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:
Gilgamesh of Sumeria
Traits: Creative, Protective (1 culture trait)
Starting Techs: Agriculture, The Wheel
Peace Weight: 2
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Flavors: Primary Military, Secondary Culture
Warmonger Respect: +2
Base Attitude: 0
Favorite Civic: Hereditary Rule
Zealotry: Medium to High
Past Finishes: Season 5 runner up, one additional Championship loss, one playoff round elimination, two wildcard eliminations, three opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 16
Total Medals: 3 First Places, 3 Second Places 
Total Kills: 14 
Overall Power Ranking: 35 points, 7th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Gilgamesh is a highly aggressive warmonger who finds himself bizarrely paired with defensive leader traits and an economic civilization. His trait combination of Creative + Protective is an odd grouping, but it does grant him the best early game defense of any leader. The Sumerian civilization is quite a bit better, with excellent starting techs and a useful building in the Ziggurat. The Vulture is easily the weakest part of the civ as despite its higher strength, it is not much better (and sometimes worse) than a regular axe due to losing half its melee bonus. Gilgamesh has a strangely high wonder building preference (8/10) and an above average interest in religion. He's also one of the most likely leaders to launch new wars (8/10 aggression rating) and he emphasizes military techs in his research. Moreover, he has Culture as his other flavor alongside that Military preference, and he can't seem to decide if he wants to be a culture/wonder leader or a military leader and often struggles to reconcile these competing impulses. He can be quite successful when it all comes together but we've also seen a lot of helpless flailing in multiple directions at once.
Past Performance: While his track record is a bit inconsistent, Gilgamesh has nevertheless established himself as a noteworthy leader. For the first three seasons, he was just a nobody, stuck in unfavorable starting conditions and unable to break out of them. That all changed in Seasons Four and Five, though: both seasons saw him play a solid second-place game in the opening round or Wildcard (sneaking in a Diplomatic win in one of those games) before stomping all over his playoff round game after favorable dogpiles. Those dominant wins fed into two straight Championship appearances, and he further bolstered his credentials by finishing Season Five in a very close second place. But while still being an important figure in most of his subsequent games, he's cooled off a bit: although he hasn't been eliminated in the opening round since Season Three, he has been consigned to the Wildcard in three of the past five seasons, and has been winless since Season Five. He did return to the playoffs in Season Eight in a setup where success was handed to him on a silver platter, but in a reverse-Gandhi conundrum was unable to hold up in a hostile high peaceweight playoff field. In sum, Gilgamesh is a capable and dangerous warmonger, but has had issues leveraging his advantages and strong starts into real wins.
Saladin of Arabia
Traits: Spiritual, Protective (1 culture trait)
Starting Techs:Mysticism, The Wheel
Peace Weight: 4
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Flavors: Primary Military, Secondary Religion
Warmonger Respect: +1
Base Attitude: 0
Favorite Civic: Theocracy
Zealotry: High
Past Finishes: Season 7 runner up, one playoff round elimination, two wildcard eliminations, four opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 14
Total Medals: 2 First Places, 2 Second Places
Total Kills: 5
Overall Power Ranking: 19 points, tied 47th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Saladin is one of several leaders that focuses on religion and military. It turns out the Arabian civilization is quite a bit better than initially thought for the AI, as Mysticism/Wheel automatically gives good ol' Sal two AI bottleneck techs while giving his Deity worker something to do if he pursues Meditation out the gate. Meanwhile, although the Camel Archer is pretty irrelevant in most cases, the early culture from the Madrassa can be quite useful. Spiritual is quite nice too. What really hamstrings Saladin is the Protective trait, and indeed he tends to be quite a slow starter as a result. Outside of his pious nature, most of his AI ratings are in the middle of the range of available values, such as his aggression rating (5.5/10) and peace weight (4) - indeed, he's one of the least aggressive of the religious nuts. This is a straightforward AI personality: he's essentially a more mild-mannered Justinian, someone who will try to defend himself and his allies from religious enemies much like his real life persona.
