Episode 02: Planetary Pantheon Pandemonium – S5

WWWWwwwwwelcome back to the CBRX5. I’m you narrator EmeraldRange and wow isn’t it exciting? CBR is back finally and we’ve already had some upsets and crazy early first episode plays. Some curses seem like they’re already back and some civs’ chances have just shot up. Crazy how thirty turns can flip things around but so far no capitals have been captured so it really could be anyone’s game no matter how unlikely.

It’s Episode 2 and we’ve seen all the civs make their first moves- some bold, some not so bold. Civs are forward settling and even going to war all before 2700 BC and exciting developments in the art of settling islands abound.

Here is a comic reminding us of the surprise early war we saw last episode- though not one we weren’t entirely too surprised to see as the two close neighbours in Northeast America bicker about how close their capitals are when they have so much space on the other side.

We’re had a lot of cool other art so I’m also highlighting this civ-banana or Xavante as the Xavante fulfil their lifelong dream of becoming a banana. Even when the chances for your favourite civs to win it all look dire, remember, you could always turn into a banana.

But seriously there’s been a lot of cool art and not enough slides to feature them all- comics, civballs and stories help bring this world alive and are what makes the Civ Battle Royale so special.

For our map highlight this week I’m giving you a screenshot of the tile-accurate collaborative map available on the CBR website (yes the one you’re reading right now). You can edit titles, cities etc so contribute to the community effort to make tile accurate maps that everyone can zoom into. It’s a bit of a work in progress that Coiot has been working on making run more smoothly so if you have suggestions please feel free to let us know in the comments.

And how do you get access to this tile map? Well it’s one of the perks of donating on Ko-Fi. A donation, if you can spare it and afford it, helps keeps the power plugged in on our servers as we simulate all the genocide sports for your sick sick sick entertainment.

Plus, you know donation always helps with your karma points and can make you feel good!

Coiot: Even if you are not donating, play around with the map in Local mode, and create your own map!

Our new #1 Spot this week in the Power Ranking is… Pomo? That’s a surprise for sure. This episode was, of course, narrated before the power rankers have finished their job as they are hard working independent fans who don’t get secret extra access or deadlines.

Compared to last episode, the biggest shifts were Luba falling significantly after their lackluster early game and their neighbour Ethiopia having a solid early start. But don’t fret Luba fans, Ethiopia is known as a “First Half Team” that likes to choke in the late game. The biggest drop was Kipchak falling halfway down the rankings for their bad settles and lack of military- but this low ranking is still a bit controversial. Hansa and Ryukyu both go up about 30 ranks as they show the world they do know how to settle cities. But by far the hottest civ right now is Aures who shot up 38 ranks after settling a lot of good cities and making an aggressive but solid early play against the Papal States by settling Sardinia. Our biggest change at the top is Lanfang going up to 2nd after they settle many cities much to the dismay of Pegu and Cebu fans. And our reigning #1 is, of course, Pomo who has a solid defensible core to start after kicking the Tlingit back north.

We kick off with Luba settling the city of Kipushya along the Congo river in a strategic position closer to Zazzau but not quite so far as to trigger forward settling accusations.

Meanwhile Ethiopia and Marawi are still walking their settlers around exploring the vast African continent while Luba eyes a fourth city to their southeast.

The Itelmen settle their fourth city- well they did that at the end of last episode but now we get to see for all its glory. Their raven god told Harchin “Hey, you know your UA is about rivers maybe you should settle on rivers” and Harchin said “no u” and settled Yelovka 1 tile away from the river. Well at least they are still on track to be a strong contender to try and repeat Chukchi’s success with a new settler on the way for their fifth city without much contestation.

Harchin better beware as Green Ukraine decides to build a large temple. Who is the temple for? The people of Vladivostok realised as they finished this grand temple dedicated to the taiga wilderness that they didn’t really quite have a fully fleshed out pantheon. In a hurry they decide to call it the Temple of the Ruler of the East. Well, yeah, that does literally just be “Vladivostok Temple” but hey hey it’s totally more meaningful- Vladivostok is the large giant archer lady who guards our city and rules the east. Right? She’s totally who we named our city after.

Down in Bunuba lands, Jandamarra decides that the best way to make use of his C-tier start on the same continent as the #1 ranked civ is to gun for the strongest wonder- the Great Library of Junjuwa.

The Bunuba have been having very very strong deeptime visions, dreams, songs, stories about a past existence. Over time they collected these stories, drew them onto the walls and walls of a large dedicated space- showing images. The most striking are of a large fiery mushroom growing out of a metallic village. Another is a dark scene, with circular stars dotting the sky- or walls- beyond which the sky has been engulfed by a large flood of water drowning the metallic room. It’s as if they have been here before and been in an in-between space after.

~40 years have passed~

Maravi joins the religion gang and decides that they are going to one up Green Ukraine by actually worshipping a Goddess of the Hunt who will bless them as they hunt the African savannah and as they hunt for a suitable fourth city location.

After all, it seems someone had at least helped guide them towards the lush flatlands near the edge of the Kalahari desert with Maano. Maravi has gotten a nice spread of cities along East Africa without stepping too far on anyone’s toes- at least for now. Good thing too as Herero has built up a decently diverse army and a more bold forward settle might’ve spelt doom.

Over in Wallachia, Vlad Tepes has ordered the massive construction of a very peculiar arrangement of stones. They are very sharp stone poles as if to warn any would-be invader where their heads would go. But instead of heads, on top he has put a ring of stone coffins that seem to balance unnaturally on the poles. Vlad mumbles something to his people about the supernatural, refusing to clarify whether this unnatural arrangement is an esoteric summoning circle or some kind of monument to the divine.

