Power Rankings: Episode 25 – S3

Msurdej:  Ahh Egypt. Unlike many of the civs we’ve talked about, you were actually a contender at one point.  They were once a top ten power, as they surged to get the first elimination of the game. But alas,not only did they not get the kill, but they stretched themselves too thin. Chad and Turkey tore them apart, leaving them a city state after giving away one of their first cities. It was a valiant effort by Akenathen, but ultimately futile. RIP.

Leman:

Some civs go out with a bang. Other civs die without putting up much of a fight against another civ that’s fighting multiple superpowers and struggling. Afghanistan basically rolled over and Pandya absolutely vanished. Honestly, it’s not so surprising given how much more powerful Afghanistan is than Pandya but given how much Afghanistan was struggling against the Permians, I, and I think a few others, expected Pandya to at least put up a fight. And they didn’t.

So, what went wrong? Well dropping Tirunelveli to Bengal early on wasn’t a great start. Letting Afghanistan settle Chagcharan three tiles away from the capital wasn’t a great idea either. Without a strong economy to carry Pandya, they just fell behind without a decent city count. All in all, pretty disappointing. RIP.

Altima

Well this is bad, but it’s probably not lethal. The Normans have a very narrow window of movement to work with, as they lack open borders with either Mali or Yugoslavia. Tetouan may well be able to grind this war out until the Normans just give up and leave them to rot as a city-state. Or the Normans could be really persistent/get open borders and just grind them out. Either way, Tetouan is dead. It’s just a matter of when the body finally catches up to the spirit.

Orange:

“So, I'm gonna give a bit of a critique for the PRs because I respect your work enough to be honest with you:

Please add more description, even when you feel a civilization hasn't done much of note, or if you feel like it's bringing up the obvious. You guys have really good qualitative reasoning for these rankings, and you can see it in something like JDT's text for Afghanistan- which is honestly an amazing write-up, and I'm probably going to use it for the PR slide this week.

Good job as always.”

Orange:

I was doubtful of Turkey to make progress in their war that had been going for 137 turns, but they finally landed some troops and stepped away with two cities leaving Kyivan Rus a single city. Now they just wait for Lithuania to finish them off.

JDT:

Castile rises one entirely because Pandya died. Make no mistake, they’re not in a good spot. They are losing Leon to a small contingent of American destroyers, are at least two eras behind all of their neighbours techwise and have zero production or military to utilize in a comeback. At this point, we're asking who will kill them, not if they die.

Leman:

I wonder what the record is of a civ living as a rump? I expect Mk2 Japan holds the title? Maybe Cambodia will beat them, they’ve got like 300 turns and counting.

Altima

And it was all going so well. Having cleared the Incas from their north, Kayapo has descended upon the underdog, snagging both cities Rio gained already and looking to start snapping up the core city of Catamarca. Thus ends Rio’s moment of hope; snuffed just as it was starting to glow. While it’s unlikely that Kayapo will stick with the war long enough to get a full elimination, taking all of Rio’s mainland holdings is entirely possible, at which point they will be exiled to a fate worse than death. Being trapped on an island for the rest of their life, irrelevant, a runt whose PR summaries will be an echoing dirge of, “They didn’t do anything this part because they can’t do anything anymore.” Truly a fate worse than death.

Leman:

Uganda makes me do a whole writeup on Uganda? (Has anyone made this joke before? I haven’t read the Uganda writeup since episode 5).

Orange:

The Zulu are, to put it kindly, fucked. At war with Angola and Yemen, both taking cities, and Timor-Leste who also snagged a city somehow. Their main saving grace here is that Angola and Yemen both have another civ in the way making their invasions have to go around, which is looking less and less like an issue. Honestly if Botswana or Kilwa jumps next part then I doubt the Zulu are living til the end of it.

Altima

Ireland sucks so bad they’re losing to Greenland. Ireland sucks so bad they’re losing to Greenland and Greenland isn’t even gaining ranks for it. Ireland sucks so bad they’re losing to the Anglo-Dutch. Ireland sucks so bad the Maori have twice the pointy sticks score. Ireland sucks so bad both of their belligerents could peace out right now and they’d still be a corpse waiting for death, ravaged past the point of return.

Reformer:

War all around! Zulu’s enemies converge upon the Zulu homeland. Blood is in the water. What will Botswana do as the last of civs they could potentially defeat in a war is reduced to ash and dust? Watch on with despair, I suppose. That’s most of what they do on this continent, after all.

