Civ Battle Royale June 02, 2021
CelestialDalek
241
In which we learn the two stupidest leaders on the cylinder, why you should never accept a peace deal from the Marajoara, and why fish is better raw.
Hello everyone! I’m sorry about the episode being late (it was severely delayed due to an appointment), but it’ll be worth it. I’m also your host, CelestialDalek. I have a rather useless Reddit account that I barely use, so I’m really just on the Discord. Clocking in at too many words, I’ve spent a lot of my sanity on doing this. To future narrators: do not put an arbitrary word limit on each of your scenes. Not worth it.
All of the OCs this week were about the PRs being late, but that’s over now as the PRs have been released. Look at this, I guess, and RIOT!
As usual, we have the tile-accurate map by u/Vihreaa, which is, as always, the staple of any CBR fan’s viewing experience as you don’t have to strain your eyes on the minimap to see minimal-effect cities flipping anymore!
We don’t have another map, but we do have Malacca in the Middle. The attack on Hejaz’s coast has worked out a bit, but will they be able to sustain it? Maybe, but maybe not.
Punjab continues to be ranked as the top civ on the cylinder, and it’s showing with all of their cities and army. It’s easy to see why, but the PRs have already gone over this in their writeup, so take a look at it if you haven’t already.
And we’re off with the Chukchi and Chinook continuing their clash, as the Chinook found Cathlamet in the center of the confrontation, certainly crazy. Cadly, I can’t ceep doing chis.
The founding of Cathalmet in an active war zone is interesting at best, especially given that Chinook’s navy consists mainly of work boats with the ability to attack. Their poor navy isn’t close to the battle area, but it isn’t all that far either. Note that Cathalmet had been settled earlier but the city name is being reused as the original was razed. We can also see that Japan is in a golden age.
New Netherlands and Rio Grande, in a war that recently started, are fighting a lot in the Caribbean. Needless to say, New Netherland is winning with carracks and galleasses against triremes. Quite a few units are marching from Rotterdam to Monclova, and due to the former Rio Grande city of Saltillo being owned by Mississippi, Rio Grande has to go around the sea just to get to Monclova. Obviously, with the New Netherland navy being more advanced, this is problematic. Ciudad Meier is also taking quite a bit of damage. It’s not a big city, but losing it would still be a huge moral loss.
To confirm, Aghat was indeed taken in the last episode, as a lot of evidence shows. It looks like some Tuareg units tried to retake it but obviously failed. Kidal hasn’t been dented yet, luckily for Tin Hinan, but Burkina Faso has units advanced enough that it should be easy enough to take if they focus. However, this is an AI game, so they aren’t going to focus. Two Sicilies has a terrifyingly large fleet, and due to their UA it can only get better. I can’t find how close they are to the next naval tech, though.
Hong Xiuquan’s heavenly forces advance as Xian burns. The Yuan have sent some units to take it back, but they haven’t sent enough to actually retake it against the Heavenly Kingdom’s army. As such, Xian is going to be yet another burnt patch on the map soon enough. Up north, PARG’s forces are cracking at Northern Yuan, with some troops going from their city of Kansk to Erdene Zuu. It doesn’t really look like Mandukhai is entirely prepared for this push, as the front line around it consists of her trebuchets.
A Malaccan fleet is roaring towards Hejaz’s seaside colonies. There are already quite a few ships fighting around them. Of course, Malacca is infinitely more prepared than Hejaz, having much better ships and units. Hussein bin Ali has ordered the navy to move out to where the ships are coming from, but the triremes are just getting hit over and over by Jongs. Malacca has enough of a navy to sustain this attack for a long time, but will Hejaz be able to somehow stop it?
Manchu is undeniably on death’s door. A horseman looks to be able to take Hetu Alu, and if that fails the Carrack sitting nearby will be the backup plan. There’s no conceivable way that this can fail, given how airtight the plan of “moving a melee unit three tiles” is generally. I’ll be very annoyed if the Manchu comes out of this alive. The advance of Hong Xiuquan through Yuan is worrying. Xian hasn’t burned yet, but it hasn’t been retaken. The Changmaos are advancing, and with their combat boost on pillaged tiles they can be even better than before.
The area around Tahiti’s capital, in what would be their core, is pretty much barren. Their magical teleporting settlers aren’t exactly doing them much good. Instead, it’s a dump for far-flung penal colonies and exploring triremes. Needless to say, Purea’s two cities over here are not exactly well-fortified. Some Kulin forces, going through the burning city of Sanjo, are heading up towards the Japanese core cities. I don’t think that what they want will amount to much of anything, though, as Japan is a long ways away and they could just go for peace.
The New Zealand colonies of Tahiti have been fully razed, as could be seen on last episode’s minimap. The Kulin look about to resettle one of the cities, but with the elimination of Purea’s most far-flung colonies her sphere of influence has decreased. This seems to be a hub for forces that obviously are trying to go to Japan, as there’s a flotilla of units that seemingly aren’t doing anything. They do look to be northbound based on the general direction of nearby units, and I’m pretty sure that Japan is the only important war that far north.
Kolchak continues his spree up north against Northern Yuan by attacking Bayanbulag and pushing units through. It looks like PARG can actually do something here, especially with the fact that units can just pop out of the woodwork with Kolchak’s production value. It’s slow and grinding, but it’s starting to work out better and better. Ikh Kuree could fall after that, but the gains are going to be delayed due to the fact that Kolchak is having trouble with trying to do war correctly.
As we can see, a very important war declaration happens as Zaire declares war on Kurdistan, which I’m sure is totally going to go somewhere. Perhaps Zaire is revolting at the lack of Kurdistan slides and has decided to take a brute force approach over it.
Punjab’s forces seem to be doing rather well. The Bhutanese forces have mobilized to try and defend, but the Himalayan campaign has failed. While Kapurthala was in the yellow last episode, it bounced back with the technologically superior forces being brought in by Ranjit Singh. Punjab definitely has a good chance at Thimpu given their nigh-infinite reinforcements available, but with the AI anything is impossible. Thimpu is definitely an easy city to take given the comparative size of both armies. It looks like Laos has a decent-sized army in the mountains despite throwing so many units against Vietnam.
Rather surprisingly, the Three Affiliated Tribes are doing something! It looks like they, in their war against the Chinook, have damaged Nemah. Somehow. I don’t think anyone else could have damaged it based on their war list. They probably won’t take it, but they tried. Meanwhile, in the clash of North American civs who have not lost wars miserably, Mississippi is doing a significant amount of damage to K’agee. Sadly, we can’t see how the Chinook are doing on the other side of their empire, but rest assured they’re still losing.
Malacca’s navy has made landfall on the Arabian peninsula with the capture of Al Jumum. Hussein bin Ali’s navy has been smashed into dust by the Jongs flying at them. Their budget has been spent on a subpar military, leaving nothing for naval advancements. It doesn’t even look like Al Jumum flipped to a lot of units, but even more are on the way including even more land units. Luckily for Hejaz, Al Jumum is going to be taken back for sure, but that’s not much reassurance.
