Civ Battle Royale ← African Scramble, or The Darkened Continent, or Dial L for Lesotho, or Amazon Prime Shipping, or Vandalized! (or The Episode with Five Names) Episode 32: The More Things Change →
May 04, 2022
BloodyAltima
The ocean bleeds great powers dry, as massive naval forces clash across the cylinder.
Hello, and welcome back to the biweekly wars of idiot colors. I’m Bloody Altima, u/daemonnic on reddit, power ranker and writer of a couple episodes back in C1. Where last we left, Lesotho was leading a coalition against Vandalism, Marajoara was really starting to flex its tech lead, the Gauls did a snipe, and the Soviets managed to fumble the German war they started. Those first two will be rather important as we begin.
There are two reasons you can attribute Malacca’s low force deployments on the African front: A rational need to keep Chukchi in check, or an equally rational desire to just chill on a beach. OrangeChristy has chosen the funnier one.
And here’s u/Yaampa with more wonderful OC for the biweek.
A warm thank-you to all our generous donors who make this all possible.
Chukchi holds onto the first place again, and while it's still a universal hold, there have been murmurs of discontent, of doubt, born of a rising faith in Marajoara.
We’ll see how that lasts when this episode ends. That isn’t meant as an ominous statement, I am genuinely interested to see how people evaluate the two by the end of this.
We return to Ranjit Singh making peace with Wilhelm, having retaken the city he lost to a Portuguese Peace earlier in the cycle. Where one war ends, another begins; P’kuee declares war upon the Gauls in a war that probably won’t go anywhere. There’s kinda a lot of Vandals in the way.
Unrelatedly, the PARG rifle divisions are absolutely not advancing into Vandal territory, because that would be a terrible idea. They’ll just hold this pass, thank you very much.
The Basotho army marches upon the gates of Hippo Regius. Little stands in their way save for a fascinatingy large deployment of field cannons outside of Abuja. Seriously Genseric, real people are fielding artillery now, get with the times.
The Mediterranean is far from its previous heights of, “flooded with ships.” Instead, North Africa is flooded with planes. That alone stands to hold the Basotho advance back quite a bit- the Lesotho have no air force in theater to intercept with.
This peek into the Basotho core reveals that while their army is very modern and still quite strong despite essentially two hundred years of back-to-back major power wars, their navy is still very lacking, built mostly of obsolete frigates with black powder cannons. That’s something that should probably be corrected at some point. Off-screen, Catina flips back to the Vandals, also a problem to fix.
Not that Moshoeshoe cares much; he has learned to love the bomb, and that brings a joy that distracts from one’s weaknesses.
Within eye’s reach of Malacca (the city) itself on the map, a massive force of Chukchi ships rests, locked in eternal vigilance against its opposite Malaccan number. This is a powderkeg. It will erupt, and when it does, the ocean will burn.
Off screen, Catina flips back to Lesotho.
Abuja and Catina both flip control to their opposite numbers, presumably more because of Genseric’s complete air superiority than those ulhans. Interestingly, this lets Marajoara back into the ground fighting again after Moshoeshoe’s initial conquest of Catina locked them out.
The Marajoaran push up Central America continues at a slow, grinding pace. The rough terrain and lacking naval presence hampers their advance, as does the fact that they are also fighting Vandal boats who split off from the African front.
Kolchak bails out of the Coalition Against Vandalism, with no territory changing hands. He only joined the war in the hope of building allies against the Soviets, like hell was he going to actually waste men and material fighting it.
The Vandals hold Catina reasonably tightly, as the Lesotho expend most of their forces failing to damage Hippo Regius and lightly holding Abuja. Now, the forces holding Catina are fairly obsolete- again, Field Cannon- but they are forces that should not have had a chance to form up nonetheless.
The Kulin and Malaccan front sits calm for now. While Malacca’s navy vastly outnumbers the small Kulin fleet, it is held in check by needing to hold the Chukchi in check, and so, Fortress Australia sits unmarred for now.
Off screen, Malacca takes some Vandal Arabic holdings, because they are in fact a part of the Coalition Against Vandalism.
Rio Pushes back a bit against the Marajoaran advance, cutting off the push towards Kakouagaga and clearing the Gulf with help from Vandal battleships. This is why you build a navy.
My favorite Schrodinger's civ Punjab denounces PARG, perhaps hinting at violence betwixt the two later. A pity that such warfare will be crippled by the mountains.
Still, this gives a good shot at the Punjab core, full of modern units (some of which aren’t even artillery!) and host to a growing air force. I only hope they take the chance to be interesting with it before that chance is taken from them.
