Power Rankings: Episode 8 – S4

JDT:

As the person who has been rating the Rozvi last for the past 10 or so parts YES FINALLY THEY HAVE BEEN RANKED YES ENJOY GETTING PENETRATED BY ESWATINI YOU DISAPPOINTMENT

Rosay:

Shawnee's kinda fucked

Shawnee gots it rough

And they smell of big oily butt.

Done absolutely nothin.

Shawnee’s got horrible technique.

And smells of big oily butt and.

Their one city’s kinda cheeks.

We’ve had just about enough.

(narrator if you’re reading this please sing it in tune)

Cloudy:

Much like Shawnee, Florida gains a rank due to Rozvi’s tumble, despite the fact that Florida is utterly shite in every respect. At least the Taino invasion seems to be running out of steam.

Leman:

Oof, Mamluks take another drop in rank as they drop another city to Rome. They do have four cities still, which means all hope is not quite lost, but they have basically no army whatsoever and seemingly little drive to build any more. Luckily, it’s going to be rough for Rome to push further but if, say, Saba decides to get in on this, the Mamluks could be very dead very quickly.

Msurdej:  

The Finns did nothing this part

Their chances still smell like a fart

They go up a rank

Despite that they stank

So to talk of them more isn’t smart

JDT:You know a civ is cooked when they do the optimal play we’ve been telling them to do for several parts and they fail to rise a single rank

Leman:

I’m still mad at Crow. They aren’t quite out of this. There are a lot of weirdly terrible North American civs (Seneca, Florida, Shawnee, Osage, and Crow themselves) so there’s always the chance that Crow can turtle for a bit and try to clean all those idiots up. I know they’re all probably just going to get rolled by Pueblo in ten parts, but it’s not nothing, I guess.

Leman:

Rio Grande still stinks. I don’t have much to say about it. They got a military at least. Maybe they can use that against Bora-Bora and pull themselves out of the dregs?

Leman:

Kalmyks founded a city! Kalmyks are also probably going to lose that city!

Leman:

Tehuelche is right now defending against the Bora-Bora exclave and honestly, they’re not doing terribly. I mean, it shouldn’t be going terribly. Tehuelche is shit, but Bora-Bora isn’t really all that great either.  So, that’s good. I guess.

JDT:

Makhnovia officially presses for peace against Latvia, officially ending a terrific war that has transformed them from a joke to an actual somewhat relevant civ. So, what's the problem? Firstly, their stats are still bottom 10. Next, they’re being assaulted by Royal Hungary and the Kalmyks, and while they aren’t exactly the most scary opponents, they’re more than capable of posing a threat to the Makhnovians, with Hungary in particular having double their military count. With the positions of the units, it's looking fairly likely that they may lose a precious city to Hungary. This has made us drop them by 6, combined with statistical noise and some rises from other civs.

Msurdej:  

The Seneca made another city in this part, and managed to have a city of theirs flip. Not a bad part per se, but their decision to fight Mexico is a baffling one. Worse still, their settlement of Quebec is dampened by the fact that the Faroe Islands, a civ that started in Europe, now have three cities in North America. Even the Thule have a pair on the eastern side of the continent. All in all, it seems that Cornplanter has fallen prey to the Catboi Curse that befell Sweden and RDLP.

JDT:

THE TAINO HOLD ONTO FORT SAN CARLOS LETS GO LETS FREAKING GO ITS THE COMEBACK BABY WE’RE SO FUCKING BACK THE TAINO ARE TAKING OVER #TAINOSWEEP #HEATCULTURE BABY #SLASHANDBURN LETS GO MAINLAND ITS SO OVER FOR THE WORLD GET FUCKED FLORIDA

Ofc realistically they’re still screwed because Mexico and New Holland are still slowly but surely removing all their other avenues for expansion and are simultaneously bulking up pretty big BUT WHO CARES THE GUAMA NATION GONNA BURN YOU OUT DO NOT COUNT OUT THE HEAT LET'S GO IT'S TIME TO RANK THEM 1ST HOO HAAH WE WANT FAROES!!!!!!

