Season 2 Power Rankings: Episode 1 – S2

Lacsirax: Heat up the poi, chuck on a lei and crank that Israel Kamakawiwoʻole to 11. Hawaii are number 1 baby, thanks to some blistering settles and incredible early wars that… wait… ah, I had the sheet upside down. Okay, looks like Hawaii is bottom and wowsers, one look at that map and it’s not hard to see why. Tahiti’s second settle was bravely placed on Big Island, which should have been Hawaii’s surest production base. That’s a forward settle that could completely decapitate Hawaii’s growth for the rest of the game, even if they do manage to reclaim the city at some point. Even if Hawaii built a new settler - which hasn’t happened yet - where would they put it? Kaua’i? No one lives on Kaua’i! Beyond the home islands, Hawaii’s only options for future settles will likely be eastward, either on Japan or the Chukchi’s doorsteps. Failing that, those one tile islands between Japan and the Philippines that always have ridiculously high population and nothing else going for them. Neither prospect exactly spells success - and as the world grows smaller, Hawaii look to be squeezed out of existence.

Reformer: Peru-Bolivia was one of the few civs to truly enjoy the spotlight in Part 1...in one of the worst ways possible. It is as if Peru-Bolivia made a bet with Gran Colombia over who can have the worst first part while still coming up on top. That is the only way I can explain this. Not only is Peru-Bolivia one of the few civs still on the cylinder without a second city, but their settlers seem interested only in the land directly between Paraguay and Mapuche. In an ironic stroke of luck, though, Paraguay and Mapuche have managed to settle in a fashion that leaves no legal spots immediately between the two civs, as seen on the image. All the same, this Peru-Bolivian will have to take the long journey back to greener pastures, but at least the already-weak civ won’t end up completely wasting a settler. Probably.

Jmangelo: Purea falls in the rankings this week for two reasons: Using its unique ability like we wanted it to, and not having a strong military.

Anyone who knows me knows that I ranked Tahiti relatively high early on, and I still have high hopes for them; however, when Hawaii has a far more concentrated military than you and you're on their front doorstep, you tend to cause issues for yourself.

Though the rankers generally agree that this hurts Hawaii more than it hurts Tahiti, and that the largest island in the Hawaiian island chain is the biggest grab in Oceania that Purea could hope for, it has still yet to be seen if it pays off. In the short term, it is a dangerous and risk-laden move; in the long term, the island could be a production center for the early Tahitians and it could pay dividends in conquering their main rival. Till then, they drop in the rankings ever so slightly, still teeming with the rest of the bottom feeders.

Random Strategy: The VOC are performing exactly as expected. They are still on 2 cities and look to be dwarfed and hemmed in by nearby Malacca, who have approximately twice as much stuff as they do already.  So yeah, like Hawaii, they not only have the problems of being an island civ, but also the problem of someone else breathing down their necks, albeit not being quite as stuck as Hawaii. To have the best chances of survival, they should probably grab a foothold on australia which will also serve as a naval shipyard. Alternatively, trying to race Malacca through Indonesia could also be an option if Malacca get lazy.

Knot: Look at that change in rank. From 11th place to 57th place. I mean, really, that’s our bad. We should have seen this coming. Clearly, we should have known that the civ generally presumed to be the best in South America would not settle any cities, declare a random war against Paraguay that might make them lose their only settler, and get forward settled by Jamaica, a civ that was presumed to be hot garbage and would never leave their starting island. How could we not have predicted this?

Can Gran Colombia come back from this horrendous start? Absolutely. Anything is possible this early on, but quite frankly, I’m not sure Gran Colombia deserves to.

Lacsirax: Good news - the Tuareg climb a rank! Bad news - they’re still solidly in the bottom 10, and now they’re behind their neighbours and surely soon-to-be rivals the Vandals. It’s not immediately obvious why, as neither side managed to squeeze out more than two cities, and the Tuareg’s second was a forward settle that could very well squeeze the Vandals out of expansion prospects. But that’s only half the picture - or rather, it’s only half the neighbours. Burkina Faso are already up to a whopping five cities, with their second, Bobo Dioulasso, placed right on the Tuareg’s doorstep. The law of equal exchange comes into play: as Burkina Faso rise in our estimations, so too must the Tuareg fall. It’s early doors still, and you’d be a fool to rule anyone out. But even superlative Saharan civs like the Songhai have a rough time in the CBR, and thus far the Tuareg are looking far more Algerian-esque.

