Lonely Hearts Club, BTS Edition, Chapter XVI: Mansa Musa

HR comes is handy long before the ADs, our Empire in 5ad:



I've decided to head down the Optics->Astro path, avoiding Aest->Lit and Civil Service. This may have been a mistake, but it does mean that I can meet all the other leaders fairly early:



Shaka has already gone on a rampage and taken two vassals:



The tech screen in troubling, but not horrible (yet ):



Demographics don't look too hot:



Mansa is in a tough position here. Hopefully we'll get a big boost when astro comes in (~15 turns). A cultural gambit may be the best bet, but luckily there is still some room for discontent among the others. If Shaka and Charlie both hold their own, I may be able to poach some more land in the renaissance ... we'll see. This may be a loss though

I went straight for lib, neglecting the optics-astro line. I missed the +1 bonus, but won the liberalism race, geting PP from it. Short before liberalism, Asoka found me and the others followed soon after. I backfilled the missing techs by trading education-liberalism around, got astronomy and now my eco. is skyrocketing. The other continent was a little too peacefull for my taste, but nothing few bribes can't solve ;

Wow. I really need to make some adjustments to my style if I expect to beat Emperor and above. I settled in place, teched BW while getting a worker out, then Fishing, Hunting, Archrey. I got a couple work-boats and warriors out, and started on some Skirms to fogbust and such. I had no problem with barbs at all, other than losing about 3 warriors to animals. I likely would have won those battles on a lower level, but no biggie. Really, only about 3 actual barb units popped all game, and all went down to Hilled Skirms.

I got a couple cities out, but just couldnt seem to tech well. After Archery I went AH, Pottery, Ag, Myst, Med, Priest, and only managed to get 3 turns in on the Oracle before it was built. I didnt even bother trying for any wonders after that, and focused on workers, settlers, etc. Teched Writing, and MC, kept my teching going a bit with specialists, but I could tell I was well behind by the stuff being built by the AIs.

Soon, I met Asoka, and this is where I made my biggest blunder. He had 3X my score, and spread Judaism to me, so I took it and spread it around. Then I met the actual leader, Charlemenge. He had already vassalized Toku and disliked me immediately for religious reasons. Then Asoka DoWed on him and asked me to join, so I said OK, hoping to get some diplomacy and techs from him. He actually gave me Theology, which allowed me to build my only wonder of the game, the AP. In the middle of the war, however, Asoka suddenly declared on me! WTH? Ah, he was vassalized too! BUMMER!

I was going to try and play it out. I gave Char 100 gold for peace, and dropped out of my religion. My cities were growing, but Asoka got control of the AP and when it came time to vote for a diplomatic win (all the AIs had some Jewish cities) I voted for myself, and if Asoka had voted for me, I would have won, LOL. However, he didnt, and all the others abstained, and then this happened:



That was basically all she wrote. He had Trebs and Cruissars, I had Axemen, Spears and Skirms. I retired. I am going to try again, on Monarch. Preknowledge wont do much for me this game, either, I plan to settle the exact same way I did this game.

I'm a pretty new player (got vanilla/warlords xmas, BTS about 2 weeks ago), so for me I was happy to get out of this map with a win on Monarch. Is the step up to emperor that nasty?

I am interested in your (and everyone elses) tech path in isolated starts. I didn't exactly BEELINE optics, but I got it pretty early, and that had a big impact on my ability to win in the game. My checkpoint 2 was 1020. The reason I ask is that it seems like on difficulties like this (i'm sure emperor is worse), the AI techs faster so not being able to tech trade exacts a huge toll. Is it even possible to keep up in pure isolation?

PS: Wow, that's a lot of cottages, and I thought I had a lot! I stopped after I got 4 or 5 workers I think, because they were letting me improve cities quickly enough to never work unimproved tiles.

