Seeding Watch:
Stalin currently holds the 8th seed, with an overall power ranking of 34 points that hasn't been bolstered since his championship run in Season 4. He is now in imminent danger of losing his Pool One status; Suryavarman is a mere 2 points behind him, so this could easily be the end of his tenure if he doesn't accomplish anything in this game. (On the other hand, the next closest leader below him who still can play this season is eight points behind, providing a little more of a buffer.) On the flip side, Stalin can easily move back up with a good performance here. A second place finish or two kills moves him ahead of Gilgamesh for the 7 seed. A second place finish with a kill moves him ahead of Julius Caesar in 6th, with two kills puts him over Kublai Khan in 5th. A win would let him jump Pacal for the 4 seed, and a really dominant three kill win would also pass Justinian to put him all the way up in the 3 seed. Lots at stake this game for the Season 3 champion.
Gandhi has been slipping in recent years, and is now down to the 14 seed, with 25 total points and 3 last season. He has a small buffer as he is guaranteed to remain ahead of Mao and Hannibal, but there are still four active leaders within four points of his score, so a drop to unseeded status may be imminent if he can't make anything of this match. On the other hand, the clustered nature of Pool Two gives him a lot of room to move upward if he does find success. A single point leapfrogs him above Louis, Alex, and Burger King, while a win would put him back above Darius and at the top of the pool. He's not attaining Pool One this game no matter what, though.
All five unseeded leaders have low enough scores at this point that they would need multiple strong performances to crack the ranks of the seeded. It's not happening this game.
So, this map. I thought when assessing in the preseason that this was the most unpredictable map, and judging by the predictions so far, the community agrees. The high peaceweights have the advantage of numbers, but feel more vulnerable. They could well just all sit back and watch each other get conquered.
To me, the most important thing about this map is that there is considerably more room in the south. Not only are the leaders spaced further apart, they also have extra land to settle in their backlines where the northern leaders just have water. Yes, it's mostly tundra and ice, but it's still land and still ultimately helps the Deity AIs. This reminds me a lot of the map for Season 1 Game 6, and (spoiler) the extra space to settle turned into a major advantage for the three southern leaders there. Things might go differently here because of the different personalities involved (in the other game, the three southern leaders were all peaceful builder personalities and thus well suited to take advantage), but I still highly suspect that one of the southern trio is going to emerge on top, and in particular would be rather surprised by a Napoleon, Roosevelt, or Victoria win.
Which of the three, though? Joao has the worst land, Stalin has the most dangerous position, and Ragnar is Ragnar. Still not an easy game to predict!
Let's start with the Pool One leader, Stalin. He's currently the narrow favorite in the picking contest, and I can't really argue with those who are picking him to win. His position has a TON of potential: room to expand (peacefully or militarily) in every direction, lots of good land nearby, and guaranteed early copper. All the pieces are there and I would be shocked if he didn't submit multiple wins in the alternate histories. On the other hand, his start will be slower than it should be thanks to lack of early culture (probably; six of these leaders don't push Mysticism, though, so one or two are going to randomly go for a religion at some point in all likelihood, and that would be a big help for Stalin if he did so). His position is also extremely dangerous, and he has no reliable allies for this game: four leaders have high peaceweight and won't like him, while the other two are crazy warmongers, so they'll like him but might attack him anyway! I'm sure there are many timelines where he gets dogpiled or suffers a fatal backstab. Overall, then, I think Stalin has an extremely high-variance setup here. He could perform just about anywhere along the spectrum and is absolutely a reasonable, if by no means safe, pick to win.
Joao is, I think, the safest bet on this map to move on to the playoffs. He has a southern position, and between his more peaceful personality and IMP trait, he's best positioned to take advantage of it, inflating his score if nothing else. Historically his biggest problem has been getting cruddy cramped starts, and that isn't an issue here. He also should be reasonably successful at avoiding trouble, out of the way and with a moderate peace weight and low cultural pressure. Most of the time, Stalin and Napoleon should have bigger fish to fry (though watch out for Gandhi...). Now, his land doesn't look especially great and I don't know how likely he is to win (unless by simply holding steady while everybody else implodes - this might be a pretty good map for that). But I bet he is the favorite for second place and has the most top two finishes in the alternate histories. He was a good fantasy pickup here.