Gragg:We knew Zanzibar versus Somalia would be an early rivalry, and Zanzibar is behind already.  It was always going to be an uphill battle for them with their awkward starting location, but Somalia is doing quite well statistically speaking, while Zanzibar is lacking a bit. Of course, stats mean very little at this stage of the game for the most part. This particular conflict will be an early one though, so Zanzibar needs to get it together. Their mainland settlement is precariously placed near Somalia’s capital, so position is not great either. It’s tough to find a silver lining for Zanzibar.

Jmangelo: The Manchu suffered the worst drop in this week's rankings! Falling from 7th all the way to 54th, their stock bot is tanking at a 47 place drop! Stocks aside, the reason the Manchu suffer so much in the rankings is because of another civilization's poor decision making: Japan.

The Manchu had a relatively meager second settle by settling towards Korea, which does not have any further expansion opportunities to the South; further, whilst Japan's third city directly north of Mukden is extremely far flung from the Japanese core and is not well defended at all, it effectively neuters the already crowded Manchu whilst Yuan grows unchallenged, and the Manchu would need to go into an extremely early war with Japan to undo this severe handicap.

Cloudberg: The Vandals climb slightly after part 1, but fail to get out of the 50s. The power rankers still collectively agree that North Africa is a terribly cursed starting region and that no one here is likely to do well, but we decided that the Vandals are a little less bad than we thought, mainly because the Tuareg aren’t doing well at all, nobody attacked them, and they have their UU. I mean, it’s a low bar, but when you’re down in this part of the rankings, you take what you can get.

Rosé: Jerusalem secured the holy land in the name of.... well they don’t have a religion yet so we can’t really tell. They will likely flounder, or just never really get past Anatolia and reclaim the non existent city of Byzantium, plus the (fix spelling) the Ptolemies seem to be overperforming. Most of the land that they can grab is mostly desert unfortunately, so even if they manage to swipe that handily I doubt they will be super strong. But hey, at least they can give us some spicy memes.

Knot: It was absolutely expected for Laos and Vietnam to go to war, but having it happen this early on might have been the worst thing that could have happened to Vietnam. They start this war frmly on their back foot. Laos not only has the better army by a pretty large margin, but they struck while Vietnam wasn’t particularly prepped for a war, since, you know, the game just started! The best that Vietnam can hope for is that the war stalemates outside their cities, but even then, that’s just taking time and resources away from Vietnam that they need in these critical early game turns. I’d guess any future trouble Vietnam falls into can be traced back to this war, provided Vietnam even has much of a future afterwards.

Altima: Not as bad a part 1 as it could have been for Petey. The Neutral Nation haven’t immediately closed them off from the rest of the continent, and they have at least settled both of their settlers unlike certain Bolivars I could name. We still can’t have high expectations for them, their stats are mediocre as hell and the cooler NN may correct their mistake next part, but Petey isn’t in immediate trouble.

Yet.

Rosé: Imagine being neighbors with two civs that were considered game winners at part 0 and your primary threat is fucking Jamaica. In all seriousness though Jamaica’s unforeseen success does spell a hell of a lot of trouble for the Olmecs, who honestly just sort of stagnated this part, settling a whopping two cities, and would’ve done so regardless of chad Jamaica. On some part like say, part 34 low activity is fine, but in early game, you want to grab up as much contestable land as you can, or else the power gap between you and your neighbors grow exponentially. With Jamaica, and to a lesser extent Rio Grande, forward settling the Olmecs, the Olmecs need to think fast if they want to stand the test of time.

Lacsirax: Ah yes. The Tongva. Where to start?

…

...

No wait, come back, I’ll think of something! Errrrrrrrr… well, they settled their second city. At the headlands of the Gulf of California, not a bad spot all things considered, not amazing or particularly interesting though.

…

Okay, I’m running low. Oh, the Chinook settled Nevada, which isn’t quite a forward settle but is kind of settling in their general direction, which is either good for the Tongva (if they were to take it) or bad (if they didn’t). Oh no, I suppose that’s not really a constructive point either, is it? Look, cut me some slack on this one, it’s Part 1 and I’m still warming up. They can’t all be riveting and informational deconstructions of every possible future scenario. Sometimes you see your assignments for the week, it reads Tongva, and all you can think is “weren’t they the Polynesian starters in CBRX1?”

Shaggy: Oh hey, Iceland went up 6 ranks! But wait, they only have 2 cities and meh production while not having a ton of space to go! Yep, that’s early game static civs for you. Semi-safe bets to rise a bit in the ranks through no fault of their own. The high hopes for other civs followed by their failures to live up to those hopes or, in the worst case, their immediate collapses usually lead to civs like Iceland floating around this segment of the ranks for a while. In actual game analysis though, Iceland doesn’t have any major threats at the moment, but also not too many major strengths. They aren’t expanding quick enough to capitalize on the slow start Sweden is having or to try to contest Wales without building up a large navy, and the lands they have settled and can easily settle are, frankly, pretty garbage. At least civs like the Chukchi don’t have to travel as far to get away from a chilly start.

