Power Rankings: Episode 2 – S4

Altima:

Turning to God when you get your shit wrecked is a common practice, but founding a religion whilst on death’s door sure doesn’t elevate your position in the rankings. The Shawnee are on the fast-track to dying first, with no military and one city while their aggressor actually has units. Bonus points if the Seneca get involved and it becomes a two-front massacre. All-in-all, things are going Badly.

Cloudy:

After a seemingly promising start, Eswatini plummets head-first to 60th place due to their disastrous war with the neighboring Rozvi. The destruction wrought upon them can’t be overstated—they not only lost a city, but lost two settlers as well, and now Rozvi is attempting to besiege their heavily fortified capital, dealing major damage to infrastructure. Their capital will be difficult to take, but it could fall, making matters even worse. I think at this point it’s safe to say that Labotsibeni Mdluli is sadly out of the running.

Altima:

As it turns out, settling out in the face of dudes who want to murder you is a good way to lose your fresh city. Who’d’ve thunk. Thus, the Kalmyks eat a kalamykous drop of 14 ranks down to 59, where they taste only their own blood.

Orange:

Look, Ume Sami is gonna roll the Finns. That’s all there is to say. It’s a matter at this point of when, not if.

Orange:

The tundra of southern South America is rough, Tehuelche has the worst science of anyone at 7. Luckily they still got space and time, just gotta use that measly production to build some more settlers and get some cities out in more fertile and hilly areas. Two cities is not what they need right now.

Leman: Saba rockets up the rankings because they settled another city and didn’t lose one like some other civs did. They aren’t even the worst civ in Africa anymore! Things are still rough for them, for example, Saba has the lowest population of all civs on the cylinder, is low on space that is easy to defend, and they’re behind in every stat you can think of. But hey if settling continues, they manage a nice, timely war with Mamluks, and they can get their very powerful UA online, there is a bright future ahead for Saba. And by bright future, I mean I think I can see them hitting 40th eventually.

Lasqueto:

MacGregor you absolute madlad you’ve done it again! The Floridas troll investors for a second time by actually starting to play the game after everyone pulled out. Mind you they’re still kinda shit but no longer absolute trash tier like before. That city on the tip of Florida looks pretty vulnerable to a naval attack but atm it’s just Taino nearby and they haven’t got much of a navy. North America is still pretty wide open so I could see MacGregor building himself a nice little empire in the corner - it’s still very early on. I say that but he’s probably gonna give all his cities away to the Shawnee next part. It’s Gregor MacGregor after all.

Shaggy:

Kanem-Bornu? More like Kanem-Boring. So much space, so few settlers.

Cloudy:

*Pokes the Qarmatians with a very long pole*

“Come on, burn some shit already”

Cloudy:

Siam sinks into the bottom 10 in a move that I assume is most likely driven by their terrible stats. Siam ranks 51st on the info sheet, with production and military both well below average. However, things might be looking up soon: they have three cities and another settler on the way, which is more than quite a few civs can say, and that settler is heading for the Ganges delta, where it will claim some of the region’s most fertile territory before the Khoshuts can get there. So I would say it’s far too early to write these guys off.

Leman:

Taino’s got three cities on three islands and not a whole lot else going on, resulting in a low rank. Their stats are low and they haven’t yet made landfall on South America. They don’t even have good science like other island civs like Faroes, Bora-Bora, or Ikko Ikki do. All in all not a great position.

Lasqueto:

Makhno wasn’t exactly on his A-game this episode. He spent the first half of the episode throwing units away in a fruitless war against the Kalmyks while Latvia slowly boxed him almost completely in. He did actually start mobilizing against Latvia towards the end but has a disadvantage in numbers with a worse teched army, so most of us aren’t that confident he can pull it off. Maybe if he hadn’t been wasting production on the Kalmyks he’d be in a better position. I’d be happy to be surprised though.

Reformer:

Quiet part. Too quiet. The Alaouites end the second part on two cities, not a great showing. They do have a settler out, at least. Visigoths to the north are on four cities, and Sierra Leone is on three, with a settler ready to settle the…Maghreb, apparently? That’s going to be free real estate for a while. The Alaouites’ best hope in the early game will be to take advantage of that opportunity. They’re definitely not out of the game yet, but a slow start like this is a poor sign.

Orange:

Singapore is doing better than expected, that’s kinda it. Three cities, no production, alright science/tech, no military to speak of, but not really in danger yet from Siam or Maguindanao and still got space to expand. If they can get out a few more settlers they’ll probably set themselves up nicely for a solid 45th.