Da Mozzarella Pope has decided that this Sardinia affair is not going to deter him from trying to break the Italy curse. One of his bishops- a certain Gene Pontecorvo- tells da Pope that this is all according to plan. Everyone thinks the Papal States are going to lose and their odds have dropped prematurely. It’s the perfect chance to rig… i mean… persuade these greedy sinners to go all in on Sardinia. Da Pope likes the idea so much he gives Gene enough mozzarella to go establish a new city in the east. Pontecorvo promises more mozzarella and to run his card entertainment business extremely ethically.

France-Albert René commands more seashells from distant sea shores! The Seychelles make a massive splash as they settle not one but TWO mainland cities- on two different continents no less.

Baie Sainte Anne stakes a foothold on the already crowded and contested Arabian peninsula while Bel Ombre looks to start their contestation of Africa. While not as ideal and quick as Seychelles fans were hoping, at least they’ve managed to settle a mainland city before Maravi plopped a second one in Somalia.

Uh oh- trouble for Amina of Zazzau as she gets double teamed by Ethiopia and Wassoulou. Unlike the Susq-Onondaga war (which was still very early)- this war seems even more ill-advised for Samori Ture as his ragtag army of warriors and archers attempt to traverse the Guinean forests. Yknow for someone who’s supposed to be very smart and ahead of his time, Samori, my man, did you know that units travel faster in the flat unforest lands you are deciding to ignore for some reason?

Either way, Amina, though a bit shocked, is not too worried. The double-team might’ve caused Wassoulou the chance to properly set up and attack Turunku. If Ture’s army wasn’t spread out over 6-7 titles they could’ve threatened the 11-defence Turunku city more easily.

We head back down under to our presumed #1 civ- though the power rankings might’ve changed after last episode. Even with the most strategic start and lots of room, New South Wales was being threatened to have their front door contested by that Rapa Nui settler sailing halfway across the map randomly. Worse for NSW was that they only got 2 cities down in the last episode. But Macarthur looks poised to correct that mistake by settling Hobart on a relatively nice spot on the edge of the Australian outback while having two more settlers slowly make their way up the more lush east coast.

And of course, Rapa Nui, unsatisfied with travelling to NSW’s front door, has decided to travel to NSW’s back door. The poor settler, traumatised by the lack of water in the Outback, has quickly re-embarked to Holdfast Bay where they are being told to hold fast and keep going west until they find the Thunderclap Monastery and the Monkey King.

~40 years have passed~

The Great Susquehannock Onondaga War of 2960 BC has finally ended. It appears that Old Sheehays could not finish his attack again Onondaga. His units were distracted, unsure if they should take the lush canal city of Ahaouete between Lake Erie and Ontario or the capital of Onondaga (hint: capitals win you the game). Instead his units seem to have faltered and slowly whittling away over the century to Onondaga ranged defences. Sheehays cuts his losses and makes peace, giving the Onondaga a nice boost from their UA.

The burst of peace as Tadodaho finally combs his hair after about a hundred years results in the founding of Midewiwin as a great visiting medicine man from Michilimackinac manages to detangle his hair so well his medicine becomes sacred to the Onondaga. With the prestigious founding of a new religion, the Onondaga also flex on their neighbours by settling a fourth city of Gadoquat further north to usher in this new age of peace.

Also while we’re here- Lynnie, Train Gang, have an official narrator’s POKE to release Susquehannock already :angrykirby:

Midewiwin honours this great medicine man by supporting guilds of religious artisans who master the art of transferring the spiritual energy of the world around us into the spiritual mysteries of medicine. The Sky Mother and the Midemanidoo have both clearly chosen the Onondaga as the winners of this season with such an explosive start to the season. For this gift and choice, the Onondaga honoured the gods with monuments. And now more monuments can be built in this era of peace.

I’m actually not quite sure why they founded Midewiwin instead of Orenda, but we can blame that on the CBR devs. The other thing we can look for someone to blame is the Religious Beliefs Overhaul having some text descriptions. Generally speaking the Beliefs name is accurate and the bonus text might not be. There’s a spreadsheet with the actual beliefs. So here, Chosen People actually gives +5 Gold and +5 Faith in large cities, which is not as exciting for Onondaga, especially combined with their other meh religious bonuses.

Bjarmia is the latest to join the religious trends of the 27th century BC as Harekr realises that there’s a lot of snow around him. See while it’s nice that he can turn into a dragon to sit on his pile of gold, the real divine power is actually in the tundra. That beautiful land that lets them thrive as the Bjarmians have only discovered two kinds of terrain- snow and tundra. And clearly tundra is the most fertile soil one could ever imagine.

~40 years have passed~

The Pirate Queen of Umhaill realises her folly of not settling Britain. Seeing as she’s a bit trapped in the smaller island of Ireland, she decides to use her naval tech to build up a navy and attack Scotland and get that British settlement anyways. Unfortunately for Grace O’Malley, she learns that her triremes are not as fast as she thought and accidentally sent the declaration of war while the navay was still a bit far from threatening any particular Scottish city.

Scotland, profiting a lot from the Dunfermline Paper Company, has realised that they need to develop some way to quantify these profits. There’s an odd sense that Mary has about another Mary in another world that ruled from this river in the south called the Thames. Something tells her that her empire was built off of pounds of stirling? Not being sure what a stirling was, she still decides to go with her vision and calls the new city Stirling.

The Anishinaabe learn about this Tadodaho fellow declaring *their* medicine to be sacred and *their* gods to have chosen *them* and gets a bit miffed. They decide that fair play’s going to turnabout and start honouring Orenda- the Haudenosaunee’s concept of spiritual energy in people and the environment. Particularly, they call it Manitowi, and honouring the energy of the groves they find in the many marshes along the Gichigami.

While Sacred Groves is usually a very niche pick, it seems to work well for the Anishinaabe seeing as they have at least one marsh in their lands. Don’t worry as they are set to gain a couple more soon, assuming they don’t clear the marshes for farmland.

We turn back to Southeast Asia where we have three civs with 2 cities each all seemingly having a slower start as expected from the Jungle tiles. Bangladesh has decided that this difficult region is a bit depressing so they need more festivals. Pohela Boishakh is even more of a festival the following year as Sugar gets thrown into the mix as a holy substance that makes everything in life better. And with a spoonful of sugar, their new settler goes down the Orissa coast to finally settle the region’s first third city.

