Civ Battle Royale August 26, 2024
Power-Rankers
Power Rankings! The rankings…of power! Dun dun dunnnn!
Shaggy:
Oh, Rozvi. I had such high hopes for you in the part 0 rankings. Well, high-ish hopes, top 40 hopes. I wanted them to consume Eswatini early and duke it out with Mogadishu for South African supremacy while Ndongo looked elsewhere. But alas, after getting rumped pretty early on, the meme of Rozvi tech being stuck in the past has been their doom as their troops and cities got ripped to shreds by Ndongo like so much paper. They were dealt a bad hand and barely tried. F
Nathanmasse:
The Mamluks must be getting a bit nervous. They're in the same situation as Rozvi found themselves at the beginning of the episode, so it is only a matter of time until they draw the ire of their neighbors.
Cloudy:
Kazakhstan consists entirely of a gulag where the Selkups send their dissidents. At least they’re no longer at war with Kazan.
Leman:
It’s cool that Florida did something noteworthy in this episode. It’s bad that the thing they did was handing a city over to Osage after Osage failed to even scratch it. But hey, Florida was already doing so bad that handing away half their empire only cost them two spots.
ECH:
I spent many parts of this season applauding the defensive tenacity of Dai Viet. Well, in a way that spirit remains, as through thick and thin they fought every step of the way to keep their capital in Vietnamese hands. A valiant effort… but in practical terms, what they now possess is a burnt-out husk with a few wonders that has already shown to be an easy enough flip for Zheng, plus one enclave to the south dependent on its own output for defense. It’s pretty dire, and I’d honestly ascribe their rank rise this week more to churn than a legitimate sense of improvement. Would love to be proved wrong in the future though, Tong…
Orange:
Bathory should be very thankful that Bavaria is getting coalitioned because otherwise, she would just be dead meat. Though, they are still at war with Bavaria, and with Rome, and only have two cities… So, yeah, still pretty screwed all things considered.
Shaggy:
The Alaouites will return in the next episode of CBRX4.
Shaggy:
So to be honest I’m a bit unclear on how holy wars work but it sure seems like Seneca is getting the short end of the holy stick here. Though they are at war with… most of the continent now, only Thule and Osage can do any real damage to them. And, if I’m keeping up the honesty streak here, I think neither of them are more competent than the Faroes. Osage needs to recover and replenish and Thule can only attack the Senecan core through bottlenecks. Geography favors the meek, and Seneca are definitely earning a “meek” label.
ECH:
Burgundy rises a spot as it appears more and more clear that the English are struggling to make advances along a wide front, although that doesn’t mean they aren’t being harassed every turn. Obviously, Charles shouldn’t let his guard down, there are substantial English forces a mere two tiles from Dijon, but I think between the defensively well-proportioned spacing between Burgundy’s cities and England throwing in mostly two UU’s that have specialist use but are specifically weaker in straightforward combat they’re not having too much issue rebuffing the English. This all being said, the wider picture remains unchanged, hence they remain in the bottom 20, because what could they even do if they were at peace now? Maybe, and a strong maybe, take on Bavaria also?
Orange:
Just lay low Ayuka, no one will notice you if you don’t do anything. You’ll be okay. Maybe you can snag something from Makhnovia eventually, but for now, just keep quiet. Kazan is nearby, shhhhh…
Msurdej: While most of Tehuelche’s battles are no longer relevant to them, they still have a war going on with the Tiwanaku. Sadly, even with the meager forces Huyustus has, María doesn’t have the strength to take Pampa Koani.
Orange:
Y’know, Harappa actually has a chance to make some gains here, attacking either the Afsharids to take back Dholavira, or to attack the Khoshuts to take Chamdo and Dege. Like, their ability to go after Vijay is kinda shut off for now despite their superiority earlier, so now they’ve gotta take off the weak if they want to get strong enough to unite India again.
Rosay:
Right now, Crow is the most interesting it has been since either fumbling the coalition war on the Yellowknives for the whole squad, which isn’t saying much but still. Right now Crow is at war with Thule which could go one of two ways: Crow fumbling the bag and getting even weaker, or Crow wearing out the superior Thule forces through raw unit spam and taking free cities off of a top-tier power. Since Crows' tech level is somehow not too awful compared to Thules, I’m betting on the latter which is the most hopeful thing you’ve probably heard about the Crow in a long time.
Orange:
The Finns joined the war against Bavaria to appease their neighbors but quickly peace out of it, not like they could do anything anyway. They are just stuck with terrible tech and squashed between two much larger neighbors. What they really need is for one of those two to be attacked heavily and give them the chance to snag some cities while Latvia or Ume Sami are distracted. If that could happen, then maybe they can get out of this mess. Maybe.
