Episode 18: The Great Divide – S4

Hey, I’m 3the1orange6, honoured to be narrating today’s episode.

If you happen to have been around for too many years, a few of you may also recognise my name from some community AI games, including games set on custom maps of London and New York. I took a 6.5-year break from AI games!

Ah, the Khoshuts. Experts in betraying their own citizens.

Interesting times for Hungary today. Will the dual war from Rome and Makhnovia have an impact?

The anarchist maybe isn’t exactly a natural ally of the emperor Trajan, who was specifically known for not granting much power to the Senate or to anyone else, really.

Thank you, Ko-Fi supporters, for allowing this brilliant community and narrative to exist.

Coiot: We welcome this week QuantumBotany and PonderousHajj to the board as new supporters of the show! And DocIdo pointedly noticed with his edited slide last week that even though I did the shoutout for Semiconscious I did not upload the correct graphic... so you get a second mention again, n.n

I'm highlighting the Tiwanaku today because their fortunes appear to have changed, after a major risk of collapse from the efforts of the surrounding powers. Now, are they back in the top echelon of nations?

A few troops of Kazan lay siege to Atyrau, though currently they seem slightly too weak to take the city.

Meanwhile, a sad Kazakhstan caravan marches through the land recently given away to Bukhara.

Hungary is currently under threat from two sides. In the east, a large Makhnovian army marches against the isolated city of Kassa.

In the south, Hungary is better defended but there aren’t many melee units available for them to take Győr back from the Romans.

Palawa, which has a generally good relationship with the Wahgi, has managed to sneak a reasonably sized navy around to the north of Australia. They have conducted a successful raid against the northern Noongar city of Mulka, leaving it to burn to the ground.

Thang Long is here: but not for long.

Thang Short.

The version of the Mahayana religion used on the cylinder is not very modest. It teaches its followers that they are the Chosen People. This impression is confirmed when massive beams of light emanate from the core of Phra Nakhon, the Siamese capital.

What better to reflect that light than a huge palace with hundreds of windows?

Now that Versailles has been constructed, “We Love The King (Rama V) Day” is now officially “We Love The King (Rama V) Two Days”. The citizens can spend more time loving their King.

Ishtar is in Astana, where she hears that Kazan may invade Makhnovia.

This would not be good news for Makhnovia, as they are already engaged in major wars with two direct neighbours.

Ishtar’s global travels continue.

As we established last episode, Ishtar loves almonds. She had heard that the almonds from her favourite long-life snack on the submarine originated in Central Asia, where almonds were domesticated.

However, once she had settled in, she realised that whilst she could find the almonds, she couldn’t source the right combination of flavoured salt and spices herself. She also missed the satisfying crinkling sound made by the foil packets as she opened them to extract the nutty goodness within. Of course the Selkups hadn’t invented industrial packaging and processing methods. Consequently, her supply of decent almonds is running low, and Astana, a rather small city, isn’t exactly a culinary paradise.

The Osage are attempting to fight east into Seneca territory using their O-Don Guard. They have access to a unique promotion that gives them a combat bonus outside of friendly territory.

However, to take advantage of that, they actually need to enter Seneca territory, and at the moment that’s not happening.

Supposedly the Osage originated in the Ohio River valley area. Pawhuska himself fought battles in this area. Perhaps Pawhuska wishes to claim his ancestral lands, currently occupied by the Seneca. Not to be confused with Ohio’ of course, at the top right of the screen.

About half of New Holland’s army has been invited out to sea to view their navy. Clearly they have not heard the message from the west of the country: that Tiwanaku is now invading with a significant force.

Siam sees itself as a very sophisticated, cultured place, featuring the Sistine Chapel (which increases culture) and the cylinder’s joint highest number of social policies.

So it is fitting that Gabriel Fauré appears here. Fauré is the only classical musician whose music I listen to regularly. I typically listen to it when I’m working. Hopefully Siam’s workers can do the same as currently their production is very sub-par: it’s probably their main weak point.

Interestingly, the other civ with a very large number of social policies is Dai Viet. It’s not helping them much, as Thang Short is progressively surrounded.

As the front line of the war between Palawa and Noongar continues its awkward stalemate, Palawa founds Lukrakiyula on a tiny island.

In Makhnovia, Kassa is in real trouble now. Győr remains in Roman hands.

The Ndongo Pombo is a weaker Knight replacement which doesn’t require horses, deals extra damage to weakened units, and ignores jungle terrain penalties.