Pegu fans (me) watch in horror as Pegu decides to respond to this and the last episode’s aggressive forward settle by…. doing nothing.

Not to be outdone by former East Pakistan, West Pakistan (aka regular Pakistan) decides they are gonna be the top dog in faith as they grab Desert Folklore as the vast desert landscape of their lands instantly boosts them into top contention for highest faith output.

Meanwhile Demetrius decides it’s time for a third city and starts sending a settler south and decides that in this day and age it’s unsafe to send the settler alone so he mulls over how big of an escort to send south. He does have a large army after all doing nothing.

Another war breaks out in South America as Caral, Xavante and Potiguara all eye a spot for their fourth cities. But the war is actually from Guaycuru who has decided that settling the vast lush Pampas grasslands to their south is for loser wimps. Apparently they heard that people were turning into bananas and that was totally unacceptable to the Guay. They spend their hammers making an army to trudge through the jungle and attack Xavante. That and making three scouts to gawk at Cerro di Potosi instead of settling it.

Close enough, welcome back Malgarejo.

~40 years have passed~

While the other top tier powers are mostly dicking around, Vyatka has put down another very strategic city to keep Scythia’s potential down. Nikulitsyn cuts off Ateas once again- and settles on the east side of the river even for a slightly more defensible plains city. In response Ateas tries to settle northwards with Kul’oba. But Myshkin isn’t satisfied and demands more cities, popping out another settler near Kotelnich to potentially complete the wall and really block Ateas in.

Further south, Ateas tries to salvage the run with his settler heading west into Europe to take advantage of Circassia deciding that their settler should take a leisurely pilgrimage to the nonexistent Moscow instead of settling. At least they are looking northwards instead of contesting the crowded Middle East.

Scythia’s new city Kul’oba incidentally blocks off Estonia too whose third settler seems to be confused looking at Lake Ladoga- unsure which way to settle since St. Petersburg is a bit too close to Tallinn to be a valid tile.

Estonia’s opportunities don’t look good to its west either as the Hanseatic League has continued outshining expectations with a fourth Baltic city as they welcome Rostock into their standings.

The Kalmar Union is also looking not to be outdone by their rival, completing two settlers in Stockholm with a lot of Scandinavia ripe to settle.

Ponca realises that there’s a lot of cute patonkers (animals) around and gets extremely excited. They have a lot of land around them and a lot of very cute patonkers. They choose an extremely relevant pantheon honouring the spirit of the animals and their own spirit animals too, unleashing their inner bugcat capoo.

Around then, Karankawa realises that they should also kinda contest that large swath of valuable Mississippi basin land and sends out a settler. They are, after all, the Mississippi Basin representative this season.

~40 years have passed~

Meanwhile in the north, after being unfairly and unreasonably blocked by Pomo’s ridiculous settling spree last episode, the Tlingit place Ch’aal’in a bit further north than they wanted as Essie Parish sends them a trade route as if it makes it sting less.

Sheiyksh Gush X’een decides that he’s not going to get tilted but instead lock in. settling two more cities besides Ch’aal’in- the cities of Sitka and Ketchikan making a nice string of five cities. You may not like it but this is what peak Tlingit looks like.

Our perennial cursed Filipino civ, Cebu, gives the religion game a shot too, deciding to double down on the whole “don’t settle a lot of cities” strategy that will definitely work well. Instead Humabon is going to war! Well, more like worshiping the God of War by waiting around for a Magellan to show up at his doorstep, get into a fight and die to provide him faith. Overally, a poor pick for the early game seeing as they are navally isolated enough that the chance to have a battle within 4 tiles of their two measly cities is exceedingly low.

Inspired by an East African one tile island nation settling a city in the Arrabian peninsula, both Phoenicia and Ma’in decide to at least try a little. Phoenicia settles Byblos in a very lucrative but hard to defend spot along the Euphrates boldly daring Sumer to use their early game uniques to come and take it if they are upset about it.

Ma’in too is inspired and decides to settle Haramum in the middle of the desert ignoring the oases to ensure their citizens have no fresh wa… what? That’s the opposite of where you should place a city. Apparently Sadiq has decided that his people are too fertile with their fancy new fertility rites. That’s why he’s going to not settle next to rivers or fresh water even to ensure that pantheon bonus doesn’t even get used?! Ma’in what are you doing?

In their quiet corner of the world the Chono have chosen the classic A.I. pantheon worshipping their walls. Their capital city of Cailin is very renowned for being a one tile island with easy access to the mainland- reaping all the PR benefits and having land tiles to work. Still, such a city is harder to defend so the Chono have put all their faith into their walls, which will protect Cailin forever more. Especially if Guaycuru is busy trekking through the Amazon leaving the rest of Patagonia for Chono to settle. And whatdya know Chono’s already got a third settler ready to go.

~40 years have passed~

The Circle of Coffins, as Stonehenge has come to be known, has inspired the Wallachians. They decide that the monument with its many pikes is indeed supporting a divine presence- that of the God of War… wait didn’t we see this already? Ah yes, this is the Wallachian God of War who energises warriors preparing for battle in the barracks not the Cebuano God of War who waits around for someone to come fight and die next to your city. Very important distinction there.

We also have to of course look at Ateas of Scythia getting his western city of Kam’yanka down while Circassia continues to wander around sightseeing. Wallachia, for their part, is ready to close Circassia in with their third settler heading for the Ukraine.

Extremely thematically, the cradle of civilisation Caral builds the first structure of civilisation. They build a temple, appropriated before building any farms inspiring their people to settle down and develop agriculture, textiles and all sorts of things we would associate with civilisation.

Göbekli Tepe will provide +2 Faith from Stone and Marble. That un-quarried stone tile to Caral’s south is going to kickstart some faith and belief in Caral to make a run for a religion founding.

