Nobles' Club 360: 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 285. 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 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 strategic resource swaps.

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 360 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]

Barring a Warrior move revealing something that'll change my mind, I think I'd just SIP here. A 33 FIN Oasis to work in first ring is yes please thank you very much, and I don't really feel like moving away from those floodplains and/or the wet corn in any event. That said, where to move the Warrior? I'm thinking 1SE to check out the area south of the river? There might be something there that makes moving the settler 2SE worthwhile. Loses some floodplains, but also gets a few others, and if there's another good resource down there it might make a better capitol spot.

What do the experts think?

 

[antimony]

I think 1E might be worth it but I'd move the warrior NE to check. Losing one FP but gaining the river health to offset FPs plus an unknown number of additional cottages on other side.

 

[Nick723]

I would probably settle 1E. Kills a flood plain but overall likely a stronger capital.

 

[soundjata]

Settle 1S => fastest level 2...

 

[ZPV]

I want to SIP here.
It's fresh water anyway, so river doesn't matter until Steam Power.
We also start with The Wheel so trade routes don't rely on the river.
Lastly, I probably want a city on that desert hill, and moving east stops you from doing that.

 

[antimony]

Settle 1S => fastest level 2...

Settle on wet corn is the new settle on gold.

 

[Tecumseh1]

Close between SIP and 1E for me. SIP gives few more forests and allows good 2nd city on dessert hill to share corn. 1E loses a floodplain which isn't necessarily a bad thing as it's 2 vs 3 unhealthiness (0.4 per fp and rounds up iirc) I'm liking 1E here. Agri->AH->BW I think. Prob slow building 1st settler at size 2. Great techs, great building, great unit, favorite trait (spiritual). Mansa just has everything. If you can't beat him, join him!

 

[AcaMetis]

(0.4 per fp and rounds up iirc)

I believe it actually floors, I.E 2 floodplains gives 0.8 -> 0. Though in this case I don't think it matters, looking at the starting screenshot I'm pretty sure that both SIP and 1E end up with six floodplains in the BFC (given that 1E loses the floodplain it settles on). 2E1N of settler as well as 2E of warrior initial positions look like more floodplains.

 

[tlhingan]

Settle on wet corn is the new settle on gold.

1S of the settler is the plains cow, I think. Does settling on that retain +1 hammer, with on the corn +1 food?
(And having just tried it myself, no it does not.)

 

[AcaMetis]

The base value of a plains cow tile is only 21, so no bonus for settling a city on that (well, technically the cows will be auto-connected when you research Animal Husbandry, but I don't think that's worth giving up a potential 33 tile ). To get a bonus the base value - meaning minus terrain features like Floodplains or Forests, which get removed when a city is settled on them - must be at least 3, 2 or 2.

 

[tlhingan]

The base value of a plains cow tile is only 21, so no bonus for settling a city on that (well, technically the cows will be auto-connected when you research Animal Husbandry, but I don't think that's worth giving up a potential 33 tile ). To get a bonus the base value - meaning minus terrain features like Floodplains or Forests, which get removed when a city is settled on them - must be at least 3, 2 or 2.

Thank you for the fuller explanation. I knew corn and sugar retained one extra food, but this will make me guess less often.

 

[sampsa]

SIP, reasons given by ZPV.

 

[chinemol]

played IMM up to T100

Spoiler :

SIP, forward settled quite a lot. fogbusted quite well for a change. self teched the usual plus sailing. stayed at 4 cities in order to reach aest, traded for alpha. settled the idle settlers, limped to get trades for monarchy and mono. budhism was late in coming, made me sweat. gonna give a shot at GLH, but otherwise looks like a chill map looking forward

although, maybe detour to metal casting?

 

[Krugi]

Emperor T104

Spoiler :

Settled 1E, which allowed for more seaboard cities in the west, which I'm fine with (this game will probably last to big fleets). Scouting could have been better (orphaned fish at Djenne; the Gao location is unfortunate). Teched Agri->AH->BW->Pottery->Writing->Fishing->Alpha->Maths, traded Alpha and assorted techs for IW, Sailing, Hunting, Archery, Myst, Medi, Poly. Louis has longbows already and Ragnar/Huayna have Construction, but I have the highest crop yield (good sign) and population (less useful) in demos and will soon 2-pop whip my unhappiness into cats. Plan is to conquer Willem's four cities and Sakae with swords/cats (he's not doing well at tech or soldiers), grab Currency and trade for Monarchy, after which both horizontal and vertical expansion should be secure.

