Power Rankings: Episode 19 – S3

Orange:

RIP to a real one, the quackest of the crew, the Hamasta Hercules, the copper house congenial, the man who’s 50% sea and 50% weed, the one, the only, Willie Seaweed. He deserved so much better, should’ve dominated the northwest. But alas, he failed to expand east to stop the incoming Cree masses. May next time the coast win out.

Altima

Man, I’m having some flashbacks back to Mk. 1 here. Remember when Byzantium and France both declared completely suicidal wars for no earthly reason other than spite, and then immediately died? Good times. Glad to see the Seminole respect the classics. Pity they’re going to die for it, but hey, dying for art is noble enough.

Emu

why the fuck do i keep getting Khazaria what did i do to deserve this. help me admiral of Bulan's entire navy of one trireme in the Caspian.

Leman:

I bet the American war with Seminole is making Ethan Allen nervous. He’s next on the chopping block after all.

Reformer:

I have more words about drywall than about…wait, wrong way around. Better luck next week!

Orange:

Ainu are just waiting around at this point for the Gokturks or Mori to fight them. Maybe they can still take on North Korea if they try real hard. I believe in them, they can outlive NK.

Orange:

Tomyris is barely holding on, like barely. Honestly they probably should be ranked lower. I’m not sure why we ranked them here, why I ranked them 45th. The capital is down, Oxus is flipping, Chorasmia is rapidly falling to the Tuvan horde, Arys will likely fall soon too. At least Asir is protected by being cut off, but who knows how long that will last.

CelestialDalek:Did you know Cambodia is at war with Kokang? Olive Yang doesn’t know either, which is why Phnom Penh is still at full health, or even on the map. A few vigilante Kokang soldiers decided to go into Cambodia and pillage, only to find barely anything to pillage. “This is disappointing, even for Cambodia,” said a spokesman.

JDT:

The Muisca are back to bang some more on Centroamerica’s door. And with boats right by Guatemala City, it seems unlikely that Morazon is coming out of this completely unscathed. All is lining up for a mass collapse at some point. But hey, don’t worry, they’re winning on the Seminole front boys. Cuscowilla by 2000 AD here we go!

Leman:

Most of Tetouan’s empire has fallen to Mali, with their capital under heavy siege and the rest of their empire on the otherside of Norman cities. Things are not looking great for Sayyida al-Hurra. At least without open borders, Sayyida won't die.

JDT:

The Ugandans are secretly the most advanced civ in the cylinder. So advanced are they, I can’t describe them on fear of death! In fact, I shouldn’t be writing a blurb at all! They are simply too powerful!

JDT:

The Ming go up one as the Han make a premature peace deal. This, of course, doesn’t solve the fact they are sandwiched between stronger powers, or that they are missing a capital, but hey they’re not actively dying anymore! And they still have a relevant corridor in mainland Asia!

Altima

Welp. While you have to give the Vladimir army that they’ve made the Lithuanians pay in blood for the lands lost, they’ve still lost quite a bit of land. They may well be wiped out in the next part! It’s a little unlikely, as the Lithuanians have both lost a lot of soldiers in their blitz and the Vladimir have rebuilt a tidy little army of their own to hold the core by, but we may well be pressing Fs for the little Eastern Euro that couldn’t.

Leman:

Well, Botswana. That’s it. You were pretty screwed this entire game but losing two cities to the Zulu has kind of sealed the deal. At least peace was declared and other civs are collapsing around you faster, but my part zero of a light blue Africa are truly, officially, dead.

Emu

Our four-letter friends down south look more and more hopeless each episode. Even the stagnating Chile could eliminate them in one fell swoop if they wanted. Their aggressive reputation seems to have met the same fate as Paraguay's, and they waste away in the valley that bears their name. Do you think Jose ever gets lonely without Pedro around?

Orange:

North Korea is honestly a strong contender for most boring civ. Seriously, Kim Il-Sung has just decided to sleep this whole game. He fought over a single Japanese city for ages to just barely get it in a peace deal, and then has done nothing. Mori fucked up their early game and is still in a much better position.

