Power Rankings: Episode 43 – S4

ECH:

The story of Bavaria is… wait a second, let me fix the slide image here, it’s meant to show their ranking peak across the season, not their first episo- Oh hang on, it’s not a mistake…

In a way, I think it’s a fitting twist of fate that I was randomly selected to write this eulogy. Lady Luck herself has appointed me, as one of the rare rankers to actually like Bavaria from start to finish, with a hardy task: justify why CBR Ludwig deserves to be mourned. I can see why it might be a challenge at first glance, to say the least.

Bavaria are a civ who frankly came into this game as a bit of a joke, spurred by their reputation as an AI and the eccentric nature of their historical leader. They are unrepentantly a culture civ, with cultural biases, uniques and even a UU that can’t attack; plopped down not only in a region known to be make-or-break at the best of times, but even further around 7 tiles away from 2 rivals capitals, both of whom were judged far more capable. Getting 59th in the part 0 rankings was a testament to the low hopes put on Singapore and Zheng, I’d argue, and by all accounts there easily could have been a timeline where a two-city Bavaria is smushed to death between Burgundy and Hungarian settles and one of the first eliminated civs. Instead, both those civs have been dead for a decent while, and Bavaria marks the start of the top 20 (22nd here includes Eswatini and Kalmyks, who don’t count).

So much of this twist of fate can be put on the very first episode of this season, which truly does represent the high point of Bavaria’s perception by the PR team, awarded a hearty 11th place off of their admirable and uncharacteristic settling spree! Not only did they break from their reputation and settle, but they settled aggressively and pretty well, Ingolstadt in particular ensuring their passage into Northern Italy all through the season and even ending up their final stronghold. However, everyone remembers what came next, surely? As quickly as they were raised up, they fell down to 42nd as Regensburg was pounced on by the vampiric menace of Royal Hungary. I think this was especially damaging as it lined up with an image we all had of them: that even if they were a bit more expansive than usual, they’d be a weakling in war.

Thus began the long saga of revenge that lasted all through the capture of Regensburg to turn 233, my personal favourite period of Bavarian history, as Bavaria quietly bulked up and fought to reclaim this small glory. Throughout the early to mid game, Bavaria would fill a niche as a small, but productive, cornerstone of European geopolitics. For a long while, they continually appeared in the top 5 most productive civs per city owned, and they managed to more or less match their more militaristic neighbours in tech also. Bavaria would surprise many by jumping into the war against Burgundy and walking out with Beaune, alongside holding back the stronger forces of Latvia when they came knocking. However, their most glorious moment was undoubtedly when they finally came against Royal Hungary with a worthy force and took back their ancestral lands, ultimately leaving the vampiress as a rump in the process. Not content there, it would later be Bavaria that slayed the monster entirely, giving the unlikely culture civ an elimination notch few expected.

Honestly, I have to imagine that in the end, that was enough for Ludwig. He wasn’t a warmonger, and he’d already ruled outside his usual wheelhouse for so long and got the trophy no-one expected. Why fight any more? Why not instead just sit back, and enjoy a good many centuries of basking instead? Certainly this is the more charitable take you can give on what happened next, because to be frank, the objective truth is that Bavaria never again lifted much of a finger. To give some credit, the alpine state kept up in tech, but I think everyone knew Total War would be the end of the road for them. Hitting 20th and starting the list of our top third of civs is more of an achievement than Ludwig expected, but hopefully some will agree that doesn’t make it undeserved. F to the Swan King.

This is where we would put the Osage eulogy if we hadn’t done it last week, oops.

