Since I wasn't able to put in my entry earlier, I thought I would post it and my thoughts for fun.
Winner: Saladin
2nd Place: Hannibal
First to Die: Ramesses II
Total Number of Wars: 14
Victory Condition: Spaceship
Victory Date: T345
Reasoning: I think this game can go almost any way and almost any civ could win it in theory, even the poor ones like Ramesses or Victoria since if the high peace weight civs hold out (such as Ragnar going crazy vs. the aggressive civs and dragging them down) Victoria could out-tech Pericles or the like. Personally, I think the highest probability option is Hannibal first and Kublai 2nd, but I think this map is very highly set up for Saladin to potentially win.
First off, Saladin has been pretty unlucky, for example his S1 Survivor match was insanely high leader quality and he held his own. Peace weight allows Saladin to go with high or low peace weight leaders but his lower slanting should help him avoid the ultra aggro civs. I also think he has a good chance of religious spread, in particular with Hannibal (which is my personal opinion) or Kublai. Ramesses is going to found his own competing religion and have all the low peace weight leaders who adopt Saladin's religion hate him while he hates them back. And while Ramesses has capital iron he has no nearby copper or horses. It should be noted this is also true for Ragnar, who only has one far source of copper, there's a good chance he launches a particularly inept early attack. I'm thinking he launches an attack against Kublai, Stalin 2.0 style, that drags them both down.
In addition, Saladin has a bomb opening start. His double corn capital, one irrigated, needs only on tech to start getting a huge bonus, and Saladin will almost certainly found a 2-3 gold 1-2 food resource city (both high yield food too!) while having first ring copper. He's going to have an explosive early tech rate, good production, and has both multiple early and Calender happiness resources nearby + almost certain religion that will allow Saladin to grow a lot better with the happiness crunch the AI usually has. I also think it is worth noting, for example, Kublai has a poor capital: double fish resources w/o starting with fishing, only one tile is improvable with mining so poor AI pathing makes him as likely as Saladin to waste early turns, mediocre nearby city locations. Hannibal has good expansion prospects with his choice of high peace weight punching back, I predict him to become good buddies with Saladin and basically conquer around the high peace weight civs with Saladin while Ragnar causes issues.
In the end Saladin, Hannibal and Kublai (Ragnar is too suicidal to survive) are alive without Saladin having enough to win by Domination. Spaceship with mediocre finish, Ragnar drives up the war count some but not too high.
2nd Place: Hannibal
First to Die: Ramesses II
Total Number of Wars: 14
Victory Condition: Spaceship
Victory Date: T345
Reasoning: I think this game can go almost any way and almost any civ could win it in theory, even the poor ones like Ramesses or Victoria since if the high peace weight civs hold out (such as Ragnar going crazy vs. the aggressive civs and dragging them down) Victoria could out-tech Pericles or the like. Personally, I think the highest probability option is Hannibal first and Kublai 2nd, but I think this map is very highly set up for Saladin to potentially win.
First off, Saladin has been pretty unlucky, for example his S1 Survivor match was insanely high leader quality and he held his own. Peace weight allows Saladin to go with high or low peace weight leaders but his lower slanting should help him avoid the ultra aggro civs. I also think he has a good chance of religious spread, in particular with Hannibal (which is my personal opinion) or Kublai. Ramesses is going to found his own competing religion and have all the low peace weight leaders who adopt Saladin's religion hate him while he hates them back. And while Ramesses has capital iron he has no nearby copper or horses. It should be noted this is also true for Ragnar, who only has one far source of copper, there's a good chance he launches a particularly inept early attack. I'm thinking he launches an attack against Kublai, Stalin 2.0 style, that drags them both down.
In addition, Saladin has a bomb opening start. His double corn capital, one irrigated, needs only on tech to start getting a huge bonus, and Saladin will almost certainly found a 2-3 gold 1-2 food resource city (both high yield food too!) while having first ring copper. He's going to have an explosive early tech rate, good production, and has both multiple early and Calender happiness resources nearby + almost certain religion that will allow Saladin to grow a lot better with the happiness crunch the AI usually has. I also think it is worth noting, for example, Kublai has a poor capital: double fish resources w/o starting with fishing, only one tile is improvable with mining so poor AI pathing makes him as likely as Saladin to waste early turns, mediocre nearby city locations. Hannibal has good expansion prospects with his choice of high peace weight punching back, I predict him to become good buddies with Saladin and basically conquer around the high peace weight civs with Saladin while Ragnar causes issues.
In the end Saladin, Hannibal and Kublai (Ragnar is too suicidal to survive) are alive without Saladin having enough to win by Domination. Spaceship with mediocre finish, Ragnar drives up the war count some but not too high.