Nobles' Club 183: Mansa Musa of Mali

[jvdl]

Rage quit T65

Spoiler :

After I got the oracle on T54, the Roman Dowed me on T60. Did manage to pump out two skirmishers just in time and survive the first attack of axe and spear. But on T65 six praetorians surrounded my second city and Louis boxed me in on the other side.

Restart with plan B?

 

[Fippy]

jvdl

Spoiler :

I would not try Oracle when under pressure to grab land & defend
Especially cos with Mansa it's not too difficult staying in the tech race

 

[Pangaea]

For me it is currently difficult enough!

Aye, certainly more tricky than the starting location gives an impression of. T62:

Spoiler :

My own fault really, but I'm currently in a sticky position too. Two workers were in the process of improving Russian copper, and I had a guy nearby. How am I supposed to resist such a temptation?

But despite snatching two workers, he refuses to cease fire. Now I see he has iron too (or maybe horses?), and with a zillion archers around, there isn't anything I can do about it. Have two warriors technically threatening two cities, which is supposed to increase the chance for cease fire, but he won't budge and demands a city. Any moment he'll have axes and/or swords, and I could be in very dire straits. Would definitely want Writing now, but think I have little choice but to get Hunting+Archery so there is the option of whipping out Skirmirshers in case Stalin pays a visit.

 

[Pangaea]

To the OP:

Thanks for starting a new Noble's Club game!

By the way... are script files available to easily create the various difficulty/option files? If not, I'll likely make some in the (hopefully) near future - I can cover everything with scripts, except that barbarian starting techs will need to be manually set by the player, unfortunately.

Don't think there are any script files. There was a mention of something in the boilerplate somewhere, but don't think they were actually posted. It's not difficult to create these files, but it's a little time consuming given the amount of files, so a script would definitely come in handy. Would be excellent if you could do that, and maybe the obstacle for people to create new maps would be a little lower? I'd hate to see this fantastic series come to an end. Hopefully somebody can pick up the ball in the new year, and more games be published.

 

[sampsa]

T162 (1020AD)

Spoiler :

So in this turn set I made the same noob-mistake twice. I allowed a stronger AI to vassal a weak AI. Not sure if I could have prevented both but... Soon after 1AD Washington caps to Julius. I guess I could have bribed them to peace at some point. So the south ended up looking like this, and after Chicago popped borders I lost 4 more tiles...



Later I got a nice idea to declare on useless SB and bribe JC and Stalin on him. Wee, now I have friends to trade with. De Gaulle daggered me, which was more than welcome as he was my main target. Attacked with trebs and phants, got two cities but had to make peace not to lose them. He instantly peace vassals to HC. So here I am now:



I have two GS so I can bulb chemistry now and continue to steel (takes ~10 turns). Don't have iron, don't have horse. Comments, anyone?

 

[elmurcis]

IMM-Mara try for some fun

Spoiler :

with "All-in" strategy (if that is a strategy? or just chain of kind of random decisions that are made of previous experience? )...

Spoiler :

Rome dead (kept just Rome for Copper - he was 1T from connection ), France dead (Paris with TGW ), economy dead too
Kept building units everywhere (well, nothing else left to build except 2 settlers for city number I can "afford" without strike)... Try some recovery? Screw this - went for Stalin (he got Iron, he got HA , I got bunch of Skirm... and few Axes at start ).. few lucky open-field battles vs HA and now I have razed 4 (1 city 2 times) cities so far and during war built some good stack for 1 more /its 1000 BC and I have no plan for this game... just trying to kick some AI's where it hurts

 

[dutchfire]

1635 AD Conquest win on Emperor.

Spoiler :

Religious wars raged through most of the middle ages. I mostly managed to stay out, and the few times I got involved, no serious attacks were launched. This all kept the AI pretty backwards. As an example, they mostly skipped Code of Laws after de Gaulle took it, until the time I was completing Liberalism.
I had settled 1E and gone for the Great Lighthouse, Colossus, the Great Library, the Parthenon, the National Epic and the Maoi Statues. Two golden ages helped along my Lib->Steel slingshot. Economy performed well all around, Timbuktu of course was a powerhouse.
Stalin did manage to get serious in war, and got to the tile next to my capital, exactly when I had discovered Steel and could 1T a Cannon in Timbuktu to hit his stack, Musketmen cleaned up.

