This is a big game for me - I have no less than three of its leaders on my fantasy team! It's probably not an exaggeration to say that how this game goes decides whether I remain in contention with Kjotleik or am reduced to fighting for second or third place. I'm also going to be able to catch it live for once!
Seeding Watch:
Julius Caesar is currently the #6 seeded leader, with a total score of 37 points. While he's only four points ahead of the top Pool Two leader, I
think his Pool One position is probably safe for another season regardless of what happens here; three different leaders would need to outpace him and I just don't think that's very likely with how the season has played out. Possible, if something like Gilgamesh/Sury/Mehmed all did well in the playoff round, but not likely. If he
does do well, he can regain some of the ground he's lost across the opening round. A single kill puts him above Kublai for the #5 spot. A win, or second place with at least one kill would move him above Pacal. A win with a kill would put him above Justinian. Can he re-assert himself, or will he become more of a Stalin-esque faded star?
Louis XIV is currently the #14 seeded leader, with a total score of 25 points and 17 in the most recent season. He is only a single point above the top unseeded leaders, and it's very possible he loses his seeded status if he fails to accomplish anything this season, although by no means guaranteed. He can also move up: a single kill puts him above Charlemagne, second place puts him above Mehmed again, a win or a two-kill second place puts him above Gandhi and Darius, and an impressive three-kill win would put him above Sury and at the top of Pool Two.
The big unseeded leader to watch is
Cyrus, who with 24 points is currently tied for the #17 seed. That means that just a single point would put him back in the ranks of the seeded, knocking out Mao Zedong. A win would put him above everybody up to and including Darius, right back at the top of Pool Two once more. It's a golden opportunity for the old star to reclaim some glory; can he seize it?
All right, the map. Honestly, after looking over this map again, my read is largely the same as it was in the preseason. I think it's likely that Sillyman and De Lol over to the west are going to be a side attraction, and the real game will be among the five leaders in the eastern blob. Things can often fall to pieces quickly, of course, but the mostly likely outcome would seem to be that Lincoln and Augustus, the high peaceweight sore thumbs, get dogpiled out, leaving Cyrus, Julius, and Louis to fight it out for the playoff spots. I'd be pretty shocked if none of the trio advanced to the playoffs, and I think
probably it's most likely that two of them move on?
The other general note I have on the map is that this one is very spacious. We'll see how that plays out; combined with the militaristic/non-economic bent of the field, this could be a long one. On the other hand, with four Imperialistic leaders, it might still fill up pretty quickly.
The biggest focus going in will be on
Julius Caesar. He's the Pool One leader, the favorite so far in the picking contest, and at a cool 50
was my biggest fantasy pickup, intended to be one of the cornerstones of my team. (Along with Saladin, who... we saw how that worked out.) And he does seem to have the most available territory to peacefully settle of any leader, which in theory ought to result in him being a major player. My hope when I shelled out the cash for him was that this would be a big return-to-glory game for him, where he leverages his early advantage to snowball over the rest of the map. There's other points in his favor as well: he has a decently central position that should allow him plenty of flexibility, and he also has excellent diplomatic prospects. His western neighbors are probably going to be Suleiman and Cyrus, and it should be pretty easy for him to get up to Pleased with them and rule out backstabs from that direction - especially since they'll both have closer neighbors that they're more likely to get entangled with first. His eastern neighbors are likely to be Lincoln and Augustus, who are less aggressive and likely to have their own problems. As a result, Caesar should have a strong territorial base, easy access to multiple possible conquests (the most likely of which he'll probably have help with), and low odds of getting dogpiled; should be a recipe for a good performance, right? As long as he doesn't do something silly like attacking Cyrus 1-on-1 first?
The concerns with Caesar's start are that it isn't especially strong land - there's no capital synergy and in particular, he's going to suffer early on from a lack of luxuries - and the possibility that it's
too much land and he just crashes his economy and stagnates before he can get the conquest train rolling. These have the Discord crew largely dismissing his chances. I hope they're wrong! We shall see. It's worth noting that he had a pretty similar start in the Season 5 playoffs (described by Sullla as probably the worst starting position on the map) and yet did the best in the alternate histories. Maybe something like that can happen here. I'm relying on it!
Louis XIV has the least available land of the eastern warmongers and what he does have looks mostly rather dry. His biggest hope is to use the copper at his capital to take some early land and/or benefit from dogpiles. The other hope he has lies in the rather low cultural emphasis on this group; if left alone and able to tech fairly well, he could sneak out another Cultural win. I suspect, though, that his most likely outcome is to go to war early with Augustus or Lincoln and hamstring both his target and himself; he'll contribute to the warmongers' success out here, but it will be Cyrus or Caesar leveraging that to an actual win, not Louis. Second place could happen. He could also easily get frisky later on and backstab a strong Persia/Rome, getting himself knocked out in the process. That's not to say there's no hope for him; in particular, if Lincoln replicates his performance from last year, that could easily translate into a Louis win. But I feel like he's the shakiest bet of this trio.
