Part 59: Our Home and Native Land...

1

The world is in chaos. In the cold vestiges of the Canadian winterland, the Inuit are establishing a chokehold on both the region and the necks of Canadian civilians. Meanwhile in Africa, Morocco crumbles under the vast Buccaneer threat and in the Middle East war rages on with a crusade against the city of Jerusalem - a city which has known too much war. Greetings, fellow Babylonians and purveyors of conquest and mass murder. This is /u/New_Katipunan, and this is my first try at narrating the Mk. II Civ Battle Royale. It’s on short notice, and I apologize for that. The responsibility is all mine. Let’s get to the slides now though! Titlecard by /u/Jru247

2

LacsiraxAriscal and Malssistra give us a lovely cartographic rendition of our world as it stands. As smaller powers fall, and warmonger threats stack - the bigger powers will start to face war sooner than we might think.

3

The Boers claim top spot once again. Read all the ratings by our expert team of Power Rankers here! http://imgur.com/a/q53mO/layout/horizontal#0

4

Quebec City falls Inuit marines, as the Ice Sheet continues to grind eastwards. The capture of Boston has opened the way across the Appalachians, and Inuit forces are poised to take Albany and Washington, defended by only a handful of Canadian Mobile SAMs. The Canadians have a strong preference for building Mobile SAMs, somewhat unusually because other countries do not build much of those. The White Walkers have a smattering of Biodrones now, in addition to their other advanced units.

5

In the northernmost front of the war, a Canadian force prepares to retake Sarnia by combined land and sea assault, while simultaneously bizarrely providing an honor guard for a Blackfoot paratrooper unit for some reason.

6

A Brazilian Mobile SAM battery is lost in Yakutia, a decidedly large change in climate from its homeland. Here we see that Yakut units are advanced, but quite sparse. Finnish units actually outnumber Yakutians on their own territory. Fortunately for Yakutia they and Finland are still seemingly on good terms after their joint war effort against Mongolia recently.

7

At the end of the last part Spartan troops took Hebron, advancing the frontlines forward from Jerusalem. Armenia only has machine gun battalions nearby. They’ll have to move their Great War Infantry divisions in Anatolia southwards if they hope to retake it. This war has been destructive for Jerusalem, and the citadels, customs houses, plantations, and kibbutzim around the ancient holy city have been pillaged.

08

After the sudden and highly effective blitz by the Buccaneers, Morocco has been reduced to one city in the space of one part. They have only a handful of units left to defend with, but incredibly, there are zero Buccaneer land military units visible in this slide. Can Morocco hold?

09

The Brazil-Buccaneer border shows a truly striking contrast. On one side, Brazil has a full carpet of modern units. On the other side of the border, pirate boots are looking rather thin on the ground. Surely revanchist sentiment must be running high in Brazil, with children in elementary school students being taught about the six cities they lost to the pirates in the last war. Now may be the best time for Brazil to strike.

10

Appropriately for a maritime power, the Buccs have more of a carpet at sea than they do on land - except that much of it is made up of carriers with no planes, with only a smattering of advanced destroyers, subs, battleships, and other useful warships. We’ve already seen the Buccs’ impressive talent for getting a lot done with relatively few units, but Brazil is no Morocco. Henry Morgan of the Buccaneers would do well to build more and more useful military units.

11

Rather than being punched by some invisible entity, it seems that Arabian cities are being bombed by Finnish planes based out of Batticaloa (and Constantinople, but there’s been some debate about whether stealth bombers in Constantinople have the range.) Here the AI shows off its preference for bombing cities they won’t capture rather than units. This bombardment will be fruitless for any purpose but gaining EXP unless the Finns drop paratroopers in and take those cities.

12

The Armenians have indeed moved an infantry division south to retake Hebron, and a solid line of infantry and machine guns is forming along the Euphrates River. Armenia isn’t giving up without a fight. Facing them is a Spartan gun cavalry unit, a rare unit for the Spartans, who no doubt prefer to fight on foot.

13

The Mexicans have taken A’aninin, and though the Blackfoot may flip it with those paras it’ll immediately flip back with the huge number of Mexican paras supported by rocket artillery in the rear coming up from the south. Mexican rocket artillery can shell Aamsskaapipikani, but Vietnamese peacekeepers that have unhelpfully chosen to block the narrow mountain passes in the Rockies will make taking it difficult.

