Nobles' Club 285: Mansa Musa of Mali

[AcaMetis]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Mansa Musa of Mali, whom we last played in NC 262. The Mali start with Mining and The Wheel.

• Traits: Mansa Musa is Financial and Spiritual. Financial adds +1 to any tile that already produces at least 2. Spiritual allows you to swap state religion/civics without suffering Anarchy, and gives a +100% bonus to all Temples.
  
• The The Mint, a Forge with +10%. A very nice bonus to have when using Binary Research - running your science slider at either 100% or 0% as much as possible to avoid losing beakers and/or gold to rounding errors - because you'll actually spend an appreciable amount of turns at 0% slider, thus getting the most out of the bonus of the Mint.
  
• The UU: The Skirmisher, an Archer with 4 and 1-2 First Strikes instead of just one. A straight upgrade for the cheapest, most consistently accessible early defensive units. In absence of any metals these guys will offer the next best protection you're going to get short of convincing Sitting Bull to spare you some of his ridiculously highly promoted units.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Fractal, Temperate climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

A few resource swaps and unworkable fish swaps. Also raised a very small island from the ocean floor to allow one AI earlier access to a small offshore island

Spoiler isolated? :

Not isolated.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 285 Mansa Musa Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

Spoiler what is demigod :

The difference between Immortal and Deity difficulty is akin to the difference between Noble and Immortal. Players eventually reached a point where Immortal was too easy, but Deity was still out of reach, and so neither difficulty provided a fun experience. "Demigod" is an otherwise standard Deity game where the AIs are only given their Immortal level starting units, in an attempt to bridge the gap.

Spoiler for players on Monarch or above :

You should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[AcaMetis]

Tricky. Moving 1NW means saving a forest and settling a PH, but that's moving away from good food tiles towards tundra. Not enticing. Could go 1SE/2E1S to move towards what look like floodplains and saving a forest, but that's moving away from marble and a green Cow. Could move 1 SW into greener pastures, keeping the Cow and saving a forest, but that's a lot of mystery tiles that the Warrior isn't in position to scout. Not that you'd move away from much worth mentioning, mainly BFC marble and barring an Oracle play I don't think that'll matter much. Needs Masonry to hook up, too. Or, of course, just SIP for a T0 settle and enough river tiles to drown a herd (school?) of seals.

Not sure what the best move is in this instance. What do the experts think ?

 

[civac]

On the silk should give you two more commerce per turn. Otherwise the plains hill and later transferring the Palace could also work maybe.

Just a note, binary research makes almost no difference for the Mint.

 

[krikav]

Moving away from the cow is a bummer, very nice tile and riverside too.
But 2E looks rather nice, 5 floodplains is an okay amount of food and the PH settle is nice.
It would also get the sheep in capital culture T51 and it's possible that settlement of a city on the silver at that point could be good.

Then we have the possibility of 1S, that would get abit more green, and it would mean a 3C city center due to financial. Not as exciting as a 2H city center but still nice.

Moving with the settler NW would keep the cow and get a PH settlement, and in that case you could perhaps move the warrior NW, and then NW again on T1 since settelment on the marble T1 is still an option w/o losing a turn.

 

[krikav]

Mansa starts with mining/TW and is financial. And in most possible capital placements there is a 3F1C tile.

There is a real possibility that going BW first while growing to pop2, starting a worker at pop2 and then swapping to slavery and whipping it to completion works out nicely.
Any PH settlement would likely cause slow-building of worker to be faster though...?

For this to work on deity I think you need to settle on the silk though?

I might go that route just because it's not a very common opportunity.
On silk -> grow to pop2 // Tech BW -> put hammers into worker -> swap to slavery+whip worker -> chop chop chop!

 

[AcaMetis]

Just a note, binary research makes almost no difference for the Mint.

Very little does, but at least it's something.

But 2E looks rather nice, 5 floodplains is an okay amount of food and the PH settle is nice.

That gets you an awful lot of brown tiles, though. Floodplains are nice, but I'm not sure if they're nice in exchange for more green tiles.

 

[krikav]

In some sense, 5 floodplains and then just deserts are better than 21 green tiles.

 

[AcaMetis]

Hmm...early on, sure, but later not so much. Could always move your palace, I suppose, but if I can get a good capital going T0 (or T1, whichever) I'd take it over getting a late start and having to build a Palace somewhere else later.