First war target was Washington, who was also at war with Rome. After capturing the capital, he capped (I was afraid he would cap to Rome). I then took down Stalin (captured all cities). At the same time, I was in a passive war with de Gaulle who was beating up Capac. Capac pease-vassaled to me, that was nice. With Stalin down, I went on with capturing most of France. The Native American and Rome capitulated relatively easily.

Most wars were fought with Cannons+Muskets against medieval units, and later on I added Rifles and faced a few Grenadiers and Cuirassiers. I usually go for Cuirassiers and appreciate their speed, but on the other hand the low losses for a cannon stack are also very nice.

 

[SittinDown]

Sorry to hear that SittingDown. Will you give it another go?

No worries.

I did give it a 2nd shot.

Spoiler 2nd try :

Meant to play again on Emperor, but I accidentally played on Noble. I Skirmisher rushed Rome, and had a big lead around 1000 BC, then went back to finishing a different game.

May try a 3rd time again on Emperor. I read a bunch of spoilers. This looks like a good trainer on diplomacy from a disadvantaged military situation. I think I can play that ok - but my fault is identifying that situation developing before it's too late to react.

(On a side note - got my 1st emperor win the other night - military with Spain via horses - conquistadors and cannons on pangea).

 

[Gumbolt]

up to 1200bc. Immortal normal speed.

Spoiler Up to 1200bc :

Went AG, BW, hunting, archery.
Basically spammed skirmishers. Wanted to see if a Skirmisher rush worked.

Stole a worker from Romans early on. Had a scary moment when a Roman archer approached my unprotected capital but it fortified on the forest hill. *phew*.

I attacked Rome with 6-7 Skirnishers and it fell. Had 2 defenders. He had 3 other cities.

Razed 2 of his other cities. 1 had no food resources. Another was badly placed. Final city has 4 archers in it.

Built 24 skirmishers so far and lost 9. Captured Rome and razed 2 other cities. Rome has 1 city left but 4 archers defending. Taken a ceasfire.

1280bc GLH was built by an AI.

Losing 10 gold a turn here. Fishing will really help me here.

Spoiler Up to 950bc :

Rome finally wiped out 975bc. Lost 5 skirmishers on final city. Next target is France. Sailing and pottery now teched. I have 5 cities. Largest Ai has 6 cities. See how I do on conquest on this map. I have 13 skirmishers left.

Spoiler Up to 775bc :

Found Paris and it is sweet!!! Has GLH. Gonna need an army of skirmishers.

up to 550bc

Spoiler Up to 475bc :

Had about 14 skirmishers with some follow up skirmishers ready on the French border. Attacked Orleans first on my border. Lost 4 units or so. Then moved onto Paris. Lost 4 Skirmishers on Paris.

Paris has GLH and Stonehenge. Sweet!!! French have 4 cities left and he does have chariots. He won't trade me alphabet yet. Ideally want alphabet for peace. He has 4 cities left. No metals.

Up to 8 cities now. Might finally get some border pops here. largest Ai has 6 cities. Behind in tech but it should hardly matter playing Mansa. Got some nice gold from capturing French cities.

475bc - Took out Lyon which was NE of his capital. Only lost 1 skirmisher against 3 archers and a chariot. Only 20% defences. Another coastal city with GLH. Decided to take peace for Alphabet and IW. Traded writing for sailing after this. No one has monacrhy yet. If I can reach feudalism quickly an early finish would be nice here. Skirmishers unfortunately won't win this game. Done well so far.

 

[Mizar]

Nice start, lots of food, I might go the 1E route too, count 14 good tiles.

 

[Pangaea]

Very nice Gumbolt. These early rushes can be very powerful, which ironically is a reason I don't like them very much.

I'm in a heap of trouble suddenly

Spoiler 225BC :

Thought things were going rather well. Squeezed in two filler cities in addition to sneaking past JC and founding a city on the tip of the land-tongue to the north, for a total of 8 cities. Got up some Mints and Libraries, got a GS for Academy. Capital isn't great, but I've cottaged the 3 grasslands and had helper cities grow them. JC got Alpha and I traded with him, and finally learnt the location of iron. Lucky with positions of cities, and I have access to 2. One in the northwest and one in the south-east. Teched Currency, which always helps. Started on CoL and reckoned there would be enough gold to go full tilt to Civil Service, thanks to ~300 failgold from Artemis. Got Julius to Pleased

Then..... HC has trekked half-way around the world to declare on me. Had several guys exploring the west, but none had seen any units moving (only some Russians going west, to take a barb city). Didn't have OB with de Gaulle though, the guy still can't stand me. BOOM! HC declares, and is knocking on our door.... defended by a warrior

Looking at the situation again after loading up the game, I could have got a 1-turn warning. But that likely wouldn't be enough anyway. Simply nothing I can do to save that city




I had done nothing to anger him, and he disliked others more. We're also located rather far apart. Sometimes the game can really mess you up.

