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Welcome to Part 98 of the Civ Battle Royale! I am /u/AkraticCritic, Inuit supporter, and we kick things off with /u/SilverPhalanx’s fitting depiction of the Boers’ newly acquired Statue of “Liberty” in the rubble of Agra.
Civ Battle Royale ← Part 97: The Deconstruction of Falling Stars Part 99: Tonight We‘re Gonna Party Like It‘s CBR Part 99! →
Part 98: Pave the Ocean – mk2
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/u/edse1991 puts the casualties of the Boer-Vietnam war in perspective with this map from all the way back in Part 19, showing all the ancient cities that have been nuked off the map during the conflict.
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As always we have our wonderful Tile Accurate Map. Sweden will really be feeling the squeeze from their two recent wars - there’s not very many tiles separating Iceland and Sibir now.
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The Boers continue to sit atop the PR leaderboard, but the surge of Brazilian ‘tourism’ to Africa is beginning to shake the rankers’ once rock solid confidence in the Ryk.
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We open with a shot of ever-glorious Armenia, prophesied by Blue Cassette themselves to one day defeat the evil Boer Ryk and free the internet from Skynet’s grip. Until they get around to that however they’ve settled for slightly inconveniencing the Boer reinforcements trying to reach the Vietnamese front, and recreating the Manhattan Project from a stolen Boer child’s science kit.
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Not too eager to let the Ryk keep the Statue of Liberty and its multiple-thousand hammer boost, the Trung Sisters send units to assault Agra from the north. They might manage to flip the city a few times, but Kruger’s steady flow of reinforcements should claim victory in the long run.
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Thi Li Bi Nai flips back to Vietnam, and Panduranga looks to follow next turn. Australia no longer has the numbers to make any serious pushes on this front, but the Peacekeeper Patrol and Vietnam’s lack of a local navy should stop the momentum from turning against Parkes.
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Parkes’ biggest problem here is the awful composition of his land army. For a start its a bit SAMey, and he should talk to his opposition about what an over-reliance on drones does to you. He’d do well to peace out now and focus on building up this valuable beachhead for the next war.
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Big Carrier’s grip extends even to Hawaii, composing over half of their navy. Their Australian counterparts apparently doesn’t have anywhere more useful to be right now, and in the corner the we see the White Walkers are scheming against Kamehameha. C’mon Ekeuhnick, you’ve got plenty of relevant civs you could choose from, don’t waste your time with a city state.
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The former last bastion of freedom, Lhasa, is currently working on an engineering module - presumably to ensure the Trungs don’t lack for production if they need to evacuate to the ISS.
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The Brazilian citizens of Campinas starve as the government hoards supplies to feed their expanding legions of paratroopers. Pedro also seems to have decided that you don’t need a navy if you build enough hovertanks.
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A Boer biotrooper captures Trincomalee, but Vietnam should take it back shortly. Sri Lanka has open Boerders, but interestingly don’t seem to have the same relationship with the Trungs. Could Sri Lankan relevance finally be found, and the power rankers’ wormhole stopped? (No)
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The Cham coast is reclaimed by the Trungs, and Hoi An has been abandoned by its conquerors. The population of Hanoi breathes a sigh of relief. Unless the Kimberly decide to join Australia, the capital shouldn’t fall in the near future.
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Tianjin has flipped, but the Vietnamese reinforcements out of Phong Chau will likely flip it back. Sejong could make some gains by attacking now - small as his land army is, it’s enough to overwhelm the Australians.
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The Ice Sheet Fleet may have mostly avoided Big Carrier’s corruption but their Korean branch is doing their best to send Ekeuhnick some free samples. The difference in naval unit bias between the Inuit and Blackfoot is obvious, with the latter having almost exclusively melee units and the former lacking any on this slide.
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Crowfoot might have a large carpet, but it’s largely outdated and won’t stand up to the Inuit biotroopers and robot infantry when the glacier inevitably shallows their land. Their impressive air force might let them flip a few cities though - every Blackfoot city in this slide has a 10-stack while the White Walkers’ have 0. Fun fact - The Inuit have as many settlers as cities on this slide.