Cloudy:

Vijayanagara’s situation has not improved since last week. They’re still in a very sad position indeed. Let’s avoid talking much about it shall we?

Leman:

Osage continues their slow climb up the rankings from the dregs. It’s a slow, marked, but kind of fruitless improvement. It’s not like they’re actually good, but they are sucking less than they did three parts ago. And that’s an important improvement.

Cloudy:

Our attention has been piqued as Royal Hungary opens up a new front against an undefended Pontic city, which appears certain to fall. Elizabeth is still at war with both Latvia and Makhnovia, but she seemingly has enough troops to spare to take on Pontus without much difficulty. She also founded another city on the Adriatic coast, in the last possible place to do so. All around the new coming out of Hungary is good, and if we see more of this, they could rise even further.

JDT:

England rises by 2 as they manage to stabilize their Norman holdings against Burgundy and outscale them militarily. They have three big issues right now. 1. Burgundy is throwing all their troops onto them (the Visigoths have bungled their invasion). 2. They are quickly running out of land to settle, with the Faroes slowly but surely taking most of England and the rest of Europe having been settled up long ago. 3. Burgundy is very hard to invade, and nobody aside from maybe Bavaria can really exploit their odd settling structure. It really seems like we’ve hit the plateau with England, and the Curse is to claim another victim. Alas.

Rosay:

I only have one word that I can say for the Alaouites: ouch. North Africa at large has been boiled in war as of late with no resident nation looking good, but the Alaouites somehow look the worst out of the three wartorn civs. While Sierra Leone is definitely not in the best place, like at all, they do seem to currently be on the offensive against the Alaouites flipping one of their cities without too much effort. Additionally on the other side of the Alaouites, Kanem Bornu is taking the “if I can’t keep my cities I’ll just take someone else’s” approach and is launching a pretty hefty offensive into the Alaouite core. Things could get even worse too, for example Rome’s looking hungry for more land as of recently and if they can’t expand into the little league, they’ll just start taking cities from the poorly defended Alaouites. Overall, stormy forecasts ahead.

Cloudy:

Dai Viet somehow managed to found another city, a very vulnerable outpost on the Philippine island of Palawan, but their overall position hasn’t really changed. They’re still at war with Zheng, going nowhere, and they still have no clear expansion path.

Orange:

Mog, man, you gotta settle more. You’re falling behind despite so much space. You literally had a free game with how Saba started and you haven’t even settled Mt. Kilimanjaro, seriously please settle why haven’t you settled a literal natural wonder yet???

Leman:

Khoshuts gave up a city to Dzungars like three parts ago and are still sulking about it.

Cloudy:

Bavaria continues to do nothing but sit in their little box with no way out. At least they have a really big army for some reason. But is it enough to beat Royal Hungary if they hypothetically went to war? I have my doubts. They might actually be better off attacking the Faroes. And of course it goes without saying that right now would be a great time to invade Burgundy...

Cloudy:

Day 673 of Bora Bora not founding another city: pls lord i beg u

Leman:

Kanem Bornu takes a bit of a tumble this part as they trade away Nkongsamba for Agadir which isn’t as bad as it could have been but honestly, Nkongsamba was a better city and this is definitely worse. Especially if Saba D’mt keeps pushing towards Bornu and Ndjamena, which are both capturable. On the other hand, I don’t think there are any more Alaouite cities that Kanem can grab so while they kinda stemmed the bleeding thus far, they’re going to actually have to mount a defense against Saba if they want to stay afloat.

Leman:

Oddly, Burgundy failed to hold on to Norwich this episode, instead focusing its efforts on a fairly significant Faore attack on Amiens, which, luckily, seems to be thwarted for now. However, Burgundy’s military is entirely depleted so I’m not sure how long Burgundy can hold on. They also continued working on settling more cities in random ass places. This week, they settled a city in Norway. If the Faroes ever catch wind of that city, it's probably dropping immediately. So all in all not a great settle, and not a great part for Burgundy.

