Civ Battle Royale March 1, 2022
Random Strategy
Hello and welcome to episode 17. I am Random Strategy, you may know me as the keeper of the stats page (whose quality has admittedly lessened as of late) or as the official *best* power ranker according to the Vihreaan metric. Last episode saw the elimination of Uzbekistan, the rumpification of Finland and Malacca expanding into the Indian Ocean using the power of Jong. Many more exciting events lie in wait ahead, so let's get going.
Civ is fun when it's just a game and the only people harmed are virtual. It's distressing when scenarios from civ games start occuring in real life. Real life should not resemble a civ game. The rest of this narration was written before the invasion of Ukraine started, so I'm just using this space to express my support for the people of Ukraine and to denounce Putin for bringing war back to Europe and for threatening the world with nuclear war.
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The Chukchi retain the first place in the power rankings, due mostly to having vastly more cities and production than anyone else on the cylinder.
Here we see that more and more nations are becoming republics, with the 2 latest additions being the Neutral Confederacy and the Marajoaran League. Monarchy still remains a strong second choice.
Somewhat surprisingly, despite becoming the world’s first autocratic nation last episode, Nigeria also remains a republic. I don’t know what the trigger is that makes a civ change government, but it appears picking an ideology isn’t one of them.
One last point I would like to make is to look at Punjab, whom I was very impressed by in cycle 1 for their rather unique strategy of opening piety first and making it look strong: usually a piety first opening is a recipe for an israel-style instant rump, but Punjab found a way to make it work, and it worked well. This time around they have repeated the exact same strategy of opening piety first and thus have become a theocratic state, ruled over by priests.
Perhaps thinking of cosying up to Malacca against the Chukchi, the Dene imitate them in becoming a merchant league. It also seems there is a mass migration of Gauls heading northwards to safer lands to escape the Vandals. Finally, in the wake of Uzbekistan’s death by Punjab, the wandering Uzbek Great Prophet has anointed Kolchak as Emperor of All-Russia.
We start the episode off with a new war:, Rio Grande and the Vandals team up against Marajoara. Marajoara are currently science-turtling down in South America, so slowing them down now while their tech lead isn’t too bad is a good call for both nations. Marajoara have apparently not been using their high science on naval techs: they appear to still be on exploration tech with their UU snake canoe galleas replacement out, so they should be pretty beateable, if not by Rio (who also have bad naval tech), then at least by the Vandals. OK, I will admit being on exploration tech with a UU out is exactly the same as Malacca’s situation right now, but you need to realize that the snake canoe is not a jong, so don’t expect Marajoara to achieve the same results as Malacca.
And indeed, the Vandals fleet is more technologically advanced than Marajoara’s, fielding frigates and privateers which normally dominate the sea at this stage of the game. The only problem here is they are keeping most of it at home and the few that are crossing the Atlantic are very scattered. I also notice as musician has also boarded a frigate going into battle, to sing inspiring songs for the crew.
The Nigerian fleet have successfully captured Thaba Tseka from Lesotho, and are now moving in on Butha-Buthe. The battle on land, meanwhile, appears to be fairly stale-matey due to the jungle cover.
Malacca captures Rawalpindi and Nar Nar Goon in what I think is the 4th? war between the two that started at the end of last episode. The Kulin has frigates which, as I mentioned 2 slides ago, would ordinarily win a war of this type. However, the Kulin also had frigates last war and Malacca still won anyway because apparently jongs are apparently just that good. Faced with such an OP unit, Barak has deployed privateers with the aim of stealing and using the jongs for himself. They have already captured one of them.
A small Kulin expedition force of 3 ships assaults Kei’i’yergyn, an ex-Chukchi city that Malacca took from them.
The last relevant war from last episode was the USSR/PARG one. Frigates on both sides are fighting through a narrow chokepoint for the city of Krasnodar.
Down south, frigates in the Caspian sea bombard Kharkov, while on land soviet cuirassiers perform a reckless charge into enemy territory.
Germany has a (near-)full carpet. There’s just one problem: horsemen are a classical era unit: all they would do in a war would be to blindly charge at the first enemy and die doing minimal damage. Meanwhile the Vandals seem to be struggling with the concept of inland cities: Bibracte is protected from any attack from the sea by hills, which means the vandals have got to bring in their own siege equipment and melee troops. So far they have brought in… 1 cuirassier.