A brief look over to Ket who have been quietly developing their Circle K cereals in their largely uncontested part of the map. With Rouran a bit asleep the Ket have managed to put a fifth city on the map as they sit still and blend into the tundra with their teal grey colours. Pakulkha looks to be their second settlement on a river. Not that their uniques benefit particularly from rivers- it’s just a nod to the Selkups’ fishy ways.

Wow Wassoulou makes me eat my words as Samori Ture decides to show off exactly why he’s so smart as he manages to actually get his units across the Guinean Forests to bring Turunku down to the yellow! There’s plenty of units around Turunku and not enough reinforcements from Zazzau that this might end up being the first city capture of the season! And Ture is smart enough to even bring not one, not two, but three melee units nearby to secure the win!

Meanwhile Aures have finally crossed the Sahara to deliver another easily capturable plains city to Wassolou’s doorstep. If the Battle of Turunku wasn’t going so well, this would be another reason for Wassolou fans to despair, but fear not and believe in Ture to stop this North African colony once he’s dealt with Amina.

That’s not all from Aures though as they have another settler up their sleeves near their capital as Dihya deliberates where to send it. They wouldn’t have thought to cross the desolate Sahara so early with all the more amenable lands nearby but her people have been praising the Sun so much they don’t seem to quite mind the Sahara. Though she’s not quite sure how useful this Sun God worship is given that the Sahara is still too sunny to grow the sunny crops like wheat and bananas. But she does at least have one salt and one wheat tile improved that seem to be much more productive as people praise the sun in the fields and mines

Back in Kaachxana Aak’w, Sheiyksh builds a large mausoleum rising out of the frigid ocean bay in the Tlingit capital. With decorations of various animals at each level it inspires the Tlingit to look into maybe making more of these totems later.

But for now the question is- who is in this mausoleum? Why, it was a house of names for all the clans leaders who had come before him. Sheiyksh fondly remembers how he had grown up adopted by the Raven clan and pushed out some foreign clan that hated ravens and insulted ravens. Now that the Tlingit were united all the moieties within the Tlingit still needed a place to honour where they had come from before he had united them- in case this raven hating clan ever came back to attack.

~40 years have passed~

We get another look at the Ket as they look around at their tundra surroundings- while it is fertile, Olgit decides that worshipping the fertile grounds would be kind of weak. They needed to encourage more use of the snowy north where their poisonous ways would be even more deadly. With the Urals and the Central Siberian Plateau’s peaks, he only looked north and up at the Glaciers, calling upon the Glacier spirits to buff up their snowy lands.

Xaragua also joins the pantheon club as they start telling stories about their very cool religion. What is it about? Well you’ll just have to hear the story. C’mon just convert and you’ll know what the religion is about.

While it may help to spread their religion faster, this pantheon is entirely useless unless they can get a religion going- so it seems like Anacaona is going for a high risk high reward strategy. If only she’d do that for settling as their lack of a third settler is bringing them down as Yanomami sends two settlers towards the Caribbean coast menacingly.

Umhaill’s navy has finally gotten around to attacking Dunfermline. Unfortunately for them, Grace O’Malley’s early declaration seems to have confused most of her navy who try attacking the Hebrides but realise there are no cities there. Two of the triremes have gotten the right memo taking the takeable city of Dunfermline down to about 75% health. If only the other 4 triremes were there with some archer backup the city might actually be at risk.

Mary of Scotland is unbothered as she settles Glasgow and pumps out another settler headed for the European mainland to show Grace how it’s done.

We have another look again at Herero who have built up an impressive army. Unfortunately they are taking the “Alert” stance, staring firmly at the Congo rainforest in case someone tries to attack them instead of attacking the lightly defended 8 defence Maano.

Jacob Morenga is a bit busy directing all his troops though. He has to spend an entire chapter of his personal epic poem putting on some swag. His adorning of the fancy new jewelry and armour is so inspiring people attribute the adornments to the divine and begin venerating copper, gems, gold and silver. Now, if only there was a single piece of copper, gems, gold or silver in Herero territory anywhere.

~40 gruelling years later~

AAAAAAaand we have the first city capture of the season as the underdog Wassoulou who looked a bit short of preseason expectations firmly flips the narrative successfully capturing Turunku. Amina, in shambles, has barely enough troops to defend her capital if all those Wassolou troops remaining made their way to her capital.

The future looks bright for West Africa fans as Ture captured the city with a warrior to spare and two more on the way showing extremely smart and tactical competence making up for his lack of expansionism in the last episode. Now the question remains on if he will continue to push Zazzau or punish the Aures for their egregious forward settle

Inspired, France’s Robespierre looks around to attack the nearest monarch he can find- deciding to attack Portugal. He reasons that the Pope is only sort of a king and Scotland requires a boat so the next nearest terror he can reign down is against Portugal.

João for his part has suddenly gotten re-accustomed to his surroundings, realised that Maria isn’t there so he doesn’t have to be lazy Portugal anymore and pumped out two settlers. Unfortunately for him the French army is marching towards him and- while they are lagging far behind and very dispersed, the 9 defence Porto is far too vulnerable for João to stay lazy.

The Kipchaks have decided that they should maybe try a bit at being a top tier civ and settle Kanjak Sangir in a bring spot to box Vyatka in. They are smart but not that smart about it as they settle it on the other side of the Ural river where it’s infinitely less defensible from a Vyatka attack. Luckily for Togortak it seems the armies building up and eyeing his juicy lands are coming from the east.

Vyatka decides that cutting off Ateas in the north is not that optimal as he feels a bit bad for Estonia. Instead he sends his settlers south towards the Caspian to get access to the steppe against all three of the neighbours there and realllly box Circassia in.

The Bunuba settle their first coastal city- settling Dimallurru in another arid area. At least it corners off the lush Top End, but I spy a New South Wales settler headed towards Uluru which would be a massive blow to Bunuba if they don’t contest it at least. But who knows, maybe the New South Wales settler will go the way of the Rapa Nui settler and randomly disappear into the Atlantic.