CelestialDalek:

And thus, Noongar is at long last dead. A long eulogy does not befit them, since they were one of the most completely repetitive and inactive civs on the cylinder. For part upon part upon part, the process was simple. Remain at peace with Palawa for some time, then attack Nipaluna. Deal damage to it and surround it, but inevitably get beaten back by Palawan troops that were ever-so-slightly more technologically advanced. Early on in the game (before composite bowmen had reached much of the cylinder), they captured Maytim and Kriwa from Palawa, but for hundreds of turns the objective turned to Nipaluna. Of course, there was also the war with Singapore. For a brief period of time around episode 24, they controlled all of Java, having taken it from the pink menace. But then their navy gave way, and they lost Java again. They lost Kriwa again in another war with Palawa, but regained it. Constant flux was the norm in Noongar lands. But not the fun kind of flux. The kind of flux that’s suffocating, like the Doctor Who episodes written by Chris Chibnall. They bounced from fugue state to briefly winning to losing again and again, until their energy ran out and they bounced no more, settling in at 20th. Top third isn’t bad.

Cloudy:

The Dzungars have finally kicked the bucket after a long and troubled existence. They weren’t the dullest as far as Central Asian civs go, in fact we’ve seen much worse, but they could have accomplished more than they did. In fact, they started off strong, settling well and building up a large army, catapulting them into the top 10 for episodes 8 and 9. But after they failed to do anything besides capture an isolated Khoshut city and gain another in the peace treaty, the power rankers began to sour on the value of their large army. For quite a while they had the largest army on the cylinder but still didn’t make the top 10, and in fact their rank kept steadily decreasing, losing 10 places in 11 episodes. They did show some signs of life, such as taking a Kazakh city, but it wasn’t enough. One last break for them did come late in the game, however, when they finally turned against an exhausted but much stronger Selkups, hoping to use their numerical advantage to seize as much land as possible. But despite capturing four major cities in a shocking blitz, they fumbled the ball almost right away, waiting too long to make peace and allowing the Selkups to recapture three of the cities. Although they kept one, they gave away another in the peace treaty, making the war a wash. In fact, due to our skepticism, they never even saw a significant rank gain from this turn of events, and it was all downhill from there. At one point they joined the Khoshuts coalition, which resulted in the elimination of the Khoshuts, but they still lost a city. After that, they sat there until shortly before total war, their unit carpet long since outdated, their science in the dumps, until finally the selkups and Goguryeo carved them up like butter with paratroopers and Nexuses. It would have been over even faster if not for a lack of melee units that allowed them to persist well into total war, but eventually their last city crumbled, and they were left to the dust of history.

Msurdej:  Zheng was the final civ to die in this episode, not counting revives, which we don't. Koxinga had a good run, especially when you consider they were ranked 60th in Part 0.  But by part 2, they'd carved out a good start for them. This kept them out of the bottom of the bin, and held them in the middle of the pack for the first third of the game. By part 14, they had garnered their way into the Top 20, taking the cities of Maguindanao. By part 17, they were taking cities from Dai Viet as well. Two parts later, they'd gotten into the top 5, and were even winning against the Wahgi. But they never broke out from there, unable to crack Goguryeo, Wahgi, or even the Ikko-Ikki. Managing to get to Total War was an impressive feat, but it ended the way we knew it would. With Zheng getting worn down by the Goguryeo until there was nothing left. A solid performance for Koxinga, one worthy for her to get a pizza party upon arrival to the sub.

ECH:

Yes we do, Cloudy, yes we do.

So, Eswatini has joined the prestigious ranks of Total War revived civs each CBR season who manage to sneak their way into the end of an episode and thus get a spotlight here, always a fun sight to see! Makes for a clear barrier of eliminated civs vs alive civs at least, given by all accounts they should be dead again and will be dead again in the near future. Enjoy the wonders of future era junk food and nuclear apocalypse while you can, Labotsibeni!

Reformer:

The reign of Castile’s heir continues, despite the best efforts of the Afsharids, Selkups, and Latvia to extinguish her flame. Nothing can bring down Ayuka Khan, Warden of the Kalmyk people. At one point during this episode, Astrakhan was nearly surrounded by Kalmyk knights - an impressive achievement, really. How many resurrections have they gone through now? Uncountable, I say, with an uncountable more to come. Even as the world ends around them, the end of Kalmyks will never come. The last suns will go out and even the black holes will evaporate before Ayuka Khan falters. And at the end of the universe…there will be only the Kalmyks.

