...In case anyone is wondering how things turned out with my quandary on whether to attack Mansa to keep him from getting the spaceship and/or whether to continue my struggle to eliminate Catherine, the answer is things turned out very well.Extremely well. Fabulous, in fact.
This is the long story:
I did BOTH things: attack Mansa and conquer Catherine. And then, I ultimately won the game on a space ship victory (not my first choice, but...)
Firstly, I beat down Catherine to her last two cities, and then signed Peace. I went home to England (this was on Scytale's realistic Europe map from the map forum), gathered my forces, completed the Manhattan Project, and then began to amass my loaded carrier, battleship, loaded transport w/tanks and mechanized infantry,destroyer fleet just off the coast of the unsuspecting Malinese. I cashed in on a load of tech sales and bought/made a bunch (8) of ICBMs. (I even sold Mansa "Fascism", getting 800 gold which I pormptly turned into a bomb to use against him.)
At this point...1872... Mansa had completed about 3 SS casings, 2 Thrusters, a Life Support, was working on a Cockpit and developing the techs to get the rest...meanwhile, I hadn't even started the Apollo Project.
I greeted his smiling face with a declaration of war and promptly nuked 6 of his cities (basically his whole continent), which I'd scouted out with spies. I then made landfall and razed his capitial and his largest city. I'd brought my best troops, and really not enough to hold the territory, so I pulled back of a complete takeover, and after I'd done my dirty work, stationed them just out of range safely in an armada.
Then, and I liked the irony here most of all, using the UN I owned, I put forth the Anti-Nuclear-Proliferation Resolution. It passed. Meanwhile I still sat on two nukes while no one else could make any. The deterent benefit the rest of the game to this was all the game's AI still went to the trouble to make SDI & bomb shelters despite being unable to make nukes...giving me a valuable edge in later turns of SS making, I say.
The only negative to my nuclear strategy tunred out to be that all 9 of the other civs HATED me for the rest of the game...All had "Annoyed" or "Furious" on their sentiments for the rest of the game. I couldn't make trades and nearly everyone cancelled open borders and deals. This worked to my advantage when I kept up my tech advantage though.
Mansa was out for the count on the diplomatic front though...without his capital and his largest city, and with much of his countryside a glowing ruin, he never had enough population afterwards to merit more than a handful of votes in the UN. He always voted agaisnt me though. I gave him a Cow once as a gift but it didn't help.
I eliminated the last two Russian cities with the same force I'd used on Mansa. It was good I'd preserved the veterans, as Saladin came in on the side of the Russians and I had to spank him good by taking 3 of his cities before he'd quit.
I then sat down to wait out the clock but everyone had a huge jump on SS production while I'd frittered away nuking Mansa, killing the Russians off and punishing the Arabs. I was too evenly matched with the big Civs to contemplate an elimination or domination win at this late date so going to space was the only option to victory.
I raced the Germans and Egyptians for the SS and ultimatlety beat them both by a few turns around 1990. I needn't have worried, as I still had the two nukes leftover if I needed to slow anyone down...
And old Mansa? Why he ended up 8th place, never making another part except one lowly SS casing after my nuclear intervention.He never recovered.
I love Mansa Musa!
