Is Mansa Munsa almost always 2nd/3rd in your guys games?

[Leathaface]

He is with mine. Why the hell can he research so quickly?

Plus of course he almost always founds a religion, so he can get allies.

 

[Manco Capac]

Mansa isn't awesome without tech trading. That is the factor that makes him so strong. His lack of secrecy in tech trade makes every possible trade with the neighbour as long the said one accepts to share their knowledge.

He has a religious flavour that makes him to tech a religious tech early or later if missed the early religions.
He actively spread his religion, so he makes friend.
He highly tends to turtle and go for culture.

Mansa isn't always the top dog. Depends of initial lands and opponents.

 

[Antilogic]

His other advantage being near-immunity to early rushes and barbarian raids because of that accursed skirmisher UU. He is a trade/peace-oriented AI that has enough of a military boost in the early game to consistently avoid getting crippled.

 

[lymond]

Either befriend him or kill him off early, if his proximity to your empire is irksome. Generally though, du to his nature, you will want befriend him. The fact that he trades so liberally and techs well is a benefit to you. Use him and you will tech like mad. It's good on most levels, but especially in the mid-range levels since he can somewhat keep up, while an experienced human player will usually leave the AIs in the dust.

He also makes a darn good vassal and his tech viable with just 2 or 3 decent cities. (By the way, you can direct your vassal's research)

 

[gps]

Couldn't say that. In my games he usually does not expand enough to be in that position. His tech rate is very good, but he usually hasn't enough land to really dominate. Surprisingly enough in my games it's usually the dutch who are a very consistent superpower.

 

[Choggy]

Mansa doesn't so much tech quickly, he tech-trades heavily with everybody which gives the appearance of him teching quickly - he'll trade with you even at 'annoyed' and it's very rare that you get a 'We don't want to start trading this just yet' message from him.

Lymond is quite right when he says that he makes a great vassal for teching with.

He does tend to get attacked by the more war-like civs though, depending on your situation you might want to dogpile him to gain favour with the likes of Shaka or Monty.

Overall though he's probably my favourite AI civ. Get him on your side and concentrate on expansion and war, he'll keep you in the tech race.

 

[karadoc]

Couldn't say that. In my games he usually does not expand enough to be in that position. His tech rate is very good, but he usually hasn't enough land to really dominate. Surprisingly enough in my games it's usually the dutch who are a very consistent superpower.

I don't know why that should be surprising. Willem is well known as being one of the strongest leaders.

 

[gps]

Willem is well known as being one of the strongest leaders.

Yes, but I would not necessarily expect him to be so expansive (for example compared to Mansa Musa). His number of natively founded cities usually is one of the highest of all the AI - which seems quite remakable for a leader that is not expansive or imperialistic but financial and creative.

 

[Htadus]

He is number 2 when I head to space and I will help him to get there as long as he is not within 9-11 tiles of me.

 

[Ataxerxes]

In a lot of my games his score isn't that great but he's still a threat to win. He vassalizes very quickly and always seems to be on the lookout for a protector. His score will be deceptively low but I have to keep my eye on the victory screen for when his cities' culture takes off.

Mansa and Shaka alone on the same continent usually winds up with Mansa teching for Shaka, vassalizing to him and then using Shaka as a protector while he guns for culture.

 

[nfw]

Yeah I always try to kill him asap.

 

[Turquoiside]

Nope. He's almost always, actually, 1st. I think of all the games I've played with him, I've one maybe two games where he was also on the map. Which, out of only a handful of wins isn't too weird, but then again he happens to be part of the reason why I don't have more wins....

 

[King Kalmah]

Yes, but I would not necessarily expect him to be so expansive (for example compared to Mansa Musa). His number of natively founded cities usually is one of the highest of all the AI - which seems quite remakable for a leader that is not expansive or imperialistic but financial and creative.

Its ironic you say that since the majority of the time he gets sandwiched in by other civs in my games.Most of my games they have three cities and a ton of Longbowman....

Biggest empire I have ever seen the Dutch own was maybe 5 cities and they were all coastal.

Maybe the higher the difficulty the less likely the Cities founded by Civs like Mali,Ethiopia and the Dutch would survive...I do notice alot of ruins...

Biggest empire builders for me would be Shaka or Justin.

Can't stop them due to their large military.

 

[Manco Capac]

inds up with Mansa teching for Shaka, vassalizing to him and then using Shaka as a protector while he guns for culture.

Hold on the horses!

Since when a vassal helps the master in a AI-AI tech trade relationship. Stupid AI master always seems once they are ready to disclose a tech (no more We don't want to trade it away), it is intantly given to the vassal. In fact, I'm pretty sure Shaka never had one tech as trade bait.

OTOH, Mansa abusing Shaka...

 

[Verarde]

In my current game, I REX'd quickly and he got stuck on a peninsula with only four cities. He vassaled to me and has been sitting comfortably in fourth/fifth all game long.

 

[rah]

Is Mansa Munsa almost always 2nd/3rd in your guys games?

Since we usually play no vassals and no tech trading, if he starts out close, there's no reason to keep him around, so I guess the answer for me is NO.

 

[GA econ FTW]

Also, stick him in 1000AD or a fairly true-earth map where one floodplains city is all he has and even if he vassals to saladin and is allowed to REX everything but Cairo in africa....he's not going to do that well. I'm guessing on a mostly plains-world, he wouldn't do well even if you observed and didn't attack him personally (especially if there's one warmonger AI in the bunch)

 

[krazybastid]

I like to include Mansa in my games. Sometimes even if he's a different religion he still trades techs with you.

 

[Silv Something]

He will trade techs like crazy even if they are horrible for him.