This summary for Playoff Game Two was written by Kuro. Many thanks for volunteering to put this report together! 
Hello hello, bau bau! We're back with another exciting post-game writeup of Civ IV AI Survivor this week, and we're looking at a game with a pretty varied group of leaders compared to the expected Gandhi/Elizabeth/Sitting Bull peacefest next time out. Will top AI Justinian run over the field with his legions of Cataphracts? Is Louis going to make Sullla go insane again with a corner cultural victory? Will Stalin regain the glory of ye olde seasons now that he's returned to the winner's circle? Can Victoria avoid being first to die in a world that hates her very existence?
One thing is certain: Nobody knows! This was a heavily fractured picking contest, with Suryavarman topping out at 32.7% to win and Justinian behind him at 27.1%: These two may have made a plurality, but nobody was particularly strongly picked. Louis' 16.8% was third and Brennus a distant last, but for 2nd place it was even more broken with only one person having over 20% in the contest. Suryavarman's 29% topped the 2nd place charts but Justinian (18.7%), Louis (16.8%), Stalin (ALSO 16.8%!), and Brennus (14%) all had substantial odds with no clear consensus. The only person who didn't have odds for 2nd was poor Victoria, whose second place odds were below her first place odds that nearly exceeded Stalin! This largely was because there was only one true consensus this game: Victoria FTD [First to Die]. 71% of the contest had her exiting the game first, largely owing to her horrid peace weight issue: She was PW8 [peaceweight 8] in a world of PW4, PW2, PW1, PW1, and PW0! Everyone was predisposed to hate her. Victory condition had Spaceship as just missing a majority with Domination condition and Cultural a distant 3rd that mostly consisted of Louis pickers (his 16.8% pickrate and the wincon's 15.9% was almost identical and he had 2 cultural traits).
This also led to a lot of discussion on the map and what would transpire. In general, it was assumed Justinian and Brennus would found early religions and this could potentially lead to an east/west breakdown in diplomacy although neither had an expansive river system to spread it. Louis' cultural focus also was thought to potentially pull him towards religion, which could make a 3-religion game. This was particularly relevant because in a world of largely similar peace weights, many of the AI leaders were zealots: Justinian/Brennus are obvious, but Suryvarman cares a lot about religion too, and even Louis does more than expected. This made Stalin, who effectively had 0 care about religion, the diplomatic wildcard, and people were very curious how the diplomacy would divide after Victoria's inevitable demise.
A big point of discussion on this front was Justinian's surrounding terrain. Put simply, he had huge swathes of desert to both his east and west (in fact this map was pretty desert-happy overall), and to his south was jungle as well. By my count, he had 21 tiles worth of desert near him! Some felt like some potentially strong nearby city plants (such as a triple gems jungle area!), his awesome capital (2x Corn, Rice, and Grassland Horse w/ multiple horses), and the power of Imperialistic would pull him through. This was generally the divide between if you believed Justinian would win or not. Some, like the folks at CivFanatics, went as far as to say Justinian had a "death spot" and would be FTD! Justinian was, in fact, one of the only other leaders to have any form of substantial pie chart on the FTD with 7.5%.
Suryavarman, Stalin, and Louis were all believed to have potential high-expansion starts, particularly Suryavarman. Sury started down south about 20+ tiles from almost every other leader and had Cultural to boot, it was easy to imagine him getting out to 9+ cities peacefully. His weakness seemed to be poor war-expansion prospects, as his identical peace weight with Louis and near identical peace weight with Stalin meant he'd be predisposed to like them if they didn't adopt another religion (though it's worth noting all 3 of those leaders will plot at Pleased!). His other weakness is while he had a lot of land, a lot of it was poor: He did have expansive rivers but a lot of plains, desert, and jungle nearby.
Stalin and Louis both had plenty of room to expand, but Stalin's known propensity towards slow expansion worried people compared to the fast-expanding Imperialistic Justinian. His double Clams start also was a terrible fit for his Hunting/Mining start, even if Hunting did allow him to go to Animal Husbandry for his 2x Pigs resource quickly, and it was a very strong start overall with a Grasslands Hill Pigs being great early on. Finally, Louis had less clear expansion than Sury/Stalin due to the possibility of Sury/Brennus sealing him off in a way the other two didn't need to worry about, but unlike the other two he had 3~ cities in his backline he could safely backfill and did not have jungle/desert on his doorstep as much.
