Episode 13: War Woes & Frontline Fumbles – S4

Annnnnd welcome back to the Civ Battle Royale. I’m your host narrator for today, EmeraldRange, and we got some fun action to follow up on. You may know me from such bespoke top-tier contenders like Mog and Singapore.

We continue off after a weird plot twist at the race to 1st elimination last episode. Despite looking hopeless for the last 10 episodes, Shawnee somehow doubled in size- making many desperately delusional Shawnee fans believe they can stop the Seneca Sweep. The power rankers have certainly pushed Rio Grande back below Shawnee, but we know how wrong those guys are, amirite

The race to last place got another contender in the last episode with Rio Grande losing their capital to a Bora Bora snipe. This puts Bora Bora in the elusive two capital club, showing all the doubters that their Argentine colony isn’t just for show

Now a quick word from our sponsors- brought to you by the lovely people on Ko-Fi. Yes, yes, for only $1 you too can be on this screen.

Not the biggest change in rankings, but certainly up there is Maguindanao. The large deluge of war declarations last episode actually amounted to actual attacks- which has kind of spelt doom in Maguindanao’s horizon. We’ll see if that plays out.

We start off with a look at Scandinavia where Ume Sami have been religionining and building a nice core. They only lost a few cities to the Faroes- a relatively good performance against the #1. Now, I wonder if that Holy Wars foreshadowing from the last episode will happen.

It’s a little tough for any Eastern Finn fans, but they have enough of an army to fight it out and not lose their capital

We take a quick look at Africa where Ndongo looks like she’s about to lose that hard-won city of Malkerns back to Eswatini. That’s, of course, if those spearmen stop standing guard two tiles away and actually being able to take the city.

In the corner, we see some largely irrelevant wars declared on Harappa by Khoshuts and Siam who might collectively share one tile border with them.

Next we see Wahgi’s historically accurate George Dewey attempting to attack the Philippine Islands with Zheng. The Admiral is a bit too far from the main armada, though- which seem to be taking Kuta Watu just fine. I’m sure Maguindanao having 75% of their cities under siege is going juuust fine for them.

Instead of fighting, Thule and Yellowknives seem to be doing a Settler race- while Thule got a city down, the Yellowknives have three… wait no four more on the way.

Don’t mind all the Americans declaring on Gugoryeo- the only relevant one in that list of new wars is Daji.

Shang has a lot of troops, all somewhat advanced and ready to take Yanshi back- probably. At least with the horsemen and the plains there’s a chance that she won’t just surround the cities with all those composite bowmen.

We return to the Partition of Bukhara. Last time, the Afsharids pulled it together in the second half of their war and took Samarkand. Massive blow to Bukhara, but at least Bukhara managed to end the war before losing their capital. Well, the Dzungars are hoping they can crack the Bukhara nut as well- but it’s gonna be a lot harder to get through those mountains.

Oh hey, we’re just highlighting our reigning champs the Faroese. The analysts say that their production is lacking and we see right here they’ve been more focused on building fancy Incan cities in the cold desolate mountains of the North Sea instead of more troops so they can actually conquer Ume Sami next time. Is this a sign of things to change for them?

Meanwhile, the actual Incans have been building Indonesian stone monuments. Maybe this is where the production that should've gone more towards the Tiwanaku Pampas campaign went. Maybe they could’ve actually taken the Rio Grande cities, but the Borobudur could help them if those foreshadowed Holy Wars ever become a thing.

Sierra Leone takes Tangier! Though don’t get too excited that’s a large swarm of Composite Bowmen from the Alaouites. It will take just a few gaps in the Sierra Leonean naval defence for a trireme to slip through and retake Tangier.

Well, as expected and predicted earlier, Malkerns remains untaken and the Swazi spearmen remain unmoved and still guarded up. Maybe this Swazi Ngweyama unique unit here can inspire the spearmen to move closer.

Although… those Rozvi troops are moving suspiciously closer to sniping it. Could it be? Is there still hope for them?

We move back towards the sleepy Thule as the Nivkh take advantage of the weak Ikko-Ikki cities in the Bering Sea. I’m not entirely sure that there’s enough triremes to take the pitifully weak city of Miyuki-27ka. If only some of the triremes and unique-archer-boats in the area could come focus down one city instead of splitting up.

Ikko-Ikki, for its part though, has their unique pikeman Sohei coming up the coast of Japan to reinforce or retake the cities. Thule, of course, has a settler ready to settle it if the cities get razed.

We take a look at the Vijay-Harappa war, which has mostly just resulted in some pillage tiles and dead soldiers. Oh well, maybe it will pick up steam later?

Vijayanagara suddenly realizes that there is an undefended Harappa forward settle in the Maldives and decides to get a Great Admiral- a Sri Lankan one. That local knowledge might be helpful but the lack of ships certainly won’t be.

