This is a continuing feature for Season Nine 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:
Darius of Persia
Traits: Financial, Organized (1 culture trait)
Starting Techs: Agriculture, Hunting
Peace Weight: 8
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Flavors: Primary Gold, Secondary Growth
Warmonger Respect: 0
Base Attitude: +1
Favorite Civic: Free Religion
Zealotry: Medium
Past Finishes: Two Championship losses, two playoff round eliminations, one wildcard elimination, three opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 16
Total Medals: 3 First Places, 3 Second Places
Total Kills: 8 
Overall Power Ranking: 29 points, 11th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Darius has arguably the best pure economic traits in the game in Financial and Organized, two traits that provide both economic tempo and lategame scaling. While he's stuck with the poison pill Immortal and weak Apothecary, he also gets fantastic starting techs in Agriculture and Hunting, allowing him to improve his food resources quickly. He has Gold and Growth flavours, which means Darius should almost always be able to construct a good economy. He loves building wonders (8/10), and unlike many of the other peaceful leaders, he builds enough units to defend himself too (6/10). That's lucky, because he also has a high peace weight of 8, and will often be a target for attack from the more aggressive leaders. Lastly, Darius himself isn't necessarily going to build in peace, as he actually has an average aggression rating (5.2/10) and will claim more land by the sword if necessary. On paper, Darius probably has one of the best setups in the game; he's a peaceful leader with amazing economic traits, but he's also willing to defend himself and fight for more land.
Past Performance: Darius has been one of the most frustrating and disappointing leaders in AI Survivor. It's common to see him given a decent or even great starting position, only for him to completely forget to expand, fall flat, and get outscaled. Indeed, he often gets tied up on early wonder builds and can be prone to ignoring other sources of culture, leaving him with a pathetically small empire struggling to establish its borders after the crucial first 50 turns. At the same time, though, Darius is a seeded leader because one would have to try in order to fail with his package; his economic setup is legitimately great and allows him to be a dangerous techer even when playing from behind. Darius has had two really successful seasons, Four and Seven, which followed similar trajectories: he played strong games to get out to winning positions in his first two outings (while throwing away one of those wins in Season Four), only to get ganged up on a hostile Championship for an early exit. On the other hand, Seasons Six and Eight showed him at his worst, where he was blessed with excellent starting positions and diplomatic fields but just stagnated. Outings like these have made him fairly unpopular in the community, and the general consensus is that no leader is more undeserving of the Financial trait than Darius. Nevertheless, his traits are so good that you cannot count him out ever, and no one will be surprised if/when he continues to be a wrecking ball in prediction contests.
Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire
Traits: Protective, Imperialistic (0 culture traits)
Starting Techs: Hunting, Mysticism
Peace Weight: 6
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Flavors: Primary Military, Secondary Religion
Warmonger Respect: +1
Base Attitude: +1
Favorite Civic: Vassalage
Zealotry: Extreme
Past Finishes: Season Four Champion, one Championship loss, one playoff round elimination, five opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 13
Total Medals: 2 First Places, 4 Second Places
Total Kills: 8
Overall Power Ranking: 26 points, 11th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Charlemagne (aka The Burger King) gets one fantastic (Imperialistic) and one poor (Protective) trait. It's a similar story for his uniques, with the amazing Rathaus and the horrible Landsknecht (which at CivFanatics has been referred to as the "Landcrap"). Unfortunately, his civ is dragged to bottom tier with the horrid Hunting/Mysticism starting tech combo, which, in combination with being a Protective leader, is the reason why he is widely regarded as the weakest leader in the game for human players when not playing Unrestricted Leaders. At least he can found a religion straight away because as an AI Charlemagne is a pretty good template of your typical zealot. He gets military and religious flavours, like the rest of his bunch. He has a higher than average aggression rating (7/10) and a neutral peace weight of 6, so his diplomacy tends to fall along the religious lines. His unit build preference (6/10) is slightly above average, while his wonder build preference (3/10) is below average. Other than that, Charlemagne has average numbers in basically every other category, and he's actually a fairly bland AI, even though he can be a tough nut to crack and scary if he gets going.
Past Performance: Charlemagne is the controversial champion of Season Four, where he secured two straight game wins in the same fashion: watching the game leader throw away the victory on a distant Cultural attempt, allowing him to crawl to a "tortoise and the hare" Spaceship victory (and the entire season title) from an otherwise second-place position. Whether this is funny or frustrating depends on the viewer. Charlemagne then went on to secure a long-term position as a seeded leader by returning to the Season Five Championship off a pair of actual second-place finishes. His other notable achievement is blowing what should have been an easy Space victory in his Season Three opener, coming in second place instead due to forgetting to add an engine to his spaceship. Otherwise, Charlie has generally struggled with slow starts before getting hounded by early wars into early eliminations - in fact he came in dead last place in the previous season. Overall, he's established himself as a decent second tier kind of leader in the right circumstances, but is perhaps the least likely of the former champions to repeat his feat because his horrific traits and Holy Roman civ too often leave him behind the eight ball in the early game.
