Then, we'll swoop in and take back the colonies. They'll never see it coming"
BigBlueBen: OK, here me out. So Qin is going to die, right? Augustus is more likely than Mansa to be the one laying the smack-down so he has a ton of territory / pop even if he's a bit behind the FIN leaders in tech. Everyone (except Qin) loves each other. Someone builds the UN. Augustus has the pop lead so he's most likely to head the UN and win a diplo vote since he's clearly smart enough to call for one. No, I'm definitely not deliberately picking a low-prob outcome here to try to sneak back into the top-10 in the picking contest, don't be ridiculous...
Plains-Cow: I have selected Gandhi as my CHAMPION of this....uh, championship. However, I shall confess, the real runaway winner will be the first to settle and utilize the plains-cow tiles in the central-ish areas of the map. I also have selected "None" for FTD because I believe that, so long as everyone gets at least an equal amount of plains-cow tiles under their control, that peace can prevail. Of course, that all goes out the window if one AI gets an unequally large number of plains-cow tiles, or if they look with greedy eyes towards the plains-cows of their neighbors (looking at you, Qin). I can't wait to see what happens!
NotPlainsCow: Sullla, why not post your picks first so that I know what not to vote for?
Sicut: Since I'm not going to score high in the contest anyway, may as well go for a high risk high reward pick: Augustus 1st, Elizabeth 2nd, Qin FTD, diplomatic victory around turn 300. Certainly not the most likely outcome but I can see it happening and I assume I would be among only a handful of people to have picked it, so a similar result would improve my standing somewhat. It would also be a fitting outcome to finish this weird season.
Eauxps I. Fourgott: This season has been characterized by the high peaceweights running the table, often against the odds. In that light, it's only fitting that it should end with the highest peaceweight of all, who probably had something like 1% odds to advance to this point, managing to outdo two Financial leaders to take the overall title. He may not be the best leader in the competition, but if Gandhi pulls this off, he absolutely should be the new face of AI Survivor.
Rik M: It will be a quite peaceful game with all the high peace weight civs. Only Qin will stir the hornet's nest by declaring on Augustus. The Preatorians will bleed Qin and then Mansa will jump in carving a large section off of Qin giving Mansa way too much land for anyone to stop him cruising Mansa to Space. Sullla: I am so glad I stumbled on your streams by accident. For my timezone your games are at 18:00. I tend to be tired on friday afternoons and just sitting, watching and doing nothing difficult is the thing for me. Your streams provide this. Thanks. Kind regards, Rik Meleet
