Power Rankings: Episode 14 – S4

Shaggy:

As long as New Holland continues sending siege units out to the Rio Peqeño islands, they’ll likely live. Any true effort to kill them, however, would probably be successful.

Msurdej:  In only a slightly better situation than Rio Grande is Maguindanao. Down to only two cities, one of which is damaged and has enemies banging at the gates, Kudarat is hard pressed to survive. He might be able to retake Lamitan, but even then, it’s only delaying the inevitable. Maguindanao needs to make peace ASAP, lest they find themselves in the grave next to the Shawnee.

Shaggy:

Damanhur falls but the Mamluks don’t this episode. They really can’t fall much further seeing as how the only civs below them are more intensely rumped. Bill Gates will need a lot of silicon from the Sahara sands to be able to compute a victory in either of the Mamluks’ current critical wars.

ECH:Rozvi… did nada last part. Gained two ranks simply due to the Mamluks and Maguindanao actively being in existentially-threatening wars, for as little as that’s worth. The only things that have been noted about them are small details: their capital’s conversion to Islam, and thus it being likely they may join in on any Holy Wars Mogadishu gets into; and their dismal cultural situation as they grab only their third policy in the game while culture leaders Siam and Dai Viet hit 13. Seems like they’re choosing to use their UA ability, allowing them to spend culture to reduce adjacent enemy unit’s strength for a turn, incredibly needlessly considering their lack of war fronts. Oh well, at least their philistine approach provides something to remember them by…

Shaggy:

Florida moves up a rank this part due to the ongoing Maguindanao collapse. All they are at this point is a target for a more relevant civ to go after. But hey, at least they had a golden age this episode.

Leman:

Like the narration said, Ayuka Khan is just as fucked now as he would have been had he managed to snag Elista. However, the fact that he failed really does sting. There’s no way out of the hole Kalmyks have dug, and the fact that Elista is in Afsharids’ hands really seals it. Sucks to suck.

NopeCopter:

Well, the Alaouites are collapsing in the face of Sierra Leone’s invasion as expected. They did at least put up a fight, which I can respect, but they’re confined to the Atlas Mountains now. At the very least they should be pretty safe for the time being, since the mountains should defend their final holdings from the south and the Visigoths are both busy and incompetent. But this is a pretty definitive end for any hopes of the Alaouites returning to relevance. Better luck to the next Morocco!

ECH:I do try and make an effort with every writeup, but man writing up Crow’s PR twice in a row is a stretch of my capabilities. They’ve dropped one rank, seemingly mostly due to Bukhara’s tenacity causing them to leapfrog them, and they remain a notable rump of North America, saved from the bottom spot there only by Florida’s shenanigans. They are still sleeping with a decent, if outdated, carpet as their only semi-bright spot. Woop de doo.

CelestialDalek:

Because this part ended on a slide of the Anti-Burgundian Coalition for Democracy, Education, and Freedom (ABCDEF), we can see how Burgundy is doing.

Not good.

The Visigoths have been incompetent but Asturica sure is still surrounded. The walls are closing in on Dijon. Amiens is a lost cause. Nancy is probably fine. But the number of cities endangered and the fact that all of their neighbors fucking hate them merit 52nd, even if they’re not in mortal danger of elimination right now.

Msurdej:It’s time for another Finn update  

They sadly, have not done great  Zero mentions this part  

So take this to heart:  I hope they get wiped off the slate

ECH:Eswatini have lost all their rank progress over the past two episodes, returning to their Part 11 ranking at 50th place in the 5th largest rank drop this week. This emerges as Nzinga has shown a stubbornness in streaming troops by land and sea into Nhlagano, flipping to the favour of Ndongo over the course of the episode (it hasn’t been highlighted, but in the final minimap one can see a blood red sheen over its spot). I actually had to rewrite this section upon being informed of the flip, and although I suspect some chance exists to flip it again, I suspect the final outcome will be victory for Nzinga over a shell of the city. Anyway, back to Eswatini, there is perhaps also a general perception that this war, alongside their other setbacks so far, have just stunted their growth as a civ in too many ways by this point in the game, especially as Astronomy is just starting to be adopted by some big players, and being a weak coastal civ may become a bigger concern when you have more than your immediate neighbours to worry about. Just last season we saw a weak civ in South Africa get surprisingly swallowed by a superpower from across the Indian Ocean: is there a risk of repeat this season?

