Hi. Technically I should still be playing on Noble; however, I had an idea whereas if I played difficulties that I cannot beat I would learn how to play faster and figure out new ways of getting more efficient at killing other civs. So far it's working--I've done alot of reading and people say that Julius Caesar is actually the best aggressive civ because of Praetorian. For the most part I would agree, however, Iron is not always an easily accessed commodity, thus I was in search of another strategy that didn't require putting all efforts into getting copper / iron resources for axeman / praetorians.

I was scrolling through the list of different civ's for their UU and looking for one that had a decent basic unit. Who did I find... Mansa Musa. Unfortunately I forgot what the UU is called, but it's an archer replacement: 4 strength, 1-2 strike back, 25% hill defense, 50% city defense. An extremely versatile unit IMO--so I tried it. Hot damn, it works VERY well. Because of the fact that you can get this unit with such little effort as opposed to chop rushing an axeman army AND because with one chopped forest you can get 1 and 1/2 of them built I propose a theory.. Getting Mansa Musa's UU and chop rushing an army of them would be more efficient than the extra resources it would take to chop rush an axeman army.

The game I'm currently testing it on is Monarch, Pangaea, Temperate, Standard, and its 1500 BC roughly. I've managed to kill Montezuma completely and take all of his cities--now I am almost ready to to a jump attack on Elizabeth. One of her cities is right on my border so I can take it very easily; and there is nobody behind me because it's all barbs and close to the coast. I can pump out skirmishers pretty fast with rax's in the cities that I have building them--either 10% strength or extra first strike.

What do you guys think? :goodjob: Keep in mind I'm supposed ot be at noble difficulty right now, but if I can jump up to monarch and have little troubles holding my own; is this truly a good strat? :king:

*Edit... Plus Mansa if financial. =D And without him playing against you, you won't have to worry about him winning the tech race.

If it works so well, it is a good strategy. Anyway, all early UU civs just cry to be used that way.
And you say you should be playing noble? why do you says that?
You win at monarch level, what's the point playing noble?

Obviously, you understood enough of warmongering to play at your current level. I'm pretty sure that you would be fine with at least half the leaders in the game. Finish this game, and you'll have learned enough to play another leader at the same level (i'm not saying you will win easily though, a lot left to play!)

Mansa Musa's UU is actually pathetic at rushing, so much so that when i play him i ignore archery completely and still go with axemen. Here are some of the reasons for this :

1- It's primarily a defensive unit. Attacking cities with it doesn't make use of its natural city defense and hill defense abilities.
2- It doesn't have access to city raider promotions.
3- Mansa Musa is not aggressive, and even if he were, Skirmishers couldn't use the free combat 1 because they're not melee units.
4- The tech needed to make them, and the tech needed to chop rush them, are in completely different parts of the tech tree. And since Mansa Musa starts with mining, it makes a lot more sense to go with bronze working than archery.

Basically, with Mansa Musa, as with most leaders, i only research archery very late and only to enable longbowmen. Until then, i attack and defend with axemen. So typically, i don't build a single Skirmisher in the entire game!

I like playing Mansu as well, for his spiritual trait but mainly for the skirmisher.

The skirmisher is a fantastic UU, the best I have come across for playing with raging barbs -

Can get archery and build at least one before they come
Don't need resources which are hard to defend against the barbs
They are strong enough to capture early cities

Plus they look cool!

Mansa Musa's UU is actually pathetic at rushing, so much so that when i play him i ignore archery completely and still go with axemen. Here are some of the reasons for this :

1- It's primarily a defensive unit. Attacking cities with it doesn't make use of its natural city defense and hill defense abilities.
2- It doesn't have access to city raider promotions.
3- Mansa Musa is not aggressive, and even if he were, Skirmishers couldn't use the free combat 1 because they're not melee units.
4- The tech needed to make them, and the tech needed to chop rush them, are in completely different parts of the tech tree. And since Mansa Musa starts with mining, it makes a lot more sense to go with bronze working than archery.

Basically, with Mansa Musa, as with most leaders, i only research archery very late and only to enable longbowmen. Until then, i attack and defend with axemen. So typically, i don't build a single Skirmisher in the entire game!


