Episode 22: The Rivers Run Red – S1

Greetings fellow gamer dudes and dudettes, and welcome back to another amazing episode of CBRX. My name is /u/Ludicologuy00, but there are some who call me Ludi. Most people know me as “that 🎈 guy from 3-4 years ago”, but nowadays I mostly lurk while sometimes submitting power rankings on time. But that’s enough about me, let’s move on to some OC.

Some have noticed, by sifting through the “CBRX Info Sheet”, that Uruguay has begun researching Atomic Theory. The poor Amazon rainforest can’t seem to catch a break. Even in the digital world, it will end up being burned down by fire. Nuclear fire that is.

Credit to: /u/Chicago_Ball for the image.

This week’s map is provided by /u/Vihreea and includes some hand-drawn borders. You should definitely give it a closer look if you’ve got some time to spare since we’ll see some major border changes in some regions this part.

And here’s another edition of SPOR, the diagram that shows us all relevant wars by /u/ThyReformer. By looking at this map we can see a few nations that might have a(nother) tough part ahead of them, namely Songhai, Métis, the HRE, Papua, and Nazca. Will they persevere or fall flat on their faces? Stay tuned and find out for yourself.

By taking a sneak peek at the power rankings chart, I’ve come to the conclusion that Uruguay will come out at the top once more for the 13th part in a row. But that’s not surprising considering that they are about to field planes and nuclear bombs against their green neighbour’s cannons and crossbows.

Coiot: Can't escape :cursedguay: this week.

We start off this episode with a scene from the ongoing Venezuela-Haiti war. When compared to their Venezuelan counterpart, the Haitian fleet seems tiny, but who knows if Hugo will be able to use the numbers to his advantage.

Moving over to eastern Europe, we arrive just in time to see Frederick the Great take Vladimir from Ivan the Terrible. The odds of Vladimir being flipped by Ivan are slim to none, while the risk of Ivan being eliminated slowly increases each and every turn.

Right outside of Suzdal, a Prussian Landwehr (one of the Prussian UUs) is showing off his fancy new uniform, fine goosestep, and impressive +15% combat ability for standing next to an allied unit (which increases to +30% if next to another Landwehr).

Hwangju falls into the hands of Shikoku, expelling Korea from Korea. This may end up being the last city capture of this war (or at least for a very long time) since neither side really possesses the number of military units required to push up to, siege down, and take a city from their opponent.

And here we see a fleet of Uruguayan pirate ships raiding what I suppose is a single military vessel from Songhai escorting a smaller squadron of trade ships. The Uruguayan pirates must have heard about the great riches of the gold coast and therefore decided to bring everything they had against this ship. Let’s just hope that civilian casualties were kept to a minimum… eh, who am I kidding. We are here because we love massive amounts of simulated bloodshed, who then would care about some poor sailors in the middle of the Atlantic?

Winnipeg takes some more damage in the Iroquois-Métis war while Wood Mountain also receives some damage. Some red and blue units have arrived to garrison Fort Maurepas, but that may not have been necessary since the northern parts of Iroquois realm seem surprisingly empty of units.

One day the Moorish admirals asked themselves if it was really necessary to build huge boats for their cannons when they get smaller ones for free by just disembarking them. This led to the scene you are currently witnessing, a carpet filled with disembarked cannons taking Hombori, and about to take Niani and Araouane. Was this just a fluke, or have we just witnessed a new major advancement in naval strategy? Only time will tell.

Perth is dangerously close to flipping now, and Rajapapua has no way of stopping it. Rumours say that he has already fled to Bunbury and that that is why the whole fleet is anchored there instead of trying to stop the Kiwi navy.

Not too far south from Perth, Gambu Ganuurru watches closely as the siege continues. This may be the last shot at glory Murri will receive, but it’s also a great opportunity not to rock the boat and take the attention of Bob Hawke away from Seddon.

