Power Rankings: Episode 40 – S3

Leman:

Well. The day has finally come. Bengal has been eliminated. I had high, high hopes for Bengal, with their broken UA, powerful UB, and solid AI, so much so that I had Bengal first on my part one PR. Honestly, at the beginning of the game I wasn’t even disappointed in their performance. They settled a little slowly, but their cities grew quickly, and they managed to cripple Pandya pretty early in the game. Things were looking up.

And then they sat. And waited. Traded a few cities with Indonesia, got in a few quagmires with Kokang, watched Afghanistan kill off Pandya. As Bengal watched, the other civs passed them by. Old foes that Bengal might have been able to contest, like Afghanistan and Timor-Leste, passed Shuja by, and Bengal became less and less of a contender with each passing part. There were plenty of opportunities, but outside of killing off Cambodia, Bengal was content with just watching.

There was a glimmer of hope at the dawn of Total War. Bengal was one of many civilizations that decided technology was pointless and military was the only way forward. On turn 800 Bengal had over 500,000 conventional forces and 101 techs. Double the military of their closest neighbor Afghanistan, but 18 technologies behind. Maybe that military advantage would be enough for Bengal to overcome the technology disadvantage? Maybe Turkey would break Afghanistan from the west and Bengal could conquer from the East. At first, it looked like it was working, Bengal’s massive military surged forward, capturing several cities. Bengal finally showed its strength and peaked at an impressive 9th on the Power Rankings.

But everything came crashing down. Bengal’s moment in the sun was over before it began. The three or four city captures came at the expense of Bengal’s entire military. The troops were too outdated to capture modern cities without heavy losses and Bengal’s production was too low to replenish them. Afghanistan’s counterattack crushed Bengal extremely quickly. They lingered for a while until Timor-Leste finally finished them off, in 17th (but actually 16th, Ming does not count) place.

JDT:

If Nope didn’t point them out we wouldn’t have had to make a Ming writeup.

Cloudy:

The end is nigh for Han, as the once mighty Chinese empire finds itself down to just four cities, most of which are under attack. Afghanistan has pushed them to the farthest northeastern margin of their former lands, and looks to go all the way, eliminating Han somewhat lower than we might have expected. Of course, our past selves from episode 0 might be pleased, since we ranked them 12th, which is very close to where they will likely end up—just not as high a finish as Han could have achieved if they had played smartly.

Orange:

The Gokturks have literally 0 units, yet they are still ranked above Han. That says something, probably, maybe, hopefully? Well Gokturks are dying in this next part at least…

Rosay:

Since Anglo Dutch is probably about to die I wanted to say that I technically had the most hope in them at the beginning on the basis of “Well Brandenburg isn’t that good” but look at them now. Now I can safely say that the Anglo Dutch held onto their mainland core for longer than their main rival of a superpower. Good job Anglo Dutch, it takes some serious moxie to stand up to Turkey and Mali for as long as you have.

Orange:

Castile is really climbing the ranks in their snowy home. At this rate Castile will win by part 46! Go Isabella! Get into the top 10!

Emu:

The titans of tech Kayapo become the second civ to be exiled to the Antarctic, cementing Incan dominance over the South American continent. Just as most expected, Raoni and his teeming masses of Kayapans have turtled their way to a high placement instead of actually playing the game. Normally I'd hate it, but they did something that no other turtling civ has pulled off before: they made it work well for a really long time. Honestly? I respect it. Takes all sorts of personalities to make a good royale.

Leman:

Yemen doesn’t make any sense. They are easily the scrappiest underdog I’ve ever seen, absolutely refusing to give up Sana’a despite the fact that they are hopeless outmatched against Turkey. Not only that, but Yemen has also been able to put up a great fight against Timor-Leste in the south. Which other civilization could have held its own against two members of the elite four? Mohave couldn’t. Angola couldn’t. Tuva couldn’t. But Yemen can.

Rosay:

Welp Tuva my child, the fated day has come. Admittedly Tuva has done better than expected against Turkey so far but that long term tech gap between the two of them really destined Tuva to be crushed in the Endgame. Doesn’t help that Arapaho is breaching through the Bering Strait either gaining ground faster than expected, and Afghanistan and Timor slowly creeping in on them.