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Mongolia is in basically the same spot as the Blackfoot - an outdated carpet waiting for someone more powerful to bother attacking them. Sibir does seem to be bringing more air and ground units to the border - is Kuchum Khan’s plan offense or simply defense?
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☉_☉ ... Wow. I guess this is where Brazil’s sending most of their new units. Those units are not to be sneezed at either - there are a LOT of XCOMs between those weaker paratroopers and mobile SAMs, and even some robot infantry. Per Civ AI game wizard /u/Admiral-Cloudberg, the Brazilians WON’T be expelled after a DoW - so Pedro could devour a huge part (potentially ALL) of the frontrunners’ core if he wanted to, especially if the rest of Africa is as low on Boer units as this area.
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Sibir made a wise choice getting out of this war while they were ahead, now they (and Sweden) need to rebuild and carpet up - and with a military, not workers. It’s also worth noting that Sweden now has only a single land tile (south of Lappeenranta) connecting their Scandinavian core with their mainland Europe holdings.
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The mostly empty new Boer lands would be vulnerable right now if any of their neighbours were in a state to attack them, which they are not. In other news, Sri Lanka and Armenia continue to exist and get in the way of Kruger’s Vietnam-bound units, and Exclavia continues to lack the units to get in anyone’s way.
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Agra may be Vietnamese again, but Phu Xuan has been nuked off the map and the unit numbers are now decisively in Kruger’s favor. If the Trungs can’t hold him at the mountains their northern lands and damaged core will be looking very vulnerable. The minimap shows they haven’t even been able to kick Kruger out of southern India, which should have been easy.
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I think the local Vietnamese commander must be away on vacation. Seriously, I know the terrain sucks but you could at least try to take the city back. At least the advanced destroyer should do that next turn.
Coiot‘s Note: Unintended benefit of Brazil‘s carpet for the Boers is being able to teleport new units closer to the front.
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Vietnam continues to embark units without naval support, and the Australian cybersubs continue to use them for target practice. The Kimberly briefly consider doing something relevant with their overflowing units, but decide that would be too much effort.
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Dong Hoi and Tianjin swap owners, but with only a near dead AA gun and some damaged biodrones as backup Australia looks to be evicted from Dong Hoi shortly.
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The middle east is still full of bordergore and absolutely no events of relevance. Tiridates has reportedly decided that being the chosen hero of prophecy is too hard and changed some flight schedules to land all those Brazilian units in Africa so Pedro could do it instead. #Tirigate
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Agra predictably flips backs to Kruger. Vietnam has a better hope of holding to the north though, with mountains and Brazilians making troop movement a nightmare for invaders. Lahor in particular will be very difficult to capture, as there are no south-facing entrances through the surrounding mountains.
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A shot slightly further south reveals some Vietnamese backup has arrived around Balkh. Perhaps they will prove more effective than their predecessors?
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The days of the Boers not knowing what a naval unit was are long gone - and they’ve even managed to produce slightly more non-carrier units than carriers! They still don’t quite know how to get the ships to go somewhere they might actually be useful though. Also, more Brazilian overflow units. Are they a sign that the Boer Coer has also been flooded with lost Carnaval attendees, or merely a few lost stragglers?
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Furious at Tiridates’ abandonment of the prophecy, Parakramabahu briefly wakes from hibernation to plot vengeance. Please do it. Then maybe you’ll both accumulate enough of a warmongering penalty for Kruger to do the cylinder a favor and end you.
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A look at the capital city of one of the potential combatants (snort) reveals that Sri Lanka is growing its navy with the production of a nuclear submarine. Not sure what you’re planning to do to Armenia with that, maybe they’ve confused it with something else that’s cylindrical and nuclear?
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Hoi An, and Dong Hoi to the north have both been reclaimed. Hopefully Australia still has more units in real-world China than are on this slide, otherwise their Asian foothold is looking mightily tenuous.
