Power Rankings: Episode 12 – S2

Knot:

Thus, the Tuareg finally fall, and honestly not being one of the first few civs to die, but still dying early is about what they deserve. The Tuareg didn’t play horrendously. They settled ok early on, they were a little bit strategic about how they built their “empire” and they tried to make friends. They weren’t a Somalia or Neutral level civ. They played fine, but at the same time, they didn’t play spectacularly, and they were already hamstrung by their position. It wasn’t gonna take much to outdo their terrible Saharan starting location. A surprisingly good Vandals + Burkina Faso start was especially gonna crush them. Thus, they were never meant to do good things. They were always gonna be kinda “eh”, and they were “eh”, but they weren’t worse than that! Let’s celebrate this achievement at least!

Altima:

I’ve hated our Bolivar from P1. I’ve bemoaned his recovery from his atrocious start every step of the way, rated him lower than he strictly deserved out of spite, and just generally wished a horrible lung infection upon him. But even so, watching a man go from a potential Power to a city state, trapped in the very same city he condemned another man in, well, the dramatic ho in me can’t help but nod solemnly at that. It's unlikely either the Marajoara or Mapuche will finish the job imminently (a single coastal tile does not make for an easy invasion), but regardless, Bolivar’s dreams of liberation are dead, and one day soon, he will be too.

Random Strategy:Well it was inevitable that it would happen some day. A mainland power finally noticed a free capital in the middle of the ocean and grabbed it. Fortunately, the 1 settler Hawaii built this game is paying off, as the colony of Hilo was too far out of the way to be captured too. What's even more amazing is that Hawaii is now next to an enemy in exactly the same situation:  Makasser looks like it will soon be the last refuge of the VOC and is right next door! Can Hawaii capture a city this game? Based on previous experience with Fa'a'a: probably not.

Msurdej:  Oh man oh Yuan. What had started as another round of Khanflict has turned into a massive partitioning. With most of its neighbors fighting against them, Kublai Khan has been reduced to a paltry three cities. It’s likely they’ll be destroyed in the next part, so sell now stonk holders, or face the wrath of elimination!

Vihreaa

Our good Eastern European friends in the Teutonic Order live another part, growing used to their rump status. Not a lot going on this part, with their only wars being with PARG and Hawaii, a civ that is two entire empires away and another rumpified state. They’ve survived so far as a rump states, and even gained 2 ranks this part from just chilling. Only time will tell how far they can be carried up the ranks.

Knot:

Well, Tuareg are finally dead, so I guess Jerusalem has picked of the mantle of “civ that should be dead but is someone inexplicably surviving.” Freaking Kurdistan. It’s two cities! They aren’t even mountain defended! How hard can this possibly be?

Altima

Terrible things happened to Gran Colombia and so Namibia rises one point. They’re still in instant death radius, still on the runt pile, but they sit higher on it than one more person than before. Progress!

Knot:

Ok, there is a very slim chance that the Neutrals can snag a New Netherlands city if Peter’s luck continues to be horrendous, and I really want this to be the start of a rising Phoenix moment for the Neutrals where they suddenly start playing incredibly competently, steal like three cities, and just live on as a functional modern age civ chugging along in a world of future tech juggernauts. Wouldn’t that be fun? I think that’d be fun.

Knot:

Oh, oh dear. The VOC party train is finally coming to an end, and it is not pretty. Lost three major cities to Chola, and the war still isn’t over yet. On the bright side, at least it’s ending in a unique way. I think most predicted a Malaccan victory over VOC, but Chola bursting onto the scene with a big navy to get a piece of the pacific front? Would seem ambitious last part, would seem downright silly two parts ago. If nothing else, VOC’s conqueror is an interesting one!

Altima:

The Olmecs actually rise a bit this part, as the failure of other more relevant civs (notably including one of their long-time rivals the Gran Colombians) collaterally makes them look better by comparison. They’re still absolutely hosed the second one of these guys with boats remembers they exist, mind, but if they should survive past the death of Bolivar, I’m honestly willing to record that as a W in their book.

Random Strategy:

Like everyone else around these ranks, Anangu move up 4 spaces as a result of VOC, Yuan, Hawaii and Gran Colombia dropping to the bottom. And that's really all there is to it. I will also remark on the Anangu unlocking the best naval tech of the game, navigation, before the Vandals and Kulin did. This is more of a dig at the Vandals and Kulin than a sign of success by the Anangu because now is a perfectly reasonable time for a civ that's been a rump the whole game to be unlocking navigation. What's more, the Anangu have no coastal cities so the tech is useless for them.