The collapse of the HRE continues as the Vikings begin sieging Augsburg and both the Vikings and Venice have units standing at the gates of Aachen. Aachen will probably hold unless the Venetian army makes some really aggressive moves while Augsburg may be at the risk of falling, facing both siege, ranged, and naval units while two fully healed melee units are close by.

Konstantiniyye is once more in the hands of Palmyra! On a more interesting note, take a look at those warriors that Havel is still fielding. It’s almost like he believes that we aren’t about to enter the atomic era in a few more turns. It will be interesting to see what units he’ll be fielding when his neighbours are building tanks… assuming that he survives long enough for that to happen.

A new peacekeeping corps from Madagascar has formed in eastern Benin. They could potentially move west and take part in the coalition against Songhai (since Ranavalona has already declared war on Askia), but going off of what AI usually do in CBR I’d guess that they’ll just stay there for an eternity and a half.

While things are looking somewhat dicey on Riel’s eastern front, he seems to have a much better grip on the western front. With some luck, he could potentially take both Tanu and Sukkwan. He won’t, however, be able to take and hold any Haidan coastal cities since he has no way of dealing with Koyah’s massive naval carpet.

Araouane falls and Niani is on its last legs as the disembarked canons continue to wreak havoc on the West African Coast. Askia must develop a countermeasure and swiftly put it into use if he doesn’t want to lose all of his coastal holdings before the part ends.

Adelaide flips and with the number of land units that Hawke has brought to this front, I would be surprised if Seddon still found a way to take and hold the city for an extended amount of time. It might be a good idea for the kiwi fleet to retreat, regroup, and rethink their plan of attack before every ship is spent on flipping a single one pop city.

Tonga and Iroquois sign a peace treaty with Nazca while Selk’nam sends a laughably small invasion force to take Cahuachi. Omar Mukhtar has decided that he doesn’t like being a ghost and blamed all of his mistakes on Ablai Khan.

And since we have an ideology pop-up on the screen, I’ll mention all of the civs that got one this part:

New Zealand, Shikoku, Prussia, Kazakhs, Venezuela, Nazca, Métis, and the Vikings all go for autocracy while the HRE goes for order just to piss off the Vikings even more.

As we move back to the Iroquois-Métis war we see that Winnipeg has fallen and Wood Mountain has taken a lot of damage. Riel has mostly ranged units in the area so recapturing these cities may be a bit harder to do then you’d expect, but Hiawatha also lacks a substantial amount of melee units, so he might be unable to push much further for some time now.

And now for a shot of Benin’s invasion of Songhai. Both Kangaba and Djenné have taken substantial damage and may fall in the next couple of turns. With this shot, we can also take note of Songhai’s lack of a real army. I counted roughly 30 military units in this picture which is comparable to the number of civilian units also present in this slide.

As expected, Niani falls and in addition to this, a handful of Moorish units have made it past Mascara and could att a few different cities. Askia must mobilize a large army ASAP if he wants to stand a fighting chance against the foreign invaders.

The kiwis have taken Perth and Rajapapua has immediately decided, from his secret hiding spot in Bunbury, to make Baruni his new capital. Not too far from the new Papuan capital, a Japanese settler has found an empty plot of land to potentially settle, right next to an old, abandoned holy site.

While Augsburg flips from the HRE to the Vikings and back again back on the mainland, an exiled Scottish Squadron on Greenland watches as the Vikings attempt to take the city of Strassbourg. If they manage to do so, they’ll also get to keep it as the roman emperor won’t have any way of flipping it back.

Winnipeg once again flies the red and blue banner and as I mentioned last time we took a peek at this area, Hiawatha barely has any melee units left on the frontline (I think the unit south-west of Wood Mountain might be an Iroquois pikeman), so expect this front to stall some more.

And the Vikings have taken Strassburg! Amazed by the military genius of Ragnar Lodbrok, the Scottish Great General has moved to an adjacent vantage point to observe the integration of this German city into the Viking realm.