The Soviet core is fairly sparse of units, but what forces they have are modern and strong, and their skies too are starting to fill with planes. Of course, that’s not what Lenin cares about right now. He’s busy learning to love the bomb.
Marajoaran forces push back the Rio counter-push, though the seas are still contested. P’kuee is perhaps distracted by her love of the bomb, and the fruit it has planted in Michilimackinac.
Elsewhere, her forces take Catina, opening up an avenue for them to push into Vandal territory by land, to join the Lesotho in their assault on North Africa- and hopefully, to actually damage a city.
The powder keg erupts. Yanrakynot is already significantly damaged, as Malaccan forces attempt to push back the Chukchi fleet as much as they can now before its numbers grind them down. On the mainland, things look dire for Balakot and its small garrison, and worse for off-screen Jintian.
The Vandals send a large fleet to push against the South American mainland again, putting Tipasa once more in the line of fire. The Kulin also have a small fleet present, including an adorable privateer almost dead from the shelling of actual battleships.
Balakot and Enmelen are both bombed and bombarded into, the Chukchi air force bringing both low in advance of the fleet and army. Jintian falls, a forgone conclusion. On the seas, battleships and cruisers war against ironclads, a vestige of the Jong spam of older eras.
Seeing his rival Russian dictator pull out of the CAV like cowards, Lenin throws his hat in the ring. The fact that it’ll let him take Frankfurt after botching it in the German war is purely icing.
The Malaccan navy manages to swing Yanrakynot from under the Chukchi fleet. While a lot of the most immediately nearby Chukchi ships seem to have sunk in the initial clash, there’s still plenty enough privateers alone near enough to contest the capture.
Like so. Balakot falls shortly afterwards as well, with Kelang already taking damage.
The more eagle-eyed of you may have noticed on the minimap that the Vandals flipped Catina. Well, Lesotho flipped it back. P’kuee seethes as she is locked out of the land-war once more.
That anger is short-lived, as her forces finally push deeper up the isthmus, taking Kakouagoga with PJ’s and rocket artillery barrages. Hannover shows signs of having flipped at some point, and a (daring and probably futile at this juncture) assault on Florida and the inland city of Reynosa has begun. The winds are blowing clay.
Malacca flips Yanrakynot again, and their battleships begin arriving on the front. This victory comes at the costs of Enmelen and Tsetserlig, the latter of which looks harder to retake as-stands.
Offscreen, the Vandals retook Catina again.
Mansur leaves the CAV to focus on the Chukchi invasion, keeping the Vandalic Arabic city he conquered and grabbing another one from the peace treaty. Modest successes help keep hopes up in trying times.
The Marajoaran army begins assaulting Matamoros. If they can take it, that would grant them full access to the Rio capital of Laredo. The space between the cities is just one long machine gun nest, so it won’t even be that terrible given the tech disparity involved (side note, machine guns to rocket launchers is the most baffling upgrade chain in Civ V IMO).
Simultaneous to that, a massive cloud of embarked units is beginning an assault on Hannover with intent to flip it again. That’ll be a bloodbath, but it might well succeed given the ruined Rio fleet. Also, Catina flipped to Marajoara offscreen.
Yank falls again, as Kelang, one of the core Malaccan cities, falls. There are forces ready to contest both, but it’s still a bad sign for the future war effort. Watching the Chukchi border get closer and closer to Punjab has made Ranjit Singh learn to love the bomb.
As a show of support for a fellow member of CAV, Moshoeshoe declares war upon Rio Grande. He has zero intent to actually follow through in any meaningful way, but he’ll let Antonio sweat just a little bit more.
As a fun aside, the Australian civ built the Sydney Opera House.
The war for North Africa grinds on, with no meaningful changes as the Lesotho fail to even scratch any of the Mediterranean cities. CAV finds more success in Europe, with the USSR taking Frankfurt and putting damage on Cologne.
Knowing full well that the safety of his South American holdings rests entirely at the whims of P’kuee, William Barak joins in her war against Rio. Maybe he’ll grab some coastal or island cities from the cowboys, but really, the goal here is just to stay in the good graces of a superpower.
Matamoros falls, leaving only a small machine gun-filled gap between Laredo and the front lines. Hannover takes damage from embarked units, although a naval force is ready to defend it. Marajoaran PJs are pushing further inland from Florida.
Rokan’s defenses lie in the red, although local forces on the island stand ready to retake it should it fall. Meanwhile, a Malaccan army has massed just out of Kelang ready to retake it. Just out of view, Nar Nar Goon falls.
