Civ Battle Royale April 20th, 2020
PowerRankers
Vihreaa
The Nazca have seen better days. But hey, if they were any less lucky this would be their eulogy writeup. Cahuachi is staring death in the face, and his only option is to face it with everything he’s got, or run off into the Pacific and settle cities and hope for the best. Even though they’re at the bottom of the barrel, perhaps we could see a slight comeback like we’ve seen from Canton. I’ll be the first to admit that the chances are slim, though.
Altima
The loss of their capital has left India with fewer usable land tiles than Poverty Point had after the citadel spam. Now they stand, back against the wall, waiting for Marathan to finish the job or Palmyra to attrition enough horses into the walls of Hyderabad. One might ask what went wrong, but with hindsight this is honestly as well as it could have gone for India- they started with weak bonuses against people with full bonuses, and without the benefit of Nepal’s godly terrain. I would not be surprised to end the coming part by welcoming Indira to the sub.
LonelyRS
Venice may be a dismal, decrepit city-state, small even by the standards of a region where four-city Prussia can be a difference-maker, weak even when compared to the Manx and their non-existent navy, but this week, they did manage to, just this once, outperform their expectations. They retook Torcello. For just a turn, sure, and they sure as hell aren’t getting it back, but still. If that isn’t the very definition of a moral victory, I don’t know what is. The rest of y’all can keep playing your nice little world conquest simulator. Enrico doesn’t care. He may not have even the slightest chance of winning the game, but he’s won in both his hearts and ours, and, really, isn’t that all that matters? Ignore their being so fragile that they’ll die when breathed on wrong. That doesn’t matter, not here, not for this civ. Venice isn’t playing your game. It’s playing theirs, and they’re winning.
Random Strategy
Madagascar did absolutely nothing this part. I did predict that Madagascar would get 6 cities because they have 3 “reserved city spots” but they sure are taking their sweet time settling those spots. Speaking of which, there are now only 2 spots, because Zimbabwe has managed to expand their borders far enough to block one of them. Yes: in the time it has taken Madagascar to NOT settle that island, Zimbabwe has not only settled a city on the coast of Africa but also expanded its borders 5 tiles out into the ocean - far enough to reach the island. Worse: this border expansion means that Zimbabwe is now able to reach city spot number 2 since ocean travel is always possible within your own borders even without the tech for it. Madagascar does have a Voromahery guarding spot number 2 so Zimbabwe won't be able to settle it just yet, but if that Voromahery moves... Just please build a settler Madagascar and spare yourself the worry.
Cloudberg
Yup’ik won an absolutely miraculous victory this week, holding off Shikoku for the entire episode and even temporarily capturing one of Ryoma’s cities. That’s a lot for a civ that was clearly outnumbered and outgunned and in theory should have rolled over and died. As a reward, Yup’ik rises two ranks, especially since Shikoku will be distracted defending against the Kazakhs and probably will stop harassing them, at least for now.
Random Strategy
Nepal drops back down below Parthia, Nubia and Canton. The war with Taungoo went 100% exactly as predicted: Nepal was not able to even damage the city. Though some viewers might be disappointed in this, there are no ranks lost for something that was entirely predictable. Where Nepal did lose ranks was due to Maratha taking out Delhi. Delhi was pretty much the only city that it was possible for Nepal to take, so now they are officially stuck in their 3 city mountain fortress for the rest of the game. Worse: Maratha has declared war on them. I doubt that Maratha will actually be able to breach the mountains but still it is not good to expend resources for defence instead of expending resources towards science. By far the biggest risk is that Nepal will get scared and will give away one of their cities to any of the 3 statistically dominant powers they are currently at war with (Maratha, Taungoo or Kazakhstan)
MsurdejCanton rises as rankers aren’t certain just how screwed they are currently. Sure their stats are going up, and they’ve exceeded expectations they had at the start of Endgame. But all it’ll take is one DoW from Qin to send the dominoes tumbling down onto Ching Shih. At this point, the *BEST* Canton can hope for is a war where they can snipe a city from someone, but that’s a long shot in a long shot.
