Power Rankings: Episode 47 – S1

MsurdejWell folks, we got a lot of eulogies to get through this Power Rankings, so let’s get it on.

First up, we have the Qin, who finally finished collapsing this part. Starting out, they clearly showed themselves to be the most competent China, quickly beating out the Qing, Xia, and Canton. Despite some rocky parts, they had a solid performance near the end of Endgame, capturing Shikoku’s capital and pushing them into Siberia. They even managed to grab 2nd place, just a few scant episodes ago...And then Kazahks came for them, bringing them to their knees in a matter of parts, kicking them out of China, and leaving their former allies to die in Japan. While they barely missed their part 0 rank (22 vs 25), they certainly put up a great showing.

Altima

Canton has found a good death. They killed the Xia. They outlasted the Qing. They outlasted the Qin. They outlasted 37 civs, many of them bigger and stronger, through raw diplomatic acuity. They died as the Greatest China, while their nemesis died as Weakest Japan. I was never a believer, hell, I thought they’d be among the first to die in Endgame, but I have to tip my hat to the plucky red bastards- they got to die on a high note, a smile on their face. We should all be so lucky.

Shaggy

So uh…… fuck. Looks like you can’t turtle forever in the Himalayas. I think I underestimated Taungoo and the scientific potential of the superpowers in the game. Nepal did a fantastic job with the cards they were dealt. In pre-Endgame they were the weird mountain people of the Indian subcontinent and generally seen as an afterthought while outlasting some heavy hitters like Songhai. Then in Endgame they came in with literally 0 bonuses, 0. Not even an extra warrior. And they outlasted the Khamugs, New Zealand, Haida, and a ton of other civs that had their moments of brilliance. No brilliance from Nepal, but their tenacity in trying to stay under the radar (or over it I guess up in the mountains) while feeling relevant to me (their offensive war in Endgame was nuts) is definitely their hallmark. Saddle on up to the loser’s table with that top 25 confidence you so deserve, Prithvi, F.

Knot

The Manx were ranked 60th at the start of the game. They were expected to roll over and die to Scotland, the Moors, the Vikings, or any other civ that landed on the British Isles. While they never were a top tier contender, the Manx absolutely punched above their weight. They managed to convince Scotland to sign away their main city in a peace deal early on, and held off a potential invasion from the Moors. For a while, they looked like a potential superpower of the continent, before the Vikings came in and took over most of Scotland’s land, followed swiftly by most of their own. I, and many others, counted them out completely at this point, but then Endgame rolls around and they come out swinging. They solidified their rule on the Viking free islands, and even got a foothold in Europe. The Manx may have fallen prey to what people predicted, dying to the Vikings in the east, and the Moors from the south, as well as any other civ that could reach them, but the road to getting there was vastly more entertaining than it had any right to be.

Knot

For all the jokes we’ve made at Maratha’s expense, it’s easy to forget that they were a serious contender at one point. There was a time when they had the second best stats, surpassing Taungoo, Zimbabwe, and even the Iroquois. They had excellent expansion opportunities across India, and they had a terrifying carpet of Crossbowmen... or it would have been terrifying if Shivaji built a Longswordsman, or Pikeman, or Warrior, or literally anything that could have taken a dang city! For a moment it looked like Maratha was going to unite all of India, and they were ranked the lowest of the three candidates to do so, but they never pushed past Nepal. Slowly Maratha became more and more irrelevant, until it was only a matter of when Zimbabwe was finally going to put them out of their misery. Finishing 21st is a lot more than the 34th place projected for them in part 0, but they could have been so much more.

Altima

There is a lonely island in the middle of the Bering Strait, separating East and West, Asia and the Americas. On that island, that snowy wasteland of an island, there lies a single grave, carved of a pale teal stone, rising from a hill. No name is carved into it. No flowers lie before it- the cold would shrivel them into oblivion even if some fool were to bring them. All that lies before that grave is a single rifle. Two names are carved into the stock of the rifle- Moctezuma II and Yu. None in this new world know the meaning of these names. None remember the days when a small teal runt bested a great blue giant in war; even that blue giant has been hobbled now. All that remains is a pale blue grave on a snowy hill.

