Part 99: Tonight We‘re Gonna Party Like It‘s CBR Part 99!

1

Happy holidays and greetings to you all! This is u/GoatontheMountain, coming to you with great humility and enthusiasm for the adventures we have in store today. I‘m truly honored for the opportunity to wander the hexagons of this silly little cylinder together. We open today with a delightful seasonal love note from u/Coiot. As requested, this one has been printed and colored by my excitable four-year-old daughter. She declared herself a Carthage supporter because Hannibal looks funny and it‘s good to throw elephants at bad guys. Truth.

2

Behold, the glory of u/Spherical_Melon‘s Puppet Map. Where will all those painstakingly drawn lines shift over the coming ten turns? Only the Norns know the answer...

3

The Power Rankings aren‘t even out yet, but I think we all know exactly what shade of oranje is featured above these words. It‘ll take quite a turn for that to change by this album‘s end, but hope yet remains in this strange little world! Coiot‘s Note: Sometimes the narrations are ready before the PR Slides.

4

We‘ve made it to turn 113 of the MkII.b era, and what a journey awaits us! The nascent war for the world‘s tundra begins in earnest as Eheunick (Inuit) decides to get creative in his lack of melee ships and sets a squad of biotroopers astride a cybersub and sends them forth to make war upon Nattfaravik. Leary of the rampant nuking-out-of-existence in other parts of the cylinder Ingolfur (Iceland) preps two settlers to back fill the mellifluous Flokadallur. The icy hammer falls first, though, on Husavik, a likely target once the garbage patch is laid to watery rest. Through it all, listless Canadian remnants float in their northern lake home, though they are still more relevant than that non-nuke carrying Inuit cybersub outside Edmonton. One final fun note here: if you track from southwest to northeast looking at the Brazilian overflow you can see the progression from paratroopers only to almost exclusively XCOMs. It‘s like reading the record of a landscape through the layers of a canyon. But less peaceful and more shooty.

5

A flood of notifications spin, though we shall never know their contents. Is it still a denouncement if no sentient creature ever hears it, or just a processor bellowing into the digital winds? On the battlefield, the Inuit have wisely kept a good stock of civilian units, serving essentially as seat holders for troops they may someday want in this sector. Without those workers there would be none of these omnipresent Future Worlds improvements and 30% more lime green parachutes. Eheunick has really gone all in on his future infantry and ranged naval mounts strategy, boarding several more raiding parties down in James Bay. The robots can probably stay hidden, but I have to assume breaching to allow the bio units to breathe will rather diminish a cybersub‘s stealth capabilities.

6

It‘s strangely empty around Selfoss, but Ingolfur may have (accurately!) decided it‘s both cheaper and safer to simply wait three turns for Crowfoot (Blackfoot) and Pedro (Brazil) to garrison the region, rather than try to protect it himself. Less efficient is his air force, which does not exist in this slide, despite cities and carriers capable of supporting a full 162 bombers. A friend of mine in the U.S. Navy (now retired) used to enjoy asking people how may aircraft carriers the United States has, just to get a sense of how much (or little) they understand about the armed forces. The answer is 10, 19 if you‘re willing to stretch the definition a little bit, and there are fewer in our entire world than Iceland has in this slide. Funny thing, the actual island of Iceland has long enjoyed the title of “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for its role in projecting allied air power back in World War II. Finally, how is it possible that Iceland is getting more population out their tundra towns than the Inuit? I know they are a lot less dense, but it really feels like Eheunick is dropping the ball here.

7

Europe, where strange blonde figures battle over the ancestral homes of nations now remembered only in the names that still dot this scarred countryside. Once again the bio- and robot infantry of Iceland enjoy a qualitative advantage over Sweden‘s organic troops. That strength differential is significantly less important here, though, owing to the large swaths of empty space and perpetual 0 health status of all Iceland‘s cities. Sweden‘s air corps is really earning its keep here. Reinforcements will be slow to arrive for either side as Cumae is the only non-puppeted city on the entire front. Even so, Cologne and Malmo have already fallen. Now the fighting appears to be most intense south of Berlin, where soldiers engage in gritty bank-to-bank warfare among the never ending customs houses. Before we move, let‘s all agree to pin an imaginary medal on Gustavus‘ (Sweden) chest for all those properly equipped carriers!

