This is a continuing feature for Season Eight of Civ4 AI Survivor: a preview of each game before it begins, providing a quick summary of the leaders involved and how the community expects the game to shake out. We start as always with an overview of the map:
We've had requests in past seasons for an overview screenshot of the map with the resource icon turned on:
It's hard for me to see much of anything with all of those little icons but you guys asked for it, you've got it! Now for a look at our individual leaders (note that all stats are from before the start of Season Eight):
Hammurabi of Babylon
Traits: Aggressive, Organized
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Wheel
Peace Weight: 8
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: Two playoff round eliminations, two wildcard eliminations, three opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 1 First Place, 1 Second Place
Total Kills: 3
Overall Power Ranking: 10 points, tied 33rd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Hammurabi is another leader who has traits pulling him in multiple different directions. His profile includes the ill-fitting Aggressive trait paired together with a setup that otherwise leans heavily in the peaceful builder direction with Organized. This Aggressive trait is largely wasted on a leader who loves to build wonders (8/10), features a defensive archer unique unit in the Bowman, and has only one research flavor: Culture. Hammurabi will obsess over anything associated with cultural output and stands a good chance of founding an early religion despite not starting with Mysticism tech. His own Agriculture/Wheel starting techs are excellent and that's one of the best things that he has going for him. Generally speaking though, Hammurabi ends up having a wasted leader trait as he sits in a corner of the map trying to develop his culture. He has a high peace weight, a low aggression rating (5.5), and won't plot war at "Pleased" relations. Unless Hammurabi gets involved in a religious dispute, he tends to be somewhat of an inert AI leader. Not one of the more interesting AI personalities in the competition.
Past Performance: Hammurabi has a well-established style of play: not doing much of anything. His games typically consist either of sitting back in a corner and doing nothing at all, or else fighting minor wars that do nothing to substantially improve his position. This has predictably resulted in a lot of unsuccessful games where he either gets eventually eliminated, or else survives without advancing. Neither of his placing games were very impressive, either: he backdoored Second Place once when the gamelong second-place leader was eviscerated for no reason in the closing turns, and while his winning game was an improvement, with him genuinely playing the best game of his field, it still took him over 400 turns to win by spaceship. Hammurabi clearly doesn't have the skillset to perform at a very high level, and he's not interested in trying to.
Mansa Musa of Mali
Traits: Financial, Spiritual
Starting Techs: Mining, Wheel
Peace Weight: 9
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: Season Six champion, two Championship losses, one playoff round elimination, three opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 8 First Places
Total Kills: 8
Overall Power Ranking: 48 points, 2nd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Mansa Moneybags is the best AI leader in the game when it comes to pure economy and it's not a close comparison. He is an absolute fiend when it comes to research, even under our settings where Mansa's well known propensity to engage in tech trading gets disabled. Mansa Musa benefits from an amazing pair of economic traits, Financial for endless cottage cheese and Spiritual to avoid ever wasting turns with the AI's frequent civics shifts. The Malinese civ has an excellent unique unit in the Skirmisher and a passable unique building in the Mint. The biggest downside here comes from the poor starting techs, and if Mansa chooses to chase after an early religion, he can lock himself out of connecting early food bonuses for quite some time. On that note, Mansa has a surprisingly heavy religious preference including a lesser Religion tech preference paired along with his dominant Gold flavor. He's one of the most likely leaders to found a religion despite not starting with Mysticism tech. Mansa's strategy otherwise tends to be predictable: blanket the landscape in cottages and tech like a banshee. He's extraordinarily good at doing this even on a limited number of cities; we've repeatedly seen a Malinese empire with five cities still leading the pack in tech. If Mansa ever manages to amass a large amount of territory, may god have mercy on your soul, because he will plot war at "Pleased" and isn't afraid to lay the smack down despite his 1.6/10 aggression rating. Mansa Musa is always a dangerous opponent and will usually win the game if he doesn't get roughed up by his neighbors.