LonelyRS:

From a certain point of view, this part was the best possible gift the as-of-yet most nondescript civ in South America could have been given. Paraguay setting themselves on fire and resolving to take the rest of the continent’s heartland down with them? Promising. Palmares taking the bait and heading off to fight an early war instead of crushing their northerly neighbor? Even better. And as for Gran Colombia, well, I’m still not entirely sure I believe what’s happening, so comical an act of divine intervention it appears to be.

So why the massive, crushing drop? Well, simple: The Marajoara, as it turns out, just don’t appear to be all that good. Two cities may be one more than either Gran Colombia or Peru-Bolivia can muster, but in any other part of the world that lackluster settlement count’s already become passe. Perhaps a lack of early settling could be forgiven if the cities Marajoara already had were any good, but a comically low production score coupled with an only marginally less laughable defense force portray the Marajoara as a group that’s dozed off and done nothing but build toward a likely unhelpful religion for half of the crucial early stages of the game. They’re not in imminent danger like some, and they’ve hardly been as quick to castrate themselves as even their own neighbors, but unless the Marajoara starts capitalizing on the opportunity that’s essentially been dropped in their laps, they’ll likely have to learn to play nice with their more self-destructive peers. They’ll be in the basement with them for quite a while, after all.

Shaggy: Nigeria is off to a middling start. An early religion is nice, but Nigeria’s doesn’t seem to have much in the way of bonuses to allow them to play catchup on infrastructure and military. They’ve also been a bit slow to settle so far. This wouldn’t be a massive problem if civs like Zaire and Burkina Faso weren’t positioned so closely and with more land settled or safe from getting snatched from under them. Nigeria is going to be playing at a disadvantage in Subsaharan Africa if they don’t get a move on.

Cloudberg: The Anangu fall 10 ranks due to Kulin’s confident forward settles and Tjilpi’s poor stats. It’s not out of the question yet that the Anangu could win Australia, but so far if we had to bet money we’d put it on the Kulin. The poor stats are to be expected however, given Tjilpi’s desert start, and it’s possible he could catch up as he settles more fertile coastal areas. His religion, Tjukurpa, is also set to be quite influential in the region as Anangu is near the front of the pack in faith generation. In short, they do have a few things going for them, but we’re not sure they’ll outweigh the negatives.

Reformer: Hejaz is another civ that performed roughly as expected, except in Hejaz’s case that means very poor performance. Besides military, Hejaz’s stats are abysmal, the most striking of these being their pop - Hejaz’s capital has only THREE pops! Their poor population is on equal standing with civs like Peru-Bolivia and Gran Colombia (and in case you missed it, these two civs have only one city), a comparison that does not bode well for the Arabian civ. Indeed, their only saving grace, besides their strong military, is the fact that the whole neighborhood is kind of unimpressive: Jerusalem similarly skims the bottom of the stats, and Kurdistan is not doing much better. Expect threats to Hejazi sovereignty to arrive from beyond the Red Sea, in the form of an ascendant Ptolemies or a dominant Somalia. The delayed nature of these threats gives Hejaz an opportunity to fix their terrible situation - time is a resource just like any other.

Gragg: Even in an episode with little action, the Teutonic Order flew under the radar. Interesting developments are happening to the North as Sweden falls short of early expectations and to the West as Germany militarizes early against the expansive Gauls. Where the Order fits into these early power struggles is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it is the Teutons that will take the brunt of Germany’s forces? If they stay out of an early war they have a bit of space they can carve out. They’re start has been decent but their position could be great if the nations to the North and West destabilize like I’m guessing. A lot of what-ifs keep them in the bottom half of the rankings for now. The opportunity is there but we’ll need to see a lot more activity.

Random Strategy: So it turns out that settling your second city in the snow is not a good strategy. Pokcha is the weakest 2nd city of the cylinder (outside of Gran Colombia and Peru-Bolivia's non-existent 2nd cities) which is a big problem because at this early stage, the 2nd city should be doing half of the entire work of the civ. In the midst of the other siberian civs, who are all getting high stats and hoping of one day becoming the big Siberian juggernaut, Great Perm sticks out like a sore thumb. They are a demonstration of how NOT to play a Siberia start. They will probably still end up with a lot of cities due to the amount of space they have, but it looks a lot more like an Evenk situation than a Sibir one.

Jmangelo: Laos moves slightly down in the rankings, though not by much. Arguably Laos should be in the top 30, but the rank changes of other more prominent civilizations push them out.

