Episode 45: The Sculpting of the Final World – S4

Hello and welcome, one and all, to Episode 45 of the CBRX Season 4! I’m NopeCopter, also known as u/daXfactorz, and while I probably should not have taken on the task of narrating an episode this week, I did, and it got done, so here we are. The narration is all admittedly a bit rushed, but the episode itself is a hell of a ride, so hopefully you can enjoy it nonetheless.

Last episode, we saw Total War really kick into high gear with the outright destruction of civs like the Selkups, Latvia, Sierra Leone, and Pontus, the near-total defeat of the Wahgi, and the Yellowknives pushing the Faroes out of Quebec. Our top powers are beginning to consolidate, but there’s still a bit of game left to be played, so prepare yourself for plenty more bloodshed to come.

Before you go, though, take a moment to appreciate Orangechrisy’s latest exquisite comic, this time detailing the rise of an unlikely power in Oceania: the Yellowknives. What will happen to this quirky little colony? Will it be crushed by some other power, or will it continue to grow? I know, but you don’t, so strap in.

And also take a moment to appreciate this meme also by Orangechrisy detailing the very fun and not at all infuriating ranged-unit-only sieges last episode. Not too long and very funny.

Unlike Hsia

As always, a massive thank you to all of the Ko-Fi donators who make this show possible. Your support does more than you could ever know.

Not a ton of changes in the top ranks of the PRs this time so I’ll instead shout out Ndongo, who rose a titanic 6 ranks off the collapses of various other civs. That said, they now face down the massively-superior Faroes, so their collapse is surely imminent… right? This was exactly what people said last episode, after all… (Well, as the creator of the mod, I can at least say that I’m already proud of them no matter what comes next.)Well, that’s enough preamble - no more wasting time, let’s get right into the action!

We’re opening with… perhaps the least intense screenshot possible, because it’s (as far as I can tell) identical to a shot from the end of the last episode. Nevertheless, it’s worth taking another moment to assess this corner of the world, because it might actually end up being pretty relevant. As Sierra Leone dies, Ndongo (while they do have a few actual units here) is likely to be run through by Faroes - the speed at which this is achieved could determine a lot, since Goguryeo has a decisive upper hand and the Faroes need all the land they can get, especially since they’ve been all but thrown out of North America. On the other hand, if Ndongo DOES hold the line, then aside from holding up some Faroese troops, they would also end up being VERY funny. They’ve surpassed expectations before, but realistically time is the Faroes’ enemy here more than Ndongo on this front.

On the other hand, though, the fact that Ndongo is still fighting back against Singapore is already enough to be proud of their Total War performance. They’ve flipped Talandongo, and Singapore… seems to be running out of units in the region to take it back. That said, Singapore does have a melee unit - and a rather strong one at that, their UU - on Madagascar, so it’s not like Ndongo has a remotely secure grip on the city right now. I’d expect one or two more flips around here and then silence unless Singapore manages to scrounge up another fleet.

The Faroes begin to slowly make their way into Anatolia as they capture Sinope, swarms of Nanohives crashing together around the city as the Afsharids struggle to hold the line. Honestly I’m not optimistic about the Faroes making major gains here any time soon considering the near-total lack of melee units (unless the Faroes move some units out of Africa to assist the Middle Eastern front), but the Afsharids are stretched thin enough that I’m not sure they can really capitalize on this, either. Really, though, if I were the Faroes I’d focus on killing off Pontus before they could cripple my production base any more. That low-health Nexus is practically begging to be picked off.

Fun fact: did you know that Nexi used to be able to take cities? It was removed after X2 because it was deemed to be “overpowered” after it played a key role in the Chukchi victory over the Marajoara, but given that a one-sided ending is infinitely more fun than an eternal stalemate, there’s been a whole lot of talk around reverting this. I think there’s no better argument for the reversion than Hsia, really. It’s admittedly not the worst case of the “ranged unit death spiral” that I’ve seen - in one game a civ outright lost because of it - but it’s a massive waste of units and also just immensely frustrating to look at. If this happened to any civ other than Goguryeo with their massive excess of units and relative lack of fronts, it’d be a death sentence, and even now it sure isn’t a great look at the very least.

The final Latvian city of Krustpils falls into the red, bringing an icon of X5 to the brink of death, but really I think the much more haunting part of this screenshot is what ISN’T here. There used to be EMPIRES here, great wars fought, massive exchanges of land. Now it’s just… empty. Not even an endless tide of blue or orange or pink, just wasteland. The unprecedented bombing-out of the map has been talked about plenty already, of course, but it really does evoke a unique mood in my eyes, one that you rarely get to feel in an AI game. A loss of something you weren’t ready to lose. The second death of a civ as even the traces of what they once were crumble to dust.

Speaking of cities getting nuked off the map, here we have another one, as the final remnants of Wilcawain finally disappear. That was a former Tiwanaku city, by the way. Remember the Bora-Tiwanaku wars? I’m sorry, this will probably be a really reminiscence-heavy episode, haha. In other news, the Wahgi use a Tactical Peace Deal to kick the Yellowknives out of their remaining Pacific colonies for a bit, but honestly all that did was replace the ranged units around Fare with a Bio-Titan, which can take cities. I’d call that a bit of a blunder.

It’s been a while since we’ve last seen northern New Holland, but it’s not looking half-bad. The Yellowknives have been thrown out of Otavalo, and there’s even a decent-looking navy in the Caribbean… too bad it’s all Cybersubs. Looks like there’s been a bit of action up in Central America, but I don’t see any Yellowknife units, so I assume the line is holding for now. The odds of anybody in the Americas making any progress through that comically thin stretch of land is astronomically low anyways, though. The Yellowknives and New Holland don’t have the sauce (or the easy target) that Mexico did. …Man, I miss Mexico.

On the other hand, New Holland is seeing a shockingly high amount of success in Africa, where they’ve not only held onto Freetown but captured Tangier and settled Brouwershaven as well! All the Faroese units nearby are focused on Sierra Leone, so this foothold might actually stick around for a while, too. I doubt New Holland is breaking any further into Africa, though, not with that complete lack of melee units. Meanwhile, the Faroes close in on Njimi and Bo, ready to deliver the killing blow to Sierra Leone.

Singapore once again sticks it to all the doubters as they take Jeongju and Jeong-Yung from Goguryeo. Their navy is their strength, so this isn’t too surprising, and Goguryeo’s naval presence in this part of the world is… lacking (is that a Destroyer?) Still, these captures have come at a steep price: Goguryeo has taken Phra Nakhon, the Siamese capital. The incredibly thin neck of the Malay Peninsula will probably prevent a standard land invasion from threatening the city of Singapore itself from here, but a couple of Bio-Titans are already traveling down by sea…

Kazan and Valmeira have fallen out of Selkup hands, with the Faroes and Goguryeo each taking one half of the Selkup carcass. Now all that remains of this once-mighty empire is Goguryeo’s torture stress ball in Hsia. A tragic fate, to see such a once-mighty empire reduced to nothing, but I suppose this is the fate of all Siberian/steppe empires. With the green blob out of the way, though, Goguryeo is already moving to resettle the bombed-out wasteland of western Russia. Given they have more units around, too, I’d bet on Goguryeo having the advantage in this theater, at least in the short-term.

Guillame Du Fay may have been an influential early Renaissance composer in our world, but here, he’s perhaps the Greatest Musician to have ever lived. Legends say he killed every other Great Musician on the cylinder to absorb their power… all except for the chosen one, destined to stand alone at the end of the world… the legendary Kendrick Miku. (In actuality, this is probably caused by the Capturing Great People mod, which seems to interpret (Great [x]) as part of the name of the Great Person when they’re captured, just slapping another (Great [x]) on the end rather than recognizing that it’s already there.) In other, less important news, Bolgar has fallen to Goguryeo, Lagan is surrounded by Faroese ranged units, and Latvia is still alive, albeit just barely. That Faroese Battlesuit looks ready to put them out of their misery, though.

Here we see the core of the Faroese armada, guaranteed to at least make a Brandenburg-style last stand even if they don’t end up winning. The bulk of the units here are Drone Ships and Arsenal Ships, the final steps in the melee and ranged naval unit lines respectively, so it’s a pretty well balanced fleet, too. These things could wreak some serious havoc on New Holland if the Faroes wished it, but we all know how the AI feels about actually committing its forces to the front lines. Instead, those Grindadraps will have to do the job, building so many improvements that New Holland keels over from shock. (Also, somehow the largest city in this shot is in Greenland of all places. Are they lacing the Copper there with growth hormones or something?)

The collapse of the Afsharids picks up much, much faster than expected, as Goguryeo takes not only Harappa and Chamdo but even the Afsharid capital of Isfahan in their latest sweep. Mashhad at least looks like it’ll be retaken next turn, but it’s clear that the Afsharids are running out of steam and Goguryeo isn’t going to just ignore them while they’re busy fighting Singapore. Speaking of SIngapore, though, the lack of Afsharid coastal cities really is coming back to bite them here - they could probably snag a few cities off the collapse of Nader Shah’s empire otherwise. In fact, it looks like a few Afsharid units are even attempting a reconquest of Arabia. Not a good sign for a civilization already so far on the back foot in terms of a potential victory.

Ndongo takes another city off of Sierra Leone, reducing their western holdings to just the city of Bo, and while they probably won’t take the final city for themselves, they should at least have enough units in the area to not fold instantly to the Faroes (although the presence of Artillery on the front lines isn’t exactly reassuring). The Faroes did get both Njimi and Bonthe, though. Also, Ndongo killed Saba-D’mt again off-screen. Must feel good after they narrowly missed getting anything out of the previous anti-Saba-D’mt coalition.

Of course, Singapore just brings them back right afterwards (using an Uwassiye, no less, as an ultimate fuck-you to Mogadishu). Really, all these revivals are a good thing for Ndongo, though - makes it even harder for Singapore to push inland. Not that they really could with their near-total lack of land units around there, though. The endless battle between the minimum viable army and the minimum viable navy rages on.

Singapore has also taken a couple of cities off Goguryeo, namely Ero’ame as shown here and Woodlands… somewhere else, but this lack of units even near their core is a very concerning sight. Granted, it’s not EMPTY, and most of Goguryeo’s few units visible in this shot are notably outdated, but it’s not a good look at all. At least there doesn’t seem to be some sort of an incoming push from the north yet.

Things are honestly looking much better here around the Bay of Bengal, where Singapore has a decisive naval advantage and honestly might even have an edge in land units as well, particularly in India. Note that Singapore’s UU is basically just a Marine with around 25 extra Combat Strength (since it gets bonuses based on Happiness), making it a reliable and versatile melee unit (something any civ would kill for at this stage in the game). Will Singapore conquer Goguryeo? Probably not, but they can at least keep holding the line for a good while. (Also, Siam is still alive. Say hi, Siam!)