Msurdej:  Bukhara isn’t in a great position, yet they still end up gaining five ranks, one of the largest rank gains of the part. This isn’t due to their stats, which grew only modestly. No, the big attraction here is the dogpile currently happening to their biggest threat Kazakhstan. Herat has been flipping back and forth, but it will be a loss if it doesn’t remain in Shaybani’s hands.

Cloudy:

Against the odds, Seneca has actually kept the Faroese city it captured last episode. However, further progress is unlikely due to the increasing fortification of the remaining cities in Faroese Quebec. At this point the only route forward for the Seneca is to kill Florida, but they have yet to do so.

NopeCopter:

Ahh, the Tehuelche. What is there to say about them that hasn’t already been said? Well, not much, because there isn’t much to say about them. They’ve sort of just been chilling at the bottom of the world for over a dozen episodes now. That said, the strategy seems to be working out for them - they’ve gone up a titanic four places this time, mostly due to several other civs being torn to shreds. Make no mistake, though - the Tehuelche are more doomed than ever. Their only way out has always been through Bora-Bora’s weak South American colonies, but those colonies are now looking pretty beefy, and depending on how the war with Tiwanaku goes, they could either grow even stronger or disappear entirely. Either way, the most the Tehuelche can hope for now in terms of game impact is being the Yolngu of the season - being an easy conquest to give an underdog island civ a proper foothold on a continent - and, well, people don’t exactly remember the Yolngu fondly.

Reformer:

Royal Hungary is just vibing and relaxing this episode. Awful choice for a civ that is outnumbered by every neighbor, and will only continue to get outscaled! RH used to have a big scary army, but now they’re nothing. Consecutive wars with Pontus and Latvia destroyed any chance of relevancy poor Lizzy had. That’s all that needs to be said.

ECH: Dai Viet is a member of the illustrious ‘Not Mentioned in this Episode’ society, escaping any commentary and barely featuring in shots at all. They rise a spot in the ranks to the 75th percentile at 45th; and their infoaddict rank also happens to improve a spot to 45th! It’s altogether hard to escape the prediction that Dai Viet will ultimately continue being an obscure and frankly boring civ, with rough terrain protecting them, for many episodes to come, with fairly dismal science and production stats ensuring their inability to rise beyond that, mostly notable for spreading a solidly popular religion. Sorry to sound pessimistic, but what else can one say?!

Reformer:

Well, nothing much to say about our boy Makhno. I guess right about now would be prime time to strike at a slightly distracted Kalmyks. I mean…not even that distracted anymore, now that Bukhara lost Elista to Kazakhstan. And then Kazakhstan lost the city to Afsharids. Tragic really. For the Kalmyks I mean. But also kind of for Makhno who doesn’t have a fully distracted Kalmyks. Just a mildly distracted Kalmyks. Anyway they’re pretty out of it at this point I’m done rambling about the Kalmyks.

Cloudy:

The situation for the Taino remains the same this week. At least they stopped fruitlessly throwing units against the Seneca. But they will need to actively start doing things right if they want their ranking to change.

JDT:

ISEEMOUNTAINS! ISEEMOUNTAINS ISEEMOUNTAINS ISEEMOUNTAINSISEEMOUNTAINSISEEMOUNTAINSISEEMOUNTAINS ISEEMOUNTAINS!

[Translation: I see mountains! You declared war on Shang but ain’t getting anything done due to the mountains lil bro!]

Shaggy:

I have, once again, gotten the Mogadishu writeup. But… they really can’t even take the 2 pop, 20 strength Zahran? Hopefully investing in carracks will help their naval warfare prospects, it sure seems like that is their only way back into the game at this point.