Practically, Windhoek has already fallen. We talk about horrible peace deals happening, but really those are just bad outcomes from a sea of good ones. They happen more than they’d like, but a peace deal could happen here and save them - it just has a very high probability of not happening. Zaire has a very advanced army to crush the rest of Namibia with, the question is whether or not they will push on from Windhoek to Butha-Buthe and Bethanie. They could take Bethanie if they had some melee naval units, but as such they only really have a fleet of galleasses to bombard it and are still unlikely to go down to go at it.
The Manchu have sadly survived, as the Yuan horseman looks to have either gone back near the capital or died. The Sao continues to be shooting at Hetu Alu, but is on the verge of sinking. A carrack sitting behind the Sao has the opportunity to take it, however, as part of the backup plan previously. If the backup plan fails, Manchu survives. Undeserved.
On the sidebar, we see Gran Colombia declare war against Peru-Bolivia, although the mountain passes around Lima will make eliminating Peru-Bolivia more difficult. Gran Colombia definitely has potential here.
The Vandals seem to be moving a large amount of ships to back up their original fleet pounding at the Palmares capital. It’s clear that the Palmares have nothing to gain from this war, given how the Vandals are crushing their navy, so the large carpet won’t be useful in this war except for flipping. In fact, the Vandal’s gains are going to be mainly possible from either peace deals or exhausting a ton of time and troops to destroy the carpet via flips. The latter is very unlikely to work, however. They could go for the land route if they manage to hold on to Macaco after taking it, as a pikeman makes a successful landing on South America. It’s going to die, but it tried to do something.
Uzbekistan continues to funnel their knights through that tiny gap to deal quite a bit of damage to Sukhumi. It’s going to be tough to keep it if they take it, though - the Georgian navy in the Caspian Sea is good enough to flip a lot. Luckily for the chances of Uzbekistan, they have a lot of units to push through the gap.
Perm seems to have their unique unit - Geoguessr! I’m sure there’s a symbolic choice there, but you have to admit the resemblance.
It was a foregone conclusion, but Windhoek falls. The proximity of Namibia’s army as well as their tech level proves that there’s absolutely no chance at getting it back. It looks like the army will indeed try to move on to Butha-Buthe. Lesotho’s core is looking very nice as well, with plenty of units to back up any expansion that they may decide to undergo. However, their opportunities are limited, as they’re kind of boxed in by Zaire. They also seem to be citadelling Namibia some good amount.
Simon Bolivar has decided to circumvent shovelling units through the Andes by shovelling naval units through the one tile port at Lima. That said, this isn’t a bad decision with all of the naval ranged units that Gran Colombia is fielding in the vicinity. Given how Peru-Bolivia is extremely weak, they have a good shot at taking the city with just the units that they have there already. I don’t think that Santa Cruz can really save himself bar an extremely unlikely peace deal. Note that Marajoara has some musketmen barely visible.
Kolchak’s army decides to stop fighting Northern Yuan for just a minute to snag a city from Southern Yuan, also known as Yuan. Deciding that it’s a worthless city as it doesn’t further his goals at fighting Northern Yuan, he burns it. Note that Xian is now ripped from the map, and the Taiping forces continue to advance straight into Yuan territory. Some of their forces look like they were vying for Samdrump Jongkhar, but that has failed. There’s also a settler going for the spot where Xian once was… yeah, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.
Al Julum flips back to Hejaz, but its population has been decimated. There are even more reinforcements on the far right of the screen, including another Galleass or two. The Trireme block has managed to beat back some of the Jongs by sheer numbers, but not all of them. With two of them right next to Al Julum, it might flip back to Malacca, but they’re not going to be able to ever hold it with the Hejaz army on the Arabian peninsula.
The Kulin core they gained from when they beat the Anangu into the dust is looking good. The borders, sadly, haven’t expanded all that much, so there will still be some empty spots in Australia. This is rather sad for mapmakers everywhere. The VOC has some naval trade ships going towards Hawaii's colony of Hilo. Malacca, despite throwing a lot of navy at the Hejaz fight, continues to have an extremely strong naval presence in Southeast Asia, with multiple frigates.
It looks like the Chukchi attack on the Chinook coast has slowed down a little. Cathlapotle isn’t in danger, as it’s back in the yellow, but Watlala is in the red and about to be burned. A coordinated attack on the north by the Chukchi could definitely take some cities down, however. Because I’m horrible at writing things in chronological order, you’ll see most of my thoughts in the next Chukchi vs. Chinook slide.
Bayanbulag flipped, but the attacks seems to be slowing down now that a lot of the army on the PARG side of the war has been reduced to workers maintaining the barren cold wastes of Siberia. Knights inherit weakness with attacking cities might turn this front into a meat grinder unless hostilities come to a halt but who knows.
Well, Watala was captured, but this time it hasn’t been burned! That means that the Chukchi have gotten to the point where a 1-population city isn’t seen as a net negative for them in terms of happiness. The problem is that it could get taken back, and this wave of units the Chukchi have sent has mostly been pushed back. Luckily, more are certainly on their way over from the Bering Strait. It’ll remain to be seen if the Chinook are going to use some land units on the cities that aren’t naval - namely Wasco, Ilwaco, and Yehuh. They certainly have potential to do so, as they aren’t exactly fortified at all.
Kurdistan makes a slight appearance in this slide. I’d like to note that, for a civ with so little room for expansion, Kosovo is doing quite well for themselves. Their army could probably take some of their neighbors down at this point, as it’s rather advanced and on par with some of the better civs. Certainly better than Hejaz, who they are below in the power rankings for some reason. However, the highlight is in the top right corner: Sukhumi is in the yellow! I don’t think that the attack will be sustained for that long due to the fact that the borders around there prove a chokepoint, sadly.
Despite the fact that New Netherland and the Neutrals are at war, the slides argue otherwise. Neither side is doing much damage to either of the other side’s units, due to chokepoints at the Great Lakes and the Green Mountains. Note the insane citadels that are currently crushing the Neutrals built in the city of Jaketown, and how good of a city name “Beverwyck” is.
The citizens of Germany are revolting. How this will be interpreted is up for debate. Sweden is still trying to actually do something in the war against the Teutons, but Konisberg has still taken minimal damage. In other words, Sweden is still not all that competent for its past performances it was expected to live up to. The Chinook give themselves one fewer enemy by making peace with New Netherland. However, they are on the other side of the continent, so this is useless.
My god, is that an ALMOST FULL Kurdistan slide?! The answer is yes, yes it is. We can now confirm that they exist, that their tech level isn’t perfect, and that their colors are top-tier. It looks like some Uzbek troops are still alive and doing damage to Sukhumi, although we can’t see the city’s health level from this point. We also confirm that Jerusalem is doing very poorly with the loss of their capital, and who can blame them? Either way, I’m sure that this Kurdistan slide is definitely going to be the most noteworthy thing that happens this episode.