And here we finally have a good shot of Singapore’s core. Honestly… not bad at all, at least compared to the likes of New Holland. There’s a solid navy here, plenty of units to reinforce the front lines and plenty more already on their way to said front lines. Most importantly, there are plenty of melee units among the Singaporean ranks, so there’s little chance of a death spiral of ranged units or of losing a city and being unable to retake it. If only they had a bit more land, Singapore would be in a solid position to win it all, I think.

Alas, Krustpils has finally fallen, and the ever-scrappy Latvia is no longer with us. I’ll save the big, bombastic eulogies for the Power Rankings, but I do want to say a few words for Latvia here, because they really do deserve it.

Latvia was admittedly not a civilization I was thrilled about going into CBRX5 - I’m usually not a big fan of modern civs, and their performance history has been… middling. But the CBR is full of surprises, and Latvia turned out to be one of the scrappiest, most opportunistic civs in the game, winning wars by the skin of their teeth and sometimes even through sheer bravado, massively overperforming out of the gate and then continuing to massively overperform even as their military force seemed nonexistent. They were a CHARACTER, and they were a thrill to watch, always defying death and pulling off stunts nobody could reasonably anticipate. Granted, they did spend a lot of the midgame sleeping, but right when everybody assumed they’d be just another mid-tier rotting away until the Faroes or Selkups rolled around, they shocked the world by going on a conquering spree and even holding the line against the Selkups… shockingly well! They came into Total War with a much better carpet than practically anyone else, which gave them a decisive advantage early on and allowed them to go on an outright conquering spree, but alas, their low Production made even worse by Pontus’s UA meant that they just couldn’t sustain that sort of effort long enough to change their fate. (Being behind on techs didn’t help, either.) Still, they would have outlived the Selkups if it wasn’t for Hsia, and that’s a hall of a victory in my eyes. I’m a fan now, and I’m proud to say it. TopHat gave an even better eulogy than I ever could in the Discord, but hopefully this does his baby an adequate amount of justice. F.

New Holland is doing exactly the same thing to Pampa Koani that Goguryeo is doing to Hsia, only they don’t have the spare units to get away with this. This is a potentially game-ruining mistake for New Holland, here - not that they had an especially good shot at victory anyways, mind you, but those units should really be out in the Pacific or West Africa right about now. At least they haven’t fumbled Cona Niyeu in the same way just yet. (In better news, though, New Holland’s navy down here looks pretty well-balanced, sparse though it may be!)

Despite everything, the Wahgi capital of Mount Hagen remains independent, and neither Singapore nor Goguryeo are even threatening the city. Obviously the Wahgi are all but irrelevant now, but this city is still critical to the future of the game, because it is a TREASURE TROVE of Wonders. Granted, they’re mostly Food and Production wonders, but even this late they could be a godsend for Singapore or a game-winning bonus for Goguryeo. At this rate, though, it’s impossible to tell who’s going to finally take the city - it’ll remain a very tense, very boring standoff for a good while.

And the final two Pontic cities finally crumble, one to the Faroes and one to Sierra Leone. Who got the kill? From the minimap it seems like it was probably Sierra Leone, but it’s hard to say. Good on them if they did pull it off, though - they deserve a bit of revenge after what Pontus’s UA did to them. (Also, the Faroes have taken both Sinope and Themiscyra off the Afsharids… the Afsharids have more melee units around, but this is not at all good for their long-term prospects.)

Pontus was a civilization of great promise and expectations. After Turkey’s incredible run, the infamously-strong Pontus was expected to be a pretty major player. But, well… then they actually started playing. And Pontus’s actual performance could best be described as “embarrassing”. They rarely fought, and when they did they often managed to fail to achieve anything against much weaker opponents (most notably the Kalmyks and Qarmatians). Their stats never got to the point where they could be discounted, of course, but they never acted, either. Well, toward the end of the game they did pick up the pace a bit, throwing hands with Saba-D’mt and finally killing off the Qarmatians, but by that point they had finally lost their ability to actually stack up with the front-runners of the game. They’d been left behind, and they should have ended up one of the first to fall in Total War… but instead, they ended up being one of the two most important civs in the game, alongside the Wahgi themselves. Their UA, which applied Resistance to captured enemy cities on defeating their units, absolutely decimated the production bases of all their neighbors (except, apparently, the Afsharids), and even the Wahgi themselves. This put a dramatic end to the dreams of civs like Latvia, Sierra Leone, and even the Selkups to an extent - admittedly not really potential game-winners, but certainly kingmakers. With the death of Pontus, the game has entered a new era, one where massive swaths of an empire won’t suddenly be unable to act, one where raw stats and gameplay will determine the future. Total War can be divided into a pre- and post-Pontus/Wahgi period, and that’s utterly insane to consider. F.

Singapore plops another city down on Madagascar, a very wise choice if they want to have any hope of breaking into Africa proper. Those planes are also going to be a huge help. And look! There’s about half a dozen Singaporean ships patrolling the coast around Qarnawu! Is this finally the beginning of the end for Ndongo? Well, I’d like to see them finish off Eswatini, first. Ndongo also has a few melee units around, so we’ll probably at least be seeing a couple more flips.

Speaking of Ndongo dramatically overperforming, it seems like they did manage to grab Bo from Sierra Leone after all! Well, more accurately, it seems like they took it from the Faroes, who in turn took it from Sierra Leone, looking at the minimap. Actually, these two look about even on the ground in this part of the world, shocking as it might be. Looks like Ndongo probably won’t get completely run over like everyone predicted, at least not right away. As for Sierra Leone, they are still holding on in the east, so no eulogy for them just yet… but at this rate, I’d start priming your F keys if I were you.

And here’s a shot of those remaining Sierra Leonean cities, currently facing the brunt of a Faroese invasion from the north. Most of the Faroese units are ranged, so Damanhur is probably fine for the moment, but with every single city in the red, Sierra Leone’s days are still probably numbered. Someone just needs to move a couple melee units into position, particularly in Arabia. (Actually, the Mamluks DO have a Trireme… wouldn’t it be hilarious if they somehow sniped a second city?)

Things continue to get worse for the Afsharids as the Faroes take Talaura, and while Goguryeo doesn’t take Mashhad again, they do start threatening Kermanshah. Further north, the siege of Lagan has broken, and a (damaged) Mobile SAM is on its way down the Caucasus. The remains of the Afsharids now fit in a single screenshot - tragic, really, especially after their comeback from the depths of Wahgi-induced despair. The only question left now is where the Faroese-Goguryeo border will start, and how much each superpower will get out of the partition.

Singapore may not be making any gains in Arabia, but in South Asia their position is shockingly good. A tight squadron of high-quality melee units holds Tehran, while Goguryeo’s units are comparatively scattered. However, there may be problems incoming - there are still a few melee units among Goguryeo’s forces here, including a Biotrooper and a Railgun Armor, and those Nanohives will be able to put the hurt on those tightly-packed-together NS Men Singapore has without much trouble with their AoE damage effect. I expect this region to continue to be a battleground in the coming turns, but I’m honestly not even sure who’s most likely to come out on top here anymore.

The Yellowknives take Fare, though Tevaitoa might hold out a bit longer  because - you guessed it - the city is surrounded by ranged units. Sigh. At the very least there is a Giant Death Robot nearby that might be able to slip through the cracks, but who knows when that’ll happen. I… think this might be the last Wahgi city outside of Mount Hagen, though, which is slightly terrifying to consider. A couple of episodes ago, the Wahgi controlled over a hundred cities. Now, they own two. We really are in the endgame now. (I also want to give shoutouts to the Palawa for holding strong all episode so far. I honestly expected Singapore to run them over, so it’s neat to see them sticking it out. Hard to say whether it’ll keep up once the Yellowknives turn their attention to them, though…)

Minya becomes the next city to fall to the Faroes as Damanhur continues to be bombed into oblivion. There’s a Battlesuit and an XCOM nearby, though, so that might not last… at least Sierra Leone’s Arabian holdings still don’t look too threatened. I somehow doubt Dioscuras will be flying blue-and-green for much longer, so getting a few extra turns of breathing room across the Red Sea looks nice. Meanwhile, Ndongo has a Sentinel poking around just to let the Faroes know that they won’t be quite such easy pickings.

Hey, we just got a shot of the Faroese core! What’s the big - oh. Ohhh. Right, so it looks like the entire western half of Greenland has been nuked into oblivion, presumably by the Yellowknives. There are already Settlers heading out to reclaim the bombed-out land, and you could probably walk across the Faroese armada from Scotland to Greenland without ever getting your feet wet no problem so there’s no risk of a follow-up invasion, but some super populous cities were blown off the map here… this is a serious loss to the Faroese power base, and a loss that’s uncomfortably close to home for the cylinder’s number-two power. Maybe I’ve been underestimating the Yellowknives…

The Goguryean troops, with the Selkups eliminated, begin the march through the treacherous wastes of what was once Kazan toward the frigid arctic outposts of the Faroes. And wow, are they overprepared. The Faroes have all but abandoned these lands, while Goguryeo has around 10 units descending on Valmiera, plus a few Cybersubs acting as the vanguard to soften up the Faroese outskirts ahead of the main force’s approach. It’s a pretty rock-solid strategy that’s honestly kind of wasted on this target. I suppose it’ll come in handy once they actually start to reach the heart of Europe, at least.

New Holland places down a new island base along the African coast at Palongona, and the Faroese strategy of intimidation tactics seems to be failing miserably as their Grindadraps are not actually capable of dealing any damage. In fact, the Faroes have exactly one melee unit in this entire shot. Could New Holland break further into West Africa or even Iberia…? Well, probably not - they don’t exactly have melee units here, either. Still, if New Holland wants to make a last-minute play for the crown, this sort of thing is EXACTLY what they need to be doing - making, building up, and abusing beachheads on other continents. It won’t work without units, though.

Despite being down to only two cities, the Wahgi position has suddenly gotten much, much safer - Singapore’s place in the race for Mount Hagen has been set back dramatically as Banz is nuked off the map. Getting a melee unit onto Papua to make a play for the city is still possible, of course, but it’ll be much, much trickier without a city to spawn units or back them up. At least Goguryeo isn’t really making any progress, either. The Wahgi may be disgraced, but they’re not ready to give up the ghost just yet, either.

Ndongo has reunited the Horn of Africa, and while there are plenty of Singaporean units pestering the coastline as always, none of them can actually take cities. Ndongo, meanwhile, is looking a bit thin on the ground even by Total War standards, but they do at least have enough units to put up a bit of a fight for now. More concerning than Singapore, though, is the sudden influx of Faroese XCOMs up north. Sure, they’re busy dismantling Sierra Leone for now, but once that’s done, I don’t think Artillery will be enough to stop them.