More importantly, their early war, whilst flashy and showy, could end up doing nothing. Most of the PRs find it dangerous to hype this early war between Laos and Vietnam, despite Vietnam's rank tanking (sorry Ho Train!). At the end of the day, this is mainly expected to be an early crippling of the Vietnamese to the chagrin of Laos, but not necessarily a major boon. But we have seen crazier things before...

LonelyRS:

Well, if it’s any consolation, Lawtiliwadlin sure isn’t the worst leader in his area. That honor belongs to Nurhaci, thirty turns into the game and already a stroke of misfortune away from being sealed away in the Korean peninsula. Though, by the looks of it, the Big L may just be in a hurry to join him. For, you see, the Chukchi have wisely sworn off the omnipresent tundra to their east and west and have instead elected to head south, lining up their cities in a straight line pointing directly to their grassy salvation. The good news: turns out, warmer climes are only about one city down. The bad: reaching them’s probably put them in direct conflict with Japan, a Japanese settler just one island further down from theirs and likely already shaking their fist and nursing the precursor to nationalist feelings as they face this settler from the frozen north.

Normally, rushing to set up a border with a nation your equal this early on is risky business. And the same may well be true here, given how unfavorably most rankers look on the Chukchi’s future prospects. But it’s hardly as if they risk leaving their flank exposed, alone in the north as they are, and hey: if this works, they’ll have a pretty large chunk of the world under their control, and should be able to mostly stay out of the drama to their south. There’s good odds we’re looking at the second coming of the Inuit or the Haida in these plucky underdogs from the tundra, a puncher’s chance away from striding into the Shusho Kantei. And if they aren’t? Well, at least we’ll remember them, which is more than we thought we’d be able to say when this game began.

Rosé: Namibia isn’t exactly looking too hot right now, and it isn’t exactly all their own fault. Lesotho just so happened to cover all its bases properly this time around. Admittedly they didn’t as bad as they could’ve, but that’s because Lesotho didn’t do as good as they could’ve. However there lies the fundamental problem, Namibia’s success is reliant on Lesotho failing. This is a statement that no civ wants to hear as you are essentially banking on another losing, and yourself doing good, rather than just the latter.

Msurdej: Wales got some big risks this week. With a settler in Normandy, Llywelyn is trying to establish a beachhold in mainland Europe. This might piss off Vercingetorix however, and the Welsh may be thrown back into the English Channel. Worse still, Iceland has a settler in Scotland, hoping to invade the islands much like they did in the Mk 2. Wales has some chance to make some plays, but the next few parts could mean the difference between being England and being the Manx.

Cloudberg: The consensus on the Two Sicilies so far is that nothing about their situation has fundamentally changed. Their second city is well-placed to be sure, but I think we all sort of expected they would get that area anyway. Now we’re just waiting for them to build a navy and attack the Vandals, which I think is what we all hope and expect they will do, but until they actually do it it’s not possible to justify putting them in the top half.

Shaggy: I’ll start off with what everyone is probably thinking. $JAM TO THE MOOOOOON!!!!! Marcus Garvey is coming out of the gate screaming down into South America. Taking full advantage of Gran Colombia’s lack of settling, Jamaica has not one, but two (!) forward settles on them on the northern coast of the continent. Not only that, but Jamaica is also solidifying their core territory by settling more of the Caribbean. Throwing another settler down around Panama way would ossify Jamaica, of all civs, as the keymaster of the New World continents. I don’t expect their forward settles to get invaded by Gran Colombia, as they seem distracted with the dream of throwing an army into the Amazon to die. So unless the Olmecs get peeved at Central American lands being snatched from underneath them, Jamaica has the potential to lock down these holdings and become a regional power. Now if only coastal tiles had better production in the early game… Also, full disclosure, I put Jamaica somewhere in the top 15.

Rosé: Kosovo honestly did nothing major of note, except fail to settle Byzantium. In fact, Kosovo in our own world has been much more interesting today as a groundbreaking election has occurred there. The opposition party has won with over 40 percent of the vote, obliterating all other parties in the nation, and is considered a huge boon for leftism and the anti-establishment movement in the nation. Kinda neat, at least compared to the slugfest which was the mk. II Kosovo.

Jmangelo: Somalia rises in the ranks due to their decent Cultural Output, their okay military, and because of their godawful neighbours.

Somalia generally didn't do all that well on its own, but the Ptolemies settled far and away from them; thus, Somalia has more room to settle North and West.

Zanzibar had the worst second city settle I have ever seen, settling only two tiles away from its capital directly on the coast, effectively neutering their own capital's growth as well as the entire civilization's relative expansion rate. And Zanzibar was Somalia's closest neighbour.

