Emperor, epic, Pangaea, low sea level, normal coasts.

1) Why Mansa:
a) I plan to follow Snaaty's Aesthetics-Liberalism outline, and Mansa has one (Financial) of the recommended traits.
b) I want to play Spiritual to see if I can raise my game on the micro management uses of that.

2) Low sea level -- even though it generates boring-looking maps:
I figure that the extra space will help the AIs: No rush potential, and while maintenance will limit me to c. 4 cities for some time, the AI will be less constrained.


But I'm worried about the very beginning:
1) None of Ag, Fish, AH. This will delay both generation of settlers and Archery.
2) No scout means estimate techs from huts probably < 0.5.
3) Slower contact means longer before I can get infected with a religion and raise my happy caps.

Advice?

Ad (1) Settlers can be generated with bronze working and a couple forests just fine. Start researching bronze working, and you have plenty to do with your first worker or even your first two: chop, mine, and road. If near fish, research fishing, if near wheat, agri, if near cows or pigs, AH. Make archery a priority due to skirmishers, so something like

BW -> Fish -> Hunt -> Arch
-or-
BW -> Hunt -> AH -> Arch
-or-
BW -> Agri -> Hunt -> Arch

Depending on barbarian settings and bronze in BFC, you might have to get archery even earlier.


Ad (2) Don't count on getting tech from huts. You could go hunting first and build a scout before going for archers, but I find them to have a pretty short life usually. But I normally play smaller maps so the scout might be worth it on a bigger map with low sea?

Ad (3) Happy caps are best raised with monarchy. If you have forge happies it is great, of course, but HR plus a bunch of skirmishers should convince your citizens to go to work every day :-)

Good luck!

I can get infected with a religion



I have no advice, I'm not as advanced of player as you, I just thought that was funny.:lol:

Ad (1) Settlers can be generated with bronze working and a couple forests just fine. Start researching bronze working, and you have plenty to do with your first worker or even your first two: chop, mine, and road. If near fish, research fishing, if near wheat, agri, if near cows or pigs, AH.

.....

Ad (2) Don't count on getting tech from huts. You could go hunting first .....

Ad (3) Happy caps are best raised with monarchy. ....

Good luck!

I know that this was meant well, but these points are too obvious to be helpful -- except perhaps that (even apart from the opp. cost) the time frame for the problem is long before Monarchy (even the opp. cost of teh detour were discounted).

Anybody played Mansa on a (relatively) high difficulty level? Did you have a 'slow start' problem? How bad/what consequences? How did you cope if way behind after 50-75 turns?

Thanks in advance.

nobody starts with animal husbandry, and most don't start with agriculture. Basically, most civs have the same problems. Tech some food first because you need it, then either more worker techs or unit techs.

Relying on religions for happiness rarely works out unless you found it yourself. You just have to get lucky (religion or ivory or gold etc) or bear with it until monarchy.

nobody starts with animal husbandry, and most don't start with agriculture. Basically, most civs have the same problems. Tech some food first because you need it, then either more worker techs or unit techs.

Relying on religions for happiness rarely works out unless you found it yourself. You just have to get lucky (religion or ivory or gold etc) or bear with it until monarchy.

Not entirely so. Most start with Ag, Fishing, or Hunting (which reduces cost of AH).

Started the game and learned something very quickly -- Skirmisher rush. I thought that there was room for two rows of cities between my neanrest neighbor (Willem) and myself. But he's creative, so his home city expanded fast, reducingthe space to 1 row. I settled first, on a gold/pigs/wheat combo, but he settled two turns later and his creative attribute stole the wheat.

I need to go back and reload to where I detected the archer/settler stack and eat it, then rush his main territory to pillage, prevent him getting another setller out, etc. Cost will be inability to get infected with his religion (the only one nearby).

Snaaty's approach was to take a food tech ag/fish/hunt first then beelining archery then your other priorities, like bw, etc. Works well imho.

I know that this was meant well, but these points are too obvious to be helpful

Sorry for that - it wasn't obvious to me that it was obvious to you :-)

I still think that Mansa's starting techs are pretty ok: Isabella starts with mysticism and fishing, so if you don't start near seafood you don't have anything to go on. same for saladin, who starts with myst and wheel. Agriculture is a pretty cheap tech and hunting even more so, so by the time your worker is running about he'll have plenty to do. You will want the wheel for pottery and granary pretty quickly anayway, so I think that wheel and mining are pretty good.