CelestialDalek:

After writing up about Burgundy, now I get to talk about one of their main war enemies: England! They still have bad stats and are staring down the Faroel of a gun, but at least they’re going to take a city off of Burgundy (and then get no farther). They better start praying that something good happens to them, maybe starting with Amiens instead of ending with it.

Leman:

A quiet part for Vijayanagara. They didn’t do all that much besides declaring war against Qarmatians. However, despite their little colonies, Vijayanagara doesn’t really have much of a navy to speak of, so I’m not really sure this war will go anywhere. Probably for the best, Vijay doesn’t really have the stats to back up such an invasion anyways.

Orange:

Well this war ain’t going too hot for the Harappans. Mehrgarh flipped a bit, though ended the part in Harappan hands. The Afsharids are missing a navy so it may stay in their control at the end, thoupogh hard to say. Dholavira on the other hand is completely surrounded and while it hasn’t taken much damage so far, I really doubt it won’t fall. There is just too big of an army going for it. So where will this leave Harappa at the end? Probably not a great place…

NopeCopter:

The Qarmatians Cycle looks something like this: The Qarmatians stagnate while their neighbors all look way stronger -> Everyone’s expectations for the Qarmatians drop dramatically -> Someone declares war -> The Qarmatians dramatically overperform -> Everyone’s expectations for the Qarmatians rise dramatically -> The war ends with mild Qarmatian success -> The Qarmatians’ rank drops a bit as the hype settles down -> Repeat. It happened against the Afsharids, it happened against Pontus, and now it’s seemingly happening again with the Saba-D’mt - Mogadishu - Vijayanagara coalition. We’re in the beginning stages of what should be the “Qarmatians dramatically overperform” step, and their rank is rising a bit to compensate, but will the pattern hold up, or will everyone’s favorite underdogs finally take an L?

JDT:

Oh boy, Kazakhstan is in for a bad time. Literally all of their neighbours have decided to get along to cut them down to size, which is reasonable since they only have 2000 troops around. The Afsharids, Bukhara, the Selkups, Kazan, hell even the Dzungars and Latvia, all of them have ganged up to pose a very tangible threat to the Kazakh core. Thankfully, the Kazakhs have so many cities that they can lose quite a few without completely wrecking them, and the Afsharids are the only civ actually committing units to the war, with the Urals, Tianshan and Caucasus preventing further commitments and further destruction. Here’s the thing though - that advantage won’t last forever. And when it stops, things are not gonna be fun.

NopeCopter:

The opening act of the Burgundy coalition has now played out, and as expected, Bavaria has secured Beaune. The question now on the PR team’s minds is, can they go any further? Opinions are split here, it seems - on the one hand, some people believe that Dijon could fall quite easily, while on the other hand, many consider the city to be too well-defended with Bavaria’s weak carpet. If Bavaria can manage to wear down and secure Dijon (or better yet, go even further and take Nancy as well), then I’d say they’re suddenly back in the running for minor power status. If not? Well, there’s always Royal Hungary.

Orange:

Honestly Nivkh are very trapped, their only option for expansion is Ikko Ikki, Gogurt is top tier and Thule have top tier stats (though a bad position, but enough of a position to still make an attack against them super hard especially for Nivkh). Though really, Gogurt does have a fair bit of an open front… Bakjak would fall quickly, Geonan is wide open, Buyeo could probably also be taken with the navy rather fast. But, we all know their war record against Gogurt right? Yeah, they ain’t doing anything in a war.

ECH:From the Gulf of Guinea to the Nile! Kanem-Bornu rises two spots, one for every city they’ve taken off the Mamluks over this long war. Their stats are still a good way below their placement here - Infoaddict ranks them 42nd - but they’ve proven cunning and efficient within a quite tumultuous continent, potentially helped by a pretty powerful defensive UA (and as we can see in the above image, they’re well on the way to connecting Minya, giving the city that UA ability). A sniping of Cairo is unlikely (if Rome and them even manage to siege it down, which some have contested) and a successful taking of Damietta even more so, making this new capture the likely limit of Idris’s gains in this war, although they still probably have a part to play mopping up Mamluk bowmen. What matters now is the hopefully incoming peace, where these underdogs can hopefully develop their gains, rebuild their forces, and look at who they can practically take on next (Sierra Leone?).