Past Performance: Mansa is widely recognized as the premier economic leader in this competition, and his overall prowess and achievements are only rivaled by those of Huayna Capac. Aside from Huayna, no other leader has won more than half of the games Mansa has! Mansa was especially strong in the early seasons of AI Survivor before the free Deity starting techs were removed, making the playoffs in three straight seasons and reaching the Championship twice. He was denied a full victory in these seasons, however, thanks to playoff fields full of low peaceweight leaders who wanted a piece of him, and most recent seasons have seen him get attacked too early in the opening round to really get going and open up the tech leads he relies on. The removal of the free techs seems to have hurt him a fair amount, making it much harder for him to survive these early assaults - but Season Six showed that he's still dangerous if he makes it through the early game, as he performed a full season sweep with three economically dominant victories to finally claim a title. While he's been roughed up quite a bit lately, Mansa still very much fills the "ticking time bomb" role, and nobody else can technologically torch the competition quite like he can.
Elizabeth of England
Traits: Financial, Philosophical
Starting Techs: Fishing, Mining
Peace Weight: 9
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: One Championship loss, six opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 3
Overall Power Ranking: 7 points, tied 42nd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Elizabeth is an easy AI personality to understand, a pacifistic economic leader who will always seek out some kind of non-military victory condition. Elizabeth has one of the best trait combinations for teching in the Financial/Philosophical pairing, and while it's true that there's some anti-synergy there between running cottages and running specialists, there's little doubt that this setup will output a lot of beakers. If Elizabeth ends up getting a solid portion of the map under her control, she's one of the toughest leaders in the game to stop. She ranks no better than a mediocre leader for AI Survivor purposes precisely because this happens so rarely; Elizabeth has an exceedingly low aggression rating (1.9/10) and a low build unit preference (2/10). Surprisingly, she will indeed plot war at "Pleased" relations, but in most games you're more likely to see someone else invading England as Elizabeth frantically researches everything except the military technology which would save her. Elizabeth's Gold and Culture research preferences often cause her to ignore the Redcoats that she desperately needs for safety. In summary, Elizabeth performs far better in games with other high peace weight leaders where she's left alone to build in peace. She's a better version of Frederick and a weaker version of Mansa Musa.
Past Performance: Elizabeth looked like a top leader in Season One, where she made the Championship while consistently being a top techer in her games, even though she didn't actually win any of them. She was still credible for the next couple of seasons as well, starting strong in Season Two only to lose to a two-front war, then coming extremely close to winning her Season Three opener via culture. However, that game ended with Julius Caesar conquering one of her Legendary cities just five turns away from her win, and that seems to have broken her spirit in this competition. Since then, each season has featured her getting off to a slow start, usually with poor expansion, before inevitably getting picked off before the end of the game. She hasn't survived a match since Season One and has only scored a single point in that time. It is worth noting that she hasn't received great starting positions in these games, usually getting rather hostile draws that force her into conflict and don't give her a good chance to get her economy going. When left alone, she can be a legitimate threat, but she's also shown serious weakness in both expansion and combat, and that's resulted in a poor overall showing.
Gilgamesh of Sumeria
Traits: Creative, Protective
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Wheel
Peace Weight: 2
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: Season Five runner up, one additional Championship loss, two wildcard eliminations, three opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 3 First Places, 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 13
Overall Power Ranking: 32 points, tied 8th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Gilgamesh is a highly aggressive warmonger who finds himself bizarrely paired with defensive leader traits and an economic civilization. His trait combination of Creative + Protective is an odd grouping with no clear direction in mind. Faster border pops joined together with extra defensive promotions - huh? I suppose they're using for Pink Dotting a neighbor with a forward city plant but that's about it. The Sumerian civilization is quite a bit better, with excellent starting techs and a useful building in the Ziggurat. The Vulture doesn't grade out much better than a standard axe and definitely serves as the weakest part of this civilization's package. Gilgamesh has a strangely high wonder building preference (8/10) and an above average interest in religion. He's also one of the most likely leaders to launch new wars (8/10 aggression rating) and he emphasizes military techs in his research. He also has Culture as his other flavor alongside that Military preference, so again, this is kind of a confused individual. Gilgamesh can't seem to decide if he wants to be a culture/wonder leader or a military leader and often struggles to reconcile these competing impulses. He can be quite successful when it all comes together but we've also seen a lot of helpless flailing in multiple directions at once.
