Civ Battle Royale Puppets dance as the powers that be pull the strings of the cylinder every which way.
Hello and welcome to the CBRX. I’m Shaggy, semi-controversial power ranker, resident Benin fan, and your narrator for the week. I’ll save you my full CBR origin story (mid-Mk2 hiatus), but I started Power Ranking this season and it’s a ton of fun to make and I hope they’re fun to read. Not fun for the civs though, it’s a cruel, cruel cylinder out there and things might get a little messy this part.
The tenacity of the Iroquois defenses has inspired a lot of OC this week. Beset on all sides, u/yaampa’s Darth Hiawatha isn’t going down without a fight. And like Vader, it’ll take more than one defeat to kill them.
As is tradition, u/Vihreaa’s map is a fantastic resource that answers my weekly question: Just how tiny did Benin get?” and it’s also the closest we have to Civ 5’s in-game turn-by-turn map on such a scale. Maybe some resourceful member of the sub will make a time-lapse when this is all over (we’ll talk, Vihreaa).
Our second map is courtesy of u/Sebscobar and I’m sure it is hanging in schools throughout the cylinder, though I doubt they appreciate having to replace them every couple of years. This is the state of the cylinder projected on a real-world map. It really puts in perspective just how tiny the landmasses that make up the Uruguayan Pacific Islands aree. It also really makes Benin look like the eye of the storm at the middle point of the three powers of the Old World. Last gratuitous Benin mention, I promise.
Using my superpower known as “having access to the PR sheet”, I am fairly confident that the Kazakhs have retained their top spot this week. And with almost as much production (used primarily to build hovertanks and nukes) as the other non-Iroquois superpowers put together, it isn’t hard to see why. They are clearly the civ to beat right now, or rather, stave off. Their tendrils reach to encircle the globe; the Kazakhs must first be stopped before they can be conquered.
We pick up just about where we left off with a view of the newly Moorish land in South America. Barquisimeto has fallen and Porlamar had a Moorish XCOM unit dropped in from out of nowhere to capture the city. Not all is lost for the Iroquois, however, as they surround Valencia with enough units to push back the Moors from their islands. Also, say hello to the Beninese Lifeboat Initiative. Their orders are to find any scrap of land to settle as a last resort should the worst happen to a battered Benin. Their best hope is an island getting nuked off the map, but unless Ciudad Guayana is armed to the teeth with nukes, there doesn’t seem to be much hope of that happening here anytime soon. Perhaps they should try somewhere else.
Hiawatha reclaims much of Mexico as Prince Albert keeps flipping. Uruguayan reinforcements are certainly in the area should they wish to continue contesting these cities up and down the coast. Some Uruguayan generals have concerns about the new Kazakh music trend among some of the Hawaiian units. But the Kazakh World Tour continues on to spread the good word of Ablai in song.
Valencia has indeed fallen to the Iroquois. That being said, it seems to have either taken most of their units to capture the city or they are focusing them north and off-screen towards the other Moorish islands. Either one of these sounds just fine and dandy to Lavalleja as he marches mechanical and biological monstrosities over a more or less undefended Iroquois border. Seriously, there are more Iroquois workers here than military units. Maybe they’re relying on the Great Prophet of Maracaibo to guide their path. Also, the Beninese settler has lost its escort. Oh dear, Beninese settler, so fragile floating along in search of a last chance. May you find your peace on some forgotten island.
And just like that, every single Iroquois city along this border has been captured, save Cumana. Maracay is also now claimed by the Guay. The remaining Iroquois military in South America has consolidated around Maracaibo, though they haven’t been able to prevent it from falling to the black. Also, remember those 10 air units from before? They’re gone. And to add insult to injury, the Moors give the Iroquois a nice jab in the side, flipping Valencia back once again. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Iroquois will need to win the imminent unit trades to keep their foothold in South America.
Oh yeah, that’s probably why Iroquois might not be so quick to reinforce South America. Holding off the Kazakhs is definitely a greater task than invading Uruguay, though the number of units Iroquois has at their disposal here is worrying. Recapturing Battleford, Cev’aq and Iyo-Saijo is a step in the right direction, but so would annexing some of these cities so you can protect them properly. Also, the minimap of South America looks like it's put on it’s Guay Jeans today. Uruguayan Reunification seems to be about 60% complete.