Checkpoint 1 - Emperor

While exploring I got lucky and popped Agriculture from the huts. This island definitely lends itself to a Specialist Economy. Which is unfortunate because Mansa is a CE leader. My first techs were Fishing-Hunting-Animal Husbandry-Archery-Bronze Working-Masonry. The UU will come in handy in fighting off barbs. The capital has a large number of Forests which I am hoping to use to chop rush the Pyramids.

My early assumption is that this game will be another Cultural win. The 3 Sugars-Pig city and the southern Fish-Clam city will make good Specialist cities, so I'll focus on culture in them. I plan on settling one Commerce city on the river encompassing most of those tiles.

Early Wonders I hope to get: Pyramids, Great Lighthouse, Colossus, Parthenon, Statue of Zeus, Great Library.

Checkpoint 2 - Emperor

In 2875BC I got the message that the Japanese civilization was destroyed. Hopefully that continent will continue to war with each other so I don't fall too far behind.

After further thought, I gave up on the idea of the GL and Colossus. I needed to grab Iron Working ASAP, and I wouldn't have enough forests to chop rush the GL or Colossus since I had no stone for the Pyramids or copper for the Colossus. After my initial tech path, I went Iron Working-Writing-Pottery-Meditation-Polytheism-Metal Casting-Aesthetics-Literature.

1050BC I finished the Pyramids. With the 3 forests left, I chopped+pop rushed 3 settlers to finish REXing the island.

At 5BC a GE was born. I used him to pop the Colossus (yay!) in Kumbi Saleh in 400AD. This helped immensely by letting me increase my science slider by 20%.

In 500AD the Indian Civilization was destroyed, and I got worried. It seems like an aggressive nation (Mongols maybe) is taking a huge swath of land.

After Literature, I started for Civil Service. This would l et me get the +50% bonus in my capital, hopefully letting me get the wonders I want. I chose Maths-Currency-CoL-Civil Service since I have no need for Priesthood yet.

550AD a Great Scientist was born. Since Gao (my Commerce city) was still small, I settled him in Timbuktu. The extra hammer would hopefully be useful in wonder spamming.

880AD we got the Parthenon, finished CoL and jumped into Caste System. From here on out I jumped from Caste System to Slavery when needed. Thank you Spiritual.

940AD whipped out the GL. I feel like I'll win the game at this point, but we'll have to see. I was having Issues with Happiness, so I made Drama, Music and Construction goals so I could get more happiness from the cultural slider.

In 990AD I was beat to the SoZ. This is only half bad, since it should make wars more destructive on whatever continent it was constructed on. Although I couldn't get too upset since the RNG spit out a GE in Kumbi Saleh.

With the GE I settled on Music-Drama-Construction-Machinery-Engineering-Calendar so I could use the cultural slider and start on the cultural win and use the GE for Notre Dame to increase my Happiness.

After Music I decided on rushing the Sistine Chapel instead of Notre Dame in order to help with the Cultural win.

Although, that didn't matter much since in 1170AD I popped another GE in Timbuktu.

1250AD I had a GS pop in Djenne which I used for an Academy in Gao. After Construction, I jumped back in Slavery to whip out Colloseums in most of my cities and upped my cultural slider to 20%.

And in 1350AD, another civ finally contacted me.

Checkpoint 3 - Emperor

Unfortunately, Charlemagne beat me to Notre Dame. With most of the reachable wonders already claimed, I settled my GE in Timbuktu. I also got open borders with Charlemagne, hoping he would spread Buddhism to me. I was also planning on making him pleased/friendly so I could get him to gift me techs (and stave off invasion), since I was so far behind.

1380AD a GA was born in Timbuktu, which I settled in Kumbi Saleh. After finishing off Calendar, I started on Paper with the hope of trading it for some more techs with Charlemagne. I also jumped to slavery one more time in order to spam castles, increasing my trade route and EP yield.

Unfortunately, Charlemagne teched Paper the turn before I did. So I was left with a conundrum. Do I go for Optics to meet the other civs or try for the off chance at Liberalism? Since I was generating GPs at a decent rate, I decided to go for the later. Thus, I maxed out my scientists in most of my cities (thanks caste system!)

