Which one of you sick sadistic freaks wants to play this map?

[urusai]

Okay that was wrong of me and I apologize, you're not all sick. Take a look at what I was dealt with when I loaded up Civ4 last night. This is a custom game, small map with 5 AI, prince difficulty and playing as Mansa Musa. I can't remember what the victory conditions where.. IIRC I think only time victory was turned off. From what I've seen from playing this map, Huayna Capac is just a stone's throw away from me to the NW. No copper or iron accessible except to the extreme SE.



Here's a link to the save: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~fukata/mansa...eyondSwordSave

Could anyone recommend a strategy here? I'm guessing specialist economy in the capital with the abundant food sources. Anyway, enough rambling. Enjoy.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention that random events and barbarians have been turned off. I hate both and think they're the spawn of satan. Yes, I'm weak.

[TriMiro]

I will try this one actually. Mansa is Financial, so with the oasis and the sea you can be first in tech easily. Inca, however, is a problem. You have bronze close by and iron, but Inca would probably beat you to it. You can beeline BW, set the second city next to the bronze (a bad city but will give you bronze) and with Slavery make a quick Axe rush.

Another strategy would be to settle next to the ivory (share come recourses between the capital and the second city) and then beeline Construction. Depending on what Inca does, you might get it fast enough before he gets spearman. War Elephants are good.

Another strategy would be to go for an early religion, with all the food that you have in the capital you will hit the happy cap very early and food would go to waste. You can grow some unhappy citizens and then whip them, but this will give you only so much.

Try building extra cities so that they will share some of the capital's resources. There are too many of them anyways.

In the long run, Oxford University would be very nice in the capital.

[Theben]

You could also try to beeline archery and archer-rush with skimishers. You will likely have some difficulty against his quecha, but you still benefit from extra 1st strikes. If you can get them quickly, you might be able to clear him out.

Otherwise your capital looks to be in an excellent location- plains hill too, by the looks of it. Depending on nearby land you should be able to out-expand anyone.

[trev]

It seems to be a builder style map really, so I would focus on getting a few quick cities, a religion, defend them and many hill squares with your skirmishes to deter attack and race ahead technologically, fight later with more advanced weaponry that does not need the early resources.

[couerdelion]

Horses??

[rah]

Gee most MP games I play look worse than this.

[Blaupanzer]

The site has 6 specials and an oasis and 6 of those 7 tiles provide a benefit from a Fin leader. Except for the small map with neighbors in each other's pockets, this would be the best start I have ever seen.

[mkorin]

It also has hills and woods for hammers. I don't get why you think it's a bad start. Heck, pop a goody hut for a warrior and two warriors will almost always beat the one your close neighbor has and thus you have two cities and the start of an empire. Or archer rush and get him.

Mike

[wodan11]

It's a bad start because he's squozed in. Looks like ice down south, and oasis up north means desert, so he's almost certainly not got much expansion room to the south, if any. Undoubtedly the best option is to beeline BW and then whip a whole buttload of Skirmishers. With Huyana the one up north, it'll be an interesting fight. The good news is with all that food, you could do it. Once accomplished though, the game will probably be a breeze.

[Blaupanzer]

Isn't Huyana the one with the Quecha's, the anti-archer warrior? One could do worse than be locked in initially with such a great site. Be more worried about happiness hassles than anything else.

[Supr49er]

I'm not sadistic, but I am masochistic enough to play this map.

But you got me pegged with the Freak part.

[joncnunn]

Hum I think I'd rather start as Huayna Capac on this map (in his location) and just build several Qs, wait for your city to grow to size 2 and then DoW. Thus being sadistic.


Oh, and I rather do that on the Monarch difficulty level than Prince to get a few promotions fighting animals & so the AI would have archer defenders instead of warior ones.