This summary for Game Five was written by TheOneAndOnlyAtesh. Many thanks for volunteering to put this report together! 
I am always a sucker for classic Jedi vs. Sith showdowns, especially after a month's worth of games with rather unbalanced factions. Here we had three Jedi and three Sith, all occupying their own triangle of the map in what was going to be a galactic showdown. One might have favored the Sith, who held both seeded leaders in their ranks, one of them being none other than Darth Huayna, the man who had held an irontight chokehold on AI Survivor for so long until Mansa threw him off his perch. With Mansa joining the dark side and immediately learning that he was indeed unworthy of being a Sith, this was a golden opportunity for the Incas to reclaim their throne and show everyone who the Senate really is. Unfortunately, Darth Huayna had rolled an extremely dry and cramped position in the NE corner, and as is often the case for a Sith, he did not have the most reliable of allies here.
Directly to his South was his apprentice, the haughty yet dignified Tokugawa. Unlike his master, however, the Japanese Sith had a much more lush position that had a litany of golden conquest opportunities. One particularly juicy target was this cute little Prussian rump state to his South. One might think liberty dies with thunderous applause, but in this case, it dies when one researches Iron Working before Agriculture, and the food-poor SE corner was not well suited for such neurotic research maneuvers. Toku was surely to pounce with his nearby source of elephants. Another excellent target for the Count was his Western counterpart, good ol' George Washington. The community was looking upon his career with great interest here, as the American land was low in sand, high in resources AND commerce, and had a capital with a riverside corn and a grassland gems, widely acknowledged as the two best capital tiles in the game. Whoever controlled that land long term - whether it was Washington or whoever killed him - was sure to be a power player in this game, especially considering how dry and sparse much of this harsh world was.
Darth Huayna unfortunately did not just have to contend with his unreliable apprentice, as to his west was yet another fickle Sith, Louis XIV. Darth Helios had secured the Pool 2 spot off of a Season 7 victory, had at least a better capital, and his wonder and cultural emphasis ran in competition rather than cooperation with the Incas. Huayna was going to have to hope that he did not get ganged up on by his supposed friends here. Saving the best for last of course: fan favorite Trollbi Wang Konobi was saying hello there to the AI Survivor community. This was a legitimately decent setup for him to find the true success that had eluded him so far in modern AI Survivor, as he was safely tucked behind Washington and had a spacious corner to develop from, even if it was not the highest in quality (a major theme off this map was how poor the overall land quality was).
Much of the community had a bad feeling about Huayna here, with the guy getting less than 40% of the first place votes here. The name recognition was doing a lot of heavy lifting for him. There was relevant support for every worthy leader, however. There was no obvious consensus for 2nd place, with EVERY leader, even the one quasi-leader, getting some resemblance of support, although the Troll King interestingly had the most support, likely due to his relatively sheltered position with enough space for some sort of Financial wackiness. First To Die votes were mostly split between three leaders: the two central leaders (Toku, Washington) and the German. Fantasy wise, this was a critical game for Kjotleik, who had his heavy hitter Huayna in this game for 60 gold, and Kuro, who had a combined 62 gold spent on Louis and Wang Kon. Vincarious had an 18 gold bid on Washington that looked somewhat promising, and I was returning back after a weeklong break with my 25 gold Tokugawa bid. Maniamuse also had a ridiculously cheap 10 gold bid in this game and he would be happy with any FTD or random killsteal points.
Some key questions that were going to determine this game:
1) Would the Sith penchant for treachery hand this game over to the Jedi, or would they militaristically work together (especially since considering the ranks of these Jedi it felt a lot like a 3v2 situation)?
2) Which religions would the two central leaders adopt, and how would that impact the global state of affairs?
3) With land at a premium, especially quality land, which leader was going to come out the best from the first round of warring?
