Episode 41: Carpet Cleanup Crew – S4

Welcome back to the CBRX! Happy New Year! It’s the last episode before Total War and we are about to see if the remaining contenders can consolidate their areas before their allies are forced to abandon them. I’m your host EmeraldRange, an ardent Singapore supporter but a totally fair commentator. In fact, I’m so fair I’m also rooting for Singapore’s apparent main rival Mogadishu! If you’re on the audiocast, It’s me Doc Ido. I hate Emerald because he’s making me say the phrase “skibidi toilet:” for no reason.

Here is a nice civball illustration from our very own Coiot highlighting the hype around Osage. They’ve really stepped up with peacekeepers and paratroopers sniping all around the Cylinder trying to be the next Wahgi. Surely these cities surrounded in the middle of nowhere will last through Total War

We’re also going to look at a different kind of stat block- this one showing kill charts! Not taking into account revivals, Leman shows us which civs got the credit for the final blow in this chart as we enter these final turns before Total War.

But first, the CBRX is brought to you by: Ko-fi! Support the CBRX for a dollar or more!

Highlighted from last episode’s Power Rankings is the Zombie Shang who rize a whopping five places as they climb through the tired and tested method of staying very still and being revived unfairly late. The magnitude of this change highlights how many civs fell out of Total War contention last episode, as well as the dire state of affairs for the Dzungars who got ranked one below the Shang at 23

And we begin with the Dzungars losing their capital as the Selkups score on the opening slide of the episode. It was all but inevitable with Ili surrounded on all sides, but various Wahgi drones attempt to protect Galdan Khan as he flees to Uliastai.

With this capture, the Selkups not only gain three original capitals, they also gain a better foothold to secure their Tibetan holdings that they gained last episode.

Mogadishu continues to struggle in their war as Malkerns get flipped back with Wahgi peacekeepers separating their army from taking the city back. The bigger danger for Mog really is to stop snipes from taking their bombed out cities. Mog really needs to win offensively here and build a better buffer to their bigger cities like Shangani before they have to fight both Sierra Leone and Ndongo in Total War.

We go to look at South America where the Wahgi and their massive paratrooper fields stand by with 48 planes ready to pounce on the lackluster New Holland defence. But astute viewers will remember that New Holland has always fielded few troops. It’s now just a matter of if that strategy can work against Wahgi with their black magic.

And one of the last bastions of non-autocratic rule flips to Autocracy. That’s unfortunately a couple of turns without production but luckily for Lee Kuan Yew, there are no big wars where production grinds are a concern. Even better it looks like the Wahgi have been slowly pushed out from Singaporean territory- even if that has apparently come at the expense of about 56 empty aircraft carriers… Hopefully those Changi Airport terminals kick in some better priorities to build planes.

The Wahgi peacekeeping drones seem to have succeeded in saving the Dzungar and the Dzungars manage to get peace with the Selkups and live for another day. That was a pretty well done war by the Selkups as they eliminate most of the Dzungars with some time to consolidate and integrate before the inevitable Goguryeo war.

Things, however, don’t look good for the Dzungars either as Goguryeo are also at war and could decide to use a real unit on Gyangtse leaving them with only Ullastai.

Shangani teeters precariously on the edge, but Abu Bakr has some good tactical sense. He surrounds the valuable city with a complete defence preventing a flip. It remains to be seen though how long this siege can last, but it looks like the Wahgi units continue to be a pain for Ndongo to reinforce properly.

But Ndongo DOES THE IMPOSSIBLE and DESTROYS all four defending units! Holy shit that Mog defence crumbled! Those units looked really outdated in retrospect as Ndongo units roll into Shangani and flip it dealing a massive blow to Mog’s chances at a comeback. Even crazier, Nzinga is going for a double flip and with her extra Chimera unit goes in and flips Qarnawu! What a massive blow for Mogadishu!

In the Goguryeo-Dzungar front we see Gwanggaeto flex in unsportsmanlike fashion as he sends musicians to the front line instead of melee units as if to gloat. Igor Stravinsky, meanwhile,, dances in front for the dying Dzungar citizens in a controversial departure from classical dance, instead doing a hyperpop routine along with Hatsune Miku to dab on the Dzungars. There really should be a penalty for this kind of disrespect

We now go over to the Wahgi core where we see the monstrously large cities of New Guinea, including a massive 71 pop Nondugl. Many people have been complaining about Wahgi’s unit spam but this is truly the source of it. With the rules of the CBRX, they have found that by having massive populations on a maritime empire, they can absolutely spam the world with outdated but all-encompassing units. Will that be enough to come out on top? It’s hard to say.

The Dzungars decide that having one big neighbouring power is not enough and decide to attack the Afsharids as well. With only one tile between them and Gyangtse, they really don’t have the chance to do anything. It’s unclear if the Afsharids can even move within their own territory with all the Wahgi peacekeepers abound. Regardless, The Afsharids are sitting on massively wasted potential and need to do something quickly unless they want a sudden collapse when Total War comes. Maybe the Dzungars will use those five nukes they have and add the Wahgi to the list of enemies?

Another small victory for Ndongo as the once plucky underdogs turned menace takes yet another Mogadishawi city, albeit a far less relevant one. In the shot, we can see part of the Ndongo lands where they have a lot of empty lands where the Wahgi unit overflow could reach given those open borders but Ndongo continues to be saved by the mere fact that they are geographic antipodes to the Wahgi.

Shang receives a couple of mostly irrelevant DOWs, though the declaration from the Selkups could do some long-distance damage given the proximity. Daji more or less holds on, hoping to make it to Total War on the backs of the generosity or incompetence of their neighbour Goguryeo. For a top tier civ, it isn’t the biggest deal that one city remains, especially as Wahgi peacekeepers would make taking it difficult.