~40 years later~

We have a quick look at Ethiopia’s 4th city of Gondar which got ignored a bit in the excitement over Zazzau and the Arabian Peninsula shenanigans. It’s been here for a while and has been a nice forward base for Ethiopia to send another settle deep into the Saharan looking for some suitable rocky place to hew a church into.

The Ethiopians have begun to worship their ancestors, particularly all the codices and texts that they have in their shrines and temples as they honour and study their forefathers who have tried to win this battle royale before and gifted them this strange golden ark. They study the ways of their ancestors as they try to understand what this ark is supposed to be.

While we’re in the habit of catching up we look at Bangladesh’s third city of Khulna in a quite decent spot. Pegu still doesn’t look like they were offended by the forward settle and have barely built any new units. Mysore, however, has a sizeable army but is mostly content to sit in Alert mode protecting Bangalore from any Pakistani ambitions.

To dunk on all the other civs who started in jungles but didn’t take this powerful pantheon, Tipu Sultan has taken Sacred Path honouring the five (soon to be three after he gets mining) jungle tiles he has. I guess it’s a fine way to deny it to others while giving him enough of a benefit but perhaps there was not many other good options left this late into the Pantheon game.

Another catch up as we look at Rouran. They settled Xihai 9 turns ago but we haven’t seen it until now. It’s a quite nice location with a river and lots of luxes. And their fourth city of Nirun does the same, securing more copper with fertile floodplains. Our buggy boys have also built up a sizeable army and seem to be clambering back to justify their higher ranking as they focus on building up a strong core and an army.

Looking back at the Scythia Squeezebox we see Ismail Berzeg seems to have given up on his sightseeing settler and built another one to hopefully actually settle a third city before Vyatka completely corners him into an even more squished box than Scythia. Wallachia completes their side of the Circassian Cram with Campuling butting up right against Bygurqal.

2400 years before something important will happen, twelve trans weed priestesses came together to tell everyone the miraculous news. A carpenter named Jesus had come to earth as God’s son and had absolved everyone of their sins. And so the twelve disciples founded a church and called it the Catholic Church as it was a Universal Church for all who sought the Enaree.

On the other side of the world, Spearthrower Owl of Teotihuacan codified the religion of Tlateomatiliztli emphasising the need for ritual mathematics- perhaps to justify wearing his eyeglass mask all the time. He also wanted to rebuild the cities from scratch. A divine force had told him that apparently his city was supposed to be on a lake. But finding it hard to redo the city from scratch, he instead built three settlers to head out in three different directions and find a lake with an owl eating a two headed snake…. Yeah the mathematical divination was a bit confusing.

It was a good thing he did as Karankawa, being so frozen with choice on the empty vast Mississipi basin, had already sent a settler south to try and take the Yucatan.

You might’ve already caught it on the past slide but HOLY SHIT UMHAILL DID A THING. They unlocked the power of embarking their melee units and seem to have brought their triremes around the Irish Sea to really make that sea Irish by taking Dunfermline. One of the local assistants to the regional governors called Michael of Dunfermline’s Paper Company insists that this is not actually a city capture by pirates but just angry dock workers striking. After all, how could they have land units that were on the water? It just didn’t make sense.

Scotland fans remain disappointed by hopeful- while Mary has absolutely no units anywhere nearby to contest this capture, she does at least have a settler in the Netherlands to stake a claim on the continent.

~40 years later~

Another thing that we saw two slides ago was Potiguara deciding to attack Xavante- realising the Guaycuru doing their best Malgarejo impression gives them a good opportunity to get an early capture. 6 turns ago they settled Jacu and since then they’ve been getting their army up. Potiguara has unlocked their Spearman unique - the Phusa. Unfortunately for them most of the design is based on city-states. STill their warrior army might be enough to threaten Marimbu here.

Meanwhile Yanomami has also settled one of their Caribbean settlers in the Guianas creating a base from which to contest Xaragua’s region. Seeing as the Taino chiefdom isn’t really doing much, they ask reddit for opinions to which the redditors tell Davi to send his settlers south and claim territory while Xavante’s distracted. That seems pretty sound advice as Guaycure is also deciding to send a settler to contest Xavante and contribute to this new Squeezebox instead of settling to their south. Xavante might just be rightfully placed at the bottom of the power rankings.

I did it before. I'm also POKING Rhoze to finish Potiguara and release it. Or else.

New South Wales’ Macarthur has decided not to be that mean and settles Launceston in the middle of the outback. These rivers are so dry they don’t create flood plains but at least provide a bit of possible freshwater for this new city that starts to wrestle for control of Australia. But don’t be fooled, he still has 2 settlers in Sydney ready to go.

At the same time, Rapa Nui is also wrestling for control of their settler as the settler travels back inland shuddering at the thought of reentering such a dry and desolate area again.

We take a brief break to look at the Catholic Church of the Scythians. The Catholic Church builds off of their belief in communing with the forests and jungles in which they find Christ- for the bark is his Body and the sap is His blood. The belief in staunchly defending the faith, especially as Scythia is being squished inside by enemies around them. Of course to fund this religiously motivated defence, one needs to build large structures worthy of tithe and donation to build the Cities of Gold to mirror the Heavenly Cities of God.

Of course, Defender of the Faith is quite a powerful belief in this game, and Arboreal Communion would be great working very nicely with Scythia’s uniques that gain faith from forests and very strong prophets. But Gold isn’t quite that helpful in the CBR context here.

Teotihuacan’s Tlateomantiliztli religion builds upon their core rites of springs as they try to manifest having any pastures or plantations within their territory. But it matters not because the mathematical divinations of Spearthrower have inspired great architectural works upon which heroes can be venerated with human sacrifices in their owner.

