How should I take care of Mansa?

[civaddict098]

I'm playing my first game on prince (should have been playing at this level for a long time). I chose random civ and ended up with Mongolia. Both me and Mansa Musa started at the south of the continent. His four main cities are cut off completely from the rest of the continent by my boarders. to expand my empire I want to take him out.

His main garrisons are skirmishers but he also has two spear men and an archer or two. Ive got a fair amount of keshiks but his skirmishers are great defenders and 3 of his cities have 50% or greater defense bonus. He also has a tech lead. In the trade screen these techs are available for trade: Code of Laws, Theology, Alphabet, Calendar and Construction.

My question is, is it feasible to try to take him out with keshiks? what ratio would I probably need? or is it a better Idea to go for elephants? I don't have ivory. I would need to trade with a very week civ I was just at war with or take it by force, the city is kinda far away. (5 turns to construction). or should I get knights? (2 techs and 9 turns away)

any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

here is a screen shot

Spoiler :

 

[Sisiutil]

Keshiks, like all mounted units, suck at capturing cities. They're really best at pillaging (and defending against pillagers), recon, and general support of your main stack.

Keep going towards Construction and don't worry about Elephants, which also don't have a city-taking bonus, though they are a very good unit if you have Ivory. You have copper--what about iron? Build Swordsmen (or CR Axes if you lack iron) and when you have Construction, Catapults, then roll in and take down his cities one by one.

 

[Polycrates]

You're going to struggle (a lot) to take him out with keshiks, since they're not really a city raider unit. Your best bet is to let them do what they do best: pillage the everloving hell out of his countryside and capture all his workers. You can completely cripple him like that (especially economically - look at those fat juicy cottages!), and force him to rely on vastly stunted production and research while you forge ahead to construction. Plus your keshiks are pretty good at offensive field combat, so you can pick off any units he may decide to send your way (which is good because it wastes even more of his production).
And once you've got catapults, it's that much easier to demolish him.

 

[civaddict098]

thank you both for your suggestions, they helped a ton.

 

[mice]

Also consider Mansa for trading purposes. If he has you boxed in, attack, but if possible do it with alphabet researched.

Then when he's nearly dead, you can extort techs form him. You may be able to do this a couple of times, and then leave him cripled to research techs which you can then trade with him when he forgives you for attacking him,which he does because he loves to trade.

 

[ghostbuster]

Mice, if he is crippled how will he be researchign tech at an equal pace

 

[thefais]

There's always the opportunity to capitulate him (I notice you're researching feudalism). Not sure the benefits/drawbacks of an early vassal, as I tend to really only get them later on.

 

[Cam_H]

A later version of this game is posted in Economic hard ships on prince.

Mansa has been chopped back to a few cities, although shares a healthy technology lead with Hatshepsut. As outlined in the other thread, it seems as though the technology path has not allowed civaddict098 to develop technologically or financially in line with the other tribes. Lack of Alphabet has kept the Mongols out of any technology trades (eventually acquired in 1070AD).

Ghotsbuster,

Mansa can magically stay up in technology with a small empire until the modern era. I suspect the same for Tokugawa. It's magic.

Thefais,

This is a 'vanilla' game - so no Vassal States.

 

[mice]

Mansa as a vassal would be quite a good deal. You could harness his awesome teching abilty.
The thread about 'early vassals' made me re-think the vassal system which I tried to avoid before that.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=196225&highlight=early

 

[obsolete]

I dont like to attack mansu. I always keep him as a friend. Those who do will find themselves ahead in the tech race. Those who kill him off will find out that no one will be willing to trade techs with you, and you will have big problems holding the lead. You can't backwards fill without Mansu very well.

Of all the leaders, Mansu is the most tech-trading friendly. That's a huge + in my book for winning.