At the same time another somewhat nearby but still far Shang enemy peaces out with Koxinga declaring that it’s not really worth it. It’s unclear what options Koxinga and Zheng have with Goguryeo to their north and Wahgi to their south- it might be worth it enough not to incur any wrath from Goguryeo by prolonging that war with Gwanggaeto’s pet fox.

Abu Bakr shamefully accepts peace, ceding control of the massive gains from Ndongo who is looking like a real contender for Total War with their general position. Shangani, however, is more valuable to Ndongo strategically to surround their eventual enemy in Sierra Leone, rather than for its population. Nonetheless, Mogadishu fans watch on in sadness as several food bonus trade routes are presumably broken and Shangani continues to decline in population.

But more importantly, the friendship between Goguryeo and Ikko-Ikki is broken! Goguryeo looks set to position themselves much better for Total War by taking out their weakest neighbour even if it happens to be their Eastern Sea/Sea of Japan bros. Unfortunately, this is absolutely the correct strategic move as several others join in on the war- notably the Osage and the Yellowknives who might try to make a snipe.

Speaking of Osage snipes, it does not look good for their recent snipes of Ikko’s old Thule lands. Ikko-Ikki units swarm around their exclaves of Sisimiut quickly bringing it down and look ready to take the city off the Osage hands. Whether paratroopers or just a particularly fast group of troops, Ikko Ikki is looking to make the most of it out east- though I’m not sure how much benefit these cities would be even if they kept it up to Total War.

The Ikko-Ikki Far Flung Division continues to make the most of these declarations that seemed a bit irrelevant before as they attack New Holland cities all the way on the Atlantic seaboard! The troop presence here seems a bit lower and those Future Era units from New Holland probably can keep the stray Ikko-Iklki units from taking over. Though, this does give us a chance to look at the precarious nature of the New Holland borders in this area when pitted against two other cities with unit carpets.

Speaking of unit carpets, let’s look again at in detail at this Wahgi unit carpet. As the episodes pile on, the power rankers have stopped ranking them in 1st, and rightfully so! Even if the drones become less useful day by day, they’ll at least be fodder and somewhat of a threat come Total War. But the Bolim really need to decide to take out at least one middling power near them regain their #1 spot going into the Total War.

And we go back to the main front of the Ikko-Ikki war as Goguryeo RAPIDLY takes over the Ikko-Ikki War with those destroyers poised to flip their capital. This is the power of these top powers and the speed at which the late game tech differences make differences on the ground. It’s looking sad for Ikko-Ikki who before this war at least thought they would make it to Total War before being betrayed so rapidly.

Ikko-Ikki can at least console itself by flipping an Osage city as they take Sisimiut! From all those numbers popping off it looks like the majority of the Ikko Ikki strike force has been decimated with Osage troops still around ready to take the city back. This may be his last hurrah though as the homeland looked gone the previous slide. If only Kennyo had decided to keep those troops closer to home somehow. Priorities, Kennyo, priorities.

Goguryeo’s invasion of Goguryeo is COMPLETE! Gwanggaeto takes Ikko-Ikki’s capital Ishiyama Hongan-ji! Kennyo tries to make a break for Daisho-ji, but finds that Goguryeo has also taken that city by the time he gets there. He continues running towards North America, leaving behind a lone Marine unit, a merchant and a settler to try and retake the capital.

This is a truly rapid collapse as Goguryeo completes a two turn dismantling of their former friend. Goguryeo, now up one original capital, has also cleared out one of their neighbours well in advance to rebuild and use Japan for Total War.

Kennyo arrives in Sismiut only to find that the Yellowknives have taken the city from him, denying the Osage from retaking the city. A destitute Kennyo rapidly tries to find another city only to find himself teleported into a very cold and metallic room that looks like it’s underwater?

Yeah, that’s an F for Ikko-Ikki with the elimination credit going to the Yellowknives. It appears on instant action replay that the Osage managed to bring Sisimiut down but the Yellowknives, with their later turn order, were able to come in and take out the last stand of Ikko-Ikki in the Yukon of all places to end their run. Ikko-Ikki put up a valiant effort, finishing in the top half of civs. They spent their early game with religion and trying to gain a foothold on the mainland, while neglecting to properly settle Japan. Nonetheless their scrappy units harassed Alaska and finished off Thule fighting against the mighty Yellowknives. They formed a friendship with Goguryeo but ultimately got backstabbed by their supposed friend and will not make it to Total War. F

Seeing that Ikko-Ikki has just been eliminated, Trajan decides to make peace seeing as he can no longer take any cities.

More seriously, Ikko-Ikki’s attempt in the Atlantic has amounted to nothing as Kinngait remains New Hollandaise. It looks like someone decided to nuke the group of Ikko-Ikki troops that had grouped up near Philadelphia. What a way to remove an already forgone threat! It likely didn’t hit any of New Holland’s units as they are sparse. But don’t let that fool you- it’s all late Information and Future era units like the Battlesuit and Mech Artillery.

Questions aside, it's time for another relevant war as the Yellowknives attack Osage! A couple of lone units take Mo-he-ag-gra in Texas down with a tank capturing it immediately. It looks pretty grim for Pawhuska after that. With the capture of Mo-he-ag-gra, the Osage capital is now surrounded by not one but 6 citadels taking all the tiles away. Unfortunately for Pawhuska, the couple of modern era units aren’t going to be enough for one battlesuit, much less two that immediately take Ni–o-sho-de into the red. It’s not over just yet for the Osage though, as Pawhuska has enough troops to flip back Mo-he-ag-gra and pull of a flipback of his capital.

And let’s not forget Okak up in Alaska which remains in Osage hands for now but is being heavily bombarded. The Yellowknives Akaitcho gets to clear up one more spot closer to his heartland if they can clear out the remaining Osage units, which seems like a question of when and not if. Consolidating the area will certainly be a relief to mapmakers but for Akaitcho it’s just the first step he needs to properly prepare against that massive Goguryeo city looming nearby.