Offscreen, the Vandals retake Abuja. It will flip again next turn.
Wilhelm packs the Bulge full stormtroopers, cavalry, and artillery. The Soviets had eroded at it with citadels of their own, but he figured if he just stuffed it full of men it would look bigger. His generals did their best to maintain dignified, serious expressions while arranging it all.
Thanadelthur tried to sit Wilhelm down and explain to him why everyone was making fun of the Bulge. She explained the phallic implications, showed him the ‘notices your bulge’ copypasta, and made it clear to him that, as a mass citadelling of a larger power, it looked very insecure.
So Wilhelm declared war on the Dene.
Fresh from making peace with the Vandals, P’kuee decided to join him. Hey, now that they’re making progress on the Rio invasion, maybe they’ll have a land border when it's all said and done.
Catina winds up in Lesotho hands after a series of off-screen flips, which gives us a good view of Marajoara’s lack-of gains from the peace treaty. We can also see that Genseric made peace with Lenin at some point, losing only Frankfurt.
Large numbers of units from both belligerents stand outside the gates of Abuja, currently held by the Vandals and a shoestring. Lesotho PJs and rockets against Vandal artillery and cavalry.
A random PARG armored train watches this all from a Marajoaran citadel. Its drivers wonder how they got here.
Kelang and Rokan were reconqered off-screen, but they have been re-reconquered by the Chukchi. Large naval forces from both belligerents are pushing into the archipelago, although Malacca’s reinforcements are further away.
Hannover falls to a successful amphibious invasion. Rio forces are still holding the Marajoaran invasion back on the Floridian front, but Laredo itself may fall soon.
Laredo falls. Antonio regroups his government to Quinaoutatoua, as far from the Marajoaran front as he can get while still basing in a nearby major city.
Kelang and Rokan continue to flip, although nearby Malaccan forces are heavily depleted including naval elements.
As he sat down the pen, Antonio knew it was over. Half his nation now flew the Marajoaran flag. There was no coming back from this. It was just a matter of how long he’d be able to cling to life before P’kuee decided to finish what she started.
Genseric felt far less sorrow at his treaty with the Lesotho. The coalition had taken a toll on his empire, but it was still mostly intact; nothing core had been lost. His chances had lowered, he’d lost a lot of men and material, but at no point was a Mediterranean city even scratched. It’d be a long-shot for him to swing the win now, but there was still a chance- and that’s just how he liked it.
The Marajoara safeguard their technical supremacy for the immediate future by building a Great Firewall around their major technical institutions, while a veritable carpet of PJs safeguards the conventional security of the continent. It’s interesting how they’re one of the few civs to have built a true carpet through Unit Limits.
While the fight for Kelang continues on, Rokan is decidedly conquered. Bintan and Singapura look next on the docket, and the thinned Malaccan navy looks vulnerable to that assault.
Hey Marajoara has a tile of Denesian border now. That’s fun.
Bintan and Singapora fall. An army rallies to take back Bintan, and naval units are in reach of Singapora to contest the loss.
Morenshoe reaches the Information era. Not that his navy shows it, with all its frigates. At any rate, despite going through a brutal war of attrition with the Vandals, his army is already rebuilding, filling out a decent chunk of southern Africa.
You could walk from Asia to North America just by crossing Chukchian reserve fleet ships, from Ichuvuveyem to K’agee.
As Lutetia burned, Wilhelm began to wonder if he was maybe actually not really prepared for the war after all.
The Chukchi fleet continues to grind their way through the archipelago, and their army does what it can to harass the rallying Malaccan forces.
So the Vandals and the Germans both decided that it was high-time to clean up the last European runt. That both really needed a good win right now was purely an incidental factor.
In a single fell swoop, the Vandals capture both Alesia and infamous superfortress Bibracte. The Gauls aren’t dead yet, they still have their Finnish city, and will hold it to the end of the episode. Presumably because neither the Germans nor Vandals can get through the Soviet borders that engulf the city.
Speaking of the Soviets, they’re at war with PARG again. The Gauls join in as well for some reason.
Here we get our initial view of the front lines of this upteenth Russian meatgrinder. Both sides look fairly evenly matched, the USSR has an air force built up in theater but PARG has the Urals defending them. Expect a lot of dead men.
The fighting continues as the Malaccan navy regroups and the army retakes Kelang again.
The Southernmost Soviet City and Being Randomly Completely Indefensible: an iconic team.
Marajoran destroyers assault and take Dene Ounonisaton. Lutetia is burned to the ground, a charred monument to Wilhelm’s inadequacy.