Kamehameha, who we all know and love from Vanilla Civ, is leading the Noongar counterattack to reclaim Mulka. It looks like this will succeed, as the Palawa method of reinforcing the location is quite awkward.

Singapore and Vijayanagara have made peace. But what’s that in the notifications? A capital has changed hands!

The Dai Viet capital Thang Short has been ravaged, taken by a Zheng Tie Ren.

The Tie Ren, a Pikeman replacement, receives a bonus versus cities and has the Amphibious promotion. This siege of a city almost surrounded by rivers is a perfect use for it.

The Roman Singulares go on an expedition to Damietta, but a small army consisting of only cavalry will not be enough to take this Mamluk city.

The Taino have no fewer than six of their UU, the Cacique, which is a Great General replacement. Overall their empire is looking quite stable. If the Taino have any strong point, it is their high effective science. However, they would still have an equipment disadvantage in the event of a naval war against their main neighbour, Mexico.

Mulka is predictably retaken by Noongar.

The Tiwanaku advance against New Holland is going strong, but they have yet to do damage to São Cristóvão.

After a long journey, the merchants in the Hungarian trade caravan had reached Nancy. They stopped in Nancy for a few weeks to unload their wares, in the process taking stock of the nation of Burgundy and its people.

They found a nation with a proud history that had not been afraid to take cities in the past. However, now it was shrunken and ravaged by multiple neighbours, with its territory depleted by citadels. Ah, this truly felt like home

Only a few specks dot the massive expanse of the South Atlantic. One of them is an island: Ascension Island, now claimed by New Holland.

In real life, Ascension Island was claimed by Great Britain, though a Dutch sailor called Leendert Hasenbosch was in fact abandoned on Ascension Island as a punishment for sodomy in 1724. On the cylinder the Dutch are closer, more numerous and better prepared.

Kassa falls into Makhnovian hands. However it is fully possible that Hungary will reclaim it.

Makhnovia has had to sacrifice a lot of military control on their northern border to get enough troops over to Kassa. The Latvians now have a significant numerical advantage against them.

Saba-D’mt rolls into action as it begins a war against Ndongo. It is difficult to tell whether this conflict will be decisive, as neither power has really mobilised fully yet.

However, if multiple cities fall to one side, the victor will surely become the strongest power in Africa. Currently, Saba-D’mt has a slight advantage in production, military size and military technology. Saba-D’mt is also an absolute money-spinning machine with world-beating income and gold reserves, which makes sense as their unique faction attributes are really structured to favour gold output. So I would have to give Saba-D’mt the edge, but Ndongo is not going to roll over easily.

Thang Even Shorter drops to just two population after a further scrap between the opposing armies. Zheng doesn’t seem to have an overwhelming advantage locally, but their defensive units fighting from citadels are very useful.

New Holland has been struggling with happiness. As rebel knights appear to the south of Fort Schoonenborsch, they pass an embattled detachment of Tiwanaku cavalry.

“Where did you get that equipment?” the cavalry shout with envy.

Jeff Bezos spawns as an Afsharid Great Merchant in Isfahan. Not in the Amazon rainforest, disappointingly.

In the sidebar, we see that the Military Dictatorship of Goguryeo has completed the Topkapi Palace, which provides happiness, culture and Great Scientist points.

Hungary did actually manage to flip Győr, but it just flips straight back to the Romans. This leaves Hungary with only three cities, two of which, interestingly, weren’t founded by them.

Singapore may have made peace with Vijayanagara, but they can still attack the much weaker Harappa! This is especially true given that Harappa no longer has production from a city on the coast to the north, which they lost. They will struggle to muster a navy to defend this city.

Some intrepid parts of the fleet of Mogadishu have also made it over here, and might contribute.

Sidenote: a chariot archer is one of the last units I would expect to find in the Maldives.

Osage has let the cavalry division take over the front line in the war against Seneca, with little success so far.

A Noongar declaration of war will not be of any real interest to Osage here. In general, however, armies in North America are dense at the moment, and compared to its neighbours, Osage’s forces look decidedly thin on the ground.

The Roman assault on Damietta has predictably faltered.

Thang Tiny is recaptured by Dai Viet.

To the north, all of the Shang cities that we can see are stuck in Resistance after the Shang murdered their own citizens for luxury resources.

After all, Daji did decree that Shang traitors should be murdered “until the yellow river runs red” (thank you for that wonderful OC, /u/BlackCerastes

The expanding Roman empire is a land of espionage. Of course we have Ishtar the Almond-Lover in Cairo. Ishtar likes spending time in gambling halls, where, as her experience indicates, many national leaders make decisions about who to declare war against.

