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:
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 leader previews were written before the season began):
Alexander of the Greeks
Traits: Aggressive, Philosophical
Starting Techs: Fishing, Hunting
Peace Weight: 0
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: Four playoff round eliminations, three opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 2 First Places, 2 Second Places 
Total Kills: 11 
Overall Power Ranking: 25 points, tied 12th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Alex is another of the warmongers in Civ 4. He plays with the Aggressive and Philosophical traits, a weak pairing that doesn't offer much in the way of synergy or individual power. He also gets the phalanx, a powerful unit in the hands of a human but not especially useful in that of the AI (Alex will build plenty of spears anyway), and the Odeon, a nice happiness boost for the midgame. Lastly, Alex has a pair of average starting techs in Fishing and Hunting, and like all Fishing leaders is much stronger when he starts on the coast. With one of the highest aggression ratings in the game (8.6/10), a high unit build preference (8/10) and the military/growth flavour pairing, Alex is likely to go to war early and often. He's also one of the leaders with the "demonic evil" peace weight of 0, which makes any cooperation with the "good" leaders essentially impossible. Like the other warmongers though, Alex is so aggressive that if there aren't any good leaders around, he's pretty likely to just attack one of his buddies anyway. Other than the key aggressive stats, Alex is a pretty generic leader. He has middling numbers in just about everything else, including tribute demands (4/10) and wonder building (4/10), and he cares an average amount about religion too. Look for Alex to be one of the driving forces of this game. He can't get off the warpath until everyone else - or himself - is dead.
Past Performance: After a lackluster early career, Alex has emerged in recent seasons as one of the competition's most compelling leaders. For the first four seasons, he was just another failed warmonger, with some laughably bad performances and an "only leader to not get beat up" second place as his best finish. That all changed in Season Five, when he scored the earliest kill in AI Survivor history, a blazing fast Turn 80 conquest, en route to an amazing 4-kill Domination victory in just 253 turns! Alex followed this up with a strong second place finish in Season Six and another Domination win from a poor start in Season Seven, and this string of successful opening round outings has catapulted him into the ranks of the seeded leaders for the first time. While he's failed to accomplish anything of note in the playoffs so far, his recent record has proven that he's a dangerous leader indeed when he gets ahead, and one who bears watching closely.
Brennus of the Celts
Traits: Spiritual, Charismatic
Starting Techs: Hunting, Mysticism
Peace Weight: 0
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: Two playoff round eliminations, two wildcard eliminations, three opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 5
Overall Power Ranking: 9 points, tied 36th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Brennus gets the Charismatic and Spiritual traits, a middle-tier economic pairing. He gets the less decent Gallic Warrior and Dun unique items, both well below average, and starts with Hunting and Mysticism techs, one of the "religion-or-bust" combinations. Brennus is less suicidally aggressive than his female counterpart, with only a moderately high aggression rating (7/10). Other than that, his preferences are pretty similar, with a moderate unit build rating (6/10) and a low wonder build rating (2/10), and Brennus is also highly unlikely to demand tribute (1/10). The other noteworthy difference between the two are their flavours, with Brennus' being military and religion. The male Celtic leader is far more likely to actually use his Mysticism start and research a religion out of the gate. He also cares a lot more about religion, with a high bonus and malus for sharing or not sharing faith with his neighbours. Brennus is basically one of the moderately aggressive, religious AIs, with an extremely low peace weight to boot (0/10).
Past Performance: Brennus has proved himself both one of the lesser and one of the least interesting of the low peaceweight leaders. He's typically ended up in fairly aggressive fields of leaders, and started games off well enough with full or partial conquests, only to see somebody else do it better, grow bigger than him, and usually fight and defeat him later in the game. He's never actually taken the lead himself or become a key player, and his best results were a pair of distant second-place finishes in the first two seasons. There's really not much else to say about this guy; he's a decent but second-rate conqueror whose time to shine has yet to come.