I met Shaka in 1455AD and traded him Drama for some gold and his world map. As I was hoping, there were 2 strong powers with different religions on that landmass. Unfortunately, by Shaka's score (1385 to 2662) I expected him to be eaten by Charlemagne soon.

1470AD a GS was born in Djenne which I used to bulb Education. I then teched Compass-Philosophy-Liberalism. I was surprisingly ahead in the race for Liberalism and hoping to get Nationalism when Charlemagne constructed the Taj Mahal. Since most of Nationalism's draw was gone, I decided to tech Optics before I finished Liberalism.

In 1530AD I spawned a GS in Kumbi Saleh, which I settled in Gao. After getting Astronomy, I made a few tech and resource trades. I immediately jumped to Free Religion and Free Speech. And with the Free Speech civic now in place, I was ready to power to a cultural victory.

Another GS born in 1635 AD which I used to build an Academy in Timbuktu.

I went for Printing Press next to max out Gao's cottages, and slowly increased the cultural slider.

In 1650AD I finally met Justinian (the last AI surviving) which ended checkpoint 3.

Checkpoint 4 - Emperor

Religions finally started spreading to me, which let me max out the Sistine Chapel bonus. Later on, I was able to make this trade:

I switched to Slavery and whipped out a number of Budddhist Missionaries to jump to Buddhism and keep Charlemagne happy with me. I also jumped to Pacifism in order to pop some more GPs, which I was hoping would be GAs.

In 1728 a GE spawned. Normally I would be happy, but I was trying to get a Cultural win here! I used it to start a GA in order to rush the production of Buddhist buildings. The GA resulted in a GA being born in Timbuktu, which I settled in Kumbi Saleh.

1744AD I got a lucky event in Timbuktu which gave my monastery +4 culture.

Oops, I've been neglecting tech updates. I finished Chemistry and Steel before reducing my science slider to 0%. I was able to use both to trade with Julius for several techs. After that, I teched Replaceable Parts which got me Economics from Willem. I also signed a Defensive Pact with Julius to help stave off any chance of invasion. After Replaceable Parts, I started on Steam Power.

1798 a GA is born in Kumbi Saleh. And in 1808, another GA is born in Timbuktu. I started to get a bit nervous about winning a cultural victory at this point. I traded Steam Power for Rifling with Willem and set a beeline for Radio.

In 1830 AD Charlemagne offered me a Defensive Pact. With that, I figured I was safe from invasion.

1869AD, GS born in Djenne. I used it to build an Academy in Djenne for the culture.

I spent a large number of turns in Slavery, whipping Temples and Cathedrals. After that, I jumped back to Caste System and ran Artists in most cities. It was pretty nerve wracking the last 60 turns. Every surviving civ built the Apollo Project while the most advanced military unit I had were Musketmen. 1915AD I got another GA which I used in Djenne for a Great Work. In 1934 I got another GA which I used for a Great Work again in Djenne to make it Legendary Culture. Charlemagne launched his spaceship 2 turns later, however, My other 2 cultural cities were too far ahead for him to beat. 4 turns later:

Screenshot 9

Definitely not one of my high scores, but winning on Emperor with an isolated start is a definite accomplishment. I look forward to the next LHC!

As of 1290 I was struggling a bit in and very pessimistic about my chances. At 1345 things have improved a lot. Very slightly optimistic now.

Relations seem to be going ok as well. Nothing like a joint phony war to get the AI happy with you. I don't think I will be seeing any of Shaka's units for somewhile. He has taken one of Will cities as well so I don't think Wil will attack me now especially as I thought he went to Free Religion.

Well things look a little brighter than before. For one, I managed to get liberalism first (after going "south" for astro)



The year 1325 is a special year, as it marks the completion of the very first military land unit that's not a warrior



I built up through democracy as well, and our smallish island is developing as well as can be expected.

The southern part of Mansa's island (1500):



And the northern part:



An improved tech position:



Although the above screen looks quite clean it's actually not so clear cut -- Charlie is teching very well ... and slightly faster than me.