Marajoara have sent a small expedition of galleons to try and capture Andachkhrob, but the fleet has unfortunately been blocked by Gaulish borders. However, they do find a vandal frigate newly constructed in Hadrumetum so they decide to kill it instead. The Gaulish colonies here are also trying to capture Hadrumetum though without much success. To the far left the Dene are having happiness problems.
Matinados takes slight damage, but the Marajoaran navy is here to protect it.
The main 2 science turtles of cycle 1 are back at it again. Nigeria is top on tech by a small margin, and Marajoara are in 2nd.
Here we see that Germany, on top of having an outdated military, also has everything else outdated. They’re behind even the Gauls in tech! This is going to be a serious problem if they don’t fix it soon!
At the bottom we have the dead, the dying and our sub.
It’s time for round 2! The Chukchi have prepared an enormous invasion force to take on Northern Yuan. The last war went extremely well for the Chukchi, as can be seen clearly by the entire Chukchi side of the border being ex-Yuanish cities. They are evidently looking to replicate that success a second time. Joining them is Punjab, who will have a difficult trek through mountains to reach the front lines but should still be helpful.
Lesotho have recaptured Thaba Tseka, though it looks like it will continue to flip. The Nigerian fleet that had originally captured it are down to their last boat having only taken a sliver of health from Butha-Buthe.
The Kulin explorers on this slide also appear to have lied and falsely reported back that there was settleable land in africa, because why else would a Kulin settler follow them here?
Rio Grande has successfully captured Kakouagoga and are holding it securely. On the left, a stray Jong has found a scouting Kulin galeas + carrack pair.
And here is the news that Marajoara is second to an ideology. Rather than follow Nigeria in getting autocracy, something which would give them immediate military benefits in this war, Marajoara have chosen order for its science benefits to large empires. At least 1 person is unhappy enough with these new developments that they have grabbed a spear outside Ilha os Marcos.
So it turns out the Kulin trio were successful in their mission of capturing Kei’i’yergin. Unfortunately, the galleas perished during the mission.
Meanwhile, on the main front of the war, Malacca have captured Woori Yallock. The Kulin frigates are resisting as best they can but there are just SO many jongs. They are cheaper than regular boats so Malacca can just spam them out and create a veritable swarm.Oh and the west Malaccan jong fleet appears to have arrived too, back from bullying Lesothan and Nigerian islands.
After a soviet citadel, Finland only have a single tile corridor to reach the sea. They are almost an enclave of the soviets. Their best hope is to be the new Tibet, who survive through protection from the larger civ.
While the Malacca/Kulin war rages on at the bottom of the image, the Chukchi attack the small isolated Northern Yuan colony of Avarga. Usually you would build a colony like this to act as your retirement home once the rest of your civilization has been conquered. However, Northern Yuan will not have that luxury. They do manage to barter a peace with the neutrals, but somehow I don’t think the neutrals have enough influence to make civs follow their lead.
Thaba Tseka has flipped back to Nigeria and it looks like Nigeria is also slowly winning the ground war ever so slightly: the front line looks to have moved about 1 tile south since the start of the war. However Lesotho’s brand new enlightenment era units have just reached the front line, so the situation might reverse again.
The snake canoes are attacking Onguiaahra. However, the greenland Marajaoaran galleon expedition we saw earlier is getting shredded by vandal reinforcements. The Dene are making sure to protect their colony of Ounonisaton with a good up-to-date navy: the plan will no doubt be to connect it to the core at some point.
The massive Chukchi horde has crashed into Northern Yuan like a wave and have got Bayan Tumen down to the yellow. The war is being fought with equal units: crossbows, muskets and cannons vs crossbows, muskets and cannons, the difference is that the Chukchi have so many more of them.
The 2 Russias put aside their differences for the time being. The war was going nowhere what with the Urals in the way. PARG was the overall winner with the capture of Smolensk and Krasnodar.
A privateer has managed to take back Nar Nar Goon. However, Malacca just has more and more jongs; those units are just way too cheap to build. However, the Kulin are making the mistake of embarking their crossbows: against jongs, it appears that the only thing you can do is stay on land where they can’t reach you. And a line of crossbows on the shore would be very useful at thinning out the swarm.
The Dene have frigates before the Chukchi, which means they should be safe on that front for the time being. They have a pretty good core though I’d rather they have a few more musketmen standing in front of Deline and Dettah in case of a surprise Rio attack.
Here we see the array of various pacific island colonies. In cycle 1 the Kulin spent a large portion of the game cleaning them all up, only to have more spring up as soon as one was razed. This time around the Kulin are rather too occupied with Malacca to uproot these weeds growing in their backyard.