The fight over the northern Atlantic continues as Iroquois capture Douglas and Tiononderoge while Unjarga falls to the black. Hiawatha holds the advantage here in numbers and tech, but the Moors have reinforcements coming in from Scandinavia only a few turns away. Say hello to some of our lesser seen denizens of the cylinder, the Vikings. Wooden boats and not even at Modern Era tech. If I had to guess how they’ve survived this long, I’d guess that the Moors keep them around as a sort of living history museum. Moorish children take field trips up to see what simpler life looked like on a city-wide scale. Also, hi Zimbabwean nexus! You’re a little far from home.
A Moorish crewman of one of the Mursiyyah nexuses looked out upon a vast desert of workers toiling across the land. Suddenly an alarm sounded. War were declared. He panicked, there hadn’t been fighting on this front in decades if not centuries, but he took another look at the sandy landscape. Nothing. No soldiers, armor, robots, or any other abomination from the dreaded Mutota in sight. “Hmmm,” the crewman thought, “well I guess they can declare whatever they want to declare. If they ain’t shooting me, I don’t care.” Then a beam crackled through the sky and struck the city’s defense grid, causing the most minor of damage to its reinforced exterior. The crewman let out a shout. “Is that all you got?”
Mutota declares war on the Moors and that’s just about the only thing here indicating an actual war. One city has been damaged with no army in sight. There are more Kazakh units peacekeeping the Zimbabwe/Moor border than Zimbabwe has units to go try to invade Moorish North Africa. Not to mention that this is more or less the Moorish core. This isn’t an easy fight for a well organized army, and Mutota’s looks like they wouldn’t be able to organize a bake sale.
In this game of Musical Cities, Uruguay pushes up to recapture Cumana while the Moors trade Santa Teresa Del Tuy for La Guaira with the Iroquois. Lavalleja has held on to his reclaimed cities and some appear to be healing. This may have something to do with all of the Iroquoian nexuses that were in South America either being moved or destroyed in the fighting. It seems as though Hiawatha has some trust issues as many of the cities here are puppeted, much like those captured originally from Metis. This isn’t helping his war efforts as shipping units down to South America just adds to the logistical nightmare of fighting wars on all 3 of your borders.
Ingombe Ilede and Manica have fallen to a very large Moorish navy for how far from home they are. Interestingly, Uruguayan Madagascar has proven to be a strategic benefit for the Moors as it seems to be only allowing Zimbabwe to reinforce these islands by way of South Asia. I’m not sure how many of the coastal cities in that area are puppeted, but if they are more puppeted than not, it could spell trouble for Zimbabwe. Additionally, Ablai Khan’s quest to map every single inch of ice on the cylinder continues as the Kazakh Hovertank Antarctic Exploration Corps (commonly known as K.H.A.E.K) combs the southern rim of the cylinder. Though he may have finished the tech tree, it seems Ablai still has questions about the geometry of his world.
Does anyone else have an issue where nexuses and citadels just look really similar when there are a lot of them on one slide? With the Kazakh peacekeepers having moved on to keep the peace on a different part of the cylinder, or to go sacrifice themselves in Alaska, the Northern African border between the Moors and Zimbabwe has heated up significantly. Mutota has captured Callinicum and Meroe, though I expect both cities to flip a few times given the number of units nearby. Abd-ar Rahman has carpeted the Mediterranean and the continued lack of units in the Sahara is concerning for Zimbabwe. Many of their cities are taking damage and it doesn’t seem like they have much of a response in the west yet.