Lacsirax:

Things couldn’t really be going worse for the New Dutch right now. Decimated by a nation from a completely different continent to the extent that the Vandals now have more cities on the western side of the Atlantic than the east. Losing every single coastal city you own except for one vulnerable city on Cuba, where Stuyvesant himself has relocated. And now, at war with Rio Grande, a foe that would be completely unassailable even if New Netherland still had an army. More on that later. The smidgen of good news here is that Rosillo hasn’t really seen fit to assign many troops to the attack on their disenfranchised neighbour. Still, what doubt there was last episode is erased - New Netherland are now doomed to runt status, and might not even outlast perennial rivals and identical acronyms the Neutral Nation.

Altima

Objectively, the situation has only gotten worse for Tahiti. Their pathetic Hawaiian neighbors have been replaced by terrifying Chukchi neighbors. Practically, the difference isn’t that huge honestly. They’re hosed either way, by Kulin or by Chukchi, death is just a little bit closer now. In a way, one could argue its an upgrade- aesthetically, as in. I do like the contrast of the cold pale blue against their pink much more than the yellow on pink thing we had going on. I think that chromatic upgrade (and you know, the utter collapse of people around them) more than justifies a five rank rise.

Vihreaa

Laos, you’ve outdone yourself! In a stellar peace deal with the Chola, you’ve managed to give away 3 of your non-coastal cities to a civ that’s only redeeming quality is it’s navy. Well done. Maybe the AI controlling Laos is just trying to get his game over with already, pizza rolls are almost ready, you see.

Knot:

Think about all the things that happened with Chola this part. Threatening Laos out of half their empire, taking VOC cities left and right, generally just being a total beast, and then think about Hejaz… just sitting there… watching this massive monster growing with cities right next to them…. probably praying their death is quick and painless. Should we pity them, or demand blood faster?

Random Strategy:

Giving away Barcelona to Germany seems like a poor move. However, consider this: Barcelona is the border city between Spain and the Gauls, so by giving it away, the Gauls cannot enter Iberia except by sea. Moreover, the Gauls hate boats which means the Spanish navy is of far superior quality to the Gaulish navy (if a little lacking is quantity). So the Gauls just won't be able to kill off Spain very easily at all. Their best option was to use their land army to blitz through Barcelona and into the core, but now that option is gone so they'll have to embark into the ocean where they can be sunk. A second point I'd like to bring up is that the German navy IS scary, with industrial cruisers and ironclads, and very soon subs. If the war had continued, Germany could have defeated the Spanish navy and conquered everything they own, so peace with them is definitely worth it.

Cloudberg:

Despite losing a city, Iceland rises five ranks this episode, for several reasons. First off, we had already written off that city as dead, so no one was surprised enough by its loss to drop them. Second, Mississippi has run out of easily accessible Icelandic cities, so they probably are done fighting, except for some skirmishes. And third, several civs above Iceland choked hard this episode (looking at you, Kublai...). So all that adds up to Iceland rising. Just don’t forget that like anyone in this part of the rankings, a single war declaration could still lead to their utter collapse.

Lacsirax:

Palmares haven’t been fun to talk about for a long time. Even this episode, as they lose a frontier city to the Mapuche, it’s hard to muster up much interest - of all civs taking up space on the CBRX2 Map, it’s hard to think of one that’s left such little impact on the game and its lore. Their bolder moments have been outshone - founding a city deep in Mapuche territory was a mere carbon copy of the move Peru-Bolivia had made several centuries prior, while losing their capital to a transatlantic nation was soon forgotten in the wake of the Vandals’ subsequent evisceration of New Netherland. Unfortunately, they may well be here for some time to come - only the Marajoara boast an army advanced enough to really break through their homeland defences, and they seem far more occupied by the Caribbean currently. I only hope I don’t get assigned to write about them another week!

Altima

Well, Chinook has Naayaxor for now, but as a city with naval access and with Tongva ground superiority, it’s absolutely gonna flip back before long. Still, it’s likely this war ends with no real losses for the Chinook, barring a potential future problem of a Malaccan naval force advancing into their seaspace. That fleet could just suicide itself against Chinook (the city). Or it could capture it. Either is perfectly possible, but the combination of having taken some progress in this war and a number of other civs dropping gives them +6 ranks.

We’ll see how many they still hold by the end of next part.