Nar Nar Goon has flipped again. However, Malacca’s indian ocean fleet does appear to have been destroyed at last. All that remains are 2 jongs attacking Eumemmerring and its 2 defensive frigates.
Another turn and the pale Chukchi horde has advanced again, getting Bayan Tumen into the red and surrounding YingChang.
And just like that, Bayan Tumen falls and Yingchang is already in the red. The Chukchi war machine is showing no signs of stopping.
It turns out fancy new enlightenment era units were not enough to turn the tide, as Nigerian ground forces have moved south far enough to start besieging Kinshasa. The cores of both civs appear to be very thin: now it’s a battle of production.
Punjab is struggling to get through the Himalayas to reach Northern Yuan. They do have a decent army, the issue is getting it somewhere useful. I would normally say that if they could upgrade their navy from galleases to frigates they would have a chance at retaking the Chola lands but, as the Kulin show, jongs are apparently better than even frigates through sheer numbers. Also PARG is evidently unhappy at Punjab getting the elimination on Uzbekistan and getting to keep their cities. They have spammed citadels all the way from Voronezh to Samarkand.
Bayan Tumen flips while Yingchang gets captured. In punishment for Northern Yuan daring to put up any resistance, the Chukchi start burning both cities down.
The Vandals have finally captured Matinados, and immediately set it to flame. Marajoara does have a settler ready to immediately resettle it it.I can’t help but be reminded how in cycle 1, the Vandals captured the Palmares capital on this exact spot.
The Vandals have also finally worked out they need ground forces to attack Bibracte. However, now they face a different problem: Bibracte has 60 defense: the units they have can’t deal enough damage to bring it down! I don’t know how the Gauls got to be this good at turtling, all I can say is that it’s doing a great job at keeping them alive for the time being.
Apparently there were even more jongs in the indian ocean as they have just arrived to start harassing Australia’s southern cities. Before they can do anything, peace is declared. Australia lost all their Indonesian holdings this time round, though the mainland is still safe. In total it’s +2 cities for Malacca overall.
In the sidebar we see the reason why peace happened this turn: the Kulin have agreed to help the Vandals in taking down top tech dog Nigeria. This is a very good idea seeing as Nigeria is currently slowly beating Lesotho and if they succeed in that conquest, then they would become unstoppable. And what’s more Nigerian troops are exhausted from long years of fighting. Lesotho itself is just glad for the reprieve and leaves to recover.
The Chukchi have captured Northern Yuan’s planned retirement home and burnt it to the ground in a show of spite. We also see that Malacca never bothered trying to get Kei’YerGyn back and the frigate privateer duo are still hanging out there.
Here we are at the front lines of the Vandal/Nigeria war and I can immediately see a problem. The Vandals forgot to bring ground forces. Sure, their Mediterranean navy looks pretty scary, even including the cylinder’s first cruisers but the only city they can attack is Port Harcourt. Meanwhile Nigeria can use their ground forces to attack the entire southern half of the Vandals.
A lone Nigerian surveyor uses the war as an opportunity to make a bold expedition into the heart of Vandal territory. In the desert of north africa, he will discover the tomb of a certain Abdelkader, containing many relics which he plunders. They will come in helpful in about 13 turns….
Marajoara has recaptured Matinados, though there are still a few Vandal ships lying in wait to re-recapture. The Vandals splitting their atlantic navy by attacking two civs at once is a pretty bad move - it would have been better to peace out with Marajoara so that the ships currently fighting Marajoara could be reassigned to fighting the Nigerian fleet.
Vandal dominance over the Atlantic is so strong that even the two small Antarctic colonies of Zama Regia and Thapsus were able to capture and burn Benin City from Marajoara right under their nose. I’m guessing they will try to capture Ilorin next.
While Nigeria approach Cirta and Bulla Regia, the Vandals immediately use their superior navy to bring Port Harcourt down to the yellow.
Matinados has yet again been captured and set aflame by one of the Vandals’ shiny new ships of the line.
Northern Yuan have flipped YingChang back, but the Chukchi horde is just pushing further, now closing in on Karakorum and Tianjing, both capitals! The Chukchi have chosen to stop burning Bayan Tumen to instead annex the city.
Here we get to see that Lesotho ended the war with Thaba Tseka, which means the war was a draw. A small Nigerian expedition of 3 galleons heads south to try and capture Thagaste. Nigeria does have very little navy remaining, so should be thankful that the scary Vandal navy is too stupid to path over here.
