Community predictions added to the Game One preview page:
http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/civ4survivor6-1-preview.html
![[Image: survivor6-1-9.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/Survivor/S6/survivor6-1-9.jpg)
![[Image: survivor6-1-10.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/Survivor/S6/survivor6-1-10.jpg)
![[Image: survivor6-1-11.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/Survivor/S6/survivor6-1-11.jpg)
![[Image: survivor6-1-12.jpg]](http://www.sullla.com/Civ4/Survivor/S6/survivor6-1-12.jpg)
I was a bit surprised to see just how heavily the community favored Julius Caesar in the picking contest. Apparently there wasn't much support for Gandhi or Pericles or the other peaceniks in this field. Second place picks were a toss up between Pericles and Joao which Gandhi was a heavy favorite to be the initial target of Caesar's wrath. All of the house money on Caesar similarly meant that Domination victories were the preferred outcome in the picking contest, with Cultural edging out Spaceship in second place thanks to the presence of Gandhi and Pericles. If someone other than Caesar ends up winning this game, there will be a lot of sad faces in the picking contest!
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!
ZincAlloy: Look out, Ghandi's got a sword! Okay, no, Ghandi's iron won't make him a threat, but it will probably make his inevitable invasion by Caesar take a few turns longer. And that's all Pericles will need to get enough of a tech lead to defend himself from anything Rome can throw at him. Assuming they don't buddy up and take over the world together. Sharing both Ghandi's religion and the mutual satisfaction of beating up the poor Indian leader, this looks like the setting for a beautiful Greco-Roman alliance. Because, well, look at the north half. None of those leaders have a habit of doing much of anything.
Duizhang_Lu: Well, this is certainly an interesting setup. Tons of high peaceweight civs, so normally that would make Gandhi the favorite, buuuuut he's next door to JC so I think he's going to get clapped. As for JC, with all of the neighbors who are predisposed not to like him, I don't think he'll last from sheer weight of numbers, but I do think he'll go down swinging. As for who wins, Pericles is the least incompetent, so let's say him.
peanut_gallery: Gandhi 1st, Joao 2nd and Fred FTD. I don't think it's likely but here is my thinking. Maybe Joao out runs Caesar in the land grab (maybe gets his Iron) and stunts him enough for Gandhi to run away with the game. Even then I don't think JC dies first. So first to die is between Pericles Freddy and SB. I feel like Freddy is more likely to get himself in a stupid war so FTD goes to him. Most likely this is a win for JC with runner up being Pericles or Freddy (yay first points) cause they start so far from JC.
Amicalola: This is a really interesting one; the southern half is poorer, but has the stronger leaders. Normally land is more important, but I don't see how Caesar doesn't win here. He has easy access to iron, easy access to Gandhi, and Gandhi has no copper - he's going to die before iron is connected! Caesar then wins domination in a cakewalk if he eats Gandhi. Pericles is the logical 2nd place, with easily a better personality than the northerner's, but unfortunately he's Caesar's next meal (which sucks, because I think Pericles is under-rated). The person to come 2nd will ultimately be whoever can stay out of Caesar's way, and I think that's Frederick. All he needs to do is stay out of the way, do nothing, and be unremarkable; that's basically Frederick's entire MO!
Dewdrops on the Grass: Much as I'd love to believe it's Sitting Bull's time to shine, it really isn't. He'll be gobbled up by Frederick and Joao only to have their victories stolen in turn by Caesar. Pericles will survive thanks to using Gandhi as a shield. Caesar will swing around the north and consume Frederick to send himself over the top.
LinkMarioSamus: Logically you'd think Julius Caesar could team up with Pericles to take down Gandhi in the early game. Thing is, the first game from Season 3 onwards has never went the way we expected. Ragnar was the favorite in S3 and he wound up FTD instead. Ditto Mansa Musa in S5, and then S4 was expected to be a Cyrus/Catherine game which instead became Isabella domination. I'm just picking Gandhi 1st and Sitting Bull 2nd, on the hope that Julius Caesar has a poor early game (which has happened a number of times in the past) and that Gandhi isn't as much of a paper tiger as he might seem. While Gandhi has probably the worst starting position possible on this map this is otherwise a good field for him, and not so much for Caesar - alternate histories for his opening round game last season indicated he was lucky to make it out of that one alive, and that was with another leader with the same peace weight around. And who knows, he might attack Sitting Bull or Joao instead! Sitting Bull was also impressive enough in the alternate histories for his last season opening round game and far enough away from Gandhi for me to feel ever-so-slightly comfortable picking him for 2nd place. Gandhi is also the most economically-proficient leader in this game by far, so I think he can tech and build up well enough to keep his core cities safe at least. I could easily imagine Caesar seemingly having him on the ropes before at least one of Sitting Bull or Joao rides to the rescue! Also Gandhi at least tends not to tie up his cities on wonders. He has never really gone down fast to an early rush - typically he needs to get dogpiled to be eliminated in the early game.