Altima
Nubia continues their bloody war of survival against the invading Zim, briefly and boldly flipping Chitkete before being pushed back across their own borders. The enemy now stands at the gates of Uselu, and while Zim will need more men if he wishes to take a walled city upon a hill, so too will Nubia need more men to defend a border city from a technologically superior foe. Nubia’s greatest hope right now is that Zim may become distracted by a shiny thing and abandon this long, long war and give Nubia a chance to recover, but even that is a faint hope.
Knot
The coalition against Haida, and the loss of their Japanese colony puts Haida officially in the rump state club. They clearly can’t leave the continent, and it's not like they can do much to giants like the Metis, or the Iroquois. The Yupik are still their only expansion option, but the “Reward” for doing so would be a bunch of useless ice cities, and even angrier neighbors. They aren’t in any real danger. The Metis declared war, but they probably can’t take any of Haida’s fortified territory. They just exist, and they’ll probably keep existing for a while.
Msurdej
As the Kazahks continue to get better and better, the Goths continue to get worse and worse. Their north and east are increasingly engulfed by Ablai Khan, giving Alaric little other options. Prussia has lower stats, but it would be a narrow fight. Palmyra is Palmyra, regardless of whether Berlin is puppeted or not. It is possible Alaric can make it Rome/Venice and sack it? Yes, but it’s pretty unlikely they’ll do much until Ablai Khan decides to move west again.
Gragg
I did an entire writeup roasting the Vikings but decided to delete it and start over with a little more optimism. They aren’t dead yet, yay! Really though, the Vikings are dangerously close to runt status, despite no massive blunders for world-power neighbors. A single lost war was enough to get them stuck in Scandinavia for the foreseeable future though. It will take some remarkable ‘zerking in mainland Europe to get the Vikings back in contention. They’ve shown remarkable competence before, can they do it again?
LacsiraxAriscal
Potsdam is pulverised, and it’s only the start of Prussia’s woes. On paper it should be the Moorish army that’s keeping Frederick up with night terrors, but he can sleep easy knowing that - as of now - they haven’t properly mobilised, dawdling in France rather than marching on Stettin. No, it’s Prussia’s traditional foes the Vikings who pose the real threat, sending longships straight to Königsberg and in the process making short work of Prussia’ navy of embarked swordsmen. If there’s anything working in Prussia’s favour it’s that thanks to a few lucky border expansions, they no longer border the Kazakhs; while the two are at peace now, it’s surely a relief that it’ll be a while before they come knocking again. Still, when Ablai does return, there might not be a Prussia to invade - while there’s little chance they’ll be defeated by the current coalition, the near-endless wars don’t bode well for a nation that’s stuck right in the middle of the most crowded continent.
Msurdej
Now, I know what you’re thinking. What did Parthia do that gave them +6, the highest growth in this part. The answer is simple; they settled. Despite having very little land, Parthia added a whopping 4 cities, more than doubling their city count. And with a handful of fumbling civs, Parthia definitely gets a leg up. Sure, they probably aren’t getting the kill on India now, and sure they’re surrounded by Palmyra, the Kazakhs and mountainous Nepal, but for now, Mithridates has put his people in a better position.
LonelyRS
Really, you can’t fault the Manx for their position in the back half of the rankings. They’ve been doing well, making inroads into the mainland and declaring savvy wars that would make much more seemingly competent powers blush. Their not unifying the British Isles was a sore spot, sure, but the annexation of Gadoquat has taken them one step closer to doing so. Really, they might just be the biggest surprise of Endgame so far, and that’s counting Nepal’s meteoric rise to mediocrity. The problem lies in, well, everything else. The Manx may be doing a good job of controlling the factors in their control, but those out of their hands almost seem to be conspiring against them. With Venice isolated and Prussia’s nearest port being Konigsberg, the best vector of expansion for Illiam is the Vikings, which figure to be just powerful enough to make an invasion from across the North Sea a considerable challenge. As for their other neighbor? The Moors, who have been looking scarier and scarier as the game progresses and seem to be well on their way to recapture clear first in the region. The Manx have been playing well, yes, but it’ll take a stroke of genius to expand much further before their inevitable death at the hands of whoever inherits Europe. That’s just how it is when you’re an island civ with little chance of breaking into the mainland.