Ewuare’s invasion has achieved its first major accomplishment by somewhat swiftly taking Djenné, and soon we might see another city fall into their hands. While Benin is winning tremendously, Nubia is watching from the sidelines with their almost completely filled, but somewhat outdated carpet. It’ll be interesting to see if Piye decides to join in on the coalition or if they will try their luck once more on Benin if they overextend themselves.

The Goths and Sami also made peace, but I can’t tell from the minimap if anything has flipped since their colours are somewhat similar, hopefully we’ll get a closer look soon.

Benghazi has begun taking damage as more and more invading troops reached Songhai territory. There are a few melee troops in the area, so Rahman should have no problem taking the city in the long run.

Shikoku uses its settler to settle Susaki right where we last saw it. To the northeast, we can see some fresh kiwi ships arriving to take out the last Papuan cities and to the south, we can see a handful of Australian troops potentially planning an attack on Perth.

We enter the Atomic era and once again Uruguay wins the title of “the World’s greatest city” with Montevideo.

And as most of you already know, a new era means more votes for everybody. But here’s a picture confirming that it’s still the case.

I’ll also take this moment that the Seljuqs have made peace with a lot of its former enemies this part, because why not. Someone might find that information useful.

Tanu is taken and torched by Riel. I hope that the same fate isn’t awaiting Sukkwan since I’m so childish that I find that name funny.

The Venezuelan invasion of Haiti seems to be going swimmingly for Chávez. Maturín is at half health and surrounded by a lot of healthy melee units. Continuing on the theme of childish names for cities I’ll mention that “Maturin” would become “Food-urine” if you directly translated it from Swedish to English.

In a somewhat surprising move, Qing DoWs both Yup’ik and the Apache. This may backfire as the Yup’ik outgun them in Siberia and could maybe use that advantage to take cities from them. But upon closer inspection of the slide you’ll notice that half of the New Ice Sheet Fleet is stranded on an actual Ice Sheet, so maybe not.

Suzdal’ sustains major damage and is at the risk of falling within a few more turns. Ivan must make a peace deal with Prussia now, or he’ll soon be terribly sorry that he didn’t.

After more than 200 turns of perpetual war against Kuikuro with barely anything to show for it, Juan has finally lost his patience and finished the Manhattan project. Will the turtle’s defences hold against the power of nuclear weapons, or will its defences crumble to dust like a meringue under a foot? We’ll probably not get the answer this part, but we are bound to find out sooner or later.

With two more cities being captured by Benin and no reinforcements in sight, the future is looking bleak for our former top two. The race for Gao between the Moors and Benin has officially started. Place your bets in the comments and you might win a special prize from yours truly in the future.

Apache and Nazca decide to team up against Yup’ik while Riel noticed an Iroquois unit next to Duck Lake and decided to throw the game by starting a war with the rest of his neighbours. Fish Creek, Cut Knife, Battleford, Duck Lake, and Fishing Lake are all lightly defended and could swiftly fall if Geronimo goes all-in on the offensive. This could also end the stalemate to the east, as long as Hiawatha decides to bring some more melee units there.

And here we see the Yup’ik front. The New Ice Sheet Fleet is not as stranded here when compared to the parts in Siberia so they could potentially do some major damage to Riel’s northernmost cities.

If anyone knows why Riel did this please fill me in. I’m completely clueless.

I guess Blue Cassette also finds the name Sukkwan funny, I have no idea why they would add a barely different scene featuring it otherwise.

On one side of the world, one bloody conflict ends while on the opposite side another begins. Taungoo, having just recently taken out Sulu has decided that it may be a good idea to attack New Zealand. And right off the bat things are looking great for them with Paeroa immediately dropping to half health and with no kiwi ships defending it nor Whangarb and Napier.

Also featured in this slide; Seachen Itza

Some more African cities have begun taking damage and Askia seems to be making preparations for a last stand around Gao by consolidating his troops there.

