[BTS] Monarch Mansa Musa(Mali) Shadow Game on Pangea

[HPR1860]

Hi there,

starting to play Civ 4 again after a long, 10+ year break(I liked 4 better than 5 and 6).
After such a long break I figured that Monarch with a strong leader like Mansa Musa might be best.

Settings:
Pangea, no huts, no events, standard size, normal speed.
No espionage and vasselage to reduce complexity.
Only MOD Im runnung is Better AI BAT mod.

Spoiler Start :

Move settler 1 E or 1 SE? Or SIP?
I think the coast is to the E and the tiles to the W arent too great.
Theres a chance of metal on the suspiciously unforrested plains tile...

The warrior starts exploring southwards to check out the river area?

Attached are the world builder and Batter AI BAT mod files.

Any advice is highly appriciated(I guess Im very rusty...) and thanks in advance!

Best regards
HP

 

[sampsa]

With the available information settle 1NE?

 

[HPR1860]

1NE would be on the gold?

 

[sampsa]

Yeah, there is not much food so the gold tile is not superb. It's in my opinion better to sacrifice it to get +1+2 city center tile. NE seems to me to be the right direction to move - you lose mostly plains tiles. Also by moving on the gold you reveal a lot of tiles. Maybe there is a plains hill to settle on that grabs both pig+gold.

 

[HPR1860]

Very intersting regarding setteling on the gold.
What would be threshold for food to not settle on the gold:
A second good food tile and/or flood plains instead of a few of the grasslands or plains?

Speaking of more food... I moved the settler on the gold and...

Spoiler Gold move :

 

[antimony]

You have Mali, a civ that cannot research Animal Husbandry right away, so starting with only pig as visible food is a bit awkward. In fact, having revealed the corn, I would be tempted to go Agriculture followed by Bronze Working, and mine the hill pigs initially, in order to start chopping that forest faster to accelerate settler production and make space for cottages.

That said the wet corn is just about strong enough food by itself to work the gold and still grow at a reasonable pace, with pigs mine being food neutral. In that case, on the long term I might prefer capital south of corn, in order to work gold and also avoid losing any seafood that might be two tiles from land. On high difficulty, I would still settle on gold regardless because the short term production is much more important than long term commerce as difficulty level increases.

 

[HPR1860]

Thanks for the responses, @sampsa and @antimony!

@antimony
I moved on the gold(want to test some higher level play even on Monarch to form some good habits for higher levels) and my warrior found wet cows the same turn.

Spoiler Cows :

I guess that there is a high chance that my second city goes somewhere right next to those cows(nearby the capital, connection to the capital, river, fp, potential sharing of tiles with the capital).
Would that influence your decision to go AGR-BW instead of AGR-AH?
It seems like a waste to mine the pigs when I need AH for the second city cows anyways.

Best regards
HP

 

[sampsa]

Settling 2S (from where you are) is probably the standard play now. However... I would settle on gold. It leads to so much faster expansion that I could not resist at the cost of some mid-term .

I think if you settle 2S agri-AH is standard. Then grow to size 4 before starting a settler to work every strong tile.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Unless there's Seafood two tiles from the coast which would end up ruined, there's really only one spot to consider: 1S of the Gold. So move the settler to the Corn tile to check out the sea, then move to that tile and settle on the next turn.
It ruins a forest, ruins prime cottage estate, gets you off to a slower start.
I say, who cares about those things, uh?

The really important thing is that this is the only spot which allows you to turn the lake into a yummy 3F 3C tile with a Lighthouse. Settling anywhere else wastes 1F potential!

Plus, if you listen to these guys' advice, you'll have won the game by turn 150: where's the fun in that?

(Seriously, it's a bit sad that this was my first thought. )

 

[antimony]

Yes, it's always good to move warrior first if we can see what we're getting in an alternate settling location or what we are losing by moving settler.

Having only animal food, or 2 animals like here, probably pushes us in direction of AH, but it's good to analyze each situation, map out your worker first dozen turns or so and figure what techs you need to make those worker turns productive. A gold mine gives you a lot more leeway because you'll research faster and the worker is less likely to have nothing to do.

 

[HPR1860]

Thanks again, guys!

@Thrasybulos: Okay, winning by trun 150 is the goal now. ;-)

Decided to settle 2S of gold in the end. 3 food tiles plus gold plus cottages(plus metal in the plains tile?) makes a great capital imo.
Felt awkward to move the settler so much though.