The Malaccan Philippines, after having ripped through Hong Xiuquan’s colonies there, are recovering nicely. Malacca seems to have unpuppeted quite a few of the cities there, although Wuhu and a city whose name isn’t visible. However, a war development has been made: Northern Yuan and PARG have made peace! Based on the minimap, Northern Yuan has given away Yingchang, despite it not being in a whole lot of danger. Northern Yuan was beginning to slip down against resistance as shown by losing Bayanbalug, so making peace is good news for them.
Intensely peeved at the fact that the Manchu still exist, Kublai Khan has pretty much given up to focus on the war with Taiping. The Sao bombarding Nurhaci’s last refuge has gone back up to where he is not in existential danger of one unit killing him. He’s living, but he’s not surviving.
The rest of Yuan news isn’t looking so good. Taiping has been cutting through them, and due to the fact that the rest of the cities are all relatively far away, it looks like it’s possible that Ganzhou is the next on the chopping block. The Yuan can definitely mount as much of a resistance as they can, though, but with plenty of tiles to pillage the Changmaos can definitely prevail.
It looks like the Hejaz troops around Mecca have quickly fallen. This can only mean bad news, as the musketmen of the Ptolemies are more advanced than spearmen and composite bowmen. They fended off the Ptolemies once, but can they do it again? I’m not so confident in their abilities, especially since their troops are not near Mecca. The Ptolemies now have more advanced troops, but Hejaz doesn’t. Hussein bin Ali is definitely in big trouble in this iteration of the war, even if the cracks haven’t started to show just yet.
Despite having a bunch of knights surrounding the city in the last episode, the Dene take Kincaid with swordsmen. I get that knights have a combat penalty against cities, but this seems a little odd even if it does actually work out in the swordsmen’s favor. Either way, the Dene now have a way forwards if they manage to hold on to it. Bottle Creek, another place that would definitely be useful to hold, is dropping, although fewer troops are attacking it than with Kincaid. Gameti, an entirely useless city, has been taken by the Mississippi and is being razed at 1 population. I don’t think they’re just trying to give the tundra dwellers some warmth.
Lima is dropping quickly. In the three turns since Gran Colombia has dealt damage, it’s dropped down into yellow. There’s absolutely nothing that Peru-Bolivia can do about it: after a flip or two, they’re going to be the first to go. Given that the Manchu were predicted to be first to die bar a miracle, this is extremely surprising. And the Manchu have gotten their miracle. Some land units have also infiltrated the shoddy defenses, but the naval units are going to be dealing all of the damage in this war. I’d like to point out how much Lambare cutting off the soon-to-be Gran Colombian borders annoys me.
We get a nice shot of the Vandal’s Bermudan trade hub as well as the coastal area of New Netherlands. It seems to be developing nicely, and many beavers roam the land, probably feeling apprehensive about getting killed. You have to wonder how many “horsemen” in the army were actually just riding very large beavers. However, sadly for New Netherlands, they decided to end the war against Rio Grande. Their gains were going to be just a small city, but the more beaver pelts the merrier.
The Pacific penal colonies of Gran Colombia continue to expand with Popayan. This is where the population that Lima is going to lose is going to go. The Japanese city of Sanjo in the Pacific was burned down, which means that there are more places for penal colonies to go down. The Tahiti “core” is still barely a core, and the Kulin units are continuing to go upwards towards Japan. I sure hope they don’t just go up there to die or make peace, as that’d be quite something.
Sweden has gotten past some sort of mental block that has prevented them from attacking the Teutonic Order, and now seem to be doing quite a bit of damage to it for a war that hasn’t really gone anywhere. They’ve done damage sporadically, but this time it looks like they actually might commit to something. Knowing their past success with this city, though, they probably won’t. They just have to hope that Finland continues to ignore the very juicy target next to them and they can manage enough to get the city.
The Chukchi continue their terror spree against the salmon. This time, with happiness issues seemingly better, they’ve honed in on Cathlapotle. Weirdly enough, though, it looks like there is at least one ship down near the capital. Why is that ship there? Did it just want to ram itself against the capital?
Wales isn’t doing much here, but neither is Spain. Two Galleasses are taking shots as Casnewydd, but there are barely any units in Irlanda España. Llywelyn is going to be safe until Spain decides to make some units or the Gauls decide to end his misery. It looks like Spain did do some damage earlier, but the Gauls are actually being semi-competent for a useless city-state against fending attackers far from home. The keywords, here, are far from home.
Oh, well, forget about Sweden not commiting. The Teutonic Order is now practically a city-state in waiting. It’s only a matter of time before Sweden rolls into Konisberg. Given how Lenin has sliced the Teutonic Order in half through citadels, there is no way to provide reinforcements, so their miniscule army is even more useless than ever before. Sweden actually has carracks now, so they will get slightly less obliterated by Finland if Mannerheim decides to wake up this instant! Kurdistan is trying to prove themselves and attempting to be the kings of irrelevant wars, as they make peace with Bhutan.
All good things must come to an end. In this case, Hejaz is facing a sudden reversal of fortunes. They were repelling the Ptolemaic forces surprisingly recently while losing ground to the Malaccan navy, but Cleopatra’s forces are cracking down on Mecca. Hussein bin Ali’s forces, however, are anywhere but there. Of course, a peace deal could end the assault, but for now Mecca is looking ready to fall. Uzbekistan desperately tries to get the first elimination by declaring war on Manchu, which is a rather questionable idea given the distance between the two.
The rival queens of the Pacific, Purea and Lili’uokalani, are both vying for the top spot in food production. Purea is winning. Also up there are some rumps: Nurhaci and Ho Chi Minh, while constantly under siege, are feeding their citizens well. Tin Hanan, also under siege by mountains and a few units going through a one-tile pass, is eating sand, I guess. The USSR declares war on Kosovo on the sidebar. They have a border, so this will probably go somewhere.
Given how Mecca is rapidly falling, Cleopatra’s army has split into the Mecca attackers and a legion of troops heading seemingly towards Tabuck. After that, it’s only a matter of time until Hejaz collapses.
However, there’s bigger news. If you look over to the minimap and to South America, Lima has been taken! I’m not sure if there are enough troops to take it back, but it’s certainly a possibility.
And yep, it’s probably going to flip to that spearman there. Or that warrior. Santa Cruz is coming to his town again, but not for long, as Gran Colombia has more than enough ability to sustain the attack. A ton of Kulin ships seem to have decided to watch this match take place, but Santa Cruz is just biding his time until the death of his nation. Rebels will be sent to the penal colonies.
The war between the USSR and Kosovo hasn’t gotten off to much of a start yet. Lenin is up significantly in technology, a fact demonstrated by the fact Kosovo is fielding horsemen as opposed to knights, but both sides have muskets and crossbows. The war is only a turn old, so not much has happened yet, but this battlefield looks like it might be rather active.