Hejaz, right across in the Arabian peninsula, DID try to break out of the Red Sea with a prominent coastal settle, but Somalia just weakened them with a settle just a few tiles East on the Horn of Africa to prevent any early expansion outwards. Now Hejaz has to settle yet ANOTHER city further east just to have a presence in the Indian Ocean!

 Honestly, things are looking up for Barre...

LonelyRS:

Bhutan was able to stay mostly free from the spotlight’s eye this part. Given what in all likelihood will be a turtling strategy from them, expect more of that invisibility in the parts to come. What with their oddly peaceful nature in open defiance of this game of aggression, and their ranged, defensive, religious uniques, success for them will likely be defined less by their chances of achieving world domination and more by their chances of surviving to see one of their fellow combatants claim such. And by that metric, this part was incredibly successful. Three cities in a competitive subcontinent would be newsworthy enough on its own, but combine that with encouraging levels of production at the game’s dawn that should help immediately facilitate the creation of a ranged carpet that will be utter hell to destroy, and Bhutan’s less sketched out the plans for their masterpiece to come so much as they’ve set down a foundation, hired a contractor, and chosen the particular shade of red they want the bedrooms to be.

But turtling is hardly entertaining to see in action, so expect more excitement and coverage of Bhutan to come from their more atypical deviations from their master plan, such as their flowing into unsettled land at Laos’ back like water or their baffling inability to get a religion despite what should be an incredibly helpful pantheon. Expect the civs around them to take notice of these deviations, too, and perhaps launch bold invasions of the mountain-dwellers to figure out just what is going on in the Druk Gyalpo’s demesne. Just don’t expect them to have much success. Few civilizations do, when faced with a hail of arrows.

Knot: Hey Karl? Buddy? You doin ok? For having a reputation of being the terror of the north and top dog in Europe, you look surprisingly mediocre. Two cities compared to most peoples three, six techs compared to the 7-10 of your neighbors across the pond, and nine production. Nine. That’s less than Hawaii. I don’t wanna startle you dude, but Finland is looking pretty comparable to you right now, and we were expecting you to crush them right out of the gate. I don’t know what you’re doing. You can definitely pull yourself together, get that third city settled, and start building up a production core, but you do need to get on that… like… now.

Altima: Mannerheim has had a stroke of good fortune in these early turns- his biggest existential danger apparently forgot to play the game. The Kitty of the North is stuck in the two-city club with horrible production, while Mannerheim has at least gotten some settles out (even if he’s not in much better straights production-wise). He’s not out of the woods yet, of course- the game is young and Carolinus may come back to his senses, while the Teutons are settling his way and may pose a problem later. Still, the winds of fortune are at Finland’s back for now.

Shaggy: Tamar woke up one day and thought to herself “I’m going to build a glorious empire, from sea to shining sea!” And lo and behold, she has. Granted, they’re the Black and Caspian Seas, but damn did she manifest her destiny right quick. Georgia seems to be setting themselves up well for a relatively defendable core. I don’t think they really have to worry about the USSR or Great Perm eyeing them. Rather, it seems as though Kurdistan is going to be their primary rival for the early game. Whether Jerusalem or Georgia is a tastier target for the Kurds is ultimately up to them, but if it comes to blows with Georgia, Tamar will be ready. Judging from the lack of military buildup for Georgia, though, it seems as though they are committed to the defensive game for now and won’t go rogue with a tear through the Middle East.

Msurdej: Small ‘Guay did what Small ‘Guay was thought to do: get involved in lots of denouncements and wars. Surprisingly though, Lopez was the target of the wars, not the aggressor. With a decent military at their disposal, and Bolivar quite a ways away, Paraguay would only have to deal with Palmares. Of course, that is assuming nobody else joins the battle, and knowing the way war happens in the cylinder, Lopez could soon have most of South America on their case.

Msurdej: Holding somewhat close near their Part 0 ranking, Japan only falls a few spots.While they had a solid showing, there was a slight problem. One one hand, they managed to get a mainland settlement,but that mainland settlement is quite a ways in, closer to the Manchu and Yuan than Kakuei’s other cities. This could be an easy city capture against Japan, but considering the two are at war, they have a small bit of time to reinforce Manchuria, and establish a proper foothold on the mainland.

Jmangelo: Zumbi's Quilombo dos Palmares did not get seen TOO much this episode, but from what we did see, they shouldn't be messed with. Aside from nearly all the other contenders in South America being seen as inadequate or weak on Episode 1 to some degree, Palmares already has an impressive early military comprised almost entirely of their Capoierista UU. Though their lifespan on the BR is quite limited, it is important to note that they are extremely useful RIGHT NOW whilst the Amazon Jungle still encompasses the majority of the surrounding regions. Unlike Gran Colombia, they are relatively close to their Paraguayan competitors that they are at war with, so they also have a good shot at using their decent military to make some gains by next episode!