We also have no fewer than three foreign spies in Alexandria, judging by the last episode. Shajarat of the Mamluks, Adelaide of Burgundy, and, er ‘Adam the Illuminated’ of Bavaria.

Adam’s rare genetic condition means that his parents advised him strongly against a career in the secret services. It forces him to do all of his spying during daylight hours.

Ishtar is journeying west across Africa to check out Sierra Leone. She had heard that West Africans use nut oil in cooking. Once she arrives, she quickly finds out, disappointingly, that they were not referring to almonds.

The Afsharid general to the north-east of Samarkand could have been sent on a glorious mission to conquer a city. He could have been placed at the head of an army, rushing into battle against Harappa.

But, alone in the desert, seeing the line of citadels beside him, he finally guesses the purpose of his mission correctly. And accepts it.

Here is the impressive Faeroese core. The Sami fleet looks jealous of the huge space that the Faeroese have available to conduct manoeuvres.

Having successfully defended Damietta against a small Roman force, the Mamluks are rewarded with peace.

Singapore easily takes Kalibangan from Harappa, before Mogadishu can get involved.

The Selkups declare war on the Afsharids! Only two tiles separate the two nations, and judging by the positioning of that Skewbald Rider, the Selkup army can get through them.

I’m actually not sure what happened to the general from last turn, but if he is still around, he may well see actual fighting.

After many days at sea, a Palawa trireme brings tourists to Korn. With its great weather, highly developed cities, abundant fresh seafood and sandy beaches, Wahgi attracts the most tourism of anywhere on the cylinder.

After disembarking, a visitor notices a small scrape on the stern of the trireme. They leave a handwritten one-star review in a letter and address it back to the HQ of their travel agent in the Palawan city of Niplin, about 3000km away.

Now at peace with his South American neighbours, Moreno Warlord of Ecuador looks north and declares war on Mexico.

Ecuador has higher production and a larger population than Mexico, but, crucially, a much smaller army. Mexico’s border cities also look easy to defend. Ecuador has no way of building a navy in the Caribbean Sea, which just leaves the options of a land invasion of Central America (basically impossible) or a conquest of San Luis Potosi (slightly easier, but still very hard).

Desperate for insights into how to make her economy as strong as Saba-D’mt’s economy, Ana Nzinga recruits John Maynard Keynes.

In Australia, Erwin Rommel finds himself in a personally familiar situation: in the middle of a desert, dealing with a numerical disadvantage against the enemy.

Bukhara might be making progress against Harappa, though it’s hard to tell because of the challenging terrain.

Meanwhile, to the north-west, lots of Selkup Skewbald Riders are converging on Samarkand.

As predicted in the last episode, the Afsharid war against Vijayanagara is geographically challenging for the Afsharids. The war has swung against them.

The Finnish territory features many corps of the Kainulainen Huntress, a Composite Bowman replacement that usually requires Iron, gets a second attack whilst on coastal hills, and, perhaps most interestingly, can damage all opposing naval units or great people of the same type at the same time!

I look forward to a future where 1000000 Faeroese naval units are navigating around the world on half health at the same time. Perhaps you can tell I’m not a Faeroes fan (though I don’t hate them, either).

To the south, the Latvia-Makhnovia war is still mostly in stalemate territory.

Peace! Makhnovia settles for keeping Kassa and ending the war against Hungary, which probably makes sense in my view. Attacking south of the Carpathians would have forced Makhnovia to stretch out their forces too thinly.

The Selkup army is large and evenly spread. However, they don’t seem to be fully mobilising in the direction of the Afsharids.

Here are the Tehuelche, for all you Tehuelche fans. I hope it’s at least marketed as a nice place to settle down and start a family.

The stats tracker tells me that they are currently engaged in a war: a war against their mortal enemies, the Osage.

Roman units are beginning to trickle into Nevers. Will they take advantage of Burgundy’s weakness?

Harappa extracts some peace deals, including a very useful one: peace with Bukhara.

Hungary seizes Győr. The soldiers have clearly been inspired by Vercingetorix.

Nostradamus, who last episode was captured by New Holland from Tiwanaku, really likes telling people that he is a Great Prophet.

Only later in the conversation does he mention that he is Dutch Brazilian (by adoption). This is suspicious. Nostradamus does not follow the same religion as his New Hollander masters. Is he thinking of defecting?

Will he reach the unsettled Azores and start his own theocracy?

