Emperor Level Challenge: Mansa Musa

[steve7811]

Hello everyone.

I thought it would be fun for me to do my own game play journal like many of you have done. All of them that I have read here have been very educational and entertaining. I hope to do the same for everyone else and learn a lot at the same time. Please bear with me as this is my very first attempt at doing this, so I might get a bit sloppy. I will try to be as very thorough as possible.

The settings are all standard, in continents map with random civ. This is the initial starting conditions.

Spoiler :

Boy. Mansa Musa. At least I can be assured that I have eliminated one AI who happens to be a mad tech maniac, which almost always gets very annoying. But then again, given my good luck, I have a hunch my opponents will be the likes of Tokugawa, Shaka, Isabella, and company.

And here is the start!

Spoiler :

Hmmm. Interesting start. It is great that my settler is sitting on a plains hill, but what's more interesting are the 3 gold mine hills. The rest are all forested hilly areas with no food specials in sight. Rivers are nice though, but I would have preferred at least 1 food special.

Do you notice the blue circle shown by the game? Lot of times those suggested tiles are next to some nice resources, and many times they happen to be next to some food sources. Sometimes they are next to resources that cannot be seen yet due to lack of tech, but at this point, I just want some more food!

Thinking about moving the settler, but then that will definitely make me lose a turn. If I move 1 NE, I can still grab all the gold mine hills and check out the surrounding tiles close to the blue circle. I am not gifted with a scout, and all these hilly, forest areas won't help me reveal anything with the lone warrior I got.

What do I do now... regen another map? But oh my... look at these gold mines....

I will give it some thought about rather moving or settling in place or starting over. Got a few errands to run, so I will post some more as soon as I return from my errand run.

 

[KMadCandy]

that's a lot of forests, sheesh!

but first, may i pester you with technical requests: can you make the pictures narrower so that i don't have to scroll? i don't even know how to do what i'm asking you to do, mind you, since mine are automatically the right size. maybe you play with a widescreen? the size S uses in the ALCs works for me, if you've seen those.

and resource flags on screenshots of areas we're seeing for the first time are usually best. in this case, gold i recognize, so yay! but things like clams, fish, silk are easy to miss, so something to keep in mind for "map overview" shots is what i mean.

thanks oh, and have fun!

 

[Polycrates]

THREE starting goldmines?!?!?! With Mansa? I believe the term you're looking for isn't challenge, it's cakewalk

 

[Orion071]

There's no way you can regen that start. 3 Gold mines?!? Move the Warrior 1 SE and see what's over there. But I think you have to trust that you've got a food source somewhere in the BFC.

 

[steve7811]

Quick reply to you KMad. Thanks for joining!

You are right. I do play with a wide screen. My posts look fine without having to scroll, but that is probably because I am seeing these pictures in a wide screen, so I am not able to tell the difference.

I will try to edit the file to see if I can shrink the size horizontally maybe by about 25% more and see if that works.

And yeah, I always play with the resource toggle on. In this case though, I wanted to show the starting titles more visually clear, so I turned it off. Rest assured, I will have them toggled on for the rest of the game.

 

[steve7811]

Edited the attached files by shrinking the horizontal size on the pictures. Please let me know if you are still having to scroll to view the full pictures.

Perhaps I should generate another map? 3 gold mines with Mansa might indeed be a bit too much fortunate for something I want to achieve. I agree... this doesn't look like an ideal start to seek challenge.

 

[oyzar]

give us save.. and move the warrior ne to see if there is food. don't regen.

 

[steve7811]

Oops.. I forgot to attach the save. Here it is.

 

[KMadCandy]

Quick reply to you KMad. Thanks for joining!

You are right. I do play with a wide screen. My posts look fine without having to scroll, but that is probably because I am seeing these pictures in a wide screen, so I am not able to tell the difference.

I will try to edit the file to see if I can shrink the size horizontally maybe by about 25% more and see if that works.

And yeah, I always play with the resource toggle on. In this case though, I wanted to show the starting titles more visually clear, so I turned it off. Rest assured, I will have them toggled on for the rest of the game.

haha you know what? now i don't have to scroll but it's scrunched. i bet when you talk to other leaders i won't be able to read the words! so it'll have to stay widescreen. don't worry about it.

and i don't know about flags all the time. sometimes they block city names, or just plain look ugly. no looking ugly please! (great, i just doomed us to have Louis as an opponent.) but definitely when we're dotmapping or scouting out new places. thank you!