SENECA SWEEP continues as Seneca takes all the cities in North America simultaneousl… wh… what? Damn, back to reality-land were Seneca is gonna lose their good river Ohio to the Faroes who are mostly assaulting them with work boats. Unfortunately, though those three full strength triremes and a horsey boy might be enough for the Vikings to re-find Newfoundland. We can only hope the Seneca land troops can take some of the overreaching Faroese cities by the Hudson bay. Their troop count would certainly suggest it but- you know how Prophetstown is still around? Yeah…

Ikko clinches it out with a peace deal! They are gonna keep their sad 1 pop city and the Nivkh go home with nothing! I hope whatever they offered the Nivkh was worth that. Maybe Umu can se this sights on the even less defended and juicier looking Goguryeo cities right in the middle of his core.

Kuta Watu drops even lower and the Wahgi now have a less historically accurate Great Admiral attacking the city. Hopefully that Zheng horseman doesn’t come in for the snipe but it looks set to fall. Sadly for Wahgi, the other Maguindanao cities aren’t really threatened- though they remain under siege.

The Faroese war continues with Ohio continuing to drop in health. The Seneca Sweep dream continues though with Sandur dropping in health. Of course, just ignore the large Taino navy near Chenussio- since they’d all have to go through the Long Island Sound and attack it one ship at a time.

Somewhat more interesting is that we can see Osage getting to Prophetstown in the corner. Though I wouldn’t be too excited since they have yet to do any damage to the city and the Shawnee still have enough troops to defend.

We can’t forget the relevance of the Antarctic! Rio Grande’s new capital in the Falklands is getting threatened by New Holland who aren’t satisfied with taking Caçapava do Sul. But if people remember the large navy that used to be here, it’s actually looking good for Rio Grande who aren’t set to be the first eliminated as they seem to have whittled the New Hollandaise navy down to two and a half ships.

We go down under and see the Palawa attack the Noongar. It’s a bold move for sure with the Noongar looking a bit stronger with generally up-to-date troops. Though maybe they think Noongar’s distracted by Maguindanao. The Palawa troops immediately go for Kriwa, and the flat desert of the Australian outback might be helpful to get those cities back in Palawa hand. We shall see, I guess

Oh yeah, don’t forget we have Shah Jahan, famously a merchant and not an Emperor of India. Just because lazy Firaxis put him in Civ 6 does… oh he is a vanilla Great Merchant. Lovely.

Anyways, more relevant is showcasing that the Palawa also have a small lackluster navy and with a small miracle might take Pinjarra. At the very least they are blockading and reducing the growth of the Noongar capital.

Tiwanaku settles further into the South Pacific and continues to focus on non-military matters. Their army looks pretty thin for a top-tier power. Given what we saw from Bora-bora in South America proper, I would be worried that their large mass of Carracks would pose a danger to Tiwanaku’s newly settled islands.

The big prize of unsettled Pacific Islands though is Hawaii where Pueblo continues to settle. Sadly unlike real life, the Big Island is the real prize and it remains unsettled. Though unlike the last round of CBRX, there’s not as much competition in this corner. There’s only really a small Ikko-Ikki settlement in the Sevii Islands in the corner of this slide and Pueblo has another settler on the way.

Anddd Kuta Watu falls! To a Zheng unique Pikeman snie! Of course Wahgi missed out on it again but they don’t seem phased as the ships start traveling south tot he main price of Simuay- which has already dropped to a 6-pop city. A sad day for Maguindanao fans.

Malkerns finally falls!! Sadly, no chance of a Rozvi war and snipe, but at least Eswatini finally realized that they can’t remotely take the city with guarded Spearmen. Ndongo has a bit of a chance to take it back, and it would be hilarious if their horseman recaptured the city only for Eswatini to go back to social distancing from the city.

Ohio falls as expected to the Faroes- who continue to do the bare minimum to earn their #1 ranking. They immediately set it on fire because they can’t handle how much sigma rizz was stuck in Ohio. Seneca is continuing to whittle down the other Faroese cities on the mainland- and luckily isn’t spending energy sending troops to retake the lost cause of Ohio

The Hawaii of this CBRX seems to be Madagascar with a bunch of cities in the shot here. The thing that is being highlighted is the presence of Horatio Nelson. We’ll see if he does stop the unstoppable Mogadishu navy- if Mog ever wakes up/actually establishes a core. Luckily for anybody worried, eSwatini is doing the classic Great Admiral without a navy strat.

We see a better shot of Sandur being damaged- which looks poised to eventually fall. The real funny here is Prophetstown continuing to be an inexplicable meatgrinder for Osage. With all those troops surrounding Prophetstown, you’d think the Shawnee are screwed but you know how things go in North America. They all really need to learn how to fight wars good.