Blue Cassette has graced us with this lovely shot of Gothiscandza, the Beninese capital-in-exile, in all its glory: 3 tiles of land and 4 of land-locked sea. Other dead civs see it as the haven Benin has turned it into as Madagascan units and, interestingly, a Palmyran scout flock toward the Beninese lands with hopes of refuge. For those of you tracking stats at home, don’t overvalue Benin’s military, most of it is tied up in useless naval units that won’t do much should anyone come knocking from the south. Also shown here is Arheimar falling to the black just from Moorish air raids. It won’t flip as it is surrounded by Kazakh and Madagascan peacekeepers. Even with the last city fallen, Ranavalona’s orders of keeping the peace in random cities still echo across the cylinder to whomever will hear them. Also, uh, damn Ablai, that’s a ton of hovertanks. More than I think both polar rims can hold.
I guess I’ll eat my words about a Zimbabwean response in West Africa. They capture Mursiyyah and Salamanqah, though that is in exchange for Udo falling into Moorish hands. Cities on both sides are taking damage and this seems oddly even given the emptiness of Iberia. Also, Ying Zheng is drunkenly processing his turn on a boat somewhere, drifting around.
Operation Mediterranean Unification is progressing well for the Moors, taking Ewohimi, Torcello and Owo and pushing back Zimbabwean forces well away from the coastal cities. On the Arabian front of this war, Kiteve also falls to the Moors. Though the strength of the Mediterranean navy may have helped the Moors make landfall in North Africa, encroaching further south may prove a bit more troubling as the Moors are down to a series of nexuses and a squad of hovertanks to do all of the heavy conquering. It isn’t slowing them down yet as every Zimbabwean city here is in the red or black, but keep an eye on their progress. The puppeting issue that other powers are having has come to Zimbabwe too, as their regions of thinned military are closely correlated to the ability for cities to actually build units to protect them.
With both Iroquois and the Moors having more important fronts to send units to, the British Isles have reached a sort of standstill. Indeed, the Iroquois have captured Unjarga on Greenland and Douglas keeps flipping back and forth, but there doesn’t seem to be enough of an advantage for either side here for these borders to change much. I know religion hasn’t been terribly relevant for a while, so I just want to point out that this is one of the rare extant borders (at least that I’ve seen) where religious and political borders seem to correlate closely.
Is sweeping through West Africa and capturing a ton of cities from a major power just how the Moors like to do things? In a move that might remind pre-Endgame viewers of the collapse of Songhai, the Moors have captured the vast majority of West Africa with 6 city captures that I can count. Those nexuses are working just fine, Abd-ar Rahman. Zimbabwe, however, has sent a strike force of their most fervent weebs to recapture Owo, the obvious choice for “Most Important City” on the continent. And (owo) what’s this? The Iroquois have made peace with the Moors. Maybe South America will be a bit more peaceful for a time.
You ever just, you know, give away Ireland? Hiawatha seemed eager enough to stop having the Moors be a thorn in his side in South America that he gave them Ireland in exchange. Just after capturing Ireland. Given the amount of death that has been brought to Douglas and Saraqustah, I’m not sure the Moorish Irish are too happy about being regifted like a fruitcake, but at least it gives them time to recover and rebuild. Unjarga stays in Iroquois hands though, so at least they still have most of Greenland in their possession.
The bombs stop flying in Africa as the Moors and Zimbabwe make peace. Operation Mediterranean Reunification has been a success for the Moorish commanders as they celebrate their victories on their nexuses. As a part of their peace deal, the Moors and Zimbabwe set up a collaborative hospital somewhere in the eastern Sahara as units heal up adjacent to those they were just fighting. The sparseness of Moorish units here does seem to indicate that their invasion was slowed by the inability to have naval support, but the gains from this war should be sufficient to reinforce and try again later.
The Iroquois diplomats are on a roll as they bring peace to South America for the first time in years. Maracay and Maracaibo have been traded, though it’s unclear whether they were peacefully exchanged. Additionally, in what seems to be the diplomats’ secondary goal, much of the border gore in this region has been resolved. I believe the Iroquois/Moor peace deal included reunifying the Iroquoian Caribbean, which, when combined with the deal for Maracay, makes the map look a lot cleaner. I believe the diplomatic solution ended up being for the best for all civs here, as most of the military we’ve been watching here this part is gone, probably decaying or smoldering somewhere in the cut-down Amazon. Ying Zheng sniffles on his ship off the Panamanian coast. “It’s so touching how they can get along” he sniffs as he takes another swig of Iroquois rum.