Doom:

The line finally breaks as Perm opens its borders to Uzbekistan, giving them actual land access to Georgia. Georgia has enjoyed a long run thanks to the relative peacefulness of the USSR and Perm but that may be coming to an end. While they haven't done much harm yet, Georgia lags very far behind Uzbekistan in basically everything so the battle could easily become a rout. The longer Tamar can keep flipping Sukhumi the better since her only hope is that Karimov gets bored and doesn't ask for much in the peace deal.

Msurdej:  

Deep in the mountains, Bhutan has a lot going on...wait no, that was last week. The war with Taiping went nowhere, as does their war with Chola, who seem more interested in Indochina than Bhutan. The big losses to Wangchuck’s empire seem to be from citadels, as Taiping and Punjab seem to have taken bites out of Bhutan. But otherwise, no news is good news for the boys and girls of Bhutan.

Vihreaa

Zanzibar now claims the title as weakest African civ, with the Tuareg being eliminated. Unfortunately being on a continent with some of the strongest civs in the game, Zanzibar doesn’t have any real path to victory. With a strong ocean empire, they strike me akin to the Venice of Africa. Entertaining to look at, maybe, but no real power to back them up.

Doom:

Japan hold their rank this part. All things considered it could be worse. They haven't picked up any of the scraps from Yuan so far but it's not inconceivable for them to pick up a city. Surprisingly, the Osaka exclave also survived. Japan's prospects remain dark though. With the demise of Yuan, Northern Yuan and Taiping are much stronger, leaving Japan as the weak link of the area. Their best chance would be to wait for the collapse of a neighbour at the hands of better civs and try to sweep in last minute but I doubt they can project enough power, even for that.

Altima

Great Perm has one fifth the military and one third the productive capacity of PARG. The problem is that PARG only has an eight tech lead over Perm, and PARG aren’t at Ural invalidating techs yet. Meanwhile, the USSR seems uninterested in aggressing into Perm. Thus, despite everything, Perm rises.

Altima

Tongva continues to grind against the mountainous strongholds of the Chinook, the mountains doing as much to hold the Tongva back as their anemic military. Still, they’re holding well against the Tongva, and this war will probably end in a white peace. Probably. Malacca has actually deployed a naval force to this front, and while they probably won’t take anything, much less take it on a permanent basis, the threat exists.

Cloudberg:

Kurdistan has failed to even put a single scratch on Jerusalem. Like, come on, it’s JERUSALEM! How hard can it be? Not a great sign for the future if Barzani can’t even take on his weakest neighbor.

Msurdej:  I searched high and low for something interesting to say about Sweden, but they were a no show for, oh no wait. They got 1 slide. That mostly talked about Germany...Yeah, I'm not going to lie, Karl XII has been reaching new levels of disappointing this game, and I for one, want to see less catboy, and more lion.

Altima

Good news for Finland: In adopting Autocracy, they have given themselves better diplomatic footing with their strongest neighbor. Further, they’ve got more troops on ground in that potential theater should things still go hot. They still do not have a path to victory, but hey, progress is progress.

Altima

It’s been a good part for Kosovo, in that it was a part where nothing happened to Kosovo. None of their cities got flipped into oblivion, none of their more powerful neighbors launched a failed war against them that still cost them precious production and manpower, just a nothingburger of a part. Ibrahim will take it.

Altima

As chaos engulfs South America, Lopez stays still. The biggest problem he has in that regard is space- even an AI engineered to be a blood psychopath still (generally) prefers not to go to war without notable army size advantages, and Lopez has a pretty small land size and thus small army. His forces are roughly comparable to that of his weakest neighbor, the Palmares, and utterly dwarfed by the Mapuche. He could try for the “tech up and eat the weaker power” option, but I think the more interesting option is, depending on how the war between the Mapuche and Marajoara goes, to try to poach some turf off the Mapuche- if Marajoara successfully pulls a double humiliation, that may leave the Mapuche weak enough to take on, which could give Lopez a real fighting chance. There’s a lot of “maybes” in there, but it’s what Lopez’s got.

Altima

Well, on the one hand, Taiping did still gain some ground against the hated Yuan menace. On the other hand, they were denied their ultimate glory at the hands of the Purple Incompetant. Now, given time, they may be able to rectify this- they are scientifically and militarily stronger than Not Dying Yuan. It wouldn’t take that much teching up to get sufficiently ahead of Purple Yuan. They may well not have that time, however- Malacca gets stronger with every part, after all.

