Adventure Two: Mansa Musa Humbled


One thing that's generally a given in Civ4 is that once all the land on the map has been filled, tension increases between the civs. It doesn't always lead to war, as many of the AI civs have peaceful personalities, but once the more aggressive civs run out of land, they become much more likely to declare war on someone. I was the weakest civ militarily, and thus the most likely to get attacked - except that I had already made friends with Mao and Caesar. Therefore, when Mao decided to rough someone up, it turned out that I was not the target:

The date for this was 1330AD, literally one turn after the picture I snapped on the last page. (That message is also displayed backwards, by the way; Mao declared war and then Mansa Musa swapped to Vassalage in response to that.) See, this is why building all those missionaries is not a waste of shields. I was toast if Mao came after me, but he decided to bully Mansa Musa instead. My friend is going to beat up one of the game's Financial civs? Be-you-ti-ful!

I receive word in 1350 that Mao has already captured the Malinese city of Awdaghost. Impressive work, big guy! Just to help out China further, I trade Mao Divine Right for Engineering and 100g - although that probably didn't have too much of an effect on the war, to be honest. (Again, the "useless" tech of Divine Right got me 2 others in tech trades. Any monopoly tech is worth grabbing if the AI civs don't have it!)

I knew it was only a matter of time before this happened:

Yes, Mao wants the assistance of the "mighty" Asteskimos in his war against Mansa Musa. I'm sure that my longbows and Jags were extremely intimidating! But it would be a totally phony war, so I accepted the offer and declared war on Mali too. As it turns out, Mansa Musa would send exactly ONE unit after me in the whole course of the conflict, a single crossbow. I attacked it with a longbow, lost, and finished it off with another longbow. And that was that. I can only imagine that the fighting was a little more intense down on the front lines.

Discover Education in 1420 and begin work on Liberalism. No one else had Education yet, so it was all but a foregone conclusion that I would get there first.

It was a no brainer to take Economics and the free Great Merchant, who I sent towards Victoria for a trade mission. Research headed next into Gunpowder just to be safe, before going for the top of the tech tree and heading towards Democracy.

Also of note in 1480: Caesar declares war on Mansa Musa too! I bet that Mao asked him to help out in the war. Now there's a full-fledged Buddhist coalition working together to bring about the destruction of Mali. Here's a shot of the diplomatic matrix showing the alliances:

There are three blocs that have formed to this point in time in the game. First of all, Mao and Caesar and my Azteskimos form one group (which I have placed in the green boxes), based on our shared Buddhist faith and trade relations. Secondly, Alex and Saladin form another bloc (in the red boxes) over in the east, based around Judaism. The final group (in yellow) is the less-certain alliance of Victoria and Mansa Musa. They each have different religions (Hinduism for Vicky, Daoism for Mansa Musa) but have largely been good friends to this point throughout the game. My relations have slowly been warming up with Victoria, however, and she gets along with Caesar, so there perhaps is hope for warmer relations with the English down the road. The two eastern civs are strictly isolationist and do not get along with anyone else.

As for Mansa Musa? Well he's in trouble militarily. A lot of trouble. The Financial civs are very strong if left alone, but when they come under aggression they often fold like a house of cards. There was no chance that Mali could stand up to the combined attack of Rome and China, and the war results would soon reflect that reality.

I generate another Great Prophet (my 4th) in 1490, saving him for now. Then I get this newsflash in 1500: VICTORIA declares war on Mansa Musa! She's throwing her former ally under the bus and joining in on the winning side to pick the bones of the Malinese civ. Diplomatically, Victoria has now moved out of her camp with Mansa Musa and towards my Buddhist alliance, opening up the potential for strong future relations. Very, very interesting. (Pretty slick of the AI to see which way the wind is blowing and make the change like that, don't you think?) As for Mansa Musa, he's dead now, facing an assault from all three of his neighbors. It just remains for the drama to be played out.