Rose

In what was an absolute eradication of all the rump civs, a delight of both the fans and the PRs, Nubia has actually survived the culling due to escaping its war with Zimbabwe from years past. This has resulted in Nubia sliding its way into the top 20, which is actually the first time it’s done so in all of MX, including pre-endgame. This doesn’t mean it’s doing good per say, just that Nubia has just managed to successfully pull off the grand old strategy of “the only way to win is to not play”. To be fair, saying that Nubia has not done anything this whole time is a little bit unfair, in fact they have had numerous good defenses from Benin and Zimbabwe on numerous occasions, which is still more than what some civs have done, looking at you Parthia.

Knot

The Goths are not at war anymore with the Moors. You’d be forgiven for missing it. The peace declaration was on a slide talking about the Metis destruction, which is vastly more interesting, but they survive another day. The Goths move from completely screwed, to only potentially screwed. Hooray?

Random Strategy

It's another week of glorious Viking gains! 3 whole ranks this time! They key to their success? Never appearing in any slides or even the video! Their city is simply too far north to appear in either. The only evidence of their existence is an unusually high concentration of musketmen. And if nobody can see the city, nobody can declare war on them! The perfect Nenets strategy!

Knot

Sami sacrificed most of their cities to the altar of the Moors. They are now officially a rump, but they survive. As a fan of Grandma since Endgame, it does hurt a lot to see her empire reduced to this, but it’s for the greater good. Sami would not be able to hold back the blue horde if they struck again, but The Moors might be able to. Your sacrifice will be remembered! Let’s hope the Moors can take advantage of it.

Doom

Prussia continues to rise as less fortunate civs die. Nothing really changed for them this part which is good since any change at this point means death. They may well find themselves as an enclave of the Moors soon.

Doom

Disaster strikes as the Metis are functionally eliminated by the Iroquois in the space of a single part. The Iroquois tech advantage proved to be insurmountable. Field guns and frigates are no match for helicopters and artillery. Now the Metis are down to a lowly 8 cities with no chance of a return. It's unclear if Metis will just die at the beginning of the next part, or manage to sue for peace and outlive a few more civs. Either way second best in North America is no mean feat.

Knot

Madagascar is 13th.

Madagascar finished higher than the Qin, and are probably going to finish higher than the Sami, and the Metis.

Madagascar was a rump long before Endgame even started.

Madagascar has three cities, and will die the moment Zimbabwe sneezes on them.

Madagascar is still in the Enlightenment era while other civs are in the Atomic era.

Madagascar is 13th.

Knot

Well, Shikoku decided that if they were doomed anyway, they’re going out doing what they do best: murder. Killing off the Yup’ik was the slim justification needed for Uruguay, and the Kazakhs to finish the job. Maybe if Uruguay continues to do nothing, they might survive as a rump state, but considering how well that went for the Qin, I expect this war to end them. It’s a shame, and I do actually hope they survive. They deserve to be in the top ten more than most of the other civs still alive.

LonelyRS

Don’t get too excited, folks: that green +3 on the top there is being provided via the, oh, six or so civs that dropped out of relevance these part hundred turns and artificially inflated everyone’s rank increases. Compared to other civs, Venezuela had an… actually pretty okay part. Sure, their already halved empire was halved again by a Uruguay seemingly incapable of disproving Zeno’s paradox, and the bulk of their holdings are now islands made much less workable without a Tonga to mooch population off of, but it could have been so, so much worse. That they managed to so much as declare peace was a miracle, and even if they had to castrate themselves to do so, the fact of the matter is that they’re still alive, and that’s more than the rapidly-increasing number of civs in the CBRX’s graveyard can say. In the abstract, though… things were, well, not so great. Dropping half your cities sounds bad any way you slice it, but the worst part for Venezuela is almost certainly that most of the cities they were forced to give up were good ones. They did keep Caracas, yes, but their capital had been flipped down to two pop by the time they’d managed to convince Uruguay to lay off, and the majority of their land tiles rest in that one land city. All in all, it’s probably fair to say that Venezuela had a part that was more bad than good. Making a bad song in a world where all musicians are tone-deaf doesn’t make it any less bad, after all, and a part spent watching your peers get vaporized doesn’t make your going from Kimberley Indonesia size to Kimberley Antarctica size magically go away either.