CelestialDalek:

I’m going to be real with you, I only remembered North Korea was in this game because I have this writeup. Their army sucks and they will lose if they have to fight a war against any remotely competent civ, and I cannot wait for their demise.

Emu

Ming mong yingle yongle

JDT:

Mori rises by one because Ireland tasted Anglo-Dutch-Nordic cuisine. They are not in a good position. The Gokturks have reversed a potential loss of Sat Poro Pet into an invasion of the Mori, and they have overwhelming technological superiority. In the grand scheme of things, the Mori will probably survive. But they are due to lose a city or two from their already miniscule empire, a demoralizing blow to an already demoralized civ.

Reformer:

Though Oceania is far from quiet, Maori’s own corner of the world is much more quiet. Certainly, Timor is jumping from one war to another while Inca is flaunting a fleet of warplanes, but what does Maori have to fear? Sweet fuck all, that’s what. These great powers are distracted by one another, stuck in an ever-escalating arms race - with not even a passing thought to spare for poor little Maori. That’s the truth. I swear and promise.

JDT:

The Anglo-Dutch rise 7 as the Glorious Revolution gets under full swing in Great Britain, with the retaking of Rotterdam and the coming of their powerful Man O War and Blue Guard UUs. They also have artillery to Ireland's field guns, and a strong enough production base to keep up sustained conflict. Sure, these could've been better had they kept Amsterdam, but I'd say losing the worst major city in the Netherlands was a good luck charm at this rate if they can secure a significant portion of the isles. Fortuna might’ve smiled on William this part, and a comeback is 100% possible with some smart attacks and warmongering. Let's see if they can bounce back.

Leman:

Who had Kilwa dropping Sofala to an embattled Afghanistan on their bingo card? Honestly, Kilwa should be kind of quaking in their boots this part. They’re cities seem like they’re up for grabs for anyone with a boat in the East Indian Ocean. Luckily Yemen is distracted devouring Zulu, but they don’t look like they’re gonna survive much longer. If Kilwa is next on Arwa’s warpath, they’re absolutely a sitting duck.

Emu

Tito's historical aptitude as a guerilla leader shows, as Zagreb continues to be Yugoslavian in the face of a statistically superior Brandenburger force. Even with the loss to the Normans cemented as it now is, this spares Yugoslavia from the very worst of what we expected for them. Their prospects are all but gone at this point, but if their defensive performance stays as good as it is, we'll be seeing gray and red on the map for many a part.

CelestialDalek:

Oh well. Even though Greenland didn’t conquer the entire Irish nation, they managed to get a good chunk out of Michael Collins’ empire, even if that chunk is just two one-population cities. Maybe another concentrated push through the Irish Sea could finish him off if Collins keeps fucking up every war he gets in.

Msurdej:  Allende was a quiet boy in this part. Chile’s only mention was about their peasant Republic government. And that got cut off halfway. So I guess you could say that Chile is going to ha-

Cloudy:

BREAKING NEWS: CHAD DID A THING!

It was a pretty significant thing too, eliminating Egypt and gaining a second capital. However, Chad drops this episode instead of climbing, because we don’t think their position has fundamentally changed, and if anything it might have gotten worse. In fact, they now have a large border with Turkey, which has airplanes and landships, and they’ve acquired a large warmonger penalty. At the same time, Chad is still fielding enlightenment era technology and its land is flat and difficult to defend. Just saying.

Emu:

I'm just going to say it, Muisca's window for greatness has closed. They had a very good thing going to start off, and for a while it looked like they were going to overcome their initial disadvantages to become a force to be reckoned with in the region, but they fumbled and went inactive at just the wrong moment, and now their neighbors are eclipsing them to a nigh-insurmountable degree.

Cloudy:

This is truly a wondrous day: for the first time so far this season, Angola has captured a city. It was a non-contiguous capture too, a coastal Zulu city taken in a naval attack, and if they’re lucky they could even snipe another before Yemen or Timor-Leste does. But that stat kind of speaks for itself when it comes to Angola: they have to be one of the sleepiest civs on the cylinder, if not the sleepiest outright. And with outside powers like Yemen and Timor-Leste increasingly bearing down on Africa, we don’t think this milestone for Angola is going to mean anything, given their poor tech and military stats, so like Chad, they go down in the rankings despite their conquests.