Mexico decides that taking Kanawagas when no one else could is the peak of achievement and decides to sit around with their massive army. Instead they are now going to make luxury fashion and perfumes with their Versace Great Merchant capitalizing on branding with their latest line called “Kanawagas”. It’s only Kanawagas if it comes from the Golfo de Mexico, otherwise it's just sparking scented water

Here’s a quick shot of the Guyana area, which I must take y’all again for not voting into the CBRX. If it was in the CBRX it wouldn’t have been fully tested until like yesterday.

Anyways, we are mostly just looking at New Holland settling a city. Yay.

The Faroes continue to build more wonders, this time getting Angkor Wat to claim even more water tiles. Well, maybe that’ll be useful if they survive until the Future Era. Yeah, I said it. We want blood and action not civs building wonders.

Tangier holds! The Alaouites are at least doing somewhat good sending at least two melee units but they are probably blocking their own path to reconquest. The amount of composite bowmen surrounding the city honestly scares me a bit.

The Mamluks continue to fail as Kanem-Bornu continues on their path to reverse their track record by taking Minya! Not only did the Mamluks fail to retake Mansoura last episode, they are now looking at losing two cities if their defence of Damanhur goes as the numbers here predict. Though, Kanem needs to be a bit worried given the large and everpresent threat of Saba-dmt in the corner.

Not to be outdone by Versace, Nivkh answers with George Soros to do all their investments for them. Maybe he can give them enough money to lobbyist the Nivkh government to attack Bakjak without losing any cities to Goguryeon on the western side. If only there were wars.

As expected, North Americans continue to fumble as Osage loses all the troops they had surrounding Prophetstown just a moment ago. Similarly, Shadur seems to be recovering since Seneca continues to fortify their front a good 6 feet away from the city so that they don’t catch the cooties- or take the city.

The CBRX broadcasters would like you to believe it’s because of Alaric, the new Shawnee great general who’s taking a vacation from the Visigoths. But that’s just what they want you to think to distract from how badly all the civs here do war.

Speaking of war fronts that aren’t moving anywhere, the Palawa navy is almost gone with like 5 damage done to Pinjarra. At least there’s more of a chance overland? It’s not looking too good but maybe Marcus Crossus can transform Palawa into an Empire- wait he’s a merchant not a general so don’t hold your breath.

Another relevant war is declared, with just as promising of a war front as all the other relevant wars declared this episode. Bavarian troops march through the Black Forest to try and take Beaune from Burgundy. There’s a good chance that the 3 units stationed there can be cut off by the southern flank and the rest of the melee-heavy army can take Beaune. We will see, since I’m not feeling very optimistic about Bavaria’s competency.

Afsharids consolidate their control over Samarkand and we see that the Dzungars did not pull off a miracle and are still grinding away at the mountains. Well I guess we have some filler content where we meet the American Educational Entertainment standards-

Afasharids have a new general, Casimir Pulaski. In real life he was a war hero who fought for independence and freedom in Poland and the United States, leading to many places in the US named after him. Repeat his last name afte me kids- Pu las sky! yay!

Oh wait I completely missed this additional front in South Africa. The tension with the capture of Malkerns kind of distracted me, but eSwatini is now attacking on the west coast trying to take Kabasa from Ndongo. Luckily for any Ndongo fans, there is a grand total of four units left on the front on the Swazi side.

At least Malkerns is safe and secured, and hopes for a Rozvi miracle comeback continues.

Looking at a few other fronts that we didn’t consider, there’s also this one in the Palawa-Noongar war all the way in northern Queensland. Again, there seems to be enough of a troop presence for Palawa to actually do something in this area and take the city. But there are enough Noongar reinforcements that can push the attacking army off if Palawa doesn’t move any other troops into the area.

In other news, we see three new settles in Melanesia with Tiwanaku bringing a settler all the way to the wrong side of Bora-Bora to maybe taunt them for Bora-Boran Argentina.

Ikko-Ikki, satisfied with their defence in the Bering Strait, goes back to focusing on religion, reforming their religion and getting some bonus that we will see later. Again, potentially interesting when Holy Wars happen- if they happen.

We do see at least one trireme disagreeing with my prior assessment that the Americans’ mass war on Goguryeo was meaningless as a Pueblo trireme tries to take on the entirety of Goguryeo by itself. At least they might be good motivation for Shang to keep pushing on Yanshi in the corner

Ah yes, a whole slide dedicated to showing that Ikko-Ikki is doing religious things. At least you can look at the beautiful Unique Units there that didn’t get affected by the one model per unit mod for some reason.

St. Peter’s Basilica for those that don’t use all of Pooky’s mods gives Faith for every city based on Pietyu, so it’s a faith begets faith thing

Here we get to see what that reformation belief is- so that’s three slides on Ikko Ikki’s religion if anyone is counting. Better be some payoff with Holy Wars. Anyways, the new Reformation belief is actually somewhat important as it’s giving a bunch of Food as Swords into Plowshares. Much better than TXT_KEY_BELIEF_ALTARS of course.

And here’s a map of the religions and where they’ve spread. Hey, maybe this is the Seneca Sweep we’ve all been promised.