Altima

Well this could be going worse. As terrible as this looks, and it is pretty bad, the cities lost to Nigeria were all garbage Saharan cities that mostly existed to secure borders and look pretty. Turns out cities with no terrain defense aren’t good at the first of those. Can’t imagine they were much better at the second. The tighter lines at the Nile may well still hold; if nothing else, the production gap is insignificant, favoring Cleo. Still, a looming problem hangs overhead (literally)- Awolowo has artillery, and Cleo doesn’t. If the line collapses, it will be for that reason- Nigeria can just bomb Egypt into submission and swing a cavalier in to yoink, and even if the Nile core becomes a flipfest for this, it becomes a flipfest with Nigerian initiative, which Cleo cannot afford.

Msurdej:

Today marks another day of triumph for Burkina Faso, as they finally wipe the Tuareg. But it’s a long way back up to the Top 20 they were in a few parts ago, let alone the number 1 seat they clinched in Part 1. And now, with a souped up Nigeria on one side, and the ever growing Vandals on the other, Burkina Faso has very few options in terms of civs to attack. And with the blood of the Tuareg on their hands, Sankara might find himself on the receiving end of a war of vengeance.

Breakthrough - thanks to a super alliance with Taiping and Japan, Northern Yuan finally settle the debate of Best Yuan, taking the lion’s share of the divided lands of Kublai Khan, including the prize of a capital. It’s a strong possibility it’s too little, too late, with Mandukhai’s low-pop empire unable to produce production or research levels to keep up with other Asian powers. One cheap capital this late in the game is unlikely to turn those tables upside down. But then again, if the aim of Mandukhai is to cling on ‘til Endgame, she’s going the right way about it - leaving Japan as a lovely buffer state between her and the Chukchi, and working to remove her potential nearest rival Kublai, meaning she’ll be sitting on even more free space when the dice are recast. N Yuan might still sit outside the top 20, but we’ve certainly seen more longshot comebacks.

Tuskaloosa holds his rank this week, doing about as much as we expected of him in kicking the Icelandic out of Vinland once and for all, though unable to progress any further to Iceland’s core. Meanwhile, the fate of two bordering nations have cancelled each other out. New Netherland’s complete destruction is excellent news for Tuskaloosa - not only is it one less rival to contend with, but his lands are virtually unprotected, as are the new Vandal colonies. They’re both ripe for the taking. Unfortunately, the opposite is true of their southern adversaries, Rio Grande. In fact, Rio Grande is completely unconquerable now - all Mississippi can do is defend. That’s not an exaggeration. All will be explained in about, ooh, seven ranks time from now...

Vihreaa

The Two Sicilies in Italy are currently playing the role of kingmaker for the Vandals, because they don’t seem to be very interested in anything else. With just about total naval control of the Mediterranean, they could take almost all of the Vandals’ home core, which is the one thing preventing the Vandals from having a strong claim in the top 5, or even top 3. With a decently strong military and navy, Two Sicilies are currently just spinning their wheels and not doing much.

Cloudberg:

The Dene rise one spot this episode, which is probably statistical noise considering they did nothing, but I’d like to put it down to them being twice removed from Rio Grande. Rio Grande’s neighbors should all be taking a hit, likewise the neighbors of those neighbors should get a boost. If you’re confused, just wait until the Rio Grande slide...

Msurdej:  

Lesotho has a problem that can be summed up in one word: Zaire. Overall Moshoeshoe I has good stats, but when compared to Zaire’s they’re not great. They have a few opportunities to expand, like Namibia and Zanzibar, but doing so may set off Zaire. They tried to go into Arabia and conquer Hejaz, but it went nowhere. All paths leave Lesotho with a Zaire sized mountain to get over if they ever want to- hang on, this is just last week’s slide write up. What actually changed for Lesotho? The answer: they got citadeled a bit, and lose a rank to Nigeria.Goodnight folks

Cloudberg:

The Mapuche still sit here in the middle of the teens, but it’s obvious at this point that they are no longer top dogs in South America. Marajoara is exploding in terms of both size and stats, and while the Mapuche have taken this chance to attack them, their small border and Marajoara’s superior tech will likely combine to prevent Lautaro from making any gains. In fact, it looks like the Mapuche might even lose some of their Pacific island cities to Marajoara, which would further cement P’kuee’s domination of the continent.

Doom:

The Gauls continue their slow slide back through the power rankings, dropping another 2 spots this week. It was not a bad part for the Gauls. They adopted autocracy, the best ideology for world domination and have maintained their borders. However they are hardly the first to ideologies though and at this stage of the game they need to do more to keep a high ranking.