Well, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. Benin has been killed by the Moors on the same turn they get declared on. Always one of my favorites, this nut has finally cracked. Once friends with their eventual killers before the reset, the crafty Euware was relegated to his diplomatically obtained capital-in-exile once the powers began consolidating in Endgame. Being most well known for holding off drove after drove of Songhai unit pre-Endgame and being an immovable object for other African powers for much of the CBRX, their great engineers will stand as a testament to their ingenuity in developing defenses and holding their ground. Unless the Lifeboat Initiative is successful later down the line, there will be no more of my Snoop Dogg jokes in my PR writeups for them, this ends the struggle for Benin. F
Just as one rump falls, another looks poised to drop. Not only do the Moors declare on the Vikings, but the Kazakhs also add their token declaration as well. Sort of a “hey, you aren’t just screwed, you’re super screwed” to Ragnar. In one turn, Roskilde falls to black and any one of the Moorish units in the area could simply march in and kill off Ragnar once and for all. Also, just note the faceoff that the Viking rifleman is having with that Iroquois triceratops. I’m sure there’s some OC inspiration there. Maybe a limerick? Probably not, “there once was a rifleman from Roskilde” doesn’t give much to rhyme with.
Aaaaaand it’s gone. The Moors have brought more military than they used to defend the British Isles in a move that can only be described as overkill. Abd-ar Rahman wants Ragnar dead and he wants to know he’s dead. That being said, let’s take a moment to recognize that of all of the civs, the Vikings won the battle of rump survival. Once a great power on the verge of rolling through Europe, the Vikings got kneecapped early in Endgame and got stranded on an Arctic wasteland. The Vikings posed no threat to any major power and were able to deftly avoid elimination through the merit of having no land that anybody deemed valuable. Back in episode 45, they were ranked dead last at #26 but they were able to finesse their way to end up outlasting 20 of those civs and in 6th place overall. That’s quite a feat. Rest easy, Ragnar, your troubles are over. F
Limaeus’/Limerickarcher’s note:
There once was a rifleman from Roskilde
Who cried “look at me I’m about to be killed
By a triceratops
With a lollipop.
But alas, to last to sixth I am thrilled!
In the 15 years since the last slide, Lavalleja has apparently seen the movie Pacific Rim and thought “damn, that would be cool to do even if we didn’t have a kaiju to take down.” After building an army of Giant Death Robots, he set his sights on reclaiming that which was rightfully his and kicking out that damn Hiawatha once and for all. Using one nexus per city along with a substantial air force, he captures 3 cities and brings the next layer of Iroquois cities to the black. To celebrate, he set off some fireworks over Caracas. Ying Zheng and the rest of the crew aboard on the Perpetual Panamanian Passage applaud from a distance.
Unfortunately, all of the cities that Uruguay took in their initial push are reconquered by Iroquois and they also take Santa Lucia to try to assert their dominance in South America. Hiawatha isn’t just going to roll over and die here. Also, Lavalleja learns a valuable lesson in war: just because you saw it in a movie doesn’t mean it will work on the battlefield. Almost all of the Uruguayan GDRs are gone. Maybe they sank into the sea.
Iroquois takes most of Hawaii, but the two Uruguayan nexuses in the area will make it difficult to hold the islands for long. In fact, if you count air units, Zimbabwe has more military on this slide than Iroquois. That’s a pretty empty chunk of land there, Hiawatha. Maybe annex some cities.
If you can’t take them from Uruguay, try taking them from Iroquois. The Kazakhs swoop in and take Acarigua and Coro right out from under the noses of both American powers, much to the chagrin of Pacific Ocean cartographers everywhere. The hovertank horde stationed on Japan vastly outnumbers any navy being fielded in this region of the Pacific. This is exactly what happens when you don’t build units, Hiawatha.
