Power Rankings: Episode 38 – S3

Cloudy:

After a desperate last stand, Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia was eliminated in 23rd place.

Yugoslavia went into this season with mixed expectations. Some of us thought they would get crammed into a corner in a crowded Europe, others thought they could conquer their neighbors and snowball. In fact, they did neither—but that doesn’t mean they were boring. Yugoslavia built a respectable empire but struggled to expand it, only to turn into a fan favorite for their defensive rather than offensive prowess. In a war against the much more powerful Brandenburg, Tito captured two Brandenburger cities and threatened Berlin itself, only to choke at the very end, but his legacy was irreversibly boosted. Even after being reduced to a rump, Tito refused to give up, joining a hail mary attack on the Normans that unexpectedly netted him control of Italy and the Norman capital itself. When total war came around, Yugoslavia continued to fight bravely, even if their days were numbered. Truly a civ worth remembering.

Emu:

Chad held out for a surprising amount of time during TW, but this end was always inevitable for them. They never really reached the heights they achieved early on during the dismemberment of Egypt, always playing second fiddle to Mali and failing to even conquer Uganda. But now it's all at an end. The virgin chad has lost to the chad virgin.

Emu:

Ladies, gentlemen, and about a quarter of the CBR team, the eagle has fallen. From chronic unhappiness to comically high happiness, from sea to shining.... Spain, FDR put on one hell of a showing, his one mistake being not striking at Arapaho. However, both times he was forced to fight the western affronts to aesthetic good sense, they showed their legendary military incompetence and let the scrappy Freedonians of the eastern seaboard make an inspiring and tenacious resistance. Rest in burgers, Franky. And now, I leave you with a patriotic chant defiantly shouted at marauding Arapaho troops in the ruins of Washington: “Remember, remember, / of turn eight-eleven, / when we were pushed into the sea. / It's such a misfortune / the flag of corruption / should fly in the land of the free.”

Leman:

Muisca has been eliminated in 20th place, a feat in and of itself, but made even more impressive given that we absolutely did not believe in Muisca in the early game – expecting them to quickly be beaten down by Kayapo or something. But Muisca defied all expectations. They traded blows with Kayapo in the early game, gutted Central America, lost four more cities to Kayapo, and then blended in with the mountains for long enough to survive until total war. Unfortunately, total war was not kind to Muisca, and while they did hold on against Mohave and Inca for a few turns, as soon as Arapaho broke through the Caribbean, Muisca was done for. It’s not a spectacular performance, but a respectable one.

CelestialDalek:

The Normans are a walking corpse. Mali has a melee unit in range of Amsterdam, Guiscard’s last stand, but decided to not use it. Instead, Amsterdam is surrounded by a horde of ranged units. The Normans will die once a less cowardly melee unit comes in range. But, since they’re not dead, their eulogy is for next week.

Cloudy:

Angola is in an advanced state of collapse. They’re losing cities left and right, have almost no units left, and could face imminent elimination. Timor-Leste forces are sweeping unopposed through southern Africa, capturing Savimbi’s capital and numerous core cities, while Mali continues to make slow but steady progress in the north. The only question is how long Angola will last, and whether Timor can take it all the way.

Cloudy:

Bengal is staring down the dark maw of elimination. They still have a few cities left, but they’re rapidly falling to Afghanistan and Timor-Leste, the latter of which is employing extremely powerful Biotroopers that Bengal may find near impossible to kill. It might take a little while to completely finish them off, which is why Angola is lower, but make no mistake about it, Bengal’s days are numbered and they could finish lower than 17th very easily.

Altima:

It’s Castile! They’re still not dead! They’re still not alive! They’re Castilian! If some abomination killed and replaced the entire micronation, no-one would notice for at least two parts!