Leman:

Osage had a nice part consolidating their gains from Shawnee. They had a massive 50% increase in their production, which is really nice for them, but they still have quite a ways to go. If Osage can continue their momentum and keep on cleaning up all those failed North American civs, they might be able to build something up.

CelestialDalek:

Jeez, for some reason I got all of the ABCDEF except Bavaria. The Visigoths have done two things this episode: fuck up the attack on Asturica, which looked like an easy city to recapture, and declare war on the Qarmatians. Even if they finally take Asturica, or hell, go further and take Autun, they’re still a mid-tier power that doesn’t have the stats or landmass to be ranked anywhere except smack dab in the middle of the pack.

Leman:

Well. Ikko didn’t really get into all that much this episode. (I hear there's a club they can join.) There wasn’t even an actual slide of them in the episode. We saw how their religion has expanded and we see their stats did increase, there was a solid little production boost. If they hop in on the Shang coalition they have a real decent opportunity ahead of them but for now, Ikko-Ikki is a weird little mediocre patchwork of cities in the North Atlantic and not a whole lot more.

Reformer:

Looking increasingly bad for Noongar. But not catastrophically so. Let’s go in order. First in line the obvious: Palawa. This is of course the most resource-intensive of Noongar’s wars. For most of last episode and this episode, this war has been a stalemate, but towards the end of the episode, this was changing, as in the north Palawa burns Ballardong to the ground, and inland, Palawa has dealt enough damage to Kriwa to take it to yellow health. Noongar doesn’t seem like they have enough to defend the city, so it’ll likely fall next episode, barring a peace deal. These losses to Palawa will hurt the most. Next up: Singapore. Singapore has finished taking out Noongar’s recent expansion into the spice islands with the conquest of Walyallup. This will make future attempts at northward expansion more difficult, at least until Singapore is weakened. In a more immediate sense, the loss of these islands is not much of a statistical loss for Noongar, so there’s that at least. Finally: Wahgi. Wahgi is mostly an afterthought in the grand scheme of things. Though Noongar definitely cares, sending an army to attack Minj. That attack won’t go anywhere, and drains resources that could’ve gone towards fighting Palawa instead. Quite sad. Overall: Losses are manageable so far, but they will altogether make future wars more difficult. The longer the current coalition war goes on, the worse of course, though most of the obvious losses have been realized already. MY OPINION is that they’ll probably be fine and have good options for rebound, but Noongar’s fate is ultimately a divisive topic, as makes sense.

JDT:

Rome goes up by 2 as they almost complete the triumph over the Mamluks, surrounding Cairo and regaining most of what was lost in North Africa. Now we should start thinking of what's next for our eternal centurions. Their production is good, but their tech is slightly lackluster. Their options are a little limited, given that they are 1. Kanem-Bornu 2. Pontus 3. Alaouites or 4. Bavaria, all of which are no pushovers and have significant resources to prevent conquest. However, if fortune favours the brave, they may just find a way to exploit some weaknesses or outscale their foes to obtain a path to glory.

Leman:

Kazan keeps flip flopping on either side of the CBR’s midpoint. This week they end up on the good side of the midpoint because they have joined in on what seems to be a historic collapse of Kazakhstan. By all accounts, Kazan should make massive gains here. They have more than double Kazakhstan’s military, almost as much production and are allied with all of Kazakhstan’s neighbors. All that Kazan needs to focus on now is getting more cities than the Selkups. It would be such a shame if Kazan only picked up one or two of Kazakhstan’s 14 cities and then just replaced their weak neighbor with a much, much stronger one.