Brennus' start looked great compared to the others until one realizes he has one pre-Calender food resource around him not directly in Victoria or Louis' sphere of influence. Speaking of Victoria, one benefit she had was actually awesome land! She had a HUGE pair of double rivers nearby as a Financial civ, Grassland Hill Pigs for her Imperialistic + Mining start (even if her Fishing was useless to start with), multiple nearby Gold resources, and her desert had substantially more Flood Plains than anyone else. If she could survive a world of hatred, then she had the resources to back things up.
Personally, I'd put my money on these being the keys of the game:
1: Who was going to take advantage of Justinian being a dead man walking long term? I know I mentioned it was a debate, but I was firmly of the opinion that with his horrific land and poor religious diplo (Brennus/Stalin as neighbors is a Justinian nightmare scenario) that he was doomed after helping eat Victoria. Would I be wrong and he would overcome it? That would change a lot. My money was on Stalin and Sury or Brennus double teaming him after wars with Victoria.
2: How well would Suryavarman expand and would he have any prospects after the peaceful landgrab? If he was slow, Justinian was effectively forced to expand north/south by the desert, and it could result in him being pinched. This also tied into...
3: Would Louis be attacked by Suryavarman or Brennus, or would Louis be left in peace? He had enough space to run away with a cultural victory if left by himself, but could easily make a religious enemy of Brennus, and additionally Suryavarman only had so many expansion opportunities.
4: Finally, who would take advantage of Victoria's defeat? This was the main way Justinian was not a dead man, Brennus' lack of food could be made up with Victoria's lush land, or someone like Suryavarman from the south could put himself over the edge in land by simply taking over her. It was an obvious point of divergence.
I was basically all-in on this game for the fantasy challenge, as Louis and Stalin represented 2 of my 3 remaining AI, so I'd need a high finish from one or both of them to stay in it. Lobster entered the contest with only one AI left in Victoria and looked toast, while Kjotlek was just looking to break double digits in his title defense with Suryavarman after his team had flumped hard. Vincarius was close to leader ABC (who had no one playing this game) in score with Joao left as well, so the fact he had both Stalin and Brennus suggested serious upside to win it all with the right game.
Things immediately went off the expected path, as while Brennus went for a religion as expected, Justinian went for the important Agriculture for his resources. This may not have meant much except for the fact that Victoria AND Louis decided to open up on the religious path! While Victoria and Louis both lost in the Meditation race to Brennus after picking up Mysticism, it meant that all three of them had Mysticism and the religion race was wide open. Everyone else just went to their appropriate food techs. Brennus also settled towards Victoria in the process, popping the Buddhist holy city on a spot that took Victoria's gold resource but was unable to work it itself, and Suryavarman founded a pretty stinky 2nd city that had Flood Plains, Jungle, and nothing else rather than grabbing a Corn or settling a pretty Ivory/Gems spot. Stalin founded a classic "city that's really good if borders were popped but this AI doesn't like Mysticism" city and everyone else founded pretty normal spots.
Both Victoria and Louis IMMEDIATELY decided to chase Polytheism, but Victoria was pulling off the best impression of fellow civ sister Isabella by going "Financial on a Lake" to get the edge in tech rate, and Justinian ALSO joined in clearly behind both of them. And as usual Brennus was beelining Masonry, as one does as a Celt. Suryavarman and Victoria were both building fast settlers during this time, as well. Victoria and Louis ultimately ended up with the race going down to the SAME TURN, with Victoria winning the tiebreaker and picking the appropriate Christianity. York was also very interestingly on a massive river network that spread to almost every civ or potentially could in some way, offering the potential for Victoria to religiously dominate the map, and immediately throwing the pre-game thoughts of this being a 2-man religious race of Justinian and Brennus. On top of that, Justinian didn't swap off of Polytheism at all! In fact, Justinian's response was to immediately beeline Monotheism!
This was, all things considered, probably the single most important moment of the game. Not only did the religious diplomacy completely turn on its head with major knock-on effects on the game, but Justinian had effectively knocked himself out of anything resembling a strong early game by spending roughly 50 turns on Agriculture and a single religion when he already had weak land and needed to expand quickly, a showing of when Justinian's AI personality can cause him weakness. He would end up founding Confucianism on Turn 47. The snowball against him could already be seen by the first settlers getting produced: Victoria finished hers 5 turns before Justinian while Stalin and Suryavarman already had theirs out on the map while Justinian was just starting his religious push, with Stalin in particular settling a beautiful Fish/Rice/Horses city even if the Rice was jungled. Justinian could ill afford to avoid mines and half his food resources when he was already behind the 8-ball! Victoria would furthermore found Nottingham directly on the borders of Justinian's second city, making Justinian's future expansion prospects rather awkward, and seizing control of a fertile Flood Plains + Marble + Hills location low in resources but high in foodhammers. With Stalin's 2nd city having gone directly towards Justinian and the swathes of desert around him, he was feeling squeezed before he ever got a settler out!
