Power Rankings: Episode 23 – S3

Emu

We are gathered here today to mourn Bulan, greatest of all leaders, Captain of the Caspian, scourge of that one Afghan line infantry, devoted father and husband, and friend to many. He was cruelly taken out of this world by Durrani the Horrible, who was promptly carved up by all his neighbors for this horrible crime. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, and a cousin in Massagetae.

Emu

eggypt

Altima

Through quirks of statistics, Vladimir winds up not last despite currently being at war with a top 10 ranked civ and on one last city. Well, that’s not entirely fair to those who ranked them above last. Vladimir is unlikely to actually die in the next part. They’ve still got a largish carpet for a city-state, their terrain is fairly rough, and Perm is busy causing themselves other problems on top of thus far being fairly averse to finishing blows. There’s decent odds they walk out of this war alive; a city state doomed to die a slow death, but alive regardless.

Of course if Lithuania rejoins Vladimir will just die outright.

Cloudy:

Welp, they tried. Tomyris did declare war on Khazaria, as we jokingly suggested, but sadly she failed to get the kill. Now all she can do is wait for death at the hands of a larger power.

Rosay:

Cambodia is arguably one of the better rumps for the sole reason that they are doing what every rump should aspire to do: Be in a war for over 1000 years with the same civ and somehow manage not to die. The status quo did not dramatically change for Cambodia for this part, and at this point that is enough of a win

Orange:

I am so glad that google docs understands Tetouan as a word because I can never spell it correctly the first time. Can not for the life of me remember each week. Anyways I still like Tetouan I hope they survive a bit longer. :)

Cloudy:

............................lol

Amazing peace treaty. Just amazing. Congratulations.

Reformer:

It’s a good day to be Idi Amin. A whole two ranks up. That’s Vladimir and Castile on their way down. Castile isn’t much weaker though so I could see them swapping places with Uganda as ranks ebb and flow. But that’s about it, check in next week for another news report on Uganda.

Reformer:

Another day, another episode of firing on defenseless embarked Turkish units. It shocks me that Turkey is keeping this war going. But oh well. To the east, Vladimir lost Adana, so Kiev’s isolation between significantly stronger civs is now complete. Doesn’t change much. But they’re not in much danger right now. Turkey obviously can’t do it. Perm probably can’t do it even with open borders through Lithuania. And Lithuania doesn’t have much of an army for some reason? I dunno what’s up with that. So yeah. They’ll be around for a while longer.

Cloudy:

Ming!

Mong...

Wait, you mean to tell me something happened to the Ming this episode? What’s that? The Maori attempted to take their Hawaiian city but failed miserably? Ha, serves them right. Ming is eternal.

Reformer:

So the anti-Botswana coalition that I expected did not come to pass. Those war decs really were just strays. Maybe something interesting will happen in Southern Africa next episode!

Msurdej:  Another part, another failed attempt to get relevant from North Korea. The failed invasion of Mori is another failure from the Kim dynasty. More worryingly, as more civs die, North Korea is creeping closer and closer towards the bottom 10, somewhere they have narrowly avoided so far. But it's only a matter of time until North Korea is a bottom of the barrel civ, especially if these failed invasions keep happening.

Cloudy:

Mori fared perhaps better than expected this episode, as the Gokturks bungled their naval invasion and then got attacked by the Cree before they could try again. Then North Korea declared war on them, but as usual, Kim Jong Un damaged a couple cities then chickened out. So far, then, Mori has made it through unscathed. But their empire is looking a little battered, and I have to wonder how long their reprieve will last.

Emu

The Anglo-Dutch are just the most civ in this game. They get in a war that goes nowhere, they trade one city for another, they continue to not get stomped by their larger neighbor. Lather, rinse, repeat. Just another day in the life of the only Willy without a Fred this side of Seattle.

Msurdej:  *sighs* Hans, bubby, Remember last week when I said “While it’s unlikely he’ll lose a city, this is definitely taking a turn for the worse.” Well, you’ve just taken this from worse to even worse. Giving up Godhavn to FDR was a Maria ! level play, further isolating and making your enemies stronger. It’s getting harder and harder to see a Greenland victory if they keep pulling moves like this.