While there are more wonders in the game, both new religions taking wonder-based beliefs is a bit risky for both as they aren’t particularly stacked on the wonder train. Makes you think if Scythia is resigning itself to playing tall for some reason.

And wow, I think I might’ve predicted it earlier- at least one of the two scary armies marching on Top 20 ranked Kipchaks does actually declare war on the undefended steppe cities as Demetrius of the Bactrians march up to Sighnaq. When asked for a comment he simply said “My icon has an ugly colour scheme so I wanted to subject everyone to it”

Regardless, the Bactrians have a strong scattering of melee units threatening the city that may be enough to get past that river. The core strategy for Demetrius here is to not send the rest of his army to get distracted to Sarai on the west and get his ranged units into the siege ASAP.

Also relevant to mention is the Scythian settlement of Symkovo officially blocking in Scythia and Circassia fully.

We get another relevant war declaration as the Lafang Kongsi look to expand their company and take over Ternate. They have seemingly declared their war super early with their entire navy still back near their capital, but there’s definitely enough to create a threat and take Sidangoli. Though with 17 defence and Ternate having a nominal defensive force with a couple turns of buffer they might be able to hold out.

Ternate also settled Soahsio 10 turns ago on Turn #31 but we just never saw the city. It occupies a very close spot to the auspicious Wahgi capital, but is coastal. We’ll see if this goes anywhere.

Mary of Scotland has wisely cut her losses without any troops to effectively threaten Dunfermline by peacing out. The Paper Company sponsors the fleeing settler who finds that the Netherlands might not be the most ideal place to settle.

The Union completes their settling, putting Oslo in Norway. It’s not quite the right spot but hey it’s close enough to Oslo’s budget airport at least.

Ethiopia finishes their Saharan expedition deciding that it’s too hard to go that far into the desert. A harrowing account of the journey details how they unwisely decided that they could find a shortcut instead of following the lush Nile as it curved and turned. But the settler got a bit too west and now Mek’ele has been plopped in the rocky dry middle of the Sahara.

Further south in Africa, we see Morenga activate Herero’s decently sized army. However, like many other AIs seems hellbent on walking his army through forests instead of attacking lightly defended easy plains targets. Moringa decides to march into the Congo straight for Luba’s capital. A bold strategy to be sure and he could have enough troops to do it if only they can execute the march effectively.

To the north we see a tease of Amina finding her footing as Zazzau sends a settler to get back up to four cities.

~40 years have passed~

The Tlingit have been incredibly inspired by the Mausoleum of Names and its layered animal carvings. They codify it as inspiration to see the world in a dualist way- the water and the clouds, the light and the dark, wet and dry, hot and cold. They call this new philosophy and religious doctrine the Sgáanaang. All these ideas of the world around them got standardised in the year 2320 before something important.

Caral as well has codified their ideas about what brought and inspired them to build the grand temple near Caral now that they had settled down and invented civilisation to support the maintenance of this temple. This new religious doctrine is called Pachaism and describes the relation between physical spaces with divine times. For instance, the relationship between the physical construction of the First Temple and the development of civilisation.

Sgáanaang builds upon the Tlingit’s worship of the Sea God to include the use of faith to heal. By understanding the dual nature of the world, spiritual healers can better understand the connections between seemingly opposite humours and elements. This was to be maintained by the council fires- providing Culture and Science as the clan leaders discuss and maintain the legacy of the prior clans.

Because the religious belief texts seem a bit borked, let it be known that Council Fires provides +5 Culture and +5 Science in cities with 10 followers. Strategically going to be nice in the mid game and science is always welcome. The more relevant one long term is probably going to be Faith Healers when defending against attacks.

Pachaism meanwhile got some insight from Caral’s ceremonies under the open mountain sky. The Temple was built for the Sky but now there was a more sophisticated understanding of the relations between time and space.This came from ardent inquiry about spacetime as they sought people from foreign places to understand their mystical times. To honour the sky, more temples were to be built. They were to have tall towers reaching to the sky from which a call to prayer would be given every day at noon from which people would gather and pray towards the direction of the First Temple- after all it was the most sacred place that started civilisation time itself.

Strategically, the Ardent Inquiry selection with the Mosques works pretty well to set up a wide spreading science providing religion. And again, to know it says Mandirs, but it really is Mosques (4 Faith, 1 Great Work of Music slot).

Wow a lot of things happened this turn, indeed

. We’re just now getting to look at the wonders. The Chono built many rock cairns as they navigated the rugged landscape of Patagonia and eventually these got bigger and bigger until someone looked at the lighthouse in Melinka and thought- hey why don’t we build and even bigger giant rock cairn in the seas so that we can encourage more seals to sleep on it and go hunt them easier.

It was such a great idea that this massive cairn rivalling the nearby Andes was built right out of the shallow fish-rich seas of the coast of Melinka inspiring many generations of Chono workers to work fast, efficiently and build great big marvels to get even more seals.

On the other side of the Pacific, the Itelmen leader Harchin received yet another vision from the raven god. “Hunt deer in the snow and fish the arctic, you guys are a Siberian native civ”. And Harchin said “no u” and built some large rice terraces to really spite the Raven. He announced proudly “We’ll decide what we do!” as he created a massive hilly rice field out of sheer spite. The wondrous impossibility of such a tropical water-borne crop dotting the landscapes near Koannym were so inspiring to the Itelmen who all began to implement the same practices in farm the desolate tundra hills, gaining +1 Food on hill tiles.

Estonia has finally decided where to send their settler after being blocked in by Vyatka to their east. They settle Narva in Finland, getting closer into Bjarmia’s territory. Really it’s Bjarmia’s fault for not doing anything faster.

To the other side of the Baltic is the Kalmar Union where Margarethe has been marching her settler up the Swedish coast for some time looking for an ideal spot to place her fourth city.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah finally settles a third Pakistani city, also pushing further into the deserts of Afghanistan seeing the answers from the desert by settling the city of Rawalpindi on the Helmand River basin. He finally learns about the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. and the One True God swt. and awkwardly learns why he was named Muhammad himself.