You are a bit knackered though if you don't have accessible copper.

You are a bit knackered though if you don't have accessible copper.

No. I'm still glad i researched it for chop rushing and slavery, and then i research something else, like archery or horseback riding or iron working.

No. I'm still glad i researched it for chop rushing and slavery, and then i research something else, like archery or horseback riding or iron working.


Chop rush is too powerful not to ignore on vanilla.
If you don't have accessible copper nearby you really have to go for archery as warriors suck against barb chariots.
I would love to see a slaver unit as per Call to Power, a fat bald man in a red shirt with a net!
They rocked - a bit controversial though I suppose.

Barb chariots? I've never seen those. I didn't even know barbs could make them.

But warriors can still defend pretty well against chariots. Just place some on forested hills, and give them the woodsman promotion, and they'll do fine. Even unpromoted, a warrior that has been fortified on a forested hill for 5 or more turns has as much strength as a chariot, plus a bonus against barbs.

Defending against axemen, however, is another thing.

Barb chariots? I've never seen those. I didn't even know barbs could make them.

But warriors can still defend pretty well against chariots. Just place some on forested hills, and give them the woodsman promotion, and they'll do fine. Even unpromoted, a warrior that has been fortified on a forested hill for 5 or more turns has as much strength as a chariot, plus a bonus against barbs.

Defending against axemen, however, is another thing.


Maybe the chariots are exclusive to the mod that I play - green mod?
Or exclusive to raging barbs because I always take that option too?

I decided quite quickly that warriors were too weak for combat and too weak for exploration so I don't build them now.

I think you need to give warriors another go. On forested hills, they're surprisingly strong barb busters against anything but axemen. They're even decent as city defenders thanks to their built in 25% bonus.

Of course, playing with raging barbarians on changes things a bit and would make archers more desirable. But for standard games, archers are quite useless most of the time and their tech is a waste of beakers to research.

Of course, playing with raging barbarians on changes things a bit and would make archers more desirable. But for standard games, archers are quite useless most of the time and their tech is a waste of beakers to research.

Doesn't it slow down your tech overall if you don't have all of a previous tech era completed?

No. Archery is not a prerequisite to anything. It's what we call a dead end tech.

I usually just got archery because the computers would always offer it to me if I didn't have it and it got annoying (like how they offer calendar to me when I have stonehenge). I also thought it would slow down my research if I didn't get it (because I noticed that after I neglected other technologies) but apparently it doesn't. Learn something new everyday.

I always noticed the comptuers loved using archers even though, as you said and I'm starting to notice, they really suck. I held down Alexander in my last game as the Incans by mass producing the Incan UU and sending it to Athens right away. I sat about 6 of them on a hill next to their capital (which, on the other side, was facing an ocean). The entire game he sat there with two archers pinned down, sending his new third archer against the UU, only for it to die. It was kind of sad. :cry:

I have rushed with archers, but only a couple times when there was no copper, iron, or horses available. Both times were on Marthon/Huge where my production outstripped the building options provided by tech research and I was able to build a horde of units without chopping anything.

It can work and Skirmishers would be better at it, but nearly any other option is better.

Unfortunately in the game I'm currently trying it in I got too greedy and tried to take elizabeth on--what I didn't know was that Peter is her neighbor and I was also at war with Peter from an alliance I made with Egypt. Peter had stacks and stacks of units.

:cry:

Anyways, for the most part I think it works pretty good. I don't know if chop rushing an axe army would last you good enough to kill 2 civs before 0 AD, thus I think the Skirmishers would work better since it is easier to pull off and they are easier to mass. No copper / iron required. However, if you wait too long and can't do it fast enough your tech will fall drastically behind. :nuke:

I'm still learning some strategy and how to deal with certain situations, so give me a break. :p I suppose one thing I learned from this is don't bite off more than you can chew.

Dantius, how come you didn't just take out Alexander? I had about 5-6 units and took out the english (London with 2-3 archers) for good. If you give your Incan UU the cover promotion with the experience from barracks, they can kill off archers in a city pretty easily.

