Always War Mansa

[Pangaea]

Sorry for the too tough challenge in the last map. New attempt, new leader, new map, hopefully a better and more balanced experience for all

Step up, our loveable tech trading whore:

Mansa Musa!

Financial: +1 on all tiles with at least 2

Spiritual: No Anarchy when changing Civics or Religions
Double production speed of Temple and the Cristo Redentor Wonder

Skirmisher: Archer with 4 instead of 3. Has an extra +1 First Strike Chance

Mint: Forge with +10% ​

The start. Strong, but hopefully not too strong. If that is possible in Always War

Like last time I made two small changes:

Spoiler :

Elevated the settler by putting him on a plains hill, and swapped a resource (coal) with a pig.

Apart from a very quick glance at the mini map in WB, I haven't seen much, because I want to play this map myself, and it's always more fun if you play it blind. I hope the AIs aren't super boosted with golds, gems, marble and stone, but there are no guarantees.


The settings are:

• Fractal. 6 opponents. Always War. No Huts. No Events. No Vassal States.

The opponents are hand picked. Some strong, some not so strong, but hopefully a good balance.

Spoiler :

• Elizabeth of England. PHI and FIN.
• Genghis Khan of Mongolia. AGG and IMP (but don't call him small, or he may just lose it)
• Joao II of Portugal. EXP and IMP.
• Mehmed II of Ottomans. EXP and ORG.
• Peter of Russia. EXP and PHI.
• Zara Yaqob of Ethiopia. CRE and ORG.

The files:
I've made Scenario files from Noble to Immortal. Deity is unplayable in Always War. There is also a file at Immortal level, where the barbs have the correct starting techs.

If you choose one of the others and play it via "Play a Scenario", the AIs will get the correct starting techs and units, but the barbs will not. So please zoom in, enter World Builder, choose "Barbarians" in the drop down list, and select the relevant technologies for the level you are playing at.
Noble: No changes needed.
Monarch: Archery
Emperor: Archery, Hunting
Immortal: (not needed if you use the Immortal file, but...) Archery, Hunting and Agriculture.


Good luck honourable ladies and gentlemen

May the Force RNG be with you.

 

[Seraiel]

Great, I played Mansa like 4y ago and I love him but it's a disadvantage to play him in the HoF because one may not take any leader twice, so it's not allowed to play Mansa and take him as an opponent in the same game. Skirmishers are definitely great for getting used to AW, maybe it's even possible to rush a neighbouring civ with them?

The start is definitely not too strong, it's an AH-resource so not as good as a Farm-resource 1 Gold definitely is ok if this game is really harder than normal Deity. I'm thinking about settling 1NW because of how the river flows, it seems that there are a lot of river-tiles unlockable with settling 1NW or 1W. Even 2W might be good. There's a Plains-Hill below the fog as far as I can see it, maybe a 2nd gold? I think settling on the Gold is not a good move even with it being a 3 2 centre tile, but not settling on the Plains-Hill for some more FP-Cottages seems intuitively attractive imo. , especially with Mansa being FIN, and should the capital get attacked in an AW game then one usually probably has already lost the game? (No idea if the last is correct, I only saw you setting up a specific hills-city somewhere and then the AIs blindly attacking that city again and again. )

Beginning to play right now, wish me luck .

[EDIT]

Spoiler :

LOL, instant win ^^ . Was right with the 2nd gold below the fog. Also 7 FPs so the ideal number, only 2 and an extra Corn also got revealed. I hate Pangaea a little for forcing me to play with a capital that has 2 desert-tiles but I guess it's just time to overcome that neurotic behaviour (throwing away starts if the capital has only 1 Tundra or Desert tile or refusing to settle the capital without 20 fully workable tiles that are at least Plains or better) .

Now I need to install BUG + BULL.

 

[Pangaea]

Some thought based on the start. It's a good one, and Mansa start with useful techs: Mining and the Wheel. Agriculture would be nice for a short way to AH, but it is what it is, and the Wheel means no lost worker turns no matter what else should turn up.