Past Performance: While his track record is a bit spotty, Gilgamesh has nevertheless established himself as a leader to watch. For the first three seasons, he was just a nobody, stuck in unfavorable starting conditions and unable to break out of them. That all changed in Seasons Four and Five, though: both seasons saw him play a solid second-place game in the opening round/Wildcard (sneaking in a Diplomatic win in one of those games) before stomping all over his playoff round game after favorable dogpiles. Those dominant wins feeding into two straight Championship appearances launched him up into seeded leader status, and he further bolstered his position by finishing Season Five in a very close Second Place. But while still being an important figure in most of his games, he's struggled a bit more of late: he's been stuck fighting it out in the Wildcard the past three seasons, and not been able to make it through the game in the past two. In sum, Gilgamesh is a capable warmonger who can be extremely dangerous when he breaks out in front, but historically has needed a bit of help from an ally to reach that point.
Pacal of the Mayans
Traits: Financial, Expansive
Starting Techs: Mysticism, Mining
Peace Weight: 2
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Past Finishes: Three Championship losses, two playoff round eliminations, two opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 4 First Places, 4 Second Places
Total Kills: 9
Overall Power Ranking: 37 points, tied 4th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Pacal has a top tier trait combination, with the amazing Financial and the good Expansive, allowing him to get those Financial cottages up and running even faster. He also gets the bad Holkan unique unit and the good Ball Court, which adds a nice boost to happiness in the midgame. Lastly, Pacal gets Mysticism and Mining for his starting techs, a pretty crappy pair only useful for chasing a religion out of the gate. Pacal is a pretty standard economic AI in most ways, with a low aggression rating (2.8/10), though his unit preference (4/10) isn't as suicidally low as some of the leaders like him. His flavours are Culture and Growth, and you can usually expect Pacal to pursue an early religion right out of the gate. Pacal is one of the two leaders (along with Huayna Capac) who combine a low peace weight with a heavily economic style of play. With a peaceweight of 2, an ideal Pacal game probably sees the warmongers and peaceniks fight it out amongst each other while he sits back and builds an insurmountable tech lead.
Past Performance: Pacal's combination of economic focus and low peaceweight have proven highly effective at moving him through the tournament: he's the only leader so far to manage the twin achievements of five playoff appearances and three Championship appearances! Pacal has shown convincingly that he's able to play the economic game and play it well, using that avenue to pull out to an unstoppable tech lead in all of his wins. His second-place finishes have been considerably less impressive, generally coming when he's considerably behind and somewhat lucky to be advancing at all. Those show his low peaceweight at work, though, allowing him to slip on by even if it's not his game. That said, when Pacal fails, he can fail hard - there's been multiple games where he was attacked before even connecting metals, leading to very early exits. He thus has similar strengths and weaknesses to other major economic leaders, but his peaceweight has allowed him to enjoy the consistent success that most of them have lacked.
Lincoln of the Americans
Traits: Charismatic, Philosophical
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Fishing
Peace Weight: 9
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Past Finishes: One playoff round elimination, two wildcard eliminations, four opening round eliminations
Total Medals: 1 First Place
Total Kills: 2
Overall Power Ranking: 7 points, tied 42nd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Lincoln can essentially be thought of as a slightly less extreme clone of Gandhi. He's almost as pacifistic in nature without taking things to quite as ridiculous of a degree. Lincoln's trait combination is pretty lackluster, depriving this peaceful leader of much of an economic foundation to work with. Philosophical in particular doesn't seem to do much for AI leaders who always run a gazillion specialists at all times. Lincoln is not helped either by his American civ with all of its uselessly-late unique features. Lincoln as a leader is extremely peaceful in nature with an exceedingly low aggression rating (0.8/10). He won't declare war at "Pleased" either so Lincoln rarely winds up initiating much in the way of conflict. Unlike Gandhi, he will at least train an average number of units (4/10) and therefore doesn't collapse instantly when attacked. Lincoln's an easy neighbor to get along with, as he rarely makes demands and doesn't hold much interest in religion. Unfortunately he also doesn't have any clear path to winning a victory, as his traits aren't great for pure economy and he doesn't have anything beyond half-cost universities to help with culture. It all adds up to a mixed bag, a nice guy leader who's too friendly to attack anyone while also lacking the tools to run the Mansa Musa or Darius playbook.