Leman:

Bukhara tumbles down a few rankings after taking a brief trip into the top half after their assault on Kazakhstan fails spectacularly. It’s not really their fault, Kazakhstan is stronger than Bukhara in every way but for a brief, beautiful moment, Bukhara looked like they would make headway. Wars with Harappa and Dzungars nipped that in the bud though, and Bukhara’s back to being the shittiest Central Asian civ.

Rosay:

You want to know what's weird? I somehow got assigned both of the civs most likely to benefit from Kazakhstan's downward spiral. Kazan's situation is a little different from the other civ i'll get into later because unlike them, Kazan willingly entered ANOTHER war while still trying to snipe cities from their first war. While I'm happy that Kazan is being proactive in escaping C-Tier status, they definitely need to pick a lane and stick to it because I can't tell you how many times I've seen civs fumble multifront offensive wars. Though while I’m saying this, if Kazan plays the next few moves right, which I'm thinking is something along the lines of taking Taraz then trucing with Kazakhstan to focus on the Kalmyks then trying to take their capital, then they'll be on track to be the civ we knew that they could've been in the part 0 rankings. Actually now that I think of it Kazan could just use their superior army to force the Kalmyks into a meat grind while they just slide into Astrakhan, which would be a MASSIVE win for them.

Leman:

Singapore is a weird one. They have great science and a solid tech count, but I can’t help but feel like their lack of expansion is going to bite them sooner rather than later. It's weird because usually I like science turtles (I miss Kayapo), but Singapore being surrounded by strong civs with good science that are also expansive is not great. Maguindanao, Wahgi, Noongar, and Siam all kind of have comparable science and seem to have better capacities to wage war. That being said, Singapore is still doing well, and isn’t in any immediate danger so I guess a middle-of-the-pack ranking is good enough for now.

JDT: Woof… where do we even begin? What seemed to be one of the worst things that could’ve happened to Sierra Leone… turned out to not be that bad actually. Sure, they might lose a city in the Sahara to the Alaouites, but that's one pop and the Alaouites had an absolute brainfart of an assault. They are being attacked by Ndongo… who have no navy to take the only vulnerable city. Their stats are still shit… but not shit enough that we can write them off. Wowie meowie I have no idea what to think of this civ. They really are just pure chaos on this front. And even if diamonds aint forever, they are at least fun.

Rosay:

I've been super bearish on Nivkh for the entire cycle, compared to everyone else. Their really bad performance in the test runs and their regional rivals proving to be competent seemed like a smoking gun to me that they were overrated. With their nearest neighbor ( who might I add has already boxed them in while fighting an actually threatening civ) solidifying themselves as one of the biggest menaces to the world that doesn't start with F, and their other neighbor beginning to seem like a pretty strong high-tier power, Nivkh is now stuck between two serious civs who, shockingly, are trying to win the game, with no opportunities to expand. The only reason that Nivkh is as high as it is now, is because the noise coming from other regions  is forcing the rankers to collectively rate them higher because Goguryeo and especially Thule could not be asked to commit to a serious attempt at taking Nivkh's cities.

Orange:

Rome has another nice jump as they continue to show themselves as one of the most competent Italians in the royale so far. They are making great progress in North Africa, up to 8 cities, and aren’t falling behind on tech either. Really, Rome is doing great all things considered. May they go even higher.

Leman:

Visigoths jumped in on the Burgundy coalition and have completely failed in their invasion. That city they gifted a while ago is not really close to breaking despite the fact that Burgundy seems completely out of military. At least as time goes on things will only get better for Visigoths, but right now, this invasion has not looked impressive. Seven cities and decent stats are still something, hopefully they can make use of it.

JDT:

Remember when Mag won against Wahgi and we said they can grow more by attacking someone else or settling up? Well, lol, they’re meatgrindering against Wahgi again. And wonderwhoring. Wahgi will probably outscale them in a long term conflict, but right now it's… going alright I guess? Still, we’re not super confident in their plays, and they’re going to make some big ones against someone thats not Wahgi to get going strong.

