Civ Battle Royale November 26, 2021
Era
Welcome back to Chapter 9 of the Civ Grand Royale. My name is Era, and I'll be your guide for this part as we watch the 52 remaining civilizations battle it out for fame, glory, and prizes probably. Thanks to Coiot and EW (and the rest of the team) for keeping this show on the road and allowing me the opportunity to narrate!
And with that, let's get into the recap slides.
We open with a shot of the Deseret core. At the tail end of the last part, war broke out between Texas and Deseret, as Brigham Young decided to make a push towards Austin. Despite his technological advantage (Brigham Young was the first civ to unlock an ideology, Liberalism), it doesn't seem like much progress has been made. The Deseret army around Corpus Christi has all but vanished, and it doesn't seem like Brigham is very interested in sending reinforcements over the Rockies. Perhaps this gives Texas an opportunity to correct that foolish peace treaty he signed all the way back in part 3?
Also, say hello to our resident superpower, Washakie of the Shoshone. That's quite a few Riflemen he's fielding.
Sweden is facing a two-front war, with Haakon's forces bearing down from the north and the French taking potshots from across the Baltic. It's not all bad for Christina, though. The Norwegians have been slow to mobilize and gather their forces, while an Omagua naval detachment has kindly reduced Bourges health to nothing.
Off to the side, Yekaterinburg, Elizabeth of Russia's last city still burns. RIP.
However, the first city capture of the part goes to Sierra Leone! Thomas Peters seized Sanharao from Luba in a bid to recreate that empire Sierra Leone briefly ruled over a few parts ago.
Luba faces a coalition from basically every power in Africa, so far only managing to make peace with Lesotho. Ilunga Sungu seems to be concentrating what's left of his forces in his southern core, leaving these northern cities mostly undefended for Portugal, Sierra Leone, and Azande to pick off at their leisure.
Queen Christina seizes Bourges with a pikeman as the Omagua Galleases sail off into the North Sea. It's unlikely Jeanne will be getting her army over there. England's borders with France are no doubt closed, and her closest melee unit is quite a ways away.
Over in Scotland, Moeshoeshoe has founded Maputsoe! I know it was mentioned at the end of the last episode, but I love these random settles halfway across the world.
Finally, there's a large Deseret fleet chilling in the Irish Sea. Despite having taken a little damage, Deseret and England are not at war, as we'll see in a moment.
Asia is full of powerful civs in the CGR, and one of them, Rouran, with a solid core, a large army, I'd say Yujiulu Mugulu is in a pretty decent position. It'd be a lot better if he wasn't surrounded by even more powerful civs like China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia.
Shu Han, on the other hand, is not one of those powerful civs. They are fielding their unique unit finally; a powerful crossbow replacement called the Chu Ko Nu. It might be a little too late at this point.
Lastly, I should remind everyone that over in the east, China and Goguryeo are at war.
And it's not looking great for Goguryeo. Namso falls with the help of the Chinese navy! Sun Yat-Sen has made short work of Gwanggeato's frontier cities and does not show any signs of slowing down anytime soon. However, Baegam and Hyeondo might be a little trickier to conquer.
The Chinese core is pretty sparse, but the cities are high population and productive. They could probably pump out an army to reinforce the northern front pretty quickly. At this time, I'm assuming most of those reinforcements are headed south, as China is also at war with Siam.
Here we have a nice shot of the Egyptian core and its pride and joy, the two Nile cities of Memphis and Thebes. Tutankhamen hops off the Illunga Sucks train in order to help out his ally, Arwa al-Sulayhi of Yemen, and their joint invasion of the Pahlavis. A considerable force is making its way over to Isfahan, supported by a small group of advanced Yemeni units.
France declares war on Makhnovia! Which is strange. The French army in the region is much smaller and has left Poitiers completely open, while Nestor has gathered his forces at his border cities and looks ready to invade with more advanced units. This move might prove to be a massive miscalculation from the French.
Oh, that explains it! Timur and Jeane d’Arc have conspired together, starting a deadly two-front war against the Makhnovians! The Timurids have a vast army, equipped with muskets, crossbows, cannons, and dozens of the Timurids' unique unit, the Tumen. The Tumen is a Lancer replacement that earns gold when attacking units and cites.