Cloudy:
Oh, what to do with Makhnovia... cut in half, exhausted... I would say it’s only a matter of time until Latvia finishes the job.
Leman:
Nothing happened with Bukhara this episode.
ECH:
Gushi Khan had a rare moment of hope as his knights raided the bastions around Nakhon Ratchasima, but that faded pretty quickly as the scale of the challenge emerged. Between that and his total inability to get anything started on a siege of his former city Shigatse, he goes back to his U-shaped 5-city empire consigned to the Himalayas, and not even all of them. He’s probably gonna need a miracle coalition against a neighbor, or a wonderfully planned war on Harappa’s weak backside (or both, of course) to advance up again.
Leman:
This part was a nightmare for Eswatini. Absolutely terrible. Rozvi’s dead. And killing Rozvi was the only useful thing Eswatini could still do. Now they’re just Ndongo food. I mean they were probably already Ndongo food, even if they killed Rozvi but now they’re really just Ndongo food. My point is, Eswatini finds itself in the “waiting for death” part of the game, and that kinda sucks for them.
Cloudy:
The Taino are at risk of hopelessly crippling themselves. They’ve been at -21 happiness for two straight episodes, which means no growth, massively limited production, and an enormous combat penalty. If ideologies were in play, they’d be losing cities to cultural revolt. Unless this issue miraculously resolves itself next episode, they might be done for, because in their current state, they could not beat Mexico, and might even lose. Florida is always an option for expansion too, especially now they’re down to one city, but with such a huge penalty it’s unclear whether Taino could take out even the shambling corpse of Gregor MacGregor.
Leman:
Shang is creeping up the rankings, very, very slowly as their revolting cities come back online, but we are a far, far cry from where Shang was before. I’m pretty sure Shang is probably never reaching those lofty heights again, but a slow rebuild and redemption is something we can all hope for.
Leman:
The narrator was kind enough to encourage the Qarmatians to attack Mogadishu and retake Safwan, which I agree they could do. I do not think they are going to do that, but it would be cool and nice if they did. They’ve spent the last few parts bulking up, it's getting time to start putting that to work.
Leman:
Tiny tumble for Bavaria this week as the hype from capturing Regensburg back from Royal Hungary wears off and it becomes pretty clear that their momentum has stalled. It’s nice that they ended up beating out their early-game rivals (Burgundy and Royal Hungary) pretty definitively at this point, but it’s pretty unfortunate that they’re not any better than just mid. Hopefully, they can buck that trend to deal with all these wars, but time will tell.
Shaggy:
You know, if it weren’t for all of the horses and pointy sticks, I’d make some World War II jokes here about stagnating battle lines in France and England not being able to project power well past the British Isles. But gunpowder is still kind of new on the cylinder and there are better jokes to make about the British navy trying to dig trenches with ship hulls. Unfortunately, waiting for the wind to change doesn’t do much for a land invasion. England definitely has the navy to mess somebody up, it just won’t be Burgundy.
Rosay:
Mogadishu continued to be the most irrelevant part of Africa, doing nothing as their neighbors actually grow. Like yeah being stuck behind those mountains is kinda hard but at least take Eswanti.
Leman:
Nivkh is a very medium civilization that is all of a sudden at war with a very strong civilization and is struggling to keep up. While Thule has yet to inflict real damage, their navy is putting up quite the blockade of Nivkh cities and now they’re all starving. This is a big deal because not only will that reduce their production and science, but also their defense making them easier to capture. Luckily, the terrain and Thule’s tech level make this invasion probably not life-threatening but there is a real chance that this goes far enough south for Nivkh that they never recover.
Leman:
Quiet part overall for Kanem Bornu who has a few cities and some shit stats. It’s difficult to be excited about Kanem Bornu when they’re surrounded by all sorts of civs that are way better than them – Saba, Ndongo, Sierra Leone, and Rome. But they aren’t completely hopeless and they always can get in on the winning side of a coalition.
JDT: It’s turn 180. Burgundy is embroiled in an existential hug box. England and Bavaria have managed to take critical cities from the Burgundians, rendering them at the mercy of military movements. Troops run over France like horses on grass. The Visigoths are still stuck in Iberia.
It’s turn 251. Rome has overextended itself in a continental conflict. Europe is on fire. The Romans have stalled out in a tough war against the Hungarians and Bavarians in their three-way Mexican standoff. Burgundy is getting its own units picked off by English longbows and pikes, unable to build anything as English chevaliers run into their cities. The Visigoths are still stuck in Iberia.