Past Performance: Saladin is a pretty solid AI who is probably a bit unlucky to have not scored more points than he has. By now he's logged quite a few games where he played solidly throughout and was close, only to either suffer a late conquest or else just barely get edged out for second place by somebody else. He might be budget-Justinian, but as he showed in his silver medal Season Seven campaign, budget-Justinian is as capable as any leader of achieving success. His most recent performance also saw him in a pole position at the midgame, only to suffer a brutal backstab from a religious ally at the worst possible time to fold and become First to Die. Saladin tends to perform quite competently, usually possessing a competitive empire after the landgrab, and has on multiple occasions won games simply by steering a steady course to prosper while his competition implodes. He's unlikely to race out to victory, but is there to take the win or second place when others mess up. Perhaps the biggest weakness we've seen from him, though, is that while he loves to found Islam, he has issues spreading it (or any other religion he ends up with) due to his slower starts. As a result, Saladin often finds himself in the role of the religious outcast, and this has gotten him into trouble several times in the past. If he can avoid that, though, he's quite capable of putting on a decent performance.
Genghis Khan Temujin of the Mongols
Traits: Aggressive, Imperialistic (0 culture traits)
Starting Techs: Hunting, The Wheel
Peace Weight: 0
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Flavors: Pure Military
Warmonger Respect: +2
Base Attitude: -1
Favorite Civic: Police State
Zealotry: Low
Past Finishes: Two wildcard eliminations, six opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 10
Total Medals: 0 First Places, 0 Second Places
Total Kills: 6
Overall Power Ranking: 6 points, tied 48th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Temujin is a comically over-aggressive leader who routinely self-destructs with ill-advised military ventures and overexpansion. His Imperialistic trait is good for expansion but the pairing with Aggressive carries no economic benefits at all, leaving Temujin to crash his economy in game after game. The Mongolian civ is a good fighting civ with Keshik and Ger unique items, and we have seen Temujin's grandson put them to good use, but the O.G. Khan himself is undercut by his obsession with all things involving war. He has an exceedingly high aggression rating (9.5/10), he builds tons of units (8/10), and he has the lowest peace weight in the game. Temujin only has a single flavor for his tech research, Military, and he'll go to great lengths to beeline Military Science for his grenadiers while still lacking Aesthetics. His uber-militaristic bent routinely causes him to fall behind in tech, flame out, and lose to more advanced neighbors in the later stages of every match. Things would be even more dire if this guy did not have The Wheel as a starting tech! This is not a complicated leader to understand: Temujin is going to attack his neighbors early and often, and either reinvent the Great Mongol Terror or become a footnote in history.
Past Performance: Genghis has had really lackluster results even by the standards of the crazies, being one of two leaders to have never made the playoffs. He frequently ends up as a runt civ, failing to develop well enough to become a serious power, fighting and fighting but accomplishing little, and eventually getting overrun or simply forgotten. He has had a couple of more successful outings, though: in both Seasons Five and Six, he successfully got the snowball of conquest rolling in his opener and became a major world power in a clear top-two position... only to throw it all away in a lategame attack against a technologically superior foe, as he never did get around to building a good economy. Genghis does at least have a respectable kill count, better than some of his aggressive peers, and alternate histories have proven that he absolutely has the ability to win a game if things go right. But it will be tough to know when things do go right, especially after he proved to be so ineffective in a promising-looking Season Eight setup.
Justinian of Byzantium
Traits: Spiritual, Imperialistic (1 culture trait)
Starting Techs: The Wheel, Mysticism
Peace Weight: 4
Declares War at Pleased Relations? NO
Flavors: Primary Religion, Secondary Military
Warmonger Respect: +1
Base Attitude: +1
Favorite Civic: Theocracy
Zealotry: Extreme
Past Finishes: Season 1 champion, Season 3 runner up, two playoff round eliminations, four opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 14
Total Medals: 5 First Places, 3 Second Places
Total Kills: 12
Overall Power Ranking: 43 points, 3rd place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Justinian is the Civ4 leader that best combines religious and military pursuits together into a dominant total package. Justinian benefits from a strong trait pairing in the Spiritual + Imperialistic combination, routinely securing a larger-than-average share of the available land while never losing Anarchy turns when switching religions and civics. He is tied to the Byzantine civilization, which has foolproof AI Survivor starting techs and perhaps the strongest unique unit in the game: the Cataphract. (For what it's worth, the Hippodrome is also quite strong.) Knights with Cuirassier-level strength are enough to win many games of their own accord and Justinian has put them to good use in many of his victories, even if he takes a while to research Guilds which do not correspond to his Religion + Military tech flavors. There's no question that Justinian is an aggressive leader who leans towards conquest, with a high aggression rating (7.6/10), heavy unit emphasis (8/10), and a moderately low peaceweight of 4. Unlike the game's most insane warmongers, however, Justinian largely limits his aggression to competitors outside of his religious bloc. He will strongly favor leaders who share his religion and hate those who don't. Justinian also will not plot war at "Pleased" relations, which is probably a good thing because it serves as the best of both worlds. If Justinian has many friends it usually means his religion has spread all over and he can run away economically with shrine income. If he has many enemies, well, they will usually all be crushed to death under Cataphract hooves.
