Mansa Musa is WAY overpowered!

[Bast]

I've never played as MM but in every game I've played where he's in it, he's always in the lead and by a lot. Also, he's in the lead in techs and military (sometimes by huge margins).

I've played on the same level and with a variety of leaders on different maps and he's the only one that consistently comes out on top.

But looking at his traits, it's not surprising why. Financial and Spiritual with Mints that gives more money??

I hope they tone him down in the next patch.

 

[PMabey]

He's not way overpowered. All the financial leaders sometimes shoot ahead in tech if you're not careful. Having said that, the annoying thing about Mansa is that if you try to attack him early you have to face those damn skirmishers and if you dont he'll get a tech lead.

The reason is said he's not overpowered is because he's one of my favourite leaders so i hope he's not nerfed. Btw his traits are a perfect fit in comparison to actual history.

 

[Technocactus]

Bast - How would you suggest toning him down?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

He can be a pain, but he's not really overpowered.
You can't take him out quickly for those damn Skirmishers and he is a fast techer, but his greatest advantage is that he trades so much.
He will give away his exclusive techs for the righ price.
Just don't feed him techs only you have. It can be better to take your time researching techs other AI leaders have and trade them to him to prevent inter AI trading.

 

[potatokiosk]

Mansa Musa doesn't cripple himself like the other AIs. Montezuma and Tokugawa must be the worst self cripplers.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Its not him, its Financial. I see Financial leaders do well in tech all the time...mansa is one, HANNIBAL is another. Mansa is all about money...he will have lots of money via his trait, even more money if he has lots of cottages, and then MORE money with his UB.

What does he do with all that money? Run his slider very high, laugh off maintainence costs, he can run his culture slider if he has to for extra happiness to grow his cities (not that happiness should be a problem with cheap temples). His UU protects him from early invasions, his tech lead will give him longbows very quick...and easily upgraded from his UU.

Sure, he has lots of strengths, but so do pretty much every leader in the game. I could make a case for every leader that has several advantages. Thats the great thing about this game...you dont HAVE to chose a particular leader to do well.

The only way they could tone him down is to either change his personality so that he didnt trade techs as easily...or nerf financial again. I rather them keep Mansa as he is.

 

[Psyringe]

I don't think Mansa is overpowered. In my games, no other leader has been wiped out by another AI as often as him. I f he *doesn't* get attacked, then he's often a candidate for victory. But that's just his strategy - he tends to focus obn tech, and neglect his military. It's a gamble with high risk.

 

[BadHorsie]

Well I don't know if perhaps it's only Warlords that has made him overpowered but I have vanilla CIV and he's always in the middle somewhere. Not the worst, but never comes out top. Also very weak military.

 

[MrCynical]

Mansa is just about the only AI that trades tech in a sensible fashion. Most of the others restrict themselves too much, and try and hang on to monopoly techs even when they're falling behind elsewhere. Combined with Mansa also having one of the AI personalities that maximises research output, he's almost guaranteed to do well against other AI's.

His traits; Financial, Spiritual are a strong combo, but by no means overpowered (at least not any more than any other financial civ). In the hands of an AI; Philosophical, Aggressive, Charismatic or even Protective would be better than Spiritual.

 

[Titus]

Yeah, I think it's the financial trait. I often see Capac up there as well, and he's far more dangerous than Mansa Musa militarily. It's almost always the financial civs that runs away with the techs. Apart from these two, I often see Hannibal and Wang Kon amass a pile of techs too (again, with Hannibal being much more dangerous than Wang Kon).

 

[KMadCandy]

i like having mansa in my games since he'll usually be sweet and trade with me. i do still have much to learn about getting other AIs to attack him nearish the end before he gets too dangerously ahead on techs. sometimes they do it on their own, but i'm trying to learn to be more of a politician ingame and my gosh it's hard!

 

[Blackclove]

Funny - in my games, Monty is almost always one of the leading civs thanks to mercilessly crushing his neighbors. He's usually behind in tech, but once he gets helicopters, watch out. In my current game, Washington is kicking butt - he conquered Churchill's England and made them his vassals. So, it does seem to vary quite a bit with your playing style.