 

[Fippy]

NW still keeps many good tiles including 2 floodplains, also claims hidden tiles with a chance of something good.
Easy decision imo.

 

[Nick723]

I would go NW - also BFC silver is worth quite a bit to me alongside other considerations. If other food out there could settle marble T1

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

I'd say move warrior NW for the off-chance of deer, and barring that settle 1S on the silk. Gets the 3C city centre, keeps the cow, avoids one of the unhealth from 5 floodplains, and keeps the marble spot open for a quick settle if an oracle play makes sense.

 

[soundjata]

Sorry but SIP gives what I call a perfect capitol (21/21 river tiles) ; I can not move away from such a late game beauty

On a more sensible note, I think settling south (eg SOSilk) is dangerous, compared to settling slightly north, as the latter eliminates one barb vector of approach (from the north) and will make the game easier in terms of fogbusting.

Thinking about quitting my job to play the Mansa game

 

[sampsa]

I would ditch 10 riverside plains in a heartbeat for +1 cc. Having 10 or 20 river tiles in a capital matters very little, unless they are all green.

 

[jnebbe]

How about SIP so you get traderoutes from both rivers

 

[sampsa]

How about SIP so you get traderoutes from both rivers

I think also 1NW gets them (the SIP-tile connects the rivers), but not sure.

 

[Jellybug]

remember to turn on your culture slider at Plastics

 

[jnebbe]

demigod to T79

Spoiler :

settled 2E, BW->Agri->pottery->hunting->AH->archery->writing->aesthetics->mystic->meditation->fishing
Fin+one billion river tiles to work means commerce shouldn't be a problem at all so I went for the PH production bonus.









2nd city, in hindsight I absolutely hate this as a 2nd city, I'd much rather settle the cow instead, it offers basically nothing besides a trade route short term, no forests, no slowbuilding warriors, etc




Its absolutely embarrassing how slow this start was. Really underestimated how slowly I'd grow just working FPs (notice that cottage which could've been another farm)




T62, not an ideal date for your 3rd city. FP city is about to whip another settler, should've been done ages ago but I had to waste a pop to get a skirmisher out.




Aesthetics almost done, forgot I needed meditation for Shwedagon, I figured I'd need to trade away aesthetics pretty early to keep up after the slow start and wanted to start FG asap




Really slow oracle time, I considered doing some oracling MC sillyness but figured there's no way I'd get there in time without SIP

Joao's about to settle the crabs and prevent me from squeezing in another city by the deer. I'd love to do something about that but I have no copper/horses/ivory





Economy is great even without working gold+silver but I'm already getting a bit boxed in. North city just whipped a settler and I think I'll send him 2W of cows or something for all that tasty grassland.
Should be able to grab the 2 east spots, that would only be 7 cities, just have to hope bella doesn't expand too fast.

Not sure about this, didn't play very well but still should be in an ok spot due to mansa+a lot of good land left to grab.

 

[soundjata]

Deity save T52

Spoiler :

Sampsa is always right and we resorted to SOSilk, which leads to many disadvantages:

a. unperfect capital due to a non river tile south of the cow and
b. can't select the capital bar and can't see the city size (currently Timbuktu is size 10 though) when resources are shown...

Spoiler :

Tech path Agri > Hunting > AH > archery (safety first!) > BW > fishing > pottery.

(questionable) Production mode was : grow to size 4 building 2 mines then slowbuild settler #1, chop skirmisher #2 upon reach size 5 then whip worker #2 into settler #2.

The map seems shaped like a pangea curled around a giant central lake, which is a nice variation of inland sea (less claustrophobic).

Obvious path forward is forgo settling more cities (no obvious spot) and go Skirmipult(TM) Isabella.

 

[Rusten]

I think settling on the silk is better than PH. 3C center is a big deal when you don't start with hunting or agriculture and don't have a grain resource. This open land will face a lot of barbarians so earlier archery (skirmishers) helps too.
It also moves towards the center of the map to claim land, which can be very helpful (at least on deity).

I'd probably settle on silk --> use the first 5 turns to scout for grain, and if there is no obvious city location then skip agri for later [hunting-AH-BW/archery]. River mines and chopping rather than farm and whip before granaries. Farming floods take too much time anyway.

 

[soundjata]

OMG won't you believe it! (T53)

Spoiler :

Lucky spread

Good think I noticed the "isabella will open border" signal last turn, RNG gods are on my side