Brennus and Suryavarman were meanwhile taking some not-so-great tech choices like Masonry, super early Bronze Working, and Archery, while Louis, Victoria, and Stalin took much more standard tech paths such as The Wheel, Mining, food resources, and so on. Louis also rushed out Stonehenge (Turn 33!) with his Industrious trait, not as useful as it'd be on a non-Creative civ but it would help him out against Suryavarman's borders, and if he got the religion he seemed determined to get at some point. Justinian also did at least make an intriguing move to head straight to the center of the map, claiming a lot of territory with an interesting triple Sugar/Ivory/Iron spot that required Iron Working to become good but had great long term potential. Suryavarman continued to double pump settlers and Brennus/Louis were largely backfilling at the time. And he expanded into a really strong spot with Corn, double Gems, Ivory, a Flood Plains, Copper, and 70% Jungle: fortunately the Corn, Ivory, Copper, and Flood Plains were un-jungled to make a surprisingly strong early city despite that.
The first barbarian city's pop was to the north of Stalin, who already had primarily been expanding south and east, and would only further push him to do so. A SECOND barbarian city almost immediately popped up after, so by Turn 49 Stalin (and to a much lesser extent Justinian) had some serious barbarian issues already, and in particular Stalin's bountiful northern backline was looking harder to settle than he might have hoped.
By Turn 50, things had shaken out...interestingly. Wonders and culture had put Louis at the top and looked to have good room to expand, while Stalin had moved out in a nice way that cut off Justinian. Victoria had a strong start with happiness from her religion along with Financial/Imperialistic to get out early cities and have them be rather strong. Suryavarman and Justinian trailed in the GNP charts as Sury had expanded quite a lot but was only just now getting the Wheel and Justinian had effectively spent most of the game doing nothing, while Victoria dominated the production charts (which explained the Imperialistic settler pumping!) even if she was now building the Temple of Artemis. It isn't like that's a wonder that'd matter and she had it building over like 50 turns even if that'd be cut down by hooking up the city's Marble. For a clue of how bad Justinian's start had been, he was pumping out 5 beakers per turn and barely keeping that up!
While in many ways his game felt effectively over, one strength he had was the diplomatic situation of Victoria: especially with Brennus/Justinian's other religions she was the worst enemy of everyone in the world except for Stalin who stayed neutral with her, and she had a fairly central position with intensely disputed borders with Justinian (who had settled Nicea minimum distance from a Victoria city as if in reprisal for Nottingham) and Brennus (who had settled onto her very closely in addition to being a religious nut). Perhaps her only benefit was Suryavarman had been kept from expanding onto her borders north by a Justinian city and had no border tension with him, but it still felt like she was a house that could be blown down by a coalition of Big Bad Wolves if they banded together, and doubly so considering she was last in power!
Right as the turn 50 overview happened though, an interesting settling battle was occurring between Suryavarman and Louis over a part of the eastern peninsula they both had. Suryavarman was running two settlers down there while Louis was running one: If Louis wasn't able to plant a city first he was going to be locked out of substantial territory, but a good placement by Louis could ensure even more eastern territory to him. While Louis got to the area quicker, he was also further away from any good settling spots, so Suryavarman got a Piggs/Horse(and I guess coal) spot that ultimately didn't have a ton to it instead. Surprisingly, Louis and Sury's 2nd settler then split into totally different directions, with Sury taking a southern spot that did seal off the south, but Louis taking a spot that claimed the eastern seaboard and kept his borders fairly open. This ensured Suryavarman to get the entire (if small) tundra-y south, but Louis ensured he could grab 9~ cities with his backfills. This rather crashed Sury's economy, but he didn't seem too messed up as he was close to Pottery if he chose to research it: he went after it on Turn 62, and his economy was not too crashed to recover (even if after the next city he founded he was at 20% science...but Justinian was at 30% in a worse situation only a few turns before!).