Lacsirax:

I’ve been staring at the write-up sheet for about fifteen minutes. I swear I must have forgotten something. This huge mass of cities, this giant nation right in the heart of Asia, surrounded by fellow powers and runt states alike - they must have done something last episode, right? No new cities, no new wonders, no relevant wars… No, this makes no sense. They’re huge. They’re one of the map’s biggest presences. They must be doing something. We just, er, can’t see it. It’s a secret project. Yeah, that it’s it! Kolchak has a secret project and he’s not ready to show it yet. Should probably keep my voice about it really.

Random Strategy:

Rio Grande joins the list of cheaters this game (which as a reminder so far contains Malacca, Peru-Bolivia, Neutrals, Vandals and Germany, with probably also the Chukchi). The cheat they are using is with their UB: the Fortaleza Colonial (Military Academy replacement). It reads: “Border grows 2 times faster in this city during times of war. +1 city defense for every river tile owned by the city.”. It is very clearly not just doing that, and as a result, Rio Grande cities are now impregnable fortresses with several hundred defence scores on them. Ciudad Camargo holds the record at 456. !!! That is simply broken levels of OP. That city can 1 shot any unit in the game (except for the crawler, the endgame siege unit and also tankiest unit in the game) while taking almost no damage in return. And what’s worse is the city defences are STILL GROWING somehow. Forget fortress Australia, Rio Grande is now certain to live till the endgame. If the defence growth doesn’t actually stop ever, then they will actually be IMMORTAL because the city strength is scaling way way faster than units do.

Cloudberg:

Kulin slips another place, to 12th, as their neighbors continue to build better navies than them—now they have to worry not just about Malacca, but maybe Chola and Chukchi too. Their navy looks miniscule compared to any of these nations. However, Kulin is researching electronics, which will give them battleships—could this be the ace up their sleeve that allows them to defend themselves against these formidable neighbors? Perhaps. (They will need to research biology to unlock oil before they can actually build any.) Or Kulin could continue to be that civ with great stats and nothing to show for it.

Random Strategy

Zaire team up yet again with their brother from another ideology Nigeria, and set about crushing the Ptolemies. And with remarkably more success than last time! Instead of gaining a city, the Ptolemies have lost 9. There's just one problem: that was just Nigeria. Zaire has managed a big fat 0 in gains. I struggle to find an explanation for such military incompetence. Zaire has a bigger army and higher production than Nigeria, has open borders with them and has the exact same military techs and army composition as them (so similar that it's even weird; it looks like 1 civ with 2  different shades of green). Maybe the mountains of east africa are causing pathing issues or something. At any rate, because of this ”highly successful” war, Zaire is no longer the civ with the biggest piece of Africa; that title is going to Nigeria. And the biggest production, science, and military that Zaire still possesses will follow soon enough, and that pushes Zaire down the ranks.

Vihreaa

Ah yes, the example of how not to win a CBRX game. Punjab is now embarrassingly ranked below the Chola, which at least I believe is completely absurd, because Punjab could completely cripple Chola’s core without much effort. Chola’s main strength is in their navy, and unfortunately for them Punjab only has 2 coastal cities. Despite this, Punjab certainly has fallen from grace, now in a disappointing 10th place. After squandering their large lead in 1st, place, Punjab watches as the rest of the world caught up with them and then passed them.

Altima

The USSR continues to do nothing as the world turns further. Barely even showed up in this whole episode. They got their UU online at some point though. If they use it, it might make for a decent power spike as they start munching on their weak neighbors. IF. That ‘if’ and the rise of other powers has cost the USSR one rank.

Msurdej:

Well this was a great part for Chola. They managed to make gains on not one, but two different civs in Southeast Asia. While they've finished their war against Laos, they still have a pretty solid capture chance in Palembang. From there, it's unlikely Chola will finish off the VOC, they can certainly banish them to one city islands. But from there, their options start to get limited, and increasingly look like a path going through either Punjab or Malacca. The former has less manpower, but much of Raja Raja’s power is in the navy, and is ineffective against the predominantly landlocked Punjab. And Malacca....are still Malacca.

Altima

Last part, in my Ptolomiec writeup, I mentioned that they still had to worry about their border with the Big Brain Boi Block. Well, that shoe just dropped like a goddamn bunker buster. Nigeria just casually doubled its city count while halving one of its largest direct rivals. Now, that territory is, as noted by the fact that they were able to sweep it so thoroughly in the first place, terrible and hard to defend (at least against non-Zaire aggressors), so this may not be as much of a net positive for them as it should be.