Short of reloading earlier, think the only chance I have is to take back that city, and hope there isn't a long row of units coming through French lands. Since that city is lost, at least for the time being, is it best to whip it down, so he can't, or hope to retake it with decent size intact? Can at least cold-whip a unit. Since there are chariots, maybe a skirmirsher is the best bet. He'll probably have losing odds, but with luck (lol) he'll win or heavily damage one of those buggers. Unfortunately HC is the only one with construction so far, so there is a risk of catas joining the fray soon as well.

Had wanted to keep getting up a bit of infra and move up the tech ladder now, but with this sudden DoW, I'm sorry to say there is little choice but to whip out some units, consequences be damned.

WHY!?!?!??


Definitely hadn't planned to give away Currency already, but this may be worth it....


Julius has become a mammoth btw. 11 cities and there are still two barb cities in the east he will take. When there is land to fill out, AIs take very good advantage of (p)IMPiness.


Stalin has been plotting for a long time btw. Fist went up during the peace treaty after our war, so I don't think it is against me (but it may be), and I haven't seen any buildup near my area. Of course, he could dogpile next turn, which would be VERY BAD NEWS.

One last thing, as partly seen from above, the only religion that have spread is Judaism from Stalin's missionaries (snigger), but I didn't dare to change into that for fear of Julius going mental.

 

[jvdl]

Second attempt, normal deity T90

Spoiler :

After glorious defeat T65 on 1st attempt, plan B is to avoid Julius like the plague.
That means going the opposite direction stomping on De Gaulle with skirmishers.
It'll probably lead to nothing but it's way more satisfying than being stomped on by praetorians.

Tech agg, fish, hunt, arch and spam skirmishers.
Follow up at slow pace with bronze, mason, writing, AH, iron (that's cheating with fore/hindsight from 1st attempt knowledge that there was iron somewhere om De Gaulle's terrain and no copper).

Dow on T50 and take Orleans, Rheims easily, raze Lyons with a great general. Paris was more difficult but after long choking and bringing axes/swords on board it falls T90. Sadly, my GG heroically died in that battle.
Had to destroy many roads (to stop his chariots flanking me) and improvements (to slow his builds) which is now hurting.

Staying clear from Julius made him a peaceful rexer (stealing my only chance on copper) who founded a religion which I was quick to adopt. So all is quiet on the eastern front and not even much behind in Tech. Of all people, only Sitting Duck and Stalin have alpha! Stalin and Washington are at war with each other.

Although there is some conquest gold, it's running -1 on 0% so my plan is to conquer Tours (and gift it to someone), to deplete my obsolete stack of classic units and let Paris grab the full BFC and horses. With that and iron, it will be a cuir race.

 

[dutchfire]

@Pangaea: You could definitely use Buddhism spreading to your lands!

 

[Pangaea]

Yes, definitely @dutchfire and I must have been unlucky for that to not have happened, given open borders to all but one for such a long time.

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Pangea -

Spoiler Thoughts :

On this map the big issue is JC. He could have praets and he is surrounded by metals. Not to mention his speed at expanding. For our start we have to hand has to scavenge for any metal/horse resources. Not sure if this was intended?

The big plus of a Skirmisher rush is hammers. 25 hammers for a str4 unit with 2 first strikes. Plus a great defender later on. Beats barb units hands down too.

I think I have just got used to doing early rushes. My usual game plan is to grab as much land early on as possible. In this instance I have 2 less Ai to worry about. If a stack of 5-6 units does arrive I won't be that worried. No Ai plotting yet on my game. I think this game needs more units to continue any rush here. 10 turn wait is frustrating. Lack of city development is my main issue now.