14

Here we see the compact but densely carpeted Korean Empire. In fact it’s even double-carpeted at sea, as many of the sea tiles have both a land unit and a naval unit positioned on them. Unlike the Buccaneers, the Koreans actually put planes on their carriers, because as any Korean knows, it’s stupid to build a carrier without building interceptors. The Korean military is actually large enough and advanced enough to give even its bigger but less-advanced superpower neighbors Vietnam and Australia pause

15

Not to be left out in the carpet department, here we see the Australian carpet we’ve all come to know and love (or not). It’s worth noting that even this carpet is a double carpet, as many of the ocean tiles have both a ship and a land unit on them, effectively doubling the size of this carpet. And in most cases the land unit is one of Australia’s ubiquitous Digger infantry divisions. BR Australia must have manpower llike RL China or India, unlike RL Australia’s position as a large but sparsely populated country.

16

The Armenian wedge moves forward and retakes Hebron. And Spartan units capable of retaliating are few and mostly some distance away. The Armenians definitely have some fight left in them. To the north, notice that Sibir now has Arsenal Ships, although they placed this one in the Caspian Sea where its utility is somewhat doubtful.

17

From zero land military units, the Buccaneers have managed to quickly transport a tank division, apparently by using the formerly-Moroccan rail network, to attack Tangier. This probably won’t be enough though. And the nearest other pirate-owned land military unit is an infantry division near Marrakech, hundreds of kilometers away.

18

The Arabs now have significant numbers of Powered Armor Infantry, although this does little to protect their cities from merciless, albeit ineffective in the grand scheme of things, Finnish aerial bombardment. Ethiopia’s generous carpet continues to spill over into Persian territory. The Ethiopians are apparently taking the Boer threat as seriously as they can.

19

In the central theater of the war, Canadian forces retake Quebec City! The Inuit will contest that move, however, with Biodrones and Mech Artillery. In the southern theater, a Canadian Mobile SAM attempts to retake Boston, while Inuit forces continue to push for Albany and Washington.

20

An Australian Drone UAV acts as an eye in the sky, observing the fighting in the Mexico-Blackfoot War. This also means that they block Mexican forces from capturing the city whose name I don’t want to spell again. The Mexicans also attempt to advance up the Pacific coast, but Sikopoksimaik still has a lot of HP left.

21

Lapis lazuli is banned, and the nations of the world will now find it difficult to enchant tools and armor as a result. Here we see that Sparta and Sweden are both hit by the ban; Sparta in particular as their multiple lapis lazuli deposits now provide no happiness benefit either to them or to others, and thus cannot be traded.

22

However, to my surprise, tea is not banned. This defied my expectation that any luxury resource that had a ban proposal levied against it would be banned. As we can see, many civs voted Nay. Brazil and Chile are both tea producers, and are surely sighing in relief at this development.

23

Nothing much has changed in this war, but our agents report that Vietnam is plotting against Mexico. Perhaps they are angered by Mexican aggression against the Blackfoot that they are protecting? Well, nothing much would seem to come from this particular plotting.

24

Albany falls to ice-cold Inuit troopers encased in powered armor exoskeletons. The capture of this coastal city does enable the Canadian Navy, which until now has been relegated to watching helplessly from the sidelines, to take an active role in the war. It is uncertain whether Canada has open borders with the Buccs however. A pirate ship is in Canadian territory, but that may be due to the Buccs’ UA. We can see that Canada is also hit by the lapis lazuli ban. Meanwhile, a war of earth-shaking import ends, as Sparta makes peace with the Kimberley. Let us all rejoice that that bloody war is over.

25

In the northern theater, the Canadian force sent to retake Sarnia has evaporated. It seems that Sarnia and Granville are in Inuit hands for good now.

26

Inuit marines advance perilously close to Washington itself. Taking this city would finally give the Inuit a foreign capital. The Inuit are also one of the nations to have tea and therefore benefit from the failure of the proposal to ban tea. Who would ever want to ban tea anyway?

27

Armenian forces advance to the walls of Jerusalem, and they simultaneously drop airborne troops behind the city to distract Spartan relief columns. Armenia seems to well and truly counterattacking in this war. In addition to the lapis lazuli ban, a jade mine near Jerusalem has also been pillaged, thus depriving me of two of my favorite colored minerals.