Gragg
The rank change does not accurately reflect how disastrous this part was for Maratha. Their weak point has always been how prone their start location is to being bottled in. They had a chance to really break out in the Middle East and threw it away in a peace deal. It’s unlikely they’ll be able to brute force their way out based on a quick look at their stats. If they get lucky and manage to take some weak cities to the North maybe they can gradually work their way out.
Vihreaa
Dropping to their lowest rank since part 22, Shikoku has fallen to 14th place in the power rankings, almost entirely because of the Kazakhstan DoW from last part. When you’re facing the uncontested #1 civ on the cylinder, I can’t say this is quite surprising. Even though Shikoku is one of my favorite civs on the cylinder right now, I predict the best result they can come away with is a stalemate, maybe losing a couple cities, but at the same time, Kazakhstan could make some huge gains in Asia through Shikoku, especially if Qin join the fray.
LacsiraxAriscal
The Sami rise a shade thanks to an episode that saw them expand into Greenland and Karelia, and gain a vital city from the Vikings with the power of persuasion. It’s a nice rebound for the civ many counted out at the start of Endgame, but it’s not come without consequences. Eadni’s nation now has two neighbours - a Viking state that might still be a nuisance, and a Kazakh empire that will surely be a terror. Her lack of aggression might cost her here - a backstab on Ablai Khan could not be more perfectly timed, with most of the Kazakh army preoccupied thousands of miles away in Shikokuan Siberia. But Eadni has lived up to her grandmotherly moniker for much of CBRX, and I can’t see her taking off the oven mitts now.
Msurdej
Taungoo ended the part with a lot less wars going on. Australia has been pushed back into the ocean, Maratha was held at bay, Nepal is on the backfoot, and the Haida... aren’t in Asia anymore? In any case, The ‘Goo now have an increasingly noticeable
Random Strategy
Benin rise 1 rank entirely thanks to Shikoku's big drop. They spent the part insettling all the gaps in their empire, bringing them up to a healthy 14 cities. It's less than Zimbabwe or the Moors but still fine to be getting on with. They also successfully repelled a weak attempt by Palmyra to grab some African clay - but while Nubia is in the way, Palmyra isn't much of a problem. The biggest problem for Benin going forwards is going to be their lack of food. The Sahara is pretty terrible land and they've got a lot of it. Their best bet is to hope for a lucky coalition against one of their bigger neighbours that they can take advantage of and escape the desert.
LacsiraxAriscal
Palmyra’s stasis in the rankings isn’t as a result of stagnation but mixed fortunes. Let’s start with the positive: they were gifted yet another awkward border city, as Maratha relinquished Pune for next to no reason. Whether or not they manage to clinch that last Indian city they’ll have an easy route back into Merv when the inevitable war with Parthia reignites. On the flipside, Parthia did manage to resettle Kuchan only a couple of tiles south of its original position, cutting off Zenobia’s last avenue of peaceful expansion. That’s far less space than the rest of the top 10 have been afforded, so if Palmyra ever wants to rise higher than this they’ll have to get use to the putrid smell of blood and subsume their weak neighbours - there are Goths, Prussians and Nubians just waiting to be assimilated.
Knot
A falling Shikoku and a sleepy Palmyra help Venezuela rise through the ranks. However, make no mistake, they did not have a spotless episode. Letting Uruguay take the two Nazca cities on the continent isn’t a deal breaker, but it does make the stat gap between the two powers ever so slightly bigger. The Venezuela VS Uruguay conflict is gonna last a while and right now Uruguay has the edge. Any advantage that can be gained now could spiral into an overwhelming advantage later on. Venezuela is a challenger to the Uruguayan throne, and it’s definitely an open question who’s going to come out on top, but Venezuela is gonna need to step it up before Uruguay becomes the nation it was before.