Past Performance: Lincoln is an extreme case of a leader with a front-loaded performance: he scored every single one of his career points in his very first game! That was a mostly-friendly field where he smartly joined in on two separate dogpiles of aggressive leaders, then sat back with his friends and coasted to a strong but unsustainable win. He has utterly failed to remotely approach this level of performance since, and has instead largely served as fodder for the aggressive leaders. Sometimes his lack of success has been beyond his control, of course - most notably his Season Three opener, where he was a shoo-in for Second Place for ages until a runaway Mansa attacked him in the closing turns for no reason - but there's also been plenty of games with decent starts where he simply didn't get anything done. Most tellingly, he put up one of the worst defenses we've ever seen in his most recent appearance, allowing a small-sized Carthaganian empire to quickly conquer his best cities without catapults and completely altering the course of the game in the process. It's more than clear by now that Lincoln is in the lowest tiers of competition, and a strong performance by him is an unlikely outcome indeed.
Here's what the community was thinking based on the prediction contest before the game took place:
The AI Survivor community interpreted the first playoff game as a showdown between Pacal and Mansa Musa, with about 80% of the entrants selecting one of those two leaders and Pacal a little better than a 2:1 favorite over Mansa. Amusingly, Hammurabi only had 1 vote out of 110 contest entrants and Lincoln couldn't even manage that single vote. The Runner Up category was its usual mixed bag with no clear consensus on who to pick, followed by First to Die having a more decisive choice in the form of Lincoln. The American leader had been a runaway favorite to be First to Die in his opening round game and the community once again was choosing him for an early exit here in the playoffs. As for victory condition, Spaceship was the strong consensus pick followed by Cultural and with almost no votes going to Domination this time around.
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!
the_lord_admiral: It's the battle of the elite techers! Will it be Mansa with the double food start? Pacal with that beautiful looking double gold and the wet corn to support it? Or Lizzie with the double wonder resources at her capital? In a game that seems likely to end in a cultural victory somehow, I've going with the last of those options. Lincoln should get along with Elizabeth, and I bet Pacal spreads his religion to her, so she should be reasonably well insulated from fighting. And that might just be enough for her to get three super-cities.
Blervis: Mansa might have a UB with the name, but Pacal will be running the Mint. If that wasn't enough - Plains Cow AND Fin/Alive, with a relatively peaceful crowd. Giggles will be there to draw the peacnik's ire until it's too late to stop K'inich Janaab. Mansa will use his sheltered start to make 2nd.
NotSpamBot: Given the field is heavily biased towards a high peaceweight and his room to expand, I have to go with the Obvious Choice and pick Mansa. Hammurabi is the only one who can really spoil his plans and it feels like he is going to screw around with Pacal instead, while Mansa's happiness crunch is something he can likely solve via trading. Like in his opening round game. This is not the game where the low peaceweights turn it around.
Vesper: No raging barbs and TWO golds at capital make Pacal's start the strongest. Mansa has been denied riverside cap and most of happy, on top of denying copper and excess forests around the capital, but he's too well known of being able to rebound off even worse starts, yet I think he'll not be able to eliminate opposition before Pacal would Dominate. Hammy's FTD due to being close to Pacal, not due to his bad start. But, Hammy's got PH capital... Anyway this is going to be *interesting*.
Mooaddict: In order to make Mansa win the game I bet Pacal to win. I'm betting that Pacal runs over Hammurabi and then takes care of Mansa stopping him before his tech is too good. If this were not so heavily high PW game I would bet Lincoln to FTD because Gilgamesh will attack him, but Lincoln has an ally with Elisabeth. Mansa has most easily settleable land & excellent AI so this probably backfires. Both low PW leaders are in risk to get in 2v1 wars.
TheOneAndOnlyAtesh: After Gilgamesh runs over Lincoln, the terrified English citizens beg the gods to save them. The gods send over Ham-kidu… only for the two to become the best of friends and to unite to defeat the forest spirit MansaHum MusaBaba. However, after the gods carefully curated plot to rig the system for Hatshepsut completely fell apart, MansaHum MusaBaba was their contingency plan, so in their wrath, they sic Pacal onto Gilgamesh’s BFF Ham-kidu. Gilgamesh is so heartbroken that he resolves to find enlightenment and win the championship game.