 

[steve7811]

Okay. I took up your suggestions and moved the warrior 1SE and found more rivers and a wine. Not exactly something I can use and no definite food resource in sight. So going by my hunch and preying for some food, I moved the settler 1NE to sacrifice 1 turn. I will still keep all the gold mines in the BFC so it won't hurt to try. And the result was rather positive. Take a look!

Spoiler :

Now what to tech next? Mansa starts with mining and wheel. Obviously agriculture and AH come to mind. I think I will go agriculture -> AH-> bronze working. That will enable to hook up the corn, cows, and the gold, plus the ability to chop the forests as well as to adopt slavery (with no anarchy... yay Spiritual!)

 

[Gr8scott]

I'm not sure I would adopt slavery right away with that start. It has high upkeep costs and for the foreseeable future you are probably not going to want to whip away workers who are busy working your gold mines...

GS

 

[steve7811]

Here is the screen shot for Timbuktu just as soon as it was founded.

Spoiler :

Moving SW direction, my warrior popped a hut for 52 gold and continued on. 3720 BC I ran into 2 of my neighbors: Zara and Hammurabi. Not exactly crazy nutjobs like Tokugawa or Monty, but they are dangerous. I don't like having creative civs next to me, especially when I am not. Hammurabi's bowmen make it tough to do any axe rush. And from my experiences, he techs relatively well while keeping steady number of forces at hand at all times.

3680 BC: Somebody founds Buddhism.

3560 BC: Got agriculture. Researching AH next.

3360 BC: Timbuktu produced my first worker. Warrior next.

3320 BC: Hinduism is founded in the distand land.

3240 BC: My warrior is attacked by a lion and wins with less than half strength remaining. It looks like time to heal in a forest, preferably on a hill.

3120 BC: I run into the first random event. And it is not pleasant. Why do I always get random events like this? Should I spare the forest and spend the gold? Heck... I will do it. I am a newbie when it comes to these events. Mind you, there were no events back in Vanilla and I did not even play Warlords. I recently got back to playing CIV4 so this whole thing is new to me. Tell me I did a foolish thing if I should not have spent the gold.

Spoiler :

3040 BC: Researched AH. Now what to research next? Thinking hunting for archery or bronze working. Since I still have some time to go to hook up the food resources and the gold mines, I think I will go hunting instead. I don't want to produce warriors anymore if I can help it.

2960 BC: Ran into my 3rd neighbor: Huayna Capac of the Incas. That should be all for the rivals on my continent. Not exactly too bad of the neighbors I have. At this point, I know where Hammurabi and Zara are, and no clue as to where HC is. Since I am located just south of the jungles and Hammurabi and Zara are both south of my location, it is only logical to conclude that HC is located north of the jungles. We shall see.

2840 BC: Researched hunting. Archery next. Timbuktu produced a warrior. Looking at the city, it will take 5 turns for another warrior, but 6 turns to research archery. I think I will deposit some hammers into barracks and switch to skirmishers upon getting archery.

2600 BC: My explorer warrior dies to a lion near Zara's territory. My other warrior is busy exploring near Timbuktu. Meanwhile, archery is finished, so I research bronze working next. Since there is only 2 turns left for barracks, I let it finish. From then on, it is skirmishers until happy cap.

2520 BC: Barracks done. 3 turns for my first skirmisher. Not too bad.

2480 BC: 6 turns to go for bronze working, and my warrior discovers that Hammurabi has just built his 2nd city. I need to do something to be sure to cut off his expansion somewhat, but I need to wait 6 more turns to see where the copper is.

2400 BC: My first skirmisher arrives. And the city just reached size 5 and reached happy cap, though it will be increased by 1 once my worker finishes the road to the gold mine. My plan is to build more skirmishers and use them for fogbusting and locating enemy settler movements near important resources.

2280 BC: Bronze working is researched. I go for Mysticism next to be able to build monuments for my following cities. Also 2nd skirmisher comes online. More skirmishers to follow. Gold is online so I can grow Timbuktu to grow one more pop until happy cap. I also notice that bronze just happens to be right next door to Timbuktu though I haven't done as much scouting as I would have liked.