08

To central Asia, where the Vietnamese take inspiration from the dwarfs and retreat to their mountain holdfasts. Sad to say, Boer fans, but Kruger seems to have swallowed the bait and is totally focused on Peshawar, rather than the easier, faster conquests that await across Uttar Pradesh. One Boer biotrooper got his orders a touch off and attempts to ride the rail line into Lahore, rather than Lahor, a very understandable but strangely human mistake. A compatriot of his stops on her way to the front line, momentarily stunned to find herself standing in that rarest of places, a legend that exists only for the briefest of moments, appearing beneath radioactive clouds at the end of a flickering atomic rainbow: no man‘s land. The world‘s dictators will gobble up these unclaimed tiles within hours, but for now she revels in the freedom. She also sheds a tear for all the scenic plantations, farms and vineyards that still exist in this idyllic place, knowing the north African worker army will soon relocate here and replace them all with modern improvements.

09

To the east, Australia is back on the front foot in the northern theater, though we‘ve seen this too many times to be conclusive. Australia is unlikely to produce enough units to sustain a push from Rach Gia and Bien Hoa alone, though the new air support up north will certainly help!

10

Up to nine more nukes are more waiting to leave Western Australia even more empty than it is in our own world. Aussie workers stand ready to scrub the land as fast as the fallout can fall down. For all their might there is a total of one Australian ship in this entire slide, and even she‘s staring down imminent explosive decompression. Through it all, do the spectating Kimberly laugh or weep as their ancient homes are put to the nuclear torch?

11

Good night, sweet, fractured zealot kingdom. All Tiridates (Armenia) ever wanted was to unite the world in the love of someone else‘s religion, and then watch some dudes jump out of planes. Kuchum Khan (Sibir), resentful of either his empire‘s wholesale conversion or his own fear of heights, vows to snuff out the flyin‘ apostles‘ light once and for all, though the smart money is on him only getting 66% of the way there. Yerevan should survive to next week‘s centennial celebration, but no longer.

12

It‘s far too soon to project a result here, but that quartet of great generals west of Tegea will surely exacerbate the yawning chasm in troop quality in this war. Sweden needs to adopt more modern infantry, fast. Better troops from the south have already cost them Messene. There also seem to be a lot more Giant Death Robots around lately, particularly in Iceland (though even the Blackfoot are experimenting with them now). I‘m also quite curious about that very well-armed Boer fleet hanging out just outside Sibir in the Black Sea—how did they get there, and why?

13

Goolarabooloo? More like GoolaraBOOMloo, no? The Vietnamese fleet is fading, but the devastated Millibinyarrin and Windjanan citizenry are still far from safe. Here‘s a fun game for the cartographically inclined among you: Start sketching out a map as we go through these slides and plot out all the boundaries of the Brazilian peacekeeping force. It‘s pretty easy to form a great circle style boundary around South America and see just how much of the map is being overrun, as well as where the peacekeepers of the future are due to land. Pedro (Brazil) already has a good half the map under his thumb, though not half the land mass. If 5.3 million troops can do that, how many will square that circle and bring the entire map under his benevolent, non-combative control? Could Pedro find that the world is, in the end, truly not large enough to contain him?

14

As expected, Parkes (Australia) takes Tianjian, but at the cost of all the melee forces involved. I‘d say it will impossible to hold for long, but Vietnam looks barer than we‘ve ever seen, with only two units north of Than Hoa.