Played till turn 22 when AH and the worker finished.
Now there are a lot of qs... ;-)

Researched AGR and AH(revealed horses nearby).
Now BW for chopping, whipping and making space for cottages at the river?

Growing to size 4 as @sampsa suggested by making warriors?
The first one I would send NE to check out the horses area(seems to be tundra there)?
The other ones down S and W?

I met the Vikings and they came from the SE I think.

My first warrior defeated a lion and is fog busting(a good spot there or should I move him after he healed up?).

Worker finished the corn.
Improving gold, pigs, cows would be the most economical by worker turns or should I do it in a different order?
The three improved tiles need road connection to the capital?

Second town should be around the cow and along the river still but with growing to size 4 theres still time to scout first.

Spoiler Turn 22 :

Thanks again in advance!

 

[antimony]

Yes improve in the order that makes sense for worker logistics. Roads are not a priority until you need happiness bonus from gold and you're not growing to size 6 anytime soon.

My favorite expansion sites here are SW of cow and S of wine. Keep in mind the capital will expand borders on T50. There might be good stuff out north, but you likely won't have competition for it.

Warrior spot is good. With a peninsula like that, if any barbarian shows up they will certainly come your way. Fogbust your 'backline' first, and your early expansion sites. Hopefully you can get two warriors before switching to settler at size 4, at least one fogbusting the tundra.

Bronze working first then pottery seem good. Chop to accelerate settler after cow is improved.

 

[Tecumseh1]

You can prob settle second south cow and third city on the stone, build pyramids in capital, and cruise from there.

 

[HPR1860]

Turn 37.

Spoiler Turn 37 :

Researched BW and found copper in the plains tile indeed so I improved copper instead of moving to cows.
Capital now has good production even more with cows improved and lots of chops.

1. Worker:
What should I do with the worker next?
Start chopping(on the way down to the cows I guess) or go to the cows directly?

2. Research:
Finished pottery this turn also(fast teching!).
What should I research next?
Masonry for Mids seems like a good idea especially if I grab the stone with my second city(thanks for the input btw, @Tecumseh1).

3. City spots:
Did some exploration towards the horses and NW.
Getting cold around the horses... So maybe NE of horses to grap it while getting the whales later on.
Not a high priority though because the land is uncontested, not great otherwise and I have elephants soon too(better units anyways, right?).
In the NW I found more horses and silver and its a nice long river but otherwise getting cold too. Need more exploration there(and survive the lions...).

The wine city:
The question here is if we need the stone for mids or not I guess(improved the tile is only 1F4P, right? So not great...).
@antimony would settle S of wine so no stone. @Tecumseh1 on top of stone which sounds like a great play on high levels if going for Mids.
A third option could be 1W of stone which would be something like a mix of the two?
On Monarch it might work to get the Mids still?
(Capital has good production and many chops left).

The elephant cow city:
Should be 2nd city or 3rd if going for stone for mids before?

Placemant SW or S of cow.
SW is at the river so easier connection to capital and freshwater, also the 2nd elephant is on plains and not jungle.
S doesnt say freshwater I guess the river spring doesnt count as being on the river?
So would tend to go for SW.


4. Whipping:
Heres the situation in the capital.

Spoiler Capital :

Should I whip the settler, maybe into granary(41 overflow)?
Then grow back to 4(building the Mids maybe)?

Thanks for the advice!

 

[antimony]

Quick note first: I see your borders already expanded, I forgot about the no espionage setting. The way no espionage works is that all espionage becomes culture (so a capital produces 6 culture from the palace, not 2), but culture to expand borders doubles (20 needed for 1st expansion, 200 for 2nd). Therefore, capital expands borders faster than in a standard game (4 turns, then 34 turns, instead of 5 and 50), but every other city would take a long time to do so (e.g. 20 turns with a monument or 10 with a library). In other words it's very important to have the important resources in the first ring of your next cities.

You do NOT want to whip that capital. Whipping is when you can grow fast but don't have enough production, tiles like gold and copper go directly against that.

I would settle cow city first and move the worker to improve that cow already, instead of chopping since the settler is arriving so soon. Note that SW of cow is auto-connected to the capital without a route due to a river route entirely within your borders. (Stone city would also be auto-connected due to coast entirely in your border, and S of wine due to combination of river and coast).