Maybe it's because I always attack Mansa Musa

 

[gettingfat]

Mansa is, IMO, one of the most annoying leaders. He constantly asks for unfair trades (e.g. 30 golds for liberalism). The skirmishers basically grant him a quasi-protective trait in the first 1/3 of the game, so when he's your neighbour it's tough to early rush him. He will get feudalism and therefore the longbows very early, so mid-game rush on him is feasible but painful. When he is far away, particularly on another continent, it's even worse. His propensity of getting an early religion plus his financial trait allows him to out-tech everybody by a mile in almost every game. Even he does not have a decent size army. For some reason the other AIs seldom attack him even they have different religions and have poor diplomacy rating.

Even comparing to other financial leaders, for some reason Mansa usually does a better job. I seldom see Hannibal or Victoria as AIs do as well as Mansa.

But I don't think he is overpowered. Spiritual is a weak trait anyway. It's just he is better implemented as an AI. I still almost always attack him once I have construction to cut his land down to fewer than 3 cities, and use him as a trade partner. The main problem is when he is on another continent.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Hmmm, sometimes i wondered how MM managed to keep up with me on tech even in the late game despite having empire 1/4th size of mine (he was being hammered by constant wars). After reading gettingfats post i realized that i forgot the religion. He must have had nice shrine city (+ financial + mint). Mansa is one of the efficient AI's.. (not overpowered, though). And i do hate him. A lot.

 

[Panda]

He's not overpowered. His traits, UU & UB merely complement the AI play style extremely well. Which is not to say that he got a nice deal - FIN / SPI, mints and skirmishers is an incredible package.

One could also reason that, where the Romans are the casual players' choice for a domination / conquest game, Mali is the casual players' choice for a Space Race victory. With such strong attributes, less devote players can make mistakes and still win.

 

[Nightmare99]

I've never played as MM but in every game I've played where he's in it, he's always in the lead and by a lot. Also, he's in the lead in techs and military (sometimes by huge margins).

I've played on the same level and with a variety of leaders on different maps and he's the only one that consistently comes out on top.

But looking at his traits, it's not surprising why. Financial and Spiritual with Mints that gives more money??

I hope they tone him down in the next patch.

What is mint?

 

[Julian Delphiki]

What is mint?

Malis unique building, Forge that gives +10% gold (or commerce?) to city.

 

[Sisiutil]

Spiritual is a weak trait anyway.

Spiritual is as weak as you make it. For a lot of players around here, it's one of their favourite traits, allowing frequent civics changes. SE experts swear by it, combined with Philosophical, making Gandhi hugely popular.

For Mansa, it adds to his propensity for tech leading. He can switch civics without losing any turns of research or GPT. If he combines its cheap temples with the University of Sankore and/or the Spiral Minaret, he can become a juggernaut.

The fact that he's financial and can get an early tech lead, combined with his love for tech trading, also accounts for much of his lead. He'll become the tech leader just by back-filling any missing techs from other civs that covet his advanced discoveries. Including the human!

My usual policy with Mansa is to be friendly, since he's such a handy tech trading partner. But I try to contain him either by expanding around him and/or by getting other civs to give him problems of one type or another. Another tactic I've tried with him is to trade or even gift him a lot of resources (especially happy ones), then cancel the trades a few turns later and let him deal with the unhappiness in his cities.

 

[KMadCandy]

"My usual policy with Mansa is to be friendly, since he's such a handy tech trading partner."
ditto for me.

"But I try to contain him either by expanding around him"
that's one of my favorite strategies for just about anybody, unless it's at a time their UU might slaughter me and i'm not quite prepared for a war yet, then i think twice about it.

"and/or by getting other civs to give him problems of one type or another."
that is the part i'm still trying to learn about. it's driving me completely nutso, but i'm getting there.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I have come to hate Wang Kong much more. You can prey upon MM when you have Macemen and his Skirmishers are obsolete, but conquering Korea is tougher.
A good way to deal with Mansa and Wang is to raid their cottages with Horse Archers. You'll gain enough gold from pillaging to fund deficit spending on research for some time, and they'll soon fall back.