Little of note happened over the next turns: Justinian continued to play a horrible game, deciding not to expand even as Stalin settled right on his face to claim copper, the AIs outside of Justinian continued to expand, Louis grabbed a useless Great Wall and a more useful Oracle + Pyramids (which actually helped Suryavarman: he got failgold to help accelerate his crashed economy!), Stalin picking up Justinian's religion...he's not very religious, so eh. Suryavarman bounced an aggressive Stalin settler away, but Stalin just sent it south and sealed off his southern peninsula full of a few cities. The two barbarian cities had largely forced Stalin southward, and while Suryavarman didn't get squeezed out of much it did affect how their borders got together.
One notable piece of news was Suryavarman picking up Brennus' religion: Unlike Stalin, who cared little about religion, Suryavarman cared a lot and was looking like a potential dual-ally with him, meaning that he was now in religious conflict with Justinian and Stalin. Justinian and Suryavarman had a huge border along each other and Justinian was in a VERY bad position overall: Despite being Turn 78, Justinian had not researched Mining, and he had to get all the way up to Iron Working for metals! Also noteworthy was shockingly Stalin already taking a barbarian city on Turn 80, which was very important to his long term chances by getting nice northern territory.
What had been missed the entire time was that Brennus was building up to war and his target was predictable: Victoria. This was pre-Catapults so there didn't seem like a high likelihood to take cities immediately, but Victoria was in prime position for potential dogpiles, although Justinian's lacking metals kept him from joining in for the time being. Justinian did at least beeline iron, likely stressed by his lack of strategic metals.
This, however, was a potentially iffy spot for Victoria: Brennus was close to Victoria's capital which was incredibly lightly defended, while Victoria had 5 Chariots on defense in Nottingham which made it surprisingly potentially fragile. London only had a spear, an axe, a chariot, and a single archer in it! Brennus stack seemed to walk towards London at first, but Victoria responded by throwing units at the stack like Chariots and placing them near Nottingham as bait, and eventually despite the fact he would have surely taken London's capital with a direct assault he instead attacked across a river into 40% cultural defense Nottingham and accomplished absolutely nothing. Stalin shows him how it's done by taking another barbarian city. It was even possible Brennus could have taken Nottingham had he not attacked across a river: Victoria only had 1 axe, 2 archers, 1 spear, and 5 Chariots in it (plus another spear possibly whipped in the interturn), while Brennus had 4 axes, 4 chariots, 4 Archers and a Spear. Considering Victoria was reduced to 2 Chariots and multiple low health units, so maybe without the river...alas, it was the Brennus Botch instead.
While he had botched the major cities, Brennus DID proceed to snipe the border city of Coventry from the English, a largely iceball-y city that nonetheless was in a precarious position and would be good for Brennus if he could hold it. Victoria took it back the next turn. 
Then a surprise shook the world! Stalin, whose army had been marching to the far north, was thought to just be whacking a final barbarian city deep in the tundra. This turned out not to be the only case: He had enough of the weak Justinian on his borders, and desired his land for himself! While it was a pre-Catapult war, Justinian was in a precarious position because Justinian had only JUST finished Iron Working that same turn, and was still in the process of building metal units at all! One of Justinian's border cities had nothing but 1 Spear and 1 Chariot, and Stalin sniped another city from Justinian with a Chariot as well. Seeing as Stalin had more than twice the production queues of Justinian when he was down to 4 cities, and even without Catapults that could be an untenable position.
Turn 100 hit, so a more quick true overview of strength: Justinian had very clearly become the runt of the game, late to metals and under assault, maxing out at 5 cities when everyone else had more with most of them to significant degrees. Stalin's war also meant he was unlikely to settle into the little land left, so it felt like his only chance to stick around in the game was to join up with someone in a partition and go from there.
Stalin had expanded to a great 9 cities when counting his current Byzantine city taken, but his economy was on the weaker side (partially due to his delay in culture as he only got it at Writing), and most importantly he was VERY squeezed on happiness! His biggest city was Size 6 due to zero happiness resources nearby, a stark contrast to a leader like Louis who had almost all of his sizes Size 7 or above. This had caused his economy to be more crushed than he would have liked. The flipside is that with all his cities and a weakened Justinian next to him, he might just snowball into pure power. Brennus had a modestly sized empire, with modest research thanks to double gold early, and a decent military: He seemed like the confident middle point of the game, with a reasonable chance to win if he could exercise some military might over someone. He had also taken a bizarre tech path that made him go completely around Pottery until TURN 117, an insane decision for him really.