Emu

Castilian naval prowess falters as Michael Collins techs up his navy and makes the fight for Oviedo a real slog. All in all, this war is a definite loss for Castile, even if they do walk away with their old Breton outpost in the end. It's drained manpower and attention that Isabella could be using to murk Tetouan, a conquest they could actually hold, with valuable cities close to their core. Even a war against the Anglo-Dutch would be a better idea at this point. But hey, Castile isn't asleep, so I guess that's something?

Leman:

Kyivan Rus gained 6 ranks. I have no idea why. Maybe we’re impressed that Turkey didn’t fully end them? Hope that they’ll invade Vladimir? I assume the latter, but I do not know.

Cloudy:

The way we assign the Pandya write-up is we play a game of hot potato and whoever is left holding it has to do it. This week that was meeeeee

Reformer:

On one hand, Ainu’s now a one-city rump. On the other hand, Ming has lost their capital and is weaker than ever. But even with all these clays on silver platters…could Mori do it? With how outdated their military looked to be, I’m not holding my breath. I’m just waiting for Inca’s big boy navy to come over and take out the poor Japanese civ. I’d take the Gökturks too, I’m not TOO picky.

CelestialDalek:I know we all had high hopes for Kilwa. Unfortunately, with every passing episode, those hopes fade and fade. Where can they go? Their ships can’t reach Uganda. They cannot do anything about Yemen. They’d stalemate with Zulu. The Kilwa sweep ends not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with abject silence and depression.

Leman:

Man, Maori joins the club of really terrible peace treaties, giving away a core city to the Wiradjuri in exchange for peace. The irony is, with Timor-Leste and the Inca beating down the exhausted Wiradjuri, Maori actually might have had a chance of regaining a few cities. Oh well. Maybe they’ll redeclare after the peace treaty wears out.

CelestialDalek:The Anglo-Dutch continue to be the runt of Europe. Lagging  in tech, army, and any good stats, their position next to Brandenburg doesn’t really matter. They’re an aggressively mid-tier civ. On the bright side, somehow they have the region’s best navy. If you ask William III how, he will shrug his shoulders and tell you “why not?” We all know, deep down, he is scared of Brandenburg pulling off another naval invasion using land units like they did in the first ever Brandenburg-Anglo-Dutch war. This fear is unfounded, but does he care? Do you care about the Anglo-Dutch?

Leman:

Greenland has been playing the weirdest, crappiest game I’ve ever seen. No religion, terrible science, weird late settling, and mediocre military, all leading up to a donation of a city to America and a probable loss of another to Ireland. There was so much potential for a column of ships sweeping through the Atlantic, like the second coming of Ingolfur Arnarson, but Greenland fucked that all up.

Leman:

Well, the next chapter (of what surely won’t be the last) of the Zulu-Botswana wars has come to a close, and the Zulu are the decided victors this time around, snagging two cities from their blue neighbor. This brings Zulu’s total count up to a still somewhat unimpressive 10. I mean it’s not bad, it's better than say Kayapo, but it's not really enough to pull Zulu out of mediocrity. Maybe they can turn these stats around, Africa is a bit of a weak continent this time around, but I still don’t expect Zulu to surpass Chad, Angola, or Mali any time soon.

Emu

Michael Collins decides he's sick of the intrusions on his islands, and sets out to take care of any and all foreign colonies. In addition, he's brought his chances at keeping Oveido to a coin flip. His islands will surely end up solidified, but his chances of a breakout still remain low. Ireland isn't much of a naval power this time around, so even though the Anglo-Dutch are fairly weak, I wouldn't put much stock in Mike's ability to take them down. On the plus side, there's not a lot of naval power in the North Atlantic as a whole, so I doubt he'll take a serious fall anytime soon.

Orange:

Remember back in part 2 where we ranked Yugoslavia 2nd? Yeah they haven’t done shit since then. Wake the fuck up Tito.

