Power Rankings: Episode 23 – S2

Release Date:

Janurary 15, 2021

Narrated by:

Power-Rankers

Abstract

Power Rankings! They’re rankings of power! (But only as of the instant of the end of the previous episode, as these are not meant to be future predictions!) Power Rankings!

Viewing: Vertical

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Chola

1 / 0

1: Chola

Msurdej:

Well, that’s a wrap on the Chola folks. With Punjab taking their capital, and Malacca finishing them off, the Chola are the first civ eliminated in Cycle 2. In the first Cycle, Chola was much like it was in Cycle 2: In the shadow of Punjab. The orange elephant in the room held Chola from advancing north of the subcontinent, forcing Chola to go wide. To his credit, Raja Raja I managed to make an impressive empire, holding off both the Punjab and Malacca. But the cracks were starting to show by the time Cycle 1 ended. But in the end, Raja Raja couldn’t hold off a blitz by the Punjab this time around. But over all, Chola actually exceeded their expectations from Part 0 PR. Good on you Chola.

1: Chola

Msurdej:

2: Taiping

Vihreaa:

Taiping has certainly seen better days. After losing their capital to NYuan, they are relegated to a single city in south China. At this point, it is only a matter of time before they are eliminated, whether it be by Northern Yuan, Malacca, or even Punjab. Having barely squeaked their way into cycle 2, their performance in this game isn’t surprising, but I’m sure our Taiping supporters in the sub weep. It seems to me like the Heavenly Kingdom will soon live up to its name.

3: Kosovo

Vihreaa:

Kosovo is on the downturn, as the Vandals captured the city of Peje. With only 3 cities left and not much land to settle, Kosovo’s chances are effectively sealed. I won’t lie, I’m not complaining, as I am not the biggest fan of them (their colors… yuck!) but any of their neighbors would likely be able to eliminate them if they so wished.

4: Uzbekistan

Cloudberg:

Uzbekistan gains a rank this episode, but only because Kosovo is doing even worse. In reality, Islam Karimov is in danger of losing his capital to the White Russians, who are busily swarming it with all sorts of units. They did capture a city from the Soviet Union, but how long will it last?

5: Zaire

Random Strategy

The situation is getting worse for Zaire as Nigeria and Lesotho move in. Mbuji-Mayi and

Hlotse will surely fall, and Lubumbashi is getting surrounded. However, they don't lose any ranks for this, due to other civs doing even worse. Their best hope right now is to do a Kuikuro and hope the jungle protects them.

6: Finland

Msurdej:

Oof. Remember how I said that the road to victory for Finland will need to deal with the USSR? Well, this part the exact opposite happened. Lenin managed to grab four of Finland’s cities, trapping him in Western Scandanavia.

7: Gauls

Knot:

In cycle 1, the Gauls came out with a surprisingly fast start, and looked to be the top dog on the cylinder before the entirety of Europe stagnated to heck, and they fell behind their neighbors, the Vandals and Germany.

Heading into cycle 2 though, the Gauls broke out of their stagnation, and looked to have a strong chance of being top dog in Europe for the first time, but in the past two parts, Europe looks to be stagnated to heck, and they have fallen behind their neighbors, the Vandals and Germany. The more things change, the more they stay the same

CBR In-Game Screenshot of Neutral Nation

8: Neutral Nation

Random Strategy

This episode, the neutrals abandoned neutrality and joined the Dene's side in the Dene/Rio conflict, hoping the coalition might get them some gains. Big mistake. The Dene, furious at having an ally, peace out with Rio and team up with Marajoara to knock some sensible neutrality back into them. Now it is the Neutrals who are getting coalitioned. Fortunately, Rio, despite being at the receiving end of the neutral attack and therefore having the biggest motive for punishing them, has forgiven them for this transgression and made peace. North American politics certainly are confusing.

9: PARG

Knot

For the first time since part three, the power rankers have placed PARG lower than Northern Yuan. The tides of Asia have pretty definitely changed with cycle 2. Even setting aside the lacking bonuses PARG received, they didn’t come out swinging quite as hard as Punjab and Northern Yuan, and they now pay the price. Once they polish off the Uzbeks, they’re pretty trapped between stronger neighbors on every side. The best move for PARG now is to probably bulk up, lay low, and wait until one of their neighbors shows weakness. It’s gonna be an uphill battle for them though.

10: Kulin

Random Strategy

As predicted, the Kulin attack on Malacca that started at the end of last episode achieved precisely nothing except sinking a few ships. So what better idea than to do the same thing again? Only this time instead of triremes vs galleases, it's carracks vs jongs. After seeing how powerful jongs were in cycle 1, I'm pretty sure this is the exact worst time to be fighting Malacca. Why not, instead of losing your entire navy stupidly, settle new zealand and polynesia? Those cities wouldn't even need defending because nobody else has anything close to them.

11: Lesotho

Altima

Despite losing a city to Zaire in their first war, Lesotho continues to expand solidly and even looks to retake that very same lost city in this second coalition war. Still, there are problems on the horizon for the dark horse of Africa- even if they take back Hlotse by sea, Zaire still stands to flip it with the nearby swordsmen (although the bulk of the surrounding territory is occupied by ranged units, so it will be an uphill battle to get those swordsmen back in position), and pushing any deeper will be difficult as Zaire’s core is flush with hell terrain. Lesotho needs to make big moves, and it needs to make them fast- other powers will not wait for them to grow naturally.