Quite a few Skewbald Riders have made it deep into Afsharid territory, but as I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t seem like this expedition has enough to back it up.

The military of Seneca is quite defensively solid. They are even managing to repel Osage troops slightly along the border. It looks unlikely that Pawhuska will get to reclaim his ancestral lands, at least for now.

Sidenote: at the top, what is going on with the way that the Faeroese army is distributed? Did they have a big internal dispute with the governor of Sandur? Maybe their troops are just allergic to warm climates.

Sierra Leone would quite like to reclaim Bo from Kanem-Bornu.

If travelling to the land of almond domestication didn’t work, and travelling to the land of nut oil didn’t work, how about travelling to the land of advanced almond production? Western North America! The Pueblo are quite technologically advanced too. Maybe she will even find them in packages?

Goguryeo’s core is looking quite empty.

Interestingly, the Ikko Ikki have a larger military than Goguryeo, even though Goguryeo is clearly stronger overall.

Walt Disney appears in Libya. Hopefully he will be expended on a tile and found a film studio.

The Noongar empire can rest assured that Mulka is safe for now.

If the Noongar have any particular weaknesses, I would say it is clear from this view that they only really have one impressive city: their capital.

To the south-east of Jerramungup, we can see the Noongar Unique Improvement, the Cold Fire-Grounds. This provides only +1 Food, but it starts fires that spread to nearby empty tiles, leaving animal resources behind. This has already happened with the tiles immediately to the south. If you go back to one of the first slides in this episode, you can see a fire in progress.

Vijayanagara takes Mehrgarh from the Afsharids, giving the border city its third owner. This looks like it might be closely contested.

Rome declares war on the Afsharids, seeing them take a few small losses. Unfortunately there is a Pontus in the way.

The Selkups declare war on Harappa. Instead, they need to be focusing on their campaign against the Afsharids.

On the south-western border of Shang, beyond Hairy Mountain, lies the notorious and remote Valley of Failed Postal Deliveries.

Thang Miniscule is back in Zheng hands. About to help defend the city is a glorious unit of Warriors.

Bavaria’s army looks seriously depleted, and Bavaria has given up on the war. As the creator of the Bavariaball, I cannot condone this behaviour. Bavaria is very lucky that it remains stronger than two of its neighbours.

In a stroke of tactical brilliance, King Rama V of Siam builds the tallest structure in his capital, the Tower of Pisa, completely outside the walls, so that future invaders can occupy it immediately.

As of Episode 16, we know that the Bourgeoisie is very powerful in Siam. King Rama must listen to the Commercial Council. When the Commercial Council convenes a meeting over the issue with the Tower, King Rama reveals his true genius.

‘It’s fine’, he says, ‘We’ll just deliberately make it very structurally unstable’. And thus the Leaning Tower was created.

How did the Siamese Commercial Council realise that the Tower of Pisa could be an issue? Well, they had recently visited Semey, Kazakhstan.

A member of the City Watch of Semey holds his station on an icy evening.

Although he is standing on a 10-metre high wall, the view in front of him is not very useful. It is of another solid wall of stone, which is so close that he could reach out and touch it. He is looking almost directly up at a group of Selkup builders and craftsmen, suspended from scaffolding, working on a new extension to their fort complex.

He turns to his comrade, who sees his doubtful expression. ‘It’s fine’, she replies. ‘Remember, this border is peaceful. The war is against Kazan - in the other direction.’

The Tiwanaku assault on São Cristóvão has petered out, leaving only a few pillaged tiles behind. And a settler for some reason.

Palawan ships are launching a naval assault on Pinjarra, but it looks well-defended.

As if they are listening to my criticism, Bavaria immediately starts a war against Hungary. It would have been nice to decide to do this whilst Hungary was still also at war with Makhnovia, but you can’t have everything.

Maurice of Nassau is recruited into the Bavarian army in 1580, which is during his IRL lifespan. As a committed Protestant, I’m not sure he would be too happy about serving Bavaria, though.

Kazan is assaulting the remaining Kazakh cities. Semey looks safe for now, but Atyrau does not.

We haven’t seen the full Arabian peninsula in a while, so here it is.

The Burgundian city of Nevers falls to Rome, leaving them with an island surrounded by Sierra Leone territory.

How is that settler still alive?

Skirmishes are occurring on the narrow border between the Ikko Ikki and Shang.

Just south of Anyang, Zheng has inherited some suspiciously fertile land from Shang via a citadel. How could they possibly have made these luxury crops grow so fast? I’m sure there is an innocent explanation.