Konisberg has been battered down, and is now firmly in the red. However, judging by a lone trireme, it looks as if Sweden has open borders with the USSR! I don’t think that Karl will decide to take the march to Memel, but it’s one more thing to worry about for von Salza.
Chukchi has made enough progress in the war to be dealing damage to the eponymous capital of Chinook! That’s what the ships down there in the previous slide were for. Most of the Chukchi navy, however, seems to be up near the Chinook cities in Alaska. With some of the Chinook navy over helping fight back, they’re not going to be able to take it, but they’re trying their best. Watala is solidly in the black as well, and should be flipped soon.
This Pacific war breaks out again! Hawaii, understandably annoyed by the settle of Fa’a’a, declares war on Tahiti. This has happened before, but will it get anywhere this time? Tahiti’s replacement is a trireme, but it can cycle between cities so they can fit in a tiny amount of more triremes. Hawaii, on the other hand, has carracks and a slightly larger navy. Neither side has that large of a navy though, despite both being island civs at heart, so be prepared to watch this war not go all that far. It could turn out that they actually do something, though.
And Xian is back! If you found a city in roughly the same spot as a razed city, and it has the same name as the razed city, is it the same city? Let’s see if Taiping can take it again, and if they’ll then burn it again and create a recurring problem for the philosophers on Yuan. The line of war seems to have advanced quite a bit, but there’s going to be a good amount of resistance until hitting Liaoyang, though.
The Ptolemies take Mecca, which is completely unsurprising. Hejaz is moving some units to try and take it back, but if they do it’ll just get retaken. Confident in Mecca not flipping, forces are definitely marching towards Tabuk and Khamis Mushayt. Hussein bin Ali has moved the capital over to Ascalon.
But, on the minimap, something just as exciting has happened: Peru-Bolivia, with its few remaining melee units, has taken back Lima! Gran Colombia is definitely going to take it back bar a peace deal, but it’s stalling their demise for a few turns.
For a civ in the top 10, Mississippi’s core is looking very bare. They also don’t have much military for a top 10 civ, but they’re exactly 10th. Rio Grande looks almost teeming to get Saltillo back, but this is exactly the time that they need to strike. They still need to ferry units around the Saltillo borders and embark them for some time, so they should be really glad that they peaced out while their navy was bad. Iceland and the Neutrals make peace, although they no longer have a border so the war can’t be relevant anymore.
Looks like Kurdistan is not very happy right now. Some rebel swordsmen have spawned outside of Sine, presumably mathematicians wanting the city to be renamed to Cosine. With a pretty large carpet, Kurdistan should easily be able to beat away the rebels. Tabuk hasn’t taken damage, although it looks like forces are brooding around it and circling dangerously. It looks like Georgia has carracks stuck in the Caspian Sea, so mourn all the sailors who don’t actually get to see any sea.
The flip of Lima has pretty much decimated the city. A near-dead spearman sits in the rubble. It’s about to be retaken, and given that Peru-Bolivia only has composite bowmen remaining nearby, they aren’t going to be able to reclaim it after that. They had one carrack earlier, so they conceivably could have failed it akin to the Manchu not dying, but now they have two. After getting off to a bad start and losing a settler to a scout, Gran Colombia is about to get the first elimination.
The Malaccan attack on the Arabian peninsula has been basically entirely repelled. Some embarked musketmen are still sitting around, but I’m pretty sure that the real action is actually happening on the island cities such as Socotra. Tabuk still hasn’t taken any damage.
On the minimap, we can see that Hejaz forces have taken back Mecca! It’s definitely going to get taken back, which is bad news for them. This is barely offscreen, but it’s a good thing to note.
Spain’s attack on Wales has not turned out well. Luckily for the initiative of Spain, some pikemen are arriving from their mainland European holdings. It seems as if Wales will survive until the Gauls wake up and roll over them easily.
More exciting, though, is that notification, which we’ll get to later.
And Konisberg falls to Sweden after far, far too long of a war going nowhere fast. There aren’t enough units on the Teutonic Order’s side of the war to flip it back, sadly for them. Even if there were, Sweden has enough to do it again easily, assuming they don’t just shrug their shoulders like they have for such a long time. The war between Kosovo and the Soviet Union is pretty much just stalemating, as most of the units on both sides are around the same level of tech.
Sadly, the Manchu still exist. Yuan really shot themselves in the foot with moving that horseman away, and then moving that carrack away and letting it die, and then not making any moves towards it. Looks like they’re trying to mount a new initiative against it, but they aren’t going to be able to reserve enough forces until the war with Hong Xiuquan is over. On that note, they seem to be moving quite a lot of forces down to the front line after having them sit around Khanbaliq. There are some knights hanging out around Ganzhou, but they looks to be softening up the city for the Changmaos by pillaging the tiles around it and giving the future forces a nice buff.
Paraguay slide! The cylinder’s favorite denouncers have a nice carpet, mainly composed of composite bowmen with quite a few horsemen thrown in so that they could actually capture cities if they get into a war. Their Amazonian holdings, currently uncitadelled, are continuing to create bordergore, and Gran Colombia is still holding onto Lima and attempting to kill the two melee units that Peru-Bolivia still has. Say what you will about South American civs, but its civs sure know how to carpet - Paraguay and Palmares have pretty decent carpets, as well as Peru-Bolivia when Gran Colombia was attacking it!
In today’s edition of “Horrid Peace Deals”, the Dene give Kincaid - a city that they recently took from the Mississippi, to remind you - to Marajoara. The Marajoara could do something important with this city… or they could just burn it to the ground. I don’t need to say that this is an extremely stupid move, but I will. The Dene have cut off a path in their war against Mississippi, which they probably could have pushed through. Now, they’re Bottle Creek-necking. Most of their attack was focused on the Kincaid/Boyd Mounds route, as demonstrated by the density around the border.
In another shot of North America, Tongva and Mississippi go to war! The Rockies will prove a great obstacle for the war, as there are only 2 passable tiles, one of which is blocked by a barbarian revolt. This war is going to turn out to be nothing more than an ugly meat grinder.
The attack on Saigon by Laos continues. The landscape, being mainly hills, makes the siege difficult, but Vietnam has no military to turn the attack back. It’s only a matter of time until either Laos grinds down health until Saigon flips or until Ho Chi Minh wins the peace deal lottery.
For some reason, a wayward Kurdistan composite bowman and catapult have ended up outside Hanoi? Not going to question it. Two more composite bowmen also seem to be on their way. I can only wonder why.
We confirm that Konisberg has indeed flipped, and has not flipped back. Sweden’s navy continues to be subpar at best, but Finland hasn’t decided to go for them yet. It’s probably some Fennoscandian alliance forced upon them by the EU, as you know that Finland wants to pick on them. While Germany has the trade route bug like the Vandals, but to a far lesser extent, we can now play the exciting ripoff of Spot the Vandal Caravans: Spot the German Caravans! If you think this game is boring, you’re absolutely right.