NopeCopter:

Mogadishu, despite their imminent death, gains a rank as Zheng falls quicker than expected. They’ve been thrown off the mainland by Ndongo, thrown out of Madagascar by Singapore, and their final cities are all on small, exposed islands. Singapore is likely to mop them up within a matter of episodes, and the only thing they can really hope for now is outliving the newly-revived Eswatini. It was a good run, but it seems like the dream of Mogchamp is over.

Orange:

Well, they finally made a second city capture. I guess this means they’re on the rise, right?

Msurdej:  

Mithridates VI continues to hold his position, but it continues to remain tenuous. They lost a quarter of their cities, more than 10% of their army, and all their remaining nukes. This leaves them on the weaker half of remaining civs, with their only saving grace being too far from the majority of major civs for a full scale invasion to happen. Pontus will die within the next few parts though, due to a combination of Afsharid assaults, Sierra Leone strikes, and Latvian...um...lambasting.

NopeCopter:

Ndongo continues to hold fast against Sierra Leone and even make a bit of progress against Mogadishu, continuing the time-honored tradition of the scrappy secondary African civ. However, despite their tech advantage over their only land neighbor, despite the fact that they still have 15 nukes and have even increased their military score since last episode, general consensus among the PRs is that Ndongo is about to go down hard next episode. The reason? Well, they just gained a new neighbor. Singapore is another scrappy, ambitious civilization, packing both a completed tech tree and one hell of a navy. An invasion of southeastern Africa from a Southeast Asian force is not something new to the CBR, and given Ndongo’s lack of units, we’re expecting something more along the lines of Timor-Leste v. Zulu than Malacca v. Lesotho. Perhaps Nzinga has one or two more tricks up her sleeve, but odds are Singapore will have the beginnings of a new power base by the end of the next episode.

Nathanmasse:

Last week I said there was little chance Afsharids would be able to save themselves; they had too few units, too few cities, and too many enemies bearing down on them from multiple directions.  But boy am I eating my words now.  Not only have they stabilized their core, they’ve gone on the offensive, recapturing many of the cities they lost to Wahgi and begun taking a few of Pontus’ cities and claimed most of the Arabian Peninsula.  I guess it really goes to show the advantages of having superior techs and units.  

But they are not out of the woods yet.  While the risks from the Selkups and Wahgi have subsided, a new threat looms on the horizon: Goguryeo.   They already have a good number of units creating a bridgehead over the Himalayas so we will have to see whether the Afsharids are up to the task of pushing them back.

Leman:

Selkups are in trouble. Goguryeo has cleaned up Zheng and is now focusing its entire military and nuclear might towards the Selkups. Selkup’s lack of tech and production are showing that they lost a good third of their empire this episode. There’s not a whole lot of good things to say here, if I’m being honest. Selkups still technically have a serviceable standing army and aren’t about to go down without a fight, but they will be going down. The hope is that their 130,000 troops can slow down Goguryeo long enough that as many civs as possible die before they do.

Leman:

Latvia is holding steady at ninth place, after a fairly reasonable showing in the second round of Total War. Latvia managed to scrounge together three more cities this episode. Most of them came from collapsing Ume Sami and pickoffs from Pontus. However, we’re starting to get to the point where the mid tiers are all dead, the high-tier civs are running out of steam and the top-tier civs are still churning. Latvia is doing well so far but statistically Latvia’s completely out of steam. They have the fourth smallest military (second smallest if you don’t count complete rumps like Mogadishu and Ume Sami), little production, an empire riddled with holes, and their two western buffer states have been completely devoured. I think rough times are ahead for Latvia.