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Hordes of Blackfoot tourists and a Hawaiian great engineer crowd Japan. In Seoul, Sejong orders a nationwide broadcast to once again remind everyone how big and strong his navy is. Big Carrier executives stand at his shoulder, ensuring he sticks to their prepared script.
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Oh boy. Apparently regretting his choice to let Ingolfur have Tonsberg, Gustavus orders his commanders to chuck all those ‘rebuilding’ plans out the palace window and declares war. The 61 visible Swedish aircraft (not counting the 3 missiles on cybersubs) immediately reduce put city in the black, and an organic infantry is positioned to take it next turn. Might want to move those 10 air units, Ingolfur.
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Orleans, Cologne, Hamburg and Malmo are bombed straight into the black and Berlin is captured. Both sides lack units on the mainland, but damn, the Swedish airforce is not messing around. Gustavus also appears to have the naval advantage, with Iceland only displaying leftovers from CarrierCorp’s Pave The OceanTM initiative. At least some have planes on them.
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The Boer carrier party watches as Sweden captures Elis and Constantinople. Messene, Cumae, Tegea and Corinth are very weakly defended and in the black. Sweden has more units by far, but they’re mostly organic infantry versus Icelandic biotroopers and robot infantry. Will numbers or technology prevail?
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And in a simultaneous DoW, Genghis has tired of hearing the echoes of Darkhan’s rapping over the mountains and resolved to deliver the final blow to the former number ones. He’s bought modern naval melee units to the party too, so we may be hearing the final lines of ‘Trigger’ Darkhan’s rapping career.
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It’s a new turn and Yakutia still exists, but that’s not important right now because… IT’S INUIT VS. ICELAND TIME. Finally, the White Walkers hear the pleas of their fans and declare war on someone they can actually reach. It’s time to see who the true ice people are.
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So naturally, we cut to a shot of the Boerabian desert. Kruger still hasn’t gotten around to annexing those captured Vietnamese cities, but he has settled Helsingborg and populated it with 6 air units.
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Ingolfur wastes no time in scrambling reinforcements, and suddenly Sweden’s numerical advantage is almost gone. They did still manage to capture Corinth, Tegea and Messene, although a robot infantry and biotrooper of the fake ice people are about to take it back. Mantinea appears to have been nuked, with its population dropping from 13 to 9 and damaged units all around.
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Tonsberg is Swedish again. Iceland still lacks anything resembling a real navy up here, but luckily for them Sweden forgot to build any naval melee units so Gustavus will struggle to capitalise on his superiority.
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And finally, we get to the war everyone (me) really wants to see. The Ice Sheet Fleet should clean up the Icelandic navy owing to their secret tactic of not being half carriers, but all those annoying peacekeepers will make it near impossible to penetrate further into greenland. Oh well, at least we’ll get the coastal cities and Iceland won’t be able to get any units in to reclaim them.
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Okay. Pedro? It’s been ages since us Inuit fans got a good war, so please don’t mess this up for us. I mean it, if your peacekeepers make this end in a boring peace deal I’ll give the Carnaval a bad review on Yelp. Anyway, St Louis is bombed into the red but the surrounding Icelandic and Brazilian units will likely prevent a capture for the moment. Even more carriers down here, they’ll make good target practice.
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The technologically inferior nations of the world shoot down a repeal of Scholars in Residence, co-led by Sam Houston from his battleship hideout. As the original headquarters of CarrierCorp the Buccs have certainly kept up with the world leaders in terms of useless navies. Maybe they’re using them to transport all their Giant Death Robots? I count 10 of those on this slide, which is a higher concentration than we’ve seen in any other civ as far as I recall.
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Iceland’s superior units are starting to reach the front lines, and despite the nuke damage to many around Mantinea I predict that Sweden will have a tough time holding what they captured in the initial rush, let alone making any further gains. Messene and Tegea in particular seem likely to flip in the next turn or two.
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Tianjin has flipped since we last saw it, but Vietnam still has more units in the area. Australia is running out of steam, and they won’t be able to easily reinforce. Now if only the Trungs could have the same success on their western front...
