Power Rankings: Episode 32 – S3

Msurdej:

In a remarkable show of exclave making, Lithuania managed to send a fleet down to Spain and take Marrakech, eliminating Tetouan in 35th place. From the start, we here in the Power Rankers didn’t  put much faith in ol’ Sayyida. The high point of his game was some early victories against a war with an unprepared Mali. But Mali would eventually come back and clobber Tetouan alongside the Normans, leaving them broken and battered until their inevitable death. The most impressive thing about them is how Lithuania managed to kill them. F

JDT:

And, with that, the curtain falls on Cetshwayo. It's quite fitting how he died - exiled to a small Zulu reservation by colonials after a fruitless war, before dying fairly ignominiously shortly after watching his people crumble. Similar to reality, really. The Zulu initially came off as a promising front runner by settling 6 cities in part 1, rising to their all time highest position of 9th when combined with a fierce early military. They never quite converted that running start into anything useful, unfortunately. They had a few pointless wars with Kilwa and a few back-and-forths with Botswana, all the while continually stagnating behind the increasingly hostile cylinder. The seizure of their Madagascar colonies by Yemen began to harken their doom, as other powers began to smell blood in the water. Later, a joint Angolan-Timorese invasion, mere turns after a poor showing with Botswana, would cement their fate, exiled to their small Zululand reservation with a capitol in Ulundi for decades before the Angolans put them out of their misery. A relatively quaint end for a fairly quaint, and disappointing nation. At least it's historically accurate, and helped cement the rise of two potential contenders.

Cloudy:

After a long journey, befitting a very long country, we have reached the end of the road for Chile. We went into this season with very dim forecasts for working class hero Salvador Allende, whose previous performances in various AI games had ranged from mediocre to—more often than not—downright disastrous. Overall, we ranked them 49th, and I had them even lower. But at first, it seemed like Chile would amount to something after all. They settled a good amount of cities, allowing them to eclipse Rio de la Plata, a civ that had been widely expected to steamroll them. In fact, Chile probably peaked with their devastating invasion of Rio de la Plata, which resulted in them capturing several cities and securing Patagonia. Allende was never able to push farther, however. His attempts to assault the Rioplatense capital failed, as did his later attempts to take the last Rioplatense city, and by then it was clear that the Kayapo were the winners of the continent. Chile’s downfall was swift, as advanced Kayapo troops reduced them to Santiago in episode 31 and came back to finish them off in episode 32. Nevertheless, a finish in 33rd is 16 ranks better than we predicted, so on balance, it has to be considered a success.

Altima

God willing, North Korea will die next part. I don’t care which order they die in. In our Power Ranker accuracy game, I think I benefit more from them dying first. But I just want them dead. They might survive. God knows it wouldn’t be the biggest AI cockup; the Mohave only have one direct border and that city is both puppetted and has no relevant units. It’s not a canal, so they can’t bring in boats without retaking Kaifeng and navigating that squiggly sea. North Korea may well survive the part. Please. Pray. Pray that they do not.

Emu:

Cambodia continues the no doubt impressive diplomacy that has kept them in control of their all-important original capital despite having been thoroughly outmatched since the ancient era. Sometimes it takes a leader like Sihanouk to remind us that winning isn't everything and there's more than one way to play this game.

Orange:

Lithuania takes one of the biggest drops since the Permians losing 15 places and within a single part being put into an almost dead situation. Three of the top civs jumped on them and now they have been reduced to 4 cities on the brink of death. Early on I had been really hoping Lithuania would be the ones to rule Europe rather than Brandenburg who dominated the tests, but alas it wasn’t meant to be. Gediminas failed again and again to be aggressive, choosing to sit on his hide and let the Permians and Turkey take everything and letting Brandenburg settle the entirety of Scandinavia. But now, their best hope for the future is to peace out while they still can and live the rest of their existence as a rump in the frigid north.

Altima:

Uganda is the first civ, by InfoAddict stats, to hit a military so bad it’s cell gets colored red. They are also, by game-assigned color, a red civ. This pleases me.