After picking up Kincaid, P’kuee has decided that she likes the taste of farflung North American colonies, and has decided to try and collect Mabila as well. She didn’t bring much navy to get it, but Tuskaloosa didn’t bring much navy to defend it either. It’s definitely likely that she can bring herself to get another North American colony. If that fails, she can probably assemble a crack squad of naval forces that are exploring up north. This is a really stupid thing to focus on, but I’m glad that it’s working out. I’m not so glad that she’ll probably burn it down.
Bhutan, despite having a technological inferiority, has somehow managed to stave off the Punjabi attack at Thimpu. They’re even doing more damage to Kapurthala! Things are looking up for Jigme Sangye Wangchuk, even if he was just recently in danger of losing his capital. I don’t think he can sustain this in the long run, much like the repelling of Ptolemaic forces by Hejaz, but he definitely has a better position with mountains and better units than Hejaz had. I’m just hoping that Ranjit Singh isn’t stupid enough to pay no attention to Kapurthala.
Santa Cruz sits at the rubble of former government buildings at Lima. Although Gran Colombia has had the city for quite a few slides, the last hope, a spearman, has died. “Is this the end?” he asks. The answer is self-evident. He takes a match from his pocket and stares upon the flames of the parliaments burning before walking into them. The existence of Peru-Bolivia was troubled at its core. They’ve been bottom of the barrel since the start, and despite a glitched gold buff, never improved. Peru-Bolivia, despite only just entering, has won the race for last place.
Wales gains an unwanted entry ticket to the elimination race as the Gauls declare war on them. This will get bloody. And, in an irrelevant war, Burkina Faso peaces out with Kurdistan. That matters.
Also in South American news, the Vandals are about to make landfall on South America and also grab a capital. We’ve seen the Vandal naval reinforcements in the area before, but now we can see the mighty reserves for when they continue to put their feet down on the South American coast. The Vandals stand the best chance of getting material gain out of this with a piece deal due to the fact that Zumbi has a full carpet out to flip any captures to hell and back.
Remember when the Dene gave Kincaid to the Marajoara? Well, as we saw, the Marajoara are at war with the Mississippi, so now Kincaid is back in the hands of Tuscaloosa. Brilliant play.
Mabila, the Mississippi city up in New Brunswick, has fallen to the Marajoaran naval detachment, as the notification tells us. The Vandal trade hubs in the Carribean continue to prosper, and a Great Merchant is sitting around Tricamarum.
Tongva has indeed shuffled some units up through the mountain passes to deal a decent amount of damage to Castalian Springs. They’re going to have a hard time attacking it, but due to the lack of units nearby it won’t be nearly as much of a deadly battle in the mountains as it looked to be due to a real lack of resistance.
Burkina Faso is having trouble shoving units through the one-tile mountain pass to eliminate the Tuareg. A cannon, pretty damaged, is taking shots at it. Will it punch down the city’s health enough for it to be taken straight out? Probably not. Counting the number of Vandal caravans in the slide is left as an exercise to the reader, as is guessing how many of the ships in the Mediterranean will be used against Palmares.
After taking Mecca, it looks like a lot of Cleopatra’s troops are barrelling over towards Tabuk and Khamis Mushayt. Hussein bin Ali’s resistance is very hastily put together and doesn’t look like it’s going to be able to do much to stop the advance. The only saving grace here is that the Ptolemies don’t have a lot of melee units. They certainly have enough, but if Hejaz organizes their troops right - who are we kidding, this is an AI game.
Two Sicilies and the Gauls end their war after a complete and utter stalemate in which all that happened was a lot of bloodshed and no cities being captured whatsoever.
Ouch, that hurts. Kandoucho has been citadelled extremely aggressively. There’s barely any city left. New Netherlands are still at war with the Neutrals, but I don’t think that this citadelling is going to make the city any easier to take. On the other side of the screen, Marajoara has managed to take Mabila with no units being lost at all! Given that the navy of Mississippi is all stuck in Hudson Bay, they won’t be able to take it back either.
In a foregone conclusion, the Vandals rip through Macaco. It’ll flip, but ouch, that really hurts the Palmares. With the reserves in the Meditteranean we saw, there’s really no way that the Vandals can run out of steam in this war. As long as they don’t go to peace, they can just flip this city into the dust until nobody sane would live there anymore. Deciding that the navy of the Vandals is too scary to put their capital in Zumbi, the leader Zumbi decides to move it inland.
Turns out that Malacca didn’t give up, as they make another crack at taking Al Jumum now that Hejaz is a lot more focused on stalling their death to the Ptolemies. As evidenced by the fact that their navy is not really here, this seems to be working quite well in Malacca’s favor. They could conceivably keep Al Jumum if they actually captured it this time. They definitely can keep up their initiative here.
The Gauls are very unhappy, as evidenced by the fact that some of them have decided to have a riot in the middle of the French countryside. This is probably because they don’t know whether or not to like any of the wars that the Gauls. It looks like the cores over here are kind of empty, with both the Gauls and Germany having all of their military off somewhere else. The army that the Gauls have in their homelands should stop the riots, though.
Rather unsurprisingly, with their large carpet, the Palmares take back Macaco. As the Vandals still have a lot of units to filter through, they decide to move farther down. Quite a few ships look like they’re about to engage and make a grab at Zumbi. If they do, it could easily go downhill very fast with the carpet dwindling. Luckily for Zumbi, both the leader and the city, it doesn’t look like it will for now, as there are enough ships to hold them off for some time.
Sweden’s core is certainly a core. Finland still looks way better in a war that could happen. If this is surprising, it really shouldn’t be. If you want to play Spot the German Caravan here in place of some narration, I’ll let you. In a relevant war, Laos finally peaces out with the Soveit Union. Good for them.
After successfully battering the walls of Al Jumum, it falls! It’ll flip, but the more units Hejaz spends on working out down here, the fewer units they have to fortify Tabuk. It’s a lose-lose situation for them. It looks like some ships are also harassing Socotra as well, which could turn into losing the Horn of Africa if they aren’t careful. The Palmares, upon seeing the success of their northern neighbors, have decided to get in the fun of declaring war on Mississippi. Who knows, maybe they’ll get Kincaid from a peace deal just like the Marajoara got?
Mecca is now pretty well fortified, so the Ptolemies have gone full throttle at Tabuk. It’s at about half health, and there are enough units around it that it’s definitely going to fall. The more forces they throw at Tabuk, the more likely it is to distract Malacca enough for more gains by the mustard sailors. Kurdistan still exists, luckily. I want them to just declare war and take the city of Rabigh as the Ptolemies can’t reach it so they can do something relevant for once.
The Chukchi chop the coasts more by cutting at Wahkiakum. Watlala, despite still being in the black, has yet to have the Chinook find just one melee unit to actually take it. And, with the Chukchi navy swarming the area, they aren’t going to. Wahkiakum is going to fall for sure, as there are enough naval units in the area that it’s going to fall rather soon. Cathapotle, also being isolated, is in the same boat and going to get hit by the same boats as well.