I never saw a peace deal between Iroquois and the Kazakhs, and this declaration from the Moors just 6 turns after the one from Uruguay makes this officially another dogpile-type war against Iroquois. They just can’t catch a break, can they. The triceratops in Greenland seems to have been extincted in the Moorish capture of Laridah, but Hiawatha is sending a navy over from their core to avenge it.
Maracay looks to flip back again as the Moors push through to their historically furthest point inland in South America with their captures. This effective buffer area gives the Iroquois a lot more time to send troops down south to complete a full assortment of units for this war. Additionally, though we only see a bit of it here, the Moors have retaken many of their Caribbean cities.
Just 3 turns later, however, the Iroquois diplomats once again use their magic to negotiate peace with the Moors and Uruguay. This war was definitely a loss for them though, as they only have a city or two left in South America and have few units left in the area. In the interim, what happened to Maracaibo is a bit odd as it is now in Uruguay’s hands at the end of the war. It must have been captured by Iroquois from the Moors and then either flipped to Uruguay quickly before the peace deal or was a part of the peace deal itself. Either way, cartographers rejoice as they erase their recently drawn yellow gashes from the maps of South America. The Moors also get to keep their Caribbean islands in this peace deal, definitely a win.
A pair of Uruguayan snipers were commended in the winter of 5386 as they stole away not one, but TWO Moorish cities in North Africa as Lavalleja declared war against the Moors in that same January. This isn’t the first time Uruguayan blue has been seen in Africa, but this is the most land they’ve had in Africa in Endgame. Given that most of the Moorish units in the area are naval gives Uruguay a bit of breathing room in trying to hold these cities but it’s doubtful that this won’t do much other than annoy Abd-ar Rahman. Also of note is the number of Kazakh peacekeepers in Zimbabwe. If their strategy is to weaken Mutota over time by reducing the number of units in his borders, it's working fine, but it might be Mutota’s laziness rather than any major peacekeeping work on the Kazakhs’ part doing most of the heavy lifting on that front.
But here’s the real meat of that declaration. Uruguay has pushed the Moors off of the South American mainland and out to the Caribbean. Once Uruguay can take Caracas from Iroquois, Operation South American Reunification will be a complete success. Much like the tides on their shores, the ebb and flow of South American blue is a calming constant on the cylinder.
Also, just a heads up but Limaeus has told me that turns 972-988 got corrupted, so we’ll be doing a little bit of time travelling here and I’ll be doing a bit of guesswork to see what’s happened in our time in stasis.
Well that didn’t seem very long. In our absence, the Moors seem to have retaken the South American coast from Valencia to Las Piedras, which has lost 14 pops in the process. Also, say hello to the Kazakh units playing “I’m not touching you” out in the three tiles of international waters in the Atlantic. Once again the wars of South America have depleted the militaries of both sides, and once again almost everything that isn’t Uruguayan is puppeted.
Back to cryosleep everyone. Limaeus tells me that turns 990-1000 also got corrupted.
According to Limaeus, in the turns that got corrupted, Uruguay declared war on Iroquois and the Moors and Uruguay peaced out of their war. The Moor/Guay peace lets the Moors keep their coastal holdings for now, but that Iroquois/Guay war? Now that’s something to talk about. Uruguay has now pushed through to Central America and has renamed the operation to Operation South and Central American Unification. Conquerors they may be, but unification is another animal. Maybe go back for Maturin? Still, the progress that Uruguay has made up into Mexico is certainly unsettling if you are an Iroquois fan. Suddenly their sweeping capture of South America might have turned into their own swift loss of cities closer to home. Cartographers continue to struggle with the border gore of this portion of the map and have seemingly given the job over entirely to Ying Zheng. After drawing squiggles in the ocean, he took a more Taoist approach to settling the land dispute and has given a sea tile to each side within the others’ borders. “You know, for fun” was the only explanation anyone could get out of him before he stormed off to his cabin in a huff talking about conquests that could have been.
Lavalleja solves most of the Caribbean broder gore issue and continues the push north, including the Caribbean in Operation South and Central American Unification. Not wanting to make the name any more unwieldy, he fails to include it in the operation title. Moving the camera this far north gives us a good view at just how empty the Iroquois core is. Sustaining wars on so many fronts really takes it out of a civ. Hopefully the air units in the American South will be enough to maintain a defense.