Well, it’s finally happened - the Faroes have been pushed out of mainland North America entirely, and with no naval presence nearby, a bombed-out western Greenland, and Yellowknife Giant Death Robots guarding the new captures, I doubt they’ll be back any time soon. This is huge for the Yellowknives, and terrible for the Faroes, who really could have used that foothold to secure the notoriously hard-to-invade North America at some stage in the game. From here, the obvious next step for the Yellowknives is to head south and push out New Holland as well, but unfortunately they still have actual units guarding their colony. A clash between the two powers of the Americas taking place outside of a Central American stalemate is unusual, and I kind of doubt New Holland will be able to make any progress here even if the Yellowknives don’t overwhelm them immediately, but I’ve been surprised by both of these civs before.

Goguryeo has managed to flip Tehran from Singapore, but the city looks very likely to flip right back. That’s not the real big development here, though - much more important is Goguryeo’s resettling of mainland Southeast Asia with cities that Singapore just can’t really threaten. Well, the one in southern Burma is coastal, so it’ll probably flip at some point, but Singapore doesn’t have a whole lot of units in the area anymore. Phra Nakhon is almost entirely empty. Getting a better look at Goguryeo’s holdings in the area isn’t exactly reassuring for them either, though - so many Workers, not a single military unit north of Lothal. This front looks about ready to stalemate for real.

Goguryeo is seeing much, much greater success in the east, where the partition of the Afsharids is nearly complete. The Faroes have taken and locked down all of Amaseia, Lagan, and Nahavand with their newfound penchant for XCOM Squadrons, while Mashhad, Bushehr, and Shiraz now belong to Goguryeo. Only Kermanshah and Bandar-E-Bushehr still remain in Afsharid hands, and both are well within range of Goguryeo’s melee forces. At this rate, the Afsharids will be eliminated before Sierra Leone or even the Wahgi, which… well, it would have made sense if you said that three episodes or so ago when they were getting torn apart by the Wahgi, but right now it feels utterly unfair.

The Goguryeo assault on Valmiera has evidently failed miserably for unknown reasons, and yet Goguryeo is still making good progress in Russia - brand-new settlements are popping up all throughout the wastelands, and the Faroes just don’t have the manpower to do anything about it. Obviously these cities are still vulnerable to nuclear strike, but then Goguryeo can just settle there again. Before long, Goguryeo will have a rock-solid foothold west of the Urals, and without that line to hold, the Faroes will be in a lot of trouble. Who knows, though - maybe whatever killed the invasion force at Valmiera will strike again.

Palawa, in case you haven’t noticed, hasn’t really shown up much yet this episode, and that’s because they’ve been holding the line against Singapore shockingly well - heck, now they’ve even taken Nannup, and I bet they could make a play for Ballardong as well. This sort of last-minute redemption arc is very welcome in my eyes (even if I wish the Noongar were still here), and while Singapore does have a few melee units around to keep up the fight, they look disorganized and disinterested. The Palawa will not be dying any time soon.

The race for Mount Hagen finally ends… in a draw, as the Wahgi somehow retake Goroka with a Railgun Armor, driving Goguryeo away from their capital and ensuring their continued survival for a good few turns to come. Heck, they even have a new Settler to repopulate the western half of the island! Is this the start of a Wahgi comeback? Well, no, but it is pretty funny to see the Wahgi put up just a bit more actual resistance after their entire empire has gone crashing down so spectacularly. It doesn’t exactly reflect well on Goguryeo or especially Singapore, though.

Shiraz falls to Goguryeo, but the Afsharids even now manage to put up a bit of a fight as they reclaim Bushehr in return. The newly-christened Republic of Two Bushehrs probably won’t last long, though, as Faroese troops move in from the north and the Afsharids are down to only three military units total. There’s another Faroese XCOM Squadron west of Bandar-E-Bushehr, too, so Goguryeo might not be able to claim either of these final two cities at this rate.

Well well well, look who we have here. Even with Mogadishu dead, the tradition of reviving the Qarmatians continues, giving us yet another Qarmback. This one probably won’t last too long, not with a Singaporean NS Man about four tiles away, but given Hajar’s position right between the Faroes, Singapore, and Ndongo, that really doesn’t matter. They’ll be back again, and again, and again. The Qarmatians have discovered the true secret to eternal life: being so funny that others continuously perform necromancy on you just to keep the bit going. In other, less important news, Sierra Leone is down to two cities, and one has a healthy XCOM Squadron parked right outside… it may be about time to say goodbye. Also, the Mamluks are dead (again), and there are plenty of Faroese units ready to run through the fairly large but outdated Ndongo garrison around Azeba.

Tevaitoa is finally put out of its misery by a Yellowknife Giant Death Robot, meaning that the only Wahgi cities remaining are in Papua. Now freed from their little mini-death spiral, the swarm of Yellowknife Nexi and Nanohives are free to move onto their next target: the Palawa. This does admittedly look bad for Australia’s final survivor, as cities are already being surrounded, but they’re been handling Singapore just fine, so I wouldn’t entirely count the Palawa out just yet.

The Yellowknives are seeing similar success in Alaska, where Goguryeo’s advances have been decisively stifled - they just don’t have the units to make a push through this treacherous terrain, and the Yellowknives have just enough guards to keep it that way. What’s more, even Goguryeo’s backup strategy of settling empty lands to increase their foothold has been countered, as the Yellowknives also work to repopulate before Goguryeo’s Settlers can act. The Yellowknives may be beset on all sides, but they’re performing admirable damage control in limiting the expansion of other civs’ colonies while still managing to expand into the Pacific… it’s an admirable feat, really.

Here we have the first of a few shots primarily meant to show off the sheer extent of the nuclear damage the cylinder has undergone. Normally, Fallout takes so long to load in graphically that the camera has already taken an image and moved on long before it’s noticeable, but here it becomes frighteningly clear just how bad things really are. Goguryeo’s Settlers aren’t just making the trek across empty wasteland, but rather wading through irradiated disaster zones, attempting to establish refuges and strongholds in the sea of uninhabitable tundra. What’s more, the Faroese outskirts here in northern Russia have been absolutely demolished, full of pillaged tiles they’re still struggling to repair. There are few military units present here, but the absence of conquest does not in any way mean the lives of the people in this area are pleasant.

The Himalayas are also covered in Fallout, and suddenly Goguryeo’s army of Workers doesn’t seem quite so worthless after all. Honestly, though, compared to the Ural front, this portion of the cylinder seems much more intact - a very good sign for Goguryeo’s chances going forward. Not a ton of units, which is a bit of a concern, but at least there aren’t any massive gaps between the cities.

In New Holland, Workers rush out into the heart of South America to clean up the aftermath of the war against the Wahgi. New Holland has certainly been rebuilding fairly well, with most of the major gaps in their empire (outside of this one) now filled. Of course, if they’d simply captured more cities rather than nuking them all out of existence they’d be in a much better spot, but this is the next best thing. And hey, look, there are a few Settlers ready to brave the Fallout-riddled Gran Chaco once those Workers do their clean-up work! Nature is healing.

The southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean are still suffering the effects of Fallout as the Faroes focus on completing the conquest of Sierra Leone and securing the region. Cairo in particular still looks downright uninhabitable, and it seems like most people would agree, as the former capital sits at a measly 5 population. We can also see here that Trapezus has indeed fallen, but that Dioscuras still flies the Sierra Leonean flag for at least one turn longer. The Faroes have a pretty decent military presence in the area, though, so I can’t imagine they’ll be able to hold out…

Further south, we can see the gigantic nuclear hellhole in the center of Africa, the no-man’s-land between the Faroes and Ndongo, the remains of the Sierra Leonean bombing campaign. No Ndongo Settlers have dared to brave this corner of the globe just yet, though the cities around it are fairly well-defended. It’s hard to say whether that’ll be enough to stop the Faroes, though - Azeba has fallen, and there are Faroese units to spare around Dioscuras. I guess Artillery isn’t exactly worth much at this stage of the game after all.

Singapore’s Indian Ocean colonies remain mostly stable, but neither they nor Goguryeo have bothered to attempt resettlement of the lower Indus River even in spite of its shocking lack of nuclear fallout. Perhaps Singapore just has bigger things to worry about - after all, Mehrgarh is an utter wreck (ignoring its 200 city defense of course), and Goguryeo is somehow still clinging to Tehran. You’d think such a vulnerable city would have fallen by now. Not at all a good sign for Singapore, even if Goguryeo isn’t remotely taking advantage.

Cona Niyeu finally falls to New Holland, meaning Pampa Koani is now the only Palawa settlement on South America, and the only South American city not owned by New Holland. And it is ALSO surrounded by a swarm of ranged units around three tiles thick, so I expect it to stay the only South American city not owned by New Holland for some time to come. It’s a massive shame, too - if they could only just move on and send those units toward any other city, they could probably tear through Yellowknife Polynesia or even Faroese West Africa.

Ndongo has retaken Azeba, but honestly that’s about the least important piece of information on this slide, because it seems that the Faroes have taken hold of all of Dioscuras, Tamna, Bandar-E-Bushehr, and even Bushehr just off-screen in one fell swoop. In other words, both Sierra Leone and the Afsharids have been eliminated, presumably on the exact same turn by the exact same civ.

In order to keep the length of this slide’s narration short enough to be reasonable, I’ll try to keep the eulogies here fairly quick, which is a hell of a task because both Sierra Leone and the Afsharids were absolute icons. Starting with Sierra Leone… well, where DO you start with Sierra Leone? Voted in largely on the basis of “they tend to pull stupid bullshit”, they ended up being exactly what Kilwa should have been - a force of chaos whose entire run was driven by the whims of fate and the rule of funny. Their rampant expansion and refusal to actually build units saw them lose a city to Kanem-Bornu of all civs, and SHOULD have seen them crushed by the Alaouites… until a truly miserable tactical miscalculation allowed Sierra Leone to triumph in dramatic fashion, reducing their theoretically-superior enemy to a worthless rump state. A rump state that they then proceeded to flail ineffectually against for several episodes. In spite of this, and in spite of VERY precarious stats and positioning, Sierra Leone continued to grow and expand, pulling the metaphorical sword from the stone by killing Kanem-Bornu, showing up Saba-D’mt, pulling off an (admittedly kind of bullshit) win against Rome, and even breaking into Europe by way of the Visigoths. Sierra Leone seemed poised to be Africa’s first true champion since X1, and even had a bit of hope behind them going into Total War… but just as dumb luck had given them the opportunity to rise, so too would it cause their fall. Pontus’s Resistance-generating UA struck Sierra Leone especially hard, and with their tech already behind that of their theoretically-inferior neighbor Ndongo, the effort to unite Africa turned into a bloody stalemate until the major powers came knocking at the doors of the divided continent. Ndongo was ready - Sierra Leone was not. The Faroes ran through North and West Africa like a storm, and although Sierra Leone did at least get their revenge on Pontus for their cruelty, in the end any dreams of uniting Africa were crushed beneath the heels of the very civ that saved them from a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Romans. Sierra Leone didn’t deserve this fate. But they did at least end up about as entertaining as they promised to be. Rest well, Sierra Leone. F.The Afsharids, meanwhile, didn’t have nearly as fun or glamorous an opening to their story. Already expected to do well and getting off to an excellent start, they soon became infamous after a string of humiliating military failures and outright defeats. Losing multiple cities to the Qarmatians of all civs, giving up on the conquest of Bukhara even as they had the entire nation overrun, taking multiple cities from Harappa only to lose them to Vijayanagara… the Afsharids had the stats, and they had ambition, but it seemed like they were just too eager to get in over their heads and not actually skilled enough to fight a war. They seemed doomed to mediocrity, especially after the Khoshuts managed to snipe ALL FOUR of Harappa’s cities in a coalition war that they were poised to benefit dramatically from. But then… the Afsharids locked in. And they not only took those Harappan cities back from the Khoshuts, but they completely wiped the Khoshuts off the face of the cylinder. The Afsharids finally became semi-active, and although they were still prone to silly losses (not getting anything from the partition of the Qarmatians, for instance), they seemed like a legitimate dark horse contender… until the Wahgi peacekeepers came. The Afsharids were utterly blanketed, and when Total War forced those peacekeepers to act, it was even worse than anybody could have anticipated. The Afsharids lost the entire eastern half of their empire and then some, their core was bombed out, and even the Selkups began pushing down hard on their northern front. It seemed as though this civ with so much promise and potential was doomed to just be an example in the face of the purple menace. But then the Wahgi began to thin out. And even more, theAfsharids rebuilt their army with shocking efficiency, and actually began reconquering their former lands before Goguryeo and Singapore could get to them. And then they KEPT GOING. At their peak, they had practically surrounded the Caspian and gutted their ancient rival Pontus. Unfortunately, though, their ultimate trajectory was more like Bengal than Pontus - once they brushed up against not one but three great powers, their rapid expansion came to a screeching halt, and their overextension in the name of reconquest proved to be their undoing as they rapidly collapsed. Still, though, it was a dramatic and cathartic end for a civilization so often denied their chance at greatness. Well played, Afsharids. F.