28

The Kimberley now have attack helicopters. The Kimberley were fairly advanced when the Great Oceanic War broke out, and although that war crippled them, they’ve managed to keep up in technology well enough. Both Vietnam and Australia have stacked huge numbers of aircraft in border cities. Is this a portent of war?

29

Washington and Quebec City fall to the Inuit at the same time! Ekeunick (Inuit) is on a roll now. It took some time to break through Canada’s tenacious defense, but Canada is practically out of land units now. The few units they have left appear to all be at the central front. However, the capture of Washington opens the way for the main bulk of Canada’s navy to join the fray.

30

Henry Morgan (Buccaneers) is now technically winning the Battle Royale, owning six original capitals. The pirates, as I mentioned before, are good at getting a lot done with relatively little. They still need to look into building up their defenses in former Gran Colombia a little, before Emperor Pedro decides to reintroduce them to Brazil’s war theme, which sounds like something out of a Bond movie.

31

The tank division sent to take Tangier has been destroyed, but new Buccaneer units are being offloaded along the African coast. The railway network will let them get to the front line faster. It’s interesting to take note of the score overview here. Australia is currently leading in score, with the Boers second. A lot can be gleaned from these numbers, though as all experienced Civ players know score isn’t necessarily a good determinant of victory. Draw your own conclusions from these numbers, folks.

32

Canadians retake Quebec with their dwindling forces, and continue to hold Winnipeg. Many of their remaining ground units are either ranged or helicopters, and cannot capture cities. At least Mobile SAMs CAN capture cities, despite the seeming ridiculousness of taking cities with anti-aircraft guns.

33

Canadian destroyers may retake Albany, but as they do not appear to have open borders with the Buccs, they can no longer retake the city once the last of their ships there are destroyed. The same cannot be said for Washington, where they have a vast number of destroyers waiting offshore. We may see D.C. flip several times in the coming turns. Meanwhile, Arabia and Korea make peace, ending another devastating war. (Well, in the Mini BR it was, anyway.)

34

The Armenians recapture Jerusalem! A solid Armenian force surrounds the city, though Spartan paratroopers to the north may still retake it. Who’d have thought they still had it in them? To the north, Spartan High Command, possibly frustrated with progress in the south, orders an offensive against Tigranocerta.

35

Here’s a shot of Boer-held Madagascar, where we learn that the Boers just completed the Floating Islands. We’ll see what that wonder does soon. In the meantime, have a look at all these Hovertanks. Also have a look at all the anachronistic caravels, and all the empty aircraft carriers. Kruger (Boers) is taking a page out of Morgan’s (Buccaneers) book here, but the rest of his military is so advanced that he gets a free pass.

36

The Floating Islands’ bonuses are large as far as flat numbers are concerned, but rather small for a late-game wonder. It’s also not an empire-wide bonus, which is the best kind here. Still, the food and production bonuses may be multiplied by other Future Worlds buildings, and the Great Scientist points might be useful - if Kruger (Boers) wasn’t so close to finishing the tech tree already. Still, the gap between the Boers and the rest of the world is so wide that building this ridiculously expensive wonder was worth it just to keep anyone else from getting it.

37

Mexico enters the Information Era at last. Mexican forces try a different angle of attack, securing open borders with the Inuit and attacking Blackfoot cities east of the Rocky Mountains. That’s because progress in the western theater of the war continues to be held up by the dratted Vietnamese peacekeepers.

38

Quebec City falls again, but Winnipeg continues to hold out somehow. Take note that the four Icelandic cities neighboring Canada each have 10 air wings stacked in them. We all know that Civ V AIs are remorseless, conscienceless sociopaths that won’t attack someone while he’s strong but will kick him immediately once he’s weak. How many times have you all seen a civ that got severely weakened in a war suddenly get dogpiled by everyone else in your games? Iceland may choose to opportunistically pounce on Canada at this juncture.

39

Babylonian spies report that Vietnam is plotting against Afghanistan. Well, it’s always good to finish unfinished business. Afghanistan is reduced to a rump state that nevertheless continues to hold off Persia in the west, partially because Finnish peacekeepers are getting in the way again.

40

An anonymous Afghan Great Musician courageously faces the Persian artillery and machine guns in defense of his homeland. It’s worth noting that once the list of named Great Artists/Writers/Musicians runs out, the following unnamed Great People can no longer create Great Works. They can only do their secondary function (political treatise/Golden Age/concert tour). And with 61 civs, the named Great Artists will run out FAST.