Uruguay has captured Tiohero off-screen and Chenussio, Shis-Inday, and Ganondagan in the shot. This marks the first major claim Uruguay have had in North America since the beginning of Endgame. At this point, recapturing the Mexican path of cities down towards Uruguay proper isn’t Hiawatha’s primary goal, it’s staying un-rumped. To inspire himself, Hiawatha also watched Pacific Rim and thought “damn, that’d be cool to do”. Whether their newly created Giant Death Robots will be able to hold off the constant barrage of Guay nexuses remains to be seen though.
We haven’t been to this part of the world in a looooong time. If anybody was wondering where all of Uruguay’s units went, look no further. This is a massive buildup of units, and with almost every Uruguayan city in this shot annexed, there could be a lot more to come. Keep tabs on this part of the world, because if this border flares up there won’t be many more regions of the cylinder untouched by war. Zimbabwean Indonesia seems to have a thing for Venezuelan musketmen too, so much so that one has its own little island. How cute!
Iroquois has 6 military units on this slide. 6. That’s it. Compare that to 15 workers shown here. I guess that’s what happens when you puppet every city from Alaska to the Great Lakes to Texas. If anybody (Kazakhs *cough cough*) can break into this part of the Iroquois lands, things will go downhill for Hiawatha very fast.
Jumping 21 turns into the future (no cryosleep this time), we see that Iroquois has taken Ninstints but has lost the west coast. Uruguay’s Oceania cities are paying dividends now that they can combine the units sent from Australia and the islands with those coming up from South America. As such, there are more Uruguayan units in and around Lac la Biche than Iroquois has through til the midwest. Luckily there should be enough air power to halt the Uruguayan retreat until reinforcements arrive, if they ever do.
Though as I say they have enough air force, most of it was in Haisndayin and Saint-Laurent which just fell to Uruguay along with Ganondagan just off-screen. 6 cities in this slide are in the black and only 6 Iroquois cities in this shot can even produce units. This is not looking good for Hiawatha. If the Kazakhs actually try to do anything significant soon, it might even be lights out.
Uruguay continues pushing into the continental US taking La Baye, Fish Creek, and Onekagoncka (sorry Dawkinzz). Iroquois units have miraculously appeared just as the Uruguay military has disappeared from the area. It looks like Lavalleja is trying to split Iroquois down the middle with this strategy, and it seems to be working for now so long as they can hold what they’ve taken.
Wow. Just wow. If you look closely at the minimap, Uruguay has taken most of the United States west of the Mississippi. The next line of cities being in the black and much of the air force in this region probably dealing with Kazakh incursions probably means that Uruguay isn’t done here yet. Only 8 Iroquois land units on this slide for those of you counting along at home. Damn, Canada looks empty.
Though I doubt Alberti actually hand-counted the over 5 million pointy sticks of Ablai Khan, he does give us this very informative list. With more military than the Moors and Uruguay put together, the Kazakhs are frighteningly powerful to say the least. Granted, I’ll bet a lot of those units are hovertanks rather than nexuses, but it might not matter if they can simply smother their opponents in units in a war. I’m scared of what they might do should they break through the Iroquois lines in Alaska. Also of note, Hiawatha has half of the military of Zimbabwe. This is important for two reasons: 1) This number makes Hiawatha seem like he’s truly losing superpower status albeit slowly. 2) Zimbabwe has had maybe one major war in a couple hundred years and still has a relatively small military in the face of the other major powers. What’s up, Mutota? Please don’t tell me the production is just going into gold creation, or worse, science.
Hiawatha succeeds at pushing back the Uruguay advance very effectively. The newly conquered Uruguayan lands are almost entirely devoid of land units but boast a sizable air force. Given that the Iroquois are also not investing much in land units to recapture the southwest of their continent, these might be the borders we see for a while until each side can build back up around here. Are Uruguay making the mistake of filling up their Oceanic region with units rather than sending them into war? Or is Hiawatha just so good at killing off units with planes that they just melt in the face of his air defense?