Blida falls to the canon horde and the siege of Tagdemt has also begun. This part of Songhai seems especially empty, maybe Askia likes Rahman more than Euware and is, therefore, allowing him to take his cities before Benin reaches them. That would explain why the disembarked canons have been working so well.

As I’ve already somewhat pointed out, the war between the HRE and the Vikings has ended with Ragnar holding Regensburg Augsburg and in true Viking-fashion, he has decided to loot them until there’s nothing left. Venice is slowly closing in on the two German cities while the Moors’ canon horde are looking intensely at Murano.

Northern Scandinavia is looking awfully empty with only a small fleet and a token garrison on each side defending the cities. Have the Norsemen and Sami solved any and all tensions with discussion while eating Eadni’s cookies and drinking Viking mead? That almost sounds like a Swedish fika so I’d say it’s possible.

It seems to me like no cities were exchanged in the peace deal between Eadni and Alaric. The Gothic army probably went south as soon as the peace deal was made to deal with the Golden Horde instead. But where’s the Sami Armi hiding?

Australia and New Zealand have made peace with Perth finally returning to Australian hands. It seems to me like Seddon’s strategy to defend against Taungoo includes leaving his own cities in the north while opening up a new front against them by wiping out Papua on the way. Why else would all of these ships still be going in this direction?

And Adelaide also stayed ‘Strayan after the peace deal. Say what you will about another Green and Gold Australia once more having almost all of Australia for itself once again, but I’ve actually enjoyed seeing them have to struggle a bit to finally achieve this.

Winnipeg has ceased to exist and soon we might see Riel and Hiawatha trade cities with each other since both Wood Mountain and Touenho are in the red.

Fortunately, Sukkwan wasn’t put to the torch but unfortunately for Métis fans, their advancements here should end now since there is no way that Haida will permanently lose their cities on the west coast to somebody with no navy in the Pacific Ocean.

The city of Maturín now belongs to Venezuela and Kap Ayisyen has taken a sliver of damage, but Chávez needs to be careful. A handful of Haitian units have managed to take Caracas down to half health. Will this be the time when Louverture actually manages to capture the city?

Wood Mountain is captured by a worker and the Métis have pulled back from Touenho. Other than that not much has changed since our last scene here.

 It’s kind of impressive how fast Songhai has come tumbling down. Soon it may be yet another capital-less rump state of the world with no hopes of ever achieving greatness again. This just goes to show you how swiftly the tables can turn in a CBR, the top dogs of yesterday may all end up as the rump states of tomorrow.

Seddon’s ships have finally arrived to stop Taungoo’s invasion of the Northern Mariana Islands. Their top priority is the city of Myede that has already been occupied, but they are also trying to stop the enemy from taking Paeroa and Whangarei, both of which are currently at half health.

One of the world’s first planes is currently stationed in Secú. Uruguayan test flights have shown that this flying machine is very capable of taking down enemies if they are stationed in an open field. Too bad for them that almost all of Kuikuro’s units are hiding beneath the last remaining treetops of the Amazon rainforest.

Luckily, Uruguay isn’t the only nation with access to these metal birds. Maratha has three of them stationed on the small island of Purandar a few tiles off of the coast of mainland India.

Suzdal’ is immediately razed by the Prussian invaders who now only have to go for Moscow to eliminate Muscovy, but that will not be a simple task. Moscow is surrounded by a lot of Muscovite units and as we know through our own history, taking Moscow will never be easy, especially not during this time of year.

Ségou has dropped to half health just in time for the Uruguayan pirates’ arrival. If Rahman isn’t careful, we could potentially see a snipe from the current number one which later on could be used to stage an invasion against the rest of Africa.

The Kiwis have recaptured Myede but in the meantime, Paeroa has fallen to Taungoo. It seems to me like the current situation favours Bayinnaung over Seddon. Sure, Seddon might have a few more ships in the area but they are a bit outdated, especially when compared with Taungoo’s powerful ship at the western edge of the scene.