4FPs, so only 1. At least 8 tiles are riverside green+, so can be cottaged to give us some early game commerce, on top of the gold, which also happens to be riverside. The river isn't connected to the capital though, so won't be auto connected.

More forests would be nice, but 5 isn't too bad either. 100 pre-Math (and we may well need to chop it all down before Math). There should be plenty of hammers in PH start, gold, hill-pig, two green hills, plus another hill, that looks like a PH (?).

Early techs have to be Agri->AH really. Hard to see anything else. My experience so far indicates we want the Great Wall, so in that case it should be good to go Masonry after Agri-AH, and before BW. Stone or Marble nearby would be nice, giving even more value to early Masonry, but we may not be that lucky.

After Masonry, I suppose it's a call between BW and Pottery. I'm tempted to go with Pottery to start working on those FP cottages, but slavery is never a bad idea either, and then we can start chopping those trees too, for instance into settlers.

Unlike in normal games, we need Archery at some point here, perhaps unless we go with BW and find copper in a reachable spot. Hunting->Archery gives us access to superboosted Archers however, and those we definitely want. The only issue is how quickly to grab them.

Really hope it's possible to get a Woodie2 here, so he can snag some workers from whoever may be close. It's like a super charged Vampiric Touch or something, stealing power from your enemy(ies) and transferring it to yourself

Since we start with a warrior, it may be possible to steal an early worker too. Though without the chance to make a surprise DOW (DOWs are made automatically when we find the AIs, or they find us), it's more difficult to steal workers without Woodie2 guys.

The worker will be out in 12 turns. We could start farming a FP, but maybe it would be better to start mining the gold instead? Then jump over to the pig once AH is online. 7 turns for +1 is mighty expensive in workerturns.

With non-IND opponents, how deep can we go with the Oracle? Or will the AIs still get it early? Gold for commerce should at least give us a fair chance, even after GW. Without being PHI, it takes 50 turns for a clean GW-Spy to pop btw. But that chap is really nice for stealing some early techs. The AIs won't have started building mountainloads of EPs either so early, so we get a big discount (because we have accumulated a LOT more EPs than them).

Look forward to starting this game, and hope I won't be as badly pwned as in the Charlie mad game.

Armchair expert territory here, but GW+Oracle something good would be very nice, then GSpy infiltration, and steal some techs.

Edit: Warrior move. I like to move him to hills if possible, so we have two choices here. Onto pig to check out what is south, or east to see what is in that direction.

 

[chumbosity]

I gotta say, I'm awfully tempted to make this my first AW attempted. I'm not a person who tends to build a ton of units at all so it should be a good learning experience for how to not get creamed by the AI. I still have that Emperor game to continue though, so idk.

 

[Seraiel]

@ Pangaea:

BW is definitely a way better choice than Pottery . I love FP-Cottages too, especially when being FIN, but you got Gold and you want the GW + you maybe want to find Copper to settle the 2nd city there and skip Archery . Cottages can wait, Pasture the Pigs, Mine the Gold, 1 Farm, Settler at size 3, then maybe 2nd Settler directly afterwars is what I'm thinking. Maybe this question won't even play a role, because 2 Settlers + the GW will take so long that we'll have BW + Pottery, I just am very sure that BW first is the right choice because of the very high possible strengths one can gain and 3 cities and then the GW, not sure I'll risk that or if I don't stay at 2 cities and even chop the GW out to get it 100%.

2nd: Definitely go Farm before mining the Gold. You can mine the Gold when the Settler builds and growing the city is enormously important, I just learned that when playing the current Incan-Gauntlet, the greatest Gauntlet of all times ^^ . Without growing one can conquer the 1st civ earlier, 2nd also but somewhere between the 2nd and the 3rd the growth overtakes staying small and working tiles and then the city is stronger and bigger.