Relations (looking safe-ish )



And our none-too-impressive capital:



This is a very tricky map ... not only are we happy constrained but all the other resources are in short supplies as well. This means that surplus resources are very hard to come by -- at the current save I'm trading all my strategic resources away just for a minimal boost to the caps.

By 1500ad I am in emancipation/US, but converting to Universal Suffrage required about 8 turns of gold-rushing happy infrastucture (at 100% gold). I'm not too happy about that, but the added production is very welcome.

From here space could be possible (700 beakers/turn at 1500 is reasonable), but it would leave me vulnerable (and production will be a problem). A land grab from Charlie would be ideal. Shaka would be a safer target. We'll see what the situation looks like when rifling comes in.

Yeah, I know, I generally dont, but I was so far behind, and I actually waited til the 2nd AI came by who was Toku, who was also Jewish. I honestly thought Asoka was the points leader at that stage, since Toku wasnt all that far ahead of me.

Don't be too hard on yourself, this is a very tough board for a first attempt at emperor. Nice effort

Trading with Asoka and adopting his religion were probably mistakes but you also seemed to be a little slow on early economic development. If going heavy cottages (like I did as well) early monarchy is very important. I prefer to avoid archery so that warriors can be used as MPs -- but that has efficiency trade-offs when the barbs come a callin'.

Good luck in your next game.

And your above post does contain spoiler information from check2 .. you may want to spoiler tag it

What to say about the start? Capital is great, the rest is crap. No hammers, 1 happy resource. Lots of grassland for cottages is about the only thing I like. I hade a bad feeling about this one, I really can't play hammer poor games. Popped a map, a warrior and scout from the huts, in that order. Great.

Of course I couldn't keep myself from playing on, I just had to see how this one developed. Spammed settlers and cottages all over the land. Went for monarchy pretty early to get the needed happy. About 300bc, while teching monarch, I noticed that the oracle was still around. Chopped it and founded confucianism. Happy for my people and shrine money as I made a G prophet my first great person soon after. Made a detour towards calendar too hook up what happy I could, spammed skirmishers in my capital as fast as I could. Then I beelined for optics and set sail close to 1000 AD. Here's what I found.


Noticed later that one AI was missing, Willem completed to bunch shortly after. Almost everyone had different religions! was very careful in my trades, checking for worst enemies at all times and only earned demerites when I refused to join wars.

I played on. Making decent friends with everyone but shaka. Lots of wars happened here and there, I tried to stay out of it and cave to tech demands when I had too. I thought I might have a shot at diplomatic victory so I went for Mass Media. I did pick up rifling on the way for self defense.



Unfortunatly for me, Shaka and Burger King steamrolled/vassalized everyone (except Togu who is still free for some reason) and turned into superpowers. Then turned on me. Take that diplomatic victory! Willem died to the zulu hoard. I did beat back their invasions without too much of a cost.



Onwards, for space? Most likely the only thing left for me now. Charlemagne has Apollo Program already but isn't too far ahead in tech. Production is a major issue though. Gonna have to torch the cottages around my capital and probably switch to bureaucracy. That is if I can survive that long. Note that I have stayed in HR all game, no town producing hammers for me. I've also switched to enviromentalism to cure health issues. Useful civic sometimes. My plan to spread the sushi and mining inc failed since the AI's are either in mercentalism or State Property. Not that they want to open borders anyway. Well ok, I suppose I can spread it to Azoka and possibly Ceasar but I dare not waste production at this point. Why can't they leave me alone?



Oh, and Charlemagne has "to much on his hands"...

I started a colony from shaka's captured cities. Got napoleon! Exactly what i want, a warmonger.

Shaka can capitulate now, but he's at 124% of my land and 34% of my population (yes i reloaded to check). Very risky that he'll break away so I'm going to take a few more of his cities before i accept his capitulation.

Tokugawa broke away from Shaka and capitulated to JC. Willem made peace with Shaka, didn't even take any cities.