Wow, okay, never mind, those eulogies ended up being pretty long after all. I sure hope there’s nothing else important on this slide I need to talk about, that would be a serious problem - …Why aren’t those peace deals on the sidebar getting undone?

Guillaume Du Fay, now having absorbed even more Great Musician energy, seeks to prove his ultimate superiority in the world of music by joining a renewed Goguryeo expedition toward Faroese lands. Unfortunately, there are no melee units here, so these ranged units are being sent to a grim, pointless fate, but I guess these regular ranged unit sweeps at least keep everything quiet on the western front. The Faroes can’t amass any sort of a force here if any units they do build get bombed into oblivion before they can act.

New Holland’s little African beachhead project has ended in a resounding failure, as the Faroes wipe it out quickly and decisively. At least most of the cities were captured rather than totally annihilated, which feels just a bit more humane. A few New Hollander units still patrol the coasts where their colony once stood, but none of them possess the ability to take cities, and so they ultimately can’t hope to achieve anything more than petty revenge. West Africa is decidedly Faroese now. Will we see a mid-Atlantic clash next? Or will the Faroes focus on their land fronts from here?

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Singapore’s core, but it seems things have gotten… much worse in the interim, actually. T’bok has been nuked off the map, leaving a large portion of Borneo uninhabited, and almost all of the Singaporean fleet has vanished. Goguryeo has retaken Pyeonglo, too, although Singapore is at least trying to harass the city with whatever they have left (no melee units). Perhaps most terrifyingly, though, Singapore has lost a full 20 population to bombing runs over the span of 11 turns. Oh, and Siam is still alive. Despite everything, Singapore continues to hold the line, but they’re clearly starting to run out of steam, and seemingly the only thing saving them is just how thin Goguryeo has been stretched. At this point, I’m not even sure if taking Mount Hagen and getting a peace break would be enough to save them.

Things aren’t looking a whole lot better on Singapore’s eastern front, despite a much larger unit density, particularly on the front lines. There is a sizable fleet on the western coast of Australia, but even if it was actually on the front lines or somewhere actually useful, a large portion of the fleet is relatively useless Supercarriers. Meanwhile on the actual front lines, Singapore has a respectable military force pushing on Nannup and Kriwa, but the Palawa have plenty of units around here too, and the fact that these cities haven’t already fallen is a seriously bad sign for Singapore. At least with Ndongo they’re fighting a land-sea war far from their homeland, but this is a fight right outside their core! How are the Palawa alive at all? Perhaps it’s English multi-genre master Elvis Costello keeping the Palawa fighting spirit alive. That, or maybe Singapore’s just weak against civs that did nothing until Total War.

The Faroese-Ndongo War turns out to be more of a stalemate than expected, though the Faroes have a couple of units en route to retake the now-undefended city of Azeba. Katole looks a bit tougher, but once its garrison is taken care of the Faroes should be able to take the rest of the Horn of Africa without too much trouble. Probably. Arabia, meanwhile, looks a lot more peaceful than one might expect from a new Faroese-Goguryeo-Singapore theater. Nobody’s making any major pushes - heck, nobody’s even threatening the Qarmatians. Perhaps there’s been a bit of a ceasefire set up in the area? Or, more likely, everybody’s so war-weary that nobody could hope to make a play right now.

Please enjoy a quick view of New Holland’s comically-barren core as I give you some massive news: yes, the time has finally come for a break in Total War. It’s no secret that practically every civ is utterly exhausted, and even those that aren’t are facing ranged unit swarms that prevent them from committing practically anything to the front lines. It’s in everybody’s interest to stop the forced eternal war here for just a moment - however, that doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be any action going forward. See, war is no longer being enforced, but neither is peace - civs are free to start or continue the wars they see fit. Some fronts will finally get the chance to rebuild, and some civs will finally get the opportunity to recover. Others might choose to take their chances at getting ahead instead. The next phase of the endgame has begun.

As more and more civs begin to sue for peace, Ndongo decides to end Total War on a high note (aka pissing off the Power Rankers) - they lose Talandongo to Singapore, but in exchange, they revive Eswatini (who were killed… sometime in the last 10 episodes) in Mhlume. Is this a strategically sound decision? Not at all, since if they make peace with Singapore now they’ll essentially be giving Singapore an uncontested foothold in Madagascar. Is it funny? Well, I think so, at least.

But wait, there’s more! Ndongo ALSO captures Damietta, and takes the opportunity to revive the Mamluks in their most iconic city, as well. Again, this probably isn’t the wisest strategic decision, but really, the fact they took Damietta at all is pretty impressive. In fact, they almost look better-prepared here than the Faroes do. What the hell is going on? Why is Ndongo even threatening to make gains on the Faroes? Well, odds are they’ll sue for peace in the coming turns anyways, but the fact that this isn’t an outright relief for Ndongo is insanity.

The Goguryeo-Yellowknife War continues to be a bloody stalemate, with large portions of the Yellowknife arctic territories bombed out of existence. However, the Yellowknives are also the only ones looking to resettle these territories, and they even have a Battlemech in Alaska ready to perform a flip or two. I expect this front to continue to be a bloody stalemate right up until the end of the game… or at least, I would, if these two weren’t probably going to make peace in the next turn or two.

And now, finally, we reach the point where the peace deals really come flying in, as civilizations across the cylinder realize that they’re finally free to stop (or at least dramatically reduce) this senseless violence. Joke’s on them of course, this is all just to facilitate even more senseless violence down the line, but for now many, many fronts will finally go quiet. Most notably, the Goguryeo-Faroese War has finally ended - and by the looks of it, it’s coming right in the nick of time for Goguryeo. That’s a lot of Faroese Battlemechs, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if those things tore through Goguryeo’s new settlements in western Russia. (Speaking of which, though, we can see here that Goguryeo has exhausted their city name list and has started using random names for cities - says a whole lot about how large their core is, really.)

Perhaps the other most crucial peace deal here is Goguryeo making peace with the Wahgi, sparing them and giving up on taking Mount Hagen or even Goroka - at least for now. In fact, there’s no real Goguryeo presence around Papua at all anymore. I’m not quite sure just yet whether Singapore has also made peace with the Wahgi, but if they haven’t, then this is a golden opportunity to finally claim all those Wonders the Wahgi have stashed away and possibly even profit off them big-time.

Before we continue, though, let’s take a quick peek at which wars HAVEN’T ended, because that’s where the bulk of the action will be from here on out. Starting with Goguryeo, we can see that they’ve elected to focus their efforts on Singapore for now - a bold decision given the current state of the front lines, but also probably a smart one considering the Faroes are scary and the Yellowknives are very hard to invade geographically. This does not bode well at all for Singapore, of course, but to be fair I assume they’re not fighting on a whole lot of fronts anymore either. This also means that the death spiral around Hsia is finally over! Hooray!

New Holland makes peace with everybody except the Yellowknives, which is pretty big news - again, it means their death spiral is finally over and their units are free to do something better with their lives, and it also means that New Holland can focus all their efforts on a target with whom they have two fronts. The Yellowknives are tough, of course, but I do think there is at least a chance of progress being made here one way or the other. We can also see here that Ndongo is at peace with everybody, which means that they did give up Madagascar to Singapore, but also that they have the opportunity to rebuild and tech up to properly resist both them and the Faroes the next time they come knocking. Not a bad deal at all, I’d say. Really, I’m still just kind of in shock that Ndongo is intact at all. (And Siam is at peace with both Goguryeo and Singapore, meaning they’re probably not going anywhere any time soon.)

Singapore is definitely in a bit of an awkward spot, being forced to hold off the full might of Goguryeo, but they have indeed also not made peace with the Wahgi! If they can spare even a few units from the former Palawa front, they should be able to take Mount Hagen and all its Wonders… except, unless they can negotiate peace with Goguryeo, they won’t actually get a break to put all those Food and Production bonuses to use. That’s a really unfortunate situation to be in, so close and yet so far from what should have been their best possible situation, but who knows? Maybe they can keep holding the line against Goguryeo and build up in Australia anyways.

And finally for our overview is the most important civ to look at the war situation for: the Kalmyks. Unfortunately for them, they are still at war with the Faroes, who I somehow doubt they’ll be able to fight off on their own. Even an unprecedented era of peace isn’t enough to save the Kalmyks from the cycle of death and rebirth. Sorry, Ayuka Khan. Hope you don’t mind the teleporter too much.

In case you still couldn’t believe it, don’t worry, you can rest easy - the Siege of Hsia has finally ended, and Goguryeo has moved on to better things. Heck, there are even multiple Battlemechs nearby to make sure they don’t make the same mistake next time! The Selkups… don’t really deserve to be alive right now, of course, but it’s better than them being alive AND eating up a third of Goguryeo’s military strength. Now the only question is what Goguryeo is going to do with all these units. If they just keep them around in their core on standby, I suppose that’s not a huge issue, but if they start using them to reinforce the front lines against Singapore… well, I don’t think they would need to worry about those front lines for much longer.