Regarding GW and Oracle + something good: I'd definitely not mix the Oracle-points with the GW, go 2 cities then GW then 3rd city + Oracle + chop it out, if missing it, no problem, better than to get a Great Prophet instead of a Great Spy first. Best pick imo. would be CoL because of the Religion and the Courthouses + also Caste (Mansa is SPI, you can run Caste the whole time, pre-produce units and then whip everything in a short 5T phase of Slavery and then switch back) . With having Skirmishers I don't see any need for IW or anything other expensive, not sure but I think that if I don't get CoL then missing Oracle is a small loss anyhow and then I'll research CoL instead, I really want that Religion, OR + Theo + Pacifism are large gains. Maybe try to generate a Prophet in the Oracle city if succeeding and bulb Theo with him, maybe research Theo manually, definitely Maths and I'd like to try out Catapults as mixed in defenders.

@ Drakon136:

You can probably learn a lot in with following this game, but mostly about things that not necessarily will make you strong in a standard game. Learning how to play an EE effectively is very valuable imo. as it's the most efficient economy available so espionage helps in the really harsh games when the AIs are strong and when you'd not be able to get at least 1/3 of their GNP (that's the necessary minimum when being a very good tech-trader imo. ) .

 

[Gurni]

Decided to not play this one, because it looks too easy after reaching turn 50 or so.
Spoiler reasons would be somewhat pointless, noone would know when to read them
Let's just say Mansa landed in paradise, without real pressure and pressure is why i play AW. Sorry!

 

[Seraiel]

Decided to not play this one, because it looks too easy after reaching turn 50 or so.
Spoiler reasons would be somewhat pointless, noone would know when to read them
Let's just say Mansa landed in paradise, without real pressure and pressure is why i play AW. Sorry!

On which difficulty did you play? I found there was some pressure by the AI, I got attacked by a stack of 6 units in T78 after 1 additional unit had been camping near that city too. I would have easily have had enough units to defend against that if I had had all my units in one place, but with 3 cities? After 3 early Warrior losses against Scouts or Barb-Warriors? I agree, that the map is quite good but I wasn't able to explore enough already to call it wonderland.

My game until 700 BC:

Spoiler :

Settled 1NE after seeing that there'd be another Gold when moving the Settler there. 2 Golds are definitely good enough to resign from the PH-centre. Was very pleased to find another Corn there, guess that was lucky somehow.
Research Agri -> AH -> Masonry -> BW, expanded towards a 2nd city and built the GW:



I had really bad luck with the initial fights and lost 3 Warriors as already written at high odds, so no WM2-Warrior for me. As you see I got visited by an Archer from Mehmed very early already, that one made the following more difficult:

With the two Golds and with having Skirmishers (and with no experience in AW-games) I thought I'd make a try at the Oracle after researching Maths before . Then I had this incoming from Mehmed:



Some may say that 6 units aren't much, but with the 1 unit camping already and with only having 3 defenders in the city, because I expanded towards a 3rd city after the GW and because I couldn't leave that one unprotected imo. , having 7 units against me made me pray . Thankfully he heard me :



Heavy losses on Mehmeds side with 0 losses on my side, 1st GG born and... :



Oracle CoL 825BC . Believe me that this was hard for me, I could have chopped and whipped the Oracle a lot earlier already, but with that inc. I had to whip an emergency defender taking my possibility to 2-pop-whip and the camping unit hindered me from chopping. Maybe this was really lucky, but after the Warrior-losses in the beginning it was a great relief .

Current state of the game is that I'm in 700 BC, the 2 units that were camping in the back of my empire got lured by my 4th city which was empty when I founded it, and then they suicided against a CG1 Skirmisher when they attacked the Hills-city with crossing the river .

I have Granaries in 3/4 cities, I didn't build any Libraries, thought about that but then I decided for Skirmishers which was a good decision as the early incoming showed. Building a Courthouse in the capital to hire a Spy-Specialist and I got 4 self-built Workers. Slightly lacking improvements but there simply was no chance to build enough with the FPs costing so many Workerturns, with needing to chop the Forests for Oracle and I built Roads between my cities to have TRs without Sailing and to also easier move troops between the cities should an inc. at the southeastern borders occur, I think I'm safe for the moment though, because some friendly barbs built 2 cities there for me. They even were nice enough to place them in perfect positions, so I'm researching HBR now and look forward to conquering them with the newly gained Horses .