JDT:

The Pandya go up an astronomical 4 ranks, as they capitalize on the weakness of Afghanistan and seem poised to take Chagcharchan. Sure, further progress seems unlikely, but for any civ, let alone one as weak as the Pandya, capturing a single 12 pop city is already a massive W. While I wouldn’t hold out hope for the Pandyasweep, this is definitely a promising sign for future prospects. Plus, they have more troops than Afghanistan near Balkh…

Reformer:

Gawd damn. They done it. After years and years of siege, Machu has fallen as well, and RDLP grows to a whole 6 cities. That’s some good shit! Except, you know, too little too late. Even with a 50% increase in strength, RDLP is meager and weak compared to the competing powers on the continent. RDLP’s time has long passed, but at least they’re finally fun to watch.

Rosay:

Maori used to be the most overrated civ on the cylinder, but now with the Inca having to push into Australia from literally the other side of the cylinder to make Australia and New Zealand mildly interesting, I'd say the PR ranking accurately reflects my thoughts. Though now that Wira is falling down in the rankings Maori also has to reflect that by moving even lower. Hey at least they can exploit a coalition war if Inca or Tonga want a free land grab.

Orange:

This is exactly the situation Yugoslavia does NOT want to be in. Honestly they should’ve dropped a bit further than this even. They flipped Melfi once but lost their Saharan cities and lost Titograd, really it would be best for them to peace out and focus on fighting Brandenburg. At least it will be easier since Brandenburg doesn’t know how to fight.

Msurdej:  It appears that my last writeup on Ireland has...offended some people. I was quite surprised to see how many of you care for Ireland. It’s almost as many people as civs Micheal Collins now finds himself at war with. And to that I say...It looks like Greenland is going to take Tralee. That speed bump is going to get smaller.

Msurdej:  

A(nother) big ol’ nothing burger episode for Kilwa. It be like that sometimes. The likelier story of Kilwa doing nothing this part came true. And it seems like that will happen again in the next part.  It really do be like that sometimes.

Cloudy:

The Zulu rise five places after capturing a Yemeni city in the Indian Ocean, while managing to not lose another city near Yemen’s core, at least so far. After taking two cities from Botswana not that long ago, it almost seems like the Zulu aren’t doing half bad. Could the future have more in store for them?

Orange:

Yemen tumbles after a really active part for them. They got attacked and lost a number of colonies but none that really affected their stats too much. They are also 12 techs ahead of Zulu so if they get their fleet organized they can take Nodwengu and potentially Isandlwana. It’s really a matter if they can focus their efforts properly and not let their advanced navy just die to a mass of weaker ships. Yemen really is this Mk’s wildcard tbh.

Leman:

I still think Chad sucks. They rise thanks to Yemen’s coalition, but honestly, in my opinion Yemen is way better than Chad. Like Yemen, Chad lost population this part. Unlike Yemen, Chad wasn’t at war. It just can’t keep its people fed. So that’s awkward.

Emu

Bengali exclaves finally start to get swallowed up, cutting off their escape route. But this part wasn't all bad for Bengal, as their main threat is beset with enemies from all sides, meaning their core is safe for now. I'm not sure if there's a path to victory for Bengal, but there's definitely a way to make it to Total War.

Leman:

Chile gets a slight bump in ranks due to its capture of a few cities in the Antarctic and I think also because of how lame Inca is looking. Like if Inca is dropping core cities to RDLP, imagine what would happen if Chile went to war? (Answer: Chile’d probably lose their entire coast. Inca’s navy is nuts.) But what if Chile goes after RDLP? Theoretically that would be just as good for Chile as it was last time, right? Better get on that before the cooler, better, faster, and strong Kayapo does.

Reformer:

Nothing to report this week.

Altima

Wiradjuri didn’t do anything except burn a perfectly good cup of coffee. Nothing’s meaningfully changed for them this part, they still have spooky northern and eastern neighbors and a need to bulk up to deal with them. Still, they have (most of) an Australia to themselves. They’ve got time to do so.

Leman:

Nemequene’s quiet part earned him the privilege of barely holding on to the top 20. Personally, I don’t think he deserves it, but I can’t say he deserves to be all that much lower. The big problem is after fumbling the invasion of Central America and allowing Mohave to take the spoils, there’s not a good direction for Muisca to go. They could try out Kayapo again, but that seems foolish. Kayapo is 16 techs ahead. So yeah. Not really sure what Muisca can do besides bide some time and hope an opportunity presents itself.