It’s pretty easy to forget that the Iroquois have been at war with the Kazakhs this entire part. Or rather, it was easy to forget until Ablai finally nuked the absolute bejeezus out of Alaska so his hovertanks could fly into the Iroquois cities with fewer obstructions. They definitely have a ways to go if they want to truly begin the North American leg of their conquests, but after a few hundred years this is good news for the Kazakhs and bad news for the rest of the cylinder.
Hiawatha continues his military buildup while continuing to push Uruguay back down to Mexico. Crazy how a few slides ago Lavalleja’s troops were as far north as Pembina. Meanwhile, a glowing purple light hovers above the carnage. Ying Zheng’s Party Flotilla gives the performance 3 out of 5 Yings. “We’ve seen better light shows, but this was a good effort” reads the Qin review.
Alaska looks to be actually heating up as Wood Mountain, Battleford and both Gift and Green Lakes are reclaimed by the Iroquois, though Ablai Khan has a group of hovertanks that have something to say about that. There are a lot more hovertanks just across the Bering Strait, but I can’t help but think that Ablai is just toying with Hiawatha here as he could simply fill these lands with units if he wanted to.
Hiawatha seems to be looking for a large showdown at the Gulf of Mexico, but as he’s positioning his units around Shis-Inday to square off against the Uruguay forces coming from the south Lavalleja sends a series of special ops units to knock the Iroquois off their feet by taking 6 cities in one turn. This bait and switch has left Hiawatha’s significant army more or less surrounded. Should they be defeated at Shis-Inday, there won’t be much stopping Uruguay from taking everything left west of the Mississippi.
I love this slide. I love this slide more than the rest of the wars in this part because the more you look at it, the more you realize just how weird this slide really is. Zimbabwe has placed what can only be described as an army of workers in the middle of the ocean at their southern naval border with Uruguay. These workers look to be protecting a settler who has conspicuously placed himself on the front line of this formation. Is this a Zimbabwean workers’ revolt? Perhaps a peaceful mission to improve the ocean floor? Either way, they’re facing a massive Uruguayan navy that could swallow up these workers in one turn. I’m also curious as to the living situation of the citizens of Lusvingo as the entire island is covered by one massive unit. Fans of K.H.A.E.C. will be happy to see that the mission is still going strong. They’ve found a Uruguayan city, of all things, among the ice. The Moors are also trying to get in on the ice exploration craze and send their own unit to check out the cylinder’s rim, breaking the chain of Kazakh hovertanks in a way that’s just a little bit infuriating. All the while, a Venezuelan ship looks out on this nonsense and it’s crew think “maybe we’ll just sail somewhere else.”
California becomes a bit more multicultural as the Kazakhs shake up their strategy of sending hovertank after hovertank into Alaska and instead attack and capture Lac la Biche with a naval unit. Uruguay doesn’t seem like it’ll appreciate anyone stealing their spoils, especially after just now flipping Fish Creek and Haisndayin back, and Iroquois just plain don’t like having their cities taken back and forth and brought down to 1 pop, but Ying Zheng’s Party Flotilla carries on and has made new friends with a group of Zimbabwean units while enjoying their debaucherous neutrality. What’s a Zimbabwean navy doing here? Only Mutota and maybe some drunken Qin sailors know.
In what is now becoming classic Iroquois fashion, Hiawatha is able to push back the Kazakhs in Alaska by taking Cev’aq and Iyo-saijo. But, in similarly classic Kazakh fashion, there are always more hovertanks to throw at the problem. I’m happy Iroquois seem to be showing signs of life despite being battered from all angles in this part. Judging by the number of damaged Kazakh cities in this shot and the apparent drop in air units, I’d guess that Iroquois has been nuking units and cities throughout the Bering Strait, but the seeming lack of radiation on any tiles makes me question that guess. Maybe the Iroquois just have a pretty good air force. Either way, this region should definitely be interesting to keep an eye on until the Iroquois diplomats can regain their confidence.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen much of the Zimbabwe core. They have built up quite respectably since sustaining losses to the Moors earlier in the part, but they have a glaring hole in their military that most other successful armies don’t have: there are 0 nexuses here. We’ve seen Zimbabwean nexuses in other shots, so we know they can make them, but it’s unclear what is actually stopping them from doing so. I’ll also take this opportunity to point out the remnants of Benin’s UI scattered across the African continent. In a world with airdropped units, movement penalties aren’t exactly the most helpful, but it’s still nice to see what once was.
