That was not a particularly competently played game by anybody.
But that helped it be all the more entertaining!
Julius Caesar: Despite having a field stacked against him in terms of peaceweight, in the early going it looked like JC still had a beautiful setup to turn this into another dominant romp. He had one of the strongest openings, a nice, juicy neighbor for conquest in Gandhi, and was unlikely to be backstabbed before finishing that off. Any sort of efficient conquest and he would've at the very least had a very strong chance of winning.
BUT, his conquest was anything but efficient! He took forever to research Iron Working, he didn't attack until after T100, and once he got the easy border cities, he took his sweet time to go for Gandhi's core. I and I think most of the crew still thought the Gandhi conquest was inevitable, but even when Caesar should've had the decisive advantage, he then stonewalled on Delhi and was somehow unable to capture it after multiple attempts. What was wrong with him there?!? His woefully and uncharacteristically incompetent attempt at conquest doomed him.
Maybe he could've competed with Freddy and Sitting Bull near the end if he'd been left alone to finish of Gandhi, but it would've been a huge uphill battle with how far he'd fallen behind.
His converting to Gandhi's religion right before attacking him was also not ideal and may have caused Freddy's big attack that killed him. I wonder how differently things would've gone if, following that, Caesar had turned north and attacked his new religious rival Joao?
Ultimately, yeah, as the only low-peaceweight leader in a group of high-peaceweights, Caesar did not have the most advantageous setup this game. But there were also advantageous aspects to it that made a successful performance absolutely possible, and he failed to capitalize on those. A more incompetent military game than normal doomed him here.
Joao II: I don't think there was a lot he could have done here, to be honest. He had one of the worst spots on the map, crammed up against a corner, and then his closest neighbor Sitting Bull ended up being a rabid expansionist in this game. Sitting Bull would've been a suicidal war target, and probably a backstab of Caesar wouldn't have worked either, at least not until Freddy attacked, at which point Joao wouldn't have been able to gain much. He had little in the way of expansion prospects, nothing in the way of conquest prospects, and so from his start alone a win was likely ruled out. That said, he didn't do anything to deserve anything other than his eventual ouster either - his early expansion could still have been better and he ought to have gotten one or two of the spots that Sitting Bull settled, and he didn't make efficient use of his poor start either, with both Pericles and Gandhi doing better in that regard. And he managed to be the pariah of the world, so that not even the UN could prevent his ultimately deserved elimination.
Gandhi: What a comeback! Gandhi has the other worst starting position of the game, not only stuck at the extreme southern edge of the map but also the closest neighbor of Julius Caesar and a natural enemy to him. Very strong chances for first to die, and he didn't do anything in particular to try and prevent that. He didn't even execute a good landgrab! For that poor early game, he definitely deserved to not win. But he also deserves credit for his continued resistance against Caesar - while luck was definitely a big part of why he ultimately survived, his great defense at Dehli kept the Roman conquest at bay and made that possible, and the fact that he managed to reconquer all but one of his original cities during the collapse also showed that he wasn't a complete nothing of a leader here.
And then he just, just barely missed out on a cultural victory, only a handful of turns out! The fact that he was able to do this despite having all but one of his core cities captured early on speaks to the strength of his cultural gameplay and shows that Gandhi is pretty much always a threat to sneak out a victory as long as he's alive. But make no mistake, he wasn't robbed here. Even leaving aside the great luck of Freddy coming in to save him from an otherwise inevitable Roman conquest, Gandhi made too many mistakes to get the victory. If he'd either played a better opening OR chosen to run Free Speech civic lategame instead of whatever else he was running, he probably would have gotten the win. If he'd done both of those, he would've taken it handily. But he did neither, and between that and his near-conquest, you really can't make an argument that he deserved to be the winner here. But there's a good chance that his resistance will be rewarded with a favorable setup in the Wildcard game - if he doesn't get eviscerated by the Raging barbs!