Singapore’s naval assault of an inland city fizzles out again. We can see in the corner that Maguindanao still has their capital. So all in all not much to see here.

We do get more Ottoman admirals- this time curtesy of Singapore. Maybe he can teach the Signaporeans the importance of amphibious landings, though Barbarossa was historically more into inland sea dominance- so if he’s historically accurate Singapore might take over the Gulf of Siam

Youch! Scary. A single lone horseman disembarks near Kyzylorda, single-handely blockading the Kazakh city. With Latvia and Afsharids attacking the Kazakh snake, the grand total of four border tiles might be at risk of changing hands.  

Well, that’s not the exciting Shang conquest that I was expecting to see, but I guess Daji fans should rejoice that a city was taken. Goguryeo loses their snowy city to Shang who takes it with a feisty small home-grown force from their even snowier city. Good thing there isn’t a giant force of Goguryeo troops who are now alerted to the issue.

Though Daji might get a break since the Selkups are too busy fishing to defend their snowy city and from the health bar, Goguryeo seems more concerned about taking Varsed than anything else.

Tiwanaku continues to try to become this season’s Kayapo as they sit around with their worker army and working towards non-military great people. At this rate Ecuador looks like they actually have more military units than Tiwanaku and that’s saying something.

The new Great Merchant is Zhang Qian and maybe, he can travel to the Middle East and bring back some military sense instead of Silk Road trade goods from the Afsharids.

The Palawa-Noongar war continues going well enough for Palawa. Although their land forces have vapourized, there’s still enough troops if only they would be moved towards Kriwa.

In Northern Queensland though, Ballardong looks poised to actually fall. There’s a good assortment of melee land units from Palawa actually next to the city and we can hope that the triremes hanging out on the other side of the Great Barrier Reef are smart enough to reinforce and take the city.

Another irrelevant war comes to an end as Pontussy makes peace with Bukhara- not that it would’ve done much either way. Instead we get to see a nice health core right next to a very lightly defended Cairo. Shame that there’s a lot of boats but not a lot of easy naval targets- oh wait Nicomedia is right there and could be taken if Pontus wanted to.

Tangier is effectively held by Sierra Leone as Thomas Peters sends the navy further north to try to threaten Rabat. I hope Sierra Leone is first in turn order cuz that one spearman is still not dead and could flip Tangier still. Maybe Sierra Leone is playing a gambit where they try to scare the Alaouites into retreating to defend Rabat for no reason.

Welcome back to the Fumblefest but this time maybe we are actually seeing progress. The Seneca are moving to Sandur without social distancing, though their slowness has brought the Faroese catapult army over. Well, at least it’s not as bad as Osage’s performance in Prophetstown where they have at the very least cleared out most of the Shawnee troops. Here’s to hoping we get some flips there.

Unfortunately, the Kanem-Bornu attack on Damanhur has also fizzled out- but they have at least kept Minya. We see a few irrelevant wars from the Alaouites and the Visigoths to punish Kanem-Bornu, but their only real effect might be if their friends decide to hop on the bandwagon. If I were Idris Alouma, I would be a bit more concerned about the Saba horses wandering around next to my borders.

Out of the corner of this slide we see Bavaria actually mobilizing their entire army towards Burgundy. That is a lesson a lot of other civs could take instead of leaving 75% of their army to “defend”.

But the star of the show here is to look at the peaceful scene of Eastern Europe. Elizabeth Bathory isn’t really doing much but has at least brought out a Samurai general (waits for the weebs to correct me). Unfortunately though, Yoshihiro doesn’t have an island to unify here, though maybe he will inspire Royal Hungary to actually attack someone.

José Rodrigues de Carvalho moves to Brazil from Portugal and is surprised to find that neither Portgual nor Brazil exist and settles to be a painter for New Holland. The Bora Bora city of Piratini remains a fun little thorn disconnecting New Holland. Given that Tiwanaku is sitting around, it’s now more of a staring contest between the two as they gather troops to see who can take the out-of-place city. Though, I guess no one should count out Tiwanaku who has more troops than anyone in the Pampas area.

The Great Barrier Reef Gambit fails- the triremes did move down and the troops in Laylatiya did move up to attack Balladong from the looks of it- but ultimately they weren’t enough apparently. Now, Noongar is angry and ready to spread their fire to Pataway and send their own navy after Palawa.

But unless Palawa becomes even more incompetent I don’t think this will go anywhere. Tarenorerer needs to have focused down on one city instead of trying to attack three at once. That and not keep most of her army in the back in case of spontaneous paradropper attack.

Ooooooohhh sooo close to taking Sandur, but you know the deal by now. Osage continues to attack Prophetstown, with a lot of ranged units, which honestly not a bad move right now given they can’t seem to even damage the city. The other thing to note is that Shawnee seems unfazed and continues to focus on religion by reforming their one-city-religion.