Boudica of the Celts
Traits: Aggressive, Charismatic (0 culture traits)
Starting Techs: Hunting, Mysticism
Peace Weight: 2
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Flavors: Primary Military, Secondary Growth
Warmonger Respect: +1
Base Attitude: 0
Favorite Civic: Universal Suffrage
Zealotry: Medium
Past Finishes: Three playoff round eliminations, one wildcard elimination, four opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 12
Total Medals: 1 First Place, 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 9
Overall Power Ranking: 18 points, tied 26th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: If you start at the top of the aggression scale and work your way down, Boudica is the first leader you'll come to that doesn't embody mindless aggression quite so much and could conceivably play nice with others. This is mainly because she has a less-extreme peaceweight and will not declare wars at Pleased. Other than that, though, she certainly fits the bill of a warmonger: while her unit build rating is average at only 6, she has a very high aggression rating of 8.8, will throw a lot of units at her foes regardless of odds, has a primary tech flavor of Military, and has one of the most combat-oriented trait combos in the game with Aggressive and Charismatic - one that is so tilted for offensive warfare that some players consider Boudica to be an above average human-played leader despite her distinct lack of economic tools. If you get on her bad side, she will sic a ton of highly-promoted units at you. While a secondary tech flavor of Growth suggests a somewhat more economically-adept warmonger, what tends to matter more is her crummy Celtic civilization: her starting techs of Mysticism and Hunting offer her little economic benefit beyond guaranteed culture (especially since she's not especially likely to go after one of the first faiths), and her unique items - the Gallic Warrior (swordsman) and Dun (walls) - pull her to beeline techs at the bottom of the tree that stunt her early game even more. As a result, Boudica is likely to start behind the economic curve and will have to rely on finding a soft enough war target to rebound and get back in the game.
Past Performance: Boudica appeared to be one of the strongest fighters in AI Survivor's early days, but it's very likely that she benefitted greatly from Deity starting techs and favorable starting positions. Since the Season Four removal of the extra Deity techs, she's just been another blah warmonger. Boudica's slow-starting package paired with an unhealthy number of ill-chosen wars has gotten her into a lot of trouble, and while she's still managed to secure multiple kills over the years, a very distant second place is the best finish she has mustered in the modern Survivor era. While she did come tantalizingly close to victory in her Season Seven Wildcard game before being brought down by a particularly devastating backstab, her most recent appearance brought her crashing back down and really exposed her weaknesses as a competitor: saddled with commerce-poor land, she crashed her economy right out of the gate and was consigned to also-ran status by the end of the landgrab. It's clear by now that unless she rolls a starting position that can accelerate her early game, and chooses her wars wisely, Boudica is going to struggle to make a lot of noise.
Hammurabi of Babylon
Traits: Aggressive, Organized (0 culture traits)
Starting Techs: Agriculture, The Wheel
Peace Weight: 8
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Flavors: Pure Culture
Warmonger Respect: +1
Base Attitude: 0
Favorite Civic: Bureaucracy
Zealotry: High
Past Finishes: Three playoff round eliminations, two wildcard eliminations, three opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 13
Total Medals: 2 First Places, 1 Second Place
Total Kills: 6
Overall Power Ranking: 18 points, tied 26th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: It is a valid question to wonder if Gilgamesh and Hammurabi had their traits switched by accident, as the warmonger-focused combo of Aggressive/Organized would fit Gilgamesh far better, while the defensive Protective/Creative has far more synergy with Hammurabi's Babylonian civ. While he does have the top tier Agriculture/Wheel starting tech combination, that's all he has going for him. Unfortunately, the Aggressive trait is wasted on a leader who loves to build wonders (8/10), claims a defensive archer unique unit in the Bowman, and tries to cosplay as Gandhi with his PURE CULTURE research flavor. 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. Unfortunately, Hammurabi is a completely stunted leader, doing nothing except sitting in the corner of the map trying to develop his culture but never actually going for a Culture victory due to holding ZERO cultural traits! He will never turn up the slider unless he has all seven holy cities, and he will rarely obtain all seven, for he has a high peace weight, a low aggression rating (5.5), and won't plot war at "Pleased" relations. He is the AI Survivor equivalent of a poor sap who thinks he's the next great rockstar, but who cannot sing in tune to save his life.