Pericles: I thought Pericles had a very favorable setup here, and, while ultimately incorrect, I still don't think my choice to back him in the picking contest was in illogical idea. The problem was that he executed an absolutely terrible opening, taking forever to build more settlers to expand past four cities, and losing his third city to barbs - TWICE! If he plays this part of the game with any sort of competence, he can get a good stretch of territory, take some away from Freddy's holdings, and then be in a good position to run away with the game. As it was, he did pretty well from about T100 on given what he had, building his way to a solid third place, seizing on his best chance of victory by beelining for the UN, and ultimately getting the last laugh on his arch-enemy of the game, Joao. But his early-game failures left him too far behind, and without any real avenue to victory from that point on. In theory he could have had better diplomacy, or absorbed western India and become a power from there, but in practice, given limitations such as willingness to declare at Pleased, that was never going to happen. I would expect that Pericles looks a lot better in the alternate histories. But he wasn't screwed over here - he threw away the game himself with the opening. It will be interesting to see how he fares in the Wildcard game - depending on who else makes it there, I wouldn't be surprised if he and Gandhi are two of the favorites there.
Sitting Bull: Sitting Bull actually did something! Kind of. He had a fantastic opening to put him in the lead early on, and then largely just sat on that, teching up and doing nothing else as nobody bothered him all game. Thanks to the problems plaguing the other leaders throughout the game, that was still
almost enough for him to win, but still not quite. Sitting Bull's lack of aggression was definitely his undoing here. Had he been faster to stab Caesar, it could've been him instead of Freddy who took the lion's share of Rome and he could've become the runaway leader instead of getting just one and eventually two cities. Had he gone back to finish Joao off instead of just sitting around after the UN halted his conquest, he would've easily edged out Freddy in the space race. Instead he just gave a belated attack on Rome, and an attack on Portugal that came later than it ought to have and was cut off early. He played better economically than any other leader this game, but he never seized on that or leveraged it to a winning position. Ultimately, yeah, he was screwed over a bit by turn order here, first losing an extra Roman city and the kill credit to turn order, and then losing the Space Race on the same merits. But had he been just a little more proactive, he would've won easily, so you can't say this was an undeserved second place.
Frederick: Honestly, the bigger surprise here was how narrowly Freddy won. He had a lot go right in this game - he got a better-than-normal plot to expand into thanks to Pericles's bad opening, nobody did anything against him all game, he made an excellent decision to backstab a weakened Caesar and was rewarded with most of Rome, and he made a savvy move with the UN, stopping Sitting Bull from fully absorbing Portugal and undoubtedly winning himself the game in the process. But given all of that, I would have expected him to have a much more dominant game, snowballing ahead after conquering Caesar and becoming the game leader. He just didn't play that well economically, starving his cities with early industrialization, not doing as well culturally as Sitting Bull, etc. Had he gone on to more military activities, that approach may have served him well, but since he stayed at peace for the rest of the game, it kept him back and allowed Sitting Bull to keep pace.
So ultimately, despite getting probably the most land to settle into out of anybody, being the one leader for most of the game to make a decisive military strike that paid off, and never being attacked all game, Freddy only won by the narrowest of margins. Had Sitting Bull gone back to war with Portugal, or ignored even one of the optional spaceship techs, or even had the "Sitting" left out of his name so that he went before Freddy in turn order, Frederick would not have won. He didn't completely throw his game, but aside from that he did about as poorly as possible with the hand that he had, and luck was definitely a factor, as savvy play from either of his two rivals would've given them the win instead.
As I said, not very good play from anybody this game, but that was a big part of making it so entertaining! Gandhi squeezing out the cultural victory would've been a good ending regardless, but there was a very real chance that we would've had a Caesar domination-fest or a runaway Space victory from Freddy or Bull if any of those leaders played better. Instead, we get the closest finish in AI Survivor history. I'm all for it! Meanwhile, two of the four leaders coming into the season with 0 points managed to top the leaderboard this game, while simultaneously showing why they had 0 points coming in. Neither Freddy or Sitting Bull had a particularly impressive game here even if they played better than anybody else - both had a lot of missed opportunities and could've done much better. I would expect more fireworks in the playoffs from Gandhi or Pericles, if they make it in via Wildcard, than from either of the actual leaders here. But who knows, maybe this will be the wacky season where we somehow get Sitting Bull in the championship!
Scoring was pretty low for this game with an average of just 4.5 points thanks to some favorites coming up short. We are continuing with an unusual Saturday date for next week's game. This time we have Huayna Capac and Pacal mixed in with a bunch of lesser know leaders. Who do you have this week?