Pawhuska mobilises his troops in the plains to defend the capital, but it’s not enough nor quick enough as the hoarder of Osage units can’t make it in time from being captured! One Yellowknife Battlesuit is destroyed and the frontline is pushed but it’s not enough! Akaitcho is going to get a capital, using his remaining Battlesuit. It’s not going to be the end of this though…

[insert noise]

I’m sorry if you heard that in the back. That was a collective cry from here in the sub as our dear leader Coiot ends our Golden Age.

It’s not over yet! Going back to the game, we see the Osage troops get ready to flip the city back. In fact, further south they do exactly that to Mo-he-ag-gra taking it back and pushing into Yellowknife Mexico as well. In the east, the troops surrounding the massive citadel spam near Chetopah look southwards to retake Kanawagas and clear the citadels away and restore the useful land around Chetopah.

A couple of turns pass and we see the Osage carpet also threatening other Yellowknife territory in the north, gunning for former Crow cities. With massive populations on the Yellowknife side, even a capture would make Baaxawuashaliiko one of the Osage’s biggest cities.

And the attack on Kanawagas is complete! The Osage take the Jewel of North America back, keeping a good 19 population. This will be sorely needed as Yellowknife bombing raids, pillages and potentially some nuks have made the Osage land a huge mess. There’s a lot of damage here to recover from and there’s not that many turns to try and recover before Total War. At least, Pawhuska can sleep easy knowing that the one of the three capitals he owns is safe from capture… wait that’s a Yellowknife tank that could do the funniest thing.  

Of course, the question on everyone’s mind was whether Pawhuska could pull off the recapture of Ni-o-sho-de. The answer is yes, but the Yellowknives immediately answer with a recapture of the city with yet another Battlesuit. Pawhuska could answer that with another recapture soon. Unfortunately, all value beyond it being an original capital has been destroyed with the city at a low 1 pop and multiple pillaged citadels being its only tiles.

In the south, Pawhuska is doing something smart and using his entire unit carpet offensively and attacking the southern Yelloknife territories in former Pueblo lands. The advancing front will keep a good portion of the Yellowknife troops back while clearing land for the Osage to hopefully use the remaining turns to rebuild before Total War. That is of course, if all goes right for Pawhuska.

Annddd that plan is already collapsing as the tech disadvantages catch up early into this war as the Yellowknives push the Osage troops back, threatening Pa-Hiu-Cka and Pituffik. And I’m sorry to say but Pawhuska’s chances look increasingly grim as there are no longer hoarders of units to protect him. At least supporters can be happy that it will take a couple turns, potentially allowing for a peace out to see Osage make it to Total War.

We take a brief detour to see how the Goguryeo-Dzungar war is going. When the Yellowknives attacked the Osage, Pawhuska smartly stopped his war with the Dzungars, so that’s one less enemy for Galdan Khan who continues to fight against the dabbings of Igor Stravinksy who continues to blast funky music to taunt Gyangtse.

Gwanggaeto brings up another musician to join in the party, recruiting virtual Britpop band leader Damon Albarn to bring some virtual idol flair to the “Galdan is a Loser” concert. Luckily for Galdan Khan though, there is a Hovertank nearby that might finally break through the Wahgi armistice line and put Gyangtse out of its misery.

Back in North America, Pawhuska pulls off the recapture of Ni-o-sho-de! Pawhuska is back at three capitals. While this is certainly a welcome development for the Osage, it’s definitely not the end of this war with two melee units from the Yellowknives who can easily flip it back next turn. And this time, the Osage units are happily trying to take the southern city of Walatowa instead of standing by as a defensive back up.

Things do not look good up north though as Pa-hiu-cka is captured pretty solidly by the Yellowknives. The Osage units attempting to do an offensive have mostly been killed and Pawhuska is smartly keeping some units to the south to keep Chillicothe and Prophetstown defend. But with one city down, those planes are going to target Chillicothe and Pawhuska does not have enough units to keep things down. At least, he has a couple Anti-air units to the east to keep some of them at bay.

Another turn, another flip as the Yellowknife units roll back into Ni-o-sho-de as Pawhuska is unable to prevent a stop. There are still units nearby and a musician inspiring the troops so Pawhuska is not out of the standing to retake his capital. Though even from this far view you can see Yelloknife melee units that could get there to flip it once more.

Mo-he-ah-gra looks secure enough as Pawhuska continues his assault on Walatowa, The paratroopers look like they pillaged a bunch of tiles as they gear up to attack the city- though it might be much more advisable to move the troops back north to reinforce Ni-o-sho-de.

The Osage’s northern front collapses properly as the planes bombard Chillicothe and troops pile in, securing Pa-hiu-cka and Chillicothe quite securely. Even worse for the Osage, Pituffik is flipped as an Advanced Destroyer works it way into the city as Osage units position themselves to flip it again in this mostly futile attempt to fight back the Yellowknife advance.

Pawhuska is able to pull off a flipback as his troops take the city back and eliminate the Advanced Destroyer while they are at it. Well now there’re only Nexi next to Pituffik and ranged units in the water. A reflip is not out of the question as Yellowknife land units embark into the Great Lakes.

Further south, the Yellowknives continue moving through their Midwest, threatening to take Prophetstown and take yet another capital and cut off the northern Osage territories. Osage really needs a miraculous stop here for a few more turns to have any chance of keeping this old Shawnee capital.

Another major war breaks out…. Actually not really. Several European civs attempt to attack the Noongar but they are nowhere near the Australian continent to have any semblance of threat. Well, at least, we get to see one of the ironic aspects of the Osage’s decline. There’s more Osage units in this shot of Australia than in the main frontlines against the Yellowknives.

And while we are here, the Noongar are smart to deny open borders as they are barely hanging on and need a miracle to come out of Total War alive. Their main immediate threat are Singapore and Palawa who need to consolidate against the Wahgi, while their long term threat is Wahgi who will roll right through their outdated and lackluster carpet.