A couple turns ago though, Bactria had also made a move settling Euthydemia in Afghanistan as well contesting the area against Pakistan. Jinnah is tempted to spread the true faith more rapidly but Demetrius consoles him with a trade route first

We get our first enhanced religion as we finally learn what Hyksos has been doing instead of settling cities. They’ve been building archers but also going full into their religion. It’s traditionally not that great of a strategy but this might just be from the massive amount of faith coming from the most holy mountain, the home of Set and the portal to the spirit world- Mt. Sinai.

Relately all the other civs nearby seem to respect this enough- or they’ve enjoyed enough barbecues at Mt. Sinai’s base- that they’ve all decided that peace, friendship and stability is the best option in such a crowded space. Yeah, that’s not what the expert power ranking nerds will tell you so idk guys maybe go to war already.

~40 years have passed~

The newest Hyksos prophet bringing the latest news from Set received a tablet with more hieroglyphics clarifying some of the confusing messages found earlier about Pesedjet. It clearly says that the area is the most holy for it contains the portal to the Spirit World where the Creator exists. Accordingly, all gods were from the same Spirit World so we should be united with other prophets and respect other Holy sites. To demonstrate the truth of this Set detailed plans for the best way to worship him being a “Daoguan” which channels the “Dao” energy from the mountain in the way the temple is built with an open air bit in the middle to provide direct access to the Spirit World in the sky with a mini model of Sinai in the middle. It was said that one day, when the Hyksos faithful would discover a foreign land for whom this concept of Dao and Fengshui was cultural and normal.

The Daoguan is pretty much one of the most powerful buildings here given that it gives science and Unity of the Prophets is not shabby either. Expect Hyksos to be a strong turtle if nothing else.

In Pakistan, the Sunni school of Islam was formally established. It describes the Zillullah (of “Son of Heaven” as a figurative title) protecting the true faith of Islam and keeping people focused on God amidst the main djinn desert spirits. The ways that the message of Sunni Islam was to be spread was through the enactment of stories and retelling of formerly forgotten stories of the One Prophet as an addition to general religious worship.

This religious build is extremely faith heavy letting Pakistan generate a lot of Faith. Luckily for Pakistan fans, the religion already has a quite decent outlet for all that stored up faith in the form of buying cultural buildings- though it could’ve been something stronger.

We return to the Xavante Gang… well it’s not quite a bang. Gangsoak? Sure? Kids if you don’t know what that means it’s a water gun fight cuz they aren’t really hurting each other enough like a real gun fight.

We see that neither Yanomami and Guaycuru have finished their forward settles. Xavante is also reluctant to use their fourth settler as he wanders the rainforest hoping to become a banana instead of a city. Potiguara attempts to show they were serious about this attack on Marimbu by damaging it just enough to leave a bit of a scar in the shape of the words “We wuz here” before trying to scramble back and not die to the Marimbu city garrison archers.

Further north, Teotihuacan spends a bit of time fussing around about the cosmologically perfect, mathematically perfect, strategically perfect city and ends up only settling one of their three settlers. The City of Hix Witz is settled. The residents look confused as- while the city is kinda good, it’s not that amazing to have wasted so much time, especially as Karankawa continues sending a settler looking to forward settle.

Teotihuacan fans can be a little eased though as Krankawa seems intent on building workers and embarking warriors on whatever freshwater lands they can instead of pushing an invasion or building more settlers.

We take another look at Fennoscandia as the Kalmar settler is still slowly moving north and Bjarmia popping out a new settler.

Of course the main highlight is the new religion of Forn Siðr establishing the canon lore for the Norse Gods and also clarify who the hell this Jomali that they keep building temples to is.

A massive twist in Central Asia as Qara Khitai continues marching their army towards the Kipchaks- but NOT to attack the Kipchaks. Instead they are here to save the Kipchaks! Wow! And one would think the Qara Khitai are without honour. No, in fact, it looks like they are there to attack Demetrias while also tussling with the dwindling Bactiran offensive on Sighnaq. The chances for Demetrius of Bactria to get anything good out of this war has rapidly diminished.

~40 more years pass~

The Scythian Squeezebox has just gotten a lot more violent in its squishing as two of Scythia’s five neighbours have declared war on them. It looks like Vyatka has initiated a plan to actually capitalise on their wall of cities and attempt to attack Scythia. Wallachia is there to give some support but their troops are still alerting around their capital with only some troops near Campuling. Similarly though, Vyatka is a bit further away with their troops too so we will see if either actually commits anything or if this war is about something else.

We take a look at what Bjarmia’s Forn Siðr actually entails. They’ve clarified that Jomali is the primary god of the aurora and the scraps of other folklore put together by the other Nordic civ is actually propaganda. Really the Norse religion and gods are all about the mead baby and partying. Yeah! Every luxury resource is to be incorporated into a Mead hall party at your local Jomali temple! Yeah! That’s what the Aurora is, baby, dancing gods in the sky that you gotta also party with every Freyrday night! But don’t forget to pay the fee cuz the temple is actually church property.

Strategically, the Bacchanalia (the real one) is a pretty strong general purpose belief- which gets cancelled out a bit by how weak Church Property is in a CBR game where gold really doesn’t matter that much.

Well take back what I was saying about Scotland not having that much room in the Netherlands. Apparently Mary doesn’t care and settles in Inverness right next to Paris. Surely France’s Robespierre won’t mind now that there’s another monarch who was historically actually beheaded next to his capital right?

Luckily for Mary- Max is a little competent (see: the new settling of Lyon to go up to 3 cities) but not that competent (see: war against Portugal going nowhere).

We see just how nowhere the French war against Portugal is going as Robespierre’s warriors seem to be struggling to even leave a dent on Porto. They also haven’t managed to snip away João’s two settlers who start settling out the rest of the Iberian coast with both Coimbra and Braga. While Aures has been having adventures in the middle of the desert, Coimbra has captured the Strait and Rock of Gibraltar potentially enticing Portugal to make a run for expanding over to the Maghreb.