It's turn 322. Sierra Leone has become the master of all of West Africa, entering an eternal three-way standoff with Saba-Dmt and Ndongo. The Faroes have put Burgundy on the ropes, reserving Asturicas for someone else's conquest. Italy is wide open after the Romans sent their units into the sea. The Visigoths are still stuck in Iberia.
Nathanmasse:
Ecuador seems destined to disappoint. They gave in to Mexico's demand and surrendered one of their only coastal cities, leaving them essentially landlocked. They did drop a citadel on Tiwanaku's border so there's the possibility of them rejoining the coalition. But if they couldn't take anything from Tiwanaku last time, what makes them think it'll be any different this time around?
ECH:
Oh Siam, back down to the halfway mark? Back at a low not seen since their docile early episodes, Rama V has a hefty challenge ahead of him to right his ship and somehow chart a course through the beating handed to him by Singapore. I was rooting for Siam pretty hard, I like science/culture turtles with a bit of competency, and to be fair, this episode was technically not all loss and doom, as they gained a city in turn through taking advantage of awkward peace deals once again. The existential problem, though, is that it seems the losses this episode have somewhat damaged their stats across the board, most notably their science rate, which has dropped out of the top 15! If Siam doesn’t have science on their side, what else do they have?
Leman:
I’m impressed with Mongolia. Really, I expected them to completely crumple in the face of a Goguryean invasion. But not only have they not crumpled, they’ve not even lost a city. In fact, most of their cities haven’t even taken all that much damage. Yes, they’re vulnerable to attack from their western flank from powerhouses like Dzungars or Selkups, but until now, that hasn’t happened, and Mongolia is holding pretty nicely. Good for them.
Orange:
I hope they take Tabriz, and then I hope they unite India. Things are looking up for Vijay, pretty middle of the pack, but they fight above their weight. So keep it up, I wish them the best of luck.
JDT:
Pontus continues to remain distinctly mid as the powers in their region also continue to languish. Thus far, their game impact has been pretty minimal, only notable for early settle wars with Rome and the Afsharids, giving some cities to the Qaramatians and failing in several offensive wars (including one against Hungary). Mongolias fall off due to the threat posed by their assault by Goguryeo is the only reason they went up at all. Nothing to report here.
Orange:
Fuckin’ BS right there seriously wtf was that how did Pawhuska get two massive cities out of wars he was unable to make any progress in? Seriously they didn’t deserve either of those. Dude’s just got like maximum persuasion or something to be this successful given his war record.
JDT: The Tiwanaku undergo a massive drop off of 10 points, almost concurrent with their stats drop off of 12 points. And the reason for this fall off can be seen very clearly - what little army they had was destroyed by one of New Holland, the Tehuelche or Palawa. If you go back to the later slides of this part, New Holland has secured a giant salient near Wankane, while the Tehuelche and Palawa continue to take away resources and pester them on the periphery. And what else can you see? Sparse Tiwanaku units. Not to mention, their science value is also below average, making future scaling past the war tough. And they don’t even have the Amazon anymore, because this isn’t the Kayapo or Kuikoro on deck. The good news is that New Holland isn’t the greatest land warrior either, but that's not much consolation in this situation.
Msurdej:
The Dzungars continue their slow decline in this part, and while part of it is through noise in the rankings, we saw a large reason for this noticeable dip. The Dzungars have a carpet, which is all well and good, but it is built of weaker units. Swordsmen, spearmen, and even a few base warriors. Nearly half of that military power up in the top right is their gold. While they could beat the Mongolians, it would be folly to do so without a plan for keeping the Selkups at bay.
Cloudy:
Noongar made a valiant attempt this week to capture a Wahgi city, which temporarily succeeded, but Wahgi flipped it back and still had it at the end of the episode—so no breakthrough there. Noongar is finally at peace with Palawa after a highly inconclusive war, but that wasn’t really the outcome they needed. So can they break out of their notorious continent? That remains to be seen.
Rosay:
I always felt like Kazan had a bad start, and well they did, but they’re proving that being down does not equal being out. To show you what I mean, their part zero ranking was 11th, which eventually dropped to 51st, after which they gradually grew to the upper thirties before their defining moment of carving up Kazakhstan, before stabilizing at 22nd. While I’d argue that Kazan is even top 20 material, they still have some issues, the biggest being a massive case of “boxed-in syndrome”. Now it’s not too bad here, after all, Makhnovia, Bukhara, and the Kalmyks are all nearby targets, but each of those have some kind of logistical fuckery working against Kazan. Now it may sound odd but the best option might just be their stronger neighbor Latvia. See Latvia’s southern flank is still pretty weak and with them distracted, a potential Finnish-Kazani(?) alliance would completely alter the fate of Europe, if they effectively neuter an emerging Latvia. Still, Kazan’s local area is pretty contested and I’m confident they’ll make the right move, though that could be my personal fondness of them talking
Rosay:
Nader I believed in you, man. I fought for you after you embarrassed yourself in Bukhara, and I fought for you when you failed in Harappa. But losing ALL of your overseas possessions to fucking VIJAYANAGARA?! That shit’s unforgivable. You are SOOO lucky you’re in a weak region cause with those stats you’d be lucky to crack the top 25. Unless you fully wipe Bukhara in one part, you’re NEVER gonna wash away the fraud allegations.