The Yellowknives continue to make progress and SCORE a capital! Prophetstown is taken and there are practically no Osage units nearby to even contest this loss. Northern Osage looks like it’s set to go towards Akaitcho as Pituffik citizens tremble as another Yellowknife melee unit gets within capture range. And even more, another previously safe capital Ganondagan falls immediately to the yellow. Those anti-air units are not able to keep up with the massive Yellowknife Air Force. Speaking of which, they’ve disappeared from this shot, I wonder where they’re going now

And we go back to Australia where we see a major war break out as that foreshadowing pays off and the Palawa by attacking Noongar in an attempt to be a relevant player come Total War. The two sides have a roughly equal amount of troops. The Noongar are at a disadvantage in that they have a bunch of Osage peacekeepers slowing down their troops and that’s not to mention that they have the weight of past mistakes hanging on them. Will Tarenorerer overcome the narrative and actually take Kriwa for the first time in what feels like a thousand turns?

The other war is Rome attacking Mogadishu, which is mostly irrelevant. You would think maybe Mog is attacking Cairo here but it’s most likely Latvia who has troops nearby in Sierra Leone and is actively at war with Rome. Either way it looks unlikely for Mogadishu or Latvia to be able to capitalise on this as Rome looks set to keep Cairo around despite the raids.

Back in the Osage-Yellowknives front, Yellowknives continue to keep their northern Osage cities, though they haven’t been able to take the Osage capital back yet. Those units in the southwest though definitely consist of a couple melee units who might perform yet another flip.

The main event here though is Pituffik flipping to the Yellowknives with increasingly slimmer options for Osage to take the city back. Pawhuska has some priorities correct by defending Genundowa and Ganondagan to play stoggage and prevent losing cities more than attacking- though it’s hard to tell with so few units.

Ballardong falls quickly to red as Palawa units grind away at the Noongar city. Unfortunately for Tarenorerer’s ambitions, there are no Palawa troops within 5 tiles, unless you count the garrison in Laylatiya or naval units with little chance of taking the deep inland city. On the Noongar end, there is also a severe lack of units by Ballardong but Yagan really does not need to defend this city unless Osage decides to throw their hat into the fray.

The 9824th Noongar-Palawa war gets its first flip. It’s not a key city like Kriwa but it is a quite relevant coastal attack as Palawa’s naval troops storm into Gargangara just three tiles away from the Nonngar capital, which is already taking damage. With the relative troop presence, the Noongar might be seeing some real danger. Then again, we’ve been here before and it’s still a bit too early to count Noongar out yet. Those Osage troops meanwhile are stopping the Noongar from doing what they normally would do by going straight for southeast Australia.

As we looked at North America one turn later, the Osage has more fully lost the Ni-o-sho-de to the Yellowknives. There’s a couple units that are grouped around Engru-Schah-op-a but the situation is looking dire for Osage. With the right moves the Yellowknives could roll right into all three cities very soon and effectively end any chance of the Osage making it any further into Total War.

The Palawa fail to keep a hold of Gargangara which flips back to Noongar control. The Noongar nuclear submarines and Missile Destroyers could make a flipback happen but those weakened Destroyers are likely to get destroyed. However, Pinjarra looks more feasible as a flip that will at least destroy 15 population and provide a possible land front for Noongar troops to actually move into around Kriwa.

Back in North America, the end-times for Osage get closer as Engru-scah-op-pa and Genundowa both fall to the Osage. While there’s a chance that nearby troops can flip the city back, Osage has just lost their one main city in the area.

Genundowa, however, looks worse. It’s far from being retaken. Chetopah also looks like it will fall to the Yellowknives at well. At least Fernandina is still there to provide some population?

In the north, Ganondagan is also looking pretty capturable with Osage’s few units in the area attempting to run away to a safe location in the east. With a Battlesuit and a Nanohive within 3 tiles, it looks likely that the Yellowknives will take their third capital of this war by capturing Ganondagan.

One more turn passes as Chetopah is taken. Unfortunately  due to the Yellowknives’ own actions prior with all the citadelling from Kanawagas. But luckily for the Yellowknives, it looks like Kanawagas is next on the list as four Osage units try to hold back the horde of Battlesuits pushing east from the recently captured Engru-scah-op-pa.

More concerningly for any Osage dreams of staying relevant is the mass of troops that have diverted from the frontlines of Genundowa to take the fourth and final Osage capital of Fernandina as they already besiege the largest remaining Osage city.

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Back from that ad break from Petropavl, we take a look at the other Osage exclave out of the hard won Samara. Osage troops once again fill the lands of another power instead of defending their core. For those watching with Osage hopes, these exclaves in Asia are a reminder that the Osage can survive to Total War even if they lose all of their core if they stay very still and don’t attract the attention of the Selkups. Their colours look close enough anyways.

As Palawa tries to take Pinjarra, they get hit with the Noongar soldiers shouting in unison “We won’t get fooled again” as a guitar riff plays.

“Sir the Who are stopping us from taking the city”

“Who?”

“Yes”

“Their name is ‘Yes’?”

“No it’s Who?”

“Who?”

“Yes”

The Yellowknives’ conquest of the main Osage core is complete as the Yellowknives take Fernandina bringing it up to par with other top contenders exceeding many powerhouses like New Holland in number of capitals controlled. Of course, all of this doesn’t matter with Total War coming soon and moving to final eliminations, but with the conquest of the Osage, Akaitcho is definitely poised to rebuild a strong defensible territory in North America

We take a look up north to confirm what observant viewers could tell from the previous slide- Ganondagan had also fallen. Osage really created a unique collection of capitals, taking several capitals from North American contenders while being unable to keep their other cities.

I’ll save the eulogy for when Osage finally does get eliminated as they continue as a rump, looking to stay really still against the Selkups.

And here we see the last city of the Osage in America as their Bahamian city of Yuma continues to be well protected by a swarm of Carriers with two planes flying between all 26 of them. The Yellowknives could push out here but they don’t have any naval access to properly eliminate all those naval units and get to Yuma. And so Akaitcho makes the smart play and peace out with the Osage, leaving them in Yuma… wait a minute Yuma is now their capital, which means that

Oh my god, the Osage gave away Petropavl!