15

Long ago, Tibet refused to found a religion. Forgotten in the centuries since then is that this leaves one slot open, and now the moment has arrived! Inspired by the sight of sexy vacationing Brazilians, the people of Reykjavik turn from their carrier worship to an earthy, sensual form of Heathenism. As Ragnarok approaches from the west with the Night‘s King, they turn their eyes beyond Midgard and ponder what wyrd the Norns will spin, then raise a bowl of mead to the gods, Odin, Thor and ReonMonterus. For those of you who flummoxed by the Forn Siðr label, take heart—I‘m a theologian by training and even I had never come across this particular sect before. In fact, there are already VASTLY more adherents on the cylinder than there are on our globe. Wikipedia is here, fortunately, and ready to help us with the fun image of a faith based off entering a “shamanic trance ritual complex,” following the World Tree to Hel, then reporting back on what one has seen to the waiting congregation. Also: I can only assume Ingolfur refuses to move anyone to protect the Shetlands solely so he can one day make an “Oh my Odin, they killed Kilkenny! You bastards!!” joke.

16

Checking in on our new beliefs here, we see +2 culture, a waste, and +10% growth, a reasonable enough bonus though significantly less so at this stage of the game. It is interesting to see Fertility Rites go to a religion whose leadership is comprised almost exclusively of women and gay men (again, per Wikipedia). I say this not as any kind of value judgment, but purely out of practical curiosity for the mechanics here. Incidentally, do you think Lutheranism‘s Charitable Missions could let them bribe the Afghan peacekeepers out of the way to finally unite Arabia? It certainly couldn‘t hurt to try!

17

Arianism is still clearly the best of all religions (production, science, industrial units and a bunch of culture) but Monasteries and Jesuit Education (stolen out from under the Catholics‘ nose!) are solid for Dodekatheism. Forn Siðr adds some gold to finish paving the North Atlantic. One must wonder whether the Australian-Boer coalition against Vietnam is actually a religiously-motivated crusade. If so, the Trungs (Vietnam) and their Theravadra Buddhist cohorts must have offended the primacy of Christ, for the Blackfoot Arians have felt no compulsion to join their Catholic and Lutheran cousins in battle.

18

Helpfully highlighted here, Sejong (Korea) will show Trigger (Darkhan, of Yakutia) mercy, leaving his descendants to ride out Ragnarok beneath the Arctic ice. Now the Korean despot just needs to push that Mongol advanced destroyer out of the way to stake his claim to longest aquatic road. Meanwhile, aboard the orphaned Yakut sub, years pass. The residents mingle, fall in love, marry and procreate, grow old and leave the sub to the next generation and the next and the next. Boredom overwhelms, and the descendants of the great leader finally dream up a simulated spheroid where doomed and fictitious civilizations dance and slaughter for the sub‘s delight. After years of careful effort, desperate bugfixes, and frighteningly intense devotion, the Boers win.

19

Aussie flotsam swirls around Kaneohe, where Kamehameha (Hawai‘i) enters the information era, meaning they‘ve finally discovered robots, lasers or cell phones. Personally, I believe the Hawai‘ians continued survival to be the result of a loophole, a dropped bureaucratic stitch somewhere in the Australian government. The Aloha warriors certainly aren‘t complaining. They celebrate with a pair of great musicians who will surely soothe the world with their dulcet ukulele ballads in the years to come.

20

Despite their dire straits, Armenia still has a nearly full carpet! Unfortunately, it‘s about the size (and effectiveness) of a welcome mat, but at least Kuchum will have something to wipe his feet on as he moves toward the ancient capital. Yerevan and Bukhara are both on borrowed time. Bukhara may look safe, but that backdoor squad out of Carrollton will show no mercy. Even so, bold ‘troopers have drifted over the mountains to sack citadels outside Tashkent and Merv, tearing down the ancient fortresses in a suicidal declaration of resistance to the hordes of robots and mech artillery funneling south.