Altima:

Well. This has certainly been a roller coaster for Indonesia. They finally end their grinding war against Bengal with modest gains, losing out on the big money ticket at the last moment, but still making modest gains nonetheless. But disaster has struck them, for they find themselves at war with their other two relevant neighbors at once- Kokang from the Northwest, and Timor-Leste from the Southeast. Exhausted from a long war, and up against two (mostly) prepared foes, will Indonesia be able to hold out with minimal losses, or will this be a crippling war? We will have to see.

They do have a numbers-in-theater advantage against both forces- the bulk of Timor-Leste’s forces are away, off somewhere else, though what is in theater is way more advanced than what their foes are fielding. Meanwhile, Kokang has a pathetic excuse for a navy- Galleasses against Frigates is a worthless effort, and they don’t have nearly as many boats as it looks like they do while Indonesia has damn near a full carpet (though there are some annoying triremes). Honestly, were this not a two-front war, I’d put this pretty well in Indonesia’s camp on the Kokang front, and sketch in the Timorese one. But this is a two-front war, so it will all come down to how badly Suharto mismanages his division of forces in the coming part. He can hold; a human could certainly hold.

But can an AI?

CelestialDalek:

This was a fairly mixed part for Bengal. On the one hand, they took Yogyakarta from Indonesia, which stings given that it was an originally Indonesian city. On the other, they lost Chittagong and Midnapore to Indonesia in that war. Since two is greater than one, they came out at a net loss from that.

War with Afghanistan was a complete nothingburger. Although Afghanistan was distracted fighting a multifront war against the Permians, Pandya, and Bengal, they managed to shore up their Indian holdings and manage to obliterate Pandya. Could Bengal have gained something? Maybe if they started the war with their army anywhere near the Afghan border. They tried to push into the Himalayas, but that obviously failed. So where can Bengal really go? Uh… They’ll need to come up with an answer to that before Durrani comes knocking on his own terms.

Emu

Yemen just continues to be strange in a sort of background way that you don't really notice until you look back and wonder just how they did all THAT. It's not like the Zulu navy was exactly revered the world over, but pulling off a long-distance conquest like that and making it so I have to refer to the Zulu navy in the past tense is fairly impressive. With their window of opportunity back in Arabia nearly if not entirely gone, this is exactly the type of move al-Sulayhi needs to make to stay in this.

Rosay:

MY BOYS THEY’RE DOING IT THEY'VE STARTED TO COOK. I've been hyping up the Normans for quite a bit recently and now it's finally beginning to manifest with their surprise taking of southern France in part 23 and finally pushing Teto off of the African Continent late into this part. Now the Normans are looking to potentially take Tetouan off the roster, but they have an island shaped city of Meknes blocking the way into the city. There is the option of just building ships in Caupa but there is only a one tile gap to make that work, so any kind of push there would be laughably slow. The fastest way to take the remaining Tetouan city would be either a military access treaty with Mali, or more likely, a war that flips the island of Meknes to the Normans. Now this would be tricky for the Normans, after all Mali has proven itself to be somewhat competent, but given that the Normans have a near full carpet of ships ready for use, I'd say that it can definitely be done.

Rosay:

Wiradjuri continues to be the future stomping ground for Timor and nothing else. This week on trying to be relevant: Wira has sent their entire army to take one city in the Antarctic which may or may not fail on arrival, further leaving themselves exposed to Timor and Inca to a lesser extent. If there is one good thing about Wira, it’s that their incompetency helps to highlight the surprising competency of its significantly cooler neighbor Timor Leste, due to Wira never trying to counter them.

Msurdej:

The Gokturks fall even more this part, as the battle with the Han comes to a decisive loss for Bumin. Losing 4 cities, including the capital, is always a bad sign, and usually means the end of most civs. Thankfully with the Gokturks the size they are, they can still hold their own. And they’ll need to if they want to succeed against the Mori, let alone the Cree.

Cloudy:

Lithuania regains two spots this week, but make no mistake, it’s not because they deserved it. One of those spots is due to the Gokturks falling, and the other is probably noise. The truth is that Lithuania has never looked weaker than it does right now. Their army is miniscule, their stats are lagging, and the neighboring Permians are ascendant. Overall, i think Lithuania is ripe for disaster in the near future.