And they gave away Samara too! Wow that’s a massive gain for the Yelloknives and somewhat of a fumble by the Osage. Yuma had little actual threat with two Yellowknives cybersubs in the area and a lot of land units that would struggle to clear all those carriers and make their way to take Yuma. And besides, even if they got to Yuma, the best shot for Pawhuska to make it up the last power rankings was to stay still in central asia and hope that the Selkups don’t notice you long enough to finish higher. I guess Pawhuska thought that the chance to be attacked by the various powers in Central Asia was far more concerning than anyone in the Americas. We’ll see how nice New Holland in the Americas is feeling before Total War.

The Dzungars are apparently so frustrated at their Coiot mod-sibling and takes their frustration out on Mogadishu. This war isn’t that relevant but it lets us look at Mogadishu whose uniques have been keeping Mogadishu itself at a healthy population despite flips and wars a couple episodes ago. Their loss to Ndongo is still a massive blow to Mogadishu but they might be going into Total War with their capital left and being far enough from a rump state. While their units are certainly not topline units, they could, hypothetically, take on the undefended Sierra Leonean cities nearby.

Well would you look at that. Someone nearby must’ve heard me talking about Mogadishu and decided to do something about it. Singapore decides that it’s going to attack Mogadishu, but first Lee Kuan Yew decides that it’s important he attacks the Osage together with Trajan to show his anger at that peace deal.

Now that that’s out of the way, we see Singapore making a brave dividing to attack Mogadishu’s city of Qatif solely using the power of planes and luxury airport terminals. That’s not what I meant when I said build more planes for your carriers, Lee.

We do see some more of that plane action as Singapore gets around the unit carpet spam by attacking with 42 planes instantly taking the island city of Mnara down to red in a single turn. Too bad there’s not even a land tile nearby to land a paratrooper or XCOM on to take the city. It’ll just be endless bombing raids. Luckily for Abu Bakr, he appears to have a naval superiority here, if Singapore can ever wade through that Wahgi drone soup.

We see a surprisingly relevant war end in Europe as Latvia makes peace with the Romans. With Sierra Leone’s empty lands as a base, Latvia has been doing its own Wahgi impersonation. They’ve actually brought Rome down quite a bit and with all those drones and tanks nearby they almost certainly would have flipped Rome once. But they instead were outsmarted by Trajan who realises he can simply say no and peace out.

And Singapore TAKES MNARA as their ships manage to push through the Wahgi gloop and take the city after just one turn. If you remember the Mogadishawi unit carpet before, the ships have also made quick work of a quarter of all the ships Mog had in the area with minimal damage. The tech disadvantage between Mogadishu’s Renaissance era Uwassiye is unveiling the mirage of defence that Mog had. Unfortunately though that new empty space just looks like prime real estate for the Wahgi gloop to move into.

Palawa continues to bring the Noongar cities down to low health but the bombing raids do absolutely nothing, not even preventing citizens for going about their normal lives since that’s how Civ 5 is coded. The Palawa navy, absolutely confuzzled by the Who have also forgotten to keep a naval melee unit around near Pinjarra. With the growth of Noongar land units, Tarenorerer is not killing some of the land units off. Instead her ranged ships are just ceaselessly bombing the city.

We have a quick look at the Sierra Leonean core where we see Peters’ absolutely brilliant strategy to achieve a minimum viable land army. He’s surrounded his main cities with a ring of one unit to prevent sudden invasions while hopefully focusing his energies on turtling, teching up, etc in this episode. If he is smart he will build up a reserve of units as quickly as he can right before Total War, but given his neighbours he can afford to make a couple suboptimal plays.

One of Peters’ neighbours here is Ndongo. Riding off her success in Mogadishu, Nziunga is slowly rebuilding her army. She’s copying Peters’ homework with the whole minimal viable army or whatever he calls it. But the one downside is that she has unfortunately chosen to have open borders with the Wahgi who are slowly becoming that minimal viable defence. And we’ve seen just how ineffective relying on the Bolim for peacekeeping defence has been.

Noongar is pushing back against the Palawa war too and we now see where the Who sent the Palawa navy to- the Antarctic colony of Lukrakiyula. Despite having no melee units in the area, Tarenorerer is determined not to lose a city if she cannot take a city- and it certainly looks like she will not take a city as Noongar’s navy slowly fights of any naval offense that isn’t distracted by Antarctica to actually attack the valuable land.

The final bastion of the Osage slowly recovers and the people wail as the haunting but relentless music of Joy Division fills the city of Yuma. People sing Knives will Tear Us Apart, a post-punk song with a thinly veiled veneer of cultural defiance to stick it to the Yellowknives that they may take Samara but couldn’t take Yuma.

Meanwhile, Singapore takes Qatif from Mogadishu, slowly snaking their way to the Gulf of Aden. Speaking of the Gulf of Aden, Mogadishu responds by taking Safwan! Abu Bakr decides, for some reason, to liberate the Qarmatians! There’s really no need to do this except to upset the power rankings once again with this meaningless gesture. While it might buy Abu Bakr some favour from his threatening neighbours, there’s really not enough time before Total War for that to matter.

With the conquest of Mnara secured, the Singapore fleet slowly makes its way down the gloop attacking the Mogadishawi Antarctic colonies. It looks like some attacks have happened to the far southern city of Siteki but Abu Bakr has mounted enough of a defence. It’s not looking as good though for the two more developed northern cities who look far less defended- though that might just be the mirage of those outdated units.

Elsewhere on the last continent, Lukrakiyula falls to the Noongar who are making out of this war with at least one city if they can keep things like this going. The Palawa navy is still up and running and could make a second offense attempt but the Osage peacekeepers are slowly thinning out threatening a Noongar attack on land.