21

Cumae has been demilitarized, cities swap (Malmo, Messene and Hamburg, all to Sweden) and the war for Europe shifts north. Pedro cares not. Whether the Lion or Rune flies over these provincial capitals, the bright green brigade will rule the streets and hills.

22

Mech artillery, which look an awful like they ought to be melee-capable spider tanks, sadly are not and can not, meaning Hafnarfjordur is safe. There is certainly movement on this front, but so far it‘s all just noisy bombing runs and the fleets still feeling one another out.

23

Forn Siðr reforms, with the theological equivalent of Goddess of Protection. Is that really a great call? I mean, who could stand to benefit from Arianism‘s +1% production bonus per follower more than the spread out island empire facing down potent enemies on both sides? Pride will be the death of you, Ingolfur!

24

If you knew it was likely your last night on the cylinder, what would you produce? One last unit for a kamikaze charge? Wealth, to take with you into exile? A sub, with which to escape the city? Tiridates chooses a nuclear plant, leaving a clean, lasting energy source for Kuchum as a housewarming gift to fuel his next conquest. Meanwhile, the remaining Yerevanis write, paint and compose their final opuses, and lament the nearly-born great musician who will now likely never take up his synth axe drumitar to tour the future world.

25

Across the battlefield Tyumen holds up a dark mirror to Armenia‘s idealism. While one ageless lord accepts defeat with grace the other knows only hellfire. Here, too, the sculptors form and the musicians play in their respective guild halls, but in Sibir the uranium will not slowly fuel a city but rather fall and flash, in a heartbeat, to burn one out.

26

34. 34 potential nukes, unguarded but for a few fighter wings and scattershot cybersubs, drift toward the tired western Australian provinces. There is no formation here, no grand plan, just endless drifting hulks. Crewed by the walking dead, swirled by an uncaring current towards unwitting targets, through the fog of war they come. The Kimberly see, and step aside. They could easily form a neutral unit chain south to the ice and keep peace for their ancestral home, but race memories of dead-eyed diggers linger, etched anew in each successive generation through grade school textbooks and chilling bedtime tales, and so they simply watch the dread raft fleet pass.

27

Hamburg goes back to Iceland, but the Swedes now hold unchallenged sway over the North Sea, while no one can claim a firm hold on northern Europe. That may change soon, though, as the Lion finally splices together his first biotroopers. Gustavus already fields as many as Ingolfur commands bio and robot divisions combined! I‘m not generally a betting woman, but I‘ll throw down a sawbuck on the Swedes to come out ahead here, barring a repeat of Sibir‘s intervention last go around.

28

Did someone fiddle with the AI during the reboot? Suddenly everyone (Iceland excluded) is loading their carriers up for war. Sadly, all those nukes would be for naught in the event of a war with the Walkers, owing to neutral units protecting most every blue and white city center. If they targeted the Blackfoot, however… Truly, all we want for the new year is one war where neutral, unrelated third party units don‘t significantly change the outcome. At least those rapidly replicating GDRs should work as intended, smashing through the 300 meter tall wall of ice meant to hold the wildling buccaneer horde of Petit-Goave safely and forever in their swampland home.

29

Open mouth, insert foot, and kiss that tenner goodbye. Iceland conjure up yet another army from thin air while Gustavus forms a defensive line from Wroclaw to Poznan, apparently equally afraid of the Khan at his back as the rampaging viking king. His negligence costs him Messene and Berlin, and all he can do in retaliation is settle Þingvellir (Thingvellir, I believe) near to the front. Berlin and Hamburg are still in play, but that force out of Cumae could swarm Tegea and be on Ohrid in a heartbeat.