Orange:

Robert makes an interesting move this part for once by attacking Chad and proceeding to move all his African units away from Chad’s border. Who knows what his plan is, because I think whoever does know should probably let Rob know.

Altima

In a right properly Chadly move, Chad seems to be holding out quite alright against the statistically superior Norman force. Now, a lot of that statistical superiority comes from the Norman navy that can’t contribute to this fight, but it's still swordsmen against longswords, which is a commendable fight to win. Given the geographical fuckery involved, I don’t see the Normans breaching the Chaddic lines anytime soon, so unless they eat a bad peace deal, don’t expect much to change on this front in the coming part.

JDT:

The Muisca run around, gunning down whole towns

of Mestizo blood

Like they in the hood

Moving fast, pushing through, moron can’t tell false from true

Easy money, stack the racks right up to the sky

Guatemala City open to taking, bye-bye

Prod’s still bottom tier, but no need to be productive

When you got the cities and fam to be assertive

Never yield in science, perennial power

Man of the hour, the Muisca’s a strong soldier

CelestialDalek:Chile is in an awkward spot, but I think a bit underrated. South America is going crazy this game, with Muisca, Kayapo, Inca, and Chile all being fairly strong. The problem is Kayapo and Inca. Kayapo is a loose cannon that has impressive stats that they… aren’t really using. Inca is a naval powerhouse but vulnerable to an attack. Muisca and Chile sandwich the two better civs and both are seen as weak. But Chile has fine stats and could probably pull something off. Put the nail in Rio de la Plata’s coffin… but then what? Those three words, “but then what,” are downers in Allende’s war room. Every time he hears them, Allende sits down, dejected, and asks to hear how the economy is doing. “At least Kissinger isn’t in the cylinder,” he thinks to himself.

Leman:

Yemen, the coolest civ, climbs to 22nd, the highest rank Arwa has received since episode 0! Good for her! This comes on the back of solid science, population, and military stats, a flurry of arctic cities, and almost 150 trade routes. Honestly, the only stats that Yemen has that are kind of bar are production, which does sting , but the Yemeni core production is probably still up to par.

Now she’s got to just use those stats to expand a little bit. Kilwa’s looking pretty lame, maybe Yemen can go after them? Or, if Arwa’s feeling particularly bold, Turkey's southern cities are undefended!

Reformer:

Every part that goes by is a part of pitiful stagnation for Bengal. This trend has lasted for a good ten parts for now: Who remembers when they peaked at SIXTH in ep6? From there, they have only descended, slowly but steadily. And no redemption in sight. At this rate Bengal will collapse to the Indonesian navy. An eventual Afghan attack would do it quite easily as well. But the ‘how’ doesn’t really matter to me, in the end. What matters to me is that Bengal has nothing going for it. And that’s not about to change.

Cloudy:

The Wiradjuri suffer a catastrophic seven-place plunge as the declaration of war by the Inca throws a wrench into our previous expectations. Although Windradyne is still holding the line against Timor-Leste, the Inca are running rampant in the east, taking over several of his Polynesian and Melanesian holdings without encountering much resistance. The peace treaty with the Maori did result in the handover of a fat city on New Zealand, but that won’t do much good if the Wiradjuri can’t figure out how to fight a two-front naval war sometime in the next... I dunno, five turns.

Msurdej:  Well with the *checks notes to prevent misspelling* Tetouan capital nearly fallen, Mali rises back up to its highest point since Part 2. But don’t celebrate too much, Mali fans. They could still make peace before capturing the capital, which would make these ranks all but evaporate.

Msurdej:  Angola didn’t really do much this episode. Maybe they have an opportunity to go after Botswana or Chad if the latter over-commits to the war with the Normans.

Emu

The endlessly controversial Kayapo actually holds their rank from last part for the first time in months, as sentiment on these scientific titans seems to be finally stabilizing. Turkey is actually catching up in effective science because of their UB, but everyone else is a good 200 behind still. Not much is really changing at the moment, but at this point Artillery is in sight, and that can be a real game changer in the Amazon. Kayapo is one of the few civs that has yet to prove itself but whose window for doing so isn't even close to up.