Rosay:
You know if Ikko Ikki actually coordinated a decent strikeforce, they’d probably lock top 15. Seriously they’d basically be a weaker version of Zheng would have free reign in Southeast Asia. At least they’re kinda figuring it out now, by sending their best men to Anyang to try and close in on the Shang heartland, but now they’re kinda back to being East Asia’s third wheel.
Leman:
Grinding against Bavaria isn’t the best way to spend a part. The problem is, is that despite how powerful Rome’s navy is (and it’s quite impressive), it’s entirely and completely useless against Bavaria’s inland cities. It’s time to cut your losses and move on to greener, more seaside pastures. Like Pontus. Or Sierra Leone. Or Visigoths. (Apparently, this war started and ended this episode and I fully missed it).
Msurdej: The Ume-Sami has only three real targets at this point: The Finns, Latvia, and The Faroe Islands. The last two would be disastrous for Rijkuo-Maja to fight, and the others are the Finns. So any other fight, be it Bavaria, Makhnovia, or the Selkups, is almost certainly not going to amount to anything. Take the war with Bavaria. There’s no connecting point between these two forces, making it hard for the Sami to get anything done.
JDT:
Sierra Leone continues to secure their position as the gap between Africa’s big 3 continues to shrink ever further. Its fitting that the dark horse of the three is the one ranked lowest. Unlike Saba’s fall-off from their complacency, military ineptitude, and lack of stats, and Ndongo’s return to relevance after widening their horizons from killing Rozvi, Sierra Leone has continued to slowly bulk up from their annihilation of the Afsharids and their gains from their north African campaigns. Their army is now the biggest in the continent. Their production has continued to grow, and is still above average. They somehow got more techs than their rivals in spite of lower effective science.
Nathanmasse:
Saba D'mt slides down in the ranks as their stats stabilize following their golden age. Despite their ludicrous production and food bonus, they seem to have squandered it in their fruitless war with Ndongo. Even worse, Ndongo was immediately able to turn around and eliminate Rozvi in no time flat, calling into question Saba's supremacy on the continent. They are certainly not out of the running but I think they will need to show a bit more competency before they're ranked quite so highly again.
Leman:
Ndongo finally pulls the trigger and annihilates Rozvi without really any passing thought and is rewarded with nine spots up the ranking. It wasn’t a crazy impressive feat but it’s something, and something is kind of all you need to do to get a leg up on this mediocre continent. The point is, good job Ndongo, and let’s move on to Eswatini now.
Nathanmasse:
Mexico rises a few ranks this week as their gargantuan military spooks Ecuador into surrendering a city, despite there being zero chance of it being captured. They were able to maintain the defense of their South American cities with very little impact on their overall military power. Now they need only choose their next opponent to repeat the process, and there are plenty of options at hand.
ECH:
Singapore’s rise has not been to the liking of a good few fine folk in the community, but boy am I hyped! Microstate victories are always to my preference, and Singapore is just cool as hell. This episode saw major strides made in legitimizing their place at the top end of the rankings, as with the conquest of two cities (and razing of a third) they’ve definitively constrained Siam’s into two naval access into two gulfs and hobbled their chances of maintaining a stats lead, most notably in terms of their one bright spot in science. Militarily, Singapore doesn’t even look too depleted by the experience, so with a small bit of time for consolidation of gains and restrengthening, I could easily see Lee be ready to go on the aggressive again against who knows? Siam’s other coastal cities; Vijayangagara; Noongar?
Shaggy:
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(All hail the King. Bora is building muskets. More next week.)
Msurdej: Thule has the biggest range of anyone in the game at the moment, with people rating them from 26 to 4. Speaking as one of the higher rankers of Javraganak, I think she’s underappreciated. She has a strong army and navy, which is currently trying to take out Nivkh, and good production. While her number of techs is a little behind, she does have a significant effective science that can make her catch up. That being said, the war she has against the Crow could make her lose Bahkisee...