I am currently playing MM at immortal and went BW -> hunting -> archery -> agri -> AH, which is working out pretty ok. I had gold in the BFC so that obviously makes mining very interesting, but I could have easily put in agriculture before hunting, I just wanted to get some skirmishers out to fogbust and keep some city spots in the spotlight.


Question: I think religions only spread spontaneously between cities that can have trade routes, so either connected by road or by water. In that case, religion can only spread after sailing or writing (open borders) unless very close, right? So, scout vs warrior should not really influence religion that much...

ck07, do the rush man... don't be coward. :) do the Skirmisher rush... The AI will have built all the improvements already when you capture their capital.

ck07, don't just declare war and spend time pillaging without capturing any cities. The time between war declaration and city capture must be minimal or the AI will produce many archers itself for defense.

Question: I think religions only spread spontaneously between cities that can have trade routes, so either connected by road or by water. In that case, religion can only spread after sailing or writing (open borders) unless very close, right?

Open borders has nothing to do with it.

That is where I got my information, sorry for not referencing but couldn't remember the thread title

what I meant was: religion requires either a "potential" trade route, which means starting close and building a road, or having sailing and a coastal / river connection; or it requires missionaries, which require open borders, which requires writing. In any case, discovering the AI before sailing / writing does not help in religion spread unless close enough for a road connection, in which case a warrior will find the AI just as well as a scout will. Is that correct?

ck07, do the rush man... don't be coward. :) do the Skirmisher rush... The AI will have built all the improvements already when you capture their capital.

Absolutely. Killing his 1st settler means my #2 city thrives (xtra worker!). But level 3 or even 4 skirmishers won't take his capital (+50 bonus +25 entrench +40 culture by 3150 BC--latest).

I can keep him down unless he has copper inside his CR.

Opposite direction is a goodish peninsula, takes 2 cities to wall off. But 1st (cattle, corn, ivory eventually) will cost 6 maintenance, and the 2nd (copper--BW from a hut--clams, sugar eventually) is 5 tiles further out.

Copper is not urgent, so I am thinking that city #4 (or #3?) will be a cheapo gold + clams + otherwise tundra right next to my cap. Will raise $ to pay for the blockers.

Thoughts?

And here's a problem. No marble, stone someday (way down the peninsula). Need mints bad.
-Tech metal casting (OW!); or
-Tech to Oracle and build it w/o bonus (takes less time if it works).
Either means long delays on Writing/Aesthetics/Literature, & I need to be ahead because no marble for GL. Help?

Why do you need the GL? You're not industrious, you don't have the pyramids (which is a very nice synergy), and you have no marble.

If you go metal casting, go there all the way and make good use of it by hitting someone over the head with crossbows and/or macemen, rather than seeing it as a delay on the road to literature...

because GL is arguably the most powerful wonder in the game?

Why do you need the GL? You're not industrious, you don't have the pyramids (which is a very nice synergy), and you have no marble.

If you go metal casting, go there all the way and make good use of it by hitting someone over the head with crossbows and/or macemen, rather than seeing it as a delay on the road to literature...

I'm trying to make use of Snaaty's idea of lightbulbing to CoL, Liberalism, and Rifling. Worked great as Darious despite worse strategic psoition

Turns out Willem has marble but no copper or iron. So a handful of swords should finish him and enable GL. After that little war potential; my next closest neighbor, Bismarck, ranks #1 and has too much land to hope that he lacks metals. Even if I could wage another war there would be little point w/o CoL -- I would have to raze and the Romans would move in. Be happy if I can avoid being dogpiled.

So still aiming Lit and still unsure how or when to pay for MC.

Seriously: Anybody who has had trouble with Mansa very early: what did you do about it?

ck07, don't just declare war and spend time pillaging without capturing any cities. The time between war declaration and city capture must be minimal or the AI will produce many archers itself for defense.

Couldn't help it.; 4 skirmishers (2 level 3, 1L2, 1L1) don't beat 4 (or even 3) level 1 archers in a 40% city. Got 3 workers out of it so far -- 1st surprise, 2nd by defeating 2 archers escorting a settler, 3rd using the WM II exploit. Also pillaged his improvements so now he's pop=1, waiting for me to get some swords and kill him.

I suppose another 4 skirmishers could do it, but those hammers = barracks for the swords + library.

I wouldn't say the great library has a great synergy with pyramids. An extra 6 beakers isn't that amazing, it's the 8 great scientist points that really make the great library worthwhile.