On the other hand, Nestor's core is sparsely defended, with most of his army being around the French border. He'll have to shift some of those units back to this front to properly defend against Timur's massive army. Maybe war on two fronts will stretch the Makhnovians thin enough that Jeanne can snipe a city.
Back in Africa, the Portuguese and Sierra Leonean troops bring the Luba city of Granada to the black. Ilunga Sungu brings the remnants of his Northern troops, two trebuchets and a musketman, back to Kitabi to hopefully mount a desperate defense of that city.
Up north, we get a shot of Carthage, the only African power not to declare war on Luba in the last two parts. Dido's got a decent army filled with muskets, crossbows, and pikemen. Perhaps she's regretting not getting in on the coalition?
Out of nowhere, the Bunuba seize one of Siam's island colonies, Buriram! This is kind of embarrassing for Rama V, losing a city to Bunuba of all civs, even a far away, indefensible one. And to make matters worse, Khon Kaen is wide open and ripe for the taking.
Nestor has put together a small defense force and stationed it outside of Atil, the Khazar original capital, but also seems to be giving up on the defense of Dobrovelychivka. The Timurids have already sieged that city into the yellow, and it doesn't look like any Makhnovian reinforcements are on the way.
Portugal seizes Granada, making it the second city they've grabbed from the collapsing Luba north. Sierra Leone, meanwhile, is pushed out of the Portuguese borders and begins to turn south. Maybe Sokoto is their next target? In the east, on the corner of the shot, the Azande siege Gwandu, bringing that city into the yellow.
Also, in the sidebar, we see that Bengal has completed the Taj Mahal, sparking a golden age for my favorite civilization. 😊
Speaking of Bengal, here's their southern, and much less cool, neighbor, Rashtrakuta. Despite only having three cities and boxed into south India and Sri Lanka, they aren't looking so bad. They're fielding their unique unit, the Sthirabhuta Kataka, a pikeman replacement that gets combat strength from the number of great works in the city it was built in, which is a really neat design allowing Amorghavarsha's cultural UU to be helpful in domination games. Unfortunately, it hasn't really helped him too much this game.
Up north, we see Shuja-ud-Din's Bengal, with its gigantic cities (32 population in Murshidabad) and powerful unique crossbow, the Palk, that gets extra range on rivers. In the south, Bengal has founded a new city recently, Midnapore, and in the Bay of Bengal, Shuja is letting his workers go for a swim.
For Makhnovia, things are looking much better in the western front against France than in the east against Timur. His armies have already brought Poitiers to half health, and the French military does not look like it's going to provide any relief. Turns out this war was a bad idea after all.
In other news, it looks like Christina likes trebuchets.
Azande continues to knock down the defenses of Luba cities, bringing Gwandu and Coimbra down to the red. Unfortunately for Gbudwe, it seems as though he has no melee units near either of those cities. Crossbowmen are great for dealing damage and can tear through medieval armies, but you still have to remember to bring those pikes and knights to actually capture the cities.
This lack of melee units might have granted Ilunga Sungu a brief reprieve to mount a defense, but given the disparity in army size on this slide, I'm not sure if he'll be able to pull it off.
Srijivaya gives away their second city, Mauro Jambi, to the Wahgi, in a peace deal. That was, you know, not a smart move. It's great for the Wahgi. Mauro Jambi is a pretty large 13 population city and will be the perfect staging ground for round two against Srivijaya.
But you know what? Sri Jayanasa doesn't like having one city. He likes having two cities! James Brooke of the Sarawak has a city, and Sri Jayanasa is gonna take that city. Or so they hope.
Poitiers falls to Makhnovia, and Nestor does not look like he's stopping anytime soon. Stettin is right there, and his army is more than healthy enough to lay siege. A single crossbow and pair of bombarde-mortiers aren't gonna stop him!
Also, in the top right corner, we notice that Louis de Buade is a warlord leading the New French Horde. That's really funny to me. I'd make fanart if I had any artistic ability. I like this mod.
Our first view of South America, this part gets us a nice look at Guaycuru's large core and Eso's several solid cities, stretching across the entire continent.
To the north, we see Eso's main rival, Payoreva's Omagua, and his core, including many formerly Brazilian cities. Honestly, I'm not sure which of our two South America front runners is currently on top here. They seem evenly matched.