LinkMarioSamus: With that monster capital and three weak leaders without much success prior to this season, I'm picking Pacal to win this game and Gilgamesh to finish 2nd in defiance of the trend of high PW leaders dominating this season. I personally think all four of the high PW leaders have plenty going against them - Hammurabi and Lincoln seem particularly squeezed, Mansa might well get confined into the peninsula to his west with two neighbors whose early games are much stronger than his, and Elizabeth has both stone and marble at her capital which could cause her to go on a wonder spree in addition to generally being a slow starter. I also really don't think Hammurabi's capital has much potential after the early game (nice oasis I guess), and he is even more squeezed than Darius was in Game 5 although Hammurabi tends to be faster out of the gate. And if there's any border clash between Hammurabi and Mansa, the high PW leaders can kiss this game goodbye. I also personally think Pacal has a good chance of founding a religion (whether he'll do it or not is anyone's guess, the religious game seems wide open with no other Mysticism start and everyone except Lincoln having some kind of religious or cultural focus to their research) and possibly converting one of his neighbors (most likely Elizabeth, since Hammurabi and Mansa are probably the next leaders most likely to found a religion and they might share one together) to at least ward off aggression if not put it off entirely. Hammurabi and Elizabeth would have to coordinate their attacks in order to prevent Pacal running away with the game, and I don't see that as terribly likely - ESPECIALLY given the vast disparity in aggression ratings between them and Elizabeth being considerably further away. On the western side of the map, I think Gilgamesh has the most room to expand of any leader while Mansa's start really does not inspire me and he might well put off improving his resources to chase after religion. Hammurabi seems like the leader who'll perform the worst on this map, so I'll pick him FTD in the hopes that Pacal can snowball off of him. All four of Pacal's past victories were by spaceship, so I picked that and averaged out the finish dates of every past victory. I'll admit I also don't want Mansa to catch up to Huayna Capac.
ZincAlloy: This whole map comes down to whether or not a barb city spawns in Mansa Musa's private peninsula before he settles there.
smithy: Welcome to Playoff game one- the cultural game. Everyone here has a cultural or religious flavour... well except for Lincoln, but he dreams of being Gandhi, so it's about the same. With so much emphasis on culture, I expect them all to be stymied in their attempts to get the fast culture win as the religions get spread out everywhere. So what will they do instead? Lizzie will steal all the wonders. Pacal will tech like a man who possesses ALL the gold and ALL the silver. Mansa will behave like the best leader in the game once he finds his way out of this damn forest. Giggles will start a fight. Lincoln will die. Hammurabi will also be there. Expect Pacal to be the betting favourite, but given how this season has gone I foresee the inevitability of the low odds Hammurabi domination win.
Commodore: Nobody knows how wealthy the Richest Man in History really was but it's got to be less after how much Mansa Musa had to pay Sullla for this start. Huge backlines, solid capital with iron in the BFC, and the only other leader who's as good as he is at teching (Elizabeth) given not one but TWO masonry poison pills. Gilgamesh will beat up on Lincoln but not fast enough to beat the financials Infantry before his Rifles, and Hammurabi exists only to speedbump Pacal...which is just where Mr. Bump on a Log is happiest.
Smosism: Fin-Alive: the combo that always delivers until they don't! I think most people will either pick pacal-gilga or mansa-someone but i can see they both co-existing. I can see pacal playing a strong spiritual-econ game and mansa being crippled by neighbour aggression, but with enough research to outpace gilgamesh for second. Hammurabi is the key as he will settle west and deny one of the great rivers near mansa.
BigBlueBen: Mansa's in the game with three other high peaceweight decoys, so he has to be the favorite, right? Pacal's capital is great, but the rest of his land isn't, and Pacal is so underwhelming historically I can't get behind him. Elizabeth is in a safer position since she won't border Giggles, and capital stone + marble + financial might lead her to build every wonder, so I wouldn't be too surprised if she ran away with things. But she could also go into wonder-mode on three cities and Mansa's culture is generally faster than space. Giggles could kill someone quickly and get the domination-snowball going. That's always a risk, and probably happens 3 or 4 times out of 20, but his only real ally is a peaceful Pacal in the opposite corner. I'm not really sure how Lincoln or Hammer ever win, so those are the two that probably are going to advance in the real game.