The three leaders in the game seemed to be Louis, Suryavarman, and a surprising Victoria. Victoria had performed an excellent landgrab phase that saw her just behind Suryavarman and Stalin in city count, but unlike them had a robust economy due to Financial and happiness from her religion + a shrine to fuel that expansion without the weakness the other two exhibited. Her weakness was obvious: She was at war with Brennus, she was following a religion nobody practiced, and she was surrounded by low peaceweights who put her at risk of a dogpile at all times. Suryavarman was the leader in cities, but his rapid expansion had left him behind in technology compared to most of the non-Stalin leaders, and his cities were a bit behind in improvements as well. He also still had room to expand up, and could join in against Victoria or Justinian for spoils: He didn't like either one at all.
Louis led in GNP, Production, AND Food thanks to a strong 7 cities with robust happiness (three of those cities were past size 10 and another was size 9!), but he was pretty tapped out in expansion save for maybe an extra border city either deep in the jungle or heavily against Brennus' borders compared to Victoria (who had northern tundra she could grab) or Sury (who had 2~ city plants he could toss into the southern tundra and 1-2 more he could pop into disputed land next to Stalin). He also was pursuing a pure culture strategy and on track to found a religion at Code of Laws that nobody else practiced (he would found Hinduism on Turn 105). His expansion prospects also had to either work through the strong Suryavarman and Victoria or the militaristic, Wall-loving Brennus, and so compared to his rivals he had a tougher time getting out militarily.
A major factor right now was also on display: The Great Lighthouse. This powerful wonder was being built by both Stalin and Louis and who got it would be noteworthy. Louis had 3 coastal cities and his filler city he could put up against Brennus would also be coastal and it could skyrocket his research past the field, while Stalin had 4 coastal cities, a backline coastal spot he'd surely found after war, AND northern tundra on the coast. His poor economy could get instantly solved if he happened to land this wonder. And guess what? BOTH of them were in position to finish it the same turn! Louis ended up making the bold decision to whip the city out early with his 10 pop, and got The Great Lighthouse on Turn 102. This was understated during the stream itself, but I think this may have been a pivotal point in the game, as Stalin was in range to potentially really jump start himself if he could get that economic boost.
Victoria, meanwhile, got an important reprieve: after taking Gergovia only for Brennus to instantly take it back, Brennus and Victoria signed a blank peace, getting Victoria out of a potential 2v1 situation with someone like Sury or Louis if they deigned to do so. Brennus, apparently offended at Louis' founding his own religion and unwilling to give peace a chance, decided to go RIGHT into declaring war on Louis two turns later on Turn 108! This would turn out to be pivotal.
Louis himself seemed reasonably prepared for the war and the technology level was in his favor (albeit barely), with Louis and Brennus both on Mathematics to go onto Construction, while Victoria no longer had to worry about her eastern flank while the war went on. Louis building Chichen Itza helped him out as well, with most of his cities being 75%+ city defenses. Brennus would march a GIANT stack up to the great city of Rheims, but the clutch Chichen Itza right before allowed him to stoutly hold. Suryavarman itched to get into these world wars as well: Everyone had noticed him building up units and his religious hatred plus border tension with the weak Justinian meant that the Byzantine emperor was finding himself on the bad end of a 2v1 he could ill afford. And Suryavarman had much more success than his religious brother Brennus did: He took the border city of Adrianople 2 turns after the war started, Justinian's army far against Stalin and spent anyway. Suryavarman also pillaged Justinian's sole source of metal, the iron near Adrianople that was still within Justinian's border, and had reduced Justinian to the always-terrible "Oops! All Chariots!" defensive strategy.
Suryavarman and Stalin began chopping down the Confucian holy city of its holy chariots and no amount of appealing to the law was enough to prevent Thessalonica from falling into Khmer hands, though Sury was surely saddened to find no shrine within its walls. And things only got worse from there...
VICTORIA, who had been in "we have enough on our hands" mode for a while, decided she wanted a piece of the pie too! People had been speculating she was going after Brennus to carve him up with Louis given the earlier assault from the Celts, but it seemed she smelt blood in the water. Justinian, who already had one and a half feet in the grave, was now SUPER dead in the process. She had built up an impressive stack of Swordsmen with a few Axes and Chariots, and took Nicaea immediately. Antioch, right on Stalin's borders, fell back into the rusky's hands and Justinian was left to huddle up in Constantinople and wait to see who got his first to die points. He had decided on the "pick a God and pray" philosophy at this point, founding Islam in Constantinople via Great Prophet as he waited to die, and crucially denying Louis from another holy city for his cultural victory. Suryavarman's stack died at Constantinople's walls from the sheer number of defenders in tow, but that merely meant Victoria's forces arrived two turns later to deal the finishing blow and get the kill points. Justinian had bad land, but he also had played a horrific early game that put him behind the entire time, made bad tech choices, and failed to spread his religion to a crucial ally in Suryavarman, so it was hard to say his death was undeserved.