Nathanmasse:

So far, Mongolia has played a pacifist game.  Any wars they’ve been involved with have been against distant civilizations they have no hope of actually fighting.  But now there’s blood in the water.  Shang’s disastrous war with Goguryeo and resulting peace deal has emboldened all of their neighbors to claim their own piece of the crumbling empire.  None may have more to gain than Mongolia who shares a long border and whose military has not yet been depleted from pointless skirmishes.  It is also fitting that the current year is 1190, which is the year Sorghaghtani was born OTL.

Orange:

Pontus really just is existing in the middle of it all. They could try for Qarms again, or maybe go against Rome, they could attempt another attack on the Kalmyks, or even go against Royal Hungary again. Though all of these might be a bit hard for them, given their previous efforts. So for now I guess they continue to chill in the middle, just existing.

JDT:

Shiok! Singapore rises up to their apex as they climb to 24th place. It's not hard to see why. Their stats are good all around the board. They are the primary benefactor of the destruction of Maguindanao. They continue to make the right play after the right play. And Siam, Zheng and Wahgi, while strong, are full of holes that are completely exploitable. Hell, they’re dogpiling on Noongar right now, and can possibly snag a city or two from their collapse in the hands of Palawa! If the current trajectory stands, we might have a Timor Leste part two, though they are filled in a region of sharks and thus must tread carefully.

Leman:

Ecuador rises decently up the ranks this week, mostly due to the fact that they have joined in on the coalition war against Tiwanaku. Spoiler alert, we all think Tiwanaku is going to be fine, save the handful of island cities they will lose to Bora-Bora. That being said, New Holland and Ecuador can use the naval distraction to snag a city or two on land. Ecuador in particular really needs this. They aren’t really a bad civ but with a much better neighbor in Mexico to the north and two much better neighbors in the south in New Holland and Tiwanaku, they desperately need to make the most of an opportunity like this one.

Orange:

Finally, the revenge for the loss of Malkerns that was totally avoidable by not declaring the war, has been avenged! Maybe from here they can push further and take on Big Bend. Is this the start of them heading back to the top 10? No, but imagine if it was.

Nathanmasse:

Siam was elusive this episode, only appearing on one of two slides but they were busy bees in the background.  They researched both Metal Casting and Compass, which will boost their production and turn their fleet of triremes into cutting-edge naval units.  These could give them the upper hand in any conflict with their neighbors if they choose (except the Khoshuts, don't attack them please).

JDT:

Sierra Leone goes down by one as their war against the Alaouites stalls out. They have taken Kenema, and Rabat and Marrakech are both under siege, but what next? There’s still Kanem-Bornu, but Sierra Leone only has 3500 military power and while their production is decent, it’ll take time to rebuild their force. Then once Bornu’s dead, they’ll be directly exposed to the rest of the African big 3. Maybe they can go north into Europe and tango with Rome and the Visigoths, but it's not exceedingly likely. Tech and effective science are still very decent though, as is treasury, so they’ll probably be fine.

Leman:

Zheng continues creeping up the rankings as they continue to slowly grind down Maguindanao. It’s taking a little while longer than I would have expected especially given that now, Maguindanao is almost completely out of units, but Zheng is still making headway and grabbed another city before Wahgi could. In addition, they opened up another, excellently timed front against Shang, where they have a very reasonable chance of snagging a few solid land cities. It might be difficult for Zheng to stretch itself over two fronts, especially since one is naval, and the other is land, and due to Zheng’s absolutely abysmal production, but given how weak Maguindanao is and how stretched thin Shang is, I think there is ample opportunity for a great part next episode.

Cloudy:

The Dzungars slip to their lowest rank since episode 5 as they continue to stagnate relative to some of their neighbors. They’re involved in the Kazakh dogpile, yes, but they’re not in a position to gain anything despite their massive army. If they joined the attack on Shang, they might find themselves in a similar position—but obviously, they have not done even that. Until we see some real initiative, they’re going to keep slowly slipping downward.

Leman:

Ho boy. Well, this is quite the disappointing fall from grace for one of the surprising breakout powers. I don’t know about you but I’m always excited when a civ we initially rank very low (47th in Shang’s case) decides to buck trends and expectations and perform well. However, in the last episode it seems as though Shang is beginning to falter.