Reformer:

Mali makes significant advancements this part, making it to the Modern Era, and consequently picking an ideology. Sundiata plays it safe and joins the Communist world revolution. Nothing wrong with that, certainly. But seeing as Angola is communist as well, the gridlock in Africa is unlikely to end soon. In the meantime, the wider region is seeing some straggling civs begin to get cleaned up: Egypt in the east finally met their demise, Normans are trying to wipe Tetouan off the board, and of course an American cross-Atlantic invasion is headed for Castile. Of course, Castile’s last city being inland, the Iberian civ is impervious to death, but it’ll make the rump even easier pickings for Mali…if such a thing were possible. Either way, so far Mali has been the most active African civ (not a high bar), so I’m hoping they keep that up.

Cloudy:

As Kayapo continues to slowly and methodically crush Rio de la Plata, they reach 14th place, their highest rank since episode 1, as even the most reluctant rankers finally start to admit that they aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Of course, their tech lead is gone, and with it the thing which made them exceptional, but they’re making up for it by partaking in actual conquest while they still have an advantage, and unless someone else jumps into the war we expect that they will eventually finish off Rio de la Plata. Granted, Kayapo doesn’t have very many military units, but they’ll get there. We think.

Msurdej:  There was some speculation about a war between Arapaho and America, and that Franklin run would roughshod over them. But I wouldn’t count Pretty Nose out yet. She might have roughly half the army of FDR, but FDR’s army is spread out on the coasts, where they’ll be much less useful. Better still for Arapaho, is that most of their other stats are comparable. The sole exception is happiness, where Pretty Nose is DEEP in the red with a -24. If the Arapaho can get this unhappiness under control, they’ll be able to meet America on the battlefield no problem.

Altima

Through cunning diplomacy and shrewd timing, Olive Yang has made an opening to take Suharto down a peg, joining Timor-Leste in the flames of war. And it's a good thing she made sure she wasn’t alone, because she’d be boned here otherwise. I mentioned this before in the Indonesia writeup, but this front is way worse than it looks- her fleet is lower tech, smaller, and of a worse composition than the Indonesian Armada, composed mostly of Galleasses that must fight Galleons. Her pointy sticks stat is higher than Suharto’s, sure, but most of that is her stacked and irrelevant land army that can’t do much to contribute here besides the odd flipfest.

This is not to say she is without advantages. One, she has planes, and Suharto doesn’t. That’s huge; though they are all in Muse, which is vulnerable to a flip. Two, she isn’t alone here. Timor-Leste is fighting the Indonesians on the opposite side of the front, with their ships even visible in the Kokang front. The AI doesn’t handle such things well, so it’s entirely likely the Indonesian fleet just fucks up and sinks itself trying to attack everything here. With air superiority and a very relevant ally, Kokang may well manage to retake what she lost all those years ago. Or Suharto could stomp her ass in while Timor-Leste fucks him up. Either way, really.

Orange:

AMERICA IS POSITIVE IN HAPPINESS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. IGNORE THAT IT IS ONLY 3 HAPPINESS AND THEY HAVE A DIFFERENT IDEOLOGY COMPARED TO EVERYONE ELSE WHICH WILL LIKELY MAKE IT DROP VERY SOON.

Emu

The graveyard of empires sweeps through Alli Rani's domain and beats her non-empire six feet under in one fell swoop. Afghanistan stops the bleeding a bit this part by securing crucial peace deals and punishing Pandyan insolence, but there's still no end in sight to the continued mauling the Afghan north is receiving from the great bear. Even so, they've had just enough success in the south for the rankers to justify a top 10 placement once more.

Leman:

Brandenburg was awfully quiet this episode. That’s kinda weird for a top 10 civ who’s at war with a much weaker neighbor. I had to check and make sure they didn’t make peace with Yugoslavia while I wasn’t looking, but nope, Brandenburg is just doing a really bad job at capturing Zagreb. Not a good look for a civ with a bunch of powerful warmongering bonuses and a reputation for being a terrifying conqueror. No wonder they fell two spots. Step it up, Freddy.

Cloudy:

The Permians hold steady at 8th for now, but mark my words, if their current performance continues, they will climb higher. So far, there’s no indication that they’re slowing down, as they captured another city from Afghanistan this episode and are continuing to push units in that direction. Their stats are also catching up with their conquests, though they still have a ways to go, given that the info sheet has them in 13th. Nevertheless, the outlook for these guys is positive.