Like much of the community, Sullla had also seen how bad Huayna's land was, proclaiming that if Huayna made the wrong tech choices his game might already be over. The Incas clearly took this personally, with Huayna eschewing religion for the Hunting-Animal Husbandry beeline that he sorely needed to connect his capital resources. He had certainly aced his first test. Instead, Wang Kon secured the Meditation religion uncontested and founded Confucianism, with his Holy City well situated towards the center of the map.
Regarding the second city settlements, France and America were virtually predestined for some sort of conflict, with Orleans and New York getting settled in such a way that Louis only needed one Creative border pop to already be brushing up against Washington's territory. This was further exacerbated when both leaders raced towards Polytheism, with Louis edging him out to found Christianity due to having a head start from an earlier Meditation attempt. Overall, the city settles were solid save for the Prussian, who founded his second city in a corner tundra spot that had nothing save for a flat tundra deer to call a food source.
The biggest losers of the early game were our foreheads, as there were an endless number of silly facepalm moments from all of these dunderheads. Listing every circus event here:
1) Wang Kon getting out a rather slow 3rd city due to a poison pill desert gold that only produced two hammers. Luckily he switched to a mine to bring it down to a reasonable time.
2) The Germans researching Pottery with their entire territory dotted in forests
3) Huayna researching an early 8 turn Archery when he had practically zero commerce. As his subsequent 15 turn Wheel research showed, this was a rather catastrophic developmental delay for him.
4) The German imposter settling his 3rd city on top of gold without any food to justify such a moronic move
5) Washington founding Boston in an unambitious backline coastal spot, which would come back to bite him when Wang Kon settled his 3rd city right in front of Washington DC, effectively cutting the Americans off from southern settles.
6) Tokugawa building way too many Archers instead of trying to settle the map
7) Tokugawa building a settler in a choked jungle spot instead of Osaka with its double ivory for production
8) The Prussians trying their hardest to make the Real Poverty Point Hall of Fame, doing everything in their power to avoid the one river valley near his territory and putting out some of the worst settling patterns I have ever seen from an AI. Cologne was EPICALLY bad. The ONLY VISIBLE RESOURCE IT HAD WAS A RIVERLESS WINE. The rest was coast and flat desert essentially.
By Turn 50, this was a wide open game, which happens when every single AI gets a lobotomy before playing. Even the barbarians had forgotten to show up, having spawned zero cities as compared to five the previous week. Washington, the first to five cities, was the early frontrunner mainly due to his land, but his empire was rather weirdly shaped due to his poor settling decisions. Huayna shockingly had an economy BELOW OBSERVER CIV LEVELS at one point, and had a deep economic hole to climb himself out of; at least he was expanding well. Louis had started the cultural countdown by founding the Monotheism religion of Buddhism, but at merely four cities had already run out of quality expansion room and was falling to the temptation of Marble poison pill wonders. Wang Kon and Tokugawa were both playing mediocre openings, particularly Toku who was avoiding Mysticism and not doing anything special to compensate, but in a way that meant they were performing the best. The bar was that low. To those inquiring about the last guy's play, surely, you must be joking.
The circus continued, like a Reddit post outlining the downfall of a celebrity:
9) You-know-who settled yet another tundra craphole and the German citizens were forced to sleep in Tauntaun carcasses in order to survive their nights.
10) Washington was building up a military for absolutely no reason - there were zero barb cities to go for and he was not planning any sort of war. His expansion, both location and pacing wise, was not exactly screaming Manifest Destiny.
11) Louis had completely stopped expansion at four cities to build the Temple of Artemis and Buddhist missionaries. The Temple of Artemis was such a poison pill, as the resultant GPP pollution caused Louis TO SPAWN A MERCHANT instead of the Prophet he needed for his shrine.
12) The Germans, who had built the Great Wall on just five horrible cities to prevent imaginary barbarians from entering their territory, now found themselves completely cut off from their closest river valley when Tokugawa settled it. They were out of contention from Turn 0, but now they were super duper ultra out of contention.