If Palmares play their cards right, I expect them to be a real contender capable of holding onto the South American tradition for excellence in Battle Royales. Four ranks for Palmares!

Random Strategy: Cleopatra had a great start, by claiming a large portion of north africa. The second settler will likely head up the Nile into the empty heart of Africa, where there is a ton of space. I will note that Naukatis was settled 1 tile away from the sea, which means it won't be able to build boats. However, it makes it very good at defending from potential west-mediterranean naval power, since it can attack units in the sea without being attacked back. More importantly, it blocks the Vandals and Tuaregs from expanding in this direction if they defend it properly.

Skies: A quiet part for the Kurds, as they drop down a few spots thanks to their neighbours being, well, competent.* The PR team still has faith in them however, even with Georgia closing the gap hard. They’re remarkably high up for a civ with two cities and no settlers out, but given that their map position hasn’t changed, it’s not unforeseeable that they’ll be more than fine despite the slow start. Even if Baldy’s Jerusalem forward settled them. Their real achievement though, was growing to be 9th in military- hopefully a sign of things to come.

*Editor’s note: In what fucking universe? Not this one lmao

Altima: The most notable part to me of the Mississippi's early game thus far is where they’re third settler is going- Tuskaloosa stands to cut off Rosillo’s access to the Midwest depending on where he plops the settler. If he swings it, that should significantly curtail the prospects for his most swingy neighbor, saving him quite a bit of heartache in the future.

Vihreaa:

The Chola not only maintain a fairly high rank but improve upon it in the first part. With an India that is less crowded than we’ve seen before, Chola is well positioned to become a strong power in the region. With Bhutan and Punjab looking to be at each other's throats, Chola could take advantage of that and cement their influence in the region. Regardless of this, though, we can only hope that they don’t peter out like other Indian powers have in the past (I’m looking at you Maratha) and only settle the subcontinent and do nothing else for the rest of the game. With any luck, we could see a continental or even world power come out of the Indian subcontinent, which would be a first for the Civ Battle Royale.

LonelyRS:

If you’re concerned over the validity of the rankings after seeing an early frontrunner seemingly get panic-dropped a dozen and a half places after an entirely nondescript outing, rest assured that there’s a good reason for Zaire’s fall. Well, somewhat. The casual observer’d be forgiven for thinking Mobutu’s opening moves were emblematic of just the kind of bold nature that tends to win these games, his setting up the ludicrously defensive outpost of Lubumbashi a hard limiter on Nigeria’s southern expansion and a settler roaming amok in the African heartland poised to make Zaire the focal point on which the continent turns.

But then, the casual observer wouldn’t have access to the internal details of how the young civilization ticks, and what little we see of those paints a very different picture of Zaire’s prospects. Fourteen production is downright pedestrian even this early on, and a bottom fifteen military score ensures that, should Nigeria’s comparatively massive army be brought to bear, Zaire’s going to need every defensive blessing their second city has given them. No doubt some of these knocks can be attributed to Zaire’s jungle start, but these travails Mobutu will no doubt have to go through to realize his potential look less and less affordable by the second as Burkina Faso to the north so quickly seizes the mantle of continental superpower with the ease and grace of a civ used to moving their units two tiles a turn rather than just one.

To say Zaire are worth counting out on the basis of notoriously unreliable starting statistics alone would be foolish, but what with how rapidly the stakes have heated up in the continent, dropping them a few places in the competitive upper echelons is justified. Partially so, at least.

Rosé: The Gauls right now are tricky to classify. On one hand they are surely no rump, they have good stats and they made some great expansion moves this part. On the other hand, they are sandwiched between the two world ending abominations of Spain and Germany. Unlike several of the civs below it however, they can clearly make themselves a force to be reckoned. The main reason for the Gaul's rise in rankings was their forward settling of the welsh. This was a great move because it prevents a hypothetical third power from gaining easy access to them, and the Gauls could even wipe out the Welsh if they play their cards right.

Knot: In a part of underdogs overpreforming and superstars underperforming, the Three Affiliated Tribes, or TAT, are doing about as well as we expected. They settled well, have some good production, and look poised to create a decent core across eastern Canada. The Dene look surprisingly scary with their four cities and Chinook matching TAT in their stats might be cause for concern, but with the Mississippi, Rio Grande, and even the Neutrals having slower starts than expected, the odds for TAT kinda balance out. I personally still expect the continent to be minus Four Bears pretty soon, but they’re chugging along fine at the moment.