Cloudy:

After plunging to 21st place last episode, Kokang rebounds to 16th after Indonesia pulls out of the invasion without capturing any cities. Kokang therefore escapes unscathed for now, catapulting them back to the position their stats would suggest. But will the honeymoon last? It increasingly feels as though Kokang is surrounded by stronger neighbors with better track records. So maybe it’s all just an opium-induced fever dream.

Leman:

Timor-Leste takes a bit of a ranking dip, but everyone’s favorite underdog continues to maintain strong stats and puts on an excellent defense against the exhausted Wiradjuri. It just so happens that a few other civs had episodes that were a little bit more exciting than Timor-Leste, but the former 61st place civ is still absolutely crushing it.

The problem that is kind of arising is that everyone in this region is kind of strong? Like Timor-Leste is obviously doing great, but so is Indonesia. Wiradjuri is struggling but that’s just because they used all their military against the Maori – the rest of their stats are great. Kokang isn’t looking as hot as it was 10 parts ago, but they’re still clearly strong. And Mohave and Inca are creeping into the region and they’ve been top tiers since forever. So where is Timor-Leste going to expand to? Maori feels a little out of the way. Mori, Ming and North Korea feel a bit far? Maybe they’ll be able to peel a few cities off of Wiradjuri and then go after one the overextended Americans? Not really sure, but I have a feeling Xanana will figure something out.

CelestialDalek:Why, oh, why? You had your shot to reach the mainland! Kokang was right there! On the bright side, Indonesia’s stats are still way better than they have any right to be. They have the 6th best science of anyone on the cylinder, 15th best production, and 14th biggest army. What they also have is opportunities. Timor-Leste still has a little tech lead, but their navy is a bit beaten down. Bengal has two free cities on Sumatra. Kokang is still there for round two. While Indonesia might not have their full hand in front of them now, weakness in any of these neighbors could lead to a huge gain.

Leman

America is doing a great job at picking on all these weaker civs on the eastern seaboard through sheer diplomacy alone. America is way stronger on the stats sheet than they are in-game – their weird, snaky, fractured empire is hard to defend and borders against some very strong enemies. That being said, the AI’s don’t seem to know that. First Seminole, then Vermont, now Greenland – all three civs have handed Franklin cities that were under very little real danger, because on paper, America could eat these civs for breakfast. Lucky America.

It's especially cruel now that America is turning around and cleaning up the civs they rumped through diplomacy via force. Seminole seems to be first up.

Altima

Look, all anyone has to say about Arapaho is that they want someone to kill Big A dead. Not sure what that says about them; dudes have perfectly respectable stats and a good enough position to do something if they can get a good opening. Peeps just like other civs more. Maybe it’ll help if they join in against America or the Cree, bloodshed always gets the audience on your side.

Emu

The great bear of the East has an opportunity here. Lithuanian outposts in the area are undefended, and they've already jumped on that. Massagetae is very weak, and they've jumped on that too. If they can time the peace with Lithuania right and/or take a hunk out of Vladimir, they'll be in a very good position to stand up to the lords of the steppe that once stood in their shadow. On the other hand, the runts around them are drying up. Tuva, Lithuania, Afghanistan, Turkey.... They're in the big leagues now, and I don't doubt they have what it takes to hold their own, but a lasting victory? The jury is still out.

Reformer:

Whoops, is that a -5? See, we were expecting Han to take it further with the war against Ming. Though a capital is a nice prize, it is quite disappointing considering Han could’ve driven Ming into the ocean without much trouble. But perhaps the prolonged siege tired the AI out. Not everyone can be a Suharto, after all. Let’s just hope they are both more competent and more persistent next time.