1- It's primarily a defensive unit. Attacking cities with it doesn't make use of its natural city defense and hill defense abilities.
2- It doesn't have access to city raider promotions.
3- Mansa Musa is not aggressive, and even if he were, Skirmishers couldn't use the free combat 1 because they're not melee units.
4- The tech needed to make them, and the tech needed to chop rush them, are in completely different parts of the tech tree. And since Mansa Musa starts with mining, it makes a lot more sense to go with bronze working than archery.
Couldn't have said it better myself.

It's the +50% against melee AND the ability to get City Raider that make Axemen far superior for early warfare (although if you're short on copper or iron you don't have much choice...)

No. I'm still glad i researched it for chop rushing and slavery, and then i research something else, like archery or horseback riding or iron working.

How do you decide which of those three--arch, HBR, IW--to go for next?

How do you decide which of those three--arch, HBR, IW--to go for next?

From the resources available. If there's a source of horse available an early horse archer rush is feasible so you can go archery horseback riding. If not then you have to go for iron working.

Skirmishers look good for defending. I know they put me off attacking mansa as i dont want to lose lots of units. Hmmm where did i leave my catapults.

Skirmishers are best for choking the bad guys. Give one a double guerrila promotion and fortify him on a hill next to an enemy capital, and he'll have over 8 strength, not to mention the 2 first strikes, which make it take a LOT more units to kill him. If he does get killed, your enemy will have wasted many times more hammers in units than the single skirmisher cost.

No. I'm still glad i researched it for chop rushing and slavery, and then i research something else, like archery or horseback riding or iron working.

How do you decide which of those three--arch, HBR, IW--to go for next?

From the resources available. If there's a source of horse available an early horse archer rush is feasible so you can go archery horseback riding. If not then you have to go for iron working.

Perhaps the question was unclear, so I'll rephrase it. If you research bronze and find yourself without any accessible copper, your best troop is still the warrior you started with. You have three research options that enable better troops: archery, horseback riding, and iron working. The first enables the weakest troop, but is the only one you are assured of being able to build after you research the tech. The other two can leave you in the same no-resource situation you are in with copper. And then, you still only have warriors to defend your emprire. Better get those archers ASAP or you'll be hitting "Escape to the Main Menu."

My general decision tree is:

If I have lots of aggressive neighbors, I go for archery.

If I have lots of barb spawning regions, I go for horses.

If I'm hemmed in by jungle, I go for iron working.

These can be mutually conflicting, so I wonder how others approach the "oh no, no copper!" realization.

With respect to the original topic in the thread, if I'm Mansa, I'd go for archery after finding no copper. But wouldn't aim for them otherwise. Copper and the other benefits of bronze working are too great to delay.

Hello all,

Just like to add that the Mansu UU is a very effective choking unit. Sending them in groups of 3 or 4 to prevent a neighbor from ever getting their copper is very effective. Not to mention that this works just as well with the normal archer unit. And if someone or the AI is unprepared for these stacks of resource and land holders, or haven't yet made enough axemen, your superior numbers will literally choke them until you feel like acclimating their civilization into yours. Skipping archery is quite the opposite of foolish in many ways.

Dantius, how come you didn't just take out Alexander?

I did eventually. I had no interest in taking him out at first because of the distance the city was from my capital. If I had Athens, I would have to pay out the butt in maintenance fees to keep it. I wanted to expand out to Athens a bit first but continue to prevent Alexander from expanding. I did capture it, and it became an important center to my southwest due to its size, but what I meant by "rest of game" was the rest of his game. :goodjob:

How do you decide which of those three--arch, HBR, IW--to go for next?

Many factors :

- If you have lots of jungle, iron working makes more sense.
- If your civ starts with some prerequisites, horseback riding makes more sense.
- If you're more of a gambler (higher risks since the tech costs more, but higher reward since swordsmen are better), go for iron working.
- If you're playing against Greece (phalanx), don't go for horse archers.
- If you're playing against Romans (praetorians), don't go for horse archers. Axemen are the only thing that can stand up against them.
- If there's no possibility of expansion, go for archery to survive barbarian axemen. Don't expect archers (or even skirmishers) to let you take out civs at higher levels, but at least they'll help you survive.
- If you play Romans (praetorians), go for iron working. If you play a civ that has an early mounted UU, go for horseback riding.