With no more worry of a Goguryeo ambush, the Faroes are free to quickly make a play for Astrakhan, knocking the Kalmyks out of the game once more. Don’t worry, they’ll be back. In the mean time, Goguryeo continues to send way too many Workers and Settlers out into the no-man’s-land, now without any threat of a Faroese attack on their new outposts. With enough time at peace, these could prove crucial once war erupts once again, so I have to commend Goguryeo for continuing to take the initiative here instead of just ignoring the western half of their empire in favor of focusing down Singapore.

Speaking of the Singaporean front, though, it doesn’t seem to be off to a great start for Goguryeo - Singapore holds both Jeong-Yung and Pyeonglo, and neither is immediately threatened. Of course, I don’t want to make any rash judgements here, especially since neither side has even had the time to redistribute their forces, but it’s certainly not the opening I’d want if I were in Gwanggaeto’s situation. Now, to be fair, there is a pretty strong-looking force right outside Jeongju, and Singapore has left all of the Philippines completely exposed aside from Thai Nguyen, so that should at least be a pretty easy take… but that also won’t get them any closer to the grand prize of Singapore itself.

Not satisfied with just holding off Goguryeo, Singapore is also absolutely pouncing on the opportunity to take out the Wahgi! Goroka has fallen, and there’s a squad of NS Men just west of Mount Hagen… prime your F keys, because I think it might finally be about time to say goodbye to one of X4’s icons. That said, the Wahgi do have a couple of Railgun Armors nearby, so I don’t think they’ll quite go down without a fight. In other news, the Palawa seem to be rebuilding as well now that Singapore has moved on, with a Settler heading off the Australian coast to… one of the Solomon Islands, probably.

Ndongo has wasted absolutely no time filling in that gap in Central Africa, settling both Muxima and Mbwila. As a reminder, this is the civ that spent most of the game on 13 cities. Really goes to show just how expansive they could’ve been if they’d just been given a better chance earlier on. In any case, both the Faroes and Ndongo seem to be rebuilding nicely in Africa, their cities slowly healing and the improvements slowly being repaired. That Faroese Giant Death Robot doesn’t exactly bode well for Ndongo when Total War kicks back off, though. (Now the Mamluks, on the other hand, are ABSOLUTELY ready to throw hands - those two Triremes are out for blood.)

In the eastern USA, New Holland’s continued war effort against the Yellowknives is looking increasingly like a bad idea. They don’t have nearly enough units on the eastern seaboard to push west, while the Yellowknives are free to rip Fort Maurits to shreds. At least the rest of the New Hollander cities look fairly well-defended right now, and they even have a Settler on its way to repopulate western Cuba. I’d still be a bit suspicious of this war’s long-term sustainability, given the number of Yellowknife units out west (not to mention what they did to Faroese Quebec), but at least most of the colony isn’t just free food waiting to be taken. I wonder if things are looking any better in Central America…

In what I believe has to be the shortest elimination-to-revival time in CBR (and maybe AI game) history, the Afsharids are brought back from the grave by Singapore, who decide they miss their old Wahgi peacekeeper buddy. Now, all questions of whether the Afsharids still count as formally eliminated aside (I think they do by PR rules at least), I don’t think they’re at war with anybody and they do have a Chimera defending their new home of Tehran, so they’re not just going to die instantly again. If anything, this is a pretty ingenious play by Singapore to stall the Goguryeo advance into South Asia. Reaching Orchard by land just got much, much harder. (Not that Goguryeo is even bothering to send any troops down this front anyways, mind you.)

Oh hey, look, the Kalmyks are back! Everybody say hi to the Kalmyks before they get murdered by the Faroes again. In other news, the Faroese military is building back up VERY rapidly - with that many Battlesuits, I honestly think they could probably push Goguryeo back to the Urals at least. If I were Gwanggaeto, I’d be ramping up unit production in my western territories FAST right about now.

Mount Hagen still hasn’t fallen, but it’s under heavy naval siege from Singapore. At the very least, the Wahgi can breathe a little bit easier knowing that there aren’t any land units nearby to actually take the city for now, and Mount Hagen still has a couple of units at its defense. And they also have Kano Masanobu, chief painter of the Ashikaga shogunate, to make their last days just a little bit nicer! Maybe Singapore shouldn’t focus all their efforts on this one city, though - the Palawa are taking the opportunity to send Settlers all around the region, occupying land Singapore desperately needs.

The Faroes are finally getting around to repairing the western half of Greenland after the devastating Yellowknife bombing operation earlier this episode. These new settlements are still young and fairly vulnerable, but they no longer have to fear nuclear strikes from the west. The Faroes even have more Settlers on their way, though I’m not sure where they’re headed. I guess they could squeeze one or two more cities onto Greenland… actually, it looks like Quebec has been bombed out by New Holland, too. Could the Faroes somehow undo their losses in North America after all?

Well, after two more turns of siege, Singapore finally does it: they capture Mount Hagen, finally eliminating the Wahgi from CBRX5.

Really, what is there to say about the Wahgi that hasn’t been said a million times? They’re arguably THE defining civ of the season, the one many loved to hate, a civilization of such incomprehensible extremes that they were practically incompatible with the concept of the AI game itself. With decent expectations going in primarily due to their access to northern Australia, the Wahgi exploded onto the scene with a voracious settling spree followed up by a whole lot of wonderwhoring, but at first they didn’t seem all that impressive, losing a city to Maguindanao and then failing to gain anything at all in the partition of Maguindanao a while after. But the Wahgi eventually proved to be quite competent after all, just slow-going. Their wars often saw them on the back foot in the opening turns, only to slowly shift toward total Wahgi domination. But this is not what the Wahgi are remembered for. No, the Wahgi only became infamous after they started to experience utterly monstrous tech and population growth, pumping out vast swarms of hyper-advanced units… in the worst combinations possible for actually achieving victory in naval warfare. They became a time bomb waiting to explode, a stage hazard waiting to be triggered, a civ so far above anybody else that they could arbitrarily choose a target and that target would die. And tragically, the target they chose was Bora-Bora, fresh off their conquest of Tiwanaku. Bora-Bora fought well, but despite their complete lack of functional unit composition, the Wahgi just had so many units, and their units were so advanced, that they were able to slowly bumble their way into crushing the fan-favorite empire into irrelevance. This made them widely unpopular, and it only got worse as their unit-building spree grew out of control, leading to massive carpets of Wahgi peacekeepers blanketing several other popular civs and effectively neutering them. Perhaps the most striking moment of all, however, came when the Wahgi weaponized these peacekeepers against poor innocent Mexico, deleting the rump state with the very units that had stalled the Yellowknives’ advance a few turns prior. At this point, many assumed the game was effectively over - the Wahgi had won, they were simply too far ahead of anybody else to be challenged. But the Wahgi had one fatal flaw: they could not stop building units. They only rarely went to war, but they never stopped building units, and like a rodent that stopped chewing, this came back to bite them. The Wahgi went into a genuinely astronomical amount of debt, preventing them from making any scientific progress whatsoever, and as other civilizations caught up to and surpassed them in Total War, the Wahgi’s only advantage became their incomprehensibly large mass of units. At first, it seemed like simply overwhelming the cylinder might work - they captured dozens of cities in the opening turns of Total War, almost completely wiping out entire civilizations - but this was not sustainable, not when their units were so outdated and Pontus was cutting off their unit production. In the end, the Wahgi were pushed out of all the gains they made, and the smaller but more advanced Singapore was the one to deliver the killing blow. The Wahgi shaped the CBRX5 in a way that few civs have ever managed before, and though they may have died comically early for such a world-spanning force, they certainly won’t ever be forgotten. F.

With the war in Alaska over and the Yellowknives distracted, it seems Goguryeo has managed to sneak another city onto North America after all. The city of Natal is small but well-defended by land, and while it probably won’t be enough to change the balance of power in this area, it’s probably better than nothing. The Yellowknives do have a Settler or two in the area as well, so it’s not like they’re just letting Goguryeo take whatever they please, but it’s hard to say how many cities they can squeeze into this part of the map.

Ndongo seems to be building back up rather competently, with a whole lot of Battlemechs and Sentinels in their new western holdings. On the other side of the border, the Faroes don’t have nearly as dense a carpet, but the units they do have are top-of-the-line - Nexi and Giant Death Robots are particular highlights. It doesn’t seem like either civ here is particularly busy fighting any wars right now, so I expect the front lines here to be packed once Total War kicks off again, though of course the Faroes will almost certainly hold a decisive advantage. Ndongo does have the opportunity to catch up in tech now, though…

A shot of Australia shows a continent split in two, much like Africa, with one half under the control of a top power and the other in the hands of a scrappy minor power that just would not die. The Palawa half of Australia looks fuller at first glance, but most of those units are Workers rather than actual military units - in terms of raw power, the two seem pretty even right now. Singapore does have a pretty huge fleet on the coast of western Australia, but that’s about the least effective place those ships could be right now. Oh, and the Palawa settled Pilitika on the northern coast, cutting Boyadin and Ballardong off from the rest of Singaporean Australia! That could be worth something.

Even with all their Workers, Goguryeo still hasn’t managed to mop up all the Fallout blanketing their nation. Most of the remaining radiation is centered around the former Afsharid lands, which makes sense considering it’s where all the action was most recently - it should be gone soon. Much more concerning than the Fallout, though, is what isn’t here. Where are all of Goguryeo’s units? Sure, this isn’t a particularly vulnerable part of the empire, but you’d at least expect to see a couple of newly-constructed units on their way to the front lines. I suppose modernizing the cities with key buildings comes first.

Goguryeo isn’t the only one still cleaning up damage from Total War, of course - New Holland, for instance, still has plenty of repair work to do, such as in the area around the city of Natal. It’s worth noting that the Fallout on those Mountains can’t actually be cleaned up, but it also doesn’t have any actual negative effects anyways, so it’s not a huge deal - it just looks bad. There are still a couple of pillaged improvements around the city that need to be fixed, though. This does also give a great opportunity to look at just how cool the Chimera model is. Would you want to see that thing on the battlefield? I know I wouldn’t.

…Hey, speaking of Natal, though, doesn’t that name sound familiar for some reason?

Ohhh, that’s why - it’s the name of Goguryeo’s new Alaskan city, too! How did that happen? Doesn’t Civ 5 usually prevent the AI from reusing city names like this? I suppose it’s not the weirdest bug we’ve seen in this game so far, but it is pretty fun to think about. Clearly, now Goguryeo and New Holland have to duke it out to decide who’s worthy to keep their Natal and who has to change their city’s name. (Side note, but doesn’t this Natal seem way more irradiated? Alaska really did get hit hard in Total War, huh.)

New Holland seems determined to make me eat my words, as they not only secure Fort Maurits but capture Ek’ati Ndi and Burwash Point as well! The Yellowknives have been pushed back to the Mississippi River, and while they do have some melee units nearby ready to fight back, New Holland is shipping in reinforcements from the Caribbean, too. What happened here to change the tide of battle so dramatically? Will New Holland be able to unite the Americas after all? I’m not sure what to believe anymore.

