Mansa Musa

[Virulent]

If you are trying to go for a space race, conquest or domination win is there any reason not to take this guy out or at least cripple him as quickly as possible? Sure he likes to trade tech like crazy but he trades with everybody and like most AI tends to favor the other AIs over you.

However, if you are going for a Culture or Diplo win, I can see buddying up with him and trying to leech tech off of him would be a good thing.

Also as an aside: when I play game with random opponents 9 times out of 10 Mansa is one of them. I'm getting sick of seeing this guy.

 

[cabert]

just play him

 

[Mercenary82]

I always prioritize taking this guy out as soon as possible. Since he techs so fast, he also will try to build the U.N. and go for a diplo victory. I've also seen him get a city to legendary culture, making him a cultural victory threat as well.
If you insist on keeping him around, its better to force capitulation on him, he is the easiest civ to vassalize, and it will let you control what he researches.

 

[JIM G]

just play him

Not a bad idea at all - those skirmishers are very nice early game units

 

[lukep]

I always prioritize taking this guy out as soon as possible. Since he techs so fast, he also will try to build the U.N. and go for a diplo victory. I've also seen him get a city to legendary culture, making him a cultural victory threat as well.
If you insist on keeping him around, its better to force capitulation on him, he is the easiest civ to vassalize, and it will let you control what he researches.

One of my best game on prince (vanilla) was when he was my neighburg but i hemmed him to have only a handfull of cities in a peninsula i controled and then convert him to my religion.
He was thus a good friendly trade partner, saving me a lot of costs in research, allowing me to go rampaging contest on others.

that said, it is sure he is always a threat, and can also have quite big armies (and up to date of course)

 

[svv]

Not a bad idea at all - those skirmishers are very nice early game units

I actually don't like them that well. Since I typically go for bronze working early, I'd rather have axemen as my early army than the skirmishers.

Plus, in vanilla at least, Mansa is spirtual, but DOESN'T have mysticism as a starting tech. So, he can't race for the early religions (budism and hinduism) as the other spiritual civs can.

Mansa is still decent. Spiritual is still nice in being able to switch civics and religions at will. And of course financial is great. But there are other UUs I'd rather have.

 

[KMadCandy]

Since he techs so fast, he also will try to build the U.N. and go for a diplo victory. If you insist on keeping him around, its better to force capitulation on him, he is the easiest civ to vassalize, and it will let you control what he researches.

i was trying for early date diety diplo victories for a gauntlet recently. i loved having mansa in the mix for trades and 'you might find this useful gifts' but had to kick him out since he likes to build that bright shiny UN (gandhi does too, and asoka to some extent). attn AIs: i'm playing OCC, building it myself is my only chance to be a candidate, give a girl a break! curses, foiled again!

when i'm warring, i don't usually take vassals except to speed up a win, or when i just know they're going to capitulate to someone else and i don't want to deal with that hassle. mansa is the only useful vassal i've ever had, partly because he's so easy to get back to friendly even after a war to trade with you after directing his research. he was unfortunately someone else's worst enemy when he met him later. umm sorry sally, i'm not going to stop trading with my vassal ok? quit asking me!

 

[Solver]

If you can befriend him early (read: have the same religion), he'll actually be very useful as an ally. He's quite eager to trade with his friends and can save you a lot of research.

Alternatively, I've found that Mansa Musa makes a pretty good vassal. Even if you give him a good beating, he should be able to support you fairly well as a vassal. Of course, not if you leave him with one city only, but he's one of the few leaders I actually like as vassals.

 

[Virulent]

I just remembered another reason to get rid of Mansa early: He likes to sign defensive pacts. You don't want to have him sitting there cranking out spaceship parts and you can't attack him without bringing half the world at your throat.

 

[Mercenary82]

i was trying for early date diety diplo victories for a gauntlet recently. i loved having mansa in the mix for trades and 'you might find this useful gifts' but had to kick him out since he likes to build that bright shiny UN (gandhi does too, and asoka to some extent). attn AIs: i'm playing OCC, building it myself is my only chance to be a candidate, give a girl a break! curses, foiled again!

when i'm warring, i don't usually take vassals except to speed up a win, or when i just know they're going to capitulate to someone else and i don't want to deal with that hassle. mansa is the only useful vassal i've ever had, partly because he's so easy to get back to friendly even after a war to trade with you after directing his research. he was unfortunately someone else's worst enemy when he met him later. umm sorry sally, i'm not going to stop trading with my vassal ok? quit asking me!

Mansa Musa almost sabotaged one of my games that way, I made the mistake of leaving him a little to strong when he capitulated to me, then later on in the game, the jerk beat me to the UN! he had better relations with everyone at the time than I did, so I was forced to declare war on his two neighbors, just so they could capture the UN, allowing me to recapture it. This did postpone my diplo victory by about 40 turns or so, due to me having to warmonger a little to take out the civs I declared war on.

 

[darkkai64]

a vassal that secretly betrays you? well, you could keep him too busy to build the U.N.

 

[Mercenary82]

Yeah it was sort of my fault for not watching what techs he was researching at the time.

 

[Priah]

Mansa Musa almost sabotaged one of my games that way, I made the mistake of leaving him a little to strong when he capitulated to me, then later on in the game, the jerk beat me to the UN! he had better relations with everyone at the time than I did, so I was forced to declare war on his two neighbors, just so they could capture the UN, allowing me to recapture it. This did postpone my diplo victory by about 40 turns or so, due to me having to warmonger a little to take out the civs I declared war on.

rofl i wonder what happens if your vassal does win the game? shouldnt you win it.

 

[Mutineer]

Idea of vassal is that he is still a state that could win.

Cultural or UN win are Vassal options. AI does not know how to play cultural, but UN is still a posibility.

 

[Collier20]

Well the f'er did it to me again last night. I had an isolated emperor start with Stalin. By the time I found the other four Civs (I play fractal and small). Mansa Musa was way head. I dont know why the other civs let me get so strong. He controlled half the continent plus every island you could put a city on. Cyrus was the second largest with 6 cities. Napolean had five (one was on my continent). Brennus has only two. I tech traded like made with everyone until Napolean declared war on me. I took out two of his cities easily, but I had two disaeaterous assults on Paris and Orleans who both had around 20 defenders plus troops pulled in from other cities. Brennus was a bit more successful. He was fighting my riflemen (i didnt have horses) with knights and musketmen. Unfortunately after taking the brunt of his assult, Cyrus swoops in with cavalry and captures both of his cities right from under me. Anyways, Mansa built the apollo program before I built Scotland Yard. I was going for a cultural win and built all late game wonders except for the Internet (was building it when the game ended) and Broadway. Mansa won the UN election, Cyrus was voting for him. Mansa had only -1 with Cyrus for signing a defensive pact with me. I had -2 (-1 for defensive pack and -1 for trading with Napoleon). And even though I signed a defensive pack with Cyrus, he still like Mansa more. The SOB.

 

[cabert]

he probably had a bunch of "you shared your technological discoveries with us" relation +s