Things go from questionable to bad for Mogadishu as their liberation of the Qarmatians anger Goguryeo into attacking them. Nzinga is heard muttering about how the power rankings must not be disturbed and joins the Goguryeo declaration to make it into a relevant war. Instantly, Mogadishawi cities in the Madagascar Channel are brought down to nothing as the Ndongo planes make quick work of any city defences. Fortunately for Mogadishu, though, the Wahgi goop is in full swing with only one and half Ndongo units even visible on this slide.

And oh my god Sierra Leone is going for the kill declaring war and instantly taking down Rome with his air and naval forces! Abu Bakr’s liberation gambit was somewhat successful, it seems, as Peters turns his eyes north towards finishing off some rumps and get footholds in place for the inevitable takedown of the Faroergs.

Trajan is seen fleeing to Antioch but is determined to fight back with a could tanks in Italy ready to flip the city back, already bringing it into the black.

With several endgame contenders declaring relevant wars to consolidate their positions, the Bolim convene and decide that they too should probably do something with that massive unit carpet. In their infinite wisdom, they decide to take out a rump- attacking… Osage. Well, it’s another peacekeeper on peacekeeper shootout as we see if Wahgi can keep the Noongar out by cleaning up some of the Osage units away for a land assault.

Back in the Gulf of Aden, we see Mogadishu hang on for dear life for their city of Hajar, mounting a very successful defensive block. Look at that Rocket Artillery! And that Mechanized Infantry! Can Mogadishu finally use its stronger units? It’s looking like it as there are zero Singaporean units to be seen and a gap in the Wahgi peacekeeping gloop to take Qatif back as well. Unfortunately those ships right there are Battleships and Missile Cruisers none of which can actually inflict melee damage.

Karlis looks around at the cylinder and considers what he sees. Various top powers are making moves to consolidate their region and Sierra Leone is doing what they couldn’t by taking Rome. But obviously the best leader to copy are the Bol’im. With that Karlis instructs his troops to attack Osage! Well, at least Latvia is right next to the Osage troops and can join the Wahgi in being a cleanup crew to clear out what remains of the Osage carpets up in Selkup lands.

In contrast, Sierra Leone goes TWO FOR TWO taking Cairo to complete the double capital capture. Rome is looking quite weak with their main chance of surviving to Total War rapidly diminishing as they are left with just two much smaller cities in a much worse position- and Nicomedia is looking a bit scared too as its health drops as Sierra Leone looms nearby. Trajan, dejected, sends a merchant to the frontline to see if maybe he can buy it back. As a long shot, maybe?

And that gap in the Wahgi gloop near Qatif has proven disastrous for Singapore as Mogadishu retakes the city with a fast melee naval unit. This really is a masterclass in why peacekeepers are not very useful, especially at this stage of the game where one advanced melee unit is all you need.

However, Mog faces one more obstacle as their actions attract the attention of… the Selkups. Yeah not an obstacle for now.

In exchange for Qatif, Singapore strikes in the south taking the two Mog cities in the Indian ocean with very minimal naval presence. It’s pretty clear to us at least that the sparse units are able to get the job done in the Antarctic, so Singapore better get a move on to keep their western colonies.

And Singapore is going to do exactly that! Lee sends a sizable fleet westwards to Simunye, flipping the city for a third gain of the turn. It’s a massive gain too with the city keeping 21 pop even after the flip. With the speed of the conquests, Lee is outrunning the gloop and can easily keep this momentum up to move closer to Madagascar and threaten Mog’s second core. And all Abu Bakr has to stop it is a ragtag group of renaissance era Uwassiye who aren’t even in range yet.

We go back to see the Roman rump state where Trajan has managed a temporary stop. But Peters isn’t done with him yet as he has a bigger troop presence in Cairo and is slowly inching closer to Nicomedia. It’s not time to get complacent for healing the city up just yet, Rome! Those Selkup carriers are not going to be of much help either. Their peacekeeping attempts won’t stop Sierra Leone from marching troops right past them.

The Latvian anti-peacekeeper war continues to grind on with very little evidence of any changes in the number of Osage paratroopers. This may be hindered by the fact that Latvia can’t really attack into Selkup territory- hard to do a melee attack when that melee attack automatically triggers a war declaration with a strong neighbour. At least, this isn’t as bad of a lost opportunity for Latvia whose own unit carpet has also shown no signs of diminishing.

On the other front, though, Mogadishu is doing a good job of mounting a defence for Hluti. There are a healthy amount of units, albeit outdated, surrounding the city. Perhaps Abu Bakr has learnt from all the various failings of peacekeeper carpets. Speaking of which, Ndongo continues to struggle with getting units close to the frontlines. Despite sharing a rather long border with Mogadishu, Nzinga is able to do less damage to Mogadishu than Latvia is doing to Osage.

Sierra Leone meanwhile scores another Roman city, taking Nicomedia. A distraught Trajan is stuck in Antioch watching as air raids take the city down rapidly as well. He looks around in panic and sees that his fate is pretty much in the hands of the Kalmyks- a long dead civ- and their remaining peacekeeper troops. At least with a smaller water area, those pesky Selkup carriers are slightly more effective at blocking the Sierra Leonean offence. But will it be enough, it doesn’t look good for Rome.

The Faroes make an opportune attack eastwards as their ships begin to attack Latvia on the Baltic Sea. This must be a new record for relevant wars- though I guess at this stage of the game it’s a given.

Latvia, however, is prepared returning fire with their own planes taking Vagur down to the red! Latvia’s faster on defence than offence, and has a more thorough carpet on the frontlines.Will that be enough to stop the Faroes from advancing?

The Singaporean Indian Ocean Operations continue westwards, flipping Zahran. Although Singapore now has Madagascar in sight again, the naval units are definitely no longer in sight as Singapore’s lands look starkly empty- devoid of even the Wahgi gloop.It’s unclear if there might’ve been a couple flips in the area, but Simunye has fallen rapidly in population. It could, of course, be the massive deficit in food routes and bonuses to support these islands. Hopefully with time, Singapore can turn the Indian Ocean into their own unit carpet to prepare for the Wahgi doomsday.