The Afsharids are very quickly proving their worth as a Singaporean buffer state, grabbing enough tiles in central India to make any land-based incursion into southern India immensely difficult. Not that Goguryeo is even threatening to attack the cities anyways, of course. At least there are some actual Goguryeo military units in this shot. Seriously, where are all of Goguryeo’s troops? They’re not busy attacking Hsia any more - what’s keeping them from the front lines?

The Faroes have pretty decisively secured West Africa, and their many, many Grindadraps are working to repair any lost improvements, but New Holland hasn’t given up on crossing the Atlantic just yet. One New Hollander Settler is seemingly headed for the Azores, while another is searching for any remaining free land in Africa. I doubt the latter Settler will find anything, but I’ll wish them luck, at least. (Also, it’s funny to see the Faroes concentrating their military forces in the region around Meknes - perhaps they heard stories of the legendary Alaouite last stand and figured that there must be something special about the city.)

It turns out that Goguryeo DOES have plenty of military units, after all - they’re just all busy defending their core. Given that there’s no more Nivkh to worry about, this seems like a total waste of units, but what do I know. At the very least, the unit balance on display here seems very well-thought-out, with plenty of melee units supplemented with high-powered ranged units, and a solid navy as well. Nobody is going to be breaking through the Goguryeo core any time soon - just ignore the fact that nobody’s really trying to in the first place.

Now that they’ve filled in their own bombed-out lands, Ndongo is beginning to seek out new expansion opportunities beyond Africa, starting by settling Massangano in Oman. While this is pretty indefensible, there are definitely worse places to put a colony - at least here the Ndongo navy can actually potentially reach the city. The formerly-Afsharid city of Damghan used to stand in this spot, but presumably Goguryeo blew it to smithereens not too long ago. Actually, there’s still a lot of bombed-out land around what was once Afsharid territory… an opportunity, perhaps?

Speaking of bombed-out lands getting repopulated, it seems that New Holland destroyed basically everything the Yellowknives took or settled in Quebec, leaving it all wide open for Faorese Settlers to reclaim once more. There are some Yellowknife and New Hollander Settlers making their way into the barren waste, too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they keep blowing themselves up until this entire area belongs to the Faroes. After all, they have even more Settlers on the way. The futility of their conquest must be weighing heavily on the Yellowknives, which is probably enough of a morale blow to make this all worth it for New Holland even if they can’t settle any of the newly opened-up land, although obviously it would be a huge bonus if they can plop a city up here and keep it from being nuked too much.

Goguryeo takes Pyeongjo, but that might honestly be the least impactful change visible on this screenshot, because Goguryeo has evidently ALSO taken not only the island of Luzon but also Phra Nakhon. These new captures are completely uncontested, too, which means that Singapore has been effectively forced out of mainland Asia outside of their capital on the Malay Peninsula. Whether they’ll be able to use a sneaky naval melee unit to flip something back remains to be seen, but Luzon at least seems pretty well-guarded. Actually, Thai Nguyen is looking pretty exposed, too - perhaps that’s Goguryeo’s next target. (Also, Siam is still alive.)

It seems like the Yellowknives and the Palawa have returned to war off-screen, because suddenly the Pacific is once again alive with the sound of gunfire and explosions! A swarm of Nexi descends upon Poutoru, backed up by a number of other powerful ranged units - not the best sign for the Yellowknives off the bat, but hey, Palawa’s island cities are completely undefended and there are a couple of Chimeras and Giant Death Robots on the way. The Palawa had better mobilize fast, because otherwise Singapore could soon be the least of their worries.

Skipping ahead a couple turns, it seems like the Palawa did not, in fact, mobilize. While Poutoru has been spared for now, the Yellowknives have swept past and seized both Kondiu and Tataway, with every other city east of Australia bombed into the black in the process. Even if the Palawa do somehow fight off these invaders, there’s another wave of Yellowknife units on their way from Tevaitoa, complete with multiple Chimeras. There is a small Palawa force being constructed around their remaining Pacific island cities, but it’s not coming together nearly fast enough - I expect this entire region to belong to the Yellowknives in a matter of turns.

It seems my prediction was correct, as Goguryeo takes Thai Nguyen and rapidly turns it into a veritable fortress of a forward base. But that’s not all: Goguryeo now owns the entirety of the Philippines and then some, including Ero’ara, Lamitan, and most crucially, Simuay. The Great Lighthouse now belongs to Goguryeo. Singapore’s core is still fairly well-defended, so I expect progress to become much harder for Goguryeo from here on out, but it’s not like they’re running low on units, either - the downfall of Singapore has, in all likelihood, begun.

Alright, look, can we just pretend like the Afsharids were never eliminated? At this point, they look like they never left - they’re the very model of a city-state. Hell, they’re more militarized than either of their neighbors, and those two are at war! What’s going on here? I guess the Afsharids are just built different. Obviously I doubt they’ll be making any new gains any time soon, but still, it’s a moral victory if nothing else. Even in the depths of defeat, the Afsharids still get to be at least a little bit cool.

In a shocking turn of events, Singapore’s capital is flipped by Goguryeo much, much sooner than expected! Singapore takes it back, but still, it’s barely been 5 turns since the fighting really picked up in Southeast Asia. What the hell changed to let Goguryeo suddenly push so deep into Singaporean territory? Regardless, Singapore hasn’t been going down without a fight - they’ve captured the exposed Goguryeo city of Jeongbyeon, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to return to its original owner any time soon. Goguryeo definitely does seem like they’ll need a bit of time to regroup before their next push, which is good news for Singapore, because their core is also looking pretty empty right about now…

Things go from bad to worse for the Palawa as the Yellowknives not only take all of the Solomon Islands, but also make landfall in New Zealand and even mainland Australia! The Palawa are utterly folding, a massive shock considering how well they held out against Singapore, but they do have a bit of hope left. New Zealand is decently well-carpeted, and while that massive fleet of Nuclear Submarines in the bottom left of the shot won’t be able to retake any cities, it should at least be able to stall the Yellowknife advance for quite some time if used correctly. Will the Palawa be able to use it correctly, though? Honestly, I don’t have a clue.

Singapore is seeing a bit more success in the west, there they’ve managed to take Yeong-Won from Goguryeo without any resistance. Goguryeo literally does not have a single land-based military unit in this entire screenshot, either, so this capture will probably hold for quite some time. Meanwhile, Ndongo has decided that this is also a PERFECT place for a new city, settling their new air base of Museke just north of the Singaporean colonies. I… guess it works in both civs’ favor, since it restricts the movement of Goguryeo’s troops? What I really want to know, though, is where that other Ndongo Settler around Lothal is going.

Maritime Southeast Asia is beginning to get bombed out as Goguryeo advances further and further south, and it seems some of the other civilizations are willing to take advantage of this opportunity. Case in point: New Holland, with their brand-new city of Uwe-Cheh in Papua. Probably just a bit more useful as a vacation hotspot than a military outpost, but hey, there are planes there. The Yellowknives also seem eager to make use of the opportunity, with not one but two Settlers headed toward the empty lands. Will this become a new front for the Great American War?

I… I honestly don’t know what to do with this information. Singapore, what the hell are you doing? A Singaporean fleet, probably larger than everybody else’s remaining navies (aside from the Faroes’) combined, chock-full of the most advanced naval melee units available, is just sitting a little ways off the western coast of Australia, doing nothing as Goguryeo ravages their core. The entire coastline of Asia could belong to Singapore right now, but no, they need to watch the Babylonian sub to make sure it doesn’t try anything funny. Apologies to the Singapore fans who have to live with this information from here on out.

And just to the west of that first Singaporean armada, a SECOND armada sits in the middle of the Indian Ocean! Where were all these ships during the invasion of Ndongo! What are they doing now, with multiple of Goguryeo’s Indian Ocean cities still exposed by sea? Did Singapore adopt the Wahgi’s tactics when they took their capital? I don’t know. At least the Faroese armada is guarding their core. What are these guys doing? Making sure Mogadishu doesn’t revolt?

Facing imminent collapse at home due to the Yellowknife invasion, the Palawa decide that they need a safe room of sorts, somewhere their leaders can flee to if the worst comes to pass and Australia falls. Luckily, much of Central Asia is still uninhabited, and so a Palawa Settler establishes Wukalina far from the guns of the Yellowknives. Of course, if Goguryeo ever invades, the city is toast, but needing to be invaded by two civs to be eliminated is still much safer than needing to be invaded by one civ. Well, until Total War kicks back into gear, of course. As a side note, though, it looks like Goguryeo’s western holdings are finally starting to fill back up with units. Very nice news for them, very bad news for Singapore (and potentially the Faroes as well, one day).

The Yellowknives are the next to take advantage of Singapore’s bombed-out core, settling Mackay Lake on the southern coast of Borneo. Much like Uwe-Cheh, it’s more of an air base than anything, undefended outside of half a dozen planes. But to wreak unnecessary havoc, that’s really all it needs. Meanwhile, outside this new little vacation home for Yellowknife elites, Singapore is having a very bad time. All of their remaining cities in Southeast Asia have been heavily bombed, and only a couple of units remain to guard them from capture. As soon as Goguryeo can be bothered to send a proper force down here, Singapore may be finished.

The Palawa resistance has well and truly shattered now, as the Yellowknvies now hold the entire northern coast of New Zealand’s North Island as well as a sizable foothold on Australia. Niplin is being contested by a Palawa Battlemech, but aside from that, all of these cities seem to be lost for good. This has been a shockingly fast and brutal war given how far away the Yellowknives are, and I highly doubt it’s over, either - just look at how many troops the Yellowknives have on their way even now! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the Palawa could genuinely be reduced to a city-state in Central Asia by the end of this episode.

Singapore somehow manages to retake Ero’ara and, evidently desperate to return to a time when they had an easier-to-defeat enemy, they use this opportunity to revive the Wahgi. This makes them the second civilization to die and be revived in this same episode, which I’m sure the Power Rankers are going to love. Of course, it’s nothing compared to what the Wahgi once were, but it is admittedly kind of nice to have them around for the end of the game (provided nobody re-eliminates them before the second round of Total War) - and besides, it’s not that much worse than what they had at the start of the episode (lol).

The Selkups, unlike the Afsharids and Wahgi, have not been eliminated and revived this episode, but I doubt you could tell the difference. Freed from their eternal torment at the hands of Goguryeo Nexi and Nanohives, the citizens of Hsia now live a peaceful, blissfully ignorant existence, not even bothering to take up arms - after all, if war ever returns to their borders, it would be better to die without a fight than to struggle and suffer for decades once more. They do have a Worker though. What an industrious little fella. (Also, shoutouts to Goguryeo’s Lake Baikal fleet, who I’m absolutely certain will get to see some action before the season is over.)