As if drawn towards the sounds of distant booms, Ying Zheng’s Party Flotilla sets out northward, but doesn’t seem to care whether those are the sounds of fireworks or nuclear missiles. Cev’aq and Iyo-saijo have flipped back to the Kazakh hovertanks and Hiawatha looks to be trying to send more units to the front lines here. In the midst of their reinforcements, some sort of magic doctor seems to be going around the Iroquois cities in the area healing up just about everything in sight. Also, I am aware that we’ve gone 100 turns in just over a dozen slides, I think the game is just moving relatively slowly and we just want to see the action.
Lime’s note: of those turns that you haven’t seen, mostly flipping if anything at all. Check out the DC for all the details.
As Uruguay and Iroquois continue to duke it out over cities with names that have a lot of “S”, “Sh”, and “day” sounds, Hiawatha decides it might be nice to give his land units a nice little Florida vacation. Call it a working vacation though, as he seems to be looking to reclaim the Caribbean from Uruguay. He’ll have to get Nowadaga now too, as it has just been captured by yet another Uruguayan yolo unit. I’m sure the Iroquois units are less than happy that nexuses keep blocking their beach views, but I’m sure they’d rather know that it’s safe to go in the water.
You know how I was complaining about Zimbabwe not having enough nexuses? No problems with that here in the heart of Uruguay’s core. With nexuses stretching from almost the very tip of the continent all the way up to San Jose de Mayo, it will be a long time before we start worrying about an empty Uruguay. Other fun tidbits on this slide include a Sami trireme learning that ice is not exclusive to the north they once knew, Zimbabwean workers in Uruguayan lands that may have broken off from the larger naval contingent of Zimbabwean workers just outside of Uruguayan waters, and a Guay settler on their way to who-knows-where in the Pacific. And… is that a peace deal?
After a literal centuries-long war and a series of other diplomatic wins, the Iroquois diplomats rack up their first major loss in a while. And what a loss it is. This isn’t just a major loss, this is a gutting of the Iroquois. I’ll save Dawkinzz (and you, the reader) the complete list of city names, but judging from this shot and the minimap Hiawatha gave up somewhere around 15 or 16 cities in this peace deal. Most of these cities hadn’t even been touched by the Kazkahs, let alone seen a Kazakh unit in centuries. This must be making Lavalleja quake with anger at the number of units he wasted trying to take these cities only to have them be snatched by the Kazakhs with little military effort. The placement of these cities also couldn’t be worse for the Iroquois as they are almost completely cut in half across the continent. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I see just 3 Iroquoian cities with air units here. If this isn’t a rumpification, it sure as hell is setting up for one.
We end this part with a look at the border gore in Greenland and Quebec as a result of the peace deal. This looks like a bad deal for just about everyone left on the cylinder that isn’t a Khan. Iroquois is shattered. Uruguay is left with Mexico, but not nearly as much flexibility in how they could invade the Iroquois core. The Moors now have Kazakh cities to contend with on both sides of their empire now. And Zimbabwe now has to worry about the Kazakhs taking south Asia now that they aren’t distracted by the Iroquois. At least there are units to fight with here for the Iroquois, maybe it’ll be a bit more defensible.
And that’ll do it for this episode of CBRX: Endgame. Once again, I’m Shaggy and I really hope you liked this episode. I’ve been wanting to do one of these since reading through Mk. 2 and I hope it went well. Huge thanks to Blue Cassette for giving me the chance to narrate this week, Limaeus for help with the narration, Dawkinzz for reading this in his dulcet tones, and to the PR team for helping out with some lesser known things about the mods used in CBRX. Stay safe, stay healthy, and Black Lives Matter.