30

Panning south, Iceland has nine cities in the black. What‘s worse, poor Elis has been totally nuked off the map, a small crater all that remains of a once vibrant (I presume) city. Meanwhile, if Tiridates were to declare on the heathens and bring all those paratroopers to bear, he could at least go out in a blaze of glory for a turn or two (and greatly improve his inevitable greatest extent map!). But for now the Armenian army holds out hope, a Boered navy floats on, Iceland turns the Mediterranean into a massive (and massively depressing) empty dance floor, and a lone chimera scurries over the rolling hills where lie the bones of long dead legionnaires. Side note: Had the legendary Polish scout known the pass he once boldly held contained beneath his feet the glowing power to wipe whole cities from the map, perhaps he would have despaired at war‘s inevitability and simply let the Spartans pass. How the world might look now if Leonidas had succeeded in those early days…

31

Oh glorious dawn! Only the hardest-hearted Sibirian (or exhausted power ranker) could fail to smile as the flat grey horde are repulsed by the warmer colors, gentler hearts and simpler units to their south. Bukhara has flipped but not not fallen. Is it the mountains or simply a lack of will that stay Sibir‘s heavy boots from finishing this conquest? Worth noting: Kruger has now annexed five of his eight cities on this slide. Whether for speeding up the Vietnam invasion or preparing for an inevitable attempt to break through the Sibir meatgrinder that once doomed the Trungs, either way this is a good sign for cyboergs and a worrisome one for the rest of the world.

32

This corner of the Indian Ocean, and the soft Trung underbelly, are safe and whole once more. Well, except for the nukes. And the near-constant aerial bombardment. And the Korean tourists, loudly decrying these warlike people who can‘t just appreciate science for its own sake but instead must use it for something so gauche as war.

33

Bukhara falls again, and it shan‘t flip back. With one leg of its tripartite base cut out the Armenian empire sways perilously. The Boers and Swedes care not, too focused on rushing to their own wars to appreciate the tragedy before them—the birth of a rump state. To the northwest, Sibir proves once more that noone recarpets like the Double K. Wow. Kruger ought not to turn his back if he wishes to keep his latest spoils.

34

The Tegea offensive quickly peters out for Ingolfur and the Swedes will retake it immediately. The Viking reforms his army in the Low Countries, eager to harrow the retaken Berlin and defend the latest flashpoint at Hamburg. Meanwhile, the Swedes seem more eager to pounce on the aforementioned Tegea and the once safe Munich! It‘s amazing how much this conflict shifts, with hot spots moving north to south, the lines bulging and bowing east to west. While lasting progress has been scarce, this may be the most dynamic, competitive and compelling theater across the combined history of the CBRs, the exact opposite of the Vietnam/Sibir stalemate of a thousand years or the many rapid steamrolls we‘ve seen.

35

Back in Northern Brazil, a pair of embarked biotroopers circumvent the green sea via a more traditionally blue one and look to emulate their worker brethren, who have apparently conquered St. Louis despite being civilians. Let‘s call it a workers‘ revolution. The seaborne infantry will look to make landfall around Hafnarfjordur, and possibly Husavik beyond. Iceland will soon be off the continent and back in the watery wastelands where they belong. Also worth noting: given the small, concentrated air force supporting the Inuit conquest of the Maritimes, a wise viking might see whether he or she could sneak a nuke or two in on Medicine Hat.

36

Obligatory naval stat shaming time! Iceland has built 183 naval units in this slide, of which two are melee capable. 108 are aircraft carriers, six of which combine to support a grand sum of 12 units, while 102 host roller skating parties for middle schools and drunk millennial birthday parties. Most distressing is the one empty carrier who seems to have caught a virus that has drained it to a sliver of health. If only it were contagious, we might see a meaningful reduction in turn processing times and a new, more potent Icelandic navy born from the wreckage. Aside from the two advanced destroyers present, there are actually two other conquer-capable units present here. The first, a squad of paratroopers marooned in a foreign land, but the second is a lost privateer from the before times. The doomed ship creaks with age in an endless grey sea, stuck fast in a traffic jam that has lasted a thousand years and will last ten thousand more. Generation after generation of sailors has been born and raised on stories from simpler times, stories about when this waterlogged hulk was sleek and new, the pride of the seven seas, and of the seas themselves, open seas, where a ship might chart its own course from port to port. The stories are moving, but the privateer is not, and tonight they pass another watch staring up at the narrow spray of stars between the canyon walls of nuclear powered behemoths, and only in their dreams are they free.

