Power Rankings: Episode 40 – S1

Evenks

And so we say goodbye to our ever irrelevant northern reindeer enthusiasts. The Evenks were notable in that they did manage to settle a large number of cities, which is usually the sign of a good competent civ that will do well. However, the Evenks were not that civ. They ended up being little more than a fatter version of the Nenets. The problems started when they founded a religion with penalties to science. It is hard enough to get big productive cities that will generate lots of science when you're living in the tundra (even with the food bug). And being spread out wide increased the science penalty from having too many cities. To then go on to make an anti-science religion is pure folly! And so the Evenks quickly fell behind every other major civ in tech. When they warred Kazakhstan, their tech situation was so dire that their army consisted of mostly reindeer archers, their ANCIENT-era UU, who were promptly slaughtered. Despite losing many cities to Kazakhstan over the years, they had so many to start with that their empire remained OK. Most people were waiting for the Khamugs to finally crush them but it turned out that Shikoku would be the one to do it, as they captured the entire Eastern half of Evenk lands. Finally, they spawned in Endgame with some of the worst starting bonuses and everyone was expecting them to get demolished immediately. This was kind of accurate, though they nevertheless managed to outlive the Khamugs, more due to luck than any skill of their part. Their biggest legacy on the cylinder is probably Shikoku's endgame capital, which was originally an Evenk city.

Apache

Despite spending much of the game there, the Apache just barely missed out on finishing in the top half, a disappointing end for a civ that was expected to be competitive in North America. That’s not to say that they were a failure, though—for a while, they were actually competitive, and were able to stack up well against the Metis and the Iroquois, earning them a spot in North America’s “big three.” But for some reason, they faltered, and as the Iroquois grew, the Apache retreated, losing front line cities until they were confined to only a little over half of their original territory. Geronimo continued to suffer harsh blows right up until the end, hemorrhaging cities to Venezuela before succumbing to a joint invasion from the Metis and Iroquois in Endgame. Geronimo expanded well, founding numerous cities and dominating the southwest US for millennia, but it just wasn’t enough—in the end, they couldn’t hold on to what they had built.

New Zealand

Today we say goodbye to one of the most entertaining civs in the game, a contender that well and truly punched above its weight. I was always tentatively optimistic about New Zealand thanks to its notoriously strong AI, and I hoped that they would be able to break out of their island start. For a while, they did—New Zealand settled pretty much every Pacific Island that wasn’t taken by Tonga, held several major cities in Australia including the Murri capital, and wiped the floor with Papua. At the height of his power, Seddon laid Australia low, taking multiple cities and threatening to storm even the inland stronghold of Canberra. But it was not to be. By the industrial era, New Zealand was unable to keep up with the exploding production levels of mainland civs, and they lost large swathes of land to Taungoo and later Australia. Exiled to South America in Endgame, New Zealand unfortunately stood little chance. But at least they made a strong impression before they had to go.

India

With a cavalcade of deaths this part, India is now the bottom civ on the cylinder. Sure they manage to go up a rank, but that’s mostly due to the deaths of other people. Allahabad was lost for good this part to the Taungoo, and while Indira does have another settler out, it's likely either it or the city it founds will be captured by Parthia. With that in mind though, India will still probably survive a little bit longer, as their assorted enemies are either incompetent or sleeping on the job.

NazcaThe good news: Nazca are no longer at war with anybody.The bad news: They gave up one of their cities, their only other city is on the wrong side of Uruguay, their stats are pitiful, and even if they manage to make another city on the burning ruins of their old city, it’ll still be a jungle city that will be easily captured by someone.

Madagascar

I saw two units from Madagascar this episode. That’s literally all I have to say about them.

VeniceMama Mia!Enrico Dandalo sees his biggest drop back down to the late 20s. Losing Murano to Prussia, followed by a loss of Lido to Palmyra, leaves Venice in a precarious position. On the plus side, Venice has gotten onto Africa. But as Muscovy can tell you, a long chain of cities is not a good strategy.

Canton

No mention of Canton this part, though we do get a glimpse at what they’ve got going on in a shot about the Qin. And it’s not the best. They’ve got more catapults than they know what to do with and are just sticking them on the frontlines. If Qin wanted to build any effective melee corps, Canton could get picked apart pretty quickly. They rise one rank as it seems that they have some time to get their defenses up and maybe start becoming a competitor for some islands in the Pacific (but that might just be a pipe dream of mine).