Cyrus of Persia
Traits: Charismatic, Imperialistic
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Hunting
Peace Weight: 3
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: Season 2 runner-up, one additional Championship loss, one playoff round elimination, four opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 1 First Place, 5 Second Places
Total Kills: 9
Overall Power Ranking: 24 points, tied 16th 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: Cyrus's AI Survivor career got off to a promising start: after a decent Season One performance that got him a playoff spot, he had a fantastic Season Two, putting out three strong performances and falling just seven turns short of being the champion! He's had a considerably rougher time since then, though, dying in the opening round in four of the past five seasons. He temporarily held onto his spot as a seeded leader in Season Six, his best season in years where he returned to the Championship off a pair of Second Place finishes, but he finished the final game in a distant third, and a failed attempt to bump off the game leader in his Season Seven opener resulted in him losing his seeded position for the first time. Don't be fooled by his rocky history or the solitary win, though - while he's had a tough time finding lasting success, Cyrus is almost always a major player in his games, and it's very rare for him to simply be an irrelevant also-ran.
De Gaulle of France
Traits: Charismatic, Industrious
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Wheel
Peace Weight: 0
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: Two playoff round eliminations, five opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 1 First Place, 1 Second Place
Total Kills: 4
Overall Power Ranking: 11 points, tied 30th 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 has a pretty unremarkable track record and is rarely one of the more interesting figures in his matches. He was infamous for his terrible ranking in the competition's early days, thanks to suffering very early exits in the first two seasons, but overall his performance hasn't been notably bad - just mediocre, such that two or three other leaders are usually doing better in any given game. He had a single strong performance leading to a win in his Season Three opener, but his subsequent outings have proven that this was simply the game where everything lined up right, and his only other playoff appearance came from an "everyone else is dead" second-place finish. With no particular strength or strategy he likes to follow, De Gaulle is unlikely to play a notable role in most games.
Suryavarman of the Khmer
Traits: Creative, Expansive
Starting Techs: Hunting, Mining
Peace Weight: 1
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: One Championship loss, four playoff round eliminations, one wildcard elimination, one opening round elimination
Total Medals: 3 First Places, 3 Second Places
Total Kills: 11
Overall Power Ranking: 32 points, tied 8th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Suryavarman has a lot of power packed into his kit even if it sometimes seems to be pulling in six different directions at once. He has the quintessential early game trait pairing of Creative and Expansive, two traits that help to drive expansion and to claim land quickly. This was a popular trait pairing for a long time in unmodded Civ4 Multiplayer games, often chosen ahead of Financial leaders to get off to a roaring start. Suryavarman's Khmer civ is a bit weaker, with decent starting techs and adequate unique features in the Ballista Elephant and Baray without having anything of game-breaking strength. As far as Suryavarman's AI personality goes, he has a surprisingly aggressive setup for someone with good economic traits. Suryavarman has a high aggression rating (7.6/10), a very low peace weight, and a fairly high emphasis on training units (6/10). However, Suryavarman also positively loves building wonders (8/10), an odd fit for someone with his militaristic bent and expansion-focused traits. He will heavily emphasize religion in his diplomacy and carries a special penalty for anyone who refuses his demands. Along with the Creative border pops, this is not an easy neighbor to live alongside. Suryavarman's tech preferences are Gold and Culture, and he will indeed plot war at "Pleased" relations. He can be a highly unpredictable leader, either charging into multiple wars or sitting back to construct wonders in peace.
Past Performance: Suryavarman has a long track record of success that has earned him a spot as a Pool One leader. He's only died in the opening round once, failed to make the playoffs only twice, and has scored at least two points in every season except one (the only leader with this particular achievement). Sury has proven himself quite capable of snowballing ahead and steamrolling his opposition; this is responsible for all three of his wins, and he would have secured a fourth such win last season if not for a truly remarkable performance by Hannibal on the same map. When things don't go so well for Sury, he's still often able to hang in there, either backdooring Second Place or surviving to the Wildcard game for another shot. Of course, he's had his share of failed outings as well, and in particular he can have trouble keeping his economy up to speed; multiple games, including the Season One Championship, have seen him take a leading position by conquest as the largest nation on the map, only to fall behind in tech and suffer a lategame collapse when fighting a more advanced foe. While this failing keeps him locked a level below the top tier, it shouldn't distract too much from the fact that Sury is one of the game's most consistently successful warmongers.