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 twiddling his thumbs, or else fighting minor skirmishes that do nothing to substantially improve his position. This has predictably resulted in a lot of unsuccessful games where he eventually gets eliminated, whether militarily or by surviving in some sort of distant 3rd or 4th place. Granted, there's been times where he was a bit more successful, and he has won the previous two season openers... but the first was less than impressive, taking over 400 turns to win by spaceship, and while he did put on a legitimately great performance in the second one to win a Domination victory despite being attacked NINE times, this was later proved to be an extremely lucky result. In both of his following playoff games he was back to his usual turtling ways, watching more dynamic leaders succeed in his stead. Hammurabi also holds the "least impressive 2nd place finish of all time" award from Season Three, only making the playoffs due to Mansa wiping out the seemingly entrenched Lincoln on a whim post Spaceship launch. While he has played a more important role in recent seasons, Hammurabi plays exactly like a poorly thought out leader with a confused design, forever destined to be the bridesmaid instead of the bride.
Peter of Russia
Traits: Philosophical, Expansive (1 culture trait)
Starting Techs:Hunting, Mining
Peace Weight: 1
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Flavors: Primary Science, Secondary Growth
Warmonger Respect: +2
Base Attitude: 0
Favorite Civic: Bureaucracy
Zealotry: Medium
Past Finishes: Two playoff round eliminations, three wildcard eliminations, three opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 13
Total Medals: 0 First Places, 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 3
Overall Power Ranking: 7 points, tied 47th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Peter the Great is an AI leader who seems to be pulling in six different directions at once, leaving a bit of a confusing mess as the result. Peter has two traits that lack any clear synergy, with Expansive theoretically being useful for growing outwards while Philosophical develops upwards. Neither of these traits is particularly strong in the hands of the AI and Peter, while a fantastic leader for humans, feels lacking in AI Survivor. The Russian civilization is... fine, with ok starting techs and a powerful but late unique unit in the form of the Cossack. As for the leader himself, Peter's AI personality is all over the place in terms of what it emphasizes. Peter would appear to be your standard militaristic AI, with 8/10 aggression and 6/10 unit build ratings, a low peace weight, and a willingness to declare war at "Pleased" relations. However, Peter has tech preferences that don't match a conquest gameplan at all, instead using Science and Growth flavors for his research, plus an above average desire to build wonders (6/10) and spend on espionage (7/10). At least he doesn't get distracted by religion. It's not particularly clear what goal Peter has in mind for any particular game and the AI often seems confused as well.
Past Performance: Peter is a chronic underperformer who always manages to come up short despite surviving more than half his games, as he frequently tries to be a builder and a warmonger and falls flat in both. He has sometimes fallen to inopportune backstabs (like in Season Four and the Season Seven Wildcard), sometimes just gotten off to a poor start and been always weak (like in Seasons Two, Six, and his Season Three playoff participation), and other times garnered himself a workable setup and then just lacked enough initiative to make anything of it (like in Seasons One, Seven, and Eight). A pair of distant second-place finishes has been the best he can muster, and despite being a frequently-surviving leader with an aggressive streak, he has a paltry three kills to his name. While Alternate Histories have suggested that Peter could be a strong leader, until he shows it when it actually matters he will continue to be an afterthought in these tournaments.
Ramesses of Egypt
Traits: Spiritual, Industrious (2 culture traits)
Starting Techs:Agriculture, The Wheel
Peace Weight: 6
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Flavors: Primary Culture, Secondary Production
Warmonger Respect: 0
Base Attitude: 0
Favorite Civic: Organized Religion
Zealotry: High
Past Finishes: One Championship loss, two playoff round eliminations, five opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 12
Total Medals: 2 First Places, 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 1
Overall Power Ranking: 15 points, tied 32nd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Ramesses is best summarized as a peaceful leader who loves to build wonders. His traits are well suited for this, with the Industrious trait granting additional production for wonders and Spiritual serving as a useful all-around development trait - and with a double culture pairing Ramesses is naturally one of the biggest victory threats in any game. The AI loves to waste turns in Anarchy flipping civics and it helps save them from their own follies. Ramesses is further bolstered by the powerful Egyptian civilization, which has excellent starting techs, one of the game's best unique units in the form of the War Chariot, and a unique building that is amazingly synergistic with Ramesses' traits - if he can get an early shrine rolling from Stonehenge Obelisks, he can quickly run away with the game. Unfortunately the whole is less than the sum of its parts as far as Ramesses is concerned, as his traits and AI personality contribute to one of the worst expansion rates in the competition. Ramesses is so busy building his wonders (10/10) that he forgets to train units (2/10) and struggles to get settlers out on the map to claim territory. He's helped here by a peace weight in the middle of the spectrum to prevent him from being quite as much of a sitting duck as his Egyptian counterpart in Hatshepsut, but the low aggression rating on Ramesses (3.7/10) makes it unlikely that he'll be able to snowball ahead from conquering territory. Ramesses also heavily emphasizes religion, strongly favoring his religious compatriots and disliking his rivals. With his Culture and Production tech flavors, he's another leader who's likely to found a religion despite not starting with Mysticism tech, but with his starting techs this rarely if ever sinks his game. He is capable of ridiculously high highs, but his wonder-whoring makes him equally capable of some very low lows.