So i'm going to finish off Shaka and then move on to Charlemagne, then finish up with Willem. Hopefuly i won't have to fight JC, who's #2 in power now. I might go for a vassal powered diplo victory, we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for the advice on my first try. In retrospect, I can point to a fairly definite spot where I went bad. I should have delayed Hunting and Archery until I was actually building the Oracle. Losing the Oracle wasted a lot of turns, cost me a couple Great People (my first was a GS VERY late). This time, I played it a bit differently, even though I dropped down a level.

Started with Fishing while building a Worker. When Fishing was done, I switched to a Work Boat, and teched BW while going to 2 pop. Work boat finished, worker re-started, and the commerce from the Clams made the worker and BW finish exactly the same turn. This was incredibly more efficient than the other way I played it.

After Worker, I went Work boat, Warrior, Warrior, Warrior, Worker (at happy cap), Settler, Worker. I teched AH, Pottery, Myst, Poly, Priest, THEN Hunting, and now Archery while I am chopping out the Oracle. In my first game, the Oracle got built pretty early, but I am fairly certain I have it locked up this game. Taking MC with it.

My Warriors are out fogbusting, and one escorted my Settler to the Rice-Horses spot on the coast to the NE. Next spot will be the Sugar spot, since it has some Forests. I will drop in another Settler and Worker as I build the Oracle, carefully checking my tiles and using maximum whip/chop overflow to keep it steadily building.

I can tell already the face of this game is totally different. Whomever asked about the jump to Emp, yes, I think its the biggest "jump" in the game, Monarch to Emperor. Usually you can hone some good skills and techniques at Prince which translate well to Monarch, that jump is much much easier IMHO. Take the Nobles Club, for example, I have been playing those at Prince, and blowing them out. I am 100% certain I could take them at Monarch just as easily. In the LHCs, I generally play Monarch, but I made some silly impatient blunders in a couple that lost me those games. In the last 2, I have dominated on Monarch, having a big points lead both times.

This was not a good map to try my first Emp LHC, heh. Great leader for it, but the map itself isnt easy to play at all. Its extremely hammer poor, and sparse of happiness resources, which is one of the biggest factors in the Monarch to Emp jump, that extra happy face in Monarch is big. I did get an early Monarchy that game, and had units and decent vertical growth, but my tech rate was pathetic. Once I missed the Oracle, I tried to make up for it with a few quick cities and lots of workers to chop and cottage the jungle ASAP. That backfired, my tech rate dropped, and while I worked the cottages and brought it back quite a bit, Charley Burger King came a knockin. Another impatient blunder the first time, sigh, never befriend India, they are almost always the Whipping Boy of the stronger big-bully AIs.

That is where the pre-knowledge will actually help me, so I was wrong about that. I KNOW Charley BK will be a dominant force again, so I will certainly be waiting to make friends with him, LOL. Of course, this is another level, and stuff may happen differently, but I certainly learned my lesson befriending the first schmoe that comes along (I had skimmed that article long ago, and had totally forgotten that chapter on befriending the first AI). I hope my failure helps someone else avoid that mistake, that makes it worth it, after all, this is a club, and we are here to learn from each others mistakes as much as our own. Heck, the Nobles Club was basically founded because of the hugely successful format of this club, and basically copied its "Charter" ideas (spoiler checkpoints, helping each other with tips, etc). That club is going better than I thought it would, thanks in big part to r_rolo1 himself for making our maps and offering solid tips (you da man RR!).

So, I have explored the island again, LOL, have 4 fogbusting Warriors out (will send Skirms out soon as well), and after the Oracle with MC I am looking at Writing, CoL, Monarchy and IW as my next important techs. I will have 3 cities when the Oracle finishes, and its the only one of the early Wonders I am planning. No Mids this game, I need to get away from relying on them so much. I would rather shoot for MoM, and then Lib-Taj, and tech into Space with multiple Golden Ages. Planning to start saving Great People early for multiple GAs, I really loved how incredible that was in the Kublai Khan NC game, holy cow thats a powerful strat.