Ohhh dear. Rio Grande has decided to exploit the barren core of Mississippi and declared war. We saw their core in a previous shot, and with Tuskaloosa’s army being thoroughly spread out across his empire, Spiro and the originally Rio Grande city of Saltillo are in trouble. Between Moundville and Cahokia there are a lot of good troops, but it remains to be seen whether those forces will be able to stop the Rio Grande attacks.
Despite Kandoucho now being the dictionary definition of “citadelled to oblivion”, the armed beavers are doing a good amount of damage to it, with far too many units than they actually need to be able to take it. Once they take it, there’s no way that the Neutrals can take it back. Niagara was already practically the core before this last citadel took the rest of Kandoucho’s land, but now it definitely is going to be. Note the fact that Niagara is not where Niagara Falls is, much like the Icelandic city of Selfoss much farther north.
The scientists in Benin City haven’t contributed much to the scientific advancements of Nigeria yet, but apparently Awolowo thinks it has, as more settlers are sent to colonize Antarctica. Is this a good decision? Probably not. A bunch of ships are also going around the bottom of South Africa for some reason. The Vandals, also wanting to get in the Antarctic business but for trading reasons, are similarly sending some ships in the south seas, which could cause a cheery Antarctic blockage, sure to raise the spirits of anyone on freezing ships with rapidly dwindling rations. This is Civilization, though, so they don’t have to worry about that.
The Ptolemies are pushing on Tabuk even harder than last time we saw this region, and now it’s with a side of rebels. It’s only a matter of time before Tabuk falls, now, and with more reinforcements coming in from the Saharan core the situation will continue to get worse. There’s one upside, and that’s that Hejaz is learning how to tech. That will only save them for some time, though, as the Ptolemies already knew how to research tech.
Remember how Nigeria is actually at war with Somalia? Well, I didn’t either, but now we see that war in action. Nigeria’s approach to this war is certainly interesting - this war should have fizzled out, but instead they actually got invested in it. Lots of advanced ships are about to enter a passage that should allow them access to Mogadishu. Somalia’s mighty navy of a whopping two triremes isn’t going to do much to help them, but thanks to the tile-wide passage that the Nigerian ships have to go through. In other far-flung naval news, we can see Malacca making a second push at the Hejaz islands.
With a massive swarm of units, the Ptolemies easily push into Tabuk. There are enough nearby units that it’ll flip and flip back, but Hejaz has already lost handily in this war. Khamis Mushayt looks to be next in the Ptolemaic war machine, but after that it’s unclear where the army will branch into - Badr or Ascalon. Kurdistan’s army has been upgraded significantly, to the point where if they were quicker about getting on Hejaz they probably could have ravaged them as well.
This is the same area as last time, but with Al Qunfidhah fallen instead. Tabuk has flipped but is almost certainly going to flip back before Cleopatra continues her march towards Ascalon. However, to preserve my arbitrary word count limit that I’ve imposed on myself and don’t want to break, let’s play spot the Vandal caravans! I see one outside Tripoli, one outside Sine, one outside Hermoupolis, and no others. Punjab is also in this slide with some triremes.
Wales has managed to stave off the Spanish army to some reasonable extent, but the Gauls pose an existential threat to them. Gallic landings on Ireland are proving easy, even as the Eastern landing right next to the capital is proving itself as a chokepoint. With forces landing at pretty much every spot, it’s hard to see how Vercingetorix can’t pull this off. Even if he makes peace, Spain is pulling in enough forces on the island to finish them off now. If they don’t, at least they weren’t the Manchu.
Malacca has been going on a settler spree in the Pacific, settling Ledang, Jasin, and something blocked by the civ corner. At least we know Japan is at war with Germany. The Chinook also have a settler out for salmon fishing expenditures. The Tahiti army is also out in the Pacific, even though they aren’t at war with Kulin anymore. Note that Malacca has both a frigate and a trireme patrolling their new cities, as apparently they haven’t decided to upgrade some triremes yet.
Spiro is now almost fully encircled, and the Rio Grande army is rapidly advancing on their former city of Saltillo. The Mississippi army looks even more scattered than before, but there is still a decent amount of forces to protect the capital. This is going to be a great war for Rio Grande assuming that they don’t succumb to the budding plague of burning down every city they capture. It looks like some units of Mississippi will be trying to go for Matamoros, but their army going for it is weak enough that it’ll be unsustained. Either way, this looks bad for Mississippi.
With barely any avenues to go through, Stuyvesant has continued to break through the one-tile wide passage and put Kandoucho into the red. The Neutrals have really been screwed over by Mississippi, although not exactly to Mississippi’s benefit either. On the side, we can see that the new Marajoaran colony of Mabila has healed up to green, so it looks like Mississippi isn’t attempting to take it back. Given how the entire of the Neutral army is put up near Niagara, which has a mountain near the New Netherland border to make funneling troops through hard, there’s not much hope of Stuyvesant making more gains than a capital this war. That said, a capital is always a good city to gain, even if it’s turned useless thanks to citadels.
New Netherlands continue to pick on rumps with their war against the Olmecs. Although the Rio Grande war earlier in this episode diverted their navy for a while, two galleases are back to take down the health of Tonala. However, there aren’t really any melee ships nearby, so they won’t be able to take the Olmecs down to a city-state immediately. Jamaica is also there, although it doesn’t look like they’re at war with the Olmecs.
Kandoucho and its 5 tiles have fallen to New Netherlands! I seriously doubt that they can take Niagara, though, as the singular mountain could potentially turn it into a meatgrinder if the Neutrals put their mind to it. Interestingly, instead of moving their capital there, they decided to move it to the much less populated city of Etowah. We can indeed confirm that Mabila has not been under any sort of attack by Mississippi.
However, in even more exciting news, the Dene declare war on the Three Affiliated Tribes! This is going to put all of Four Bear’s sixteen feet to the fire to survive this. Even worse for Four Bears, due to the war against Mississippi, there are quite a bit of the Dene forces amassed around Like a Fishhook.
The Chukchi seem to have improved their happiness issues, as Wahkiakum has been captured but isn’t burning. Sadly, this means that all of the salmon found in the taken cities are going to be raw from now on. A small price to pay, however. Cathlapotle is about to fall, and there are no melee units close enough for Comcomly to flip it back. Note that the Chukchi have some Galleons out, which gives them an even larger edge over the Chinook. I think the ships harassing the Chinook capital might be dead, although they aren’t in this shot so we can’t know.
Well, not only did Spain decide to actually do something in their war against Wales by sending a lot of melee units, the Gauls are helping drain the health of Casnewydd. Iceland, a little too late, decides to try and help out with the fight. Now embroiled in three wars, even a peace deal won’t save Llewellyn. It’s all up to turn order to see if the Gauls or Spain will be the fall of Wales.
Four Bears is not having a good time right now. The Dene, with knights, are pushing through the Three Affiliated Tribe’s forces like a hot knife through butter. The Chinook also seem to be idly shooting at Four Bear’s troops over on the outskirts to prevent them from defending well. The Dene, however, are still using Swordsmen, which means that their technological advancement isn’t working out for them in this case. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because Four Bears is practically dead already.