Msurdej:  Oh hey Indonesia, you’re still here. Groovy. Even if you died next part first thing, you’d still have done better than expected. Good for you.

CelestialDalek:

After so much stagnation and being forgettable, Angola finally declares war on Kilwa. This should be an easy war on paper, but there’s one problem: Kilwa has the perfect terrain to defend against. Angola needs to shovel their land units through two one-tile passes, which will prove difficult. If the meatgrinder continues long enough, Kilwa’s meat will be ground first, so they really need to bank on a quick and deadly war.

JDT:

The Wiradjuri rise by two, since the Timorese are satisfied with their current gains in Australia and other rumps are dying faster. Having solidified himself as the worst contender to have come out of East Australia, Wiradydane’s days are now numbered, as he gets to relax in his new home in the Shire. At least, until Sauron and Saruman start eyeing him again.

Msurdej:  Having only a handful of cities left, Chad is trying to get back in the game by attacking weaker civs. Unfortunately for him, Cambodia is miles away, and Deby doesn’t have the navy or the gumption Lithuania had for exclave making.

Orange:

Isabella stands in the haven of her people, the frozen city of Burgos, contemplating the new life given to her. During her short period on the sub she saw a ranking of the civs with her at the bottom. But once word went around of the unexpected arrivals to the sub, quickly she saw people began discussing and arguing over where her civ should be placed. The last thing she heard before she left to meet up with her people’s expedition was a few sub-dwellers saying they would place her in 2nd, a good thought to leave on. Looking upon where she stood now, she did not quite believe the sentiment, but hoped that maybe, just maybe, she could turn it into reality…

(Psst you should totally go read my comic)

Altima

Greenland is a chronically boring civ. This much is certain; they never commit to their operations enough to see them through when they even bother to start them. Their stats suck eggs. Stronger civs bar most of their paths. Now, some may look at how badly America’s knees just got ground down during their war against Arapaho and think, “Well, Greenland could probably exploit that,” but they would be wrong. See, America, who just got done waging three hundred years of war, still has roughly four times the military score of Greenland, and Greenland doesn’t have Han’s gumption to try rolling those odds. Yes, even in spite of just giving a chunk of their turf to foreign powers, America STILL outstats Greenland. The only thing Greenland has going for it is just not being in anyone else’s way. We’ll see how long that shield holds before someone like the Anglo Dutch or the Brandenburgs get bored.

Leman:

After an absolutely heroic defense America sort of messed up by handing over several core cities in exchange for survival. On the surface, this is really bad. America was holding pretty well, and even flipping Arapaho cities. (We call this, pulling a Yugoslavia) However, let’s be honest. Arapaho has two million soldiers and like a hundred nukes. It was only a matter of time before America would have been irradiated. I know it’s sad for America fans, America’s basically out of the game, but I’m gonna be honest, America was out as soon as Arapaho declared war. At least now, America has a usable set of cities that could maybe be used to attack Greenland or something.

The border gore however is inexcusable Jesus Christ.

Leman:

Five cities and a dream is all Yugoslavia has. All their neighbors made gains this week. Outside of embarrassing Brandenburg again, I don’t really expect much out of Tito anymore.

Rosay:

Cree finally got into a war to contain Arapaho, Cree is not going to contain and has already lost their capital. Granted losing your capital isn’t always a game over, just look at the Gokturks, there really isn’t anywhere that Cree can go to expand anymore without taking heavy losses. This is all just assuming Arapaho peaces out now too, I'm expecting Cree to get pushed all the way back to Alaska at the very least.

Emu:

It's been said that the Anglo-Dutch need until the midgame to get going, and this run has certainly bore that out. It's a nice turnaround story and all (even if completely overshadowed by the meteoric rise of Timor), but even with a very weak Brandenburg and absolutely laughable opposition to the south, it's not nearly enough to give Fredless Willy a ghost of a chance in this dog-eat-dog cylinder. At the end of the day, the Anglo-Dutch are just what everyone assumed them to be at the beginning of this royale: a nice, juicy Brandenburger with cheese. It's just taken them longer than anyone expected to get to it.