Gold in the BFC! LOL, thats going to be HUGE, +2 happy everywhere right away, with a Mint.

You're right about the resources. The island only has one, and it's a calendar (assuming you don't pop gold =P. I had a hard time and was happy I could win this on monarch. Chopping out the mids was a dirty and useful advantage for me in a couple ways:

1. Since mansa is spiritual, I was able to quickly swap into rep/monarchy, and later later US. The latter was useful, because while the land is very hammer poor until workshops come into their own (what, at chemistry? Ugh), it is very good for cottaging. There's at least a couple good food sites too, so I used the whip liberally. Spiritual was a godsend for me.

2. Mids = GE. GE bulb the MC/Machinery path, also known as the optics path. Mids was the only wonder I wanted on this map, although I was able to get the colossus without really losing anything in the process also. I used my GE to bulb machinery after researching MC myself. Note that I didn't lose any time doing this, because I was able to ignore the meditation/priesthood/monarchy tech path without repercussion, thanks to the mids. This meant I could pick up niceties like code of laws and calendar before the GE came, which gives you all but 1 turn of machinery research. IW you'll get either way on an island like this .

IMO mids is a turbocharge on isolated starts. I had optics and met all AI's by 1020, then picked sides as needed. Also won liberalism and used it to take astro (!).

The problem on emperor would probably be getting the mids in the first place, without stone or industrious =P. You could probably still get them, but is the cost too prohibitive? It might not be on a tiny poor island like this...!

I was always somewhat bittersweet about the Mids in isolation... Yeah, it's a huge help if you gat them , but you have to sacrifice so much so soon

My rule of thumb is that a Phi or Ind Leader normally deserves a try on Mids, but a Fin is almost always a no Mids game... Monarchy is not that hard to acheive via self research or Oracle and the Mids hammers are enough to a extra city and some more units/infra ..

Of course that is my way of seing things...

Popping Gold in capital BFC with mansa of Mali is simply huge.... like Flouzemaker would say: "WOOT!"

Just wondering how much the GL is helping in your game tech wise. I'm suffering a lot with my tech rate especially when I changed civics from beau to nationhood. Up to 1600 and my capital is still my only reasonable city. Eg the only place for the Heroic Epic at the time. Slight hint of the way my game is going.

Just to say I've got silver and gems in my capital .

Just to add its quite a hard map to play. I was thinking of trying immortal and extremely glad I didn't. Still not sure if I'm going to get a victory out of this. Only time will tell.

Anyone got Willhelm as the tech leader in there game apart from me. It seems he died or got beaten up in most peoples games. Wish he had of in mine

The Great Lighthouse? Or Great Lib?

I never even tried for the Great Lib, which was a mistake as it wasn't built until aroun 800AD Instead I ran an occasional scientist or two in my capital, and 4 scientists off the fish/clam city to the SE.

GPs (IIRC)
GM -> Settle in cap
GM -> GA to help research astro
GS -> astro partial bulb
GS -> acad in capital
GS -> acad in second best science city

The Great Lighthouse is very powerful when astro comes in (none of the AI had banking and I had open borders with all). Each coastal city got an immediate jump of 10-15 commerce as almost all my trade routes are foreign. By 1500 most of the AI's are in merc, but a few are still trading (I'm getting 81 foreign trade in 1500). However, I don't have nearly enough foreign trade routes for all my cities. The "good" routes are generally "shuffled" to my better cities, so my capital is getting 12 more commerce than it otherwise would. Since the best commerce multipliers are in the capital the commerce is worth more there than elsewhere.

So even though the "golden age of the GLH" has passed it still is effective:

-All coastal cities get at least 2-3 addidional commerce.
-My best cities get a larger share of the foreign routes

These two effects mean that the GLH is probably worth roughly 30-60 beakers+gold per turn at 1500. I'll take it.

In the GNP graph you can see that my total nearly doubled when astro was finished. I believe about half of that increase was due to the GLH (since nearly all trade routes were foreign at that time). So in ~1000 one wonder is responsible for ~25% of my economy.