Power Rankings: Episode 22 – S2

Cloudberg:

Oh, Raja Raja, where do we even begin? Chola started out with decent bonuses, but before they could even think about setting down a solid core, Punjab invaded and destroyed Raja Raja’s nascent effort to build a new empire. This devastating attack has left Chola with no real options, and it’s only a matter of time before someone comes along and finishes them off. Chola’s shocking downfall is a reminder that just because civs get bonuses based on their cycle one performance, the same or even a similar outcome is far from guaranteed.

Altima

Taiping sits at three cities. Kosovo have more than that, and they’re Kosovo! While the current Yuanic war is unlikely to go too far for reasons of geography, the presence of the war combined with Taiping’s low current expansion (and North Yuan’s superior expansion) bodes badly for the biblical brother. They still have some space in the south to expand into, but it’s gonna be a real fight to fill it before the real powers do, much less hold it. All told, were it not for the Cholan Collapse, Taiping would probably not be second worse.

Well, they always were kind of a weird civ, weren’t they? Uzbekistan made a very bizarre play by founding a religion in their second city, Namangan, which they then promptly lost to PARG. It’s a rough start for an already disadvantaged civ. Seemingly resigned to playing second fiddle to PARG, they’ve now focussed south, settling Persia - probably a decent idea, as the mountainous terrain there might keep out Punjab for a while, and their nearest neighbor to the west is Kosovo. Still, you don’t really wanna be losing cities Episode 1 of a cycle. It doesn’t scream “winner”.

Rosé:

Kosovo is in the middle of a conflict with the Soviets, however I honestly see it going nowhere. Given that the tech cycle has officially reset, terrain has once again become a massive barrier to conquest. The soviets have to travel through hills and forests with early game movement speeds, which is more or less impossible. In the meantime, Kosovo can actually expand into the Balkans and Mesopotamia, forming some kind of regional power. Of course they're not going to win the game at this point, thats out of the question, but it's sure an improvement compared to the previous cycle

Cloudberg:

Zaire is off to a rough start after an equally rough experience during total war. Jammed between a more powerful Lesotho and Nigeria, Mobutu now finds himself at war with both, and his defensible terrain might not be enough to save him. One bright spot is that he could take the Lesotho outpost of Hlotse, but with the number of enemy units swarming near some of his other cities, it might be wiser to pull back and defend what he already has.

Random Strategy

The Neutrals already have more cities than they had in cycle 1, so that's good news. However, it's still less than the Dene and Rio Grande, so they are looking like the third wheel of the continent. Fittingly, they appear to be neutral in the war between the Dene and Rio.

Msurdej  

Despite a good showing from their army, The Gauls find themselves in dire straits. Boxed in by both Germany and The Vandals, Vercingetorix has little options for settling outside of his own territory and the British Isles, which are still up for grabs. The only way out of this predicament seems to be through war, which thankfully, has shown some fruit. Lilybaeum fell into his clutches, though The Gauls made peace before more could be achieved. Will this slow and steady approach work, or do they need to be more bold?

 Msurdej:  

Finland manages to come into the start of Cycle 2 surging to their highest position this game. Starting off with a respectable five cities,  Finland has settled much of Scandanavia and has a good handle on the area. While it’s still possible for Wilhelm to snag a bit of the coast, Mannerheim could close the gap quite easily. That only leaves the USSR. Lenin is the arbiter of Finland’s life, and can easily lock in, or even eliminate the civ. Any road to victory for Finland will need to deal with the USSR in one way or another.

Cloudberg:

Best Yuan is off to a solid start in cycle 2, making good use of its wide open start to found six cities and build up an army to fight Taiping. As a result, Mandukhai rises two places, achieving her highest rank since episode 5. However, the war against Taiping doesn’t seem to be going particularly well—no cities are even being damaged—and Chukchi is expanding rapidly into eastern Siberia, potentially becoming a major thorn in Northern Yuan’s side. Furthermore, Mandukhai can’t be happy about that insane Kosovo forward settle—maybe she’ll alter course to take it out?

Lacsirax: So much controversy, so many questions as to their potential performance - so what did the first episode of possibly-nerfed PARG tell us? Er, not a great deal. They didn’t settle many cities (well, they didn’t have many settlers, did they?) But they did scupper Uzbekistan almost immediately, taking their holy city of Namangan and thus preventing them expanding much further north. Still, decent early showings from Mandukhai and Lenin still leave Kolchak as something of the runt of the Russians. Jury’s still out on this one.

Random Strategy

So good news is that the Gauls are really boxed in and will severely struggle unless they strike hard. The bad news is that Germany is also getting boxed in, with Finland settling the entirety of Scandinavia, Vandals getting Italy and the USSR doing USSR things. The plan right now should be to keep a large enough standing army to prevent a panic Gaulish blitz, while also teching optics as soon as possibly so as to grab the British isles before the Gauls. Luckily the Gauls famously hate naval techs so this should be doable.

