Ever since I've read Neal's excellent King of the World threads, I have become more and more smitten with the Earth18Civs map. Even though you know the lays of the land and don't have to guess where the resources are, the game never plays out the same way every time. Granted, some civs have a better start than others so you can expect to see some familiar faces on the winning end. One of them that doesn't belong there is Mansa Musa. And it is that guy I've tried for the last few days to help to a victory without success. I have searched the forum for advice on how to play him in the scenario but I haven't found any particularly helpful advice other than "Don't play Mansa Musa in the Earth18Civs map".
First off, I must reveal my lack of expertise: Prince gives me about the right challenge in most games in BtS. However, a drop to Noble hasn't made the game much easier on this scenario.
Let's review Mansa Musa's strengths and weaknesses, his starting location and neighbours.
Mansa Musa (Financial, Spiritual)
Mansa Musa starts with Mining and the Wheel. Mining gives a headstart on Bronze Working and Iron Working, which we will need asap. The wheel is handy I suppose... Africa is a big place. Not starting with Mysticism will make us lose the race for an early religion every time. We'll have to wait for others to infect you with their religion before you start seeing the benefit of building temples at double speed. Being able to switch civics without anarchy seems like a good thing for an SE.
We get the Skirmisher, a super duper archer replacement which will come in handy against the endless hordes of barbarians (have I mentioned I play with Raging Barbarians on? Perhaps I should turn that off). Also, we get the Mint - a Forge that gives us 10% more money. The use of this is a bit questionable since it adds yet another
.
Starting location
This is the starting location as revealed by World Builder. We start in sub-Saharan Africa, home to deadly diseases, roaming wildlife, and legions of barbarians. It's a great place, really. Anyway, we have a lot of floodplains which is nice to either cottage up or farm to feed specialists. We also get a lot of jungle to hack through, something we cannot do until we get Iron Working (one must wonder how people discovered that with the only iron ore on the other side of the desert).
To our North, in modern day Morocco there are sheep, iron, wine, and elephants - and perhaps crabs if you want to stretch it. To the West, a small patch of plains with a pitiful river connects you with gems. Slightly to the West of the settler there is an oasis, though how useful that is I'm not quite sure. It does give us 3
and 3
but at the cost of having our homeland being a giant sandbox. If we move the settler 1W, we'll get the oasis eventually but have 10 unworkable tiles.
To the South, a slightly more encouraging place is to be had, with two elephants and gems. One might be tempted to place the city at 2SE of the settler and thereby getting all the floodplains, the gems and both elephants in our BFC. But in doing so, we'll have so much that our population limit peaks very early. Jungles and floodplains are kinda unsexy in that way. Further down South, there are crabs (yum) but we'd have to go coastal for that. Again, all those jungle nasties prevent the people from multiplying. To the East, cows and rivers, and even a few grassland (hill) tiles.
To the Northeast we'll find the Egyptians. There's a good chance that they will find us first because in all my games their warrior always explore towards the South instead of towards the Middle-East. What's more, they have access to all the good stuff. I suppose it's a good idea to be good buddies with Hathepsut.
Of note are: the lack of metals and horses, being on the outskirts of civilization, and general unhealthiness. The first means that axerushing is kinda hard. The second means that barbarians come swarming in constantly. Lastly, your growth is stunted, giving less production overall.
I'm out of ideas
Ok, so not only does our location suck, but we have to deal with 17 other civs with better starting locations than ours. We could keep appeasing other civs until we get Gunpowder (or make a mad dash for Morocco for the Iron). In any case, beelining to Iron Working after getting Agriculture seems to be a good idea. But after that, what can we do?
First off, I must reveal my lack of expertise: Prince gives me about the right challenge in most games in BtS. However, a drop to Noble hasn't made the game much easier on this scenario.
Let's review Mansa Musa's strengths and weaknesses, his starting location and neighbours.
Mansa Musa (Financial, Spiritual)
Mansa Musa starts with Mining and the Wheel. Mining gives a headstart on Bronze Working and Iron Working, which we will need asap. The wheel is handy I suppose... Africa is a big place. Not starting with Mysticism will make us lose the race for an early religion every time. We'll have to wait for others to infect you with their religion before you start seeing the benefit of building temples at double speed. Being able to switch civics without anarchy seems like a good thing for an SE.
We get the Skirmisher, a super duper archer replacement which will come in handy against the endless hordes of barbarians (have I mentioned I play with Raging Barbarians on? Perhaps I should turn that off). Also, we get the Mint - a Forge that gives us 10% more money. The use of this is a bit questionable since it adds yet another
.Starting location
This is the starting location as revealed by World Builder. We start in sub-Saharan Africa, home to deadly diseases, roaming wildlife, and legions of barbarians. It's a great place, really. Anyway, we have a lot of floodplains which is nice to either cottage up or farm to feed specialists. We also get a lot of jungle to hack through, something we cannot do until we get Iron Working (one must wonder how people discovered that with the only iron ore on the other side of the desert).
To our North, in modern day Morocco there are sheep, iron, wine, and elephants - and perhaps crabs if you want to stretch it. To the West, a small patch of plains with a pitiful river connects you with gems. Slightly to the West of the settler there is an oasis, though how useful that is I'm not quite sure. It does give us 3
and 3 but at the cost of having our homeland being a giant sandbox. If we move the settler 1W, we'll get the oasis eventually but have 10 unworkable tiles.To the South, a slightly more encouraging place is to be had, with two elephants and gems. One might be tempted to place the city at 2SE of the settler and thereby getting all the floodplains, the gems and both elephants in our BFC. But in doing so, we'll have so much
that our population limit peaks very early. Jungles and floodplains are kinda unsexy in that way. Further down South, there are crabs (yum) but we'd have to go coastal for that. Again, all those jungle nasties prevent the people from multiplying. To the East, cows and rivers, and even a few grassland (hill) tiles.To the Northeast we'll find the Egyptians. There's a good chance that they will find us first because in all my games their warrior always explore towards the South instead of towards the Middle-East. What's more, they have access to all the good stuff. I suppose it's a good idea to be good buddies with Hathepsut.
Of note are: the lack of metals and horses, being on the outskirts of civilization, and general unhealthiness. The first means that axerushing is kinda hard. The second means that barbarians come swarming in constantly. Lastly, your growth is stunted, giving less production overall.
I'm out of ideas
Ok, so not only does our location suck, but we have to deal with 17 other civs with better starting locations than ours. We could keep appeasing other civs until we get Gunpowder (or make a mad dash for Morocco for the Iron). In any case, beelining to Iron Working after getting Agriculture seems to be a good idea. But after that, what can we do?