The Rozvi get increasingly miffed and declare war on the Qarmatians. The rumour going around is that Changamire Dombo had scheduled a Game of Thrones cosplay session with Abu Tahir Al-Jannabi. Dombo had gone through the effort of making an “Iron Throne” out of spears he had lying around on the submarine before and wrongly thought Al-Jannabi didn’t like the idea and left. When he found out that the Qaramatians had gone back to try and weasel up the final rankings yet again, he declared war in protest.

Closer to the sub, in Antarctica, Singapore cleans up the final city of the Mogadishawi East Antarctic as Siteki falls to the Singaporeans. We can see the Wahgi gloop slowly ooze its way west across these new waters but there’s plenty of time for Singapore to move in the free waters and push further west to more valuable land.

We go back to the Stravinsky Show where Gwanggaeto has wisely chosen to move one more Nexus into position to block himself from moving any meaningful melee unit to finally take Gyangtse- prolonging the increasingly popular dance competition between the two musicians in the area. His advisors plead with him but Gwanggaeto stands firm. The continued miserable existence of the Dzungars in this limbo is part of the performance, he says.

Oh my lord, what’s happening here. There’s some damage being dealt next to the Osage’s last stand in Yuma. Could it be the Selkups or the Ume Sami at last doing something? Who’s even at war with them? Ah, right, it’s the Wahgi. The purple unit gloop slowly squeezes through that Faroese-Osage border and has eliminated half of the Osage units in the area. The Osage defence is crumbling but not crumbled yet as the city remains at full health defending themselves valiantly.

Sierra Leone is using one the lesser used units and it’s going to land that Special Forces right on Antioch’s doorstep. Things have gone from grim to bleak for Rome as the Lion Shadow Unit sneaks right up to Trajan’s last stand in Antioch. All the Wahgi peacekeepers, the Selkup peacekeepers and even the Kalmyk peacekeepers see them and shrug. Some wave as the Sierra Leonean troops attack Antioch to Trajan’s dismay

The Faroese attack on Tukums is going terribly for Tróndur as the Latvians troops pounce on the ability to actually invade and use their melee attacks. Vague is looking vulnerable as Latvian units dismantle the Faroese offensive and push into the Wahgi gloop. The Faroes are being held back by three things here. First, there’s of course all the Wahgi peacekeepers in their way. Second, Latvia has enough ships in range to double up on offense while keeping a defence. Third, the Faroes are still probably turtling building wonders instead of producing advanced units.

The Palawa invasion of Noongar has officially turned the other way as Noongar nabs Nipaluna. There’s a small group of Palawa units who can definitely flip the city back with the melee-capable Chimera right next to the city. However, after a couple flips it looks increasingly difficult for Palawa to stop the Noongar with their lack of troops. Worse, it looks like Palawa is about to lose another city too as the Noongar army and navy collectively breathe down the neck of the tiny city of Pataway

But Ballardong falls to Palawa as Tarenorerer answers the Noongar flip with own flip to tie up the score- except for all the people killed in these flips of course. The combination of mobile units like the Chimera Tarenorerer used and air raids seem to be the dominant strategy for a minimally viable offence. It will certainly be interesting to see if that kind of strategy can hold its own against the unit carpenters of the world as well as it can against the empty Noongar defences.

That minimal viable offence might be something we see out of the Ndongo-Mogadishu war where Nzinga’s forces have managed to bring the city of Mogadishu down into the black. However, for the minimal viable offence to work, she needs to actually have a mobile melee unit nearby. In contrast, Abu Bakr is attempting to do the same and retake Shangani. While the Missile Cruisers bombing the city back down to red aren’t melee units, those woefully outdated Uwassiye are and could start a Mogback.

The Ballardong bounce is ultimately temporary as Noongar mounts a counteroffensive using that one tank that was hanging out behind the city banner last shot. With a grand total of four land units along the entire front, Palawa is unlikely to be able to mount a counter-counteroffensive. Maybe, if Tarenorerer is smart, she will find a way to dismantle all those useless submarines to turn them into spearmen at least. Or even better send them to the frontline down south and threaten the Noongar core.

The Mogadishu defence is not giving out yet! Mogadishawi ships move in to flip back not just Zahran but also Simunye! While Singapore has some naval units nearby none of them can do melee damage. To win the flipfest grind, Lee Kuan Yew really needs more ships- even if they are just a bunch of weak melee Renaissance units. On the other hand, Mogadishu needs to make sure they don’t lose too many of their weak melee Renaissance units going up against Future era Cybersubs.

Speaking of needing melee naval units, Ndongo sends a cybersub with some missiles to the city of Mogadishu standing there menacingly. Unfortunately for Nzinga’s dreams of taking Mogadishu, they are indeed ranged units. Frustrated, she attempts to cut off some of the Mogadishawi trade routes but it is still yet to be seen how useful that will be.

Singapore answers with a new capture, taking the city of Hamar Jajab in the Antarctic. Singapore’s naval composition issues continue to shine through with only one melee unit in this entire shot. Without more melee units, they won’t be able to move back north to take Mogagascar properly. On the other hand, Abu Bakr’s naval fleet is entirely decimated. We’ve been seeing it happen slowly but this shot is really hitting home how empty the Mogadishawi waters in the area are. Maybe Lee’s just using ranged units to clear the waters for Total War?

We see an unrelated unit carpet being whittled down as the Osage troops in the Selkup lands up north have been decimated in the war with Latvia. Pawhuska seems to be done the AI thing of moving your troops into your enemy territory. It’s hard to blame him but if he had kept his troops in Selkup lands it would be much harder for Latvia to whittle them down.Alas, it looks like Ulmanis’ carpet cleanup services are being delivered to the Selkups with minimal losses on the Latvian side.

