Power Rankings: Episode 24 – S2

Vihreaa

Zaire finally meets their end, as Kosovo’s UA turns the tides on their seemingly miraculous peace treaties with Nigeria and Lesotho. Arguably the civ that was most screwed over by both Total War and the event of Cycle 2, Zaire was once one of the major contenders to emerge as the top power in Africa. Partway through Cycle 1, they started to stagnate, but still remained an influential power in the region, conquering parts of the Middle East. Total War ultimately put them on the path to their grave, as defending from both sides against Nigeria and Lesotho ultimately shrank their power Going into Cycle 2, they were effectively crippled compared to pre Total War Cycle 1, and a long war with Nigeria and Lesotho ultimately ended their bid to win it all.

Msurdej  

Kosovo, beacon of Albanian freedoms and one of the several loocations where NATO said fuck you to Serbia. You are gone too soon and shall be missed. Those German fucks may have taken our land and resources but theres one thing they cant take. Two things, really. Our pride and our fuckton of cocaine. Thank you.

Lacsirax

Usually, declaring war as a city state on your powerful neighbour would be a death sentence, especially the same neighbour that demolished the majority of your empire a few episodes prior. But somehow Taiping’s declaration of war on Northern Yuan has wound up being… not crazy? Mandukhai didn’t have the troops spare to deal with Taiping when her only other rivals were the Chukchi, and as the episode ended she found herself at war with a powerful PARG, too. In other words, if there was ever an opening for Hong Xiuquan to sneak a backdoor squad into his former capital Tianjing, it’s now. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. But hey, nothing to lose eh?

Altima

The Uzbeks have been condemned to Afghanistan for all eternity for their Great Prophet crimes. They would almost certainly have gotten rumped anyway even if they had deployed that prophet on a reasonable timetable, but now they deserve it. It’s not all bad, though. Just mostly. They have natural hell-terrain to defend them, and their most direct threats are Punjab, who have just gotten done getting their asses beaten by Malacca and have to punch through some real hell terrain to get there, and PARG, who have a bit more geographic distance but also have the USSR to keep in mind when considering troop deployments. What I’m saying is, get ready for like ten parts of PR writeups of Uzbekistan that amount to, “Yep, these guys still exist. Wish they didn’t,” culminating in a writeup of, “Thank god they’re finally dead!”

Vihreaa

Finland hasn’t been up to much recently, as they have been chilling in Scandinavia. As they already have a much smaller core than their neighbors, the opportunities they have to expand are greatly reduced, and the opportunities their neighbors have to expand into them are greatly increased. A single war with the USSR a few episodes ago took quite a few cities from them, and wars with Germany or the Gauls wouldn’t fare much better for them.

Altima

Well there goes the promising start. It’s not quite all bad for the Neuts, though. With the Big River Bois closing off Marajoara’s avenue to assault up the coastline, they’re back to only having to worry about land invasions, which is something. Not a lot, but it should at least get them past the next part, if worse for the wear.

Vihreaa

The Gauls land themselves in 15th place this episode, up slightly but did not accomplish much this episode. With few areas left in the world left to settle for them, they will need to acquire their future lands through conquest. Bordering mostly Germany and the Vandals, they have no really easy targets, as they have lower production and military sizes than both of their neighbors.

Rosay

Yeah.. Northern Yuan is probably doomed. Northern Yuan didn’t exactly have a good part throughout to put it lightly, with Chukchi succeeding in a half hearted effort to take China, but the real danger came at the end of the part, when Parg finally went “oh yeah I can still compete,” and is currently using its massive army to wage war against the remaining yuan. Western China is more or less defenseless, and Northern Yuan is already busy defending against Chukchi. Northern Yuan is probably gonna survive at least to the end of next part just due to sheer size, but its days are looking darker.

Knot

Well, Lesotho, finishing off Zaire finally got kicked off the to do list. Probably next on this list is bulking up hard, sciencing to the max, and waiting for a coalition against Nigeria to materialize so you can build yourself into an African power. I wait to see how efficient you can be at getting that stuff done.

Cloudberg:

The White Russians tentatively rise to 12th as they capture Tashkent, coming out of their war against Uzbekistan with a second capital. Furthermore, at the very end of the episode, Kosovo forced them into war against Northern Yuan, another juicy target which is already defending on multiple fronts. Things are looking good for Kolchak, despite his rough start!

Rosay

Kulin is now stuck between two beefy superpowers, Malacca and Marajoara. An invasion of South America is more or less out of the question right now, so the only option for Kulin is through Malacca. While intimidating, Kulin might be able to pull off a successful expansion, as Malacca's navy has been spent in India.  Being in a position where you need to break out of your continent against two (maybe three if you consider Chukchi close) different civs with arguments for top seed. While I'm still high on Kulin with faith of them surviving to the top 5 at least, I don't think they have a chance of taking the gold anymore.