Parthia

This corner of the world continues to get more crowded. Parthia has a large military for it’s rank but all that means is that once it’s gone, it ain’t gettin’ rebuilt. They’ve done a great job surviving this far though. Oman, Golden Horde, Seljuks, Turks, have all fallen in this unfriendly part of the world. Maybe Parthia can surprise us and last into the top 20.

Nepal

Call me a sucker for underdogs, but Nepal is one of my favorite civs right now. Granted, I love most of Asia at the moment, but Nepal is a special kind of underdog here. NOT ONLY are they relegated to start in the Himalayas. NOT ONLY did they get LITERALLY 0 BONUSES in the Endgame reset. NOT ONLY are they surrounded by not one, not two, but THREE of the top 10 civs on the most competitive continent in the game. NOT ONLY do they have the absolute WORST science on the cylinder. BUT THEY’RE HOLDING THE FUCK ON! You go Nepal, make me proud like Haiti, Minoa, Kuikuro, Oman, Poverty Point, and Xia never could!

Yup’ik

The Yup’ik’s episode was defined more by events that didn’t happen than things that did, and that’s a positive for a civ only barely outstripping Nepal. The Haida invasion petered out unexpectedly, while both Shikoku and the Metis turned their attentions south. Still, if the Yup’ik want to take advantage of being left in peace, they have to… ya know… do something. Settle, improve those dismal stats… anything...

Nubia

Nubia seems to have taken a page out of Benin’s book and are turtling pretty well against their more powerful neighbors. Meroe has been a surprising stronghold against Palmyra while Zimbabwe has been throwing its units against the Nubian core with mixed results. They have a good army composition with the apparent flexibility to attack or defend. There are some good options to expand if they can get some breathing room and I’m not counting them out yet.

Haida

Haida lose a rank to Benin. There were some good points this episode but also some bad ones. They managed to get another city down and also managed to get a settler to Japan. Those bode well for an eventual North Pacific Power. The bad thing that happened was that their war on the Yup'ik went nowhere. Oh, and they're now at war with the Metis and it's not looking good for them so far. On the plus side, they are allied with the Iroquois so theoretically that could draw Metis troops away from Haida, though in practice this doesn't seem to be happening. The thing about being a Pacific power is that you eventually have to own some land that isn't coastal and it doesn't look like Haida will be able to manage that.

Prussia

Yet another coalition against Prussia, and yet again they come out of it having lost 0 cities, unless you count Burano which wasn't even theirs at the start. Last part, people complained at what a horrible decision giving away Berlin to Palmyra was. Well Berlin turned out to be right in the way of Prussia's main rival, the Goths, who are the only civ in the entire CBRX to have successfully waged war against Prussia. It prevented them from capturing any Prussian cities and now the Goths are stuck on 3 cities while Prussia has 5. So who's laughing now? The main fighting is against the Manx over the Venetian city of Burano which they had teamed up to take. So far Manx have enough troops around it to stalemate but It is harder for them to resupply given that it's so far away from their core compared to Prussia.

Goths

The Goths had a lot going for them in Endgame. What went wrong? They’re still sitting on 3 cities with the likes of Yup’ik, Canton, and Parthia. They’re other stats aren’t much better either. You could certainly put partial blame on their overaggressive nature. Perhaps if they spent more time settling and less time picking fights they can’t win they’d be in a better position. But what other way for the Goths to fade out than an overaggressive start. Now all the need is to raze all the potential gains and declare a suicide war against the Kazakhs.

Vikings

As their slow slide continues and weak civs die off, the Vikings find themselves in the bottom half of the rankings for the first time in 27 episodes. We expected Ragnar to expand westward, settling whatever parts of the British Isles the Manx didn’t get, and even going further to Iceland or Greenland—but that looks unlikely now, as the Iroquois cross the Atlantic to start colonizing the Old World. If Hiawatha gets a strong presence in the North Atlantic, that might be it for Ragnar’s chances.