Singapore peaces out! Well, I guess it wasn’t in the cards for Singapore to actually take out Mogagascar just yet. Regardless, Singapore makes out with the southern antarctic islands and only lost, what, a couple dozen naval melee units? Mogadishu might be feeling good but it shouldn’t let them distract from how Singapore decimated their entire naval carpet and that they are still at war with Ndongo on the other side. At least with this positioning it’s getting more likely that they will at least make it to Total War. Whether Mog survives past that is going to really depend on if Abu Bakr decides to build better units to fill in the empty oceanic voids.

Back in Pawhuska’s last stand, all the peacekeepers he has aren’t going to be able to come home at this point. Wahgi troops ooze right up to the gates of Yuma as Osage peacekeepers continue to pick snowball fights in Finland instead of coming back to defend their last city. Wahgi’s inability to take Yuma as rapidly as other powers is really a sign of its faltering momentum. But if they take Yuma, they will at least prevent one more civ from being added to the New Holland Grim Reaper Toll and cut off the New Hollandaise Atlantic as ripe pickings come Total War

Ludwig decides to show the world that he’s not some low-rate rump and is capable of big moves. However, he’s a tad bit too scared to attack any of the scary powers near him so he picks on Rome, sending an anti-air unit to attempt to take the city down out from under Sierra Leone’s nose.

In mildly related news, Singapore also shows mercy and peaces out with the Wahgi alongside Rome. Rome’s really just there for the show. But Singapore is upset at this and decides to attack Rome as a show of their displeasure. This is all of course meaningless as Trajan continues his valiant efforts to stop the singular Sierra Leonean Special Forces unit from doing more damage than the city cna heal.

Up north, Latvia pulls off the counterattacking defence and takes Vagur! Albeit, Ulmanis wasn’t actually able to pull it off all the way but the Faroes make another classic top power blunder by surrendering the city to Latvia. Truly it’s no wonder people feel the wonderwhoring Faroes are not worthy of their top tier positions. As Latvia pulls into their bespoke new city without any depopulation, the Wahgi also swarm in to remind Latvia that they have to deal with not one but two incompetent top tier powers in their backyard.

Palawa’s attempted invasion goes from awful to terrible as Noongar completes the expected flip of Patawan, moving their border right up to the edge of the Palawa core and capital. What’s worse is that the unit production trends continue as the bulk of the Osage population continues vacationing in Palawa lands as “peacekeepers” while doing nothing to stop the sizable offence that Yagan has built up around his new city of Patawan. That’s not the only issue for Palawa, as Yagan also continues assaulting their northern cities, bringing Latalyia to the red.

And that is the end of the regular CBR for X4. But don’t leave yet, we have the post-game show sponsored by Wahgi Wavelengths- get the next CBR beamed directly into your head!

It is now Turn 800 and we are now entering Total War! Before we delve into it, we can look at some key stats going into Total War. This is the state of the world as we go in. Notable rumps Dzungars, Osage, Shang and Rome have the honours of making it here. A couple of the last minute gambits are not complete as Mog and Palawa are still alive and kicking!

The population map here shows some of the turtling that civs were able to do in the last few turns- looks like Wahgi is struggling in more ways than just with their economy, science and unit composition- they are the only relevant civ with a declining population.We also see that the major civs that did some wars right before the end are not stagnant- except for Faroes and Latvia who are both struggling somewhat. Goguryeo has also not really been able to turtle up. It’s unlikely to be due to the Ikko-Ikki conquest as that was, in turn-times, a long time ago.

We also see that see of Autorcacy with the revolution in Singapore that they have, by most relevant metrics, recovered from. The lone standout and bastion of, well, not freedom but literally anything else is the Faroes. Ironic given the characterisation that people have of the Faroes. Is it all propaganda? Maybe Faroese citizens actually enjoy being assimilated and enjoying all the boerg wonders.

Interestingly on the prosperity map with the gold it looks like Wahgi might’ve slowly gotten itself out of the bankruptcy hole. It’s not out yet as it’s still TXT_KEY_LEGEND_JFD_ORANGE but Sierra Leone and the Selkups are apparently doing much worse. This stat won’t matter as much going into Total War as grinding wars will reduce those units. But if this is reliable, Wahgi might’ve suffered from massive unit disbandings that may explain the thinning of theri gloop

We see a last religious view as religious wars truly become a thing of the past as Total War looms ahead.The winner of the religious game were the Kalymks with Vajryana dominating the majority of the cylinder.

Looking at the religious overview listing, Goguryeo and the Yellowknives having the highest follower counts gives some insight into both the development in the lands of these two contenders as well as a glimpse into some of the contenders who still have their own religions.

Of course, we see that Vajrayana leads in follower count. Also potentially relevant is to see what holy wars are still currently active as we go into the end.

Don’t let Gwanggaeto’s kawaii dancing persona fool you. He might say that he is just calling himself Generalissimo because it’s a funny word. There’s a whole lot of random other titles he’s decided to attach to himself- or maybe those are just the names of his various albums.

In the Wahgi monarchy, we see the Bol’im take on the various titles that they have held in the past- including some funny happenstances of history like President of Vijayanagara. The question remains on if it is right for the Wahgi to be considered a monarchy when their monarch is several million different ethereal spirits. Maybe they channel themselves into a monarch in a cybernetic interface kind of monarchy.

Meanwhile Akaitcho has been running on an anti-environmentalist platform seizing power in an autocratic platform in Northern America. He promised to get rid of the hippie Osage and did just that. And now he says he’s going to drill for nanotechnics in all those new lands. It’s going to be amazing and he’s even backed by the Justice Union. That’s never a bad thing! /s

We see that Tarenorerer leads one of the few theocracies in the game where she’s styling herself as Imperator.

And with that folks, the CBRX4 regular season has come to an end. I’m Emerald and we will see you on the other side when Total War starts to see who of the remaining civs will come out on top. Good night.