Singapura is taken back, at the cost of Kelang. The Malaccan army rallies on the mainland to push back into Bintan. Neither side is backing down.
Omsk, the PARG capital, is bombed into the black, and Soviet Smolensk in the north is attacked. Lines start drawing, with superior PARG numbers focusing on Samara.
The symbolic Rio-Lesotho war ends with no territory exchanging hands. All that remains of that great, sundering war is a handful of Kulin ships and men dying in ill-coordinated attacks.
As Marajoara ships assault Cenabalum, the Dene people force Thanadelthur to reorganize their government around the… we’ll call them the principles of Fascism, hoping that rallying around a single, strongman leader will let them focus their efforts to hold off the invaders. The reality of course is that even if Marajoara takes the city, the invasion will likely stop there owing to Chukchian borders by sea and a one-tile chokepoint by land.
William Barak and Morshoesho, sensing Masur Shah’s weakness, desiring to regain lost territory, join Lawtiliwadlin in warring against him. Thus formed the Jong Destruction Coalition. On the Australian front, Malacca could maybe hold off the Kulin if they weren’t also fighting the Chukchi.
On the Lesotho front, while the Lesotho fleet is still sad and pathetic (they’re only just upgrading their frigates to cruisers!) it’s still another front Malacca would have to pull forces away from the Chukchi front to defend. The Arabian holdings and Kannaga are of course just doomed.
Barak makes peace with Antonio to focus on the more important war against Malacca.
More PARG cities suffer bombing, but neither side has a strong position on ground.
Malaccan forces are pushed back across Africa as Basotho PJs push on all fronts with the exact sort of aggression you’d expect from men who jump out of airplanes.
Woori falls back to its old masters. The Malaccan navy turns to face the advancing Kulin forces, but must cede the archipelago to the Chukchi to do so.
The grind continues. A number of cities are in the red, but no one’s really in a strong position to take advantage of that.
Singapura continues to flip, and Rawalpindi starts taking damage. Malacca benefits heavily from Singapura’s position- the forces that defend it from Chukchi forces can also defend from Kulinic ones.
Kanaga will fall, and Jos won’t be far behind.
Lesotho is heavily focusing on Maputsoe on the Madagascan front, although other forces are deployed to keep other islands busy. Carriers bearing atomic fruits stand ready to share Moshoeshoe’s love.
The Marajoaran core is just as dense with manpower as it was last we saw it, and flush with extremely populous cities, especially their capital Camutins and its 71 pop. It’s just a question of where they’ll point all this murder next.
And Maputsoe falls, and as surrounded as it is it’ll take some effort to retake it.
Kulin push into the core, bringing Rawalpindi to the yellow with a small destroyer detachment. They’ll likely need to send more forces if they want it to stick.
Soviet forces make some small progress in the north, getting a landship in range to flip Ufa. Meanwhile, a regular horde pushes down on Samara, though the city itself is undamaged.
Cenebalum is still under siege, and is even slightly damaged, though much of the force arrayed against it is submarines that won’t be of much use against the city itself.
We end this episode with a glimpse at the Kulin’s core. Superfortress Australia looks a lot more secure with it’s most direct threat under a siege of its own, and also with all these Marajoaran PJs holding ground for the Kulin.
Of the non-Marajoarans, Lesotho takes the military lead. It’s relatively slight tho. Chukchi spent a lot of manpower fighting Malacca. Marajoara of course utterly dominates this chart, even with the grind of their wars. You saw those peacekeepers in Australia, and this is with unit limits on. I’m honestly impressed. And scared.
Malacca has fallen below Germany in manpower, and is fighting both the second and third largest militaries on the cylinder. Even the Kulin have pointier sticks.
Both their wars have been real good for the Marajoaran and Chuckhian city counts, with both gaining exactly ten cities this episode. Fun. Also, if you zoom in real good at the bottom, you’ll see the Gauls still have a city.
The gap between the highest production and the second highest narrows. For everyone else, the gap grows. Notably, Malacca has about the same production as the Kulin, which is about half the Lesotho, and a fifth the production of the Chukchi.
And that’s the episode, ended once more in a cliffhanger of a war between Malacca and Kulin. As a recap-
-The Coalition against Vandalism tore apart the edges of the Vandal empire.
-Rio collapsed under Marajoaran assault.
-The Gauls were condemned to Finland.
-The Russians are at it again.
-The Germans lost a city in a war they started. Classic Wilhelm. In that same war, P’kuee sniped a colony from the Dene.
-Malacca is actively being coalition’ed.