The Herero war against Luba has somewhat materialised as the army makes its way to Katende. But with all the time it took to get the troops through the thick forests and jungles, Luba has been able to respond with a sizeable defensive force and calmly send their settler right into the frontlines without worry.

The only thing this has really achieved for Herero is probably losing most of their troops and the opportunity cost of not taking the weak Marawi cities of Maano while it was still weak. At least they might’ve helped Zazzau out a bit by distracting Luba from also dogpiling on Amina there.

We get our first shot of East Asia proper as we watch all three civs here do… not much. Ryukyu has slowly expanded to claim a tile on the island of Taiwan while Japan has built a settler headed for Korea to fulfil Hideyoshi’s signature play. The big development here is the Tang finally getting a port city with Chengdu settled on the Bohai Sea bringing the Tang to 4 cities.

Looks like our highly top rated Yunnan has still not really done anything about Tang’s big forward settle and might even be allowing another settler in their turf. The Tang have another settler heading south of Nanzan looking to give the Southern Chinese some Middle Kingdom civilisation.

Further south we see the Langfang navy whimper together enough of a force to at least blockade Sidangoli. But looking at the now 18 defence Ternate city with a respectable defensive army, it seems unlikely that Lanfang can take it unless they can successfully move that larger army from Minghuang over to Sulawesi and help in the siege. Ternate in the meantime isn’t really trying to do anything too crazy to defend and has decided workers and workboats are the way to go in Soahsio.

New South Wales plops another city after learning that they were robbed of flood plains when settling Launceston. Kingston, they say, will have access to at least one flood plain in slightly better barren desert. Don’t fret NSW fans- the deity AI will eventually overcome any limitations of any useless tiles like these flat deserts.

Meanwhile our brave brave little Rapa Nui settler has finally made it back to the right side of the Outback and is now deciding if they should settle next to beautiful and luscious Great Barrier Reef or if they should turn around again and make another trip to double check that Antarctica doesn’t have nicer resorts.

~40 years later~

Looks like Long Yun heard the shit I was talking and decides to declare a symbolic war to show that Yunnan’s not going to stand for Tang using their forward settle to forward settle again. They hastily wring in the Rouran Khaganate seeing that they also have a military and hopes something will come out of it.

Unfortunately for such a hastily concocted joint war, at best this will spur some aggressiveness but there’s not really enough of an army on either side that looks coordinated enough to threaten anything before the peace option comes back up. Make Yunnan believers can hope Rouran causes Tang to glitch out and gift all their cities away.

Back in North South America (isn’t that so fun to say), the Yanomami have settled the city of Hasupuweteri. After some deliberation Davi’s redditor advisors have told him that settling on the coast is pretty cool and dope. They told him that if he settles another city one tile inland he’s going to get laughed at like all the other civs.

This view also lets us see that the other Yanomami settler we’ve seen before are still kicking plus we now have the addition of the Caral settler eyeing up Ecuador and Colombia. Potiguara’s war, however, seems to have completely lost steam.

The era of peace ushered in by the Mt. Sinai Set-sponsored Barbecues has ended in Arabia as Phoenicia realises that the only way they can even stand a chance is to fight their way out of their terrible starting zone. However, the Holy Hyksos convinces them to not attack them. They have a point as Haramum with 8 hit points might just die to those 3 warriors and 1 archer at the front- not to mention the sizeable Phoenician army coming as backup.

Things look quite dire for Ma’in too as Sumer gains some lucidity and stops wasting their unique unit’s relevant era with indecision. They decide that the Seychelles or Phoenicia aren’t the main enemy. The main enemy is, of course, Ma’in. Accordingly they’ve sent some troops to group up though Eannatum has reportedly not made a decision on if he should be relevant and declare war yet.

The Kalmar Union settles Vassa strategically claiming enough times to block off the poor Estonia trireme now stuck in the northernmost parts of the Baltic. Estonia has a chance to bite back if they take the right coastal tiles but Lennart Meri is playing it calmer and cooler working on a settler near Tallinn and looking where to settle them.

The same can’t be quite said for the Bjarmians who’s third settler has apparently been busy partying up a storm in Gandvik’s suburbs instead of doing anything

~40 years later~

With Qara Khitai coming to the rescue of Sighnaq, Demetirus of Bactria pulls what professional civ 5 watchers call an omega big brain move and shifts their attack towards Sarai. Unfortunately it’s a bit too late for that as their melee units are all within dying distance of Sighnaq and the advancing Qara army.

For Qara, their army seems a bit stuck in those desert hills for now but if they can focus down towards the 15 defence Demetrias, they could do something though the chances for anything here to flip is depleting with every second,

Similarly in the west, we see that Scythia Squeeze-con is not moving too fast, but at least Vyatkas is still sending out settlers to take control of their uncontested east.

Davi Kopenawa of the Yanomami finally decides he can try for another non-coastal city without angering his reddit advisors, settling Hiomisiteri near the borderlands of Xavante. This seems to anger Potiguara and Caral who instantly declare war despite not having nearly any army nearby to pose any real threat.

The Xavante Potiguara front continues to stall just like efforts to complete the Potiguara mod arts. Perhaps in frustration Felipe Camarao decided to team up with Caral to give his people another war to be distracted by

And that’s where we’ll sign off after an exciting second episode full of initial wars, moves and more tussling between civs. Can Scythia break out of their predicament? Will Rapa Nui ever make it to two cities? Will Susquehannock ever settle their empty frontierlands? Wait… what’s that? oh. Yeah they did. They settled a city in the Kentucky area but we just never saw it. You can see it on the mini-map. Also the Chono did settle that settler all the way back on Turn 38. I think that’s about all the minimap changes we missed.

Well that’s one question answered at least. To see what happens to our brave Rapa Nui settler, tune in next week on… the Civ battle royale!