LacsiraxAriscal

Eviscerated by Uruguay and left with just four cities, Australia still manages to scrape into the top 10 above a neutered Venezuela and a Shikoku whose current fortunes have entered a nosedive. Nevertheless, make no bones about it - there’s only one war left in them. It’ll be a momentous occasion if and when Uruguay finish the job, as we’ve never had a single episode of any CBR without an Australia. But that’s also what’s keeping them in the top 10; unlike most of the other rumps, they’ve only the one threat, so if the RNG falls in their favour they could well thrash restlessly against death for some time, possibly outliving even some of the other no-hopers currently ranked above them.

LonelyRS

What? What’s that? Oh, I see. You’re stunned, aren’t you? Probably shocked to boot. Yeah, I get that. That was about my reaction too when I realized that Parthia were in the top ten for the first time since part six. Turns out you can get pretty far in the ranks by just sitting around and not ruffling any feathers. Who knew? Seriously, though, if you’re pulling for a dark horse to make it to total war, you might want to give Mithridates a second look - his empire may be among the most shit of those left that can still be called that without giggles, sure, but all that city gifting in the early days of Endgame has paid off wondrously. He’s basically never been in a losing war, has been opportunistic enough to go after India and a weakened Palmyra for table scraps, and is just powerful enough to be able to sue for peace before his nation is destroyed and yet not powerful enough to show up on anyone’s radar. Odds are good that he’ll just get brushed aside two parts from now as an afterthought, yes, but you can say that about just about every civ left in this game, now, and all of them have rap sheets twice as long as Parthia’s. In a world where coalitions are frequent and warmonger penalties meaningful enough to bring down the likes of the Qin in seconds, there’s a chance that the civ that’s most embodied mediocrity so far this game could outlive their bluer, more exciting neighbors. A small one, yes, but a chance nonetheless.

LacsiraxAriscal

It’s truly the endgame when we have a civ like Benin, who could reasonably go down to one very well-planned invasion by either of their super-neighbours, all the way up in 8th place. The only city left on the map they could likely take and keep is Meroe, the last Nubian city - which would net them a warmongering penalty that would almost certainly spell their doom. Yet there’s fields between them and the ninth placed Parthians, who are a Kazakh province in waiting - at least I can see Benin going down with some kind of fight. In any case, the last episode was mercifully quiet for them: they’ll only last this high up as long as that uneasy peace holds.

Knot

Palmyra can’t win. War with Benin would probably just be an utter waste of time. War with Parthia would probably be successful, but also give them a nice big border with the Kazakhs, and war with Zimbabwe? Hahahaha. That’s funny. So yes, Palmyra has nowhere to go, but given their defense position and not terrible stats, they probably are set to live a really long time. Get used to seeing them up here as other civs crumble around them.

Random StrategyTaungoo is almost unanimously in 6th place because they are quite simply the strongest outside of the big 5. It would probably take several wars to kill them, which is more than every civ below them, who would likely die in 1 war. Maybe 2 for Palmyra, Benin and Venezuela. If this was earlier in the game, their 1k production and 22 cities would be impressive but the game has moved on from that stage. Now you need about 1.5 times as much to even be considered a contender. Before this part, Taungoo had two major expansion opportunities that they could have used to become a contender themselves: Australia and Maratha. Both of these are now gone; Taungoo now has no way of getting stronger. Instead of going for those two expansion opportunities this week, they only went for the minor expansion opportunity known as Nepal, which is really too small to matter. At best, it means they now have a very defensible mountain fortress.