Orange:

FUCK YEAH QARMBACK 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO LET’S FUCKING GO CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP QARM QARM QARM QARM WE ON TOP OF THE WORLD BABY WOOOOOO NEXT STOP NUMBER 1

Cloudy:

Zheng is a quintessentially average civ. Not shit, but not much going for them either. Their war with Dai Viet is certainly not going places. What more is there to say?

Leman:

Mongolia has a nice long part to bulk up and recover. They’ve gotten a pretty solid production score, a pretty decent army, solid science. None of it is great, but nothing horrible. There’s potential here for Mongolia. Or there would be if they didn’t border Shang, Goguryeo, Selkups, and Dzungars. Slightly above average civ in a rough location.

JDT:

Much as Tingus Pingus getting injured has been a pretty major hindrance to the Celtics, losing those two cities to Makhnovia has left Lativia noticeably weaker. They’re now noticeably locked in, and while peace has come to their lands (Royal Hungary really isn’t clamouring for their cities), those two lost cities were very relevant to their economy. Ulmanis doesn’t have too great a future in spite of that hot start, but hey, the Finns are a thing, and they have a bunch of cities still. Maybe all it takes is some time?

Oh yeah, and fuck you Paraguay_Stronk (affectionate), you’re not getting a Latveria mention on the PRs either.

Cloudy:

Ecuador was close to taking that Mexican city in Venezuela when they peaced out. A real shame seeing as they won’t have access to the Caribbean unless they take that, and it’s not going to get any easier as Mexico consolidates its position in the region.

Making peace with New Holland unscathed is a positive development, at least.

Rosay:

Ikko Ikki’s rapid rise has stabilized as of late as the war has kinda taken the guise of “Yanshi flipping back and forth repeatedly” but I feel that if two cities flip, then that’s going to change. Though Ikko ikki could always peace out now, I feel like Ikko can still take and more importantly hold Yanshi and Anyang before they do, and they have the potential to take both early into next part. Honestly taking those cities and then peacing out would probably propel Ikko to at least top 20 with a really good case being there for top 15, and I honestly don’t think a Japan civ has ever done as they have in the early game. Also they actually settled the north, very cool!

Leman:

Harappa founded a ninth city which is great, but it looks like they’re about to drop their Arabian city to the Qarmatians. That’s pretty unfortunate, but it was a colony, and Harappa definitely didn’t have the navy to keep that city defended so it’s not the worst thing to happen. It’s still worth a pretty decent tumble in the ranking, but these civs around the teens and low twenties are all so close in strength, I wouldn’t take this too hard if you are a Harappa supporter. They’re still doing pretty decently.

JDT: The sun still shines, the grass still grows, the birds still fly, and Akaitcho has still failed to have any impact on the game. Man the arctic really makes you play glacial huh. At least they finally made an army!

Orange:

Saba-D’mt really has just skyrocketed their position with that golden age, as they’ve managed to use that production to build a lot of buildings and units so that they could keep up their stats even after it ended. And they have a nice war going against Kanem-Bornu which they can probably nab another city or two. All they need now is to get their science back up to par. But really, Saba is now at the top of Africa, only Ndongo stands as their rival, and they have very similar stats. They’ve gotten quite high since their rough start, but it seems they will get even higher from here.

Cloudy:

The Wahgi dodged a bullet this week as Noongar prematurely made peace right before they were about to take Wahgi’s Australian colony. However, our confidence in Wahgi continues to drop as Maguindanao keeps harassing Korn, they kept a hugely important city only due to a fluke, and they still haven’t founded any new cities in several episodes. Their science and food outputs remain great, so the potential for a comeback is there, but so far Wahgi is squandering those gifts.