Port Harcourt drops down to the red but the Nigerian army is starting to siege down Cirta and Bulla Regia as the Vandal navy looks on helplessly unable to do anything.
In the sidebar, Rio Grande builds Harmandir Sahib, a renaissance wonder which gives 1 culture from merchants, 4 faith and 1 artist slot.
Yingchang is back under Chukchi control and this time they choose not to burn it. The Chukchi are now moving siege equipment into range of Karakorum. Northern Yuan’s army concentrated in two pieces around Erdene Zuu to the south and Gjilani in the north, but there’s nothing in the middle to defend the capital! It was all taken out by the Chukchi’s initial blitz!
Matinados flips again. Germany sends a group of explorers and a caravel through the warzone to map the world.
And Nigeria is the one who scores first blood against the vandals with the capture of Cirta. The Vandal conquest of Port Harcourt was delayed by the arrival of Nigeria’s red sea fleet, who then actually used the canal to enter the mediterranean. However, all this means is that the Vandal navy can start actually fighting instead of sitting there being useless. And we also see a small detachment of Nigerian cuirassiers flanking round the side to go attack Peje.
Marajoara seem to be putting a lot of effort into capturing Jimenez, the only spot of South America they don’t own… (well that and Matinados which has also just flipped again). Unfortunately the Andes protect it from attacks by land. As for attacks by sea, Rio’s Pacific navy is so far successfully holding off anything Marajoara sends at it, and I’m pretty sure that Marajoara’s Pacific navy is getting killed by the Vandal colonies of Thenae and Tripolis anyway.
And as pointed out last slide, Matinados has yet again flipped and is being burnt down. The effort is quite futile as Marajoara’s settler from earlier is still here ready to become New Matinados as soon as the former is destroyed.
The Nigerian expedition has reached Thagaste, but in the meantime 2 Vandal ships of the line to reach Aba. If you look at the health bars you can really see how much better ships of the line are over galleons: the city defenses are nearly equal but the ships of the line are doing so much better.
The Chukchi have delayed the siege of Karakorum to first grab the Taiping capital of Tianjing. In the sidebar we see two wonders. Nigeria has built the Crystal Palace, an enlightenment era wonder that gives a bonus to great people based on great works, as well as having 3 great work slots of its own. This is quite useful to Nigeria’s strategy of simply dominating the culture and science game. The Vandals on the other hand have built the Kronborg, which provides25 hp in all coastal cities and +50% production for naval units in the city it was built.This also fits quite nicely into their boat-based strategy, and is particularly useful with Nigeria sieging a few of their coastal cities right now.
Benin City is back in Marajoaran hands. The vandal reinforcements from up north did not reach the city in time. Also is it just me or does that German caravel have an extremely thick border? It looks like it’s shining.
Just 1 turn later and Karakorum has dropped from full health down to red. Sensing weakness, PARG takes the opportunity to declare war in the hopes of grabbing a few easy cities. Gjilani up north is also starting to fall too.
And here is confirmation that Tianjing has in fact fallen, though it does look like it will flip. The Chukchi military is seriously impressive: they are performing this invasion at lightning speed. A straight blitz through the middle right for the capital, followed by picking up the north and south separately.
Rio is trying to capture Michilimackinac. Unfortunately their navy of galleases and carracks is not good enough to take down 43 strength walls, so they have instead landed cannons and skirmishers on nearby islands. A small Dene fleet is also passing through though who knows where they’re headed.
Nigeria seem to have got a little too ambitious, as cuirassiers embark to try and go for Caput Vada. Hello? The sea is full of frigates, cruisers and ships of the line! The cuirassier flanker squad also ride straight past Peje to try and reach Caput Vada.They will surely die.
And there goes the capital! Northern Yuan is now split into 2 parts, Northern Northern Yuan and Southern Northern Yuan, connected only by a 1 tile passage blocked by a PARG pikeman. The new capital is Gjilani which is a particularly odd choice as the city is an ex-Kosovo puppet which is also in the black and about to be captured next turn.
The Vandals have finally managed to capture Port Harcourt… and they try to burn it down. That’s a canal city! Do you not realize how many people on the sub will hate you if you destroy it?
As predicted, Gjilani is captured and Ibrahim Rugova’s short reign as king of Northern Yuan is over. I must say the defenders of that city did a much better job than the defenders further south. Gjilani started the war as a puppet on the front lines and it took until now for it to fall. In that time the Chukchi had time to capture Karakorum even though it had to get through Bayan Tumen and Yingchang to reach it, all 3 of which were core cities, which therefore should have been better defended than some puppet.