Altima

Big part for everyone, and the fact that Zim lost ranks this part can be partly attributed to them having the Least Big part of the top five. However, a large part of it comes down to raw stats- the only top five Zim has more tech than is Uruguay, you know, the civ currently held down by having 93 cities, and right now, that tech disparity with its peers is kinda a big deal. Similarly, they have the lowest city count of the top five, partly because while the Moors have been out and wrecking Europe, Zim hasn’t been doing near enough invading. Mutoba is still in the game- but he needs to kick things up a notch if he’s going to compete with the rest, especially with the Moors, a power he shares a continent with, on the ascent. Murdering Benin like he should have done forever ago would be a good start.

Vihreaa

After a spectacular takedown of the Sami, the Moors ascend to tie their highest all time rank of 4th. Of all of the powers currently in contention for winning the royale, the Moors are in a particularly unique position. To many, the Moors are considered to be the least likely of the current powers that have a chance to win it all and take the cake, but the Moors have some advantages that the other civs don’t. For one, they have a sizable tech lead on almost all of the other civs, along with one of the largest militaries on the planet. However, even with these, they could still be overrun by bigger powers in wars of attrition. I will say this regarding the Moors, their only path to victory in the royale will be through conquering Benin. Between the Moors and Zimbabwe, both of them need to conquer a smaller power to reach the same levels as that of Uruguay, the Iroquois, and Kazakhstan. In the Moors case, their only option will be Benin. For the Moors to continue to have a chance in this royale, they will need to conquer Benin before Zimbabwe does.

MsurdejThe Qin have been eliminated, Venezuela has been cowed, the beachhead in Australia is now the majority of the continent. It is undeniable that the Bug ‘Gauy is the master of the Pacific, and for that they go... Down a Rank?!Yes folks, while Uruguay is top in many of the stats, there is one big area where they are lacking: tech. While the rest of the superpowers have gotten into the Atomic and Information Era, Lavalleja still languishes about a dozen techs behind in the Modern era. And all of those tiny, one tile island cities in the Pacific won’t do much for the Big ‘Guay when nukes start dropping. Whether this is merely a setback, or a harbinger of doom to come remains to be seen.

Shaggy

Iroquois dismantled Metis this part so hard I put Metis in last place. I didn’t see any peace declaration, so there is a very good chance that Iroquois will finish manifesting the fuck out of their destiny in the next part (or two if the Metis diplomats can pull of the negotiation of their lifetime). At this point for me, other than the Kazakhs, ranking the top 5 has become a question of who can throw their weight around the most effectively against the others and who has the potential to get ganked. The way I see it, Iroquois will most likely turn towards Uruguay as their first superpower target. That being said, if Uruguay and perhaps the Moors can try giving Iroquois the ol’ Atlantic 1-2 before Iroquois can finish off Metis, then we might see a lot more fireworks in the New World. Between the top 5, this feels like the least likely gank. They are also very well positioned to start gnawing at Shikoku along with the Kazakhs, only further solidifying their northern dominance. The conjunction of these two points put Iroquois in 2nd for me this week, and it seems as though many of the other PRs thought similarly.

Rose

Another week, another first-place Kazakhs. While it may not look like it, there is a distinct division between the power rankers on who is currently number one, between the Kazakhs, Uruguay, and the Iroquois, who most agree are the top three. While I am not one of the people who believe that Kazakhs are number one, I do see the reasoning why so many do. It boils down to one thing: options. As shown within the map above, the Kazakhs have six non-Great-Power invasion options, four of which have more than five cities. This is huge compared to Guay’s four (five if you count metis, it’s a little shaky to call that an optimal place to invade), only two of which being large enough to not call “completely a rump”. Additionally, out of the three powers, the Kazakhs are the most well-rounded, taking second place in most metrics when compared to the top three. The Kazakhs are still a dominant force on the cylinder, just not the clear cut best as they once were