Singapore’s retaliation in the Indian Ocean has come to a decisive end as Goguryeo retakes not only Jeongbyeon but Woodlands as well, with no Singaporean ships in sight to even contest this fate. What’s more, it seems the Afsharid buffer state wasn’t that helpful after all, because a swarm of Goguryeo Nexi and Nanohives are ravaging Singapore’s Indian holdings anyways. I guess a land-based barrier isn’t as effective when your opponent is using hover units. None of the cities are in danger of falling just yet, but it only takes one melee unit to bring it all crashing down…

Even Palawa’s more inland and western cities aren’t safe from the Yellowknives’ invasion, as a Chimera presumably from Mackay Lake or the new Yellowknife colony of Drybones Bay sneaks into Pilitika and captures it. I suppose those silly little Indonesian outposts were worth something after all. At the very least, Singapore’s borders will prevent any further incursions from this direction, and there don’t seem to be any Yellowknife units pushing inland from Laylatiya just yet. It’s not like the Palawa have any land units to stop them once the Yellowknives do start pushing in, though.

While it’s not quite as bad as Singapore’s, the Palawa also have a pretty sizable armada of naval units down in the Antarctic. They can’t capture cities, sure, but I’m surprised these Nuclear Submarines haven’t been used to slow the Yellowknife advance at all. Perhaps they’ve merely been serenaded by the dulcet tones of Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur and primary musical contributor of Gorillaz. At the very least, most of the Battlemechs in the south are heading off to go fight the good fight, even if they probably won’t be able to make much of a difference on their own.

The Palawa capital falls for the third time this season, but unlike the first two times, this isn’t a cheeky snipe - it’s a full-on seizure by the ever-advancing Yellowknives, who’ve taken pretty much the entire eastern coast of Australia and all of New Zealand by now. What’s worse, they also have plenty of land units on the continent, so even the likes of Nipaluna aren’t safe from the relentless Yellowknife war effort. There aren’t any melee unit on the front lines yet, at least, but there’s a Biotrooper and an XCOM Squadron right outside Putalina, and the Palawa legitimately do not have a single land unit in their core at this point.

The Yellowknives and New Holland continue to compete for territory in the new frontier that’s been opened up by Goguryeo bombing raids, while Singapore just sits back and watches. At least Goroka looks decently well-defended, even if the much more valuable Mount Hagen has been left to its own devices. It really is a bit of a shame that, after all the effort they went to to take the city, Singapore really hasn’t been able to get any benefit out of all of Mount Hagen’s Wonders. All that work for nothing. Not that I wanted Singapore to win, mind you, it’s just that you’d think they’d at least resettle some of these islands to make use of some of those Food bonuses.

Oh shit, hold on a minute - New Holland and Siam are at war! And Ratchaburi is being bombed into oblivion by a rogue squadron of New Hollander units! You’d think they’d be fighting those Yellowknife colonies in Southeast Asia or something right now (maybe the two agreed to peace?), but sure, this works too I guess. Unfortunately for them, however, New Holland forgot to send a single melee unit to support their collection of high-powered ranged units, and so this tiny revived city-state isn’t actually in any danger of being conquered for the time being. Classic.

Now that it’s no longer being bombed into oblivion, the Palawa outpost of Pampa Koani is rebuilding nicely - in fact, it probably looks better than any other city in the Palawa territories right now. At least it has actual units guarding it. That said, it’s also a prime target for the Yellowknives - with all those New Hollander cities in North America, why not take the opportunity to get their own outpost in South America, too? Until then, though, the only foreigners in the area will evidently be a collection of bored Ndongo units. Fun fact, by the way: John Maurits, leader of New Holland, led the Dutch fleet that teamed up with Ndongo-Matamba against the Portuguese in Angola. In other words, these two are historical allies! How fitting that they’re still in this together even at the end of the game.

Singapore appears to have fought off the Goguryeo incursion into southern India, but their holdings further west haven’t been so lucky - Goguryeo has finally reclaimed both Yeong-Won and Mehrgarh, along with taking Al-Ahsa in Arabia. This is honestly more of a boon than it would seem at first glance, since it lets Goguryeo build more naval units along the Indian Ocean, which will make taking Arabia and southern India much easier. Or at least, it will if that Singaporean Drone Ship doesn’t flip Mehrgarh right back. It always amuses me that one unit can make such a difference even (or especially) this late into the game.

And in one fell swoop, all of Palawa’s remaining Australian holdings are gone. Eastern Australia has fallen to the Yellowknives, and those who had fought (or licked boots) to keep this land as their own since time immemorial have finally been defeated. Now Australia is split not between the Noongar and the Palawa, but between Singapore and the Yellowknives - honestly, I can’t believe it’s still not united this late into the game. I don’t think anything like this has ever happened before, actually. That said, once Total War does kick off, I expect the Yellowknives to unite Australia in fairly short order, considering the barrenness of Singapore’s half of the continent. But who knows? Maybe they’ll carry on the Palawa’s legacy of completely and utterly failing to conquer western Australia.

Of course, the Palawa aren’t out of the game just yet. They’ve still got their colonies in South America and Central Asia, but they also still have a few cities in Antarctica. These cities, unlike their former core, are actually well-defended - sure, there’s not much that can take or flip a city, but those Nuclear Submarines are gonna take at least a few turns to break through. Sorry to the Palawa haters out there, but I don’t think they’re going down just yet. That said, I initially assumed Palawa Australia would hold out pretty well, too… maybe I shouldn’t make any rash judgements.

A quick shot of the Yellowknives’ core shows just how much has been committed to the Palawa front: not as much as you might assume. Sure, their lands are fairly barren, but unlike Goguryeo (up until recently at least), there ARE still units here - and their coastline is looking downright solid! The fact that Goguryeo snuck another Settler into North America to found Sippar is a bit concerning, though, if only because it means the Yellowknives haven’t been resettling as aggressively as they probably should be. Oh well, the odds of the Yellowknives getting run over by Goguryeo come Total War round 2 are still pretty astronomically small. I do wonder what the front with New Holland looks like these days, though.

Singapore’s long-standing rule over southern India is finally coming to an end, as Goguryeo storms both Vijayanagara and Orchard with little resistance. Only Mangalapura remains, and though its defenders are fighting valiantly, a trio of Nexi seem poised to blow them all to bits and pave the way for one of those Chimeras up north to finish the job. That said, with Drone Ships and NS Men just offshore, maybe Singapore can keep the fight going for longer than expected. Or heck, maybe they can get the Afsharids to lend a hand! I bet that’d go well.

Goguryeo’s conquest isn’t going flawlessly, admittedly, as they lose the new settlement of Hougang to Singapore, but to be fair that was a pretty ballsy settle. It’s not a big deal, either way - the much more important cities of Singapore and Tampines have been heavily damaged, and SIngapore has been forced to resort to Artillery guns to try and keep invaders at bay. Singapore’s days are numbered, at least in their homeland. But you know who’s even more screwed? Siam, because New Holland has finally brought a Chimera around to deal the killing blow to Ratchaburi, prime your F keys, folks - if you care to do that for a revived civ, of course.

…Or not! New Holland, evidently terrified by the mighty and powerful ancient technology wielded by the Siamese, elect to spare Siam at the last moment. Siam will continue to live on as a one-city rump state for the time being, padding out the Power Rankings and becoming more hilarious with every city SIngapore loses. Admittedly, I do have a soft spot for these plucky little revived civs, because not only are they sort of like a fun special guest cameo from an old cast member, but they also occasionally get up to some really stupid things. Like this! Long live Siam II, master of the art of the peace deal.

As Singapore’s core continues to be erased from the cylinder more and more, the empty space continues to be exploited by, well… everybody BUT Singapore. Goguryeo has settled the bulk of the islands in the center of this shot, but the Yellowknives and New Holland have a couple new cities of their own, too. Heck, at this rate it looks like even Ndongo might get involved! This part of the map will be an absolute bloodbath once Total War picks back up, but until then, it’s sort of the last hurrah of bordergore in a game nearing its conclusion.

The Palawa stronghold of Pampa Koani no longer looks like so much of a stronghold, as a crack squadron of Yellowknife units begins the journey to finally claim it for themselves. And they’re packing heat, too - nuclear heat, that is. With this level of firepower and ample melee units, the only real question is whether the Yellowknives will capture the city or just wipe it off the face of the cylinder. Given the number of Palawa Special Forces around to contest the city, I’d honestly bet on the latter.

After a long and grueling struggle, Goguryeo finally pushes Singapore out of South Asia entirely by just outright nuking Mangalapura into oblivion. Was this overkill and a total waste of a good city? Probably, but it sure does send a message, and it probably felt good after all the effort that went into taking Vijayanagara. The real winner here, though, seems to be New Holland: with Sri Lanka freed up, they’ve gotten room to found the new city of Okjeo. Better yet, it looks like they have another Settler nearby, too! Is this the beginning of the Dutch India Company?

While their South Asian holdings have fallen, Singapore’s East African colony remains strong as ever. With plenty of ships guarding their coastal waters, I wouldn’t expect Goguryeo to take these far-flung lands down any time soon, and in fact I could even see Madagascar being the final holdout of Singapore’s empire. Well, unless Ndongo steps up, of course. The two look pretty even right now, honestly, but of course Ndongo has a much larger production base in the area, even if their tech level isn’t nearly as good. And of course, you can’t just ignore Eswatini, either - they beat Ndongo one time, that means they’re canonically the strongest civ here.

A quick look at the Mediterranean reveals that the Faroes maybe haven’t been carpeting up their new conquests as much as they should be. Still, what is here is very impressive - lots of Giant Death Robots, which is a good sign considering they’re the single strongest unit in the game going off pure Combat Strength. It’s impossible to ignore that North Africa and the Middle East really do look concerningly sparse, though. Keeping all those Giant Death Robots in Italy seems like a bad idea when Goguryeo’s going to be pushing through Russia and Mesopotamia.

The Yellowknives take Pampa Koani without much issue, though the city still has plenty of Palawa units nearby to contest it. Actually, there are only a couple of Yellowknife units left - will they be able to take the city after all? A city isn’t secure until the other civ is out of nearby melee units, and most of Goguryeo’s Cybersubs seem to be calling it good enough and heading home rather than actually doing any clean-up work. Better than nuking the city off the map, I suppose. (Also, shoutouts to the Palawa deserters and the Ndongo Battlesuits touring South America.)

Well, it’s finally happened - although Singapore has fought hard, their defenses have been crushed, and Goguryeo has seized their capital seemingly for good. They’ve also retaken Woodlands and nuked Tampines out of existence, for good measure. There are no Singaporean units remaining to contest what was once the power base for one of the most powerful civs in the game. It’s sort of harrowing, in a way. Goguryeo, for their part, have plenty of units in the area, and don’t seem particularly inclined to slow down even now. We could genuinely see Goguryeo knocking on the doors of western Australia by the end of the episode at this rate.

