Khoshuts
NopeCopter:
And so ends the tale of the Khoshuts, and what an absolute ride it was. Initially voted in as a part of the Oirat trio alongside the Kalmyks and Dzungars, the Khoshuts actually got off to a solid start as they settled a large area relatively quickly… only for people to realize that they were completely ignoring the fertile land along the Ganges in favor of settling more fairly worthless Himalayan cities. This allowed Siam of all civs to secure the Ganges delta, and Harappa managed to gobble up a fair bit of land as well before the Khoshuts finally got the memo and started placing cities in places that actually had Food potential. Regardless of their odd settling habits, things were still looking fairly positive for the Khoshuts, and they were placed firmly around the top third… until the fateful war with their brothers the Dzungars. The more prepared Dzungar military easily took the undefended city of Gyangtse, but the real killer came in the peace deal, where the Khoshuts unceremoniously handed over the city of Lhasa - their second city, located right in the middle of their empire - for no reason whatsoever.
Obviously, this instantly turned all the hope for the Khoshuts into ridicule and frustration, and the Khoshuts sure didn’t seem eager to redeem themselves as they only launched a few token invasions of their more relevant neighbors, to no effect whatsoever. Even getting dragged into a three-way war with Siam and Dai Viet couldn’t make them remotely interesting as they aggressively failed to take the undefended Siamese city of Nakhon Ratchasima. They did almost kind of threaten to take a city off the Shang, but they followed this up with ANOTHER city gift, this time to Siam, so before long they had quickly become the biggest joke on the cylinder. An incompetent, ineffectual civ that seemed to actively WANT to lose, only kept safe by their position in the Himalayas (a position which became less effective with each city given away).
But then… then things began to change. The first sign was a city gift, not from the Khoshuts, but TO the Khoshuts, from Dai VIet - only for Dai Viet to immediately declare war on Siam to try and take Nakhon Ratchasima, kickstarting a Holy War that immediately put them back at war with Dai Viet. In essence, a free city for no actual peace. This did result in Siam just capturing the city gift for themselves, and the second Khoshut assault on Nakhon Ratchasima failed just as the first did, but it served as a hint that maybe, just maybe, the Khoshuts had something more going on behind that incompetent facade. The Khoshuts went silent for an episode after this, giving the sense that maybe their insane gambit was just a fluke, only to suddenly show their hand all at once in Episode 22. The Afsharids declared war on a weakened Harappa, seemingly poised to wipe them off the map, and the Khoshuts joined the fight as well - not something that seemed particularly relevant, given their prior war record.
Over the course of the next episode and a half, the Khoshuts proceeded to take and hold all four Harappan cities.
This was absolutely unprecedented, for such a minor power to effectively double their size by sniping an ENTIRE EMPIRE during a coalition war, and it instantly put the Khoshuts back on the map both figuratively and literally. The most insane part of the whole situation, however, was that it was only the beginning. Vijayanagara attempted to take the new Khoshut gains for themselves while they were vulnerable, but despite their tech advantage they were completely stalled out. Then, after a short reprieve, the Khoshuts were suddenly faced with a three-way coalition of the Afsharids, Dzungars, and Bukhara… which actually resulted in a net GAIN of one city as they not only held their borders but finally retook Lhasa from the Dzungars after so many turns of humiliation. This was followed up with yet another declaration of war against Siam, and unlike the previous ineffective stalemates, this time the Khoshuts were able to swoop in and quickly take not only Nakhon Ratchasima but also their OTHER gifted city of Shigatse. Granted, Siam was in the middle of being eviscerated by the Wahgi right after being torn up by Singapore, but this was still an efficient and effective war - the narrator of the episode even noted that the Khoshuts really could have gone further. Against all odds, Gushi Khan had done it: he had regained his honor and taken his empire from a laughing-stock to a fan favorite.
Unfortunately, no sooner had the Khoshuts regained their honor than their enemies finally decided to wipe them off the map for good. The Afsharids and Dzungars invaded once more, and this time, the Afsharids in particular were ready. It was a brutal lightning campaign, ignoring both the Great Wall and the mountainous defenses of the Khoshuts through excellent use of the Afshairds’ highly mobile units and brand-new air force. By the end of Episode 32, the Khoshuts had lost not only all of the former Harappan cities they’d taken from under the Afsharids’ noses, but they were poised to lose their hard-fought recapture of Lhasa, as well. They plummeted 16 spots in the Power Rankings. They were still placed above five other civilizations. By the end of the next episode, they were dead in 44th - before any of the critically-endangered rump states beneath them. It was a shocking display of the Afsharids’ efficiency, and a tragically sudden end to a civilization people had only just come to love.
At some point during this season, rotting away in the Himalayas amidst a sea of their own failures, the Khoshuts were given a choice: to continue to dimly smolder away in the mountains as just another ineffective mountain turtle, or to risk it all, veer straight off the road they’d been placed on, and burn so bright that nobody could possibly ignore them. The Khoshuts, thankfully for all of us, chose the latter. But the brightest flames burn out the quickest, and the Khoshuts were too good to stay with us for long. Do not fret. This was the choice they made. The reckless play of the Khoshuts in their final few episodes led to their early demise, but in exchange they gained a different sort of immortality that only a lucky few ever obtain in the CBR - a run no other civilization could ever replicate, a character arc that made them feel almost human, a piece of CBR lore to stand alongside the likes of Laos and Castile. The Khoshuts are the first Oirats to leave this mortal coil, but as the Kalmyks sit on two cities pecked away by Citadels and the Dzungars rot in their own mediocrity, they will surely be the last to leave our memory. F.