There may be more that i forgot as i typed this.

When I have no copper, I generally go for Iron Working next, unless there is a more immediate need to defend myself, in which case I'll go with Archery first. I rarely, if ever, bother with horseback riding.

The "immediate need" meaning I have aggressive, nut-job neighbors who are nearby, such as Montezuma or Alexander. Then, it's archery->iron working. In most cases, I'll stick with my fog-busting Warriors to deal with barbs and go straight for iron working.

If you want to chop-rush units for an early attack but don't want to rely on Copper/Iron/Horses, it's better to play with Montezuma (Jaguars) then Mansa Musa. Jaguars are cheap (35 hammers), don't need resources and are better than axemen for raiding cities defended by archers. Monty's aggressive trait doesn't hurt either!

No. Archery is not a prerequisite to anything. It's what we call a dead end tech.
It's a prereq for some units (Horse Archer).

Wodan

- If there's no possibility of expansion, go for archery to survive barbarian axemen.
How does that happen? If you've expanded everywhere, there's no fog to spawn barbs.

Unless you're saying, there's no expansion that's worth your while. e.g., ice or non-river tundra.

Wodan

Mansa Musa's UU is probably the worst UU aggressively, but they can be used aggressively when Mansa Musa is your neighbor.

You can bribe some aggressive AI to waste their swordsman / axeman / spearman on Mansa Musa. They will suffer huge losses and you can either backstab them, or concentrate on somewhere/thing else.

Why does MM always go so well in tech!? It's not fair, in real life he would be trampled over by civs like Japan, America, China & Greece!

Why does MM always go so well in tech!? It's not fair, in real life he would be trampled over by civs like Japan, America, China & Greece!

first it's a game, not real life
second he does so well because he trades a lot more than other leaders, and is financial

Many factors :

- If you have lots of jungle, iron working makes more sense.
- If your civ starts with some prerequisites, horseback riding makes more sense.
- If you're more of a gambler (higher risks since the tech costs more, but higher reward since swordsmen are better), go for iron working.
- If you're playing against Greece (phalanx), don't go for horse archers.
- If you're playing against Romans (praetorians), don't go for horse archers. Axemen are the only thing that can stand up against them.
- If there's no possibility of expansion, go for archery to survive barbarian axemen. Don't expect archers (or even skirmishers) to let you take out civs at higher levels, but at least they'll help you survive.
- If you play Romans (praetorians), go for iron working. If you play a civ that has an early mounted UU, go for horseback riding.

There may be more that i forgot as i typed this.

How about beelining straight to elephants and catapults (engineering?) When I start with ivory this always seems to work pretty well on noble and prince at least. comments?

Beelining construction is a good idea if you have Ivory. Especially if you are not Agg.

If I have lots of aggressive neighbors, I go for archery.

If I have lots of barb spawning regions, I go for horses.
Note that you need archery for horse archers anyway, so archery should come first in either case.

It's a prereq for some units (Horse Archer).

Wodan

And crossbowmen and longbowmen i believe. But i meant it's not a prereq for any tech. Of course i know it's a prereq for some units. I already said i get it late to access some units!

first it's a game, not real life
second he does so well because he trades a lot more than other leaders, and is financial

Not to mention when MM was around, Greece was long gone from the world stage, and the territory of America was in the Stone Age.

Mansa Musa's UU is probably the worst UU aggressively,

I've found the skirmisher to be a very good UU in tightly-packed multiplayer games. I can often research archery and have a few of these built before a close neighbor has found copper and gotten some axemen built; in that case a few modestly-promoted skirmishers can inflict some real pain or even take my neighbor's capital. I've also won a couple of multiplayer games because an early-rushing neighbor is unpleasantly surprised at how strong my city defenses are so early in the game, and after his assault force impales itself I get to counterattack.