12: Germany

Altima

Germany is a weird civ. All but one of their neighbors are either presently weak (Finland, the Vandals in Italy, Kosovo) or will be weak in the long term if things continue as they are (the Gauls), but that remaining neighbor is the USSR, who has a wide open border with them. At the present moment, there’s at least one reason they can’t do anything about any of those neighbors- the Gauls are presently strong enough with their Oathsword, Kosovo is a fortress, we all know how well the Germans do at invading Italy, Finland requires a naval invasion, and the USSR is the USSR.

Still, they have strong enough potential- they stand to eat the Gauls eventually when their inability to settle any further Spain’s them, and the non-Italian geographical problems will become less and less a factor as the civs that occupy them get weaker. Their biggest fundamental problem is the USSR- in the time it takes Wilhelm to get strong enough to deal with their neighbors, how strong will Lenin be?

13: Rio Grande

Vihreaa:

It turns out that without game breakingly high city defense, Rio Grande isn’t as powerful! With slightly smaller borders in comparison to cycle 1, Rio Grande has several opponents in the Americas, and it is still up in the air as to who will come out on top in the Americas. With things being pretty even in North America, anyone could come out on top. Rio Grande has made small gains against their opponents though, in the Dene and NN. With help from Marajoara, Rio Grande could weaken NN enough to make significant gains on their territory.

14: Vandals

Knot

Before cycle two began, I thought for a moment that the Vandals were gonna get easier to rank this cycle since they weren’t gonna have a wonky sea empire built off exuberant trading, but no. The Vandals continue to find new ways to be incredibly baffling that make them impossible to rank. They hold their vast empire for the moment, and if they survive a couple parts, it seems very likely they will be a super power on two continents, but their position continues to look incredibly fragile. Their European core is pretty empty, and their African core isn’t gonna keep up with Nigeria for long. It probably doesn’t help that their throwing a bunch of troops into Kosovo, but again, if they survive, that land could be very useful. What I’m saying is that I never knew how to rank the Vandals, I still don’t know how to rank them, and I’ll probably never know until the part where they die, or win the whole thing.

15: Nigeria

Cloudberg:

Nigeria falls to 8th place as the rankers start to lose confidence in their ability to stand against their neighbors. They’re still number one in Africa, but only barely, because the Vandals are rapidly consolidating, and Lesotho isn’t doing too bad either. Awolowo’s invasion of Zaire is going okay, and he may take a city, but at the same time half his army is tied up in the jungles around Lubumbashi doing nothing at all. There’s plenty of time for Nigeria to turn this around, but we’re going to have to wait and see if they do.

16: Dene

Msurdej: Well...that’s a spirit breaker. Not only do the Dene lose the city of Echaot’l Koe, they are now in a bit of a bind with the Neutrals. While we are still waiting for the stats, it seems like Thanadelthur is struggling despite having the bigger army and stats. Will this merely be a setback the Dene can bounce back, or is this the beginning of the end?

17: Malacca

Knot

Malacca finally finished off the Chola… 10-15 parts later than expected, but hey! They finally got there, and as a reward, they fall to their lowest rank since part 8. Yeah, sorry Mansur; when Punjab and Northern Yuan are stretching their expansive muscles, just chugging along isn’t gonna cut it. You’re still doing very well, but maybe see if you can do some damage to the Kulin pest, and you’ll be back to the top in no time!

18: Northern Yuan

Cloudberg:

Mandukhai storms into fifth place, her highest rank rince episode one of cycle 1, on the heels of an expansive performance here in the second episode of cycle 2. She has founded plenty of cities, has a decent army, and just finished dealing massive damage to Taiping, cementing her place as a contender going forward. However, there was plenty of controversy among the rankers over where exactly to put them, with various people ranking Northern Yuan everywhere from third to eleventh. Only time will tell which camp is right.

19: Chukchi

Vihreaa:

The Chukchi, my personal favorite civ in the game. This episode they rise to 4th place, a spot they haven’t reached since part 17, likely due to their strong settling in the early game. At this point in the game, they control eastern Siberia, along with most of Japan and a small portion of China. Their main neighbor is Northern Yuan, who while they control many cities, their science bonus to start the game was much weaker than most other civs in the game. I personally have always held out hope for a Chukchi win in the game, and this performance so far continues to give me hope that it is possible.

20: USSR

Altima

One step back, four steps forward for Lenin. The loss of Voronezh to the Uzbeks, while conceptually embarrassing, means a lot less than the evisceration of Finland. Lenin has built himself an empire on the grave of Finland, and so long as he doesn’t fall asleep for twenty parts again, the USSR stands to be the dominant European power of the cycle.

21: Punjab

Msurdej:

Ranjit holds his ground with his nigh total conquest of the Chola. While they didn’t finish them off, they got the capital. Furthermore, Malacca getting the kill could lead to bad diplomacy for Mansur Shah, giving Punjab possible allies when the time comes to deal with them. Uzbekistan may not be the most attackable at the moment, with all the mountains in the way, but with their continued growth and (probably) good stats, Punjab doesn’t have to worry about anything but continuing to improve for a while.

22: Marajoara

Random Strategy

Marajoara stays in first place because they're still the only one to own an entire continent. They've almost finished claiming all the land. This episode they also went on the offensive against Michelimackinac, otherwise known as neutral jamaica. And they will probably take it due to the neutrals being otherwise distracted, thus regaining the carribean they owned before the reset.

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