 

[Gurni]

Sera

Spoiler :

On Immortal. Mehmed can be easily blocked with few Skirmishers sitting in the forest tile that he cannot pass, and later with mathematics and a fort...he is shut out.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Pangaea's plan to Masonry seems good to me.
I think the starting screen only is too early to make any further decisions. Gold tile allows a Masonry detour, that, I think, is for sure. If planning for an Oracle follow-up, it's possible that Myst before Mas is the better line of play.
On worker use, if it is farming a fp vs mining the gold, I agree that farming should be better. I'm not sure size 3 is the right size to start on a settler, however. I'd like to start on a settler shortly after/before the gold is improved, to make the most of the food surplus.

How come the starting save has 120 views ??? Who are the click maniacs ?

 

[Seraiel]

Sera

Spoiler :

On Immortal. Mehmed can be easily blocked with few Skirmishers sitting in the forest tile that he cannot pass, and later with mathematics and a fort...he is shut out.

@ Gurni

Spoiler :

Mehmed passend my defenses and attacked me far before Construction was available and I needed to chop the Forest for Oracle -> CoL. I thought again about your statement. Yes, the map is good, but take a look at the opponents, Mehmed has a unit-build-ratio of 10/10 and he has high courage so attacks at almost any odds. Joao is a REX-monster, Lizzy is the best AI economically, Gandhi spreads the religion towards all of them or he sits somewhere safe so that he has a chance at culture (haven't discovered him yet) ... All those AIs build a team and that team is heavy. I don't know how much AW-games you've played and what your normal difficulty is, but resigning after T50 I don't understand, that's before the first attack. Ofc. , a fully open map without any chokepoint and with no resources is more difficult but I just got attacked by 10-15 units from both sides of my empire and all I do is build Skirmishers and I only barely have more defenders than there are attackers.

Play Deity if Immortal is too easy . That would definitely be a crass way to join the forums, not having appeared 'til 10y after the release and then owning everybody .

 

[Seraiel]

How come the starting save has 120 views ??? Who are the click maniacs ?

I downloaded it 100 times because I wanted to play AW^100 .

 

[Pangaea]

Decided to not play this one, because it looks too easy after reaching turn 50 or so.
Spoiler reasons would be somewhat pointless, noone would know when to read them
Let's just say Mansa landed in paradise, without real pressure and pressure is why i play AW. Sorry!

Haven't started playing this yet and haven't read any spoilers, because I was honest when I said I only took a very small glimpse at the minimap and close surroundings, because it's more fun to play maps as blindly as you can. But this is disappointing to read I hope it won't be an "easy ride". The fun part about AW is to have your back thoroughly up against the wall, somehow surviving, and then later on beginning to expand over the map and kill off giant stacks and eventually AIs. I know this start is good, but I hope(d) it wasn't overly good.

Given comments above on the starting comments, maybe I ought to re-evaluate farming a FP. +1 for a 7-turns investment seems like a lot to me, but naturally it depends on what else the guy can do, and maybe mining the gold should come a little later.

 

[Pangaea]

If planning for an Oracle follow-up, it's possible that Myst before Mas is the better line of play.

It makes Masonry a little cheaper to research, but is it worth the extra wait? That's why I'm thinking of going Masonry without Myst. We can get the GWall sooner, making it less risky play, and get the GSpy sooner as well.

On a point Seraiel made: I agree we should try to get Oracle and GW in separate cities. That will depend on what city sites are around us, but it's better to get a 100% GSpy first, and not risk an early and pretty useless GProphet. That is what I did in the previous game, and it worked out well there. Got a GProphet later in the game, and Shrined Taoism (bulbed Philo with a GS), and also got several more GSpies from the capital with GWall-points + Courthouse-spy + NE (and later Jail-spies).