Shaggy:

Ikko Ikki founded a religion this part and… not much else. They continue to stagnate in their settling efforts while the rest of East Asia grows; some of their neighbors are doing fantastically while Ikko Ikki is content to look inward on their island. But hey, at least we get to see that unique religion. Maybe that will inspire them to be more interesting.

Rosay:

Bukhara flew under the radar this part, which is honestly the best-case scenario for them, as it gives them some time to build tall. All of their mentions on the most recent part were based on the coalition war Mongolia, which they probably won’t get anything out of, except a couple of friends, which is nice.

Shaggy:

Rome is somehow not the most fucked Italian peninsula civ at the moment. Granted, they are still ranked below Bavaria because they’re still, you know, an Italian civ that hasn’t figured out the whole “settling across the Mediterranean” thing. They have settled Greece, which I find particularly funny, so they aren’t solely penned into the Boot. But still, nobody is buying Rome stonks anytime soon.

Reformer:

So, not a whole lot is happening around here. Khoshuts are living ascetic lives in the mountains. No one is particularly settling towards them, so being on three cities is probably fine. Oh, and by the way, by ‘ascetic’, I mean ‘bottom of the barrel stats, comparable to the likes of Florida, Finns, Eswatini’. So that’s nice I guess. Very respectable. If that doesn’t change soon, expect these guys to drop quite a bit.

Reformer:

WAR!!! …In name, at least. Vijayanagara declare war on their closest neighbor, Harappa, who’s been expanding a bit recklessly, and still nothing happens in the war. This might be because at the time of declaration on turn 39, Vijayanagara had four military units. This might’ve been a co-op war agreement with Afsharids, and a failure of the Diplomacy AI to tell the City AI that war is coming. Not that it particularly hurt Vijayanagara. Closer to the end of the part, on turn 44, they had built a respectable army…respectable because it includes *three* catapults, not because it's of any good size. Because they still have only ten military units total. At least Harappa doesn’t seem to care. They’ve barely built units despite the nominal state of war with two immediate neighbors. So all is fine. And if Vijayanagara keeps up the unit building, maybe they can actually threaten Harappa next part! Assuming they don’t make white peace…

Leman:

Do you guys remember Burkina Faso? They settled like six cities in part one of S2, and then Nigeria immediately curbstomped them making everyone who was excited about them look like little baby idiots.

Well, some of us haven’t learned. Bavaria takes a nosedive as they drop Regensburg to Royal Hungary and fail to get a city out to offset their loss. Their stats aren’t horrible, so there’s still hope for those of you who liked Bavaria for a comeback, but given this performance and their lack of settling space, I personally wouldn’t get my hopes up.

Orange:

Big River’s got a Big Military and that’s really it. 2 cities, shit production, shit tech. Why did people rank them so high??? Why am I, the person who put them 59th, the one doing this slide??? We just don’t know. All we do know is that he’s called the Stig, wait sorry no wrong media, all we do know is that Bento better put that army to use soon or else he’s gonna be real far behind.

Cloudy:

The Mamluks continue to slide slightly in the ranks as they fail to expand past two cities, one of which remains quite far from their capital. Their capital is at least very large, with 12 citizens already, but their total number of citizens empire-wide is about average, so nothing to write home about. Fortunately, their neighbors—other than Pontus—have been equally passive so far, so there’s still time for Shajar to turn things around.

Leman:

Burgundy is like Bavaria, but slightly better because unlike Bavaria, who also settled aggressively and got immediately punished for it, Burgundy at least managed to snag its lost city back by the end of the part and look like they’re not going to lose it anytime soon. I think this is still a huge blow for Burgundy, but keeping your city vs losing your city is huge.

Msurdej:  Tiwanaku takes another tumble down the rankings as they grow only slightly. While they have another settler out searching for a space for a new city, they also have the massive army of Rio Grande to their southeast. If Gonçalves takes umbrage with Huyustus’s settle, Tiwanaku could be in for a nasty surprise with how small their army is. Nevertheless, they need to act fast and spread out if they want to live up to the expectations we set for them in Part 0.

Rosay:

Maguindanao got the pyramids, which is really funny to me because they're an island based civ that doesn't have a lot of workable tiles, thus not having a huge need for workers. Good going there Maguindanao I'm sure that will be relevant faint murmurs whats that, murmur oh thats neat thank you, I’ll tell em, it has come to my attention that in addition to the Pyramids, Maguinadano also got the great lighthouse which increases their naval unit movement. That one should honestly help them a lot on the early and middle game, so good job there.