A bunch of the civs in the area decided to declare war on Noongar, perhaps because of this new reformation. More likely though they are upset that Noongar is reminding them of the many failed wars in North America.

That new reformation here is… Non-sectarianism. I’m sure that Tourism will be super helpful to you, Tecumseh. Given what we’ve seen they’ll probably survive all the way until the end when we are just watching the near-winner of this season with 60 capitals continue to grind XCOMs against Prophetstown to no avail.

Well the North Americans seem to have inspired some more relevant wars as Wahgi decides that they are going to show Palawa how wars are actually fought. He must be upset with how they didn’t gain anything from Maguindanao and seeing the assault on the other Maguindanao cities only going okay.

But that’s why you have to stay calm- this DOW is only going to distract the Wahgi war effort even more- and you can already see all their troops moving south to the Top End instead of just sieging down the remaining Maguindanao city. In the corner, we also see a lone Pueblo trireme go at it to liberate Tamontaka back to Maguindanao

See, we get a better shot of Simuay where Wahgi could take it if they moved a few land units onto Mindanao. Unfortunately, history looks poised to repeat itself as Zheng moves their unique Pikeman into position to do a snipe again. It’s either that or the various Carracks coming in to snipe the city after the Wahgi triremes bring the health down.

Less relevant: Zheng also fights Noongar

We press next turn and the Wahgi continue to make little to no progress in Simuay. The Noongar manage to wiggle out of at least one of their wars and peace out Maguindanao. Maybe it’s just as much of a relief to Kudarat who has to worry about one less border tile where triremes can come block his cities’ growth.

Singapore, in the corner, continues to attack Bac Giang with triremes. There really is no change since Episode 5, huh

Well speaking of Singapore, you finally have another relevant war, where Singapore can actually use triremes as they also gang up on Noongar. Most relevantly, they are here to help out that Pueblo trireme in taking/liberating Tamontaka and uniting Java. We will see if Singapore can mobilize its other troops and pull an East Timor. It’s a bit doubtful though given how many troops the AI needs to actually do any damage.

We go from one Emerald civ to another as Mogadishu finally declares a relevant war… actually sorry I got excited. That’s Nivkh with a confusing similar colour scheme and icon. Well there still is a relevant war- as Saba-dmt attacks the Qarmatians - alongside Nivkh.

The prospectus isn’t as good without Mog in the war- there’s a good Mogadishawi navy blocking the large Red Sea navy to attack Hajar. Instead it looks more like the Qarmatians might even go on the offensive attacking Tamna in Yemen. But Saba do have a good army on their Yemeni outpost and they might be able to move them past those mountains into the Arabian desert.

After five or six slides of Sandur being attacked, it has finally fallen to Seneca- a city capture against the #1 should definitely knock them down a bit, right? Well Seneca Sweep is here with another Settle ready to make Seneca Sweep real. Faroe has very few melee units and doesn't look poised to do much with those forest tiles blocking the indirect fire of the catapults. The dream is on!

Also yes, surprise, Prophetstown continues to remain unscathed.

Speaking of buddies who shouldn’t be buddies- we have Ume Sami and Latvia who have decided to attack Bukhara as a fun bonding moment. It’s a great bonding moment because there’s no threat and no commitment needed to actually do anything to Bukhara with a whole lot of civs between either of them and Central Asia.

Instead we get to see the Finns building up more of an army and Ume Sami responding by recovering their manpower and standing troop numbers after the war with the Faroes. Latvia, though, remains a bit stagnant in those regards.

Well, when we go to look at Bukhara, they actually get DOW’d on by a much bigger and immediate threat- the Kazakhs are here to show that they aren’t afraid of that two tile border with the Afsharids and decide to go on the offensive with another civ.

Bukhara looks mostly safe from any potential Kazakh attacks since the terrain is somewhat difficult with those rivers. More importantly any Kazakh troops amassing towards Bukhara would get picked off by the Afsharids- who are still at war with them. Maybe Nursultan will be smart and sent the bulk of his army to take Elista. Reminder folks that in this image, Bukhara is still leading with TWO original capitals since that’s all that really matters in the end.

Oh, the Afsharids are facing a bit more heat as they also decide that they can do two wars and declare war on Harappa. The border between the two is pretty natural with a lot of mountains and hills lining that Great Wall of India. This isn’t really going to go anywhere from the looks of it- except as a meatgrinder and distraction for the Afsharids. Though, to be fair the Afsharids seem to have identified the one way to get through the heavy defences- by going by the ocean near Balochistan. Though we will have to see if the Indus River’s delta causes too many problems for them.

Oh wow, the Osage have realized that Prophetstown is somehow invincible- I think it might be some plot armour so that CBRX can keep selling Shawnee merch. Being smarter about it and playing the metagame, the Osage decide to attack the stupidly gifted city of Genundowa and immediately bring it down to half-health since it isn’t afforded any plot armour.