 

[Pangaea]

Oh, and to refer to a point Rusten brought up in the other thread:

I've not heavily cooked this map, albeit the start looks very good. The two small changes I made, which should be fine to write without spoilers, were to put the settler on a PH (I assumed everybody would SIP, but looks like Seraiel moved), and to swap a coal tile in the BFC with a hill-pig. Everything else is as it was generated. And I've no idea where there is copper, iron or horses. Hopefully at least one of them is nearby-ish, but there are no guarantees. Those super archers should come in handy if that is the case, though.

 

[Pangaea]

Oh, and btw Seraiel, Pacifism may be a cracking idea in normal games to pump out GPs, but here, when you need heaps and heaps of military units to protect yourself? Maybe not... It becomes expensive, and the economy is already likely to be in a bad shape due to high unit maintenance.

e: But being SPI, it can at least be an option for a limited time.

 

[Gurni]

Don't take my comments too serious, who knows how others feel about this map.
Spoiler why i thought it's too easy for my taste

Spoiler :

There's only 3 AIs that can send stacks. 2 are normally peaceful AIs who are miles away, really far away. And 1 can be blocked out by a single forest tile and later with a fort added on that forest.
Yeah Sera chopped that away and settled a city instead, but you don't have to.
One more thing about Liz, she is so far away that you might not see any units from her until it's not dangerous anymore. Or you can just say, here you don't have to watch your back.
I saw this in the worldbuilder after stopping of course, but i felt it when i met those 2 on turn 50 or so...i thought it's semi isolation with Mehmed first.

 

[Pangaea]

Oh well If it turns out to be too easy, it's better for somebody else to make the next map, so I don't mess it up a third time. Did you play it on Immortal btw?

At least a map more on the easier side can mean more people get a taste for this kind of game, without getting overly frustrated. Still hope it will be challenging, but we shall see. I'll start playing now, so I can get a feel for the difficulty myself.

 

[Pangaea]

YASS Baby! Good start

T19 Woodie2.

Spoiler :

Took perhaps a too big risk, but attacked a Lion at 65% and won (3XP). Later on a scout dropped by, and I was lucky and guessed one of the tiles it could land on, and managed to take it out on a hill for another 2XP. Now to hope I find a good target for him

Didn't know this was possible. The Woodie2 warrior defended against a lion in a forest, at 0.8% odds, but didn't get another XP. Thought you stopped getting more XP from barbs at 10XP. Is it capped at 5 for animals or something?

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

That went better then expected. I did restart and load cheat a little here and there, but for my first immortal AW game, I feel that that is allowed.

Spoiler :

Build the stonehenge, great wall, and the oracle for feudalism, priestly wonders in Djenne, wall in Timbuktu. Cut of the Ottomans with Gao and managed to get a woodmens 3 guy to steal some workers. Did a bit of rexing after that, to get a nice compact empire of ten cities. Working on MC now. Also got confusionism and used the first great priest to build the superbuilding.
Couple of questions:
1. Are knights viable/ a good idea on AW?
2. Is a culture victory doable? Got a decent base culture with my 4 wonders and getting a university of sankore/AP-economy might be decent?
3. If not knights, how should i attack? Trebs or cuirassiers?

Pics or it didn't happen:
http://imgur.com/a/06PMh

EDIT: crap, apparently I didn't embed them right, or something. Link should work though.

 

[ConfusedCounsel]

YASS Baby! Good start

T19 Woodie2.

Spoiler :

Took perhaps a too big risk, but attacked a Lion at 65% and won (3XP). Later on a scout dropped by, and I was lucky and guessed one of the tiles it could land on, and managed to take it out on a hill for another 2XP. Now to hope I find a good target for him

Didn't know this was possible. The Woodie2 warrior defended against a lion in a forest, at 0.8% odds, but didn't get another XP. Thought you stopped getting more XP from barbs at 10XP. Is it capped at 5 for animals or something?

IIRC, yes.