JDT:

Lemme put it in a language you can understand - the Gokturks are screwed. S C R E W E D. They aren’t as screwed as last part thanks to the Mohave getting bodied and Han and Tuva running low on their military reserves, but make no mistake, the Gokturks are still doomed. They are slowly, but surely, hemorrhaging cities to their neighbours, and their production and tech has been destroyed by poor financial decisions and plenty of nukes. But still, they have barely lost anything thus far. Yeah, its one of those deaths. Buckle up.  

Orange:

LET’S FUCKING GOOOO! COME ON WILLY TAKE BERLIN YOU GOT THIS FUCK THOSE GERMANS IN THE ASS! ALL OF GERMANY IS MEANT FOR YOU!

Anyways how the fuck does A-D have 5 more techs than Brandenburg? I really hope they can take stuff before Brandenburg’s production difference wins out. So close to Berlin they can practically taste it…

Orange:

Things ain’t looking too hot for ol’ Olive. Timor-Leste woke up and is finally pushing on the southern front, and Han is doing what they can to destroy cities in the north. But Kokang still holds on steady, they have defensible terrain and can probably hold out for quite a bit. I do hope Han gets rushed and they survive longer than them, that would be fun. (Sidenote Han is 13 techs below Kokang but Kokang has no army whatsoever)

JDT:

The Kayapo rise by one as they prove capable of making a good stand against Mali and the Inca. They are slowly and surely receding, much like the Amazon rainforest, but they are holding thanks to absurd city defense and a very good tech and production base. Sure, they have next to no army, but hey, who needs that when all your cities are armies of their own!

Emu:

Yemen is really confusing here. It makes sense that despite their pluckiness, they'd make gains at the expense of a perennially incompetent Angola, but continued resistance against Turkey? Not getting mangled by Timmy? Just like everything Yemen has done (and everything they haven't done) this game, it defies explanation. This episode has really single handedly won them my respect. Everyone likes a tricky underdog, and everyone LOVES an inexplicable one.

Leman:

Oof. Last week I was praising Mohave for how well they held out against Arapaho, but concerned by how they were struggling everywhere else. Turns out Arapaho just wanted to curb stomp the weaker North Americans first. Now that Cree, Greenland, and America are all dead, Arapaho turned on Mohave and absolutely rolled them. The Inca definitely helped but, still, the Mohave got forced out of North America really fast. I guess that’s what happens when two of the big four attack. Mohave is now reduced to a string of Pacific Islands. While Mohave’s high city defense means that it might take a minute for Inca or Timor-Leste to clean all these islands up, I’m pretty sure this episode ends any possibility of Mohave becoming a dark horse in the future.

Leman:

The first part of total war was pretty good for Brandenburg – they obliterated the Anglo part of the Anglo-Dutch and held the Turks off pretty well. This part was much, much worse, Brandenburg’s eastern front collapsed, and not only did Brandenburg fail to clean up Anglo-Dutch, but they even dropped Konigsburg! Classic Brandenburg. All in all, it was not a great episode.

However, I’m hopeful. The Turks have yet to break into Scandinavia, and Brandenburg still has a sizeable navy in the North Sea, and Turkey, while being very, very, very strong, doesn’t really have the ability to invade Britain, I think. If Brandenburg can retreat to Scandinavia and bunker down, I think they might be able to survive total war.

Leman:

Lots of nukes flew today, obliterating like four Han cities. That’s not really the story with Han. The real story is that Han is fucking empty. Han, who had the second largest traditional army in the cylinder at the start of total war, has been reduced to a military smaller than Anglo-Dutch. All of their military is gone, and they only have netted three cities. To put it bluntly, Han is in trouble. Luckily for Han they’re not bordering any of the big four. Unfortunately for Han, they have to rely on crumbling Kokang and Gokturks to keep Timor-Leste and Arapaho out and Tuva and Afghanistan have sizable borders in the east. These nice little geographic factors I think will keep Han safe for one more episode, but after that, it's going to be a freefall.

Altima:

Tuva drops a rank as their armies grind into dust against stacked Turkish city defense scores. They aren’t yet falling far for this bleeding, but the production and science gap against the Turks is really hurting them. Their sole saving graces are that Turkey has so many damn fronts that Tuva has thus far been spared any real focus, and that Han is also pretty depleted and thus presents an interesting avenue to aggress upon. Just don’t be surprised if they eat shit next part.