Last episode the Shang vs Goguryeo war was looking to be in Shang’s favor. They had a larger military, equivalent production and only a single front to worry about, while Goguryeo was diverting forces up north. Shang was pressing up against Yodong. This episode ended in complete disaster, not only did they fail to seize Yodong, but they also simply handed off Xinxiang to Goguryeo without much of a fight, turning a slight victory into a humiliation.

It gets worse. With no time to recover, Shang has been coalitioned by their neighbors, specifically Mongolia and Zheng (and Khoshuts, but like, okay). And while neither of those civilizations are particularly terrifying, a two v one in Shang’s state is not something we expect will go well for Daji.

But hold on. Because it gets even worse. It’s time to talk about Shang’s UA, the flavorful and legitimately powerful Jiuchi Roulin allows Daji to murder her own citizens, triggering resistance, in exchange for culture and luxuries. The AI seems to like to abuse this ability in times of stress and war and used the ability at least nine times across five cities. That means five cities (Banpo, Erlitou, Machang, Xixiahou, and Yinxu) are going to be out of commission, not producing units, culture, gold, or science, for dozens of turns. This is not how you’re supposed to use this ability! You’re supposed to sacrifice a citizen or two every now and again to speed up expansion, not turn off your productive core cities in times of war! At this point Shang has lost 40% of their science, and comparable amount of production, culture, and gold.

Daji’s serial killing is really bad news and honestly might warrant a ranking lower than simply 17th. This may just be a game ending series of events for Shang. The unknown is we’re not entirely sure when these cities will come back online – I’ve calculated it should be 10-15 turns at most, while it seems that in the past the cities will revolt for dozens of turns. We’re also not sure if Daji is done killing her own citizens or if she plans on triggering more revolts in more cities. Time will tell, but I’m worried.

CelestialDalek:

Not an exciting episode for Latvia fans. They took Kyzylorda from Kazakhstan, but it flipped. They’ll probably get it back, but the entire front consists of 3 almost-dead Latvian horsemen, 2 living Latvian horsemen, a Kazakh boat, and an almost dead Kazakh horseman. Even if the war is stagnant, they still have plenty of other options to expand in, and their high stats place them solidly in the top 20. Top 16, even, how about that!

Nathanmasse:

Bora-Believers, rejoice!  With Palawa and Wahgi fighting to their west, Puni feel secure enough to join in a military alliance to take down Tiwanaku. It should hopefully be a short campaign.  The Tiwanaku's island colonies will fall quickly but the bottleneck between polynesia and the Andean coast will make it difficult to attack their core.  Secondly, if Ecuador and New Holland prove unable to match Tiwanaku, Bora's south american colonies are still cut off and vulnerable.  But now's not the time for that.  Solidifying control over much of eastern pacific islands is a big deal and is exactly the kind of move they need to make if they plan on winning.

Reformer:

A quiet part of growth for Ume Sami. They’ve reached top ten in stats for the first time in six episodes, a respectable milestone! Getting beat up by Faroes really did get them bulking up out of spite. Gotta respect it. That’s about it for pressing news, though. We have to hope this bulking up leads to eating the Finns. It’s gotta happen some day. Some day…

Msurdej:  Tiwanaku falls out of the Top 10 as many of their neighbors decide to dogpile on them. At first, the war against Ecuador didn’t seem like a threat, but when New Holland and Bora-Bora joined in, things started getting interesting. Now Huyustus has to send his army in multiple directions, with little chance of a successful counterattack. It’s also unlikely they’ll escape without losses, thanks to their Pacific Island holdings being attacked by Bora-Bora. But if there are significant mainland losses, we could see Tiwanaku knocked out of the Top 10 for good.