Altima: An alright part one for the non-denominational Yuan, who open the part with alright stats for a two-citier and a foe crippled by a combination of an early war and a really ballsy settle from Japan. While the war is unlikely to go anywhere—even humans have trouble dealing with hilled, walled cities using only warriors and archers—it does keep their nearest neighbor fenced in and unable to expand, granting vanilla Yuan a chance to do so themselves. They do need to settle some more though- again, it ain’t likely they’ll take their third city by force here, and right now, Japan stands to settle more of China than either of the feuding rivals.

Cloudberg: The Neutral Nation plummets out of the top 10 this episode after an extremely lackluster performance right out of the gate. They still have a lot of room to expand, which is why they’re so high, but so far they aren’t using it. They’re still on two cities and don’t have any additional settlers that we can see, and in the stats they’re lackluster at best. In raw power New Netherland is probably equal to them. If the Neutral Nation continues to be so apathetic, I wouldn’t be surprised if they continue slowly dropping over the next several episodes.

Vihreaa:

Rio Grande drops out of the top 10 after Part 1 of the royale, dropping from 9th to 16th. Though they have already settled 3 cities, their lack of military is a source of concern to many ranking them this week. All is not lost though, with 16th still being a strong ranking overall in the cylinder. With almost all of the eastern United States being unsettled, Rio Grande could conceivably carve out a solid area to be their core, which they could then later expand, swallowing up smaller nations.

Cloudberg: Riding a wave of optimism, Thanadelthur has found herself catapulted (just barely) into the top 15. The controversy around where to rank the Dene is intense, with different rankers putting them as high as 4th and as low as 47th. The difference stems from whether you think the Dene are doomed by their history of being extremely passive and then getting rolled in the renaissance/industrial eras, or if you rank purely based on their current position. By stats alone, the Dene are in the top 10. They’re one of only five civs with four or more cities and they have a sizeable army that could easily take a couple cities off the Three Affiliated Tribes. The problem is that historically their declare war bias has been incredibly low, so a lot of rankers think that even if they build a solid army and a lot of cities, they’ll just pull a Yakutia and do nothing until the endgame. In which case it’s not all that unlikely that they end up in 15th place overall. You can see where I probably ranked them...

Vihreaa:

The Chinook impressed with their performance this week, at least according to the Power Rankers. Rising 8 ranks to 14th place, the Chinook are looking to at least be a regional power in North America. Settling 3 cities by the end of part 1, the Chinook, if they play their cards right, could take advantage of their city surplus over their neighbors to further grow their empire. With the Chinook being a personal favorite of mine this season, I hope for them to perform well, and hopefully become a major power in North America in the coming parts.

Rosé: I honestly wanted civ to do really well, just cause of all of the history behind it, it’s meme potential, and just that I like it’s AI. Unfortunately I didn’t have super high hopes at first, but thankfully I’ve been proven wrong. Now granted, I have the highest Taiping ranking so take what I say with a grain of salt, however I honestly think Taiping has a solid chance to be the China civ of this game. Through both forward settling Vietnam in the south and Manchu and Yuan eating each other alive in the north, Taiping has nigh free range to “whatever the damn hell they please” in China and stay a prominent power for a really long time.

Altima: The USSR leads with a quiet, reasonably effectual part-1, joining the three-city club with their neighbors, and settling reasonably alright cities at that (unlike certain Perms I could name). Nothing super notable has happened to them yet; the Eastern European-Western Asian theatre is still sparse enough that everyone gets to be a happy, peaceful neighbor without too much issue, and the USSR stands to capitalize quite a bit on that space should Lenin keep up the settling.

Skies: Of our two Australian civs, our early rankings had Kulin coming out on top and after Part 1 that seems justified. Grabbing the Temple of Artemis for a growth boost and ranged unit spam, they have comfortably outexpanded, outproduced and out-pretty-much-everything’d the Anangu. With Tahiti potentially also feeding cities to anyone who wants to go out and take them, Kulin might stay this end of the rankings for quite a while. That does still require taking the whole of Australia, but hey, now’s the time to dream big right?

Random Strategy: If you saw the stats at the end of the part, you know why Malacca has moved up 39 spaces (!) to the top 10. That's right: they have DOUBLE the food of every other civ in the game right now. And in this early game, food means population which means production, science, culture, more food and settlers. And they did it without any special bonuses to food: just regular good play. We believe that their high trade route bias has caused them to build food trade routes between their own cities, a powerful move commonly used by human players but rarely by the AI. The reason they are not higher is that they are still an island civ and do have to make landfall at some point which will be difficult. The fact that Vietnam and Laos are already fighting through jungle will help since both will be weaker for it. Meanwhile Malacca's main rival, the VOC, are... existing I guess? They're not scary at any rate.