It is here that I stopped at this round. These are the screenshots of the explored map so far, and the city of Timbuktu.

I will post some more later tonight or early tomorrow. And here is the save for 2280 BC as well.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[steve7811]

Is anyone out there who uses wide screen that knows how to post good looking screen shots without having to scroll?

Sorry about the problem with the screen shot if it is difficult to see.

 

[steve7811]

haha you know what? now i don't have to scroll but it's scrunched. i bet when you talk to other leaders i won't be able to read the words! so it'll have to stay widescreen. don't worry about it.

and i don't know about flags all the time. sometimes they block city names, or just plain look ugly. no looking ugly please! (great, i just doomed us to have Louis as an opponent.) but definitely when we're dotmapping or scouting out new places. thank you!

Ah... I noticed that. I am not too good with these web posting. I haven't done much of this stuff and I am such a newb. Thank you for your patience and understanding. I will try to make it as easy as possible.

About the scouting... I wish I could have done much better job of it. I know that my weakest point in game play is initial scouting and getting out the first batch of cities as quickly as possible. I could use the settler 1st build approach, but I do not want to risk having them die to ravaging animals which seems to always hunt down my unescorted settlers.

I know that lot of experienced players manage to get their first couple of cities out by 1500 BC at the latest, and I am not sure if I can manage something like that. I did play a bit sloppy in my 1st round so I know I could have done better.

@Gr8scott: Yeah, you are right. I won't have a lot of surplus of food in Timbuktu so switching to slavery was not really needed. Just the thought of being spiritual got me all excited and had me switch to slavery without much thinking. I will have to adjust as necessary.

 

[futurehermit]

Nice job moving to settle with the corn. I was really worried about your capital being low food, but you corrected that problem.

Copper between you and Zara. I wonder what that could mean...

 

[steve7811]

Nice job moving to settle with the corn. I was really worried about your capital being low food, but you corrected that problem.

Copper between you and Zara. I wonder what that could mean...

My position is quite funky in a way that I don't know how I would try to lay out my first batch of cities if the primary objective was to block the two known AI's expansion. Assuming that Incas are north of the jungle, I would absolutely have to grab that copper next to me, but then what? Do I expand down the river south? I would almost have to go southward don't I...? I don't expect AI to start expanding towards the jungle so all that land in the middle is up for grabs.

Babylon is located just north of the southern tundra so his starting location is pretty crappy, and I am almost certain that he will try to go up north instead of moving eastward. Zara I am not too sure since I haven't scouted to the east much, but his being creative means that if I give him enough room, he can really shove me to the corner.

I will have to give this some thought.

 

[Polycrates]

Why not block their expansion with a bunch of skirmishers? Pillage and harass and stop them working tiles, and of course kill off settlers and their escorts. Babylon in particular is very tough to get rid of later with axes and swords, but they'd be easy to cut off with skirmishers. And Zara is a guy you don't want to let grow and fester.

 

[futurehermit]

You're financial with 3 gold pits in your capital. You have copper between you and a vulnerable rival (nothing special about Zara early but is a monster later). Zara's land is prime for cottages.

Seems to me like it makes the most sense to axe rush Zara. My sense is you will be able to afford it and the land you will get is lucrative.

Then once your economy is rolling you can turn on Babylon after their period of strength wanes.

 

[vicawoo]

I've never seen an overly low food capital, so I'm pretty sure moving was a bad idea. Moving from a plains hill with fresh water is usually bad as well.

Roads that early aren't important, except for happiness. Working all 3 gold mines is much more important. I think axe rushing that early might slow you down more than anything else. This game is yours to lose if you grab enough decent land early. Quick academy/library are priorities too.

 

[futurehermit]

In BtS low-food capitals are fairly common actually. There have been many times where plains cows were the highest food special I had and working grassland farms were a priority. Those games did not go that well.

I'm not sure what the concern is with axerushing. It is still a viable approach in BtS if the conditions favour it. Definitely grow the capital to work all the commerce tiles, but after that get cracking on the axes. I normally don't axerush in BtS. However, with copper between you and an opponent AND enough high commerce tiles to absorb the hit to the economy? AND that opponent is fairly soft early on? Seems to make perfect sense to hit him hard and early to me.