ECH:It’s odd to imagine such an undeniably big player, a top 15 civ with the second largest effective military score, rising two spots and yet be entirely unmentioned in the episode… but that’s indeed what has happened. In fairness, one can argue Mexico’s rise is in actuality Shang and Tiwanaku’s declines, but still, this does quietly represent a new rank height for the Austrian Emperor, worthy of celebrating for those on their side. The question of how they can expand rises to the forefront now, as the Mexican state has built up great strength amidst peace: Taino with their trireme armada easily beating Mexico at present? Pueblo or Ecuador with their rough terrain and semi-comparable strength? Or taking a punt at stretching their North American holdings to the scammers in Florida? Whatever they choose, us observers hope the decision is soon, from a dastardly content perspective.

NopeCopter:

Saba-D’mt retains their ranking just outside the Top 10 as their war with the Qarmatians goes nowhere. Their easiest opportunities are definitely drying up now - the Mamluks, for one, are at serious risk of being mostly gobbled up by Rome and Kanem-Bornu - but Saba-D’mt’s high stats and excellent UA mean that they could definitely take on any of their neighbors at their leisure. They really should start committing to their fights, though. People considered Ndongo a shoe-in for the winner of Africa, too, and look where they’ve ended up.

Nathanmasse:

The Afsharids spent most of this episode flipping cities back and forth with Kazakhstan and Harrapa.

Even still, the Afsharids end the episode in a very strong position.  The battles over Elista have turned into a full scale coalition against Kazakhstan, who is likely to be banished to the arctic coast if they survive at all.   This should free up units and production to continue the war against Harappa.  Their siege of Dholavira has been...embarrassing, but I expect they will actually start attacking the city next episode instead of just trying to surround it.

NopeCopter:

The Yellowknives return to the Top 10 after a brief stint of sitting just outside, mainly because of a sudden lack of Top 10-worthy civs. With both Shang and Tiwanaku suddenly facing down major coalitions, the Yellowknives being stuck between two other massive powers suddenly doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Of course, this is still THE problem they need to solve if they want any hope of going anywhere long-term, but given the Thule and the Pueblo are currently busy tossing boats at each other, they have time to figure something out. It certainly helps that they’re now on par with their neighbors stats-wise, too - while their city count is still not quite up to snuff, they do have the highest Effective Science of anybody in western North America, and if they can adopt the Pueblo’s religion to avoid a Holy War then they could probably devour the Crow without too many issues.

Shaggy

Palawa broke through the defenses of Ballardong this part and began burning the city down. No change in rank this part as arson isn’t exactly seen as a victory by the PR team. Palawa does have the nearest settlers so if they want to reposition a city in that area by resettling it, they should be able to get there first. They have also been trying their best at a naval invasion of Pinjarra but that city remains untouched. Honestly, they really should go after Kriwa instead, they definitely have the units in the area. Hopefully they don’t split their forces too much.

NopeCopter:

The Selkups are suddenly in a very, very interesting situation. Kazakhstan, who they struggled to properly break through not long ago, is now the target of an existentially terrifying coalition of which the Selkups are a member. Not only that, but the Selkups stand to gain the most by far. Latvia has been struggling to break Kazakhstan's Siberian cities for ages, the Afsharids’ attention is split and there’s a civ in the way, Bukhara is a rump, the Dzungars share a pretty small and mountainous border, and Kazan can only really hope to take Kazakhstan’s cities west of the Urals. Provided they don’t screw up this war, they stand to gain a TON in the coming episodes.

But that’s not all - the Selkups are also seeing massive indirect gains from other wars, too. Most notably, Mongolia is looking to make some gains against Shang. While normally a neighbor growing stronger would be a bad thing, Mongolia is a crucial buffer state between the Selkups and newly-cemented powerhouse Goguryeo, and while Mongolia (even with a few extra cities) can’t really threaten the Selkups, Goguryeo absolutely could. Of course, a weakened Mongolia is also nice as a potential target of a Selkup invasion, so even if the Shang coalition backfires the Selkups can still profit, but putting some safe distance between themselves and the world’s number-two power is a big deal. They just need to remember to conquer Mongolia before Goguryeo does.

With all this in mind plus various other fortuitous turns of events (the Afsharids continuing to suck, the Dzungars being unable to grow, the Bukharan rump state sticking around), the Selkups could absolutely replace the likes of Shang and Tiwanaku in the pantheon of world powers if all goes well in the next couple of episodes. All they have to do is beat Kazakhstan and let the old world crumble around them.