Southern Northern Yuan has retaken Tianjing, but they won’t be able to last long against this quantity of cannons. Also Punjab’s army has finally completed its difficult trek through the mountains and are attacking Xilinhot and Erdene Zuu.
Matinados has been fully razed and Vandal cruisers have cleared the sea of almost all Snake Canoes. Now they are fighting crossbows dotting the shoreline. The Marajoaran settler has moved away back into Pacoval and I do notice the Vandals are sending over a settler of their own.
Nigeria have saved Port Harcourt and I’m sure everyone is very thankful we didn’t lose a precious canal city. The Vandals are currently struggling with positioning: all their ranged cruisers are at the front, while all their melee ships of the line are at the back, which means they can’t get a unit in to actually recapture Cirta even though it’s being kept at low health by constant bombardment.
PARG capture Shangdu and all that’s left of Northern Northern Yuan is Zalantun. It’ll be a race between PARG and Chukchi who will actually take it.
Marajoara are finally making progress on Himenez thanks to a well placed trebuchet. Now the issue is actually getting a melee unit in there. The seas are still controlled by Rio and the Vandals.
It’s now a 3 way race to see who can grab the last few Northern Yuan cities. Chukchi has its vast number of cannons and muskets that obliterated the rest of Northern Yuan and can easily finish the job. Punjab has a musket cannon pair working on Xilinhot, as well as a few more advanced skirmishers moving up. And PARG has a bunch of melee units rushing in to try and snipe something.
The Vandals have recaptured Port Harcourt and this time they are playing nice and not burning it down. Nigeria is now moving its cannons to Bulla Regia.
Well look what we have here! The Kulin expeditionary forces are showing up to actually help in the war against Nigeria! It’s true that the ground forces are taking a well-earned break in allied Lesotho, and the admiral who was supposed to be leading the fleet managed to get lost near Madagascar, but at least the fleet is about to arrive (and immediately die)
I would also like to point out that Lesotho has riflemen and cavalry.
Jimenez falls at last as a cuirassier somehow manages to get through the andes to the city. Rio still control the sea outside it so should be able to flip it back. However, in the Caribbean, vandal ships have either moved away or been destroyed, and without them to carry Rio’s fairly pathetic outdated fleet, Marajoara now look to have the upper hand.
Here we see Germany’s naval core, which is powerful enough to be a civ in its own right, and is actually looking a lot better than Germany’s land core despite not containing the capital. The naval core is indeed filled with frigates and ships of the line, powerful enlightenment-era units that should be able to win most wars of this era. Much better than the horrendously outdated horsemen that occupy the land core (and greenland) . The two cores are separated by Alesia and Porvoo and if I were Germany I would try to connect my two cores by invading the Gauls.
We can also spy that with a second citadel, Turku is now a full enclave of the USSR.
Punjab does end up making gains in this war after all, by capturing Xilinhot. I’d say they were the most deserving of it: after all they did join this war right at the start and were the ones to shell it down with their cannon.
So it turns out that, despite having 3 settlers close by, Marajoara lost the race to resettle the tip of Brazil.Tipasa will undoubtedly continue the flipping started by Matinados. But for now the Vandal cruisers head over to… wait… they head off to Matinados… which has been resettled, not on the tip of Brazil where the original was but on Barbados. Is Matinados some rude word in Vandalic or something? They clearly have something against that city name.
What’s that on the right hand side of the screen?
Among the relics the surveyor had plundered from the tomb of Abdelkader of Algeria, was an interesting manuscript. After translation, it turned out to be Abdelkader’s own copy of “How to Fight Wars Good”, with many additions and notes by Abdelkader himself. One of the key ideas of the manuscript was to be extremely generous with promotions, so that everyone could be in charge of the military. Not ones to question the wisdom of the ancients, Nigeria immediately promoted every single sailor of their small navy to admiral.
In case you’re wondering about the real explanation of how did Nigeria get so many admirals in 1 turn: it’s an RtP bug and it will be fixed by next episode; the great admirals will also be deleted.
Zalantum and Hohhot are both getting taken down by the combined Chukchi and PARG armies. It remains to be seen which one will end up with the city in the end.
The Vandals have finally managed to get their ships of the line in position to retake Cirta. Of course Nigeria immediately flipped it back and we can probably expect it to continue flipping until the war is over, or at least until the vandals figure out they need to be building line infantry. Meanwhile Bulla Regia is going down fast due to the number of cannons surrounding it.