Seneca gets a second settler going and keeps Sandur- all going well for their eventual sweep.

Despite their roaring success with minimal troops back in the Arctic, Shang continues to just hang around on the front lines not managing to make much progress against Goguryeo. This isn’t even an issue of the Gogurt navy killing off their troops- they haven’t flipped or even damaged either Yanshi or Jolbon. Based on those damage numbers, the real problem here is that Shang is getting distracted taking potshots at a bunch of triremes instead of focusing on the objective. If they flipped the city, it would just get easier and easier to take back. At this rate, they won’t take Yanshi and give away a city in the peace deal or something.

Ah yes, our #1 contender again, sitting around. At least they have carracks.

Oh right, this must be Kubrick’s doing. He probably wants every single attack to be perfect and is making the Faroese navy move in perfect symmetrical motions to get the perfect shot. No wonder you can’t attack anyone effectively when you are redoing the naval movements 127 times.

I didn’t have much hope for the Bavarian-Burgundy war but it looks exciting. Bavaria has a lot of troops moved into Germany and is beginning to attack Beaune itself. Unlike other civs they haven’t been distracted by the southern border and they also haven’t been shy to actually use their troops. Could this actually happen?

The Faroese have a horsey that could take Sandur, which would really suck for Seneca’s only win this season. But they are also taking whatever land they can, settling the far northern reaches of Nunavut. We will see just how useful that is, given that the deity AI is overpowered but also given that people like to overinflate the importance of snow cities.

Bol’im, my dude, you gotta have ships with your admirals. Admirals are officers they gonna shit in their air conditioned offices. You need to choose between Simuay and Lamitan or not get either of them. Zheng, for their part, seems to have actually attacked Simuay too but didn’t get anything to show for it. Also… is that a Nivkh navy trying to attack Wahgi?  That would be really funny if it succeeded

Royal Hungary and Pontus decided that they have had enough of peace and are going to attack… Burgundy. Well at least it’s near enough. Really though they should both be eyeing each others’ lands but I guess it’s another instance of two geopolitical rivals being friends still. We will see if they last and if they can send any troops to actually affect the slowly faltering Bavarian siege of Beaune. Burgundy is certainly not a pushover, but their troop numbers are thinning.

Yeah… as expected the Swazi attack on Kabasa in Southwestern Africa didn’t go very well with just three troops. Now eSwatini is facing down a massive horde of troops. Luckily for them most of them are embarked and a smart use of city bombards will kill most of Ndongo’s army before they can do anything.

The good news is that Malkerns is definitely safe now.

Some more not-so-relevant wars spring up as the Khoshuts also declare war on Bukhara. Unfortunately for them, there’s only one unclaimed tile through the Himalayas that they can use to actually attack Bukhara. There’s really not much point in it but it gives us a chance to look at India where everyone is being peaceful, even the Dzungar enclave from way back when.

Heading back to Europe where the Visigoths have declared a comparatively relevant war on Burgundy. They seem to have enough troops on the north side of the Pyrenees so that they may be able to take Asturica back. The only way they’d lose is if Burgundy moves troops back to defend it- that or AI incompetence as always.

Speaking of AI incompetence, we have Bavaria sieging down Beaune going somewhat okay still- at least the city isn’t at full health still, but the Burgundian troops seem to be holding up well enough there. We’ll see if the Visigoths change this.

Things go worse for Burgundy as, not only do their troops around Beaune take damage, but also the English decide that the Faroes aren’t a threat at all. With England declaring war on Burgundy, their troops in York immediately also start attacking Beaune’s troops. Bavaria’s chances of actually capturing something has suddenly gone up!

Unfortunately though, it looks like the Visigoths have abandoned whatever advantage they might’ve had in southern France by deciding to attack through the Basque country again.

We head back to see the other end of Kazkahstan’s two-front war. In contrast with Burgundy, their front over here continues to be dominated by Latvian disembarked horses, who are dying in droves to the two bowmen taking potshots from the snowy Kazakh cities before they can land.

Welcome to the Siam Science Show where we’ve discovered some technologies. So that’s why we’ve entered the Renaissance era and get a spy. That’s fun. Here we see Bac Giang still unsieged by Singapore and the Gulf of Siam still untaken. Instead Siam is just being allowed to turtle up and blob. If only Singapore used all those ships to attack their one-tile-island cities instead of Vietnam.

While we are here though, we also see that Vijayanagara has a few ships now but that Admiral they used to have is nowhere to be seen.

Oh my god what the East Timor. Singapore took a city! Tamontaka falls and Singapore chooses not to liberate it so Maguindanao fans everywhere are heard losing ever more hope. This is the power of using ships to attack a coastal city.

Relevant to that is also Lamitan being down to yellow- though there doesn’t seem to be enough Wahgi ships to do any more damage. Samuay looks like it’s still at full-health and will likely survive the war after all. Maybe Wahgi’s getting distracted by the random Nivkh navy attacking Kombulno.