Here's the map of my civ from 1500:

I'm in the midst of a round of library/university construction at the moment, having recently acquired Education. Bantu is working on the Forbidden Palace, Etruscan is out of sight to the south of Tlatelolco. Researching at a break-even rate at 90% science and really tearing it up technologically (look how fast the bar is moving on Gunpowder!) Economically I can support more cities, but there's no room to put them. I will squeeze in another city between Bantu and Tlaxcala, and another to the east of Tlatelolco, but that's all I will get. Saladin will claim everything to the east of Calix, which I could have had if I pushed there faster. I expect some of our other players will do better there and grab some more land in the east.

And the demographics from the same date. The big stats are the one I have circled; despite the tundra start, I am actually #2 in population! That just goes to show how the AI doesn't do nearly as good of a job of growing its cities as a human can. Most important, however, is my complete dominance of the GDP stat. My commerce is amazing! #1 by an overwhelming margin - the next closest civ barely has HALF of my commerce! In everything else I am doing poorly; last in land (although that's not entirely accurate because water tiles don't get counted in that) and last in soldiers. In other words, still running a huge bluff here; TONS of commerce, but my territory is only lightly defended. With cities scattered all over the lake, it would be a logistical nightmare moving soldiers around anyway. I hate to leave myself vulnerable like this, but I HAVE TO push infrastructure now, or I won't be able to keep up in the tech race later. If I build enough units to be safe, I will lose my tech lead. Therefore, I have to keep hoping that the other civs stay in wars, slow each other down, and largely leave me alone. Aside from the early war with Caesar, so far so good.

On the war front with Mali, I continue to do nothing while my AI partners carve up Mansa Musa's empire. Vicky takes a city in 1505, Mao grabs another one in 1525:

That message is a bit misleading; Mao took the city the last turn, lost it and then took it back on this turn. The end result is that Walata was razed. As for me, I was squeezing another city into the open space near Etruscan:

Xochicalco is actually on a sea and not a freshwater lake, which is of course bad since I can't ever bring irrigation over there. Due to the strange geography, it was basically completely safe from attack unless Etruscan fell, since it was highly unlikely that the AI would build ships on such a tiny sea. This is also a good shot of what I took to calling the Southeast Corner; these cities that I managed to get down near the center of the map. Etruscan built a bunch of cultural buildings before anything else; that's why it's building a monastery here, to win the cultural battle with its neighbors. I would be concentrating a lot on the SE Corner in the turns ahead.

Discover Nationalism in 1540, start work on Taj Mahal in Tenochtitlan. Mansa Musa loses another city in 1545, the same turn I finished the Forbidden Palace (didn't really help all that much, to be honest). My Great Merchant traveling through English territory comes across some interesting travelers:

Hey, where are those Prophets going? My Merchant waved hello to Akiva and Patrick and continued on his way.

Victoria's land around her starting position was almost disgustingly fertile:

Corn, ivory, bananas, and TWO gems? Sheesh. Why couldn't we have had THAT start?! I guess it wouldn't have been an "Extreme Adventure" in that case. In any case, the gold was a nice boost and helped fund deficit research for years more to come.

I sell Caesar Calendar in 1565 for 410g, and now I'm officially rich, over 2000g in the bank. (Seriously though - Caesar didn't have Calendar?! What is he doing?) Discover Constitution in 1575 (still beelining for Democracy) and adopt Representation! Perfect civic for my situation here. Mao continued to beat on Mansa Musa, taking two of his cities in 1605 (ouch!) I wanted him to rough up the Financial guy, but now I may have a runaway Mao on my hands! Mansa Musa folding faster than a house of cards now; he finally did get peace with Caesar, but Mao and Vicky still roughing him up.

I get a Great Scientist in Tenochtitlan in 1620. Since I already had a Prophet sitting around, it was an easy call of what to do with them next:

Golden age - and when combined with the Taj Mahal, I will get a double golden age. I swear, I'm not trying to repeat my moves from Epic One here! (Everyone will think that I only have one predictable set of moves here, hehe.) Still, it's a nice trick, and I will take a double golden age any time I can get one.

Trip my Golden Age, and on the next turn - OH MY GOD!