 

[Krugi]

Emperor T151

Spoiler :

Attacked Willem with 8 swords, 4 chariots and 7 cats; this proved enough to capture his core (and the barb city) and settle the very decent Awlil. Converted to Buddhism when Huayna demanded it; the whole continent is Buddhist. Most civs are in WFYABTA, but Hannibal, whom I have just discovered (ahead in score, and probably the runaway/end boss of this game if there is any) still trades with me and I got Aesthetics and MC for Civil Service. Partially bulbed Education, I think I'll be first to Liberalism but will have to take Nat, not MilTrad. Want to build Taj and cuir stomp the continent before Ragnar gets Rifling (I doubt Huayna will get there), probably ~1200-1300 AD (good thing this is only Emperor). No contact with Monty yet (I traded for Hannibal's map), which is probably for the better. Intended to failgold MoM but it refuses to fall, so I'll likely get it myself, which wouldn't be bad, either.

 

[chinemol]

Spoiler :

not so chill a victory after all.... 1804 diplo,
replaying after a foolish path. went for the upgrade cab archers into cuirs wich got me to get a late date army, having beaten me to lib, ragnar of course beelined rifling and traded it arround.
replayed going straight for cuirs, whiping cities to size 3-4 and killed him. still was enough to reach cavs by the time I killed him.
went for willem who had rifles. lost a lot, but capped him after 3 cities.
went for louis who didn't have rifling. he got it the turn I invaded. took 2 cities and a peace treaty. went back with arty some turns after. capped him.
monty had declared at some point in the past and had taken an island city I could recover. went for revenge and took a city from him. again, bad attack. this time did a ceasefire and took more troops to his continent. hanni was plotting, ahead and with a defence pact with huayna, luckily I was the AP resident and declared holy war on monty. capped him that very turn and ended hanni plotting. they signed their pact once more.
got the diplo victory anyway befor going to throw raw number against them, hanni was already going for space

 

[Krugi]

Emperor T221

Spoiler :

Taj + 3 GP from Pacifism + MoM allowed for 36 turns of Golden Age. Here's my cuir stack on the cusp of war with Huayna. He didn't have a lot of muskets, but enough garrisons for his small size that I had to delay and heal at Cuzco. Willem also declared war on me, so most of the cuirs I produced afterwards went towards the Dutch border, effectually further prolonging the war (but at least it removed Rotterdam's annoying culture from Utrecht's vital fp farms). I used the GA to beeline Rifling; the cuir date was pretty bad, I figured I'd need cavalry and perhaps (drafted) rifles to subjugate Ragnar.
The stack against the Norse. Most of this was upgraded from cuirs. Ragnar did indeed get to rifles a few turns into the war, but he didn't have enough of them to challenge my stack. The war took ten turns. I had to vassalize his last remnant, a one-tile island in the middle of the ocean, because I had no ocean-going ships. I took Astro from Ragnar in the peace deal, at least. Hannibal and Monty both declared on me in short order, but Hanny never showed any units despite having galleons and Monty only landed a medieval stack, half of it cats, at Huamanga (he only had galleys and caravels). Five hastily-drafted rifles and three leftover muskets neutered the intervention.

I hope I can get Domination without attacking Hannibal (who reached the Industrial Age before me, but probably on some do-nothing tech like SciMeth), but that might require attacking Louis, who is Friendly with me. (He still doesn't have rifles, but probably will before I can build enough galleons for the attack. Neither does Montezuma, who doesn't even have Paper yet.) Steel -> Railroad -> Combustion is the tech plan to beeline a navy that can contest Hannibal's if needed. I'm quite sure I'm going to win this game, but it will require a last bit of "effort" whipping galleons asap. If Hanny doesn't sign peace and actually lands a stack while I'm busy fighting overseas, it might even yet get a bit hairy.

Lol at the barb island SW of France and how long it took Louis to found Tours. I could probably have settled there first for an excellent launch pod. Ah well.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

T5 or so :

Spoiler :

Do you go settler first or do you build a second worker ?
If so, at what size do you fit it in and what's the best tech path to do so ?

I'd want a second worker before settler. I'm not quite sure about the rest.

 

[antimony]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

My choice was Agri-AH-BW. I improved wet corn, plains cow (important hammers to produce some fogbusters) then dry corn while growing to size 4, then built settler. I think because the FIN oasis is close in power to an improved tile on T0, having only one worker from size 1 to 4 isn't so bad.