Tokugawa, meanwhile, made a risky move, going for a bizarrely early CALENDAR beeline. The problem was, he was lacking metals and needed to get Iron Working ASAP to advance his military beyond Archers and Chariots and hack down the numerous jungle in his territory. With that said, he was also having happiness issues and had three calendar resources in his territory, and such a move was delaying metals by at least 30 or so turns. If one of his neighbors came calling with metal units early, even Protective Archers would have a difficulty defending his rather overstretched borders. Nevertheless, he had a burgeoning empire due to the utter ineptitude of the Germans, and thus going full greed on economy was not necessarily an unsound move. Elsewhere, Huayna was rapidly increasing his stock despite his slow economic start. With Toku settling towards the south and Louis playing like a Civ 6 AI, Huayna was exploding out of his corner and getting himself a workable enough base to be a relevant player in this game.
Considering the amount of sheer hatred on this tight map, a conflict was bound to start. It was Louis who set off the first round of hostilities against the Americans. While the two shared the Christian faith, that was not remotely enough to smoothen over any bad blood from initial impressions or border tensions. This was a terrible move by the Sun King, as Washington had nearly DOUBLE the power lead, one that should have been good enough to break through without Catapults. Unfortunately, Washington completely squandered his massive numbers advantage with some horrific stack management, throwing waves of medium sized stacks at the meatgrinder that was Orleans on a hill with 60% cultural defenses instead of consolidating one large doom stack. With better tactical play, Orleans would have probably become New Orleans and Louis, who was drunkenly back in culture mode despite fighting for his very survival, would have collapsed. Instead, whatever early game strength Washington had from his start had vanished, and the Americans found themselves diplomatically isolated from the rest of the world due to peaceweight and religion.
One leader who was truly rising up the ranks was Tokugawa. His Calendar gambit had gone unpunished, and he now had eight cities and counting (a LOT for this map), and he was establishing himself as the tech leader. The Germans, who had been plotting for ages, could have caught Toku without metals, but instead as was typical their leader was fast asleep and the German army just meandered around the tundra doing nothing, not even attacking an Antarctic barb city. With Tokugawa's ninth city plant of Nagasaki, the Prussians were COMPLETELY CUTOFF FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD, and all the German "empire" had to its name were five cold and barren Real Poverty Points. They could not even pick up a religion, with the Korean Confucian missionaries getting instantly expelled once Tokugawa established Nagasaki.
There was one concern for Toku however. He made a crucial diplomatic error, founding the Code of Laws religion of Taoism AND THEN CONVERTING TO IT. Earlier, both he and Huayna had adopted Buddhism and the two were friends. However, Tokugawa's relationship status towards Huayna dropped to Cautious, and as is his xenophobic nature he closed borders with his northern neighbor. Japan was the strongest civ on the map at the moment, but one generally needs friends to win in AI Survivor, and Tokugawa had none.
Huayna had masterfully rebounded from his slow start, and was now in contention for the playoffs, joining the French-American war on Team Sith. Any Washington advantage had totally evaporated by this point, including a military one as Huayna now had an equally strong army. Atlanta instantly fell, and Washington's position was becoming perilous. To quote Maniamuse, NEVER doubt HC. At least Washington smartly switched to Wang Kon's Confucianism, which ensured the security of his Southern flank at least.
There was a GREAT disturbance in the force. Tokugawa had a pathetic weakling to his South as an easy target... BUT INSTEAD, HE DECIDED TO BACKSTAB HUAYNA CAPAC. WHAT???!!!??? 
This was a HORRIBLE decision by Tokugawa, as merely TWO turns later the Prussians finally discovered their own existence and invaded Japan, plunging Toku into a one-and-a-quarter front war. One cannot understate how terrible a move this was, especially considering Tokugawa took AGES to put together any sort of dedicated stack. (While many in the livestream suspected Washington bribed Toku, all the evidence is Toku made the decision himself. For one, there was no way he liked Washington enough to even fathom being bribed, Toku was plotting and leaders cannot be bribed when plotting, and also there was no "you brought in a war ally" malus between Huayna and Washington.) This was the SINGLE BIGGEST TURNING POINT in the livestream, one that would have ripple effects for the entire remainder of the game. Sullla, WHY DID YOU HAVE TO PICK MY FANTASY LEADER TO WIN? WHY?!? WHY???!!!??