Orange:

Cree’s biggest issue right now is that they are lagging a bit on science compared to the other top civs, 10th in effective science. All around not bad, but it does become an issue when their two main rivals are Mohave (small border but 10 techs ahead) and Arapaho (huge border but 1 tech ahead). Luckily Arapaho has way way less production than they do, so that’s their best bet: Attack Arapaho while they still have a production lead before Mohave does it first.

JDT:

The Inca rise 3 off the backs of other powers declining and them unlocking one of the most revolutionary technologies in warfare - flight. Flight allows a civ to bomb a city to black before even engaging with the opponent, making future city captures incredibly easy if you can reach them, a huge boon if, say, you were trapped by mountains and forests. They also retain their incredible statline, and though the Kayapo are slowly challenging their hegemony in South America, all it takes is a bit of luck and skill for the Incans to start rocking. Let's see how they roll.

Rosay:

Tuva has sorta slowed down in recent episodes, somehow not getting a single mention this part. Crazy thing is that by their four point drop from first place, you'd expect a form of catastrophic failure to happen due to some bad plays, but the real problem is that they're not playing at all. Both of Tuva's easier to take neighbors in Han and the Permians have stacked up and punched far above their weight in recent parts and are beginning to snowball in a future where they may actually surpass Tuva, with Han taking cities off of the Gokturks and the Permians taking cities off of Afghanistan. The sudden emergence of viable Tuvan rivals isn't the only thing holding back Tuva however, as they are steadily falling further behind in the tech game. For a while this wasn't too much of an issue, after all Tuva tied or surpassed all of its neighbors, but now that Han is generating more science than Tuva while having a bigger border, that issue became a lot more pressing. Now it's important to say that Tuva is far from facing a form of apocalyptic decline any time soon, they still have one of the better armies on the cylinder and they still have that border with the Gokturks, but they need to wake up fast before Han turns the tables on them a second time.

Reformer:

The mighty Han-Göktürk war comes to an end this part, and it is a decisive Han victory, and that nobody can deny. Whether this was an expected outcome or not, it shows, more than anything, that Han is absolutely capable and competent when it comes to war. One may remember when Tuva attacked them back a while ago, and instead of Tuva’s superior numbers winning out, Tuva LOST A CITY to Han in that war. The victory against Ming, while somewhat less impressive due to Han having every conceivable advantage, was still a victory worth counting. All in all, East Asia ought to live in fear - in fear of the invincible Han army. Decidedly deserving of a top 5 spot.

CelestialDalek:

Hey, how did Turkey get to only the top 3?! That’s right, Turkey has slid down the ratings to 3rd place, a feat they haven’t achieved in 6 parts. Don’t be fooled, since they’re still a force to be reckoned with. They have a commanding lead in raw science, though fewer techs than the top 2 civs, a massive and highly productive empire, and perhaps most importantly, a gigantic army. Turkey has pretty much limitless opportunities where they are right now. They have very close to twice the army of Afghanistan and easily twice the Afghani’s, could crush Chad or Yemen without second thought… All they need is the initiative and they can easily obliterate their opponents in wartime. Everything’s looking up Ataturk.

Msurdej:  

Ok Timor Leste fans, let me just say a few things. Yes, Timor Leste has done a great job as of late, taking Doomut off the Wiradjuri. Yes, they took a city off the Zulu. And Yes, they are looking to utterly thrash Indonesia.  

But...  

While many of the PRs think the world of these aggressive moves, I am still hesitant to put Timor-Leste in the top 5, let alone the top spot. We’ve seen a lot of ocean faring civs do well in the CBR, but never actually make substantial progress to making a good empire outside of the waves. And while Timor-Leste has good stats, they are not top spot good. This is probably going to be the highpoint of Timor-Leste for a while, so if you have stock, SELL SELL SELL!

JDT:

Tell Mr House we’re keeping the Platinum Drip, because the Mohave are number one this week. The reason is incredibly simple - they’re doing everything Tuva and other previous number 1s are doing, but better. They might as well have Mr House be their leader, because their science output is near-unbeatable. They are currently in the Atomic Era, and learning how to split the atom. Additionally two of their three neighbours are wide open for assault. And the third? They’re two eras behind! Even discounting the future nuclear element and the overwhelming technological supremacy, the Mohave have insane production stats, incredible population density, and an already killer army, one more than enough to destroy anyone they set eyes upon, though said army still has a lot of privateers and is probably better on sea than land. All they need to do now is set the world on fire to come out on top.