Power Rankings: Episode 34 – S2

Random Strategy:

The lesson we should learn from PARG is “the Urals are a completely impassable wall.” PARG was in many ways a typical big-siberian civ. They started off strong by settling a lot of cities and reaching first place in the PRs, then slowly stagnated until the end. They did try to break out, first of all vs Great Perms but unfortunately the Urals are a completely impassable wall. They assembled way too many catapults in order to raze Uzbekistan's northern border but Uzbekistan stayed too strong to conquer. It was to the east that PARG saw the most success, decapitaling Northern Yuan. However, a few centuries of stagnation and negative gold later and PARG had to return its gains to its original owner. Stagnation and negative gold did eventually turn out in PARG's favour in the end, as both Uzbekistan and Northern Yuan fell victim to it, allowing PARG to crush them during total war. Meanwhile the Urals being a completely impassable wall protected them from their big rivals: the USSR.

The conquests of Uzbekistan and northwestern yuan were completed in cycle 2. Unfortunately, PARG couldn't capitalise on its momentary advantage over the USSR because the Urals were a completely impassable wall. Thus, a return to stagnation, until it was Urals being a completely impassable wall was now protecting PARG from the USSR. Unfortunately, the lower Himalayas were not quite as impassable and Punjab succesfully crushed PARG. Western Siberia, meanwhile, is very passable and the Chukchi were able to grab everything else, though letting them live in 1 tiny arctic city until total war, as is Chukchi tradition.

Msurdej  

So here it ends cowboys, Rio Grande has been eliminated , after a fantastic run. Starting out, Rosillo was expected to do great things. Expectations that were nearly dashed as the Mississippi made power moves to take control of Central North America. But Rio Grande persevered, and managed to not only outlast enemies like the Chinook, New Netherlands, and the Mississippi, but prove themselves as a great power thanks to saavy wars, and a glitched that gave them cities with over 600 defense.In Cycle 2 They did equally well, spending most of their time grappling with the Dene for control of America,and occassionally the Vandals for the eastern Coast. But they were never able to make many gains, leaving the Chukchi and Marajoara to gobble them up. But Rio Grande performed admirably (if a little bouyed by their glitch), so my ten gallon hat off to you Antonio. F

Altima

So ends the dream of communism, crushed beneath the fascist bootheels of futuristic death machines. Lenin played this game slow, with slow-burn grinding wars of attrition against his neighbors backed by the occasional moment of suddenly violent action. PARG was ground down over ages as the Urals and PARG' massive unit production crippled any larger offensives, while Germany was slaughtered in a night (after centuries of grinding wars). Ultimately it is that grinding that would cost them- their inability to break the PARG meant that they were never able to build up the kind of power base that the Chukchi and the Marajoara did, so when both came knocking there wasn't much Lenin could do beyond sue for peace. And then Total War came, and even that option vanished, although Lenin did somehow last commendably long for a civ that entered the war a runt engulfed by a power. So rest in peace, Lenin. You made it to the top ten, and outlived Kolchak. May the dreams of the workers live again, one day.

Random Strategy

The most powerful civ of cycle 1 finally gets taken out. Despite starting out sharing australia with the Anangu, the latter didn't put up much of a fight, due to sending their military into the ocean for some reason. They spent most of the rest of the first cycle slowly settling across the Pacific, unchallenged by anyone (other than Malacca) due to the Pacific island civs being so weak. The biggest obstacle turned out to be Tahiti, not due to their military or power, but due to having already got cities there, but this problem was quickly solved by razing those cities. However, the Kulin didn't sit on their laurels like other australian civs of other cbrs. They were the first to make significant continental conquests by single-handedly taking out the Mapuche, and also teched very hard to finish the tech tree first. During the first total war, they also took a large chunk out of Malacca, putting them as the largest most powerful civ by the end.

Unfortunately the transition to cycle 2 screwed them over as they lost their south american holdings. They then didn't settle the Pacific fast enough, instead prefering to repeatedly attack Malacca, only to fail every time due to jongs. They made a very late attempt to retake the Pacific from the Vandals (of all civs) but Marajoara ended up taking it instead. They had to wait for the Chukchi to take out Malacca before they were able to make moves again, against Punjab then Lesotho. Despite being succesful, this was way too late in the game to be making moves, and in total war, they got obliterated by the Chukchi's massive nexii carpet.

Msurdej:Normally, I am against the adding of revived civs to the Power Rankings, as they usually have little to do than be speed bumps in the actual fight. But with the Vandals alive, I feel like I should change this. Not because Genseric can actually do anything, as they get the final spot purely on the basis of being the only one alive without an army. But because WOOOO GO VANDALS!!!!

Vihreaa:

Lesotho has held off against Maroajara and the Chukchi long enough to still be an empire during total war, which in itself is achievement. While we know that Lesotho is not going to be the ones to win it all, they nevertheless have provided an entertaining game. An underdog for most of the game, they really came to shine in cycle 2, after they were able to overcome Nigeria and hold the Vandals to their coast. While they themselves may not be able to take the crown for themselves, they might just be able to influence who will be the civ that does take the win.

Random Strategy:

How goes the final war? Well, despite the rank, rather well. So first off, the massive nexii carpet on the Lesotho border surprisingly did not obliterate Lesotho after all like we were expecting: half of it moved south to obliterate the Kulin. It has done this very succesfully and a lot faster than Marajoara has been able to deal with Lesotho. It is debateable whether conquering Kulin instead of conquering Lesotho was a good idea or not: on the one hand the Kulin front is now closed and the nexii currently in australia can now be redeployed to other fronts, on the other hand, preventing Marajoara from getting into Africa would also have been valuable strategically. The other half of the nexii carpet moved north into Europe where it defeated the Marajoaran defenders soundly and conquered all the way to the old German border. The last two fronts, the North American and Pacific ones, have not moved very much. All in all an extremely succesful start to the war. The Chukchi's successes probably comes down to their unit choice of mass nexii, which are extremely powerful especially in groups and even more so with skynet active. They are not only extremely powerful mobile capture units, but also heal each other, debuff enemies and have anti-air capabilities. Though I will add that one particular danger is cybersubs - as submarines, they have massive attack bonuses to anything in the water, and a dead nexii can't be healed by its friends.

So why do the Chukchi lose a rank? Well it's pretty much just the single slide showing Marajoara dominating in production, which is information we didn't have last episode. The Chukchi might be building the better units thanks to skynet, but Marajoara has its own wonders - bionic tower, nephilim gene template and citadel station - both of which provide massive empire-wide production buffs and is certainly why Marajoara has as much production as they have. The Chukchi do not appear to have enough momentum from their initial attacks (though they were unsuccessful) to reach Marajoaran core cities and do some real damage. That means the war will become a grind, which favours the biggest production. Still, skynet is no pushover and the Chukchi are still quite capable of winning: we’ll see if it is enough to compensate.

Msurdej  Here we are, the final battle. Like all wars, Marajoara’s battle record is hit and miss. On the negative side, the Chukchi managed to push them back in Europe, pushing P’kuee’s forces all the way back to the Balkans. The Chukchi have also been more successful against the other combatants, eliminating the Kulin and grabbing some Lesotho lands, while Marajoara only did the latter.But as Random Strategy said, the possible ace in the hole for Marajoara is their production. With over 65% Production over the Chukchi, Marajoara can pump out a lot more units, which could close the small gap between the two militaries. Furthermore, P’kuee’s forces are arguably closer to reaching the arctic core of the Chukchi than Lawtiliwadlin. If they can do damage there, the Chukchi could be put on the back foot. It’ll be a hard battle, but one Marajoara can win.