Northern Yuan has 2 cities on no health and 1 in the red. I do notice that the Chukchi have open borders with both their allies of PARG and Punjab, which is good as it avoids their troops being flung away whenever an ally captures a city.
And the Rio+Vandal vs Marajoara war is finally over. Rio did manage to keep Jimenez and the Vandals did successfully capture New Matinados before the end. So the end result is Rio up 1 city and the Vandals up 2 cities. While Marajoara certainly lost this war, they didn’t take much damage: they are still first in science and will soon overtake Nigeria in overall tech, so the science turtle strategy is still going fine. All they have to do is use that science to get some actually useful techs (such as better navy) and they should be able to do better in a future war.
PARG goes before Chukchi in the turn order so it is they who manage to grab both Zalantum and Hohhot. Northern Yuan have just 1 city left; the only way for them to survive now would be 3 seperate peace deals.
But they won’t get it. The Chukchi eliminate Northern Yuan in 17th place. Total gains: Punjab 1, PARG 3, Chukchi 7.
Northern Yuan were actually ranked 1st before the game started, due to their spacious siberian start. While they did successfully settle their space, they always had one very major problem throughout their existence: tech. Northern Yuan spent the entire of cycle 1 seriously behind in the science game. They were dead last to ideology by a long shot (excluding rumps and civs that were already dead) and this lack of key techs such as industrialisation also hurt their production. Later on, they would stop researching techs altogether and ended cycle 1 still on atomic-era/early information-era units. This made wars very difficult. Southern Yuan was one of the only nations with worse tech than them so that’s where they ended up conquering, though it was a slow and difficult process: Northern Yuan’s usual tactics involve spamming so many citadels that the opponent has no land left to store troops. They were also able to pick up some inland Japanese colonies. Their relationship with PARG was strained: PARG even captured Karakorum for a while, though Northern Yuan was eventually able to push them all the way back when PARG started having economic difficulties of their own. In total war they again used their citadel spam tactic against Taiping, but got utterly demolished by Malacca, saved from elimination only by the bell. One civ that had curiously never troubled Northern Yuan in cycle 1 was the Chukchi, and this was pretty lucky as the Chukchi could have stomped them. In cycle 2, this is exactly what we saw: despite no longer having all the advantages of future worlds tech, over the course of 2 wars the Chukchi just came in and blitzed through the entirety of Northern Yuan extremely fast and efficiently. I’m not sad to see them go. Failing to research any tech at all is one of the worst mistakes you can make in civ, one that should end with you getting utterly demolished by anyone remotely competent. The demolition by Malacca in cycle 1 was frustratingly cut short so I am happy to see it happen again, except this time by the Chukchi.
All 3 cities involved swap hands, as Nigeria retake Port Harcourt, the Vandals retake Cirta, and Bulla Regia falls for the first time.
No longer distracted by Marajoara, the Vandal navy is able to capture Aba. It turns out that vast number of great admirals can’t actually do anything to stop an invasion fleet, who’d have thought it? The Kulin expeditionary forces have made the mistake of straying outside of Lesotho waters where they can be attacked by melee ships.
In the sidebar we see that the Chukchi have made peace with Northern Yuan to spare their last settler that was escaping the battlefield. However, don’t get your hopes up that the settler will one day resurrect Northern Yuan: it was last seen in Punjab territory and Punjab has not made peace…
All 3 cities on the front line flip yet again. I will note that the Vandals have landed cannons and cuirassiers, which are not really the best at protecting cities from land but at least it’s better than nothing. Also, in case you forgot about it, this part the Vandals were not just at war with science turtle Marajoara and science god Nigeria, they were also trying to invade regular-turtle Gauls. We unfortunately do not get to see how well the Vandals are doing vs Bibracte but we can probably assume poorly since it isn’t shown.
If when you first saw this slide, you immediately thought “oh no, not another episode that ends with a Malacca/Kulin war”, well have no fear, this time, for the first time in cycle 2, Malacca and the Kulin are ending a part at peace. This slide we merely get to see Malacca’s new gains, as well as notice that they are yet again completely full of jongs. The Kulin should use this peace as an opportunity to clean out the undefended colonies from the Pacific like they did last time, instead of messing around with whatever they’re doing in Africa.
The final slide of the episode is a view of the Dene core, which is pretty much unchanged since the start of the episode.
Over the course of these 25 turns, we saw yet another Malacca vs Kulin war, the Vandals fighting 3 civs at once with a couple of relatively useless allies, and of course the complete obliteration of Northern Yuan. Tune in in 2 weeks time to see what happens in episode 28.