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Welcome back, hope that ad break was worth it. Here we see some more relevant wars. This is certainly unexpected but the Kalmyks seem tired that the Kazakhs have continued to do nothing with their war and decide to take the job on themselves and declare war on Bukhara themselves. The Kalmyks certainly have enough troops to take back the now isolated city of Bukhara. Unfortunately for them, they are sending mostly triremes and embarked units.

The Kalmyks have improved their religion with their own reformation and now Vajrayana Buddhism has a Judge and Avenger. Well that sounds about right for them taking back Elista and knocking Bukhara back to their deserved one original capital spot. Mechanically though, it’s a great belief that provides a lot of pre and post-conquest buildings for gold- which AIs are notorious for hoarding. Realistically though, we will see if any of the other civs that the Kalmyks convert will end up making use of this ability given the Kalmyks are a rump long-shot.

If you didn’t know, you might not realize that Saba was at war, since very little has changed over the past few turns. The Red Sea navy remains stuck. However, the only thing that’s changed is that the Saba army on the Arabian peninsula has slowly whittled away. Not even that- but the rest of the troops near Azeba have also been deployed and presumably killed in the mountain grinding. The Qarmatians strike back and start moving an army into Tamna. If they were a human player, it would be a good army composition, but for the AI I have doubts on if they will use their catapults to do any damage.

While Palawa haven’t been very successful in their war against Noongar, they have been successful in the Melanesian Settlefest of the 11th century AD. They settle no less quite a few new cities- two since we last saw them and it doesn’t look like Tiwanaku or Bora-Bora have sent any competition. We’ll see if these cities become breeding grounds for naval units for the eventual Palawa re-attempt to take Noongar cities.

Checking in on more stale warfronts, Goguryeo remains on top, with noticeably fewer triremes furthering the theory that Shang is just attacking triremes instead of attacking Yanshi. The attack on Jolbon has also gone awry with the horse trying to do a backdoor attack to limited success. At least it looks like Goguryeo haven’t decided that more troops are needed - so there’s some hope that Shang will eventually retake one city.

Well, we are going to get our new secret agent Ishtar to the Selkups. We have treated our spies poorly before but we are now going to let them go fishing and enjoy themselves. Maybe they’ll hear some gossip from the other fisherman and see what our original #1 is thinking.

Wahgi’s attack in Simuay has completely disappeared by at least they continue to attack Lamitan. Now the big brain thing Bol’im was trying to do with his attack on Noongar turns out to be a trireme attack on Walyallup. Their land troops on the North End are holding up but also distracting the Noongar troops- I wonder if Palawa can seize on this distraction? Nah, probably not

Less importantly, though, Singapore continues to hold Tamontaka, in a surprise given that the Noongar core is right there.

As we kind of predicted, the New Hollandaise attempt to wipe out the Rio Grandense did not go very well and the Falklands remain unconquered. Rio Grande merchandise sellers rejoice as their shirts will continue to sell at least for a few more days.

We also see the Tehuelche core where they have some units but Maria will need to upgrade those Bola throwers at some point. Unique Unit or not, archers aren’t going to be great if Bora Bora decides to strike.

We also look to the north of South America, where we see the massive deforestation that Tiwanaku has undertaken. Losing all that defensive terrain doesn’t seem to be a concern as Huyustus only builds maybe two more units. It’s okay since New Holland also has very few units around, especially up here. The real threat is Ecuador who could pull a real upset right here if they were smart and competent enough to take the Tiwanaku cities.

So as usual Tiwanaku is more focused on religion and building non-military things- since they are now sending a Great Prophet to try and convert New Holland- who have their own religion and might not appreciate it.

Wait, what is this? There’s a hole in the plot armour of Prophetstown? Prophetstown finally takes damage from the Osage units. I guess not building units after your enemy kills off all your units is a bad idea even if you are the secretly rigged civ that was supposed to win.

Also relevant is that Genundowa is down to black and there are melee Osage units- plural- next to it. It would essentially be a minor miracle if Shawnee manages to keep it. But they do get minor miracles every week, so who knows?

The Faroes continue to squander their lead and build Stone Town, which will give them all the splendor of Zanzibar and give them even more non-military bonuses in the form of trade routes. I don’t know who that artist there is, but I have a sneaky feeling it’s Kubrick again overseeing these wonders.

Some more triremes head to Pelotas to see if New Holland can take the Falklands. There’s also a massive horde of triremes further up the coast that seem to be heading in the same direction. While New Holland won’t give up on killing Rio Grande off cuz they just hate them so much, Bora-Bora signs a long overdue peace deal with them. Maybe this is a sign of them focusing on someone else- or just realizing they need to defend Piratini somehow.

We now head back to the arctic where the one city that Shang managed to take falls back to Goguryeo. Goguryeo has been a lot more focused on the Arctic where they also take out another Selkup city at the same time, regaining they Arctic ocean coast.