37

To Europe! Here, at least, things move. Another overnight miracle army spawns out of Cumae, and Tegea and Munich are once more in the yellow. A Boer worker and Aussie rocket artillery wander aimlessly about. And through it all, the relentless advance of the Brazilians, now dangerously close to the front and threatening to gum up the whole works.

38

The piggyback brigade closes in on Hafnarfjordur while the vikings fall back to Keflavik. No one seems even the slightest bit interested in contesting Greenland, though Eheunick surely could fill in some of the space between those well spread cities with any of the ten settlers he has at the ready. The only problem is capturing the region first.

39

All has been quiet on the Vietnamese-Australian front as both sides seem content with where the borders have settled in Asia. Australia has their beachhead and continental credibility and the Trungs have stopped a potential catastrophe. Only the disputed city of Hoi An, just now taken by strange power suited men, remains as a barrier to peace. Australia actually has a couple of these cool retro power armor infantry kicking around, with another set up in Vigan. The Blackfoot are also in on the trend, but for them these are bleeding edge, not throwbacks.

40

Jandamarra (Kimberly) dreams of escaping his archipelagic paradise home and sniping a final city from the soon-to-be finished Armenians in the landlocked desert. “Just imagine: no more waves, gently lapping us to sleep. No more salt spray. Just the quiet and the sand and the endless gentle hum of the Boer server farms all around us, there to rest through time unending...” His lieutenants laugh and put in an order for another carrier. Please also note that Hoi An is already back in Vietnamese hands.

41

Ghengis‘ (Mongolia) capital is kitted out for maximum production. For such a small footprint and relatively low tech level that‘s a damn fine little city—all that from just fourteen population! I also had no idea the horde had build Oxford. Books and covers and all that, I suppose.

42

The Boers have indeed decided to largely ignore Balkh and test themselves against the mountains. Kruger believes himself mightier even than the tectonic plates, plotting to overcome their efforts of millions of years in a fortnite. First, though, he must secure the gateway city of Peshawar, and secure it he does! Access through Sibir has nearly delivered Lahore as well, but for some meddlesome Finns. Go telemark in your own exclave and give us our bloodsport! I‘m pretty sure Lahore is responsible for at least a chunk of that bordergore and it‘s starting to make me nauseous just looking at this front. The Boer army really is building up here. The Trungs could badly use a few of those nukes to clear some big holes in that line.

43

The ruins of Elis will lie dormant, it seems, as another nuclear-created void is papered over by the borders of newly settled Ani, already stretched out across the breadth of the Aegean. Tegea may be back in green but any road trip to Sparta from this point forward will require a passport, it seems. Also, that chimera seems to have reproduced. *shudder*

44

Hamburg goes yellow and Sweden‘s army is looking quite mäktig in the north. They‘ll need all those numbers, though, if they‘re going to bring down those lumbering death robots out of Cumae and Neapolis. One does wonder how it‘s possible Ingolfur was beaten to the punch by Kruger at Elis with so many settlers available.

45

The non-natives are expelled from North America! Wandering through a forgotten drydock Eheunick stumbles across a mothballed advanced destroyer and ponders what in the cylinder it could possibly be for. He decides to test the strange design and launches it forth towards Hafnarfjordur. Imagine his delight when the city promptly falls! Surely he will order an immediate production run of many, many more of the Sherbrooke miracle ship. Nattfaravik freezes over (well, freezes over even more) as Greenland starts to turn blue. It‘s slow going, but so far the vikes show no sign of pushing back against the icy advance.