Dagoth Gares: Lincoln grows a set of massive biceps and crushes Giggles while Mansa Musa techs to the literal stars.
Mansa da man: No surprises who I'm voting for! And man, it's been a while since Mansa has seen such a favourable field. Yes, Pacal has an insane start but can he really tech all that well when bordering an Aggressive Hammurabi who hates him for existing? Meanwhile Mansa has a peninsula all to himself that may not produce many units but plenty of seafood and financial coastal tiles? Yes please! His only vulnerability is early on since he lacks copper and there is a chance Gilgamesh could attack early (Skirmishers though), or if Lincoln does his best impression of Zara defending against Alex and gets run over, like with Hannibal last year, and Gilgamesh snowballs. But I expect Gilgamesh to struggle with his economy early on and most likely, Mansa techs away in his little corner, perhaps grabs a bit of Gilgamesh's sweet (4 sugar tiles in a row!) land, and wins relatively undisturbed as he has much more room than Elizabeth. And in a world of high peaceweights, he and Lizzy are the only ones who can break the status quo with a well timed backstab against an ally of their choosing!
Colors: Mansa with a meat shield, good diplo and a giant back line to expand into? Call in the turn 305 cultural victory now. I like Pacal for second on some end game conquests with that killer capital. I strongly considered a none FTD with this field but I think Gil stirs up enough trouble to get himself killed.
lymond: Hard not to vote for Pacal this time.
Galren: Gilgamesh is in a corner surrounded by AIs likely to hate him and his land isn't that great quality. Sorry bud, this ain't Civ 6, Enkidu isn't here to help you.
Bernn: It's hard not to view Pacal as the favorite here. His opening round showed he can perform well even with an awkward capital, and this time he's got a gorgeous double gold start, plenty of rivers and unimpressive neighbors. Given the huge peace weight differences, we could definitely see Pacal getting dogpiled, but Elizabeth/Hammurabi are pretty inept warmongers at the best of times and Pacal can probably handle them. He's got Gilgamesh in the north as a natural attack dog to counterbalance the otherwise very high PW field too. Mansa Musa is always a threat and the diplomatic environment favors him, but his start's a lot slower than Pacal's and I just don't see him outperforming the Mayans. I'm going all in on another Pacal slam dunk.
Plains-Cow: Plains-Pacow is already starting to look like a winner, and probably can into space for this round, but will he be able to outdo his other economic-focused rivals?! Tune in to find out during this week's episode of Financial/Alive Z!
Sir Colville of the Dale: At first, this looks like a "Storm Area 51; they can't stop all of us" scenario with too many economic ticking time bombs for the low peaceweight leaders to overcome. But I think the religious landscape will break their way. If Hammurabi gets Pacal's religion, Mansa will be 2v1'd and FTD. Gilgamesh will make the most of this and also have Lincoln and Lizzie as religious allies. I think the board sufficiently stalemates for a late Gilgamesh space.
Guanidine: Oh lord, thank you for that desert to shield my man Mansa from the wrath of Gilgamesh, so that he may culture away in peace.
arlind: Revenge of the Warmonger(s)? In a game everyone expects to be about who techs the best, we will see our boy Gilgamesh destroy these fools. A fitting turnabout for a season where the "wrong" peaceweights have been winning.
Eauxps I. Fourgott: Seven years ago, we had a game featuring many of these same leaders. I picked Lincoln to come in second place. He and Hammurabi worked together to kill Gilgamesh, putting Lincoln in second, and all was well. Until a runaway Mansa attacked him at the end of the game, for no reason, and ruined my pick. Now, old wrongs shall be righted and the injustices of the past amended. Once again, Lincoln and Hammurabi shall gang up on Gilgamesh. Once again, Lincoln shall take the bulk of the spoils to move into second place. But this time, Mansa will leave Lincoln alone while waltzing to an easy victory. And I will finally get my five points.