Manx

The Manx lose a rank despite picking up Burano. Possibly because Illiam seems to have forgotten that Stettin exists. Possibly because Hiawatha is already settling Europe and the Manx will be the first in line should the Iroquois look to expand their European holdings by war. On the other hand, if Illiam was to risk war before Hiawatha could send reinforcements he could end the threat early and achieve complete control of the isles. Given how passive the Vikings have been so far it's not too far fetched to imagine the Manx as the dominant naval power of Europe

Sami

The Sami are using their powerful early game snow bonuses to slowly dig themselves out of the hole they started the game in. They have managed to settle Finland which has allowed them to overtake the Manx in stats. There are still a few arctic settlements to be made so they'll probably be able to reach about 10 cities before they come into conflict. The only other civ that might want those arctic spots is the terrifying Kazakhs, who don't enjoy snow quite as much as the Sami and will likely leave them till last. After that, they'll have to conquer. The Kazakhs are looking way too strong and should be avoided. Their options are therefore the Vikings or Prussia, neither of which is that appealing right now. They have actually already declared war on Prussia as part of the coalition though it seems they were way too early for that and they do not have enough troops near Prussia to take advantage. They should instead be focussing on settling to get their empire up and running sooner.

Maratha

South Asia remains one big question mark. Palmyra, Maratha, Taungoo, Qin, and even Australia and Zimbabwe could secure dominance in the area. None have a solid advantage over the other yet. The war between Palmyra and Maratha could be a major deciding point though. If they can take Merv and peace out they’ll be in good shape. India and Nepal remain good expansion prospects if Taungoo doesn't take them first. Also, an obligatory reminder that those settlers are not actually settlers, but a bugged icon.

Benin

After a quiet start, Benin moves up an impressive 7 places as they more than double their city count in a single part. While Zimbabwe is still a threat, Benin are well on track to outpace the Moors and are already far stronger than Venice or Nubia. Zimbabwe is still far ahead in stats but their core is distant and ability to project power dubious for now, at least. Ewuare certainly seems ready to take advantage of the many opportunities provided by endgame.

Moops

You can’t spell Moops without oops. A well-publicised bug and one abortive war with Benin later, the poor Moors have only managed to secure the one city in Africa - an alarming fate, considering we expected the majority of West Africa to be under their banner. Still, you can’t count out another Songhai situation, with Moors and Zimbabwe teaming up on an overperforming but statistically deficient Benin to put Moors back on the map of Africa. News is better in Europe, where the Manx war with Prussia has ensured the region is still made up of small, relatively weak powers, still ripe for unifying. That said, their production is even lower than Prussia at the moment - get building workshops, lads.

Venezuela

Bad news: the jungle and mountains completely prevented Venezuela from making any progress against Nazca. Good news: the Nazca surrendered their city anyway. Bad news: Venezuela are burning it down. Even worse news: Uruguay is continuing to grow in strength and are already done with any southern distractions. Now Uruguay hasn't exploded in stats yet like they did in the main game, and it's still fairly even. Venezuela has more food; population and science which has allowed it to nearly catch up to Uruguay's starting tech bonus. However, Uruguay has taken the city and production advantage. But Uruguay is nearly out of land to settle, while Venezuela still has the Carribean and central America; they could theoretically settle those lands while relying on the impenetrable jungle defence to keep them safe from Uruguay. They can very easily become that big scary civ themselves while Uruguay rots in quarantine. That is, if the Iroquois and Metis don't get there first as they are now both quite far south. Venezuela are certainly in a tricky spot with big scary opponents on both sides but are still definitely in the game.

Shikoku

We caught some flak for ranking Shikoku too low last week. As you can tell we’re sticking to it though. Sure they’ve had a lot of success in the Siberian triangle but we expected that. What we didn’t expect is that the Kazakhs would have the amazing start they did. I'm sure many of you will roll your eyes but Shikoku’s stats just aren’t good enough to take on any of their neighbors at the moment. The good news is that they’ve reached the coast. Hopefully they can use it to get their science boost and return to their former dominance. Oh, but Haida is about to settle Japan…

Metis

The Metis had a great part: the coalition against the Apache went perfectly, as the Metis got not only the capital but also Ka'igwu and the kill. This completes a wall across the entire continent of North America that blocks off the Iroquois from the entire west portion, leaving all that land for the Metis. Oh and also Yup'ik and Haida can also get that land I guess but they're not very relevant. Speaking of which, the Metis noticed that Haida dared to settle an inland city and promptly declared war in order to take it. And so far that war is actually looking pretty good for the Metis. If they can continue to settle/conquer their half of the continent unopposed then they should be in a pretty good spot to face off against the Iroquois with their half of the continent. However, all is not perfect. The Iroquois have in fact noticed how well the Metis are doing and have decided to put a stop to that immediately before it gets out of hand. The Iroquois do have the 4th largest army in the game as well as the third highest production, but their army composition leaves much to be desired. The Metis are not very far behind the Iroquois in terms of raw military and production so should be able to hold the line just fine, as long as they don't get too distracted by shiny Haidan cities. The battle for North America will have to wait another day.