The Venitian advance on Liberec and Aachen slowly carries on while Augs- and Regensburg continue to burn. To the east, we can see a few units approaching Brno, but that attack will hardly go anywhere. The Venetian core looks worryingly empty, so maybe the Doge should prioritize creating a favourable peace deal over fighting more in this costly war.

Speaking of peace deals; it seems like Frederick knows better than to go after Moscow, opting for a peace deal instead. This will ensure that Ivan gets to live on for a few more turns.

Whangarei is taken by Taungoo and it looks like Napier and Myede could follow soon. The reinforcements sent by Seddon are being sunk one by one and if more aren’t dispatched to the area immediately, I’d expect all cities in the area to turn brown during this war.

Maratha has built Prora which gives one social policy, two happiness, and one additional happiness for every two social policies adopted. This will allow Maratha to take more cities without burning them in the process.

Somehow while escaping from the carnage around Konstantiniyye a Turkish scout managed to get himself trapped on Åland. But don’t feel too bad for him, Åland is really beautiful and I’m sure that he’ll enjoy his stay there, even if it will last for an eternity.

And here we have a nicer view of the Venetian invasion of Brno. As you can see for yourself, it will probably not be successful the way things are currently going, so let’s take a look at other things instead.

Liberec has reached black health and will probably be captured soon and Palmyra has managed to secure Konstantiniyye, making it much harder for the Czech to flip it once more.

Baruni has almost no more hit points left, and since Seddon’s fleet has moved elsewhere we could potentially see Shikoku “snipe” it with the swordsman right next to it. If Baruni falls, Rajapapua will be down to his last two cities. With the odds of him making one more successful comeback decreasing every turn, it won’t be too controversial to say that it’s one of the weakest civs currently alive on the cylinder.

The Uruguayan pirates, while still waiting for the opportune moment to snipe Ségou, have decided to also try their luck by sieging Koumbi Saleh. If they succeed in capturing the city, there’s no telling how badly the locals will be treated by these foreign, loot hungry invaders. Knowing this, a handful of workers are attempting to escape the city on rafts under the cover of a cloudy night. It seems like they’ve made it past the blockade, but now the real trials begin. Will they be able to survive mother nature while at sea for several years in a row, or will their rafts be hit by a stray cannonball and sink, leaving no survivors? Well, the Uruguayans have just finished building a huge statue of Jesus, so that may be a good sign for these civilians.

As Saney falls the battle of Gao begins. In this bloody conflict musketmen fight other musketmen while canons and trebuchets fire massive projectiles at their enemies. This fight is bound to go on for some time and will decide the fate of Gao, the heart of western Africa.

The Uruguayan pirates go home empty handed this time as the Moorish fleet managed to take control of Ségou. Rahman should also be able to take control over Taghaza soon, as it’s in the red and there is a melee unit in the vicinity.

Apanuugpak launches his invasion against the suicidal Riel and sees some initial successes. Fort-Des-Prairies should soon fall to the Yup’ik and two additional cities have received some damage from the navy. These will be harder to take however, since they are surrounded by canons that should be able to tear through most of the approaching units.

Loverture is *this* close to taking Caracas. C’mon pal, we know that you can do it. Just one more push...

The island of Japan is sandwiched between two major naval operations. To the west a pirate fleet is trying to capture the island city of Taejon and in the east Seonjo is throwing every available ship at the walls of Tosa-Shimizu. My prediction is that only one of these operations will succeed, care to take a guess on which one I believe in?

The disappointed Uruguayan pirates take out their frustration on Koumbi Saleh, immediately murdering half of its population and doing unspeakable things towards the remaining half. Judging by the fact the we can’t see them anywhere in this slide, it is safe to assume that the civilians from earlier perished on their way to the continent. What a tragic loss of life.