This was great for Washington, who was able to retake Atlanta and sign a peace treaty with Louis, who despite launching the war had only halfheartedly committed to it and was effectively already in peacetime mode once his little skirmish went global. The French were now free to frolic in pools of wine and add more wonders to their collection, including Shwedagon Paya which Louis used to flip to an early Free Religion, shrewdly excusing himself from any religious nonsense.
Something something enemy of my enemy. Wang Kon, reminding everyone that he is more than just the Troll King, entered the anti-Japan coalition, and now Tokugawa was on the wrong side of a 2.25v1, a wolf battling two pitbulls and a chihuahua. By staying out of the initial round of fighting and expanding well, Wang Kon had now become the victory frontrunner, and if he took enough of Japan, he was going to snowball out of control. He had a large Hwatcha-based army at the gates of Satsuma, and despite Toku's best defensive efforts the city fell, seemingly the first domino in the eventual demise of Japan. Tokyo soon fell, Huayna peaced out with Washington and could now fully concentrate on the Japanese coalition, and Toku's fate was sealed.
At least, one would have thought.
As it turned out, Tokugawa might be one of the very best pure fighters in Civ4, and he was putting up one of the most INCREDIBLE defenses we have ever seen in AI Survivor history. In the South, the chihuahua was getting shredded harder than a TikTok looksmaxxer, and the German power graph was one of the saddest things ever seen on an AI Survivor livestream. Eventually, Toku held out long enough to secure peace with Huayna, allowing him to mostly concentrate on the rampaging Korean invaders. Over the course of centuries of bloodletting, the following Japanese-Korean cycle of doom would take place:
1) Wang Kon would march his armies to Osaka (or, in one case, cleverly sneak all the way to the Japanese capital of Kyoto) to try and deliver the backbreaking blow onto the Japanese.
2) Tokugawa would stuff enough Protective Longbows, War Elephants, and later Aggressive Pikes to wreck the Korean offensive, with the Chichen Itza wonder helping buy him crucial time to muster a defense.
3) Then, Tokugawa would counterattack, usually taking back one of his border cities and sometimes even being able to push into Korean territory himself.
4) Eventually, however, Wang Kon would have rebuilt his army, have Protective Longbows of his own ready, and Toku's counterattack would sputter out, leaving his territory exposed for Wang Kon to come back. Rinse and repeat.
While the Japanese-Korean border was turning into a death pit, over in the West Huayna restarted the anti-American conflict with a truly monstrous stack, seized Atlanta, and massacred the American army. This pretty much sealed Washington's fate, as he was just not large enough and had already been outscaled by every single other leader in this game who held an actual pair of balls. The only question was how long it would take for him to croak, especially considering Washington temporarily stabilized his situation by securing Muskets, the most advanced unit any leader had at the moment. Huayna was very much in contention for the playoffs, but he needed to kill Washington quickly, as amidst all this bloodletting LOUIS was now the man to watch, and there was a definitive endpoint for this game. Despite having only seven cities, the Sun King HAD BECOME THE SCORE LEADER, mainly due to an obscene wonder count and a cultural machine bolstered by his having dominion over five Holy Cities. Every stalemated turn just meant less time to stop Louis until the Cultural countdown hit zero.