 

[Pangaea]

@Gumbolt

Spoiler :

Just in case you misunderstood me, I totally agree early rushes are very good. I simply prefer other parts of the game a bit more than just rushing, so I tend to prefer REXing first and then going to war later. True, that means later finishes and doing poorly from a competitive standpoint -- but I do find it more fun most of the time. On this map, for instance, and as you showed, it can be very effective to rush with Skirmishers.

Such a hunt for strategic resources wasn't intended btw, nor for Julius to get so much land and resources. I simply generated a map, saw the start looked good, and then checked to see if the AIs had a strategic resource and their start and area otherwise looked good. They did, so I didn't make any changes. I mistakenly thought it would be on the easy side, but due to not having easy access to copper or horses, and a bit more tricky access to iron that it looked like in WorldBuilder, the game can be rather tricky. As mentioned in an earlier post, I also didn't give much thought to what AIs were where, so had forgot about Julius and de Gaulle being our neighbours from the start. When those chaps turned up within the first 5 turns in my game, I quite literally went "Oh crap"

Sounds like you are in economic woes, and that is a downside to these early and successful rushes. The recovery can be a real pain, and it's a snag to get to Currency, which will usually get one out of the hole. Hopefully you recover in decent time, and then the map is there for the taking given all the land and cities you gained from the rush.

Speaking of that again, it's kind of what I dislike with these early rushes. The game kind of feels won within 100 turns (or well less), and I like to play a bit further. Maybe I'm too much of a sucker for city building games

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Pangea

Spoiler @ Pangea :

Get your point about trying something different. makes games much more interesting. If we were not playing Mansa this game many would struggle here. Box in from 2 sides.

Economy is not doing that badly. I have just captured the great light house. I also have Mansa sea tiles. I will soon get border pops in most cities and can use scientists. I need to plan my next attack here. Slightly distracted by a Churchill game too.

 

[Turin Turumarth]

Eeked away with a cultural victory (Emperor, 1934 AD) which was a bad decision.

Spoiler :

I just wanted to practice getting culture cuz most of the time I just kill everyone and win that way. Got the oracle and oracled metal casting, traded it for math eventually and chopped out most of the marble wonders except Artemis. Eventually got the chapel and just ran specialists and teched to liberalism then turned my slider up.

Got a particularly late date because Washington started plotting on me the turn before I got the rest of the worlds religion, and lost one of my 3 cities. To make it worse, once I got a force strong enough to retake the city, the AP cheesed me and stopped the war. Had to wait 10 turns to finally retake it, and most of my cultural buildings were destroyed there so I had to move my third location to Kumbi Saleh.

Spoiler :

Also, Stalin got really huge out west and eventually vassalized half the world. Somehow, despite being a land target, he never once declared on me and only actually fought Sitting Bull and Washington. Really lucky there, to be honest I don't know how I won.

Spoiler :

 

[Gumbolt]

You probably want to spoiler any comments that give away game info to those playing Turin.

 

[bdubbs]

Just started up this game, definitely an interesting start

Emp Difficulty, no huts no events, normal speed

T1-10

Spoiler :

Moved warrior onto the hill tile 1 NE, reveals a fish and more coast. Decided to settle 1E to get the extra two lakes. Started worker and ag. Continued exploring around the fish, found a gold tile and wine tile as well as my nearest neighbor, Julius Caeser, who resides very near to the east.

Also revealed some pigs near the calendar resources just to the south on a river which could make for a good cottage city. Ideally I'd like to get the city on the fish and try and own the gold resource in the north, so that's my current short term plan. If Julius settles over there I want to get the pigs in the south.

Question: is it worth the bad relationship with Rome to steal a worker off them? I should be able to steal one off his corn which should also delay his first settler significantly. I'm not sure how much land I have around me but it looks like war with Rome will be inevitable for the sake of expansion, it's just a matter of timing.

GLH seems like it could make some sense here, but considering we have marble and no stone that just feels wrong. The Oracle seems like an obvious choice but I'm not sure what makes the most sense here. I could go for an early alpha and stick to the marble wonders, construction for cats to go to war with Rome is another option if we have copper somewhere. MC for mints and the colossus feels like it has synergy if I manage to grab the gold as well.

If I don't see some metal around I'm leaning towards an early alpha, and aesthetics. I've never actually tried a cultural win before. Going to look around the forum and see if this looks like a situation where that would make sense. A couple quick questions though would be what is a common date for a cultural win, and how big of an empire is needed to generate enough culture. Will get some screens as I go further.