Civ AI Survivor: Season Five

[Kuro]

I wasn't able to get in my prediction all week so only just now got it in. Glad this competition is so open with predictions! Spoilered mine below.

Winner: Gilgamesh
Runner Up: Mao Zedong
First to Die: Lincoln
Total Number of Wars: 12
Victory Type: Spaceship
End Date: Turn 333

Boy, it is hard to NOT pick Huanya Capac with his impressive track record of success. But let's look at the map for a moment: If it was any other leader, we would be saying Huanya is doomed! He has almost no room to expand and could easily be hemmed in to 3 worthwhile cities and 1-2 tundra ala Shaka and Ragnar, with Creative Gilgamesh and likely to be religious founder Montezuma to culturally crush him. Every neighbor except poor sweet hapless Lincoln is highly aggressive wnd would be willing to wardec him despite shared peace weight.

On top of that, the diplomatic situation for him is pretty horrible. Correct me if I am wrong, but turn order is alphabetical as I recall in how Sulla set it up, so Boudica is going to found a religion most likely (2nd city could change times). Montezuma will almost certainly go for another. But Huanya ALSO likes his religion and starts with Mysticism. It is highly likely Huanya turns himself into a religious pariah in some way and causes Boudica or Montezuma to declare, especially since Monty will declare on anyone for any reason already. I think Huanya is going to be hemmed in and cut down, be it from being dragged down in pointless wars to flatout being conquered.

By comparison, Gilgamesh is likely to ride an ally's religion and is the most likely to get a lot from Lincoln's inevitable demise. He doesn't have as much expansion room as Boudica, but he still has a lot particularly due to Cultural. My prediction is Gilgamesh expanding outwards, culturally crushing the area, killing Lincoln and snowballing from there. Montezuma, Boudica and Huanya all drag themselves down in wars. Whoever founds Gilgamesh's religion will be buddy-buddy with him while the rest are cut down.

On that note, look at the starting tech differences this game! Gilgamesh's Agriculture/Wheel into Mining is perfect for his start. He is going to get wet corn up quickly, get mines up quickly and road his resources. Poor Mao's amazing Agriculture/Mining is going to waste but his capital is bananas so hey. Neither Boudica nor Montezuma can hook up any resources and are both beelining Meditation, they are going to get an incredibly slow start off which opens room for someone like Gilgamesh, Mao or Huanya to get ahead too. Huanya is avoiding very first religion (tho if he goes Wheel -> Polytheism, he beats the loser of Boudica/Montezuma to it) and doing solid, Lincoln and Augustus also doing as expected. Gilgamesh's start seems the most explosive here.

I didn't talk about the other half of the continent because it seems obvious. Augustus is gonna wonder spam with Stone, he doesn't have the easiest Praetorian iron, Mao is going to get to 1v1 him and conquer him. I think Gilgamesh ends up with a larger empire and wins but I flip-flopped a lot on 1st/2nd order, feels very up in the air (Mao is probably "safer"). And it isn't like Gilgamesh has scored poorly: He's only one point out from a Pool Two leader (and with shaka's elimination could take his or Pericles' spot. Same with Boudica, actually.)

Lincoln just seems destined to be FTD. His diplomatic situation is Season One Gandhi-esque. If he and Mao had swapped spots, I would actually give him and Augustus good odds (they tech in peace while the religiously different warmongers drag each other down), but that's not the case. Someone else COULD die first but Lincoln seems by far the favorite.

I don't think whoever wins will end up with enough land area to win (probably 3 survivors or 2 survivors with roughly 60/40 or equal territory), so spaceship it is. I've generally been overshooting on the war count and I feel we'll get wars with people crumbling fast, so I brought it down to 12 (can't go TOO low with Monty). Pretty average finish date.

I mostly agree with that assessment (see my predictions a coupla posts above).
Just a few minor points :
- Turn order is Pool 1 leader, Pool 2 leader, then alphabetical for the rest of the leaders. So Huyna Capac does have turn order advantage.
- The river between Huyna and Gilgamesh marks a natural boundary and the terrain arounds it is the best terrain available to them : which of the two ends up in control of most of that terrain should be a key indicator of things to come.
Advantage Huyna there IMO since he should send his settler towards that river and plop a Holy City right there. Holy City trumps Creative.
But the opposite could also happen (Huyna sends settler south and/or doesn't go for religion, while Gilgamesh does settle the river and gets a religion), in which case Huyna Capac would be in a world of trouble indeed.
- I believe Huyna Capac is more likely to win the conflict, simply because their definition of "win" is different : Gilgamesh needs Huyna Capac to be dead or at least severely crippled by turn 150, while just not losing cities or avoiding conflict altogether is a "win" for Huyna Capac.
So Gilgamesh will be stronger (maybe even much stronger), and should he prevail, he'd go on to win the game 100%, that's why I agree that he's slightly more likely to be the winner.
But Huyna Capac can win the game with 8-9 cities, while the other leaders will need 25+. So his chances aren't far behind.
- I agree with Mao second in the case of a Gilgamesh win : Gilgamesh is more likely to attempt domination, and Boudica stands in the way...

- Huanya isn't the one competing with Boudica for Meditation potentially decided by turn order, Boudica is, so fortunately that doesn't matter.
- Huanya isn't going to get a holy city until later at minimum because he is going Wheel first while Boudica or Montezuma will get Meditation. Unless he goes Polytheism next, he likely gets a 3rd+ religion and so ends up not getting the holy city domination. This is the "worst case Huanya" scenario of course but all it takes is not researching Polytheism before Monty/Boudica. 
- I don't think the other leaders need 25+ cities to beat a Huanya with 8-9 cities. Huanya's advantage is not THAT large just from traits, some of those would inevitably be tundra and Huanya would have a good chance of losing militarily even at around...12-13 cities vs. 8-9 I feel depending on the enemy leader and land. IMO Huanya NEEDS to conquer this game in order to win rather than just avoid conflict. I also personally feel Huanya is most likely to conflict with Monty or Boudica rather than Gilgamesh.
- But I could be totally wrong of course! Huanya just isn't gonna get to sit around like Asoka untouched this game, anyway. We definitely seem to have some pretty similar thoughts, so it'll be fun to see how our stuff shakes out by comparison.