I would be surprised if Commodore didn't win at this point. Everything about this game is setting up perfectly for him. He'll be able to roll through what's left of the Zulus with ease, and then there's nothing stopping him from building a monster 20+ city empire with lots of resources and excellent land. Everyone else on the main continent will still be fighting border wars while Commodore will have already won his conflict and absorbed his rival's land. He can then slowly roll north and take over his exhausted neighbors one by one until he has an unbeatable lead.
Who else would win the game at this point?
* plako is in the next best shape, but it will take plako much more effort to finish his war with Merohoc, something that probably will still take a while. plako has no access to units greater than strength 5 at the moment, and that's not enough to break through a determined archer defense. He'll have to research up to catapults to eliminate his neighbor, and that's still down the road. plako's economy is not in particularly great shape right now:
plako went Calendar before Currency, which was definitely correct for his position, but that does mean that he's not researching all that fast at present. Commodore already has Currency and Construction, plus his Great Scientist, plus much better land to expand into. His situation is simply stronger at this point, and future prospects are also better. I think plako is likely to finish a strong second or third in this game.
* slowcheetah reminds me of plako, with a good position that's inferior to Commodore. It's been an excellent game thus far, I'm just not sure that there's enough player experience there to translate the position into a win, and it's hard to advance from an isolated island once the immediate land has been filled.
* Serdoa's position is the classic case of deceptive score points. He has all these score points from wonders, but his position long term is very poor. Few expansion prospects and a core that will be almost impossible to defend. Even worse, as the "score leader" most of the other people in the game think they need to work against Serdoa. I don't like his chances very much at all going forward.
* India should be able to fend off the suicide naval invasion coming their way, but hasn't demonstrated the ability so far to translate their island start into an overall win. I'm not a fan of many of their city placements and overall macro decisions. (How do you play a pure farmer's gambit with no competition and still sit towards the bottom of the pack in Food?)
The rest are too far behind or have been ground down in too many wars. Barring some kind of dark horse AP or UN play, they are unlikely to win the game. I think that one of the best things bolstering Commodore's chance is the fact that few of the other players in this game seem to perceive him as being a favorite right now. From a metagaming perspective, his position in the middle of the score rankings has been just about perfect. By the time that others realize how strong Commodore's position truly is, it should be too late to make a difference. Things would be different in a game with tech trading or diplomacy turned on, but here it will be extremely difficult to organize anything against the frontrunner. If Commodore keeps up his strong play, he's very likely to become the eventual winner.