Rosay:

I've been kinda gassing up Pontus a bunch, because I honestly feel like the fundamentals are there for them to outright win the game. Now I know that's one helluva stretch but hear me out. Barring the Afsharids, who are temporarily on fraudwatch due to the incident with the Quarmatians, Pontus has ZERO civs near them that are on their level. With that out of the way, yeah Pontus is totally getting jumped right now. Right now Pontus is fighting EIGHT CIVS, and while only 3-4 of those warring civs are relevant, and individually any one of them would get stomped, together they could overwhelm Pontus and good luck telling a civ AI to “just Divide and Conquer bro.” While I feel like Pontus will be able to escape this coalition losing a small city or two at worst, you can't tell me that Mithridates wanted to be in this position.

Leman:

There was a lot of discourse on Siam this week, as we’re all not quite sure where to rank Siam. Most rankers agreed that mid-teens was about the right spot for them, but one spicy ranker decided that Siam might be worthy of a top 10 spot. It’s not hard to see why they thought that. Siam has excellent stats, ten cities, high population, excellent science, solid production, a large army, and a bunch of weaker neighbors like Singapore and Dai Viet. However, on the other hand Siam doesn’t have the best navy yet and doesn’t really compare to other civs in the bottom half of the top ten like Palawa or Selkups.

Personally, I think Siam ended up in the right spot. I think most of the civs ranked between 10 and 20 are extremely close and I think we could have justifiably ranked them in any order. Siam is in a really, really good spot at the moment and I expect as soon as they make a solid move on the map, maybe attacking Dai Viet, we’ll all be putting them in the top ten.

Msurdej:  

Despite ending the part at war with a tenth of the world, including most of their neighbors (the lone exception having just ended their war with Nazarbayev), Kazakhstan is holding its own. Taraz is holding against Kazan, who are now getting into their own two front war. Herat remains in their hands, a conquest earned from Bukhara. Aktobe is in trouble, but if Kazakhstan can hold the line, it will make them a force to be reckoned with, and a surefire regional power.

Orange:

Mexico is positioned very strongly, lot of cities and still expanding, a super easy target just to the east, and great stats all around. Honestly, they would be even higher if it weren’t for Pueblo right above them who are even stronger. Though, they had trouble against Ecuador as well, so they are a bit hemmed in, really gotta get on attacking Taino.

Leman:

We may have been a bit hasty with Dzungars. Not that they’re bad, just that they seemed to have a meteoric rise and then stagnated a little bit, instead of continuing at a reasonable trajectory from their new high ranking. They’re still strong, they have lots of places to go and people to attack, and decent stats, I just think this slightly lower ranking better represents their current strength.

Leman:

The Afsharids feel like they’ve always just been almost fantastic. 10 cities is pretty good, but not great. 111 production is pretty great but not fantastic. They have a large population and a solid army. Their science is a little lagging behind, but all in all these stats are good stats. It’s just not great stats, and after kind of being embarrassed by Qarmatians I don’t think above average stats and a bad war record is quite enough for top ten. But it’s enough for thirteenth.

Leman:

Thule is weird guys. Their stats are quite strong, they have the third highest production and a huge army, but also only have 6 real cities and are settling halfway across the continent before filling in the territory between them and Yellowknives. I’m not really sure what their plan is but I’m high on Thule now, and am excited to see them keep rising. Yes, this is going to be rough if Thule can’t expand and gets boxed in, or drops their difficult-to-defend cities, but  if they can use those stats to pump out a powerful Alaskan core, I can absolutely see them trying to recreate what the Inuit did all the way back in Mk2.

Msurdej:  

A shakeup in the rankings means an opportunity for Palawa to rise. Sure their settlement on a one tile island this part wasn’t the best, but they did make Petra. They certainly got roughed up, but in the immortal words of a famous boxer: “But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”. Can Palawa keep moving forward?

Msurdej:  

This part, Yagan lost something dear to them. No it wasn’t Minj, though their inability to capture the Wahgi city is saddening. No, I am talking about the loss of the civ’s second n. Throughout the Part, the narrators referred to them as the Noogar, meaning their other n, the one that should be between o and g, is missing. If you or someone you know has any information that could lead to the finding of the lost n, please comment in the subreddit.