Leman:

It’s hard to say a lot about these mid-tier civs in the early game. England got its third city out which is the absolute bare minimum of what you can ask for at this stage of the game. Luckily, Bristol is on their home isles and not across the sea in France, so it’ll be easier to defend. Unfortunately you do need more than three decent cities to place in the top half.

Rosay:

While I’m still semi-optimistic on Kazan, at least comparatively, man this part was rough. To address the Plum colored elephant in the room (is that what color they are?) Latvia immediately took up the majority of Eastern Europe by themselves this part, which is great for them, shitty for everyone else. Now I personally think Latvia’s holdings are kinda paper tiger-ish, it doesn’t change the fact that now instead of just having the land, Kazan would have to fight Latvia and take their cities and take on rebels that they can’t get around and a heavy warmonger penalty making Kazan a target for their neighbors, one of which being Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is already at war with Kazan and given the military difference, and Kazan’s cities being practically defenseless, this war is going to be rough if Kazakhstan knows how to navigate their army properly. While yes Kazan did take that one city off of the Kalmyks bringing their city total from two to three, the resources used to take that city would have been better spent making a decently sized defensive army and capturing as much of Russia as possible. Kazan’s misguided priorities have probably stunted their growth but, they honestly still have room to expand and time to recover, after all, Kazakhstan is pretty far away and good luck getting an AI to take a faraway city without siege units, and we are still in the ancient era. Still, rough start.

Msurdej:  Gabriel Moreno continues to exist on this cylinder, not being great, but doing well enough to be in the 30s. So far they are meeting our expectations. Let’s see if they can rise above them now.

Altima:

Dai Viet builds a neat wonder and founds a faith. Their military and production are kinda shite, but they’ve still got time to work on that, so they get to stay in the middle of the pack. Still, they do need to start waking up—Shang in particular poses an existential threat to them long term, with high stats for this early on that could result in a snowball that crushes Dai Viet beneath it. No pressure though.

Reformer:

Bora-Bora ends the episode on three cities. Entirely respectable, considering their isolation. And they have a settler out, which we saw moving eastward all the way back on turn 36…it had not settled by the end of the episode, which was turn 45. The likely implication here is that the settler is headed for South America. That’ll be entirely hilarious, but not much else, unless it happens to be next to Tehuelche, in which case such a distant city has a chance of surviving for a longer time. In the meantime, B-B is doing good with stats, especially with food output, where they are second only behind Wahgi, as is to be expected of a maritime power.

Orange:

Crow hops up to a nice four cities, but they are reaching the point where their borders are becoming solidified. The Yellowknives are to the north and Pueblo pushing right up to them in the south, Joe’s gotta start building a military in his cities and make a move against his enemies before they get too strong. Joe’s also not doing great on tech, still at 10 but luckily Yellowknives and Pueblo are just at 11 and not higher, but both got more effective science so he’s got some catching up to do.

Reformer:

So…uhh…what exactly did Seneca do this part? ‘Cause it wasn’t improving their cities, or settling new cities, or waging war. And you can see that the rankers’ confidence in Seneca collapsed as a consequence. Pretty embarrassing for a civ we saw as a pretty easy #1 in North America. Now, before panic sets in for the Seneca fans, I’m certain this is just a temporary slowdown. Seneca *did* build a settler towards the end of the part, and there’s plenty of land to settle up north (and some south, but it’s definitely the more cramped option now that Florida’s settling). But North America is (mostly) a very competitive region. The likes of Thule, Yellowknives, Crow, and Pueblo are all moving faster, Osage is being proactive in aggression, and even Florida is awake now, as mentioned. In a snowball game, these early episodes matter a lot…and Seneca wasted one such episode.

Lasqueto:

We saw barely anything of the Dzungars last part, so how are they actually doing? Uhhh they’re basically just the Luigi to Mongolia’s Mario, except both are just kinda sitting there at 4 cities doing nothing much. Dzungars might actually be the Mario in this situation tho given they have the edge in stats, notably a population stat that doesn’t totally suck ass.