With that, Suryavarman had captured 2 cities from the Byzantines, Victoria had captured 2 cities, and despite the long war Stalin had only managed to obtain Antioch due to the speed of which Victoria conquered the spoils. It seemed to be an even split between Suryavarman and Victoria for the time being...
Seemed to.
Remember Nottingham? Remember the Temple of Artemis? Well, that Temple of Artemis had been outputting +8 culture per turn from Nottingham for ages, so when Thessalonica and Adrianople got captured they were completely swallowed up by English culture. Adrianople would be gifted over to Victoria before the war was even over, and it did not take long for Thessalonica to go over to her as well. The reality was Victoria had effectively won Justinian's entire territory. Covertly, she had also been settling the entire northern tundra during the time she was at peace with Brennus but not at war with Justinian, with the end result being the only Financial civ in the game having 14 cities before the medieval era had even begun.
The world had little choice but to tremble. Her diplomacy was still bad, but Brennus and Louis' war still raged on, and with her territorial size she was going to become an unstoppable monster to anything except perhaps a sneaky Louis cultural victory unless Stalin and Suryavarman banded together to crush her before she could fully absorb the Byzantine settlements or grow her northern cities. Unfortunately, Stalin and Sury were far from fast friends: Their war bonus helped out, but Sury hated Stalin for his heathen religion, while Stalin sensed much more border tension with Suryavarman than Victoria who his borders barely touched. Could they band together to stop the Vicky Menace before she became the full senate?
Nope! Stalin declared war on Suryavarman a mere 3 turns later, while Victoria on her way to a 6 turn Feudalism. Remember how I said Brennus/Louis was a pivotal moment? This and Brennus' war were perhaps the most important elements of the game, and they flowed from the messy religion that had occurred earlier in the game: Despite Victoria being surrounded on 3 sides by 4 AI who hated her, she was going to get through the midgame completely scott free in terms of being attached during her most vulnerable period because the low peaceweight civs were mired in conflicts of religion and border tension. The end result was a 14 city Financial civ with a willingness to beat down other civs being left completely alone while a bunch of either backwards, small, or Louis civs bashed their heads against each other.
Uh oh.
Louis and Brennus' war had mostly been a mass trade of units, but Brennus had been sieging down Louis' city of Orleans for some time, and he had a most impressive stack doing it. Chichen Itza had helped stall it out, but Louis was unable to attack out of the city easily, and it looked neck and neck if Brennus would take it. This was crucially important for two reasons. First off, there were only two ways Victoria could realistically lose if she didn't get dogpiled, and one was for any of Stalin/Sury/Brennus to absorb so much good territory they run away enough to match or exceed Victoria. The second was for Louis to backdoor a cultural victory while she either went to space peacefully or attacked the other, much more border tensioned AI and did not win fast enough for him to hit culture. Orleans not only represented a chance for a Brennus snowball, but it was one of Louis' three cultural cities he could NOT afford to lose!
Unfortunately for Brennus, as impressive as his stack was, he wasn't able to knock off enough enemies in an alpha strike to prevent Louis from reinforcing with some elephants and a Longbow that he couldn't get through it. Louis apparently didn't care about how close this call was, building the Pantheon and Statue of Zeus (which was very bad for Brennus!) even as Brennus continued to pump out units. This turned out to be a monumentally stupid idea: Brennus simply rolled up with a stack of over 20 units and despite Louis' superior production he wasn't outputting the units to keep up. And, crucially, the longbows in Orleans had gotten knocked down: While Louis was able to stuff about 2 longbows in, Brennus bowled over Orleans without much fuss as Louis furiously produced missionaries from his best interior cities. While Louis had a theoretical chance from here (his 4th city wasn't far from his 3rd), this seemed to end the chances of Louis to really backdoor a cultural victory easily.