Emu:

I think it's officially time to say the Gokturks' time is up. At this point they'd even lose to the diminished Cree, and they'd get rolled by their old rivals Tuva. Han, with their nearly 1 million military score without nukes? Forget about it. At this point the Gokturks have entered the old haunt of the former great power: a position in which they're very much out of the running, but their lands are large enough that whoever snaps them up first will decide the fate of the region. I can't imagine Qaghan takes a lot of solace in that.

JDT:

The Muisca are climbing off corpses right now. Let's face it - they’re a low-mid tier power in a region with 4 global powers. They have wasted away every single opportunity to expand beyond their current boundaries. Their tech is hopelessly behind their neighbours, and so is their army. At this rate, the Muisca's doom isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when and whom.

Cloudy:

Just when we thought the Normans had peaked, the death of Tetouan opened up a path into Iberia, and Robert Guiscard finally managed to do what he had been trying and failing to do for centuries: kill Castile.

OR SO HE THOUGHT....

Emu:

Yemen rockets straight up to 15th, but at this stage in the game that isn't really a huge honor. Their main problem is they don't really have a core. I mean, the vast majority of Arabia is Turkish, and Yemeni territory mostly comprises a thin strip of coast on the African continent. In days past, they pumped out impressive stats anyway, but however they did it then, they can't do it now. They’ve had ample opportunity to place themselves among the world's great powers, from the opening in Turkish Arabia to the general weakness of Kilwa, but inaction has brought them to a point where Timor could easily sail a fleet over and outgun them in their own backyard. As always, our Arabian contestant drops out of relevance as we move into the late game.

Altima:

If you want to imagine how much more interesting Lauryn Hill is than Bengal, take how boring they’ve been, and invert it. You’ll be in a pretty good ballpark. I’m choosing to talk about the Great Musician the game randomly chose to give Bengal. If Bengal came up in a conversation about Lauryn Hill, this would not be inverted. I’d recommend JD Signifier’s video on her, “It’s Tough Loving Lauryn Hill,” for more context into her and the background that created her.

CelestialDalek:

Mali sort of feels like Angola’s underachieving cousin. They’re obviously impressive and not dead, but Angola gets all the attention by killing a weak Zulu and fighting Kilwa. Why can’t Mali get some attention? But no, they have to wait until a border with Yugoslavia opens up, or a war with some other civ. They are in a solid position, they just need activity to stop being the upper-middle of the pack and start being upper.

Cloudy:

Kokang regains two ranks after apparently fighting off the much more advanced Mohave navy. At first it looked like Kokang could collapse, with Mohave forces making it as far as mainland China, but Kokang managed to turn it around and ended the episode with all the same cities they held at the start of the war, except Guilin, which was razed. Mohave could come back for round 2 at any time, but for now we’re going to let Olive Yang have this win.

Orange:

Afghanistan feels a bit like the border between civs that have a chance and civs that are strong but destined to die. I don’t see them having a chance and they still refuse to build a proper army or do anything, content to live out their days waiting to be wiped by Turkey, or if I had my way, Yemen.

Msurdej:

Well luft my waffle, Brandenburg has finally done something. Seeing the weakness in Lithuania and tired of their exclave making, Brandenburg has joined in with Turkey and Tuva to take Gedimas down a peg.  While they didn’t take most of the alliance, Frederick managed to get most of Finland under his control, and is still able to make some serious gains. After that though, he will have to be cautious, as Brandenburg now shares a much larger border with Turkey.

Rosay:

Angola-Kilwa war is coming baby, and the tech difference alone is large enough to say that Angola is likely to take what remains of mainland Kilwa. Last time this happened it didn’t really go anywhere, but that was when the jungle and Botswana were in the way, without those two things it’s a sweep. Though Angola probably isn’t going to take those Madagascar cities due to the slight problem of all their ships being on the other side of Africa

Cloudy:

Mohave’s performance this week left something to be desired. After initially making gains against Kokang, they later lost everything they had taken, and somewhere along the way they developed a severe happiness problem, severely damaging their stats and causing them to raze Guilin. At the same time, the Arapaho are rapidly and efficiently consolidating North America, and might soon be too strong for Mohave to fight. Our verdict is that we need to see fireworks from Irataba ASAP.