46

Nevermind! Iceland summon up the courage to return to to St. Louis, marching in with a sole biotrooper while a fleet of cybersubs and arsenal ships nudge him onward, insisting they have his back. Just a couple melee ships down here and Ingolfur could flip the entire eastern seaboard a time or two. Come on, Ingy, Washington is a capital! You know you can‘t resist!

47

Speaking of capitals, case in point: Iceland leave easier pickings standing for the moment and sieze Constantinople instead. Forces continue to menace the newly retaken Swedish Tegea and Ohrid, but Gustavus will NOT leave his eastern flank open again, no matter how useful those troops at Poznan and Adrianople would be in Bulgaria right about now.

48

The advanced destroyer strikes again! The brave biotrooper in St. Louis is no match for its raw ferocity and his so-called friends do nothing to protect him. Enchanted, Eheunick dubs the ship IsakKaik (“beat it with a stick”) in honor of its conquests. To the north Husavik falls. Robot infantry march up from the sea floor at the end of their long, secret trek across the Atlantic seabed, storming the rocky beaches and siezing yet another Icelandic city for their master.

49

“Say NO to repeal the ban!” “Yeah, bring us back our incense!” “No, we‘re trying to do the opposite. It‘s a triple negative, see...” Relations remain good between the two original North American powers, despite their massive, multifront border. Looking around, it‘s clear the endgame is near when even the “backwards” regional powers are building building-sized nuclear warrior robots!

50

Another devastating flip leaves few survivors for the Boers to subjugate in Trincomalee, but does net Kruger his first slice of the Bay of Bengal. To the north, Sri Lanka are another tiny power who are nonetheless creeping up on a tech level to threaten their bigger neighbors as part of the right coalition. Seriously: mech artillery are a big part of Sibir‘s army, Australia and Vietnam are still building UAVs, those vertols will soon be hovertanks and that naval composition is already endgame ready. The only thing really missing is a top tier infantry and a smattering of giant freaking robots.

51

The final hours of Yerevan, and no power on earth can save Tiridates‘ capital now. Worse, Sibir has secured passage through Boer territory and has sent more than enough infantry south past Artashat and Ecbatana to finish him off entirely. Gaza is defended only by merchants, traders, builders and a lone Mamikonian. I fear the Kimberly will never get their desert conquest… The fledgling Boer cities of Ghapan and Tosontsengel, those sweet summer‘s settlements who‘ve never seen violence but only read of it on the neuronet, will soon witness firsthand the harsh realities of cylindrical life. In this place, genocide is justified for so small a reward as six tiles of desert farmland and mines. Gyumri offers to take in a fleeing great musician, that he may record for all time his experiences. Perhaps the next generation will learn from this one‘s cruelty.

52

In a truly stunning development, Reykjavik falls! … Okay, close enough. And all it cost Sweden was Tegea! Tegea is legally required to change hands once every three turns anyway. It‘s amazing to think of a Cologne-for-Ohrid swap, (unlikely, but totally plausible), spinning this war‘s long east-west front a full 90°, with a northern Sweden battling a purely southern Iceland. This war is a treasure. Sweden‘s army is growing impressively. They have more than enough in Germany to hold the line in the west and a massive reserve force around Wroclaw and Poznan. Snatch back Reykjavik, maybe add Ohrid, and sue, Ingolfur. This might be your last chance.

53

Info time! First up, the Ministries of War: Iceland and Sweden are surprisingly close now, considering their production gap and the size of the North Atlantic garbage patch. I wonder how much Sweden‘s complete air superiority is doing to bridge the difference. Are Brazil and the Blackfoot finally leveling off? Maybe try erecting some buildings, guys. Infrastructure matters in the long run! Beyond those two, the fall of Armenia, a minor Inuit dip, everyone else seems to have leveled off and declared themselves content with their forces. Bonus Game: Try to guess the Buccanneers trendline! It‘s tough, but see if you can connect the dots where tiny black gaps appear in other lines to figure out where the Black Fleet stands!