ECH:
Believe it or not, this near-peak for Karlis Ulmanis is still twice as low as the stats sheet thinks they deserve, as Latvia rises to 5th in the infoaddict score table, driven by continual gains in critical sectors of growth, production and science. Considering the expectations Latvia had going into the game, ranked 56th in part 0, this is pretty insane. Now, stats are one thing, and putting those numbers into practical effect is where some rankers remain somewhat skeptical; as they seem to lack a sense of overall strategic cohesion if that makes sense. We rarely see them with a full carpet, and rarely see them able to project power into strong pushes. That being said, their current war effort against Bavaria could be forming up into something of note, with Straubing firmly in the crosshairs, so we’ll wait and see for now.
Nathanmasse:
Palawa remains solidly among the top 10 as they declare war and seek to sweep the Pacific of Tiwanaku units and colonies. There are plenty of opportunities for Palawa to pick off additional cities (one south of Bora territory and several strung along the Antarctic coast) so I wouldn't expect them to fall from this rank anytime soon.
Cloudy:
Wahgi rises back into the top 10 as they managed to turn things around in their war with Zheng. Every city that Zheng took has been recaptured, and while they probably won’t press any farther than that, that’s great news if you’re a Wahgi fan. They also faced a serious challenge from Noongar, but after losing a city they took it back and held it at the end of the episode. Their naval tech is still well behind their neighbors, which is a serious short to medium concern, but so far Wahgi isn’t going to collapse like it briefly appeared they might.
JDT: Zheng falls down by 3 after their war with Dai Viet ends with them failing to secure Thanh Long (though Hai Phong isn’t a bad consolation prize) and they’re left saddled with lingering unhappiness and a greatly reduced military. This greatly reduced military is, in particular, a pretty shoddy navy, which has resulted in what could’ve been a decisive war against the Wahgi becoming a stalemate. They are still pretty good everywhere else, and with some refocusing, the war against the Wahgi can quickly swing in their favour. However, in a land of sharks, Koxinga has to keep swimming lest he get eaten.
Msurdej:
The war between two of the top powers in North America continues to grind on. Akaitcho holds out against the Pueblo, despite the smaller army. However, the new war against the Seneca that both are participating in on the same side may force the two to bury the hatchet. If that happens, it could give the Yellowknives more time to build up their already significant tech, and gain more of a production lead against the Pueblo.
Leman:
Pueblo seems kind of fine on the surface. But honestly, I’m a little nervous about them. They lost their far-flung colonies and that sucks, but not a huge deal but I’m more worried about the fact that they’ve spent two episodes at war with a weaker enemy, have had allies for most of that war, and not only haven’t really won, but they kind of seem to be losing? For two episodes Pueblo has lost 15%ish of their military, while Yellowknives have grown their military. They have stagnated their production, while Knives have also grown their production. It's nothing dire, Pueblo still has a bigger military and roughly equal production, but I can’t shake the feeling that Pueblo took a war that should have been kind of a slam dunk and is losing. Like even the 1v1 should be a grind that favors Pueblo, not the other way around? Not a great look, but nothing catastrophic.
Cloudy:
New Holland rises to 4th place this week for the first time since episode 12. Their stats are quite good, being 4th overall in production, and in the top 10 in both science and military. That said, as someone who actually dropped them slightly this week, their decision-making needs some work. Instead of continuing to attack the defenseless Tehuelche, they ended that war and declared another war on Tiwanaku instead, which so far has resulted in more Tiwanaku units entering New Dutch territory than the other way around. Granted, Tiwanaku’s stats are not doing well, several civs have declared war on them, and they could collapse if Bora Bora gets involved, leaving New Holland as the undisputed winner of South America. And the fact that that could happen does mean something. But is it enough?
Msurdej:
Warlord Vonya of the Selkup Horde continues to hold the bronze medal this time, mostly by doing nothing. They got into a war with the Alaouites, worked on some new technologies like the Printing Press, and are a little unhappy. They should work on fixing that and improving their army before going back on the warpath.
Nathanmasse:
Despite some exceedingly impressive stats (first in effective science and second in production), Goguryeo remains firmly in second place. Their war with Mongolia has not been as sweeping as might have been expected at the outset. There is still time for them to press their advantage, and perhaps their rank will be reconsidered if they do so.
Rosay:
Hey Faroes, good job on top marks, perfect sweep too. I do feel though that we’re entering another era where Goguryeo is going to be competitive, since they’re back on the offensive in Mongolia. If the Faroes do feel like waking up to soothe the appetite of the fans for a bit, that Seneca coalition is on the table. Though yeah, right now Faroes' numerical advantage cannot be ignored, despite their sleepiness.
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