Then there's
Cyrus, who has a similar position to Caesar. His position isn't quite as flexible - he trades Augustus for De Gaulle as a neighbor, which I suspect mainly reduces odds of a successful dogpile - but he has less concern of too much space to expand than Julius does, and between likely early gold and Charismatic trait will have a higher happy cap. These factors are the main ones in his favor and have resulted in him having more support on the Discord. On the other hand, his position is also more dangerous, I think. De Gaulle could be a thorn in his side, and Julius backstabbing him is much more likely than him backstabbing Julius thanks to willingness to declare at Pleased. Cyrus is more likely to get knocked out by a dogpile, and I think is likely to be one of the most boom-or-bust leaders on the map. Playoffs or total elimination?
And then there's the ones whom I expect to be hapless victims.
Augustus Caesar definitely has the better position of the two, with two immediately improvable resources and a corner start. If he can, say, play nice with Julius and use Praetorians to smack down Louis, then he could definitely advance and make something of this game. However, I think this has to be considered the lower-odds outcome; it's more likely that he fails to substantially advance his position until getting dogpiled by Louis and Julius. Neither one can easily be made a reliable ally, which won't help, there's no guarantee he even gets Praets (metals should be easy, but the iron is definitely within the margin of Louis's free Creative culture swallowing it up), and his opening will probably be slow overall with all those trees in the area. I'm guessing the starting gold will do little more than ensuring he doesn't totally crash his economy. I do have more respect for Augustus than some of the community, but I still think he faces long odds in this contest.
Not as long of odds as
Lincoln, though! His start isn't bad, and all those furs + silver + Charismatic will give him a high happy cap early on. He would be the best techer of this group by a country mile... if it weren't for the fact that he's virtually guaranteed to be attacked early and often. Louis and Cyrus are probably most likely to go after him early on, and I don't think the odds are that bad of Julius/Suleiman/De Gaulle going after his high peaceweight as well. Without metal until iron, there's even the possibility of him folding dramatically early, which would definitely tilt the scales toward Cyrus or Louis. I don't know how likely that is, but in any case a strong Lincoln would almost certainly be an outlier result. He's on my fantasy team, but I don't mind admitting that I was banking pretty much entirely on First to Die points when I picked him up.
Then there's the western duo, who I think will struggle to be relevant on this map.
De Gaulle is the better situated of the duo. He at least has immediately-improvable corn at the capital... and then pretty much all forests beyond that. As I recall this tends to slow the AI down, and the quality of land around his capital is mixed. Nothing super juicy here. The bigger problem is Cyrus to his east; I doubt De Gaulle can contend for the win without expanding through Persia, and just how likely is he to be able to pull that off? There's a good chance that there are alternate histories where he dogpiles him along with Julius, or something like that, and snowballs from there, but I doubt it's a normal result. Failing that, I imagine his best hope is to absorb Suleiman and backdoor second place. I suspect the eastern warmongers will be too strong for that to be a reliable option, though.
Suleiman faces even worse odds, though, as outside of that corn and copper, his whole starting area is pretty yucky. I don't think he'll be very strong at all, and won't have the leverage to accomplish much militarily or economically. Wildcard's a possibility as his peaceweight and nearby neighbors give him decent odds to avoid trouble, but I'd be surprised to see him do more than that. He's on my fantasy team, but I mostly picked him up out of a philosophy of grabbing as many leaders as I could. He's on the right side PW-wise, so he was worth a small sum just in case. My expectations are low, though.
Picking for this game is tough. I find myself unwilling to fully back either Cyrus or Louis in their struggle in the east; even less so for the longshot odds of Augustus, De Gaulle, or Suleiman. And I'm terrified that I'll jinx JC if I pick him.
On a side note, I'm doing
really badly in the picking contest. The current top score is 86... and I'm at 23 despite having submitted an entry for every game! It gets "better" - my average is 3.29 points over the first seven games. I looked, and that is
the worst average in the entire contest among all entrants who have submitted picks for more than two games. Yeah, I'm really bad at this!
So I don't feel any qualms from that perspective of backing the remaining leader:
Lincoln. He is probably the least or second-least likely leader to win on this map. But if it somehow
does happen and I actually nail the dynamics for once, how sweet will that be! And if Cyrus, whom I probably would have picked otherwise, wins, oh well, I would have still been about 50 points behind with five games to go. Not much of a loss.
My logic, therefore, for a Lincoln win, is that he somehow gets totally left alone as Louis stalemates against Augustus and the western four leaders get caught up in their own struggles. Eventually, with a tech lead, Lincoln works with Augustus to partition Louis, and the two are then strong enough to absorb and counter later attacks by Cyrus and JC, eventually taking the top two spots as Lincoln wins by space. Suleiman as FTD as his weak position allows JC to conquer him early before falling behind in tech.