Orange:

As the resident disliker of Kayapo who keeps getting the Kayapo slides: HAHA FUCK YOU KAYAPO YOU LOST THE TECH LEAD THAT YOU HAVEN’T DONE SHIT WITH. “LET THEM COOK”? NAH THEY AIN’T COOKING ANYTHING THEY GOT A BOWL OF CEREAL AND PEOPLE ARE CALLING IT THE MOTHER OF ALL SOUPS. GET FUCKED YOU WATERED DOWN MILK ONLY LIKED CAUSE YOUR FULL OF SUGAR FROSTED FLAKES ASS BITCH.

JDT:

The Arapaho drop a grand 6 ranks, the second largest of the week. This is in spite of them not really appearing in the part at all. And thats the issue - they’re just not good enough. Their army is 30.7k and consists of several outdated units, not nearly enough to stand up to their neighbours. They are currently undergoing happiness issues, so bad in fact that they’re spawning rebels. And worst of all, the Mohave have gotten planes, meaning their cities can easily be brought to black. If they don’t bulk up soon, all that awaits the Arapaho in the future is a tripartite division by three potential top tiers.

Emu

The greatest (and onlyest) Guiscard on the cylinder finally pounces on Tito with masterful timing, taking advantage of Tito getting clonked over the head with a bottle of Brandy to make advances on the other semi-relevant civ in Southern Europe. We have high confidence this'll make the abnormal Normans the first major empire to come from Italy, so they've taken a jump in the rankings you usually don't see outside of the first few parts.

Altima

Mali didn’t do much this part, other than completely deep-six Spain by murderous diplomacy and settle on the ashes of a prior failure. So not much. While they’re still the civ that couldn’t outfight the Spaniards, the sick men of Europe, they still walked away with progress nonetheless, progress that will make a good launching board for conquering the rest of the peninsula.

JDT:

Lithuania sails along at 15th. Their statline is pretty decent and their position has not changed much since the subjugation of Vladimir. This, while not much of a problem right now, may prove to become a rather large problem in the future. Their military is a relatively puny 20.2k, and while their decent production and Brandenbug and the Permians being similarly barren provide protection, should one of these powers engage it will not look good. Additionally, Perm has been sweeping through Vladimir and Afghanistan, and could potentially become a top power off these gains.

Cloudy:

America continued to grow this episode via its strategy of picking off cities here and there, this time by receiving Godhavn in a peace treaty with Greenland. They also attempted to take Christianshab from Mali, but made peace too early. With the war with Cree having ended as well, America is now at peace, and against all odds has actually entered a golden age, after being in a series of dark ages for most of the game. So the question is, where to next? As fans of drama, we’d probably enjoy it most if FDR beefed up his land army and decided to join the Mohave in partitioning the Arapaho.

Leman:

Kokang dropped a couple of undefendable Antarctic cities, and honestly, I don’t care. Once settled, it's better to have them, but they were barely adding anything. Chile at least can use them, send some trade routes, defend them, you know. Kokang, by my count, isn’t really fussed. Instead, lets focus on a solid stats rise and watch that contribute to Kokang’s fairly impressive rise in ranks.

JDT:

Afghanistan is subject to a 7 rank drop - one of the biggest in recent memory. The raison d’etat is obvious - the world has decided to follow the words of George W. Bush, and attack Afghanistan. It’s not just that they’re losing, it’s that they’re decisively losing. The Permian front, where most of their troops are in some element of activity, is turning to be a sweep for the Permians, and on the Indian front, they are losing Chagcharchan to the Pandya. Keep in mind, the Pandya are a whole era behind them, have in theory significantly less production and military force and I gave them one of the most brutal roastings last PR for being absolute dogshit. This doesn’t even take into account potential Bengali and Kokang incursions, though right now the former is occupied with Indonesia and the latter is hampered by the Himalayas. Even if they weren’t gonna get coalitioned to hell and back, there is reason to believe we were gonna drop them anyhow. Their army is tiny for such a big power, and their stats are getting eclipsed by larger, more powerful nations. What more is there to say? We may soon be seeing the eclipse of an empire, and we are not confident they’ll bounce back.

Orange:

Finally we have Suharto getting up and dealing with the Bengal colonies in his lands. Been waiting for this war since Bengal went and settled Chittagong so so long ago. The longer this war goes on the stronger Indonesia’s position becomes since they have better tech and better production. Down shall the islands fall.

JDT:

“It took me, 81 slides,to remember I’m at war.”

“I forgot, about it in 2 seconds.”“Thats all….”