Lasqueto:

Mogadishu continue their slide downward after another lacklustre part. They only just hit 3 cities. That’s only 1 more than their neighbour Saba, a civ notorious for not settling cities. Given most of our frontrunners are at around 5 that just won’t really cut it anymore. The aggressive settle down into Tanzania is the right play, but they had better follow it up with more. The south is heating up, and Mog really gotta be ready for when the fire starts spreading northward.

Reformer:

What an explosion of action! It was to be expected when two civs start within four tiles of one another, and Eswatini was caught lackin’. But it’s not all good news for our plucky conqueror. Rozvi has still not built a settler of their own, while Ndongo has been freely settling around them. Instead of peacing out while they’re on top, Rozvi is committing everything to a hopeless siege on the Eswatini capital. The terrain means that archers cannot shoot at the city, and the city most certainly is sturdy enough to shrug off mere warriors. Just let it go, and focus on settling some cities of your own now…you’ll get that Eswatini capital later.

Reformer:

Yellowknives had a quiet part. The action in North America happened elsewhere. Their stats are on the lower side (though improving!), but they’re doing a good job of expanding in a traditionally competitive region, which is what matters. There’s still plenty of land left to settle, and they better keep up, because Crow and Thule are showing no signs of slowing down.  

Msurdej:  

Well ain’t this a surprise, Zheng has managed to find its way into the top half of the rankings. With four cities and okay stats, Koxinga has a good little empire carved out so far. While it remains to be seen if the Shang won’t utterly decimate them, this is a great move to prevent that from happening. Or at least try to.

Emu:

Mongolia is really just acting like a filler steppe civ right now. We ranked them high to start with for reasons I can't quite remember, but they haven't really done too much with it. I mean they haven't really fumbled their chances either, but they're uh. There. for sure. Haven't gone anywhere. I can pronounce Mongolia, without any exaggeration, to be An Civ.

Reformer:

Thule, much like Yellowknives, had a quiet part, and kept on expanding at a good rate in a traditionally competitive region. But what separates Thule from Yellowknives is positioning. Before any civ from Asia can interact with North America, Thule essentially have corner bias. Whereas Yellowknives hypothetically have to manage both Crow and Thule, Thule only have to deal with Yellowknives. Finally, the stats sheet will tell you that there’s a sizable gulf between Thule and Yellowknives, but most of the difference is made up by military, and the remaining statistical differences balance out…not that these differences tend to be all that impactful at this point anyway.

Reformer:

Noongar is doing alright. They’re expanding at a good rate, their stats are fine…but their immediate neighbor is Palawa, who is doing everything Noongar can do, but better. Palawa has more cities, better stats, and indeed tops the charts. The only thing Palawa doesn’t have is military…there is Noongar’s opportunity! But wait! What’s this? Noongar’s military is also nonexistent! By the time Noongar has built up an army (or a navy) to go beat up Palawa, Palawa will probably also have enough troops to defend. If not more troops, even. Falling behind this early means that Noongar will depend on Palawa falling asleep for a while, all the while keeping up pace themselves. A tough ask for the AI. It might be worth it to wait until they can team up with Wahgi instead.

Reformer:

Great success! Shawnee has been crippled, giving Osage plenty of breathing room on a competitive continent! Unfortunately, much like Rozvi in Africa, Osage has forgone the concept of building settlers, and while Osage conquered one city, Pueblo has settled three. In my opinion, Osage would be best off making peace now, avoiding the warmonger penalties for killing a civ, and focusing on consolidating. Settling towards Florida ought to be a safe prospect, and the lands that-a-way are plenty rich as well. Meanwhile, Seneca being slow is of benefit to Osage, and Crow of course is stuck between multiple civs already. For now, Osage only has to be concerned about Pueblo…let’s hope they can keep up this momentum and rise above their western neighbours.

Cloudy:

The Visigoths rise just barely into the top 20 on the heels of their invasion of Burgundy. The attack didn’t end up permanently capturing any cities, but they did flip Autun and hold it for some time, which is a lot more than we expected from the war. Also, the Visigoths are now up to four cities in Spain with more potentially on the way, which is the kind of expansion we like to see. On the other hand, their stats are not impressive and a lot of troops were expended on the ultimately fruitless Burgundy campaign, so it’s possible that they’re overranked and could collapse when reality settles in.