It remains to be seen how far they’ll be able to take this war, as Cleo rallies around the Nile. Artillery versus Field Cannons should net Nigeria a few more cities, but beyond that, the Middle East looks a bridge too far at the present juncture. The next part will be the truest test of how much they can swing this surge- but regardless, I’m pretty comfortable calling them the biggest winner of the part.

Knot:

May I introduce you all to the clear number one power in South America? All it took was one part for Marajoara to almost completely demolish the decrepit Phoenix that was Gran Columbia. Not only that, but they actually have decent enough tech and production to make those mediocre cities and into good cities! These gains are gonna do a stellar job reinforcing their lead in South America, and if you think that makes this a good part for them, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

With this move, they have basically no equal in South America. The closest civ is Mapuche, but they’re now firmly far behind Marajoara on almost every metric. Mapuche are gonna have to do something now if they wanna stand a chance against this new upstart. As for Marajoara’s other neighbors? Speed bumps. Paraguay’s chance of building an empire out of their enclave has long since sailed, and Palmares could go down with a mean glare. Outside of a very ambitious Rio Grande attack, or a very aggressive navel feel from the Vandals, Marajoara is almost guaranteed a spot on the cylinder for a very long time. They’re a top seed at this point, and I expect them to only get better.

Altima

As the Vandals continue to grow their American holdings, we find ourselves asking the simple question, what the hell is this civ? Are they a naval civ? They’ve got the holdings for it, but they seem bound and determined to not research naval techs! Are they a North African civ? The Two Sicilians could take most of their homeland in a fortnight, and more of their cities are foreign colonies besides! And how big a deal is their trade route cheating? They’re definitely A Power, but figuring out what to make of them is a goddamn ordeal. So they stay still, sitting at rank 5 where they began the part, even as they’ve indisputably grown from their solidified conquests of the previously-better NN.

Lacs:

Uzbekistan holds onto a comfortable fourth, thanks to increasingly dominant stats that now easily outclass Punjab and PARG. Hang on though - am I the only one baffled by that fact? They have significantly less cities than both those civs, and many of those cities are in the depths of the Kazakh and Tarim deserts, rather than the fertile lands of India that Punjab hold, and the decent lower Siberian steppes of PARG. How they pulled ahead so decisively is lost on me, I’m afraid. In any case, they’re currently failing to convert that statistical lead into meaningful progress, only barely flipping the Georgian city of Sukhumi, which returned to Tamar’s hands soon after. The AI’s inability to register seas as obstacles is the main problem here, with Karimov sending many of his troops to a watery fate in the Caspian, sunk by Kutaisi’s garrison. Ultimately a conflict with Georgia will yield very little new land, though - we need to see Karimov strike at one of his scarier neighbours before he rises into the top 3.

Vihreaa

Germany maintains their third place status this week, with strong stats across the board, and good expansion opportunities surrounding them. With Sweden to their north, Iceland to their west, and Kosovo to their southeast, Germany has multiple weaker empires that they could easily subdue. As is with every civ though, they should act sooner than later, while they still have so much power in the region. Wouldn’t want to end up like Punjab!

Cloudberg:

Chukchi continues to easily hold second place thanks to their dominant stats and weak neighbors. His wrath this episode fell on Hawaii, which didn’t stand a chance against the icy Chukchi fleet sweeping down from the North Pacific. All the while, Lawtiliwadlin continues to passively gain the occasional tile due to the fact that his UA doesn’t care who killed the unit next to his borders, or even whether he is at war with the civ whose unit died. Anyway, I’m certainly looking forward to the inevitable Chukchi-Malacca showdown. Place your bets now!

Random Strategy

The number 1s remain at the top. They have gone up to 1st in population, 1st in military, 1st in production (because of Germany finally making peace with everyone) and 2nd in tech (behind only Nigeria). They have built the first planes of the cylinder, due to being the one of the only ones to research the naval techs which are required to unlock oil (Germany is also unlocking oil but has no planes) and also have the tech for subs (I can't see any yet but I'm sure they'll show up). However, I should point out that their neighbours are also scary. The Kulin are only slightly behind Malacca in the previously mentioned stats, but in science they are 1st worldwide (Malacca is 5th) and are using it to research battleships. The Chola have also greatly expanded their empire into Malaccan territory by conquering the VOC, and also have an excellent navy. And finally, by conquering Hawaii, the Chukchi are moving south towards them. This part, Malacca did also expand ever so slightly by capturing the Tongva colonies.