That being said, there are a few positives for Latvia. Firstly, unlike some other civs like Sierra Leone, Wahgi, and Selkups, they aren’t in freefall yet. Latvia hasn’t started hemorrhaging cities yet and may not if Faroes decide to focus their militaries elsewhere. Second, Latvia’s eastern neighbor, Selkups, is a non-factor. They have their own Goguryeo-sized problem to deal with. Meaning Latvia can focus all its attention on the Faroes. And finally, most of the world’s nuclear stockpile is gone. Selkups and Faroes still have a few nukes lying around, but the majority of them are in Goguryeo and New Holland. The end point isn’t that Latvia is going to do well next episode, but that Latvia has a few factors that should give them a strong finish.

Lasqueto:

Hoo boy… Thomas Peters is in trouble. Looking at the map it might not be obvious, but let's just look at the stats. Basically, Sierra Leone are on the verge of total collapse. They lost more cities than the Selkups, at 18, largely due to nuking rather than captures. Currently their military is the third smallest on the cylinder, no matter how you shake it - only Ume and Mogadishu are smaller. They're also right in the path of the Faroese war machine. Taken all at once this doesn't look great for them. Faroes will most likely take the lion's share, but Ndongo might grab a bit - probably not for very long. Don't be surprised if there’ll be a eulogy in this slide next part.

CelestialDalek:Welp, bad news for both of the Wahgi fans. Wahgi is in utter fucking freefall. Do you want to guess how many cities they lost this part? Did you say ten? Think higher. Did you say twenty? Think higher.

They lost fifty cities in one part. Not fifteen. Fifty. Five zero.

Over half their cities in one fell swoop. Bol’im completely over extended himself and his army of shitty drones that can’t take cities, and now that the paratrooper carpet that covered half the world is gone, there’s nothing to fall back on. Despite losing a bajillion troops, they’re still in insane debt and are a dozen techs behind all their neighbors. Singapore is fast approaching their core, and it’s not like an army of embarked drones is going to stop a non-dogshit navy. Fifty cities is only the beginning.

Reformer:

Palawa rises to 6th, the highest they’ve been since Ep15, as they throw off the Wahgi Yoke and draw their former overlord’s blood. The rise is thus most certainly warranted, especially considering the implications: If Palawa can beat Wahgi at the periphery AND at home, then surely Wahgi is on the brink of collapse. And it follows that Palawa will be one of the principal beneficiaries of the coming collapse, as they share a large border with the giant, both at land and at sea. Palawa also has the easiest access to the former Bora-Bora core, which only Goguryeo can realistically contest for right now. Regardless of all this, however, Palawa is still bogged down by bankruptcy and thus poor tech rate, and this will be their doom just as it is Wahgi’s. No victor will arise from the battle between Wahgi and Palawa, then. But at the very least, Palawa can finally fight the toady accusations, at the very last minute. Whether anyone will believe them…is another story.

Leman:

In an episode where Faroe Islands, Singapore, and New Holland all nicely recovered, Yellowknives are still struggling. Unfortunately, Yellowknives kind of have the roughest geography of any of the top-tier civilizations. There are no easy targets for the Yellowknives, nowhere they can capture cities to replace the ones that get blasted out of existence. Yellowknives have to grind on every front. There's New Holland on the eastern seaboard, Faroe Islands in Quebec, and Goguryeo in Alaska, and, spoiler alert, those are the three best civs in the game right now. That being said, Yellowknvies are defending quite well, and as nuclear arsenals run out I do expect Yellowknives to stabilize. But I also don’t really see a future where they can expand and keep up with the civs ranked above them.

Reformer:

Singapore’s second episode of Total War was 𝘵𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘶𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳! This surprise superpower from Indonesia has shocked everyone, especially the power rankers and a certain unnamed ranker amongst them, seeing as they were expected to be a complete dud! Hence, y’know, ranking them last. But lo and behold, they have triumphed against the odds, and now they’re fourth, highest they’ve ever been. What a unique and quirky character arc.