It seemed that the floodgates would FINALLY open when the chihuahua at least bit hard enough, capturing Kagoshima to net a blow in the South. Except, you cannot train the coward out of a coward, and Toku immediately gained Kagoshima back for peace. This allowed Toku to add critical defenders who were battle hardened from playing Tower Defense against a bunch of yapping dogs, and the Korean-Japanese conflict was a true stalemate now. Meanwhile, Huayna was slowly sieging down NYC, and it seemed that he was going to break through when–
LOUIS! YOU SLY DOG! His first attack on America was the worst, but his second one was truly the best. A cultural leader ideally wants at least nine cities to net three sets of cathedrals, and after rugpulling NYC from the feet of Huayna, Louis only needed one more city from the collapsing Americans to achieve that milestone. Although Washington had Grenadiers fighting Medieval units (although Louis would soon beeline Rifling), all they did was delay the inevitable, Louis getting the ninth city he needed and Huayna netting the finishing blow on Turn 235. While Washington looked strong in the early game, his strength was truly fools gold. While he did get off to an early lead with his capital gems, he did a poor job at expansion, prioritizing backline coastal settles too early and allowing Wang Kon in particular to thrust Korean cities right underneath the American capital. Then, when he was pretty much handed France on a platter, he mismanaged his military advantage and went from the game leader to a true sitting duck. This was one of the most subtly disappointing performances this season considering Washington's land quality.
As Washington was dying, the Koreans and Japanese FINALLY signed a peace treaty to end what was a mutually destructive war, and Toku had only lost a total of one city despite being attacked from all sides at some point. Following Washington's demise, Tokugawa was last place in score, but at least he was alive, had most of his empire, and had NEVER lost a single core city, meaning even his economy was not all that crippled. The global research was progressing at a glacial rate; it was Turn 250, and zero leaders had industrialized, as compared to two games this season where a leader was already researching Spaceship techs at that point. Huayna's tech in particular was so bad, I am not even sure if he would be a contender for a space race here. Despite the dragging tech pace, this game was about to end, as LOUIS WAS ALREADY CLOSE TO A CULTURAL VICTORY WITHOUT THE SLIDER. Similar to last week, we were about to see a leader on pace to win a sliderless culture victory around Turn 300!
Huayna and Wang Kon were in a neck-and-neck race for second place, and as it turned out, Huayna made his move, returning for revenge against poor Tokugawa. Soon afterwards, Wang Kon came back for round two. Once again, Tokugawa was doomed. Louis had beelined Mass Media for the UN, and if Wang Kon and Huayna, who were now both Confucian and LOVED each other, conquered Japan together, they could maybe get enough population to steal a Diplomatic victory here. Not so fast, said Tokugawa. Aided by him being the first non-French leader to Rifling, he once again mustered an incredible defense after losing a random border city in the initial first strike. Once again, the Eastern conflict was completely stalemating, Huayna had a tenuous hold on 2nd place, and it would take yet another disturbance in the Force to break it.
JUST LIKE THAT, a million voices gasped in shock, only to be reduced to stunned silence. Louis thrust a lightsaber through Huayna's back, sending droves of Artillery and Catapults to rampage their way through Incan territory. However, WW2 turned out to be far shorter than WW1. Toku quickly got out of his 2v1 (losing zero cities), and Louis somehow let Huayna off the hook after capturing a couple of former American cities - it seemed the Sun King cared more about keeping Huayna out of the playoffs than in actually killing him. Just like that, we were less than twenty turns from the end of the game.
Ten wars had taken place. Sullla had predicted eleven, and was hoping for one more conflict. Tokugawa answered the bell, doing on Turn 305 what he should have done two hundred turns earlier: attack that chihuahua napping at his heels.
The very next turn, Louis won the first fast sliderless culture victory in AI Survivor history, and Wang Kon returned to the playoffs for the first time since his troll Season 3 victory. Louis won through zigging while the rest of the world zagged, allowing himself to stay in culture lalaland while the rest of the world burned. While his early game was poor and he looked like a dead man after 100 turns, the rest of his cultural gameplan was executed to perfection, so well even the other culture trait leader in Huayna did not have a good chance. Moreover, Louis cemented his position with a couple of brilliant attacks, first vulturing American territory and then ensuring Huayna was not strong enough to challenge him. This is the Louis who won Season 7, and as long as he can keep his militaristic tendencies under control he will always be a dangerous opponent.