41

Morocco, despite having only one city left, somehow completed the Manhattan Project in that one city, I guess. The Manhattan Project does not equal an atom bomb, however, and Buccaneer reinforcements are closing in fast. Strangely, Morocco seems to have received 63 damage from something, but has apparently recovered from it anyway.

42

The Baja Peninsula of Mexico is heavily pillaged. Was this done by the Blackfoot? It must have been, but it’s hard to imagine they could have gotten any units down here. The next World Congress proposals are to ban gems and to make Catholicism the world religion. Catholicism is the single most powerful religion in the world, but it’s unlikely that it has more followers than every other religion put together. That proposal probably won’t pass.

43

Mexican rocket artillery batteries form up in the rear. These are the lynchpin of the Mexican offensive. Um. Also, there’s fallout here, in New Vegas and the New California Republic. Where in the world did this come from!? Did the Blackfoot use a nuke? Why don’t Mexican units and cities seem to be correspondingly damaged? Come to think of it, this explains the pillaged tiles in the last slide. Perhaps Mexican units and cities had had some time to recover from the nuking by the time this shot was taken.

44

Winnipeg, Hero City and bastion of Canadian resistance, has fallen at last. And so has Montreal, to a sudden Inuit offensive through the Great Lakes region. Canada’s major cities are falling one by one, and now Ottawa itself is exposed.

45

The Spartans do manage to retake Jerusalem, after landing a fresh wave of troops on the shores of the Levant. Sparta and Canada make peace. A Sparta-Ethiopia war at this juncture would be interesting, to say the least.

46

In the same turn as the last shot of this area, both Ottawa and Calgary fall. The avalanche is truly gathering momentum now. The next cities in line are port cities Kingston and Kitchener, and after that, only the Maple Navy will be left to flip cities.

47

The dense Korean and Vietnamese carpets face each other tensely. There’s also the seemingly-dense-but-actually-having-lots-of-Boer-units-in-it Mongolian carpet. Korea has a ton of planes as well. Vietnam has seemingly fewer, but that’s because we know the vast majority of them are in the south.

48

The full extent of the Vietnamese carpet is on full display here, as is some of the Vietnamese Air Force in Bagan and Mawlyamine. And there’s Tibet, fully surrounded by Vietnam and still sporting cannons and riflemen.

49

As our Babylonian drones scour the earth for more information, our signals have found a lone Finnish Mobile SAM looking to finish one of the many jobs that a ridiculous amount of Stealth Bombers started. As the only Melee unit in the area, could Finland add another external territory to it‘s vastly strange borders?

50

After internal conflict within the Buccaneer ranks regarding the use of Nuclear weapons against their foes, Henry Morgan seems to have curtailed to his populace and seems to have gone back to basics. The conquest of Morocco is child‘s play to the Buccaneers and something that was sorely needed as the last time around the excess of mushroom clouds made things just a little too easy.

51

The Pacific Northwest not only provides ample mountain ranges for natural defense, but the home of the slowly faltering Blackfoot empire. At this point, the Blackfoot are pulling a Maori - nuking their larger enemy and relying on the incompetence of the opposing force to spare their cities. The Trung Sisters‘ Paratrooper peacekeepr envoy still guards the passage to Sikopoksimaik making it a diplomatic and logistic nightmare for the Mexicans to overcome.

52

The Armenians weren‘t really expecting this. Well they were expecting it to some degree, but it wasn‘t really in their Operations Manual: 'What to Expect When You‘re Expecting'. Irregardless, the Spartan contingent looks fierce and mighty, but the hilly landscape around Tigranocerta will make it difficult to capture with just Melee units and intimidating aircraft without naval or ranged support.

53

Tigranocerta is down to yellow, but if it can withstand the minimal Paratroopers and GWI, we might just see it remain a Armenian asset. Meanwhile, Jerusalem and Hebron remain locked in a Yin-Yang siege pattern, with opposing forces able and willing to flip each city whilst ignoring the army on the other side. In American terms this might be called a Flip-Flop, in Australia a Thong or in Maori a 'Bloody Jandal'.