I'm picking Pericles FTD but I don't expect it to be a very fast FTD. Mostly just plain unimpressed by his AI personality and think he lucked out completely in the first two seasons. He's a cultural leader without culture or religion tech flavors and nothing better to help him with a cultural victory than, uh, cheap theaters and more Great People? Out of his only two past victories, one had him as very much not the tech leader and the other was at a ridiculously late date in a field with only one low-peace weight leader in Mao (who still advanced to boot!), so he's not even that great at teching. His creative trait and neutral peace weight also cause him to get into border disputes which sometimes lead to him attacking other high-peace weight leaders like Elizabeth in S2 and Lincoln in S4. A bit of a shame since Greece is one of my favorite civilizations in the game historically and I would like for Pericles to be as good as his power ranking suggests, but them's the breaks.
SilenceoftheClams: Will Gandhi's early religion keep him safe from the endless march of the legions? Alea iacta est!
Alhambram: I think this is going be one of strange games where leaders from pool one and two both fail to get top 2 places here. Ceasar got trouble with peaceweight, however he starts very nearby Gandhi and should rough him up to extent that Gandhi is out of competition for top 2. I expect Gandhi survive due better starting spot than Ceasar and Frederick/Sitting Bull riding to save Gandhi from FTD. Meanwhile winners are going be two others who likely isn't involved in war. Joao probably is going grab fertile rive valley west of him and also triple gold resource since Sitting Bull is going found poverty point in tundra region. This would be enough for space victory for Joao. Pericles is going box in Gandhi with creative borders, another reason why I think that Gandhi isn't going to win along Ceasar roughing up Gandhi. Pericles might win well with cultural victory but I am going bet gold upon Joao this time.
Commodore: Sullla really hates poor Gandhi. Wedged in the worst land, between Julius and the only other leader able to find his rear end with both hands Pericles...he's not gonna make it. I don't think taking out iron-at-the-capital Gandhi is going to happen fast enough for Julius to get a snowball going next to Pericles' decent start locale just powering the Greeks to a better position, and Julius/Pericles are *close* in peaceweight, so I think they turn their guns together on the Great Slow Mule race up north. If think we should take side bets for which of that pack of incompetents disappoints observers the most, but all I know for sure is that between Freddie, Sitting, and Joao...I vote for barbs.
Max: Gandhi will spread his religion to Caesar, and they will be buddies the whole game - with Caesar shielding him from other AI's, Gandhi will do what he does best, and win Culture early. Caesar will be peaceful himself, lacking Iron, but may get declared on, and open a can of whoop-ass on the attacker. There's a good chance that all AI's will survive this, but Sitting Bull is likely to die simply because he is neighbours with too many civs, so someone will take a shot at him.
Fluffball: Gandhi only has iron and is right next to Caesar who has copper at his capital. Gandhi ain't makin' it to iron working, folks.
Bernn: Huge shades of Season Five Game Three here - Caesar and Gandhi as the seeded leaders alongside an assortment of generally unimpressive peaceful builder types. The big difference? Rome and India are neighbors this time. I expect Caesar to tear into Gandhi early and keep up the pressure until he gets his kill. There's iron and copper right next to Caesar's capital and India is effectively his only neighbor, so the conflict and Rome's victory are downright inevitable. But I don't think this will fully lock the game for Caesar - last season's alternate histories showed he struggles to make headway when faced with a field of high peace weight leaders and I can absolutely see him crashing his economy to eliminate Gandhi and then burning out in a handful of unproductive wars afterwards. Instead, I'll bet on Pericles as the winner here. I like his start with the wet corn + floodplains + marble, and with the northern leaders being an extremely inert bunch, he'll have plenty of space to tech up and grow while Caesar and Gandhi feud. Pericles may have a spotty overall record, but I really like his position here and I think Greece is gonna take it handily. Here's to a great Season Six!