Leman:

New Holland is the historically most powerful and most dangerous member of the anti-Tiwanaku coalition. That means, if we see a crazy Tiwanaku collapse, expect New Holland to be a major cause of that. However, I’m not sure if New Holland is quite strong enough to beat Tiwanaku. Both are land powers, but Tiwanaku’s land army seems quite a bit stronger than New Holland's, despite the multiple fronts, and New Holland is still slowly going after Rio Grande’s arctic colonies. Given the distraction, I think picking up a single city at most is what we can expect, but any wins over their greatest rival is a big win for New Holland.

Nathanmasse:

The Thule have finally awoken and are attacking the Pueblo.  Not exactly my top choice of a civ to target but at least it shouldn’t blow up in their face.  Pueblo has researched Compass so has a more advanced fleet but there are too many Yellowknife units along the pacific coast for either side to make much headway.  That leaves the one, lonely Pueblo city in the arctic which just might be weak enough for Thule to take for a moral victory.  In other news, the Thule are close to finishing Education.  Their science rate so far hasn’t exactly been bad, but it’s difficult to support a large population in the arctic so any additional boost is helpful.

Cloudy:

The rankers this week placed Wahgi everywhere from third to twelfth, but they’ve ended up near the top of that range due to the sheer upheaval among our top powers during episode 14.L Many people had previously ranked Shang and Tiwanaku in the top 5, but now those civs are all over the place, and Wahgi was the only civ that a significant number of rankers agreed could rise into the resulting void. We can only hope that they live up to the honor we have bestowed upon them—because so far they haven’t really done anything to deserve the boost. Also, they have -11 happiness, which is not doing them any favors.

Shaggy

Unfortunately Pueblo loses the weekly contest of “which of Pueblo or Goguryeo will claim 2nd place” and is placed in 3rd this week. Granted, between the two of them Goguryeo definitely has more to gain from their war with another top-tier civ. The Pueblo-Thule war has a small problem of the Yellowknives being in the way. I don’t think Pueblo has ocean-faring units yet so their only avenue into Thule lands is through Weledeh-Cheh’s coastal tiles, which are completely filled with Yellowknives ships! I doubt that Pueblo will be granted open borders anytime soon; the best they can hope for in this war is not wasting all of their units by trickling them into range of Ivujivik and its defensive force. In other news, Ishtar has ended her extensive travels this episode in Taos so we’ll get some juicy Pueblo tidbits for the time being.

ECH:The giant of the Far East returns to their seemingly natural position at second place; as Goguryeo has placed 2nd 5 times over 15 rankings, if you include part 0, all of which have been since part 7. That being said, 4 rankers have gone so far as to put them first instead, me included. Why? Well, their performance against the civ that ought to be their big challenge, Shang, certainly forms part of it, as they managed to withstand a major surprise assault and walk away with a new 11-pop city free of damage. Indeed, with Shang now becoming further hobbled by a three-way coalition, who could stop Gwanggaeto’s desired expansions if he doesn’t fumble the ball? Nivkh, no way… Ikko Ikki, nice joke… Mongolia, maybe would be a grind if they weren’t themselves grinding into Shang as I write… The point is, Goguryeo has options and some proven ability, even if their stats are still behind the frontrunner (and even then, their city count is no higher and their production only runs 8 hammers behind them).

Nathanmasse:

The Faroe Islands remain in the top slot but it is not uncontested.  They still have the largest military and production but now ranks second in total number of cities.  Goguryeo’s short, decisive war with Shang has brought new scrutiny to Faroe’s lack of success against the likes of Seneca.  Both civs have shown a ready willingness to settle an incredible number of cities, but at a certain point there’s no more land to settle and it needs to be taken by other means.  The biggest issue is their chronic unhappiness causing them to sack half the cities they capture. There is no shortage of potential targets for the Faroes but they will need to be more aggressive if they want to capitalize on them and remain #1.