Stalin and Sury, meanwhile, met over and over again on the killing fields of Isvarapura, Stalin deciding to camp out across a river on a jungle tile that made things ROUGH for Sury to attack out of...but also being foolish enough to attack INTO the hilled city from across a river. This went about as well as you'd expect. Yekaterinburg, the Russian city closest to Isvarapura, was Sury's target and was ALSO on a hill but could be sieged from a jungle tile, and led to the entire Russian/Khmer war being boiled down into this: Stalin walks up his stack across a river to Isvarapura, spends 15 turns bombarding it, then suicides all of his units into the hilled defensive stack and largely promotes them. Sury, emboldened by this, sends his units next to Yekaterinburg, spends 15 turns bombarding it, then suicides all of his units into the hilled defensive stack and largely promotes them. Stalin, emboldened by this, sends his units next to Isvarapura and...you get where this is going. It was perhaps one of the least productive wars I have ever seen in AI Survivor, with attempts not even particularly made at pillaging, and each side doing little more than making mass graves of each other's cities. The fact the war started by attacking with swords and chariots into Longbows ON HILLS cannot be overstated.
Meanwhile, Brennus was on his way towards a lightly defended Rheims, and his stack had been shockingly healthy thanks to not having to chew through many longbows, so the siege started quickly. Louis' insistence on finishing Angkor Wat followed up by builds like Jewish Missionary, the National Epic, and a Market instead of pumping out 1 turn War Elephants only left Rheims lightly defended. Brennus seemed to be getting a snowball rolling, with Brennus taking Rheims on Turn 162!
...The same turn Victoria declared war on Brennus, moving masses of Maces, Catapults, and some old Swords/Axes. Oof! 
Considering Brennus had declared war on Victoria at the outset of the game, it was hard to say he didn't deserve it: Perhaps if he hadn't done so, she would have gone after Suryavarman and Brennus could have completed his conquest. Instead, he was going to have to defend against Maces and Knights while he was barely getting to Pikes and when his army was off in Louis land in what was a 2v1 (Louis power wasn't far from Brennus, either!). Brennus lost a city immediately, and Victoria had a huge power lead over him to boot: Her main stack had 40 units to Brennus' 25~ and was more advanced to boot.
Oh, and Stalin/Suryavarman were still uselessly throwing units against each other. Sury had just opened up a tech lead on Stalin (having gotten to Guilds while Stalin was just finishing up Engineering), but once Stalin got Pikes and Castles into Yekaterinburg it became impossible to take regardless.
Louis, as Victoria began breaking up Brennus' stacks, became simply retaking Orleans and Rheims without much effort. Victoria began by eating Gergovia and had enough siege to knock out large portions of even Castle defenses as well, so the conquest kept up the pace. Vienne was captured 10 turns later. The border cities the French hoped to snipe felt to a Victoria stack that didn't even bother with siege, and Brennus' capital 10 turns after that. Another city fell 4 cities later. 3 turns after that, Brennus was dead: Victoria had completely abandoned her siege units and not bothered with cutting down defenses at that point, so the finale became positively brutal, and Victoria was beelining Rifling for her beloved Redcoats as well.
Brennus had perhaps an unfortunate timing in that he was knocked down right as he was snowballing off Louis, and perhaps if Victoria had not been such a runaway could have made some noise, but his early game was one of the weaker of the group. And unlike many who were now in Victoria's crosshairs, he had a reason to be due to declaring a fruitless war on her early, and so ultimately he was dug in a grave of his own making.
Oh, and Sury grabbed Liberalism for Nationalism (only to completely avoid Cuirassier for ages) and got the Taj Mahal Golden Age. Oh man. At this point, they had no chance to win, so the question was this: Who would be 2nd? Louis had the inside track because mutual military struggle was bringing up their relations, but Victoria IS an AI who will plot at pleased! Suryavarman, meanwhile, looked to be the least likely because he had the strongest border tension with Victoria along the former Justinian holdings, and Stalin's minimal borders with Victoria but lack of military bonus left him in the middle.
Roughly 50 turns into the war, Suryavarman FINALLY does something! Having pathed down some elephants down to a nearby fishing village Stalin had, he took out its weakened defenses and made it his own. Good job, Sury!