Here is a political map, which shows how well-balanced the cylinder looks overall, with no clear factions territorially dominating. Until you realise that the Faeroes are on both sides of it…

The Romans have struggled to bring their full force to bear against Nevers, and now it is back with Burgundy.

An army of great prophets approaches the Saba-D’mt city of Qohaito. This is the religious front line between Mu’tazila, the religion of Kanem-Bornu, and Sunni, the religion of Mogadishu.

Nevers, which does have a very low defensive strength, flips again despite the sparse Roman units around it. The Romans realistically only need to flip it back once more, as Burgundy doesn’t have any more melee units to spare.

In the war of Saba-D’mt against Ndongo, a stalemate prevails for now. Saba-D’mt has also declared war against Swaziocean.

Tiwanaku settlers reach Antarctica, with its very unfamiliar cold climate, and name their outpost Omo, after the fallen coastal city.

More Tiwanaku settlers are also on their way, hoping for pastures new. The best they can hope to find is snowdrifts new.

The Bermuda Triangle consists of many triangles. I imagine they all report to the Mothership, a lone caravel.

That Harappan chariot archer is still there.

Pueblo have been a strong nation since early in the game, but they have also lacked obvious opportunities for expansion. The Crow would be a logical target for Po’pay but they are also armed to the teeth, albeit with some units that wouldn’t do very well against the Pueblo knights.

Pueblo’s massive wall of troops occupies most of the western side of North America. However, they are not short of competition. Four of the six civs with the largest armies on the cylinder have territory on this continent (Faeroes, Mexico, Pueblo, Thule).

Ishtar says that Pueblo is launching a sneak attack. Is this against Crow, who we know they are plotting against? Or someone else?

Ishtar had grown fond of the meals cooked in nut oil from her time in Sierra Leone, and would rather go back there than stay in over-militarized Pueblo.

Amazingly, Thang Microscopic has returned to the Dai Viet! How long can the smaller civ possibly keep this going for? They now seem to have approximately as many non-military as military units remaining.

To the south, the Zheng navy threatens Bac Giang, which is hardly defended at all.

A Mogadishu Great Prophet goes on holiday in Singapore.

Nevers returns to the Romans, and this time it is nevers flipping again.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Leone city of Fez appears to be a gathering point for Great Musicians. Fez is located in IRL Azawad in Northern Mali, the home of Tinariwen, a great Tuareg blues/rock band currently on tour in America.

Predictably, Ecuador has been unable to gain a foothold in Central America against Mexico.

A very lost Thule spearman approaches a region that was full of conflict until recently. The spoils of the destruction of Maguindanao essentially went to Zheng, but Wahgi has a tail of cities extending north into this region.

A defensive corral of Afsharid troops surrounds Samarkand. More invaders are arriving on the Selkup side but their first wave of attacks definitely failed. I can’t imagine the Bukharans are too happy about the violent war going on right on the doorstep of their capital, but at least they aren’t being attacked themselves.

Two new Antarctic cities are settled.

The Empire of Bora-Bora is also an empire of workers, navigating the Southern Ocean in case they happen to find an island to work on.

The Doge’s Palace is built in Nivkh territory, providing Great Merchant points and an additional trade route slot.

Tyr has grown to a large city through offering a nutritious diet of deer and mega-crabs. One does wonder how they catch those mega-crabs using crab pots that would fit less than one crab each. Anyway, the Nivkh people are certainly happy about it. However, it is clear from this screenshot just how close the Goguryeo border is to the Nivkh capital, and how much of a threat Goguryeo poses in the long term.

At least the Nivkh aren’t doing as badly as the Alaouites.

Atyrau falls to a small squadron from Kazan, leaving Kazakhstan with just two cities.

New Holland and Tiwanaku make peace. Both armies are depleted and New Holland did well to repulse the Tiwanaku advance earlier.

In the fertile Ganges valley, a territorial scrap is occurring between the Khoshuts and Harappa. These two nations are both very short of usable land, and every citadel counts.

Nipaluna is under attack, as Noongar tries to add another former Palawa city to its list of conquests. The Palawa naval assault on Pinjarra is going nowhere.

Oh Moreno Warlord, why are you like this? When it does get involved in wars, Ecuador’s military campaigns tend to run into all sorts of problems. The city of Ibarra might even be under serious threat of encirclement if Mexico can get enough land units to the Venezuela area at the same time.

That’s all from me! Hope you enjoyed it, 3the1orange6 out.