Leman:

Turns out Lizzy wasn’t bluffing when she was mobilizing her forces at the Bavarian border. Usually, I’m extremely skeptical of early-game wars. Cities are difficult to capture with just warriors and archers. However, it seems to be different this time around as Hungary easily managed to capture Regensburg and punish Bavaria for their overzealous settling. The war isn’t over yet, but I would be very surprised if Bavaria managed to muster a military large enough to recapture the city, so I think Regensburg is securely Hungarian for now. Additionally, Hungary managed to even squeeze out a settle this part, in Poland, staking a strong claim to Eastern Europe, showing that she’s not throwing all her resources into the war and is continuing to play the game. Overall, a fantastic part for Royal Hungary.

Leman:

For a civ that didn’t really do much in an action-packed part, Ndongo got quite a bit of buzz this week. With Eswatini being absolutely gutted by Rozvi, and Rozvi failing to settle a city, how does that effect Ndongo? Ndongo managed to settle a few cities in Southern Africa, eating up some valuable space from those two aforementioned civs. There’s a very real chance that Rozvi exhausts all its effort fighting Eswatini only to cripple them both, allowing Ndongo to sweep in and eliminate both. It’s too early to really tell, for sure, but the outlook is good.

Lasqueto:

Peters sending that settler up into Tunisia is mighty ballsy. I doubt it’ll pay off, but wayward settlers are always funny and par for the course for Sierra Leone. Aside from that they had a bit of a slow part, not really accomplishing much in terms of expansion or stats, so they drop a bit as a result. They’re still up in the top 20 though given how resoundingly mid both their neighbours are.

Msurdej:  Much like the Seneca, Ume-Sámi did very little on this part, and suffered for it. But Rijkuo-maja has a few things in their corner that makes their drop less severe. They spent a great deal of time working on their army, having one of the largest on the cylinder, and more than enough to take out the Finns. They also created the religion of Noaidevuohta, which looks poised to spread over Europe with the bonuses it carries. They have plenty of room to spread out, at least one settler, and a weak neighbor to bully. They fell a bit behind this part, but can they slingshot themselves back to the top, or will they fall further in the rankings?

Rosay:

While I’m definitely hesitant to clown on Nivkh in the same way I clowned on the Gokturks last cycle before the Gokturks had a decent showing,  Nivkh is already showing signs of early game choking with Gorguryeo being allowed to expand northward despite a strong Shang performance being able to negate it. By the very nature of their spawn, if they don’t expand westward, Nivkh will be trapped in far east Siberia by so many strong civs they’ll have no choice but to play full stall as their neighbors go on to do actual regional power things like conquering stuff. Nivkh, you got until part 10 to prove to me that you’re not a disappointing turtle.

Shaggy:

I get the writeup for the fishy bois once again and I love it. Unfortunately for them, they drop from the top 3 all the way down to 14th this part. I don’t love that as much. To be honest, I’d place them a bit higher just because of how much space they still have to expand and how erratic some of the early wars in the region will be. That being said, they are definitely in a rough neighborhood with some fierce competition emerging nearby. Vonya either needs to start claiming land like they’re in the Wild West or building up to take a bite out of one of their weaker neighbors. Otherwise they may tumble farther…

Altima:

They’re doin’ alright. Good settling, lots of space, no notes.

Leman:

Kazakhstan seems to be defying some expectations early on in the game, and really making a good effort to not get overrun by the Selkups in the midgame. They’ve settled their fourth city and improved their stats quite a bit, keeping up with the aforementioned Selkups and surpassing their other neighbors like Kazan and Bukhara. Their military is kinda wimpy, but it’s been more than enough to keep Kazan at bay. Overall, a solid position for a civ that started on precarious ground.

Cloudy:

The rankers remain optimistic about Pontus as Mithridates expands to four cities and his neighbors, including the Kalmyks, Mamluks, and Qarmatians, remain unimpressive. Pontus also has its UU chariot archer, the Scythed Chariot, which is a melee unit and deals passive damage to adjacent enemies—pretty hot.

Emu:

The Latvians rocket up to the top 10 from an unlikely Baltic start. Their Finnish and Makhnovian rivals appear to be busy quaffing lead paint by the gallon, leaving our underdog Eastern Europeans with a Lat of opportunities. At this stage in the game, settling and not losing your cities instantly is all that's needed to prosper, and boy are these guys doing that. Makhno's current ineffectual stab north fizzling out (and if it doesn't, Latvia is entirely fucked and forget I ever said anything in my life) is sure to buy enough time for the requisite beefing up and filling out that follows every expansive spurt, like a lanky, disproportionate teenager's body suddenly realizing it has a whole lot of extra height to work with.