Washington of America
Traits: Charismatic, Expansive
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Fishing
Peace Weight: 8
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: One Championship loss, two wildcard eliminations, four opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 1 First Place, 1 Second Place
Total Kills: 1
Overall Power Ranking: 8 points, 41st place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Washington has a pacifistic AI personality combined with traits that lend themselves towards combat, leaving him stuck in an ineffectual spot that has achieved little to date. He has the combination of Expansive and Charismatic leader traits, a setup that theoretically leads to highly promoted units and faster expansion through cheap workers and granaries. Unfortunately Washington's personality is designed to play a peaceful builder game, and these traits simply aren't as useful as what other economy-focused leaders get to play around with. Extra happiness and health in each city is OK and all that but they're nowhere near as good as being Financial or getting the free culture from Creative or the free civic swaps from Spiritual. Washington certainly isn't helped by hauling around the American civilization, with its incredibly late-arriving unique features and only decent starting techs. Washington the AI has a low aggression rating (4.3/10), a high peace weight, and won't declare war at "Pleased" relations. He doesn't make many demands and typically acts as a great neighbor aside from a penchant for espionage spending (7/10). However, Washington inexplicably has Military and Growth tech preferences, causing him to prioritize military techs that he won't use and ignore development-focused research. It's a bizarre tech prioritization system that badly undercuts his performance. When combined with mediocre traits and the weak American civilization, it's easy to understand why Washington has struggled in past seasons.
Past Performance: Washington has seen little success in the competition, with all eight of his points coming from Season Five and nothing to show from any other years. Season Five was clearly a case of "right place at the right time", as a distant second-place finish managed to get him a beautiful starting location in the playoffs, which he leveraged (in a legitimately strong performance) to his only victory. Meanwhile, his failures have taken various forms: he's been stuck surrounded by hostile leaders and left without hope several times, tried and failed to fight his way into a strong position a couple of times, and in his very first appearance, successfully avoided fighting a single war throughout his entire game... resulting in him getting passed up and finishing in third place. Aside from his win, Washington has never done anything very impressive, and while he's not the worst leader in the competition, he's clearly one of the lesser ones, requiring things to line up just right in order to put up a strong performance.
Willem of the Dutch
Traits: Financial, Creative
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Fishing
Peace Weight: 4
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: Two Championship losses, five opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 2 First Places, 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 4
Overall Power Ranking: 18 points, tied 22nd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Willem has one of the strongest economic setups in the game and he's been held back thus far only by his poorly-chosen set of research priorities. Willem has one of the best possible combinations of leader traits in the Financial + Creative pairing. Not only does Willem benefit from the free border pops and the Financial commerce bonus, there's even some basic synergy between the two in the form of cheap libraries. Willem's Dutch civilization is significantly less powerful, though it does have decent starting techs and can become strong if the Dikes ever show up in time to matter. As an AI leader Willem has middling scores in almost every category, lots of 4/10 and 5/10 ratings across the board. His aggression rating is about average at 6.7/10 and his peace weight also sits in the middle of the scale. Willem has a very low religious emphasis and he won't found his own faith very often despite his strong economic abilities. The single biggest weakness for Willem comes in the form of his tech preferences: he has Gold and Science flavors, which turn out to be one of the worst possible combinations for military tech. Willem has repeatedly refused to research Rifling technology to a ludicrous degree, in some games finishing Assembly Line and Flight (!) techs before picking up Rifling. This has led to his elimination at the hands of much less advanced civilizations as he needlessly fights with muskets against rifles. We have a general rule for Willem: if he makes it to Rifling tech then he wins the game; otherwise, he finds himself getting eliminated.