Here’s a quick peek at some of the most remote Goguryeo colonies, the islands of Hawaii, where Drone Ships patrol the waves and everybody still kinda misses the Pueblo. (Don’t we all.) During Total War, this was the site of a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt at a Californian invasion, and unfortunately it seems like Goguryeo won’t be seeing much better luck once they’re back at war with the Yellowknives again. That’s a LOT of Drone Ships along the western coast of North America. At least Goguryeo probably doesn’t have to worry about an invasion in the other direction, either.

The Palawa, fleeing their old homelands, decide to make use of the free real estate provided by Goguryeo’s bombing spree and settle Truwana in the Maldives. They do have another Settler, currently ignoring Tamil Nadu (I don’t know why, I think the Fallout gives the site character), though I don’t know where else they expect to find space. Goguryeo does have their own Settler just outside Woodlands that they could use to nab the spot themselves - it would probably be worth it, wouldn’t hurt to have more coastal cities in the Indian Ocean to assist in shipbuilding.

It’s a good thing that the Palawa retreated to the Maldives, too, because their Antarctic colonies have been blown to bits. I’m pretty sure using nuclear warheads on Antarctica would have dire ecological consequences, but then again, this probably isn’t even close to the worst thing the civs have been doing to the environment recently. In any case, the Yellowknives also seem to have secured Pampa Koani, which means that the Palawa have been reduced to only two cities: Truwana in the Maldives, and…

…Wukalina in Central Asia, which all but guarantees the Palawa won’t be going anywhere this episode. Of course, the city doesn’t have any defenses whatsoever, so they’ll be dead the second Goguryeo invades, but presumably that’ll be next episode, allowing the Palawa to continue to piss off the Power Rankers for one more episode. Then again, though, Goguryeo doesn’t exactly have many units around here (what happened to the units that used to be in the area?), so maybe they won’t be an immediate elimination after all. (Also, it seems like there’s a third Palawa Settler wandering Central Asia - wonder if they’ll find anywhere to found a city.)

As the number of goofy city-states reaches an all-time high, Ndongo finally decides that maybe this has gotten out of hand, and they decide to do a bit of cleanup by declaring war on and instantly eviscerating the Qarmatians. Honestly, given it’s Ndongo taking the city, someone else will probably take Hajar and revive them again next episode, but at least they won’t need to be ranked. This conveniently also allows Ndongo to surround Hamadan, so they might actually end up controlling all of the southern Arabian coast for half a turn before the Faroes run them over with that giant force in Tamna. In fact, the Faroes actually look way more prepared at this point than Ndongo - just look at that army in Dioscurias! Ndongo may finally meet their match next episode. (Not at the hands of the Faroes, of course, but rather at the hands of the Mamluks - just look at that carpet!)

And here’s a quick shot of the megamap (as I affectionately call it), a nice and proper image of the entire cylinder. We’re not done with the episode quite yet, but this is a nice opportunity to take stock of the situation and just where everybody’s at. Goguryeo and the Faroes both look absolutely monstrous, though New Holland and the Yellowknives aren’t looking too shabby, either. Ndongo is also here. Singapore has been pretty thoroughly torn apart, but they do still have some sizable holdings, so they should be able to hold out for a bit longer. Everybody else is just a rump state trying to get by, though the Palawa have settled Tamil Nadu after all, so that’s something. We’re not done yet, though, so don’t expect this map to stay the same for much longer!

Case in point, Goguryeo decides to be needlessly cruel and slap a Citadel next to Wukalina. How will the Palawa possibly defend themselves now? Well, I suppose it is a pretty bad look when this random colony has about as much population and city defense as a straight-up former capital, so I understand why Goguryeo might want to knock it down a peg. Maybe, though - and hear me out here - Goguryeo could actually develop their Central Asian holdings? Just a thought. Might help them out a bit.

A closer look at the Faroese-Ndongo border reveals that, yes, Ndongo is indeed in trouble. It’s not like they have no units around, and the Faroes don’t have a whole lot either outside of a few key spots, but what Ndongo does have seems woefully inadequate for stopping a full-on Faroese invasion. Maybe they shouldn’t have shipped so many units off to go vacation in South America. Funnily enough, Goguryeo actually looks to be in significantly less trouble from what little we can see of the Faroese-Goguryeo border - the whole area seems to still be just as demilitarized as it was at the start of the Great Peace. Interesting priorities you’ve got here, Faroes.

Singapore manages one last hurrah in spite of everything, taking not only their capital but also two new Goguryeo settles with one very brave Drone Ship. Of course, it probably won’t last, and the price seems to have been the annihilation of their cities on Java, but it’s worth respecting their efforts regardless. Ignoring this momentary setback, though, Goguryeo’s repopulation of maritime Southeast Asia seems to be going remarkably well - look at how well the region is filling out! Look at the Settlers already on their way to Sumatra, too!

New Holland joins the trend of making life just a little bit easier for the Power Rankers (and returns to their reaping ways) by capturing Ero’ara, eliminating the Wahgi once more. It is a bit of a shame that the Wahgi won’t get to see the finale of X4 after all, but it would have been a hollow victory anyways. This does, however, mean that New Holland’s Southeast Asian colonies are pretty well-connected now, which might let them hold out for a bit in Total War. Probably helps that all of Goguryeo’s units are elsewhere right now.

It seems New Holland really is returning to their glory days as the Reaper, because next they’ve declared war on the Palawa! Probably should’ve done that back when they could take Pampa Koani, but this is still good enough to secure them control over Tamil nadu and potentially also the Maldives. Ndongo joins the fight as well, but rather than actually contributing anything to the war effort, they’re just waiting patiently for Truwana to get nuked out so they can settle their own city in its place. Seems like a bad idea, honestly, especially when the Palawa can just bombard the Settler, but what do I know.

Singapore (the city) returns to Goguryeo hands, presumably with the help of a couple of nukes, as Goguryeo also settles Raffles Place (a city whose name comes from Singapore’s city list, for added fuck-you points) in Aceh. Hougang and Hango still haven’t returned to their original owners just yet, but there isn’t anything stopping the first melee unit that stops by from correcting that, so just give them a bit of time. Meanwhile, Ndongo has taken the opportunity to settle not one but two cities on Java, as a sort of response to Singapore settling on Madagascar. Probably not actually all that relevant, but very funny - and, hypothetically, it could let Ndongo grab Krakatoa.

Only about 20 turns after nuking the cities that used to be here, the Yellowknives have resettled the sites of the former Palawa Antarctic colonies, just for the hell of it. Really, the big takeaway from the shot isn’t the cities themselves, but rather their names - it seems the Yellowknives have also exhausted their city list, forcing them to use random city names instead. It’s a pretty good sign for the Yellowknives’ preparedness if nothing else that they have enough cities to exhaust their own city list, but at this point I’m not sure if that’s enough.

And for our final action slide, Singapore, facing a Goguryeo landing on the Australian coast and the imminent destruction of one of their last real holdouts, decides to spite the gamerunners and Power Rankers one last time by reviving the Noongar. This isn’t going to help them in the slightest, of course - the Noongar aren’t anywhere near the front lines, after all, and those Singaporean units are going to do a much better job of pushing out Goguryeo than any city-state ever could - but this is still an absolutely critical and incredibly wise decision by Singapore. Why? Because it gives the Noongar a chance to outlive the Palawa, of course.

That’s the end of this episode’s events, but before you go, here’s one more shot of the megamap so you can take stock of the situation ahead of Total War Round 2. As you can see, New Holland has successfully taken the Maldives from the Palawa, reducing them to only one city. Other than that, though, every major change since the last map has been covered in the slides, so let’s just go over who’s left in case you’ve forgotten:

Goguryeo and the Faroes are our two major powers, and likely the only two actively in contention to win the whole game - with the Faroes holding all of Europe and the Mediterranean plus Quebec, and Goguryeo in possession of most of the rest of Asia alongside Alaska and (soon) western Australia, their city counts, territorial integrity, and access to several major fronts make them easily the dominant forces.

The Yellowknives and New Holland, while they are still likely a step behind, have also been shaping up nicely since the end of Total War - the Yellowknives’ conquest of the Palawa has given them a whole new colony to make use of, while New Holland has consolidated not only South America but also the eastern third of North America. Neither is too likely to win, just due to who they’re up against, but they’ve played well and will at least surely put up a fight befitting their status.

Ndongo is, against all odds, somehow not only still alive but noticeably larger than they were at the beginning of the last episode, with multiple very silly colonies. They’re not winning and they’re probably not even going to last too long, but they’ve put on a good showing these past few episodes and may even be able to take some potshots at Singapore before going down. I’m proud of them.

Singapore is in the midst of total collapse, which might be either slowed or accelerated by Total War, but they are still a high-tech civ with plenty of far-flung colonies to escape to, so don’t expect them to just roll over and die right away.

The Selkups and the Palawa still remain as undefended city-states entirely surrounded by Goguryeo, so they’ll probably be eliminated in the opening turns of Total War, but they are still technically alive, so good on them for making it this far.

And then the Afsharids, Siam, the Mamluks, Eswatini, and the Noongar are the surviving revived civs - they probably won’t be sticking around for long, but it’s nice to have them around for the end of the game at least (unless you’re a Power Ranker, in which case have fun ranking these idiots lmao).

So, that’s it - we’re down to only eight civilizations out of the original 61 (not counting revivals, of course). These are your top 8 - the only question now is which one is going to come out on top as the winner of CBRX Season 4. Feels weird to be at this point, but it’s been a good ride.

And in case you were curious, here’s the ideology map. Pretty much the entire world has gone Autocracy, save for the Faroes, who still champion Order. Well, actually, they’re not the ONLY Order civ left - Siam has adopted Order, too. It’s nice to know the Faroes still have a friend in these trying times.

And finally, just for fun, let’s take a look at the comically long titles our two big finalists have accrued. Gwanggaeto the Conqueror of Goguryeo has some nice ones in there representing each of his conquests, including being the Great King of Siam and Zheng, the High Priest of Maguindanao and the Ikko-Ikki, the President of Mongolia and Vijayanagara, and the TXT_KEY_JFD_TITLE_MARSHAL_GENERAL of Shang. (Presumably it was meant to be “Generalissima” or something like that?)

And on the other hand, Trondur i Gotu the Conqueror of the Faroe Islands is also the Supreme Commander of Rome (even though Gwanggaeto is Emperor of the Romans), the God-King of the Alaouites, the President of Makhnovia, the Strategos of the Mamluks, and the King of Kings of Pontus and Sierra Leone. This guy really gets around!

This is the end of the episode, and it is also the end of the penultimate episode of CBRX Season 4. That’s right: next up is the grand finale. By this time next week (barring any delays of course), a winner will have been crowned, so savor one last week of uncertainty, of excitement, of intensity, before it all comes to a close. It’s been a wild ride, and I can’t wait to finally see how it all comes together. Once again, I’ve been NopeCopter aka u/daXfactorz, and a massive thank you to Coiot for letting me narrate such a legendary episode - I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Take care, and may the best civ win.