Past Performance: Justinian was an AI Survivor megastar from its inception, winning the inaugural Championship before adding a Runner Up trophy two seasons later, making him one of two leaders to have two overall season medals. 7 placements and 9 kills in the first four seasons established him firmly as a top-tier leader, as he was important in game after game after game. Since the removal of the Apostalic Palace, a wonder that felt especially unfair when under Byzantine control, he has endured tougher times: he was felled in the Opening Round of Seasons 5-7 while only scoring one kill, one of the least successful seeded leaders in this stretch. In all fairness, Season Five saw him with a terrible start that was right in the middle of a guaranteed-to-be-a monster Alex, and Alternate Histories showed he was quite unlucky in Seasons 6-7. Indeed, he returned to form in Season Eight, winning a dominant victory from a mediocre starting position in the opening round, although a difficult diplomatic landscape in the playoffs stopped him from returning to the Championship - which he was, once again, proven quite unlucky to miss out on. Still, Justin is one of the few truly elite leaders in the competition, and any season could give him strong odds to reclaim his crown from the first season.
Mao Zedong of China
Traits: Expansive, Protective (0 culture traits)
Starting Techs:Agriculture, Mining
Peace Weight: 1
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Flavors: Primary Growth, Secondary Production
Warmonger Respect: +2
Base Attitude: 0
Favorite Civic: State Property
Zealotry: Almost non-existent
Past Finishes: One Championship loss, four playoff round eliminations, three opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 16
Total Medals: 1 First Place, 5 Second Places
Total Kills: 10
Overall Power Ranking: 25 points, tied 16th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Mao Zedong has been surprisingly successful at AI Survivor despite having relatively little to work with. His trait combination is simply bad, with the terrible Protective trait combined together with the AI's poor handling of the Expansive trait. Mao does get to take advantage of the Chinese civilization though, with incredible starting techs (Agriculture/Mining) and the strong Cho-Ko-Nu unique crossbow to make the Protective trait much more useful than it usually is. Mao's AI personality is best known for placing very little emphasis on religion. He doesn't gain much of a benefit from shared religion and attaches little penalty to practicing a different faith, and this has usually been beneficial to him as he won't allow blind religious fervor to guide him towards ill-advised decisions (or non-decisions). Mao's ratings are fairly average aside from his hefty emphasis on espionage spending (8/10). He's only average in terms of aggression (a good thing considering his tech preferences sometimes cause him to delay military techs) but has a low peace weight and will happily plot war at "Pleased" relations. Mao's middle-of-the-road ratings reflect a leader who often seems to lurk under the radar until catching others by surprise.
Past Performance: Chairman Mao is one of those leaders who is very good at hanging around even if he's not in great shape, and that's resulted in a consistently solid performance that's helped him maintain an above average ranking in the leaderboard. He's one of only five leaders to have made the playoffs in five different seasons, as even when he's not very strong, he can tag along behind one of his low peaceweight buddies and slide by in second place (or to the Wildcard - he's made the playoffs through that game multiple times!) While the map generation has been somewhat kind in that Mao usually has a lot of friends on the map, these results also speak to his tenacity and decent play that avoids any major blunders. The flip side of this is that Mao rarely excels; his only career win came at the ludicrously late Turn 433 from an unusual Season One map, and while he "should" have won one more game in Season Five (which was instead sniped via a Diplomatic victory), it's still clear overall that he lacks the traits or skills needed to really dominate. His biggest weakness by far is his refusal to tech Mysticism early - this weakness rearing its ugly head in a dud Season Eight performance - and the fact he's only been to the Championship game in one out of five tries also speak to the fact that he's a step below the top of the competition. However, compared to the field of competitors as a whole, Mao has proven himself to be a balanced leader and multiple Alternate Histories have suggested some yet-to-be-unlocked sleeping giant potential in the chairman.