Leman:

Turkey has broken into Scandinavia and Finland. That’s not good. Brandenburg was and is counting on natural barriers and the lack of a Turkish navy to keep them alive, and at this point while Finland might fall, it seems unlikely that Turkey will be able to cross the North Sea. Brandenburg still has a sizable navy, that in fact grew a little this part. I’m still pretty convinced that Brandenburg is in a pretty decent defensive position, but Turkey is making steady progress.

JDT:

Despite dissuading the fears of the rankers this part, Mali drops one because of the Mohave’s bizarre resilience. Mali has successfully staved off both Turkey and Timor-Leste despite no longer making inroads in South America and Europe, and is slowly working its way up the tech tree. Sundieta Keita managed to flip many Turkish cities in the Sahara this part, though often they wind up flipping back. Much like the sands of the Sahara, Mali is ephemeral and volatile, blown by the whims of others, but they seem like they won’t turn to glass just yet.

Altima:

Okay, it’s been a fun ride, but it’s over. The Mohave have the lowest war score of anyone whose Pointy Sticks cell on the Info Sheet isn’t explicitly red. They have barely more than half the production of Afghanistan, a civ whose low production is one of the things holding them back in some of our eyes despite the hype surrounding their comeback.  There’s no way the Asian enclave can keep this going, they’ve got like seventeen dudes total. I know opposition nearby isn’t exactly fierce, but come on, most of the enclave is puppeted anyway, they can’t reinforce for shit when they eat attritional casualties. And yeah, Arapaho’s lack of a navy gives them some leg up over on that front, but they’re also attritioning out over there. This is the peak of their comeback. Right?

Altima:

The Afghan comeback continues as they fend off major powers to the East and West, gaining and trading ground as attrition wears away at everyone. We ended on a somewhat ambiguous note, with them holding in minor tradefests against Timor-Leste and Turkey, but with both powers being focused on Other Shit™, Afghanistan may well be able to spring further forward next part. If nothing else, having lower Production than your rivals means a lot less if your rivals aren’t using theirs to actually make units.

Leman:

Arapaho seems to have hit a bit of a wall, as the blistering conquest of Asia that I expected never manifested. Instead, Arapaho slowly and leisurely walked into Gokturk cities, seemingly content with leaving Tuva and Han to Turkey and Afghanistan respectively. Which is a tad disappointing. Arapaho is still clearly a monster but it seems as though our fears were true. Arapaho can’t really project its power outside of its continent. Inca is easily deflecting them in South America, Mohave is keeping pace in Japan, and I don’t even know if Arapaho is trying to invade Iceland. Clearly a top-tier power but not as dominant as they seemed a few weeks ago.

CelestialDalek:

Finally, Inca has finished off the turtling menace of Kayapo fairly similarly to how you cook an actual turtle: very lightly cooking it to soften it up and then cracking it open with a sledgehammer (disclaimer: I have never cooked a turtle so I’m probably wrong about this). All of South America flies under the Incan banner, and they are revitalizing their push into Australia after Timor kicked their ass last episode. A lot hinges on the war between Arapaho and the Inca, as their isolated positions mean that whoever wins that war controls the continent and instantly rockets up, since there are significantly more civs to kill on every other continent that others have to waste their time with. Is Australia the smart play, though? Going up against Timor? Maybe. Only time and Timor will tell.

Cloudy:

Turkey maintains their #2 position as they continue to make steady gains against Brandenburg and Tuva, while holding fairly steady against Mali and losing a small amount of territory to Afghanistan. Overall, Turkey’s empire is continuing to increase in size, but they should probably watch their flanks given the modest successes that Mali and Afghanistan managed during this episode. They also struggled to keep Yemen at bay, as Arwa al-Sulayhi repeatedly reconquered her core cities and ended the episode in control of Sana’a. Still, as long as Turkey keeps expanding, we’re probably going to see them as one of the top contenders to win, as we have for a very long time—remember, the last time Turkey was ranked below 4th was episode 11.

Emu:

Good old little Timmy makes small gains on one side, small losses on the other. They keep the gold medal they've fought so hard and long for for sure, but it seems like this is the beginning of the great stagnation that we're all anticipating. From now on, more or less the only determining factor in conquest is whether a civ is actually producing any units at all. Xanana isn't doing too badly on that front, and save scattered Inca excursions, I don't really see much for them to worry about.