Rosay:

Harappa falls a bit this part though with all of the rapid rises and falls this part, -5 is essentially just noise. The only notable problems that Harappa has right now is that they are kinda boxed in but it’s not as big of an issue as say Burgundy, and their neighbors, the Afsharids, are kinda terrifying. With all of the bad stuff out of the way for a significant rank drop let’s now look at the positives. For one, while the space that Harappa can still get to is limited, it’s not nonexistent. Northern India still needs to be filled and Central Asia has a lotta open territory that Harappa can get their hands on. Additionally, as we get to the end of the first few parts where stats begin to actually kinda matter, Harappa has incredible early game production and crop generation, especially for a 4 city civ, and barring the obviously scary one, Harappa absolutely towers over its neighbors. I can easily see Harappa staying in the top 15 if not the top 10 for the foreseeable future.

Reformer:

Gogurt is doing great! They’re still at with Nivkh and Shang, and their low military in contrast to those rivals concerns me…but terrain and distance are noteworthy still at this point. I would expect peace soon. Long wars make the AI eager for white peace. *Assuming* Gogurt doesn’t lose any cities here, they’re in a great position going forward, and the AI is considered a fairly good one, too. They have another settler out and about as well. And even if they lose the forward settle to Nivkh, they’ll still be a contender, so that’s nice.

Emu:

Wahgi are looking incredibly strong for an Indonesia start, but will it be enough? They're certainly not going to just roll over and die, but with two strong Australians to the south and a bora that's outperforming every Polynesian to date..... where do they go? West toward Singapore and Dai Viet? Maybe. Northern Australia? Not a bad idea for some early colonization, but they're going to run into stiff competition sooner rather than later. Anywhere else these guys would be an instant top 5 for me, but here? I just can't bet on *another* civ trapped in the archipelago to make something of it.

Emu:

The Faroes start to justify their high part 0 ranking with an aggressive settling program that aims to leave absolutely no room for any other power from the North Sea to Newfoundland. If they just stick to it, their unreasonably high stats should manage to protect them from any of the early wars that so often threaten to crush an expansive civ in its cradle. Their neighbors are weak (to the extent that they even have neighbors up there on their frozen island), but they haven't taken that as an excuse to take their foot one millimeter off the gas. Nothing but a Vikinger future in store for the islanders up north of Scotland.

Shaggy:

Afsharids ascendant! Blossoming out to 5 cities in Central Asia is surely an auspicious sign for Nader Shah. Seriously, the stat growth for Afsharids this part is insane, they rose a whopping 38 InfoAddict ranks (which has its flaws, sure, but nobody else had that big of a gain) off the back of some major buildup. They also declared war on Harappa this part. Is it to gain some friends in the region by building a coalition or do they actually have a material goal in mind? Only Dholavira seems like a viable target, but time will tell.

Cloudy:

The Pueblo rise dramatically to 4th place after a bold episode in which they laid the groundwork for a prosperous future. They settled no less than three new cities—one toward the Crow and Shawnee, one in an excellent spot in California, and one near Mexico in the south, effectively cordoning off a huge swath of western North America for themselves. On top of that, they have the largest army, most production, and most cities of anyone on the continent, placing them in a clearly leading position among their neighbors, some of whom are struggling to get on their feet.

Msurdej:  And coming in with the bronze medal, we have Palawa. Tarenorerer has doubled her number of cities, making her one of only two civs with such numbers. Furthermore, unlike Wahgi, these are built on areas with more room for growth than a single island. This gives them a great advantage against the Noongar for the time being, but it remains to be seen whether it will be enough for them to break out of Oceania and onto the mainland continents.

Leman:

New Holland moves into second place after settling its fifth city and looking like the clear favorite in South America. Settler spamming is extra good for them because early game South America is all about settling, as the rainforest, mountains, and spaced-out civilizations make warfare difficult and sort of a waste of time, so New Holland needs to grab as much space as possible while they tech up. New Holland did exactly that and luckily, none of the other civs in South America are doing that at all. Rio Grande failed to settle a third, Tiwanaku and Ecuador are both on three and not looking like the powerhouses we hoped, and Taino has neglected to make landing on the continent. It’s a perfect storm for New Holland honestly, and I am here for it.

Altima:

Shang gets sent to #1 out of a combination of not being Australian and having really good stats for this point. As volatile as the early game is, neither of those traits are enough on their own for a long-term bet but for right now, they’ve got that golden combo of actual military investment and solid settlements. We’ll see if they can leverage that to a dominant position.