But hey, at least they might kill North Korea.

CelestialDalek:

Kayapo catapults up into 4th and takes Inca below them. But here’s why I think that Kayapo is still worse than the Inca. Despite Kayapo’s tech rebounding above Inca, they are still trailing the Inca in production and military. In the event of a war, while the land battle may prove to be a stalemate, Kayapo does not have much navy. Most of their Chilean holdings would be insanely vulnerable, and taking them would significantly widen the front, something that Kayapo cannot afford. That said, is a war likely? I don’t think so. But I think Inca is even better than we’re giving them credit for.

At this point, though, I don’t really hate Kayapo as much anymore. The large cities that plagued my OCD have been partially remedied by taking over other lands. Their colors are actually kind of good. And because they’re being aggressive now it feels less like their high ranking was delivered on a silver platter. I still think that they are slightly overranked, but I’m fighting a losing battle among the other PRs. It may seem weird to spend most of the time talking about Kayapo, but Inca’s ranking is intricately tied to Kayapo’s: the better Kayapo is, the bigger threat they represent to the Inca, and vice versa.

CelestialDalek:

Asia is crowded with top civs, from Turkey to Timor to Tuva. But Han is special, and not just because their name doesn’t start with T. Their unit composition consists of a large amount of Mobile SAMs, which seems to be helping, since they’re now second in military stats. Their production is nothing to be scoffed at, and they have good science as well. What they need next is a non-empty wars list.

Leman:

Tuva’s stagnation is briefly halted as they pick off a couple cities from a dying Lithuania, they’re still not looking anywhere near as powerful as they were a few parts ago. Technologically backwards and with a relatively small army, Tuva is looking less like a top five power and more like Turkish delight.

That being said, the foundation of a comeback is still there. 40 cities is still a lot, they still have a solid production, and they have doubled their military in the last episode. There’s still a few targets left, like Gokturks, but honestly Tuva needs to buckle down and improve that economy, and they’ll be right back on top in no time.

JDT:

Kayapo rises by one as they very firmly establish themselves in the top tier. They have once again risen to first in science, hosting some of the most population-high cities on the cylinder. Their army is fairly competent, with a very good amount of nukes in their back pocket, their production is pretty good, and they have shown ample aggression through their dismantling of Chile. We now await in bated breath to see where the war turtle will go next, because if they look to their east, they may find dividends.

Leman:

Pretty Nose’s Soviet-sized nuclear stockpile finally comes in handy, by scaring America into giving away five cities. That’s absolutely stellar given how terrible it was looking for Arapaho last part. Then Arapaho followed it up by going right back to war with their old nemesis, Cree. Cree’s now on the ropes, dropping four cities as Arapaho continues to assert its dominance as the clear favorite of North America. Pretty soon its just going to be Arapaho and Mohave on the continent, but as the latter’s off losing ships in Asia, I know who I’d bet on.

Orange:

Timor-Beste loses their top spot to Turkey as Turkey takes a big chomp of Lithuania and T-L just rebuilds their new Australian lands. But this rebuilding of a continent does mean that T-L has 1.5k more production than Turkey in second place which is massive, 6.2k vs 4.7k. They also have phenomenal science and a whopping 50 cities. T-L has the empire of a dominant superpower and soon they will be back in the top slot…

Rosay:

I feel like every time Turkey’s top seed is threatened they just invade a neighboring civ and go back to the top spot. Just look back at parts 26-27 when Turkey was placed 4th on the 26th PRs then immediately took out the Permians and went back to top seed. Fast forward to now when they finally were mostly agreed on to be second place with others like Arapaho and Kayapo looking like future contenders, then boom Turkey invades Lithuania and now they’re back on top. Now granted there is dissent this time around about Turkey's top placement and Timor really just needs to pull off a successful invasion of Asia and the dynamic shifts against. But yeah, Turkey wiped Lithuania off the map.