Roughly 10 turns later, a flood of Redcoats and Knights (55 of them!) came flooding over the borders. What followed is one of the single most brutal wars I have ever seen: Victoria wisely decided to completely avoid siege units and decide to do nothing but obliterate Sury's cities one by one. They fell at a blinding speed and unlike modern era wars where modern artillery and bombers shredded defensive bonuses or Paratroopers, Victoria was doing it through sheer force. Three of Sury's core border cities took less than 5 turns to take. She began taking cities every turn, with two falling between Turns 240 and 241, and Suryavarman's double digit city empire was dead on Turn 253. She took less than 6 minutes of real time and a total of 25 turns to bring him down, averaging nearly a city taken every other turn, to take out what was the 2nd strongest AI on the map. A true, complete spanking. It was a true sadness for Suryavarman: While he had brutalized his economy early, he had expanded well and made a shrewd move going after Justinian only for Victoria to take even more advantage of it, and the equal Stalin then attacking him removed him out of the equation. His refusal to tech Rifling for like 20 turns when it would have let him take out Stalin didn't help, though!
Down to Stalin and Louis, the two remaining other leaders in the game shivered in fear at the idea of the mighty Victoria raining down her might upon them. After a grace period of 14 turns, she made her choice to take out the ruskies on Turn 267. Victoria's stack of 181 units (114 Cavs!!) had nothing to fear. Cities began to collapse and fall to bits as Victoria began fielding Infantry onto the field just for fun. On Turn 278, Victoria's crushing victory was complete.
Stalin survived due to her simply hitting the domination limit, but Louis' score unsurprisingly was much higher than his. Stalin had played a strong early game, expanding quickly and being effectively the same as Suryavarman most of the game, but his economy struggled even harder in the midgame and he crucially did not get enough from Justinian to overcome that: Fruitlessly warring against Suryavarman rather than teaming up with him to knock off Victoria sealed both of their fates. Louis had a less explosive early game than Stalin but was still quite good, but ultimately his game was ruined by a lack of military action. If he had gone harder on conquering Brennus with the military side of his mind then he may have at least been able to get appropriately large to make some noise, and importantly his loss of Orleans/Rheims due to inept military management was truly pathetic. I personally fully expect Stalin, Louis, and Suryavarman to all make noise in the Alternate Histories...
But we do need to praise Victoria here, who played a masterful game even if things broke her way. She settled the map quickly and escaped the landgrab phase with a ton of territory despite holy cities surrounding all sides, leveraging her Imperialistic trait with higher hammers excellently, and followed that up with a beautifully timed war declaration on Justinian that thanks to her strong cultural gameplay led to more fruitful gains than her opposition. She teched up and didn't relent when she got into wars, hammering her opponents down brutally, beelining Rifling where figures like Suryavarman did not, and showed she wasn't a pure peacenik in pursuing her domination victory. And while she got fortunate, some of that fortune was of her own making, such as the war on Justinian giving her mutual military struggle with Stalin and Sury. To be honest, considering I had predicted Justinian to be very weak (I was one of the people in Discord discussing Justinian FTD, even if I discarded it quickly due to Vicky's diplo) I should have considered this could have led to a strong or at least non-FTD Victoria. Good showing, go!
Perhaps I shouldn't feel too bad about my game read, though: This was a brutal showing for the picking contest, which averaged only 6.28 points and only had 37 people end up with double digit scores! My 6 points sadly also knocked me to 3rd in the picking contest, with SmartRandom.org retaking the lead and Saxo Grammaticus' very high score in the game (19, 2 more than anyone else!) enabled him to take a close 2nd. a pen-dragon, Kami and Thrashybulos also all remain within striking distance while Sir Coleville of the Dale, Diggus Bickus, and Fippy are in a position where they are unlikely to win everything in one game but could take it with two good ones.
Victoria's massive performance sets up an interesting scenario for Lobster667: she only has her left for the Championship game, but Victoria's 9 points (!!) scored this game brings her up to 15, and she's only behind 5 to ABC170. A flop from Gandhi and Qin in the next game would allow Lobster to win with a Victoria victory + kill, with Vincarius technically alive in that scenario if Joao won the game with TWO kills (sadly his Brennus could not advance to help him out!). Everyone else is just fighting for scraps barring a pair of insane games from Sitting Bull for LinkMarioSamus, although ABC could also score just about anything with Gandhi/Qin and borderline-ensure victory in the championship game. Justinian at least getting FTD points for ABC here ends up being a bit crucial for allowing a Qin or Gandhi 2nd to effectively seal the deal! On a very technical level Kuro is alive if Zara scores enough points in Playoff Game Three and then a Louis/Zara ticket punches through the championship games with some kills...but c'mon, we all know THAT'S not happening. I'm just glad Louis is advancing to make me look more respectable and that with Zara maybe doing something I could get close.
Overall, a surprising and yet interesting game I'd say, and I look forward to Victoria in the championship: She seems theoretically good for it. For now, signing off!