Leman:

Guess who rejoined the top ten with the largest military on the cylinder? It’s Mohave! (Obviously, this is Mohave’s write up, who else would it be, Cree?) Fun fact, they have less troops that Lithuania had last episode, but most of Gedimidas’s army died at the walls of Suzdal, so Mohave takes the crown. In addition, they picked up another extremely powerful wonder (on top of Gate of the Sun from several parts ago) – the Porcelain Tower. The Tower improves research agreements and points out that Mohave has been taking rationalism, and is playing an excellent game. Absolutely worthy of the top ten in my opinion.

Leman:

Lithuania goes to war with Vladimir! With the largest army on the cylinder at the start of the episode, Lithuania has already made quick work of Vladimir’s northern cities and is seriously pressuring Vladimir’s core.

Unfortunately, with the Permians joining the war against Lithuania, a significant amount of Lithuanian military ahd to be diverted east to protect the Lithuanian fringes, making the war with Vladimir stall a little bit. I’m still optimistic though, Vladimir is completely out of resources and Lithuania is still looking strong.

Emu

Good old Brandy takes a tumble this episode, as Gediminas starts making conquests and Fred-Willy just sits around in Berlin. The time has come for the perpetual titan to prove itself with a real war or be doomed to stagnation. They could certainly pull it off against anyone right now, probably even Lithuania if they strike while Vilnius is still looking east. Brandenburg seems to be the burnt out gifted kid of Europe, being highly rated all game, still possessing what is theoretically a high amount of power, but laying paralyzed, unable to actually use it. Go get some therapy, Fred-Willy. Or at least take out your anger on one of the minor powers in the region. Whatever gets us more action.

Emu

The mighty Gok hits its stride and escapes the shadow of its western neighbor, but all they've done so far is gobble up a couple runts. Still, cities are cities, and successful amphibious invasions are successful amphibious invasions, so I have to give Qaghan the credit he deserves here. They've also repaired their previously dismal stats over the past couple episodes, and all that means they're a power almost on par with Tuva, definitely stronger than Han.

Emu

Afghanistan continues to be the forgotten titan, slumbering in the graveyard of empires as the game goes on around them. They're one of the last few remaining civs to never have been in a relevant war of any kind. I don't think they will until someone wakes the tiger. After that, everyone in the region is fucked. Or maybe they'll just go back to sleep, who knows.

Cloudy:

Tupac Yupanqui rises to tie his previous record high rank, thanks to a well-timed and effective invasion of the Wiradjuri. Incan Polynesia is poised to expand, and indeed is already expanding, as the invaders from South America smash the sparse and technologically inferior fleets defending the islands of Wiradjuri Melanesia. At least two cities have already fallen, and more appear certain to follow. Before long, we could see the Inca becoming a player not just in South America, but in Australia as well. And that would be a very interesting turn of events indeed.

Msurdej:  

Great Gophers! Tuva falls back down to the bronze medal. This is largely due to how much Tuva was forgotten this part. Seriously, the only mention Tuva got this episode was a joke about North Korean propaganda. Their war on Massagetae hasn’t earned anything yet while the Permians have, making Donduk look a little foolish. It’ll be interesting to see if he makes it up in the next part.

Cloudy:

Poundmaker just misses out on first place this week, but does achieve a season best ranking of second. Following their conquest of the Kwakwaka’wakw, the Cree have been bulking up, with improved stats and an impressive empire. They’ve now turned their sights on the isolated American city of Philadelphia, and they have a decent chance of capturing it, which would put them in control of all of Canada west of Quebec. Regardless of whether you think they deserve this rank, one thing is clear: for the moment, at least, they’re the undisputed top dogs in North America.

Cloudy:

Amid a fog of confusion, Turkey emerges as the #1 civ again after losing that rank in episode 17. Why? Well, it’s honestly hard to say. There was no consensus about who was #1 this episode, as Turkey, Tuva, and the Cree got three votes each, and the tiebreaker came down to who put the other civs lower. Turkey probably ended up winning that tiebreaker because they’ve caught up to the Kayapo in terms of effective science, a major milestone which deserves recognition. But as for whether they deserve #1... that will depend on whether a better contender emerges or not.