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The strategic map clearly shows the nuclear hellfire that both Kruger and the Trungs have unleashed on this front. Fallout covers the region, but the cybernetic and mutated warriors feel no fear. They have only one purpose, and emotion is irrelevant.
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Sweden’s core hasn’t been spared the horrors of war, with Stockholm itself being caught in a nuclear blast radius. You brought this on yourself, Gustavus. I hope it was worth it. Also, as observant viewers may have noticed on the minimap...
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..The power rankers have got their wish. Yakutia is no more. The last nuclear subs look on as Mongol choppers hover above the destroyed city walls, and an advanced destroyer sails triumphantly into the ruins of Beryozovo’s harbor. Ranked at the top spot in the Power Rankings from parts 1-7, Tygyn Darkhan ultimately failed to capitalise on his strong start. The Snoreyaks excelled at mediocrity, and of course ‘Trigger’ Darkhan’s beats. The most memorable deed of Yakutia was getting locked into a centuries-long meat grinder with the Inuit in Kamchatka, reducing the once pristine Arctic waters to a radioactive wasteland. Although the Koreans finally stomped their empire into the ground, the Snoreyaks persisted in this frozen city until the Mongols finally delivered the long sleep they had forever desired. Goodbye, Darkhan. May you drift forever though the heavens, propelled by your sick fires. F.
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Unfortunately, Armenia is still here and they’ve just entered the information era. Which means we get another slide with them in it. Yay? Is there anything I can talk about that isn’t Armenia... looks at minimap ...oh hey, Vietnam kicked the Boers out of Southern India at some point! Sweden captured Cologne! So many interesting, non-Armenian world events!
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Good news for Sweden: They snuck in a unit to capture Cologne, the British Isles are full of Brazilians rather than Icelanders and their navy has melted the Icelandic sea pavement fleet. Bad news: Iceland has bottled Sweden’s units up in Denmark, has Berlin mostly surrounded and will soon take back Cologne anyway because Sweden didn’t send reinforcements.
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Iceland’s western navy is disintegrating as expected, and the Inuit have embarked melee units ready to assault Nattfaravik. Alternatively they could raze it to give one of those settlers hovering around Oshawa something to do.
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Time for the Infoaddict slides. The Boers continue to lead substantially in population, but Brazil’s rise has not been constrained to military alone. They’ve overtaken the Inuit sometime in the last few parts to claim 3rd place. Vietnam has actually increased by 3 million since last part, surprisingly.
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Mongolia manages to trail single city Hawaii, showing that despite their euthanasia of Yakutia they’re still far from being a serious contender. Sweden’s stubborn refusal to rebuild hasn’t done them any favors, and they’re sitting narrowly ahead of the Kimberly.
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The Boers and Inuit dominate in terms of production, with Australia sitting in 3rd place 8500 hammers behind. Brazil is only in 5th place with half that of the Inuit, which really demonstrates how much one of the top 2 could explode militarily if they put their minds to it. Kruger might want to consider that in light of the Brazilian occupation of Africa.
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Mongolia are slightly less disappointing here, but still trail the pack of non-rump states. The large divide between Korea and Sweden doesn’t bode well for their war with Iceland in the long term.
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Brazil continues to grow their military, as do the surprisingly high-ranked Blackfoot. I do wonder how well Future Worlds weights its units in this stat - empires with large but heavily outdated militaries seem to be disproportionately high-ranked. Despite Vietnam taking a huge hit to their military lately I would certainly back them over Mongolia in a war with their existing units.
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The dead empires of Yakutia and Texas straddle our outdated sub. Yakutia’s subs will quite likely survive under the Arctic ice-sheets, so they’ll continue to be a fixture in these slides for some time.
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Lutheranism’s presence in the high-pop Boer Core ensures it has almost as many followers as Arianism despite being less widespread. Australia leads both with Catholicism though.
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With all 3 major religions converging on Europe it’ll be interesting to see if one dominates. And with that we come to the end of the part. This has been /u/AkraticCritic, and it’s been a pleasure to be a part of the CBR. See you all to get hyped for the next part!