Taungoo

What’s good for the Goo is Allahabad for India. Taungoo drops India into the dumpster and is rewarded with… a drop of 3 ranks? Yeah, Taungoo is falling a little bit behind in the settling game among the top contenders, focusing more on taking their neighbors’ lands. And it might be good for them if they keep receiving gifts like Adelaide from poor Indonesian settlements. To be honest, I think this is a temporary drop as the only civ that seems remotely competitive with Taungoo for Indonesian soil is Australia, and they’re about to get their only foothold in the region gobbled up by the Goo.

Palmyra

Palmyra is an interesting diplomatic case study for the CBRX. They were gifted Berlin as a European exclave for no apparent reason and took Lido from Venice. Hooray, it all looks good and Palmyra is looking like it’s trying to throw its hat into the European ring. Ring? Ring ring! It’s Maratha and Zimbabwe calling! Looks like it’s time to stop throwing horses at Nubia. Palmyra could go in any direction right now. I don’t think Zimbabwe is doing much against Palmyra other than scaring them a bit, so they only really have to worry about their east and west. The uncertainty, and inability to make a dent in Nubia, drops them a few ranks this week.

Uruguay

Lavalleja clearly took the offense of a lowest ever rank to heart, as ever since Uruguay slipped to 9th a couple episodes back they’ve been on the warpath, taking out New Zealand and ensuring half a continent is flying the white and blue. Holding them back from their divinely ordained top spot is a newly energized Venezuela, doing their best Uruguay impression by castrating the Nazca, albeit setting fire to the spoils. On top of that, the ever-familiar stat explosion hasn’t manifested itself yet - Uruguay outpace Venezuela by just a single tech and 9 production. They’re still the favourites in the two horse race, but it’ll probably be a while before their influence is felt outside their continent, even as the Iroquois and Zimbabwe spread their tentacles.

Australia

Breaking news, Australia shows signs of life! Hawke’s extremely bold settlement on the tip of the Malay peninsula shows that he’s not messing about when it comes to expanding toward the rest of the world as quickly as possible. The Great Wall of Australia might have been built to keep the wildlife in, but it seems to be ineffective, and Taungoo might soon find itself overrun with Emus. Or... maybe Australia is overreaching and they won’t be able to defend their colony. Only time will tell.

Qin

 The Qin bounce into 4th place as they continue to solidify their empire. Nearly tripling their city count, their stats are large enough that they can rival, if not outright overtake, their neighbors. And overtake it exactly what they’re trying to do to Nepal, storming over the Himalayas... keyword is trying to. In reality, the Qin's UUs are having to move their way through mountain passes, giving Nepal ample time to prepare. Perhaps Ying Zheng should try for prey not nestled in the mountains. Canton perhaps?

Zimbabwe

Whew. Bonkers part for Zimbabwe. Sure it was a slow start against Nubia but that will hardly matter. They’ve built up a solid core in South Africa again, this time with no Madagascan inclusion. For some reason they also threw down a city in the Arabian Peninsula. Just to flex I guess? Anyway, the South African giant is putting away any doubts about their strength from the end of pre-endgame. Then again, Benin also had a good part. Is it too late to stop Zimbabwe though?

Iroquois

Hiawatha holds fast at second, but it’s at a time of turbulence. After sweeping through the heart of Dixie at the expense of the Apache, the Iroquois war wagons have turned their attention to their erstwhile Metis allies. While it’s true that the Iroquois outclass them in every relevant statistic, it’s by fine margins - 2 more techs, just 8 more production. A stalemate isn’t a great result, either - Hiawatha took plenty of spoils in the Apache War, but it was Riel who secured the Rio Grande, locking Hiawatha out of settling the fertile West Coast. Not that anything can really stop Hiawatha from settling - look at that bonkers Scottish colony. In any case, it’s a make or break war for Hiawatha. Neuter the Metis now and there’s nothing stopping Hiawatha from dominating a whole continent.

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs quietly maintain their statistical dominance as they size up their neighbors with a focused eye towards Shikoku. I’m really looking forward to the inevitable war in the region just because there are so many potentials. The Kazakh empire really is starting to fully stretch across north Asia and I’m sure many civs on their western front would jump at the opportunity to knock the number 1 down a peg while they square away one of their primary rivals. And the best part is that I think the Kazakhs could actually pull off both fronts. If it happens it’ll be fantastic. Get hype.