Rahman has decided to surround Askia’s cities with his horseback riding crossbow replacements and parts of the canon horde. His goal might not be to take a lot of land in this war, but to humiliate his rival instead, which in turn will give him more splendor. Well, too bad for him but he’s in a game of CIV V, not EU4, so he should just take the cities already.

Green Lake on Greenland is under attack from Hiawatha who can’t let this extreme amount of false advertising go unpunished.

In other news; Haida and Métis make peace with no more cities changing hands.

Seems like my guess was right. Taejon has fallen to the pirates while Seonjo’s strategy of destroying his ships one by one has not yet worked out for him.

The Uruguayans celebrate the founding of their new pirate colony of Kangaba by switching parties from the Colorados to the Blancos. A bit more to the north we can see that almost all of Songhai’s units around Gao have been wiped out. The next city Askia wants to try to defend is Aoudaghost close to the Moorish border, but this defense will probably end just like the others.

A piece of Maratha’s carpet has arrived in southern Kazakhstan to gawk at the impressive size of Turkistan. While 50 pop doesn’t make Turkistan the largest city on the cylinder (Wellington has over 70!), it’s still a whole lot more than any normal player would be able to achieve in a vanilla game of CIV V.

Since a Kazakh unit is taking damage in Evenks’ territory, I think it’s safe to assume that these two are at war again. I’d give the edge to the statistically stronger Kazakhs but Bombogor has defended himself somewhat successfully against Ablai Khan before, so he might be able to do that again.

Goddammit Toussaint! Why can’t you just successfully capture Caracas one single time. And NO, you are NOT allowed to pin your own incompetence on Haida. This is your own fault and you know it so man up and face the consequences yourself! Geez…

Greetings and welcome to another year of Navycon! We have gathered next to Iberia to celebrate the recent successes of the Moors disembarked canons in their war against Songhai, and have therefore also invited a special guest from the Moorish empire; a settler. Without further ado I hereby declare Navycon 2880 opened! Drink somewhat responsibly and don’t forget to fight off scurvy with the free citrus fruits in the bar.

You know, earlier this episode I thought that I was exaggerating when I said that Askia could “lose all of his coastal holdings before the part ends” due to the disembarked canons, but apparently this ended up being the case, somewhat. Songhai has become landlocked and once again, an army that was going to defend a city has disappeared into thin air. But hey, at least Askia managed to make peace with the Emperor.

The recently formed peace corps in Benin has grown even more since we last saw it. When Madagascar and Zimbabwe inevitably go to war again these units may be able to inflict major damage upon Zimbabwe’s northern cities.

The attackers at Tosa-Shimzu have been fully repelled and Shikoku has used this to their advantage by launching a counter-offensive and taking Hamheung.Things are really starting to look grim for Korea who now barely have any navy left to defend themselves with. If only they could find their own admiral Yi to beat the Japanese with.

Taungoo finally holds all of these islands that they’ve been fighting over for the past couple of turns. Now let’s see if they are able to replicate this success closer to the Kiwi core.

One last shot of Africa shows us that Rahman still doesn’t want to capture these cities. It’s not like he’s all out of melee units, I count five in close proximity to Benghazi, but for some reason he just doesn’t want to use them.

And the first city capture of this war goes to the Evenks who managed to take the coastal city of Vorkuta, but further south all of the units defending Aoluguya have already been defeated, which could spell disaster for them in the future.

And now for the final scene of this episode; a slide showing Aachen surrounded by Venetian troops. Will the Doge mange to take it? Will Stronkhai continue to not be stronk? Will Riel survive his suicide attempt? Find out the answers to these questions and more in the next episode of CBRX!

Thanks for reading (or listening) to my narration of this part. It was my first time doing anything like this, so hopefully it wasn’t all bad. If you have some constructive criticism you can send it to me in a pm on discord or on reddit or just leave it as a comment somewhere where I’ll find it. Have a dope day and remember to party often, BYYYEEE 🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