T K: As much as I want Julius to win, I just don't see it, he's diplomatically isolated and low on happiness resources. This is probably going to be a peaceful game, and I believe Pericles has a better chance of a cultural victory than Gandhi, who will likely be squeezed and see some of the few wars of the game from his neighbor Julius. As for second... I really don't want to say Frederick but he's got a lot of room and peaceful neighbors buffering him from his only real threats. What a doozy of a first round!
Ron Jenzy: Haha Praetorians go brrrrrrrrr! But yeah this is a very sad field that Ghandhi would love but Caesar's here so he munches on all these weaklings for an easy W. Or he gets taken out somehow and Ghandhi does his thing. Honestly I'm most excited to see if Sitting Bull can do anything. I'm something of a fan of his, since he is essentially the ultimate underdog (not that I'll ever pick him). If this does end up being a Ghandhi game, maybe he'll finally make it to the Wildcard game! It has to happen eventually... right?
Rev: This game depends on whether Caesar can win a decisive early war and snowball. He may be a very capable leader, but betting on the AI acting effectively and decisively is always a risk, and I remember a game in a recent season where Caesar took an extremely long time to declare a war, so I think it's more likely that he doesn't. Gandhi will found an early religion and spread it to Caesar, who will eventually get worn down in too many wars against high peace weight leaders and slowly be dismantled. This will open room for Pericles, who can also easily conquer the weak civs in the north. Gandhi will win a cultural victory if he's left alone and can manage it before Pericles turns on him. If this rough analysis turns out accurate, I'm also guessing Joao takes a big enough chunk of land from Caesar and the other northern leaders to survive and make it to the wild card game, and distracts Pericles in some indecisive late game wars.
Dagoth Gares: This game features one lion, four sheep, and a tortoise.
Mansa da man: Caesar to win by domination and Gandhi FTD. With Caesar and Gandhi as neighbors, I just can't see Gandhi not dying here. Even if Rome attacks Greece first (historically accurate) India will be boxed in and die to the praetorian rush soon after unless someone else jumps in. The only scenario where the southern civs might survive is if Caesar gets dragged into a long war in the North, very unlikely keeping in mind the higher peace weight of the south and longer shared borders. And Caesar will snowball off the highly developed land of his peaceful builder neighbors. I don't really see the other AIs doing much of anything once Caesar has a single kill under his belt as none of the others have a killer instinct. Long time Civ AI survivor fan but first time in the picking contest
Dark Savant: Caesar and Gandhi are the seeded leaders ... but I don't think either will do well. Caesar isn't going to be liked by anyone else, and he'll almost certainly attack Gandhi and wreck his game as well ... especially because Gandhi can easily be attacked before he has any metal connected. Pericles, on the other hand, has a lot of room to wortk with and then do his cultural thing. Maybe he'll even absorb Caesar again, liked happened in Season 1 ... and *this* time, he won't die early for want of early copper. Joao can probably best benefit from the eventual dismantling of Caesar. I don't expect this peacefully-inclined group will give us a lot of wars, either.
smithy: I have no idea at all what direction this season will take, but very amused with the direction Fred has sent both his scouts- with a dreamy start location and lots of land, he has sent both scouts south to the same tile: one can only assume they have seen the runes on the wall and are making a beeline to defect to Pericles asap. This might well save them for a while if JC goes for an anti-clockwise conquest after disposing of poor Gandhi. JC being the only one to declare at pleased is a mighty advantage, and sadly also the most interesting thing to be said about any of the others in this game.
Slashin': This isn't dissimilar to a murder asian hornet finding itself amongst a hive of honeybees. Will the hornet pick them off one by one, starting with gandhi, or will they learn to work together and cooperate to take the dictator down?
Game One Picking Contest Entry Form
There's a little over 48 hours remaining to get in predictions for the first game. Hope to see a bunch of you on the Livestream this upcoming Friday, May 7th starting just after noon EST!
Good luck with the picking contest, everyone has two weeks to get in their entries!