CelestialDalek:

Last episode, Afghanistan was getting beaten horrendously by Bengal. But now the tides have completely turned. Afghanistan had 3 times more production and, after the initial Bengali rush was killed, Durrani struck back. Bengal is now crippled and will probably die soon. But Durrani has more opportunities than just killing Bengal and sharing the corpse of Kokang with Timor. Turkey will be a grindy front, but Afghanistan is currently in a position to make gains. Turkey is extended in many places, but the Afghan border is where they are by far the most threatened. Unless Turkey pulls a miracle push on all fronts like Afghanistan (and Timor) already did, they stand to lose just a bit. On the other hand, Turkey has three times as much production, almost the same factor Afghanistan had over Bengal, so the miracle push might be less miraculous than it seems.

Leman:

As the second episode of total war draws to a close, Mali is still looking strong. Angola is on its last legs, Iberia is under complete Malian control, and Mali has even managed to push a little bit into South America. They even managed to snag Aouzou from Turkey, believe it or not.

However, cracks are beginning to show, and I’m starting to worry that this might be Mali’s peaks. First off, what is going on in Amsterdam? Why hasn’t Mali grabbed that city yet? Second, Mali, for the first time since total war began, is bordering neighbors that are clearly stronger than it. Mali and Turkey are clashing in the Mediterranean and Egypt and Timor-Leste and Mali are about to come to blows when Angola finally dies. Even worse is that while the big four continue to strengthen, Mali finds itself, for the first time since total war began, with an army smaller than Turkey and Timor-Leste. It’s still sizable, and Mali has been losing units less quickly than its contemporaries, Tuva and Han, but I think there might be some difficulties on the horizon. Right now, however, Mali is looking solid.

Emu:

Turkey's city defense carries them through their lack of units, as they only lose a couple cities to the great Tuvan hordes. It's for this reason that despite their dearth of units, the rankers are keeping them near the top. It'll be a long while indeed before not building units is enough to ruin Ataturk's chances, especially with how weak Brandenburg is and how powerless outdated Tuvan units are, even when allowed to roam free inside Turkish territory.

Orange:

WE’RE SO BACK BABY! TAKE BACK EVERYTHING THAT IS YOURS GUSMAO! Those Bengalis and Incans don’t know what the fuck hit them. T-L reconquering basically everything, pushing in the west, pushing in the north, pushing in the east, PUSHING IN AFRICA! Can’t stop won’t stop we going to the top! T-L still has massive production, one of the biggest armies, plenty of nukes, and the balls to go all the way. Gonna take back the number 1 spot soon enough.

Leman:

Inca had a rough part, all things told. Every other member of the big four absolutely smashed its neighbors, while Inca has instead been slogging through unending flip fests with Timor-Leste, dragging its troops through the Kayapo jungle, and assisting Arapaho dismantle Mohave. Through all of this struggle, Inca only managed to hold on to four extra cities. Not a bad performance, any other civ in Inca’s position would be flatly dead, but it does mean that, for now, Inca has lost their top spot to Arapaho. Inca’s going to have to make some opportunities for itself if they want to reclaim it.

Leman:

Arapaho is a monster, holy shit. I did not expect Mohave, a civ that was a permanent mainstay of the top 5 for so long, to be so completely and utterly defeated in just one episode! It’s one thing to beat up rumps like Cree, America, and Greenland, but it’s another thing to just eviscerate Mohave. I know stats-wise Arapaho have been crushing it for a while now, but it has now become completely obvious who the strongest civ on the cylinder is. Just to go over it real quick:  Arapaho is number one in production, in conventional military, in nukes, in population. They have a completed techtree, have made landfall on South America, and are one island away from reaching Asia, which is full of just broken, exhausted civs ripe for conquest. The sky’s the limit for Arapaho right now.