This is one of my favorite pictures that I have ever taken in Civ4. That stack is not coming for me, by the way. Neither is the other giant stack - this is only HALF the forces Caesar is moving through my lands. He's actually moving to take out a barb city way on the other side of the map. But this shot shows oh so well why I needed to get Caesar into my alliance in this game. THIS is why you build all those crappy missionaries and send them to convert the AI cities. For this reason. You see all those men walking by? They would never stop to harm their Buddhist brothers in faith. Have I mentioned again that I love this screenshot?

I discover Democracy in 1630, and conveniently Tenochtitlan finishes Taj Mahal the next turn:

14 more turns of Golden Age production, I love it. Start work on Statue of Liberty (and now I was glad that I had settled that nasty spot earlier to make sure that I had a source of copper). 22 turns even with copper in a golden age - wow, that is one expensive wonder. With my tech lead though, no one else had much of a chance to build the wonder, and I planned to keep it that way by trading away nothing on the Democracy path.

Mao razes the Malinese capital in 1655!

Mansa Musa has been completely eviscerated. He did manage to get peace with Vicky at this point, but Mao was now on the rampage and tearing through everything in sight. Another city burned down in 1665, now Mansa Musa down to only 3 left. So much for the widespread perception of "the AI civs won't attack each other." Well, in this game they turned on and devoured another civ without any prompting from me whatsoever! Yeah, I'm still at war with Mansa Musa. He can't touch me, and the continued war gives me good relations with Mao. I finally got him to Friendly, removing any chance of a war declaration. Whew. Glad he's on MY side!

Finish Rifling in 1685, finally start Astronomy. It will obsolete my Colossus of course, but I need to get started on observatories before any more time passes. Many, many units upgraded to rifles, giving me some real defense capable of stopping an invasion for the first time in ages. Caesar somehow gets his hands on Chemistry, allowing me to make this trade:

Nationalism was a relatively recent tech, but everyone else already had Philosophy, so this was another steal for me. I also decided to break my Liberalism monopoly at this point and sold it around for almost 2000g, which helped paid for the upgrades. Ah, the advantages of being AHEAD in the tech race instead of being behind. What a contrast from having to play catchup the whole game in Epic One versus a runaway Washington.

My civ was at its peak of productivity in 1700AD, one turn before I discover Astronomy (obsoleting my Colossus) and my golden age ends. Here's the big picture:

Tlacopan is a relatively recent addition, added in order to plug space in the west. The land there was slim pickings, but just good enough to support a city. The only spot I wanted that I didn't get was the Arabian city you see in the top right corner; there was good land there, and I just missed out on it. A lot of these builds are about to finish next turn and observatories get started; there are also some longer-term builds going on (Statue in Tenochtitlan, Oxford in Tlatelolco). Overall, looking good.

Here are my Golden Age/Colossus-boosted finances:

Now the one question remains, how far will the drop be on the following turn when these both wear off? The answer wasn't going to be pretty, but I had no choice. Click next turn and grit my teeth while awaiting the outcome:

Well not TOO bad, although going from 727 beakers to 518 was indeed a sharp fall. I actually thought it would be worse though. 5 different cities start observatories in an attempt to make up the lost ground. Even without the Colossus, I was still #1 in GDP, if not by as large of a margin. Technologically, I still had a decent lead too:

Mao is the only one who has a tech that I lack (Scientific Method) while I am up about 3-4 or more techs on everyone else. No one else has Rifling, which is a big relief. And have I mentioned how much I love the fact that the F4 screen now displays the gold that each civ has as well? What a fantastic addition in the 1.52 patch! Whoever coded that, thanks a lot, it's a huge help while playing!

I've lost my Colossus crutch now, and unfortunately my cities are largely starting to max out in population while the AI civs still have a long way to go. Unlike Epic One, time does NOT favor me here, and I'm only going to get weaker and weaker as the game progresses unless I conquer a significant amount of land. It's basically a race to see if I can preserve this tech lead long enough to win by space before a sleeping giant like Victoria really gets the ball rolling. In other words, I'm doing well here, but there's still a ton of work to be done ahead!

At least Mansa Musa has been effectively knocked out of the game though. I bet THAT doesn't happen in every game!