54

Ministries of Health and Agriculture: Mark my words, before long that Boer 900,000,000 will drop to one. In the blink of an ocular sensor, the flip of a few ones and zeroes, silence will fall and the singularity will arrive. Nearly a billion lost artificial souls will leap free from the samsara wheel of this war world‘s suffering and find the moksha of absolute oneness with Kruger (or is it Hatsune Miku, the avatar as whom he shall live on forever?). Below, the Samba Kings surge past the Ice Lords, Vietnam crumbles, and the Swedes are now on a par with the Kimberly.

55

It really would be helpful if these numbers were linear with citizen counts, rather than logarithmic. Comparing population with production, for instance, really makes some otherwise perfectly nice civs look catastrophically lazy. Down at the bottom Armenia defiantly declare WE ARE STILL HERE! and refuse to board the sub.

56

Ministries of Industry: The Boers have a 2:1 advantage over third place, and the Inuit are nearly there as well. Just a bit more of Greenland will get them to it. It looks like we have three clear tiers here, with a top two, numbers three through eight, and then the bit players (with three mini tiers that only matter when contrasting the lesser parties with one another). In practice, though, wars like Sweden/Iceland do show that it pays never to go completely reductionistic with production and war prowess.

57

26 million Mongolians, 1,400 hammers. 4 million Armenians, 92 hammers. 40 million Hawai‘ians, 84 hammers. Q. How many Hawai‘ans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. Have you seen the population chart? You lost them at “screw.”

58

Ministries of War: 5.3 million troops is a tremendous achievement, but can you imagine how boring Pedro‘s playstyle would be? Just eighty turns of clicking “Build (unit)” then “End Turn,” a couple of turns invading Texas, and then another forty cycles of units and waiting while everyone else has fun. The Blackfoot creep up on the Big Three. Another week, another part of Crowfoot executing his strategy of “just don‘t give anyone any reason to mention me, ever, and we‘ll be aces!” to perfection. The etymology of the “Blackfoot” name is clearly a long-lost bit of trivia in this world, every bit as quaint and forgotten as cooking fires themselves.

59

Vietnam in twelfth, but really the gap between Australia in second and their slot isn‘t nearly as large as one would expect. By the same token, the Trungs must balance confidence against Oz with concern for their smaller neighbors. Australia outnumbers the sisters by about the same ratio as the sisters outnumber Parakhambara (Sri Lanka). Vietnam supporters should be proud of their defensive accomplishments, but also cognizant that they would be a military underdog to a Sri Lanka/Kimberly alliance.

60

Wait, so what are all those notifications for each turn if not denunciations? When did the cylinder get so...polite?

61

Christians (and North American Christian-adjacent heretics) outnumber heathens 7:1, and Heathens 110:1. Again, let‘s salute Tibet‘s failure as it has allowed this late game religious surprise! But where in the world did that seventh slot come from? Who will join the faith game next? We‘ll have to wait to find out!

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Forn Siðr has a chance to sweep Europe if they can hold off the Arians to their west and the Catholics and Lutherans focus all their missionary energy on battling one another in the fertile crescent. (Yes, I know that‘s not how religious pressure works, but come on—isnt‘ way more fun to imagine that way?) More pressingly, we leave you all with the greatest mystery yet to come to the CBR: huge swaths of cities have been swept from the globe, including the holy Ciudad Juarez, much of the former Mexico, the entire Sahara, pieces of the outback and a few small patches of central Asia. Could the Rapture have come to a world where literally no one believes in the Rapture? Or is it Gran Colombia, returned from hell to wreak havok upon a new cylinder? Tune in next time for answers to these mysteries and more on the 100th Anniversary of the Civ Battle Royale! This has been u/GoatontheMountain, and if you‘ve made it through all these 6,000 words, enjoy a nice New Year‘s glass of scotch on me, Dawkinzz. Good night!

Part 99: Tonight We‘re Gonna Party Like It‘s CBR Part 99! – mk2

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