In the top right corner, we get to see every current member of the Ilungu Sucks club.
The Timurids capture Dobrovelychivka and set it ablaze! Probably because Timur couldn't figure out how its name was pronounced. The Makhnovian defense forces around Atil and Mariupol have collapsed in the north, letting Timurid Tumen ravage the countryside. Nestor needs to get some units over here as soon as possible because those crossbows and cannons can make short work of city defenses.
The Norwegians finally consolidated their forces and mounted a proper siege of Uppsala. Despite all her trebuchets (8 out of 13 Swedish military units on this slide are trebuchets), it doesn't look like she's going to be able to mount an adequate defense of this core city. Uppsala is already in the yellow.
The Portuguese continue forward, snagging their third city from Luba, Kitabi! Down south, Thomas Peters has his troops surround Sokoto, and Gbudwe finally starts bringing a pikeman to capture Gwandu. Since neither city has any defense, I don't think they'll be flying Luba flags for long.
Despite his invasion force completely disappearing, Brigham Young does not seem concerned whatsoever with the large Texan army bearing down on Corpus Christie. He seems perfectly content keeping his entire army on this side of the Rocky Mountains.
That army includes Deseret's unique unit, the Nauvoo Legion, a Rifleman replacement with extra defense on desert and plains. If only there was some desert or plains that needed defending right around now. Oh well.
Makhnovia wastes no time absolutely crushing the French defenses of Stettin. Remember when I said this war might have been a bad idea? This war was absolutely a bad idea.
Azande finally gets that pikeman through the gates of Gwandu, capturing the city! Meanwhile, Sokoto is brought down to the red by Sierra Leonean troops, probably capturing it the next time we get a shot of this region.
On the bright side, Luba seems to have managed to repel most of Azande's troops down south, towards the Luba core.
Two more cross-continental, transoceanic settles! The United Fruit Company found Escuintla in northern Iberia), while Yemen plops down al Bayda in southern Ireland. CGR has this weird dynamic where some civs refuse to settle their backyards, while other civs will sail halfway across the cylinder to put down completely indefensible towns in random places. I love it.
The Shoshone adopt the second ideology of the game, following in Deseret's footsteps and choosing Liberalism. This sparked a little revolution outside Guchundeka. I'm not sure if this is a feature of one of the mods or due to unhappiness, but I prefer the explanation that those riflemen are disgruntled ideological opponents, unhappy with this new ideology. It shouldn't be a big problem for Washakie.
Stettin falls to Makhnovia, and Nestor declares war on Norway! It's unlikely the Norwegians and the Makhnovians ever meet on the battlefield anytime soon. Maybe if Haakon crushes the rest of Christina's forces in record time? I doubt it, but Uppsala has dropped to red, so, maybe?
Trebuchet count: 9 out of 13 visible Swedish military units on this slide.
Sokoto falls to Sierra Leone! I'm sure this victory feels extra sweet for Thomas Peters. It was he who eliminated Sokoto 65 turns ago, only to have his spoils of war taken from him by Luba, but now, he's got it back.
Corpus Christie falls to Texas in an, honestly, kind of stunning upset. This defense should have been an absolute breeze for Brigham!
“Fine, I'll send units. But only, like, five.” – Brigham Young, probably.
Also, in the corner, the surprisingly eventful war between Omagua and France finally comes to an end.
Uppsala falls to Norway after a fairy-long siege, dealing a pretty significant blow to the Swedish. Norway is now one step closer to unifying Scandinavia. I'm not sure if he has the forces to push further south, but honestly, this city is a decent enough prize.
Swedish Trebuchet count: 5 out of 8.
China sieges Baegam, bringing it down to red, but the Chinese army in this region seems pretty spent. Sun Yat-Sen might be able to grab Begam but pushing further into Goguryeo territory seems a bit difficult unless reinforcements arrive.
A Siamese fleet sieges Taipei! That's a lot of boats, and the Chinese navy is nowhere to be found! Rama looks like he'll be picking up at least one city from this war!
This slide does show us where the Chinese army is, though. It's clustered around Beijing, probably grinding away against the Siamese down south.