Reformer: Though Southern Africa was scantly seen in the first part, Lesotho has roughly performed as expected. Right away, Lesotho has forward-settled the slower Namibia not once, but twice, pointing a dagger directly at Namibia’s heart. A somewhat blunt dagger for now due to Lesotho’s currently rather average stats, but a dagger all the same. The ball is now in Namibia’s court: Either take advantage of the brief window where Lesotho is vulnerable on account of little military, or risk getting left in the dust for good. Lesotho’s odds are great here, and history has shown that the starting region offers a fairly safe early game that can be snowballed to a strong midgame and a competitive late game.

Shaggy: The Mapuche come out of our first episode of the season in a pretty enviable position out of the South American civs. They aren’t in an early war with Paraguay (or in the case of Paraguay, are Paraguay), they haven’t been forward settled, and they’ve effectively zoned off future settlement locations from other civs for the time being. This is good as their production output is middling at the moment and, though they have a solid number of techs now, their progression in science might start looking like an uphill battle should they run into enough resistance. All in all though, it’s a good time to be a Mapuche fan.

Reformer: Punjab is another civ that is coasting on expectations for now, as they had a quiet part. India as a whole was quiet for the first 30 turns, but already it is obvious that these civs won’t be the best of friends: Punjab has opted to settle directly next to Bhutan’s second city, while Chola’s third city is similarly pointed directly at Punjab. Bhutan, clearly feeling like a threeway is too limiting, has settled towards Laos and Vietnam instead, practically letting Chola off the hook. Though Chola’s position being good is bad news for Punjab, Bhutan’s decision to annoy the SEAsian civs is a decision which may undermine Bhutan’s position in the future. Good news for Punjab, no doubt - but if Laos and Vietnam tire each other out, Bhutan may have a feast to the east, and at that point, Punjab may struggle to make gains in a hypothetical war.

Gragg: Sure, Uzbekistan didn’t make any huge exciting moves in the first episode. Honestly, anyone exciting this episode is probably dropping. Instead, Uzbekistan retained all the same advantages that caused them to be ranked highly to begin with. Huge amounts of space, good ai-game reputation, and decent uniques. Until one of their neighbors becomes a threat or their space is gone, I expect them to remain high in these rankings.

Gragg: Their rank might give you the impression that we’re confident in Germany. While they have lived up to their reputation so far, their neighbors have been exceeding expectations. The Gauls have two settlers out right now and Spain has gotten one of the quickest starts on the cylinder. Still, Germany is still the favorite to come out on top in the region. I expect Europe to be one of the more interesting regions to watch over the next few episodes though.

Random Strategy: A strong start for this season's replacement for the Moors. They have 4 cities already and a good production pantheon which has put them first in production. The problem is that their two closest neighbours: the Gauls and Wales, also got great starts (3rd and 10th place overall in my stats) so conquering out through Europe will be very tricky. The better option would be to imitate the Moors and go for Africa, where the Vandals and Tuaregs both got fairly slow starts.

Msurdej: Kolchak and his Provisional All-Russian Government have made some good moves on this part. They’ve settled two cities in addition to their capital, and have a fourth on the way. They also managed to build The Great Library, giving them a tech edge to rival even the island civs. And with no enemies nearby, the PARG have a solid chance to build themselves into a strong empire.

Lacsirax: Everyone’s favourite khatun might have slipped from the top spot this week, but it’s no indictment on the start she’s had. Three cities in a decent position are all well and good, but what’s very interesting is what’s happened around her: the Uzbeks and PARG both settle two cities in the opposite direction from Northern Yuan, while the Southern Yuan and the Manchu get bogged down squabbling with each other. Japan also drops a free city down in the Amur Basin for whichever horseman finds it first, though it’s perhaps more likely to go to the two lovebirds in Manchuria. The point stands that if the Northern Yuan had a roomy start to begin with, their available space is now a veritable palace.With a decent top 10 production stat the cherry on top, there’s no reason to doubt Mandukhai’s magnificent prospects just yet. But if only they’d had as incredible a start as...

Vihreaa:

Burkina Faso rises 23 spots to the top of the power rankings, with an impressive 5 cities already settled. With their surrounding neighbors underperforming, this could be the first time we see the biggest power out of Africa hailing from Western Africa, rather than Southern Africa, as we have seen in every other iteration of the royale. With the right plays, BF could carve out all of Western Africa before any other nation on the continent is able to amass nearly that much power. As it looks now, BF is well positioned to be a strong contender for this game, but anything is still possible.