Past Performance: Ramesses' AI Survivor career has mostly been an ignominious story of military defeats. Like his Egyptian counterpart, he tends to have a strong early game and exit the landgrab phase in a solid position, only to see it all crashing down at some point thanks to losing a war. Whether he wars against multiple foes or just one, this seems to be a legitimate and important weakness for him, as he rarely gets the better of these conflicts and thus is eliminated in game after game - Ramesses is a rare leader who has never been to the Wildcard game. He's also thrown away multiple top-two positions with really terrible moves, such as declaring war on the dominant AI or signing away his best city in a peace treaty. On the plus side, he has hung on for a couple of tenacious 2nd place finishes, including what should have been a Season Three win in a hostile field had the UN not intervened, and he had a breakout Season Seven which included a dominant Cultural victory, his one career kill, and his first appearance in a championship game. This plus some favorable results in alternate histories had begun to rehabilitate his reputation, especially once he pulled off another military success followed by a Cultural victory in the opening round of Season Eight. Unfortunately, all that goodwill momentum came to a screeching halt when he followed that up with one of the most incompetently executed cultural gameplans ever in the playoffs, completely neglecting expansion and development and torpedoing his own game without ever being attacked. This was a performance so terrible that a hobbled Gandhi WITHOUT THE SLIDER would have outraced an untouched Ramesses WITH THE SLIDER AT 100% to Culture. Now, once again this was proven to be a low odds outcome in repeat playthroughs, but in classic fashion, he blew it when the lights were the brightest. On average he's probably a middle-of-the-spectrum leader if not better, but it should still be apparent that being a non-Financial hyper-cultural leader is a risky existence.
Roosevelt of America
Traits: Industrious, Organized (1 culture trait)
Starting Techs:Agriculture, Fishing
Peace Weight: 8
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Flavors: Primary Production, Secondary Gold
Warmonger Respect: 0
Base Attitude: +1
Favorite Civic: Mercantilism
Zealotry: Low
Past Finishes: One playoff round elimination, two wildcard eliminations, five opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 11
Total Medals: 0 First Places, 1 Second Place
Total Kills: 5
Overall Power Ranking: 7 points, tied 47th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Roosevelt is a classic example of a peaceful builder that largely wants to stay out of conflicts. He has an economic trait pairing with Industrious and Organized. In human hands he is the single best leader for rushing the overpowered Great Lighthouse, but for the AI it lacks any of the top-tier benefits of Financial or Creative or Expansive. Roosevelt often tends to struggle with expansion since he lacks any traits or abilities to speed up his early game. The American civilization is doing him no favors here, with decent starting techs but unique features that both come far too late to ever be relevant. Roosevelt the AI is not very militaristic at all, with an aggression rating of 2.6/10 and a dangerously low train unit emphasis (2/10). Despite his Industrious trait, Roosevelt doesn't particularly emphasize wonder building (4/10) and prefers to focus on espionage spending (7/10). He also has little interest in religion and doesn't stack up much of a shared faith bonus or differing faiths penalty. Roosevelt has unusual tech preferences for his research, emphasizing Production and Gold flavors, and the expected high peace weight for a "good" leader - but he can attack at "Pleased" relations in a bit of a twist. Generally speaking what you see is what you get with Roosevelt. He's going to try and play the builder game but with militaristic tech preferences it is a tall task for him to succeed.
Past Performance: It appears Roosevelt took his uncle's advice of "speak softly and carry a big stick" a tad too literally. The American leader has proven to be one of the worst in the competition, never in eight seasons vying for a win or accomplishing anything of particular note. He tends to have a medium-to-small nation after the early game, and never does much of anything with it. A few conquests of weak neighbors (which have all failed to move him into a top-two position) and a second-place finish of the "everybody else was murdered" variety are the biggest achievements he has to his name. Even with more promising starts in recent seasons, he's come up short: Season Seven saw him given a very good starting location and the chance to finally make a name for himself, only to throw it all away on a stupidly early attack of a friendly neighbor, while he got out to a great landgrab in Season Eight before wasting his advantage on poorly chosen and executed wars, getting outscaled and eventually nuked into smithereens. Roosevelt is essentially Frederick with a better civ and slightly less suicidal tech preferences, but this still does not make for a good leader.
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Check back later for the community predictions shortly before this game begins!