Tygan Darkhan of Yakutia declares war on Yugulu Mujulu of the Rouran over the city of Woulouhou. This should be an easy conquest for the Siberian superpower, as Rouran has no units in the area.
Yakutia has been on a bit of a settling spree recently, founding Iset and Nizhneskolymsk in the icy north and a handful more cities off-screen that you can catch if you enlarge the minimap.
Srijivaya captures Kuching, eliminating James Brooke's Sarawak in 52nd place! I'll be honest, I didn't see that coming. Well, I didn't expect Sarawak to survive long. I just didn't expect Srivijaya to do the deed. In nicer news, Srivijaya is 100% capitals now, by the way. All hail the Capital King!
James Brooke, on the other hand, is not a king. Eliminated in 52nd place, Sarawak had a fine start, settling a couple of nicely placed cities in the Indonesian archipelago. Their first wars, however, were a disaster. He was unsuccessful in taking anything from Srivijaya and quickly found himself facing the full force of the surprisingly powerful Wahgi forces from the east. Bo'lim quickly cut his empire down, leaving the Sarawak with only a single city. He managed to hide out in this city, until it was finally captured by his fellow city state. Not the best way to go out, if you ask me. F
“I told you five units was enough. Are you happy now?” – Brigham Young, probably.
Deseret recaptures Corpus Christie from Prince Houston with the absolute bare minimum amount of effort possible. Despite the tech advantage, Prince Houston (he's a prince, I think that's silly) still has more than enough units in the general vicinity to flip the city back.
China captures Baegum with a squad of riflemen! They're creeping ever closer to the Goguryeo capital of Gungnae.
And for that other notification…
Coimbra falls to Sierra Leone! After Azande did most of the heavy lifting, killing off all the defenders and knocking out all of Coimbra's defenses, Sierra Leone sneaks into the former Portuguese city and captures it. This brings the total number of cities Sierra Leone has taken from Luba to three, the same as Portugal.
Gbudwe seems content moving the bulk of his forces to Kipushya
Makhnovia becomes the third civilization to adopt an ideology, and they too decide to also go with Liberalism. I don't think the real Nestor Makhno would be too happy about that, to be entirely honest, but I don't think there is an Anarchism ideology.
Back in the game, Nestor is putting up a very admirable defense of his eastern border, despite being entirely outnumbered by the Timurids. City health doesn't seem to have changed at all since last we were here.
Timur's also brought a settler to the front. Not sure what that's all about.
We take a break from all the bloodshed with a quick vacation in Polynesia. Wahgi and Deseret become neighbors in the south pacific as the two powers found some island cities. Wahgi has gone and founded Minj, while Deseret has founded Herriman right next door.
Makhnovia has founded Osypenko in Calabria, and Dido is not happy about it. Dido's siege isn't going too well, but Nestor probably has more critical wars to send his troops to. Like the one against Timur.
Carthage makes peace with Illyria so that they can focus solely on seizing this city.
War erupts in South America as the two major powers declare war on each other! Omagua and Guaycuru are pretty evenly matched, so I don't expect this war to be decisive. However, Nuevo Pilcomayo is completely undefended and cut off from the rest of the Guaycuru empire by Brazil. That seems like a straightforward target for Omagua, and, judging by all those units, Payoreva agrees.
“What do you mean, five units was not enough?!” – Brigham Young, probably.
Prince Houston flips Corpus Christie back to his empire with a sneaky musketman. Deseret will no doubt flip it back pretty soon.
Timur finally breaks his way through Makhnovia's defenses and captures Atil! The Timurid forces seem a bit overextended at the moment and probably will not be able to keep Atil for long. The city has Makhnovian troops on three sides.
Our Polynesian submarine enters a Golden Age! It was probably due to my narration. I did this.
As predicted, Makhnovia flips the city of Atil back! There are a lot more Makhnovia units around this front now than there were a few slides ago. I think Nestor might have stabilized this war.
This is Chocktaw. Despite having a pretty decent start, snagging cities from Texas, Pushmataha was pushed back to a single city by the Shoshone. Now he's slowly being citiadeled by Washakie, losing more and more territory without being put out of his misery.
However, Pushmataha isn't wallowing in his misfortune! He declared war on his fellow city-state Brazil! That'll show 'em!