Past Performance: Willem is one of those leaders whose success has been very tightly concentrated; in his case, he scored all of his career points across Seasons Four and Five, and has accomplished absolutely nothing in the other five seasons. Looking at those two seasons, Willem looked like a top-tier leader; he showed how economically strong he can be with the two best traits in the competition, put out three strong winning games (one sniped away by a Cultural victory), recovered from an early loss of his capital for another second-place finish, made the Championship twice in a row, and got out to a good start there both times before eventually getting beaten back militarily. Season Four in particular looked like it would be his title, until he showed his most infamous weakness: ignoring the Rifling tech for ages on end, allowing a foe with weaker overall tech to attack and conquer him despite his lead. Despite his successes in those two seasons, though, Willem's failure across the rest of his career means he's not even a seeded leader. Seasons 1-3 saw him just play ineffectively, but his last two appearances gave more hope for a resurgence in the future, as both saw him get out to promising starts before getting attacked relatively early by another strong leader. If Willem can avoid such an early attack in a future game and get a better chance to build up, we may well see him return to glory and make a real run for the title once more.
Here's what the community was thinking based on the prediction contest before the game took place:
After a wide open picking contest in the first Wildcard Game, we were back to having a strong community favorite in the second game as Suryavarman dwarfed all of the other entries at more than 50% of the total. Willem was the only other leader to get any notable support as the other five leaders barely registered on the chart. For once there was also a clear choice for the Runner Up category as Cyrus stood well above the other options at a little over a third of the contest submissions. First to Die was the most lopsided category of the bunch as Washington was marked for death by close to two-thirds of the community, then opinion was split on whether there would be a Domination or Spaceship ending with little support for Culture on this map.
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!
the_lord_admiral: I have to pick my favorite leader Sury. Gold/Iron in the capital should let him do useful things, and I kind of trust him to not die (*cough* Willem *cough*) and to stay technologically ahead of his even more warmongery rivals (*cough* Alex and Brennus *cough*). Cyrus for second because he probably takes over America or something. FTD is obviously Washington, but given how this season has gone he'll pull out a miraculous victory despite facing a 1v4 at some point in the game.
kcostell: Willem has a lovely position if he can count on his neighbors to leave him alone and let him tech away a bit. Alas, the neighbors in question are Alexander and De Gaulle, making him more likely to end up as the dead meat in a Greek-French sandwich. Meanwhile, Washington's staring at the peaceweights and wondering why he had to end up in this wildcard game instead of the others.
Dagoth Gares: I'm Brennus's pre-killed fish resource.
TheOneAndOnlyAtesh: In this world, Aesop is Aesopoleaux van Dyke, a contemporary professor of Modern Literature Studies who writes a treatise titled "Willem the Tortoise, Alex the Hare, and De Gaulle the Lion-Troll: As It Turns Out, Political Power Really Comes From The Barrel of a Rifle." Ernest Hemingway is Elisedd O'hEeanchain, a legendary Classical Celtic poet and philosopher who writes the epic titled "The Old Ginger and The Sea".
danjuno: Willem will receive the least Barb pressure, and isn't named Zara so Alex will probably wait too long to attack. Cyrus is the next least exposed and will have Washington to expand into, but he does have a back line to watch, and Brennus may come after him for Religious reasons if he somehow doesn't get the Celtic religion. Suryavarman's central, exposed start is a double-edged sword, though he thankfully isn't Asoka-level incompetent at defending himself. Alex might advance if he hallucinates one of his neighbors as Zara Yaqob just after teching catapults. Washington, poor Washington. My native Cheeseburgerland cannot catch a break in this game. Between Cyrus and the Barbarians, my man is in trouble. All right, peace out- wait, what? Oh yeah, De Gaulle exists.