This would normally be where I comment that it doesn’t really help them to focus up here when they have a big war near their capital with Shang, buuttt Shang is just sitting around doing nothing so I guess good job?

Back in North Africa, Kanem Bornu launches another attack on Damanhur. This time there seems to be a much larger and sizeable army and the Manluk defence looks a little thinner than before. All this is good for KB, unless the ever-looming threat of saba eats that undefended flat terrain city of Minya. But it should be fine since Saba is still in that never-ending war with the Qarmatians.

That war I thought happened several turns ago actually happens! Mogadishu attacks Qarmatians and they start attacking Hajar. The Saba troops seem to have stopped the Qarmatian attack, but we will see if those five triremes are enough to take Hajar, especially with Safwan right there and easily distracting the Mogadishawi AI.

Also of note is the Afsharids coming south to forward settle Mogadishu or maybe add to the diverse cultural melting pot of Madagascar.

As predicted, the complicated asset transfer from Seneca to Osage is finally complete as the Osage takes Genundowa! It’s an act of charity before the inevitable Seneca Sweep happens.

The bigger nears on this slide is that Prophetstown is in the Red with a large large army of Osage units surrounding. Is this… our first elimination coming? Is North American FumbleCon finally coming to an end?

In an unexpected move, the Shang seem to be marching north to Yodong. The Goguryeo core is pretty empty of units so it’s not a worse chose than anything else, but maybe if they focused on Jolbon it would go better? There certainly are Gogurt units in Yodong so it won’t be an easy take.

In the southern front, the Shang have fully cleared out the Bohai Sea and are still surrounding Yanshi. Goguryeo’s chances of continuing to rely on distracted Shan archers are not going very well.

It seems like the Kalmyks declaring war and declaring the Kazakhs incompetent by proxy has triggered Nursultan to actually do something. While he’s still sending troops to sit around and die south of Herat, he is finally sending the bulk of his army to Elista, even going so far as to embark his own land troops into the Caspian- just to show Ayuka Khan he can be incompetent too!

We return to the Palawa-Noongar war where Ballardong gets a few new waves of attacks. Kriwa is as well as Palawa decides that if it failed last time, maybe he can do it again this time if he has 3 new island cities settled far away.

We will see if the troops can get to Ballardong since it looks like a much more land-based force and the navy being mostly embarked units. The good thing for Tarenorerer is that the Noongar units are no longer on their front- the Noongar army seems generally sparse.

We look at Ecuador again to look at their nice jungle horse army where they’ve decided that instead of attacking the Tiwanaku like I foreshadowed for the whole episode, they are going to instead be best of friends with Bora-Bora. Maybe they will attack together? Are DoFs really relevant? Are they common, but just unshown? So many questions arise.

Yeah, what that enough? The Ecuador sponsors paid for how many mentions? Uh wow aren’t they satisfied with the copious shoehorning in of Ecuador? Ecuador. Ecuador.

The Faroes continue to come up with more non-military great people this time getting Dennis Ritchie. Wait, holy hell. Faroes were playing the big brain strategy of grinding out great people until they got someone who can hack the game. With the power of hacking into the DLL I think they are about to give themselves so many exploits. We are only saved by the layer of Lua stopping Dennis Ritchie from decimating the game itself.

Well, F. Shawnee have finally been eliminated. The plot armour could only save them for so long. The highlights of their existence were when they founded a religion and also when they received that city from the Seneca last episode. They weren’t the favourites to win, but they definitely got the short-end of the stick when Seneca looked south instead of North and they got squished in.

That’s the first elimination after 12 episodes and a score of TWO original capitals for the Osage who now joins the illustrious club of more than one capital, together with civs like Bukhara.

Back in China, Yodong continues to get attacked, with the Shang attack going way better than any of their attacks on Yanshi. The problems there don’t stop as the Shang seem to lose some ground in Shandong. Perhaps this is because of Richard Howe, the newest Gogurt admiral who famously sieged Gibaltrar and might know a thing behind landing that Gogurt composite bowman right next to Yanshi.

In another front we haven’t seen in a bit, the Afsharids have actually gotten past Harappa’s Great Wall and moved a good amount of troops next to Dholavira. Even more impressively, their ships have recognized that you can’t actually attack cities who aren’t on the coast. They have brought Mehrgarh down to half-health with some more triremes in the back. However, Harappa has a good amount of ranged units around to take the triremes down and put up a good defence.

The Visigoths regain their frontline positions pushing around the Pyrenees to try and take Asturica, and doing some damage. The Bavarians seem to have finally cleared out the Burgundian units near Beaune and the English are riding their ships down to Amiens. Three fronts and three threatened cities aren’t too good for Burgundy.

And this is the last part of this episode! Thank you all for having me. We will see next episode if Burgundy crumbles and if any of the other fronts ever move! Stay tuned, CBRX every Tuesday.