Jokes aside, Singapore’s tech advantage is rearing its ugly head, and gains are being made on all fronts. In Africa, former Mogadishu maritimes are becoming prime real estate for rich Singaporeans’ second homes. In South East Asia, the Wahgi colonies have been eradicated. On the most important front, in Indonesia, Singapore is pushing Wahgi back all the way to Papua itself. In Australia, Wahgi’s recent conquests are falling at rapid speed. But is even this immense momentum enough to beat out the two giants, Goguryeo and Faroes? May I remind you that with the fall of Wahgi South East Asia, Singapore borders Goguryeo on land. Goguryeo’s navy will likewise be a problem. And thus, Singapore can no longer rely on a tech advantage, as Goguryeo is an equal in this category. Instead, Singapore must rely on 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. And if you’ve seen Singapore’s core, you know things are NOT going well. Entire cities - some of the most populous on the entire cylinder - have been nuked off the map, reduced to dust. The capital has not avoided the nukes either, reduced to 10 pop. In the meantime, the Goguryeo core is largely unaffected by the nuclear inferno. The numbers don’t lie: Singapore has less than a fourth of Goguryeo’s production. The gap is surely insurmountable. It would take a miracle to change fate. And I don’t mean the kind of miracle it took last time. I mean a REAL, divine miracle.

Still, Singapore will very likely outlive the majority of the remaining civs. Pretty nice feat. Then again, that’s what I said about Wahgi, and they lost 50 cities in ten turns, so what do I know. 

NopeCopter:

New Holland rockets back up the ranks, taking the bronze medal in this week’s Power Rankings. On paper, a two-spot increase might not seem like much, but public opinion on the Reaper of the Americas could not be more different from last week. After a terrible first showing in Total War against the Wahgi due to their near-total lack of units, New Holland has managed to weather the Wahgi storm and push back, almost completely uniting South America in the span of about 15 turns. They’re even reclaimed much of North America’s eastern seaboard, and they now stand only four techs away from a completed tech tree! Still, though, a New Hollander victory seems incredibly far-fetched to most - their military is still quite small, and much of South America has been nuked to the ground in the process of unification, depriving New Holland of valuable production centers. Goguryeo and the Faroes just have much more to work with, and New Holland probably won’t have the time to catch up to them before they reach critical mass. New Holland repeating Brazil’s iconic Mk. 2 victory still isn’t inconceivable, of course, but it’d require a level of play that would far surpass anything we’ve seen before.

Cloudy:

The Faroes are continuing to lumber along, slowly gaining ground despite having several cities nuked off the map. They’re simultaneously strangling Ume-Sami and Sierra Leone, while making some ground against Latvia and the Yellowknives, with no one in a position to stop them as of now. The damage to their core is concerning but ultimately not fatal, especially when compared to the damage that has been done to all their competitors other than Goguryeo. But their progress has been slow, much slower than their only serious competitor. Speaking of which...

Nathanmasse:

It was undeniably a fantastic episode for Goguryeo.   A liberal use of nukes against each of their neighbors seems to have done the trick to shatter their defensive lines and bog down reinforcement.  The Selkups most of all seem to have completely collapsed and there seems nothing stopping Goguryeo from marching all the way to the Urals and beyond.

In the south, Zheng was quickly devoured and Goguryeo is poised to make the leap over the Himalayas to push into the Afsharids’ reclaimed territory just as Wahgi runs out of troops.  Speaking of Wahgi, Goguryeo’s navy, having finally wrested control of the seas from Zheng, is driving hard for Wahgi’s cities in Polynesia, or simply wiping them off the map.  Without a navy of their own, Wahgi will be hard pressed to do anything to stop them.  

Finally, Gwanggaeto must have grown frustrated by Yellowknives’ stubborn fighting and nuked several cities deep in their core, perhaps hoping it will lead to easier advances in Alaska or along the Pacific coast.   And he may be right.  From what we can tell, the Yellowknives are worryingly low on units of any kind.

So in the wake of these advances in all directions, we must ask ourselves: can anyone hope to stand against them?