Joao's peaceweight, middling as it is, could also make him a critical player in shaping how the game goes. If he rolls low for this game, he might end Gandhi's chances early and serve as a fantastic partner for Stalin. If he rolls high, he might be just what it takes to take Stalin down instead. An interesting factor that we will only know in retrospect.
Thirdly, there's Ragnar, one of my fantasy leaders in this match. He's a attracted little support so far, but I think this could actually be a strong setup for him. His triple seafood start matches his starting Fishing tech and Financial trait; the latter will also come in handy for the nice surrounding land, with lots of rivers and a very close gold resource. Ragnar can expand to a strong size on his own and is unlikely to be dogpiled in this game (perhaps Stalin's lowest-odds target?), and overall I think the lack of early copper will work in his favor by letting him develop a bit more before going on the attack. There's a clear path to victory as well, snowballing over the smaller Victoria in the north and going from there. Now, I'm fully cognizant that we're talking about Ragnar here and there's every chance in the world that he'll screw it all up. However, I think this is one of the best shots he'll ever get, which is why I backed him in fantasy.
Phew, so much for the southern trio. What about the leaders in the north? Gandhi is currently the favorite among these, and I think deservedly so. (EDIT: Now it's Napoleon. I might have been wrong about this one to begin with.) He has a lot of factors working in his favor: a good capital with immediately-improvable gold, good backlines so he should be able to reach a decent size even if his expansion is bad, and minimal competition for all of the religious and cultural stuff. This is basically the opposite of last week's game in that regard, and so if he can get by without suffering serious aggression, it will likely be a trivial matter for him to run away with culture and win a fast victory that way. The problem, of course, is that Napoleon is right there. Even Joao isn't going to be all that reliable as an ally in all likelihood, and so it seems a tall order for Gandhi to be able to avoid serious aggression, or fend it off before his game gets rekt. We'll see, though - he's pulled it off before! I can also totally see an amazing conclusion to the game where he gets crippled by Napoleon early on, only to sneak out the surprise cultural victory in the eleventh hour. Would be quite an ending! I do think in retrospect that not putting any fantasy value on him at all was a mistake. We'll see if I (and the others) pay for it.
Gandhi at least has a clear victory condition, which is more than I can say for the other northern leaders. I guess Napoleon isn't far off, though, as he has the snowball route, but I don't think he's as well set up for it as Ragnar. His land is poorer in food and commerce, and he has less of it available, especially if Gandhi settles a Holy City in his direction. He does have two potentially soft initial targets in Gandhi and Roosevelt, but will it be that easy to roll through them? He has copper near his capital, but there's no guarantee that his settling and culture priorities will let him connect it in a timely manner. Even if he does roll through one opponent, I think he'll have a tough time keeping the snowball rolling without falling behind in tech. I could be wrong, but I think most of his best outcomes would come from playing tagalong kid to a strong Stalin.
Then there's Roosevelt. Some folks on the Discord have been praising his capital but I just don't see it. Yes, there's gold, but who's to say he'll be working it before Turn 40? And there's just not that much land available for him. I think he'll be too squeezed and too Roosevelt to accomplish much here.
Finally, Victoria has a capital that fits beautifully with her starting techs, why I was convinced to pick her up for fantasy... and not much else. Little land available, what there is is unimpressive, and her track record works against her. I have low expectations for her to accomplish much of anything except feeding a snowball.
After sticking to what I felt to be more conservative picks in the past few weeks (for all that backing Shaka, Saladin, and Darius got me), I'm going a bit more daring again this week and backing my fantasy choice. I have Ragnar to snowball over Victoria (the FTD) and keep going from there until he wins by Domination. Joao in second place. It would be hilarious if Ragnar was sniped by a Gandhi culture win though.
As for this game, Gandhi can serve up a classic early win, but Joao, Roosevelt, and Victoria are also (albeit more plodding) culture threats if they consolidate a research lead 