The Rio Grande continues shovelling knights through Saltillo and Spiro. The former has units on all sides now, and there aren’t really a lot of units from Mississippi are around to stop Rio Grande from retaking it. Spiro is in the red, and although there are no Rio Grande units next to it seen here, it’ll definitely be taken very shortly. Tuskaloosa’s army is moving down from around Moundville, apparently trying to stop Saltillo from being retaken. He isn’t paying nearly the same amount of attention to the attack on Spiro, however.
The Neutral Nation, despite being reduced to two cities, has decided to declare war on Mississippi. It looks like the primary target for this war is for the Neutrals to take Long Swamp with their Chonnonton War Bands. Unsurprisingly, New Netherlands hasn’t gotten through to take Niagara, and it looks like their best hope might in fact be a naval attack. In fact, the Neutrals have managed to put the most units through the mountains. Long Swamp might be under some temporary amount of danger, but Mississippi should win in the long run.
The Chukchi continue to solidify their foothold in Alaska by launching an attack on Wasco. Really, there’s no way that this city can hold out. After that, it’s highly likely that the troops will move onto Yehuh and Ilwasco. Neither of those will be able to hold out either. The precision in the Chukchi’s dismantling of the sparsely defended Chinook’s northern colonies is almost uncanny. Cathapotle, which was in danger recently, has indeed been taken and not burned down. Of course, it’s not in any danger at all of being retaken.
After burning down the Tahiti colonies on New Zealand, the Kulin have decided to resettle it with Galgal Balug and Dirag Balug. There’s not much of note on this island, except for the fact that Galgal Balug sounds like someone being strangled. This will definitely not help Kulin’s happiness issues, but being at peace should give them some time to try and not burn everything they touch.
More excitingly, Hejaz decides to make peace with Malacca. From the looks of it on the minimap, nothing was given away via peace deals.
The Kosovo and USSR battlefield in Europe has essentially turned into a stalemate. Kosovar units are going into Soviet territory, but being fought back. However, more excitingly in this war, the Black Sea city of Mtskheta, barely offscreen, seems to have taken a very small amount of damage! Based on the fact that the damage in question is just a sliver, it doesn’t seem in danger for now. Note the large quantity of embarked troops of Kosovo in the Black Sea.
And the dragon is dead! Despite being surrounded by Spanish troops, Gauls has managed to take Casnewydd due to turn order. Wales was decimated by the Gauls early on by the Gauls ripping through them. Llewellyn’s forces, in fact, are nowhere to be seen, although I’m pretty sure that he sits tattered and broken on some embarked unit somewhere, forever exiled. Note that Spain has an advanced Ship of the Line next to Murcia.
After winning a capital and then stagnating in the war, New Netherland decides to sue for peace with the Neutral Nation. The only problem for the Neutral Nation is now the fact that Mississippi is bearing down on them.
The Nigerian navy continues to knock on Somalia’s door. Remember that this navy has come all that way around South Africa, slipped through a two-tile-wide gap between Zanzibar borders, and through another one-tile wide chokepoint between Hejaz and Zanzibar. And now Somalia is about to lose their last city. They’re going to take it back when it falls, no questions asked, but there’s probably enough ships that have traversed an entire coast to grind all of Somalia’s army into dust. Duba and Tayma are still damaged from the war with Malacca, but not in danger anymore.
The Yuan continue to be swarmed with a flood of Taiping units suffocating Ganzhou and past it to the west. There’s currently not enough units to take anything else, so Ganzhou is going to be the only focus of the Heavenly Kingdom until it gets taken. After that, though, they might run into a roadblock. There are a lot of forces up near the capital, and although Taiping can probably go through them, it will prove a welcome blockade. Of note is that Manchu is still alive, against all odds. You’re an idiot, Kublai Khan, do you know that?
Like-a-Fishhook drops into the red as more Dene units swarm the area. The Three Affiliated Tribes’ army has been obliterated by the Dene knights, and won’t be able to take back Like-a-Fishhook when it falls. Four Bears will be making his will right about now. The Chinook are there too, with a decent amount of forces in their core not fighting on the coasts. Rather annoyingly, we can confirm that Kincaid is controlled by Mississippi.
The Ptolemies, emboldened by their war against Hejaz, don’t really have a carpeted core. Instead, they have a pretty productive one. A lot of their cities are in the dry Sahara, but quite a bit of the desert is farmed up. The Nile in particular is proving especially fertile. There are 7 Vandalic caravans in their territory just in this shot, by the way, in case you were in denial. The upper area of Zaire is looking quite well-built as well, with another Vandal caravan there and a pretty good level of tech being shown off. However, there’s something just as showing in this slide: the Two Sicilies navy. It’s cutting-edge as far as naval tech goes, and carpets all of the Mediterranean that they control. Luckily for everyone in Europe and Africa, Two Sicilies is in no relevant wars.
Nigeria, for some reason, is sending a settler to Antarctica to provide more research bases for science. How much snow and ice cities will help their output is a question that the budding scientists refuse to answer, but at least they can study some ice. The Vandals just want to export snow.
We get a shot of Lesotho’s core. They’re looking pretty good right now, although in such a competitive continent they need to put their good stats to the use and attack someone. Namibia is looking worse for the wear, so maybe they’ll go for them? As far as expansion, they’re stuck between Zaire and Zanzibar, and Zanzibar is definitely the better choice now that Lesotho has updated their navy.
The Ptolemies continue to rip at Hejaz’s Arabian cities with the capture of Khamis Mushayt. Note that, on the side, Al Qunfidhah has fallen into the pretty deep red and is going to get taken very soon. Luckily for Hejaz, they’ve decided to invest into some amount of science, so they can stave off Cleopatra’s attackers for longer. Rabigh, their new capital, is going to be a real pain to get for the Ptolemaic attackers, so even if they lose the entire Arabian peninsula they will still have a decent refuge.
The Rio Grande forces have successfully captured Saltillo! I’m acting like this is surprising, but the Mississippi are completely botching any and all mobilization of their forces that they attempted. They seem to have put an ungodly amount of composite bowmen and a singular musketman around Spiro, which would already be a below-average strategy if they didn’t own it. Tongva is also breaking some knights through the Rockies to mildly annoy Moundville and Castalian Springs.
And Nigeria takes Mogadishu! I don’t know why they decided to shuffle their ships around half a continent, but the madlads did it to great reward. There’s even enough ships to hold it when it gets taken back. I should stress that they’ve taken at least and well over 20 turns to get this reward: a screenshot from around 240 shows them passing under Lesotho. It’s paid off, though. Somalia will definitely take it back next turn, but they’re going to lose a lot of their army with this.
