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

Welcome to the 16th edition of the Lonely Hearts Club for BTS. In the Lonely Hearts Club we explore strategies to cope with one of the most dreaded situations in Civ IV ( possibly the main reason for reloads after the military collapse one ): starting in isolation....

For the 16th game in BTS the choosed leader was Mansa Musa of the Malinese:

Oh , our dear "mr techer and open hand tech trader"... Mansa was always one of my favorite leaders to face: he techs extremely well and is one of the AI that it is less stingy about the tech trades. He also is possibly one of the more single minded techer AI in BtS ( I remember a game where a isolated Mansa beelined Lib so hard that he got Lib before Civil Service ). For good or bad ,Mansa AI will not be in the game ....
Mansa pack of traits is Fin/Spi... a nice and strong combination for a cottage economy based empire. His UB is a strong help to money making and also explains some of the easiness that Mansa AI has in teching...

His UU.

The skirmisher is a stronger archer that also gains a first strike chance... In spite of being a good UU ( and a decent early rusher ), I'm not too keen on it for isolation , where it will be most surely relegated for antibarb duties due to its earlynees ( and , in my case ,because I hate to research archery... )

His UB.

The Mint is a beefed forge that provides 10% multiplier on cash.... This in a Fin civ is huge, considering the relative earliness of the avaliability ( it is the earliest cash multiplier in game... ) makes it a extemely useful buiding. combining , prod and money multipliers is without doubt one of the strongest UB in game , especially if you plan to make your game to last ( like almost always in isolation )

The start (for reasons that I'll explain below, the warrior may not be exactly in that spot in your game ):

Well, this start is far from bad 2 plains cows + 3 clams.... it doesn't suffer from lack of food, most surely The big drawback is that , unless you go Dave style and cottage resources ,this start does not call for cottage spam.... Maybe it calls for a change of capital in the future? Either way, improving those cows and clams most likely will be priority #1 of most games

Again I made a functional scenario ( still some issues to learn about that... but that is why the warrior may appear in diferent places: the scenario has predetermined starting positions, not actual units ).... All the speeds are working well ( no more games ending in 1900 ) and the levels almost as well. The save is zipped... you only have to unzip this to the worldbuilder saves or for the PublicMaps folder ( either one will do ) and load it from the scenarios.
Any problem PM me...

Again a small request ( not mandatory ) :

We ask the participants to do, if possible, a write-up with the victory save and a description of your game ( strategies, techs researched, wars,...). All the info should be in spoiler tags ( to not disturb other people's games ). If you want ( we would like to ) post reports at this moments of the game:

Checkpoint 1 - when we have explored the island and are aware of what resources it has. Its not so important when this is, but this is a time to discuss city sites etc. Don't look into a checkpoint 1 spoiler until you have reached this point yourself.

Checkpoint 2 - first contact - when we have met all the other AIs. At this point we can discuss our strategy to get to this point and our plans for dealing with them.

Checkpoint 3 - when we are committed to a victory condition (or at least think we are).

Checkpoint 4 - Victory (or defeat).


The last words are to wish good luck to all . And let the games begin!



P.S We don't have any kind of problem with defeats and reruns. Just play and enjoy

Monarch/Marathon
Checkpoint The only:

I'm in! Maybe with some extra experience I won't get wtfpwned this time. Maybe.

One thing that bothers me playing the LHC series is fundamental tactical cheating. There are some openings that are usually not effective, but in isolation would/could be. For example, bulbing theo to make the AP and spreading the religion for a cheese diplo win (not hard with a caravel beeline, use the oracle to take MC (especially strong here), grab calendar, currency etc, then straight shot optics. Astro isn't even necessary...just use 3 caravels ftw. Normally, this would get you killed, but who's going to attack in isolation?

A similar approach can be taken with culture, where basically you'd found more religions, shrine it up, and take advantage of the 50% culture bonuses from the top religious buildings + sistine + artists to pound out a cultural win. Once the AI's find you, you can always switch to FR (you want free speech anyway!), spam troops in the non culture cities, and hope for the best :/. Thing is, doing this takes me away from a tech path I'd normally do, not knowing I'm in isolation. I doubt I'd know I'm isolated before I'd lose some time off this strat, so in the spirit of learning how to play iso games I don't want to do it.