Cloudy:

The Ume-Sami rise back into the top 10 after 6 episodes in the wilderness, thanks to their aggressive settling and improving stats (which are now also in the top 10). They have Scandinavia locked down, except for an undefended Burgundian city, and overall they have only one less city than the Faroes. So overall they look set to dominate Scandinavia... if they bother to clear out the Finns, that is.

Rosay:

Remember when I said I got both civs that would benefit from carving up Kazakhstan? This is the other one. Unlike Kazan however, the Selkups are more or less guaranteed take at least one city with the majority of the front being barren. Taking anything off of Kazakhstan would be huge for the Selkups right now, since northern Asia is absolutely packed with a bunch of good civs (and Nivkh) and the crippling of any of them, let alone the one expected to win the region, would be great for Selkup’s future.

JDT:

With the southern front dealt with, Ndongo has taken their eyes up north, attacking Sierra Leone and joining the Kanemi dogpile. Neither attack has been going exactly to plan, with the jungles keeping Ndongo from moving into Bornu as decisively as possible and their lack of a navy preventing any real action from being taken against Sierra Leone. Not to worry though, Kanem-Bornu is dealing with assault from Saba-Dmt and should be fairly distracted. Speaking of Saba, the Queen of Sheba should probably be the closest thing to a challenge Nzinga will face soon, with her UA conferring a massive power spike they have rode off to create a very solid empire in spite of a terrible start. If Nzinga wants to keep her ass on the throne of Africa, she’ll need to press harder against Kanem-Bornu and maybe build a navy.

Leman:

Shang’s wars are a bit of a mixed bag this episode. They flipped Yanshi back and have so far kept it away from Ikko-Ikki and Goguryeo. Also, Goguryeo’s invasion has seemed to have been mostly thwarted. Xinxiang is lost, but they could flip it back. Ikko-Ikki has overrun the countryside but Anyang is holding for now and Shang has composite bowman and their unique spearmen ready to defend. It’s really dicey at the moment, but Shang is pulling through right now, mostly by the strength of their insane stats and  tenacity, but they are going to need to sign some sort of peace treaty soon.

Msurdej:  

New Holland is in a curious place. They’ve got a great army, but their war against Ecuador went nowhere. Their other stats are just okay though, with their biggest weakness being production. Having 98 Production(a DROP from the previous episode) puts them out of the top 20, with civs like the Yellowknives and Visigoths out producing them. If they can’t work out those problems, they won’t be an effective contender for South America.

Cloudy:

Pueblo holds steady in fourth as they maintain their excellent stats, large army, and weak neighbors. However, they still have a few places to settle cities left, and we’d like to see them start doing that.

Leman:

Tiwanaku holds steady at number 3, and it's not hard to see why. Their stats are titanic, they have an excellent city count, a sprawling, wide empire, a bunch of shitty neighbors to take advantage of, and a bit of space left over in Patagonia and the Pacific Islands. Tiwanaku hasn’t really done anything besides being huge and imposing, but as of yet, they don’t really need to. They have time. As long as they get around to tearing apart Ecuador and Tehuelche before New Holland does, they’ll be fine, and New Holland doesn’t seem like they’re interested in throwing their weight around yet either.

Leman:

Goguryeo is holding strong in second place. They fail to hold on to Yanshi, but honestly that was expected. Their war with Shang was still an unmitigated success, even if it only netted them a single city. Goguryeo still has more than enough room to expand, easier, weaker neighbors to go after (Ikko-Ikki or Nivkh) and massive stats they can leverage into a powerful midgame. Things are just looking great for them.

Cloudy:

For the first time ever, the Faroe Islands have declared a war, launching a naval invasion of Burgundy. There is some chance they will make gains, as a fleet of triremes has already reached Amiens in the Bay of Biscay, but they would have a much better shot at victory if they went after Burgundy’s completely undefended Scandinavian colony.

At the same time, the Faroes have founded another city in Canada and have a fourth settler on the way, showing that their ability to dominate the northern reaches of both Europe and North America is only continuing to grow.