54

Tangier is lost, and their last hope is the Moroccan Infantry stationed directly out their door. At this point you have to wonder what the decision from the standpoint of this battalion is. Do they liberate the city from the foreign invaders, knowing full well their force is ready to snipe it right back - or do they save themselves and seek refuge in Sibir, Sparta or Persia where the last remains of other former civs lie and risk being called cowards? I do not envy their position.

55

Likewise, I do not envy the position of the Canadians right now. Lester B. Pearson, now operating from the besieged coastal city of Fort Rouille curses his advisors for allowing him to invade the Sioux once more. The advisors themselves know the cannot be blamed, but alas they are not blameless. The lack of a good defence whilst destroying a young revitalised nation was exactly the motivation needed by the Inuit to crush the Canadians beneath their heel so as to exact their version of justice (for which they have 1000 words).

56

The Armenian logistical strategists remain on point as it takes hold of both cities in the Yin-Yang-Thong-Flip-Jandal-Flop formation. To the rest of the world it‘s rather impressive, but to the Armenians they knew exactly what to expect when they were expecting.

57

Our Finnish Mobile SAM finally sidles up to Najran, left at 0 health for so many turns by Finnish bombardment, and can capture it by amphibious assault. I wonder how the AI chooses targets for bombing, in this case choosing only Mecca, Medina, and Najran, and leaving Damascus, Basra, and Khurasan, among others, untouched.

58

Sweden has a formidable military, although the stats slides later will show that it is still behind both Iceland’s and Finland’s. That hardly seems to be in evidence here, however, and presumably large parts of Iceland’s military are in the western part of their empire. Another thing you will notice is that both Iceland and Sweden have copied the Buccaneer tradition of building carriers with no planes (mostly). Offscreen, Canada valiantly retakes Vancouver and Albany.

59

Australia, still using obsolete WW1-era bombers in addition to WW2-era bombers, has moved an atomic bomb closer to its borders. Both the Australian and the Vietnamese have a lot of aircraft in the region, but the rump Sri Lanka forms a partial buffer between them.

60

As seen in the earlier slide, a Canadian destroyer retook Albany while Mexican troops looked on. Inuit forces that can retake it are some distance away. Aussies vacation in Floridarrr, while Paul Kruger of the Boers plots against Persia.

61

The Moroccans manage to retake Tangier, in a last defiant move that will ensure that they will show up in the stats slides still owning territory. One infantry and one artillery was enough to do it. However, the Buccs have enough forces nearby now to retake the city, in the next turn even. Morocco‘s pride and integrity is still intact, but their empire lays in horrifying pieces on the ground in front of them.

62

The Boers lead in population, ahead - far ahead - of much larger Australia. The Boers’ city sizes are telling here. The Inuit can be found in third place, as they have much of the fertile heartlands of IRL Canada and the USA now in addition to their snowy homeland.

63

Australia leads in size by a huge margin, as I mentioned, being almost twice as large as the second-place Inuit. The Boers do come in third, and the Buccaneers fourth.

64

Canada now appears at the top of the list of smallest countries, and will likely lose more territory. Morocco is now the smallest, even beating out Tibet.

65

The Boers continue to have the world’s strongest military. Vietnam continues to be second, and Australia, a close third.Take note that Sibir come in fourth.

66

The Boers lead in science output by a sizable margin over second place Australia. And when you consider that the Boers have far fewer cities than Australia, it becomes easy to understand why the Boers lead in tech by so much and Australia is slightly behind (by great power standards). Australia is rapidly increasing its tech output however, which probably means science buildings are being built in its cities.

67

Mirroring the above slide, the Boers lead in tech, but second-place is not Australia, but the Inuit. The Boers are 11 techs ahead of the second-placer, and insurmountable gap - until the Boers finish the tech tree, that is. Note that Australia is now fifth, ahead of Vietnam. Iceland is the surprising fourth place.

68

Catholicism continues to widen its lead over Judaism, as Catholicism still has places to expand to while Judaism has none. Of note is religious continental dominance - Catholicism dominates the Americas save for Shinto Alaska. Oriental Orthodoxy neatly dominates Africa almost entirely, and has very little presence outside of Africa.

69

This has been /u/New_Katipunan narrating. It’s been a pleasure, and I hope you’ll all enjoy this part as much as I did. Thank you all for reading, and be sure to tune in again next week!

Part 59: Our Home and Native Land... – mk2

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