The problem for me on these maps though is a runaway AI. I love to warmonger, but obviously I've got to wait a bit on this kind of map, and of course rushing to astro with no economy or units to actually invade with isn't conducive to winning. The challenge for a warmonger like me on these maps is getting out there with a strong enough economy and advanced enough military in time . In other words, I need to seriously tighten up how I run my economy to tech.

One thing I'd like to add is that I really like the mids on continents maps/isolation. This is because I can take US without getting to democracy. Normally making a fleet of galleons takes time. However, if you can buy ships, then getting enough galleons to spank someone still in middy times with rifles isn't a huge reach at all. In fact, you can field the requisite navy almost as quickly as you can draft (prefer upgrading CR maces though)!

@semirami

Ouch...

@TheMeInTeam

Some points:

The AP diplo win in 3.13 became far more dificult than what you're describing ( due to the 75% rule )... because you'll need one of the following:
One colony that votes for you
One Friend that votes for you
and both are not that easy to get to work properly in due time... To not elongate much in here, I refer to My article " You , yourself and your shadow" for a more detailed explanation.
Culture via religion stockpiling can be pretty hard too and makes you incur in the more dangerous diplo status that you can encounter in isolation: a lovefest in the other side of the ocean, with the consequent lagging down in tech + diplo demerit ( if they love each other badly, you can become instant wortst enemy of a lot of civs and it can put them with ambitions on you before you can go to FR ).... I think that culture via religions is somewhat more dangerous than the non isolated counterpart, especially if you can't win before the other civs get to Combustion.

The runaway civ is always a possible problem , but , if take some measures regarding diplo normally it can be managed.... otherwise it is time to good ol' modern war with hundrets of units

I am going to try Emperor this month, I need to start working on my higher level "timings", like when important techs and Wonders get built, etc. Isolation is a good place to practice that, I think, and Mansa is a great leader, with 2 solid top-tier traits.

haven't played since Ethiopia, so I hope I can get a decent score again. I'll probably try Emperor.

This is my first LHC game so I'm going to do monarch. Plus i recently moved down to marathon, so i want more experience in that speed.

Decided on Epic Emperor again.

Checkpoint 1

Immortal/Epic

Mansa Musa. If given sufficient resources he is a fine leader for just about any situation ... let's see what rolo gave us:

Checkpoint 1:

I played too much and am already at checkpoint 2.

BalbanesBeoulve said:

Spoiler :

Am i the only one that settled 2E 1N? To me it seems like an infinitely superior starting location. You lose 1 clam and 1 turn but you gain access to a river which will let you build a levee later on which will get you 10 hammers, definitely worth it. Plus a ton more riverside cottages for an extra early commerce boost. And less ocean and coast tiles overall.

Click to expand...

I might just possibly drop to Noble for this one and indulge my fantasy of being the AI Mansa.

Checkpoint 3




Small update.

r_rolo1 said:

TIn spite of being a good UU ( and a decent early rusher ), I'm not too keen on it for isolation , where it will be most surely relegated for antibarb duties due to its earlynees ( and , in my case ,because I hate to research archery... )

Click to expand...

I kind of like it. You usually have to stack up military police anyway, so they might as well be a UU; it feels like less of a waste that way.

Checkpoint 2



A general question. When isolated is it better to try and meet the neighbours ASAP as I did in this game. Or let them come to you first as I did in the last game? I suppose a lot depends on the starting position. Just wondering what other people think.

Ok. TheMeInTeam is out for revenge, and begins a new LHC game. Can we not get stepped on by a warmonger civ or laughably out teched by mr six cities? Let's find out!

Checkpoint 1:

Olodune said:

Spoiler :

Yep that looks better to me ... my warrior started west of the settler, and I didn't re-check rolo's pic. That's my excuse -- it will be interesting to see how much of a difference that makes.

Click to expand...

Inspired by rrolo's isolationist article, I decided to try out one of the LHC games. My last isolated game was circa 7 billion years ago somewhere around settler difficulty, so I'm not quite sure how this will come out.

So I took immortal/normal save wished myself good luck and started the game.

Checkpoint 1 (-1000 BC)

Checkpoint 2 and a bit