Nuevo Picomayo falls to Omagua, expanding their Amazonian holdings. The war on the border of the two empires proper seems to be stalling, with Guaycuru Lancers struggling to make it through the Amazon jungle. Get ready for a grind.
On the sidebar, Maravi makes peace with Luba. That's one enemy out of the war, but it's not the civs that are taking all of Luba's cities.
Atil flips back to the Timurids as a Tumen makes its way into the smoldering gates of the formerly Khazar city.
That Timurid settler has made it all the way to Donetsk somehow. Honestly, I'm rooting for him. I hope he gets where he wants to go.
And Atil flips right back to Makhnovia! Both sides look like they have more than enough troops to do that a couple dozen more times.
And the Timurid Settler survived Makhnovia's turn! Good for him!
Pahlavi is mounting a shockingly adept invasion of the Yemeni city of Uruk! What happened to that massive Egyptian invasion force? The Yemeni troops? Mohammad Reza must have defended them off somehow because Isfahan is still flying that teal flag. Uruk looks to be in some major trouble, with only a single Yemeni troop in this entire slide.
Brigham Young flips Corpus Christie again, this time sending a decent number of gatling guns to help secure the city. It's not a lot but it should get the job done. Texan troops in the area have all been cleaned up, and the ones in Austin are much less advanced than the troops that Deseret is fielding.
Lesotho declares war on Maravi! Maravi's armies aren't bad, decently well sized. However, Maravi's fewer cities, lower production, and inferior technology give the invading Lesotho a clear edge in this conflict.
Yemen makes peace with Luba, but the real problem seems to still be all those Azande units swarming Luba's remaining cities.
Uruk falls to Pahlavis! The Egyptians to the west seem to be renewing their attack on Isfahan, but if Mohammad Reza can make peace soon, he should be more than pleased with the outcome of this war, beating all odds to increase his city count in a fight against two powerhouses.
The Khazars give up Tamantarkha in a peace treaty to Maravi?!? Not only are the Maravi thousands of miles away, but they're also not even that strong? What on Earth prompted this? I think this might be the worst peace deal I've ever seen.
Well, at least this means the Maravi aren't going to die at the hands of Lesotho any time soon.
Here we have a nice shot of western South America and the Inca. The Inca have their unique unit, the Chaska Chuqui, a pretty solid Longswordsman replacement. Nestled in the Andes, they'll have a pretty simple time defending against Omagua or Guaycuru if they need to.
Up to the north, we can spot Selva San Andres, another indefensible Guaycuru city. Payoreva doesn't seem interested in going after it just yet.
Renewed by their ally's loss of Uruk, King Tut makes another push at Isfahan, taking some potshots at the city with his crossbow armies. Maybe this time, the Egyptians will be more successful with their attack. Interestingly, though, the Pahlavis are fielding gatling guns, while the Egyptians are not.
Off on the sidebar, the Khazars declare war on the Pahlavis.
The Luba army now consists of exactly one trebuchet, a ratio that would make Christina jealous, Gbudwe salivate, and Illungu Sungu quake in fear. Azade troops have completely occupied all of what's left of Luba territory and are prepared to make short work of city defenses.
In the sidebar, the White Huns declare war on Pahlavi. I smell a coalition building.
And with that, we come to the end of the part and the great power slide. Six civilizations claim the title of Small Power, the strongest powers in the game so far. These are Shoshone, Timurids, Deseret, Bengal, Makhnovia, and Yemen. We can see Egypt peaking out in number seven down at the bottom as well.
It's interesting to note that Shoeshone has retaken the top spot this week after briefly losing it to the Timurids last week. Both of the top two civilizations are also in Dark Ages, while Bengal is dealing with its own happiness problems. Troubles in paradise, perhaps?
At the bottom of the rankings, we find Luba, after being absolutely carved up by the other African powers, and Srivijaya, who sits second to the bottom, despite becoming the Capital King. Other bottom civs include Brazil, Shu Huan, Mixtecs, and the worst of the worst, Ur.
And finally, we take a look at some of the civilizations towards the middle. To be honest, I'm surprised to see Siam and Rouran here. I thought those two civilizations would be much, much higher up than this. Ket founded a shamanate, and that's pretty cool!
With that, I'll be signing off for the week. I had fun, thanks for the opportunity! Hope you enjoyed the episode!