Zara Yaqob of Ethiopia
Traits: Creative, Organized (1 culture trait)
Starting Techs:Hunting, Mining
Peace Weight: 6
Declares War at Pleased Relations? YES
Flavors: Primary Growth, Secondary Religion
Warmonger Respect: +2
Base Attitude: +2
Favorite Civic: Theocracy
Zealotry: Extreme
Past Finishes: Season 1 runner up, one playoff round elimination, two wildcard eliminations, four opening round eliminations
Total Games Played: 15
Total Medals: 2 First Places, 3 Second Places
Total Kills: 9
Overall Power Ranking: 25 points, tied 16th place (out of 52 leaders)
Personality: Zara plays with the Creative and Organized traits, an above average pairing due to its excellent synergy, as both traits reward fast expansion while also giving the Ethiopians major discounts on a number of strong buildings throughout the course of a game. For his unique items Zara plays with the decent Oromo Warrior, a slightly better musketman, and the mediocre Stele which oftentimes only begins to become useful when it is about to obsolete. Lastly, Zara gets the Hunting/Mining combo for his starting techs, which means he can be slow to connect his food resources, especially if he goes for a religion because he is one of the most devout leaders in the game. His flavours are Growth and Religion, an unusual combination that could lead to healthy and happy cities. Outside of religion, Zara is a bit of a wildcard, holding thoroughly average ratings (5.6 aggression, 6 unit build, 4 wonder build). He can shapeshift from a warmonger to an enlightened soul from game to game. However, by being perhaps the most middle-of-the-road leader in Civ4, he turns into one of the game's most unique personalities. He is the Oprah of AI Survivor - you get a diplomatic bonus, you get a diplomatic bonus, you ALL get diplomatic bonuses! Not only is he the sole not-Gandhi leader to grant +2 extra "first impression" relations, but he ALSO has an additional +2 warmonger respect bonus. When combined with his neutral peaceweight of 6, this guy can befriend anybody from the most hardcore warmongers to the most timid peaceniks. Furthermore, his diplomatic bonus for shared faith goes up to an obscene +8 - for reference Izzy tops out at +7 - and while the penalty for religious differences is nothing to sneeze at, he is more than capable of getting along with heathens due to the other diplomatic goodies he provides. I'd venture the developers HAD to make him plot at Pleased, or else he might never attack anyone! Naturally, liking everyone too much has its downsides - Zara can maintain cordial relations with everyone, but unless he forms a religious alliance he has difficulty forming any deep bonds. We all know that one person who gets along with everyone but cannot form true connections, and it is not the happiest of existences.
Past Performance: Zara was perhaps the biggest star of Season One, rebounding from near-elimination via the Wildcard game into three straight dominant performances to come just short of winning the title. (Instead, in classic AI fashion, he sat back while slightly under the Domination threshold and let Justinian win via space instead.) However, his career since then has seemingly been dedicated to proving that this performance was a fluke. Zara has accomplished very little from Season Two onwards, failing a little or a lot depending on the game, but in any case almost never becoming truly strong or a major figure. He showed minor signs of life in Season Six, scoring a decent amount of points and kills in both seasons, but that was bookended by Seasons Five and Seven which both saw him suffer embarrassing early eliminations at the hands of Alexander; Season Five's performance in particular saw him wiped out without ever reaching Archery, for the earliest elimination in AI Survivor history. Since Season One, Zara has displayed some rather crippling flaws under AI Survivor settings. First, he is a religious leader with an ill-fitting civ for such a style, and with Deity techs removed this has directly contributed to his Alex disembowelments, as he is too slow to research development and defensive techs due to pursuing (and often missing out on due to turn order, being last alphabetically!) religions. Secondly, if he likes someone too much, he can take his sweet time making anything happen, and this particular weakness was exposed in Season Eight, where after essentially being a spectator in his Opening Round (at least he got the Alex monkey off his back), he waited too long to make his move in the Wildcard Game and ended up eliminated due to finishing in 2nd place in a rare winner-takes-all match. Unfortunately, Zara is one of the leaders most hurt by modern survivor settings. He's often on the shortlist of "best AI discussions" in many forum posts, as while being nice to everyone is amazing with regular AI and tech trading, it is not nearly as beneficial under Aggressive AI and No Tech Trading. While Zara does have the skillset and diplomacy to succeed, he will need to take more initiative and have better early games in order to recapture his Season One magic.
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Check back later for the community predictions shortly before this game begins!