If you want Pyramids, around T70 is definitely early enough all the way to immortal, and probably more often than not on deity (see https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/wonderdates.656787/). You will have time to make another worker and settler after this one, settle cow then stone cities, then have both workers chop to speed up Pyramids in the capital (e.g. 3 chops per worker + 13 turns @10 production per turn would do it). In that case settling on stone is fine, as you point out, quarries are weak for the time they take to improve. Note that I liked 1S of the wine because it gets 3 floodplains, including the one 3S of the capital, but cow city can also get that if you place it where I suggested... (it doesn't get both elephants, but 1 elephant is fine).

That said, I want to make the case for why you might skip Pyramids here. The benefits of Representation are countered by having access to early happiness resources (gold and elephants) and having a FIN leader who get more benefits from working commerce tiles rather than specialists. Also, you can get good relations with Ragnar faster by running Hereditary Rule (his favorite civic) rather than Representation, and you will be incentivized to get Monarchy soon for the wine anyway.

Tech path thoughts: Hunting for elephants which you can improve even under jungle, then Masonry if you want Pyramids. Writing after that seems a good default choice.

4th and later city sites: maybe 1S of western horse is an option, depends what's west in the fog. I would ignore that silver now. Also, is there seafood west of elephants on that coast? Maybe more warriors to fogbust S and SW, and even a scout for exploring and meeting more AIs could be nice to have soon. Not sure if that should be after that settler or after city 3.

 

[antimony]

Small note about Hunting: If you have Hunting AND connect the copper you will lose the ability to build warriors, which are nice to cheaply increase happiness in cities. On Monarch at this point I think you should be able to handle the barbarians with warriors, but otherwise an option would be to connect the copper for the Axemen while delaying hunting a little bit until you really need the elephants.

 

[lymond]

Yes, as antimony mentioned, no espionage really messes up culture...new cities will take forever to expand. Espionage can be played very passively and practically ignored. We could given you a couple of pointers on that as turning it off is a pain.

 

[HPR1860]

Wow, thanks again for the great advice, learning a lot already.

Regarding the espionage(I thought itll make it easier... ):
Is there a way to turn it on now? Maybe via the world builder?
If not I think Ill play at least some more without it and turn it on in my next try.
Would be a shame to let that valuable advice go to waste.

You do NOT want to whip that capital. Whipping is when you can grow fast but don't have enough production, tiles like gold and copper go directly against that.

Thanks Im always unsure when to whip and when not.
This clears it up.

That said, I want to make the case for why you might skip Pyramids here. The benefits of Representation are countered by having access to early happiness resources (gold and elephants) and having a FIN leader who get more benefits from working commerce tiles rather than specialists. Also, you can get good relations with Ragnar faster by running Hereditary Rule (his favorite civic) rather than Representation, and you will be incentivized to get Monarchy soon for the wine anyway.

That makes a lot of sense.
In the time I would build the mids I can settle quite a few cities and get some army up.

Tech path thoughts: Hunting for elephants which you can improve even under jungle

And I thought that you have to remove the jungle before building a camp...

So if I skip the mids and delaying hunting a bit to pump out cheap warriors the next tech could be writing?
Then ALPH or MATH?
With ALPH I could trade for the religious techs towards monarchy.
Picking up Oracle(for MC which should be good with Mali) along the way even.

4th and later city sites

Ill scout more N and W to get some more info while Im settling corn and wine city.

 

[antimony]

I'm sure it's playable even with the no espionage setting, just have to keep in mind the slow border expansion.

For tech, after Writing, Math would only come first if going straight for Construction. This can be good on a cramped map when you have to start warring with only 4-5 cities. Here you may want to keep peacefully expanding instead. Alpha is a good default choice otherwise.

One city spot I overlooked (perhaps for 4th city) is 1N of corn. It's auto-connected as well, provides access to horses, 2 extra cottages, and can share corn/gold with capital.

After you improve cow, a lot of your worker turns will be spent chopping and cottaging, plus connecting resources when needed. You can prioritize chopping cottageable sites and cottages that can be worked by more than one city. I think the biggest challenge at this stage is balancing the continued expansion with the need to develop the cities' economy. So for example, chops going towards workers and settlers ensures they get done faster, leaving more turns to grow. Whipping workers and settlers also becomes a good option when the commerce tiles you "lose" can be worked by another city (hence why a city to share gold is good), even moreso when you have a granary. A city with good production like the capital can just slow build its granary, but others can whip it.

 

[Fippy]

No Espionage increases difficulty slightly, AIs are infamous for running 20% on that slider early.

You can try anything you like with this power start..
HAs would be the "HOF" play cos HBR can be reached so early.
Elepult should be easy as well.