Schwarzschilda: This feels like a chalk game with Suryavarman having a great looking start. I worry a little about Willem getting left alone in his peninsula to tech away, but I'm hoping that having Alex as a neighbor means that won't happen. One thing that seems obvious is how out of place Washington is with his peace weight. It'd be fitting for this season if he somehow wins, though
Colors: I am trusting in the Willem gambit - no, not avoiding rifling for a million years, but taking the glass jaw Econ leader who starts next to a lunatic warmonger on the hope and prayer that Alex is too busy smashing barbs to sucker punch Willem. Washington is FTD due to a truly rough peace weight malus, and Surya is second on the assumption that Brennus is going to get off to a VERY slow start thanks to barbs and the inevitable religion -> archery -> fishing -> bronze working tech start that will leave him roadless for the first 60 turns of the game. Willem, please, buddy - research rifling!!
haphazard1: Brennus' start would be amazing in a human player's hands, but for an AI it will be terrible. Washington is reachable by everyone and will be hated by everyone for his peace weight.
Eauxps I. Fourgott: We all have to face uncomfortable truths at some point in our lives. And this time, the uncomfortable truth is that De Gaulle is in an excellent position. Lots of rivers, lots of happiness resources, good potential territory without being too exposed to the barbs, good access to the map's punching bag, and no economic competition except for a next-door neighbor who hates rifles...
Smosism: Time for a textbook rifling throw from Willem.
Vincarius: It seems the Dutch will have to 'help' the Greeks out of another financial crisis. But before that Wash will get washed away by one of the ugliest dogpiles we have seen this season
RefSteel: Swap Cathy into this wildcard game and Washington into hers, and she might have won this one outright - and he might have not completely embarrassed herself in the first. With the diplomatic nightmare into which each has been thrust from Turn 0 though, and considering what Washington actually brings to the table, the only question is which of his neighbors will benefit most from his collapse. Since Sury's Creative culture should let him dominate the post-war region no matter who gets what share of the actual cities, I'm betting on him to snowball that into also dominating the rest of the game.
ZincAlloy: Green Alex is the most powerful Alex.
Guanidine: Sury will clothe his wats in gold and water his cows with blood. The path to immortality lies within the stars, grasp for them!
Zigzagzone: Cyrus will eat Washington and launch his spaceship from there, while everyone else fights endlessly. In the end, an exhausted Alex will watch while Cyrus flies away alone to the playoffs.
Sir Colville of the Dale:
"PERICLEEEES!" the rider screamed,"I may not have defeated you in life, but I WILL have my revenge in Asphodel! Stop hiding! Come out and fight!"
"He is not here, Alexander." A figure in a simple robe walked up.
Recognizing him, "Gandhi! Of course YOU'D be here! An utter mediocrity of a leader like you... perfect placement." Brandishing his spear, Alexander continued, "Now stop fooling around and tell me where Pericles is before I decide to change targets!"
"I am not competing in this round."
"Then why are you here?"
"So many performances were judged worthy of Asphodel that King Minos had to dig a second Pit of Misery. He left me in charge of this one. Pericles landed in the other one." A rising streak of flame appeared in the sky. "And it looks like he just launched. He is returning to the land of the living, Alexander!"
The Macedonian screamed in frustration, "So I have to get all the way to the Championship to get a piece of him!? ...Very well. Who's still here? "
"As it turns out, King Minos decided to judge the peaceful leaders and left me the violent ones."
"And knowing you, what you want to see from us is nonviolence?"
"Not at all," Gandhi replied to Alex's shock. "You are in Asphodel for your impotence. The cloak of nonviolence will not help you now. Let's see the spirit of violence for which men call you ‘the Great'." He pointed a finger. "Your first opponent is right over there."
A formation of pikemen approached. Their leader screeched, "There he is! The one for whom peace was truly never an option! We strike while we still have the tech lead! Raise our battle cry!"
"FINANCIAL-ALIVE! FINANCIAL-ALIVE! FINANCIAL-ALIVE! FINANCIAL-ALIVE!"