Random Strategy:

This part, Germany gets a kill: Kosovo, whose capital Pristina is now theirs. Germany also continues settling well into the Atlantic, in particular denying the Gauls a Greenlandic city. The Gauls are now looking much more like a good expansion opportunity than any sort of rival. Finland would also be an excellent choice to invade, given their total lack of navy. I would try to get both, if possible: with control over Europe they should be in a good position to fight off the USSR and Vandals.

Knot

Oh. Oh dear. I had such high expectations for you, Punjab. I really thought you had Asia in the bag, but one war with Malacca later and suddenly you’ve lost a few cities and your prospects look a lot worse. You’re still doing pretty okay. You’ve got Northern Yuan to the north that could be potentially imploding, and PARG roughly to your east that you can probably capitalize on, but Malacca’s gonna be a persistent issue, and you better hope they don’t come back for more goods anytime soon

Msurdej  

Well well well. Once again, the Dene find themselves slipping down the Rankings. With Rio Grande a solid wall to the south, the Chukchi encroaching from the west, and the Neutrals putting up a surprising resistance to the East, it seems Thanadelthur is starting to struggle. The Dene were not thought to do well during the start of CBRX 2, due to a combination of bad Uniques and competition. However, they managed to pull some victories and cause Jman to go drink himself dead. But it remains to be seen if the Dene can do it again. And so far... it could be better.

Lacsirax: A more than decent part for Rosillo, as he takes Rio Grande to the highest rank they’ve been in Cycle 2. Granted, a lot of that is contextual rather than through active effort - the only real event of note for Rio Grande was capturing the Neutral city in Florida after P’kuee softened it up. Instead, their rise comes from the early Neutral dream fizzling out and the Dene taking a somewhat expected battering from the Chukchi, leaving RG as the undisputed leaders of North America. It’s a fragile lead though, especially with the Marajoara looming ever closer, and we’d definitely like to see Rosillo’s wars provide more fruitful conquests before he makes a play for the top 5.

Random Strategy

The Vandals have gone back to settling random cities all over the world. So far they have a city in Greenland in the exact same location as last cycle, in one of the most amazing coincidences of any cbr. They also have a city in the Pacific... somehow? Now random colonies all over the world tend not to matter too much: the most likely outcome is that eventually some power comes along and conquers it easily without ever worrying about your core. However they can be useful if the surrounding civs are terrible and let you use it as a bomber hanger. At this point the Vandals have three reasonable choices: option 1 is to science hard to gain a lead. Option 2 is to conquer the Gauls, being their weakest neighbour. Option 3 is to team up with Lesotho to fight Nigeria to try and stop them before Nigerian science gets out of control like it did last cycle.

Msurdej  

Nigeria makes it back into the top 5, with the elimination of Zaire. Once thought to be their biggest rivals on the continent, Nigeria has new rivals in Lesotho and The Vandals. Being stuck in the middle of the two, Awolowo might be in trouble. But Nigeria seems to have a good lead in population and techs, which could help them snowball. So long as they don’t get sandwiched, they should have no trouble getting back to the podium again.

Random Strategy:

The USSR did not have a particularly good episode, declaring war on PARG, then getting stuck behind the Urals and achieving nothing except losing 1 city. Oops. Faced with such a failure, the USSR has gone back to its prefered activity: invading Finland. So far nothing has happened in the first 10 turns, but it's still quite likely they will be making some good gains here. Scandinavia will of high importance if the USSR ever wants to fight Germany, so trying to grab it early is a good idea.

Altima

Sometimes, the best play is to just beat everyone else upside the head with a boat. This principle has been well demonstrated by Malacca, who return to the top five on the back of several key conquests (most notably, all of Southern India) by hitting people in the face with Jongs and (a lot of) galeasses. It’s a good strategy, and should they keep at it one that stands to put them to the top. As it stands, the two civs ranked higher than them have either deeper inland holdings and weaker neighbors (Chukchi) or an entire continent uncontested (Marajoara), and they’re currently fighting the former, so we’ll see how that shakes up.

Cloudberg:

The Chukchi rise to tie their previous record of second place as they continue to beef up their cities, army, and land. Although Lawtiliwadlin is fighting wars on several fronts, including against the powerful Malaccans, it seems he may come out ahead, especially due to his invasion of the very unprepared Northern Yuan. They’ve also taken a city from the Dene, expanding on two continents at once. So right now, we see the Chukchi as a rising power with the potential to take it all. Just don’t get complacent—it’s still very early.

Lacsirax: The Marajoara just about cling to the lead this episode, but the gap is tightening fast. They’ve settled nicely, leaving only a little bit of the west coast for Rosillo to sneak in, and looked impressive in their Caribbean endeavours, despite having a Neutral city in Florida sniped last second. But after supremely impressive parts for the Chukchi and Malacca, it’s going to take a lot more than just a few decent pickups here and there for them to hold onto the top spot for much longer. Safe plays can only take you so far - now I want to see P’kuee do something crazy.