Altima

Azkay awoke and chose violence, for which he has been awarded two whole ranks. Yee. More seriously, it’s hard to tell how the Permian/Afghani war will progress from here. The front line is fairly thin of units for both combatants, with both having fairly significant forces in reserve ready to commit to the battle should they decide to do so. Afghans have better artillery, including actual proper artillery, and a very defensively useful UU, but fewer units in general and the disadvantage of having wars on every front. Meanwhile, the Permians are only at war with the Afghans and Vladimir, but Tuva is still a scary question mark that might well come out of nowhere to wreck things. Cloudy, the future is.

Oh, and the Vladimir war is probably going nowhere unless Lithuania joins in. Vladimir’s got too many units, rough terrain, and Perm’s busy anyway.

JDT:

The Inca somehow stay stable this part. This in spite of them losing Machu and Sao Salvador basically non-violently, and if you’re counting on them taking them back chances are not looking good. It really just seems like the Inca forgot that they have a core east of the Andes, somewhat historical given their aversion to passing the ranges in real life, but concerning with them being the crown of South America and whatnot. Nevertheless, their stats remain good, and other powers are not good enough, which leaves them good enough to stay stable.

Msurdej:  The Gokturks find themselves down a rank as they are at war with roughly half their neighbors. A was vs the Han might be a good idea, and a war with the Cree could generously be described as ballsy. But both deciding to team up, plus a continued war against the Mori, is  good news for Bumin. This has led to the Han on the offensive, and may mean some territory loss if the Gokturks can’t repel the invading forces.

Reformer:

Alright, Timor has shot up four ranks. Considering the company they’re in, that’s quite a bit, so let’s see what this is all about. There is one primary reason for this. Their tech has rapidly improved, to the point where they have Plastics, the tech for research labs and infantry…but sadly, without access to great war infantry, they cannot upgrade their riflemen yet. Expect that to happen next part. They will also gain railroads on that path, which will improve production greatly, not to mention the factories they unlocked on the last turn of the part. Timor’s military is already the most advanced on the globe, this will make them undefeatable, and a snowball can only gain more mass.

Altima

Well, say what you will about Wu, but the man’s no coward. Most AI look at a military score twice theirs and balk. Wu struts up to that shit and slaps it in the face. The war, natal though it is, currently inclines in his favor, with his forces surrounding an enemy city and the local defense being mostly skirmishers and Knight UUs. However, the wide nature of the front plays to the greatest strategic weakness of the Civ V AI, its tendency to spread its forces across every available front rather than focusing-in-strength on any one point, leaving it vulnerable to defeat-in-detail. And indeed, his forces are very well spread-out, so this fate may well befall him. Still, the war’s young, baby. Han’s pulled this exact upset before. Let’s see if he can do it again.

Altima

After getting their Cree war ground to a halt by the awful mountain passes, Mohavan military scientists hit the books. What if you somehow managed to put dudes in flying machines and had them drop ordinance on your targets from the sky? Then you could avoid having to navigate the hellish terrain that forms the borders between the American giants, and could just clear the way in advance of your infantry. Through some technological starts, stops, and miracles, they’ve finally made that dream a reality- the first planes now cross the skies of the cylinder in the hands of the Mohave. Now, the AI can sometimes be bad with planes, but still, this represents an enormous opportunity to push into the Cree territory while their skies are still clear. Let’s hope they can press it.

Reformer:

One North American civ leaves the top 3, another enters. Cree has elected to commit a hammer-and-anvil move against Göktürks with Han’s help. While the actual gains could range anywhere from nothing to a lot, it’s a very optimal move and most certainly worth it almost regardless of outcome. Cree has maintained competitive stats for most of the game, has fought most of their neighbors, shows perseverance and competence - absolutely a civ capable of winning the game, ultimately. As disappointing as it may be for me personally.

Leman:

Our favorite Siberian monster, Tuva finds themselves at number two again. They’re stats are insane but not quite insane enough to break Turkey’s hold on the top spot this part. However, they are not without opportunity. Permians have started throwing their weight around again, and last time they did that, Tuva was the one who showed up and punished them for their over-extension. Well, looking at the slides, Permians are looking kind of extended again. Come on Donduk, you know you want that #1 spot. You know what to do.

Altima

Hey Ataturk. Maybe stop wailing ineffectually on Kyiv and join everyone else in fucking with Afghanistan. Now seems like a pretty good time to start on that, they’ve got like no units on the border and are busy dealing with everyone else. Sure, the seas around Nineveh would be messy, but you could almost certainly win on land pretty decisively if you committed. No? Gonna keep fucking with Kyiv to no avail? Okay bud, you do you.