After a boring and unremarkable Season 8 performance, Wang Kon definitely reearned his title here, the master Trollbi Wang Konobi teaching his fellow Padawans his subtle arts. Wang Kon played an impressive game, being one of the winners of the expansion phase and choosing what on the surface was a smart conflict against the overstretched Japanese. The only problem was, he was an unstoppable object going against an immovable force, and he just could not break through Tokugawa's incredible defenses in time, although to his credit he did come close. Wang Kon does have a decent shot at the Championship in what is looking like a mainly high peaceweight field for his playoff game.
Perhaps his greatest pupil was Huayna Capac. The Incan leader certainly found Sullla's lack of faith disturbing, trolling him BY DECLARING THE TWELFTH WAR OF THE GAME AGAINST TOKU BEFORE LOUIS' VICTORY HIT. With that said, Huayna showed both why he is the best leader in the game and why no one thought he would succeed in this setup. The sad truth is, Huayna played a nearly perfect game, yet was not particularly close to any sort of victory and had awful teching even by average AI standards. We will see if he can return to the playoffs for the first time since he choked in the Season 6 Championship.
Tokugawa should be commended for his fantastic defensive effort. The fact that he faced such brutal fighting, yet 1) was able to generally keep up in tech with TWO FINANCIAL LEADERS and 2) still had an intact empire at the end of the game was extremely, extremely impressive. Unfortunately, his one mistake, his decision to backstab Huayna, turned out to be the most catastrophic in this game, as it got him in the long 2.25v1 that ruined his playoff chances. Toku has generally surprised us, but his isolationist personality still bit him hard here. All it took for him and Huayna to become permanent enemies was for Toku to instantly close borders the moment his relations dropped, and with his central position he could ill afford another enemy. If only he still had his Aggressive/Organized traits, because he really is an exceptional fighter with some economic skills despite all that.
I am not going to waste precious words and time on the final guy. His performance was a disgrace to AI Survivor, and I sometimes wish we could vote to eliminate leaders.
While the Wildcard was looking like a snoozefest for a while, Huayna and Tokugawa's inclusion should spice things up greatly. Furthermore, the game already has eight leaders, and we still have three games remaining to play. If we get four more, Sullla will split it up into two games; this GREATLY boosts the low peaceweight leader's chances, as they are more likely to roll more workable fields. Imagine Huayna and Tokugawa against, say, Roosevelt, Lincoln, that buffoon from this game who does not even deserve a participation ribbon, and Darius. They could easily crush those jokers despite the 2v4 peaceweight split.
Congratulations to Methel Ethyl and Agni Neres, who won this week's prediction contest with 26 points apiece. Meanwhile, many CFC posters continue to have a major grasp on the season wide contest, with fellow contributors Thrasybulos tied with Fippy. Fantasy wise, I finally have a challenger. This was a great game for Kuro, who saw BOTH of his leaders make the playoffs here, and he still has four leaders yet to play. The events of this game were a bit frustrating for me, but hey, at least Tokugawa lives to see another day and I still have zero leaders eliminated. This was a rough game for Kjotleik, who really needs Huayna to pull through in the Wildcard to have any chance. Vincarius did get two points from Washington's death, but he really needs a good outcome next week from Monty and Brennus to ensure his victory hopes do not solely rest on Joao's shoulders. I would say that this was a less-than-stellar outcome for Maniamuse, who got real trolled by his 10 gold bid and I am not so sure Hatty's stock is as good as it seemed last week with the new Wildcard ramifications.
This was a highly entertaining game full of twists and turns, but we are not done with the chaos yet. Next week, it is time for Gandhi and the crazies! Can Gandhi's corner position allow him to hide from the complete mayhem? Tune in next week to find out!