Having taken Wasco, Lawtiliwadlin’s arctic musketmen move onto Yehuh, dropping it decently. Some of the musketmen are low and will need to heal up, but Yehuh should be an easy enough grab. The Chukchi navy seems to have dispersed out a bit, but more ships are coming over from Asia, ready to grab more and more land and sea. A Neutral warrior has decided to watch over this because why not. There’s also a Chukchi settler out and about ready to resettle in case they become flamethirsty.
It looks like the Three Affiliated Tribes have just gone by in turn order, as Like-a-Fishhook is back into the yellow. However, the straits are even more dire for Four Bears, as there are even more Dene units and even fewer TAT units. The Chinook are still there to try and pick off any stragglers from the Three Afilliated Tribes army. This should be a cakewalk from here. However, there’s more interesting news on the sidebar, and it’s not the Chukchi building a wonder.
Fear of failure can drive one to do things that create even more failure in and of themselves. Siad Barre, about to retake Mogadishu, is approached by a Nigerian diplomat. Fearing this means the end, he commits a move as suicidal as Byzantium trying to spar with Finland: he makes peace, one turn before retaking his capital. I could ask a legitimate question, or I could just ask why? Somalia has been eliminated in a flash of shame, units scattered all over the map, and the hard work has paid off more than it ever should have. This is, however, very slightly less stupid than Kublai Khan tripping over his own feet to just move a horseman away from the Manchu earlier this episode.
[Lunar Note: F. I liked those colors.]
The Chukchi have built a really nice core for themselves. While quite a few of their cities are one-tile islands and tundra cities, they’ve been doing great in tech and have ripped through the Manchu and Chinook. Their population is pretty high overall, and from their navy alone it’s easy to see why they’re doing so well. Japan also barely features in this shot with a whopping three tiles, but I can’t say how well they’re doing based off of that.
Rio Grande’s forces easily punch through the resistance of Mississippi and capture Spiro. Sadly, however, they burn it. Tuskaloosa cannot practically stop it. The swarm of Rio Grande units has pushed the line of battle almost to Moundville, and it’s only a matter of time before it starts to take damage. The lone musketman who was trying his best is dead. The navy of triremes in the Gulf of Mexico seems to be turning into carracks, but unless they pull of a Nigeria to go into the Hudson Bay they won’t be useful for quite some time.
Tuskaloosa has bombarded Etowah, a former Mississippi city, down to the black, but take one guess as to whether he decided to bring a melee units. He’s been gorging on ranged units and did well to bring it to the black, but at least there’s a knight vaguely nearby. If they keep this up, the Neutrals will linger on for a while before collapsing eventually. They’re about to become relegated to the city-state club, but at least they managed to stall their death by beavers. It looks like Kandoucho has been citadelled again, but luckily did not lose any land this time.
After being in deep red for some time, Al Qunfidhah is taken. More Ptolemaic forces are advancing deep into Arabia, and it looks like they’re about to go for Medina and Ascalon. It looks like Hejaz is mounting a crack counterforce to retake Khamis Mushayt, which is probably actually going to succeed! However, the Ptolemies have found themselves in another war: Zaire has decided to go to war with them. Zaire is fielding a large and rather advanced army, although the Ptolemies also have a large and advanced army. Their core is kind of barren, though, as they’ve been funneling a lot of their forces into the war against Hejaz. This shot isn’t a shot of their core, though, so it remains to be seen who will come out on top.
With their armies entwined, Rio Grande and Tongva do a deadly dance around Moundville. It starts to take damage, and is definitely going to take more with time. Castalian Springs is taking a not insignificant amount of damage, but all of the melee units are being rightfully focused around Moundville. It looks like some units are also on their way to Cahokia. Mississippi is rapidly losing grip on their core. In other news of civs losing grip on their core is the Three Affiliated Tribes, in which Like-a-Fishhook is in the red. It’s going to be taken next turn, no real questions asked. Will the Chinook snipe it? Probably not, and I haven’t memorized turn order anyways.
Burkina Faso is continuing to try and push their units through the Atlas mountains to eliminate the Tuareg. If you’re bored with their attempt, try to go and count the Vandal caravans. If Burkina Faso manages their units right and is very patient, they could definitely eliminate the Tuareg. The Vandal navy isn’t as dominant over the sea as the Two Sicilies are - note how Two Sicilies has their unique Steam Frigates while the Vandals are still using Galleasses - but they could still smash other South American civs than the Palmares.
And with the capture of Like-a-Fishhook, we have our fourth elimination in this episode. Four Bears can’t retake it with that melee unit that he’s huddling in. Soon enough he’ll be caught in the ranks of those near-dead spearmen and sentenced to death, but perhaps he can live out by running away. He doesn’t have refuge in the Mississippi, though, so he’s just dead. Farewell.
Despite what they want you to think, the Chinook had absolutely nothing to do with that.
The Yuan lost another city to Taiping, but this time it didn't go up in flames! The peninsula that Ganzhou was situated on will prove an obstacle to toss units over, but Hong Xiuquan has quite a few units on the front line to move up. This could be about where the war starts to stagnate, however, as there’s quite a large gap in the battlefield. Finland decides to go to peace with Georgia in a war that I can only assume was to take Georga’s far flung northern colonies.
Tongva seems to have given up on attacking Castalian Springs entirely, and is now putting their forces at Moundville. However, their knights that they have are pretty scattered and seemingly going for Grand Village. If they are, it’s a questionable decision. Even better, though, Moundville has fallen into the yellow and is very likely to be taken. A detachment of Rio Grande forces is also running up towards Cahokia, which could spell big trouble for Tuskalooska. Their Falcon Dancers will help, but they’re still on a rapidly sinking ship that keeps sinking faster and faster after hitting the Rio Grande iceberg.
The train of Chukchi units tearing through the upper Chinook holdings continues. After felling Yehuh, an even larger number of units has decided to go after Ilwaco. Kanyak looks like it’s going to fall soon as well if the Japanese scouts move out of the way. The Chukchi are bearing down on Konapee, and with the amount of ships in the vicinity means that it is likely going to be taken. The ships around Chinook (the city) are dead, of course, as the attack was unsustained.
Oh my. The Gauls, wishing to tighten their reign over the British Isles, have declared war on Spain. On the land, the Gauls have a pretty decent advantage as there aren’t a whole lot of troops on Spanish Ireland, and the Gauls have the technological advantage. I can’t be quite sure that this won’t backfire badly for one reason however: naval advantage. The Gauls still have carracks, but the Spanish have a lot of galleons out near the Gaul’s territory. The path to winning this war for either side is going to be one paved with blood.
We end the episode with a cliffhanger war starting: the Chukchi, still fighting out the Chinook, decide to use the rest of their navy to try and attack Taiping. Neither of them have a large navy in the area, but the former Manchu cities that the Chukchi look to wish to use as a forward base are separated from their core by quite a bit. Luckily, they have open borders with Japan judging by some units in their territory, so they should be good.
It’s been a wild ride, but we’re done with Episode 9. Four eliminations, a ton of wars, and stupid decisions later, that’s a wrap. I’ve been your host, and have a good two weeks minus a day until the next episode.