Rosé
After the failure of the Manx to get the city of Stettin, Illiam decided to call upon their frenemy Abd-ar to get the job done for them. Abd-ar then cracked his knuckles and then proudly stated “Let's show the Manx how you REALLY conquer a city!” The moors were then to discover a threat greater than any civilization could face them, rivers and hills. What proceeded was a gigantic struggle of the Moorish soldiers just trying to breach the front line before meeting their demise. It's not as if the Moors are suffering from the same old “no melee units” issue either. As the screenshot shows the moors have plenty of melee units to take the city, but they are all trapped behind the front line of catapults.
Cloudberg
Australia is expanding like crazy right now, plopping down cities almost every turn on the vast number of islands surrounding their home continent. Hawke is up to 20 cities now, behind only the Kazakhs, and he has room for more new ones than Ablai Khan does, all but ensuring he’ll eventually overtake him. If this continues, we’ll be looking at an Australia not dissimilar to Mk. 2 Australia at its height, which is a scary thing to consider. Not that they’ll win, of course; once again, they’re looking at second. After all, the one mainland city they tried to settle has already been lost.
Riel slips a rank this week for two reasons. The first is how Both Chavez and Hiawatha have colonized Central America, cutting the Metis out. And while they were able to get onto the west coast of Greenland, those colonies aren’t the safest, and could be easily taken by the Iroquois. And the second reason, of course, is number 5....
Cloudberg
Uruguay climbs back into the top 5 this week after utterly eviscerating the Nazca, capturing three cities including their capital. This makes Uruguay the unquestionable leader in South America, despite Venezuela’s rapidly increasing stats. Chavez won’t be easy for Lavalleja to overcome, and now he has no other neighbors to attack instead, so we could see Uruguay stagnate over the coming episodes. But after such an efficient and successful conquest of this, it’s hard not to think that Uruguay will stay up here for the foreseeable future.
Gragg
The former world leaders slip as their momentum further stalls. Their odds in a theoretical war with the Metis are getting lower by the turn. How can you be top 3 if you can’t even dominate your immediate neighbors? They do have a pretty good hold on Central America though. This is especially good seeing that Uruguay was sending a settler that way. The future for the Iroquois is to best their powerful neighbors in the Metis and Venezuela. They are still favorite in that sense but if things continue like this they will continue to slide down the top 10.
Gragg
Qin’s uneventful yet meteoric ride to the top continues as they climb to 1st by military count. All other major stats are top 3. Now if only they used that on someone. Currently they aren’t involved in any wars, which is not ideal with this much of a lead and the Kazakhs getting closer and closer. There are a million (roughly) good targets nearby. The only wrong move is to do nothing.
LonelyRS
Zimbabwe stays near the top of the table in second, for the same reason they’ve always stayed near the top of the table — they’re far from glamorous and hardly photogenic, but they’re getting the job done. Sure, the fall of Chikete may be only the forty-seventh most interesting subplot of the part. Yes, the invasion of Nubia is stalling out around Uselu. None of that matters, because Zimbabwe’s still one of the most powerful civs stat-wise, and with neighbors who are either weak or locked in the Sahara and a military that’s on par with those of the bloodiest warmongers, Zimbabwe will still be able to beat just about anyone they face. It might take one part, it might take ten, but given enough time Zimbabwe will grind you down and wear you into little more than a shell-shocked husk. Of course, nobody’s calling into question their power. What they’re calling into question is how well they can use it. And given how they performed last time they were in this sort of situation? It’s a very good one.
Rosé
For the first time since the peak of Uruguay, the Kazakhs are the first number 1 civ to have a standard deviation of 0. This is definitely justified too as who a declaration of war on the Shikoku, the Kazakhs seem like they are in prime position to essentially have control over all of Asia. For comparison, the Kazakhs have three times the military power and roughly 75% more production. Say that this war results in four new Kazakh cities, which is entirely in reason when comparing the two nations, this means that they would have 10 more cities than the 2nd place nation. This raw power is not quite unbeatable however, especially compared to the titan that was pre-endgame uruguay. According to the cbrx stats sheets calculation the Kazakhs are technically not even in first place, and they may even begin to suffer from overwhelming unhappiness due to the war. Even Qin could hypothetically pose a threat to them given the right circumstances. Regardless, it is difficult to dispute that given the Kazakhs current position, that they will fade from dominance anytime soon.