Cloudberg:

Rio Grande plummets out of the top 10 for the first time since episode 13, as an ascendant Dene squeezes Rosillo from the north, settling as far south as Colorado and reinforcing the cities as they go. Rosillo is now at war with the Dene and it doesn’t seem like he’ll be able to breach  this formidable beachhead. He’ll also need to figure out how to defend cities without mile-high walls made out of adamantium. Does he have what it takes? Only time will tell.

Random Strategy

So the USSR got off to a start that is pretty similar to their first one, with good settles. However, instead of attacking the Teutons like in cycle 1 (who are already dead), they're attacking Kosovo and Uzbekistan. With those two civs being weak, Germany looking a bit boxed in, PARG having been hard nerfed for no reason and Finland being Finland, they should be able to beat all their neighbours in a straight fight Yep: I don't actually know why the USSR lost 3 ranks, because this looks like a pretty good position to me.

Rosé:

Holy hell Lesotho you go girl. Throughout the first cycle, Lesotho was honestly kind of an afterthought, after all they were constrained by a layer of Nigeria on top of a layer of Zaire primarily because Lesotho was too slow to the punch. This cycle on the other hand was way different with Lesotho instantly up settling Africa and crushing Zaire with primed eyes on Nigeria next. Of course this may be recency bias kicking in, after all we ranked Burkina Faso first.

Random Strategy

The Kulin have completed the settling of Australia. However, instead of going off to settle the rest of the Pacific, they are launching an attack on Malacca. Although that went well during total war, currently Malacca has better naval tech and their cities are hard to access, so this attack is just a waste of resources. The only positive that can come from this is killing any Malaccan settlers heading their way, but that isn't really worth sacrificing their own resources that could have gone into their own settlers.

Altima

Of all the civs to crib notes from, the Vandals have chosen Burkina Faso and built a pile of indefensible cities right in front of Nigeria without building an army (pointedly actively sacrificing their army to get those cities!). This can go one of two ways- either history rhymes upon their face and they start death spiraling, or Nigeria gets caught into a forever war with the Zaire and is too distracted to punish the Vandals until they can stabilize. As the Gauls have already soft-punished the effort, I’m personally willing to bet on the former. Still, Burkina Faso did linger on as a relevant power for a while after their punishment, so unless things somehow go really pear shaped, the Vandals will linger on to be weirdos for a while yet.

We’re not quite sure yet what to do with the Chukchi. They’re expanding well and they have a lot of people in their capital. Their land is shit, but then again it was last time too. They do seem to have discovered Alaska, but they don’t have any obvious neighbors to fight. Or maybe that’s a good thing, if they can just keep spamming cities. Either way, whether we think Chukchi will be a contender in the long run remains to be seen.

Rosé:

We're not even one part into cycle two and Nigeria is already slacking. Both the Vandals and Lesotho (and Zaire to a lesser extent but they're kinda screwed) are already closing in on central Africa, and the Middle East isn't exactly looking like it's 100% up for the taking. Since we don't have easy access to the in-game stats we can only infer what is going on, but from the looks of it, Nigeria's military is incredibly weak, with a potential Lesotho breakthrough (if the Zaire war goes well) spelling disaster for Awolowo. It's pretty interesting though that the roles seem to have reversed from last cycle, as Lesotho is looking like a dark horse, with Zaire as a meat shield to protect Nigeria, as opposed to the other way around. Of course there's still time to turn it around, it's just the beginning after all, but it seems as if someone tripped Nigeria at the starting line.

Altima

It’s been a fairly quiet first episode for Malacca. The fall of Chola helps their naval ambitions, but by that same token the rise of Punjab gives them more competition for mainland space. I personally don’t see the Kulin war going anywhere- five triremes and a smattering of land units shouldn’t be enough to breach the archipelago, especially with the superior Malaccan naval tech. Ultimately, the game has only just begun, and we’ll have to see how well Malacca can take advantage of its options in the coming parts.

Msurdej:  Reaching the podium for the first time, Thanadelthur has had a great start to Cycle 2. One of the leaders in city count, The Dene also have one of the largest armies, second only to Germany. With such an advantage, she pushes southward towards her closest rival at the moment: Rio Grande. Establishing Echaot’l Koye, the Dene have made a great defensive city that will serve as a spear point for their assault. But only time will tell if that assault is successful.

Lacsirax:

Ranjit Singh had one main goal for the early game - neuter the Chola early instead of letting them fester and eventually thrive as they did in the first cycle. So by that metric, this was a resounding success. With the Chola down to one city, their threat is almost nil and Punjab is free to focus on expanding on other fronts - which they’ve already begun in earnest, boasting a sweet seven cities. So far, so perfect.

Altima

Marajoara still has a whole ass continent to themselves, and is thus still at rank 1 during the expansion phase of the game. While their science appears to be mostly middling (assuming I read the Info Addict Science chart right), in this time of chaos, having the security of such a big backyard counts for a lot.