Ronald's report - Epic Eight - Mali

[Griselda]

Ronald's report RB-epic8 part 1

I got the Mali start file.



I have not played a Mali game before and I am looking forward to doing so.
Mansa is always doing really well on the research front, so I hope I can do
that as well.
Spiriual and financial are quite powerful.
There is one oddity: I have 2 warriors
The only aspect of the file I don't like is the actual starting position.
Since I can see ice in the North, it must be very close to the upper edge. I
really want to move my settler.
So I move my settler onto the goodie hut and get a map:



There is a powerful starting position (red dot) with wheat, cow, ivory and 2
wines. It takes 3 turns to get there, but I think it is worth it.
So I settle there in 3880 BC, set production to a worker and science to BW.



I had incredible good luck with goodie huts. The first popped BW, so I
switched my research to agriculture, the second popped masonry.
I made quickly contact with Elizabeth and when my borders of Timbuktu
expanded, I saw a yellow border in the South. Fortunately it is friendly
Hatty and not Julius.



My luck with goodie huts continued: The next gave me agriculture, so I
changed research to AH
The next civ I met was Saladin, the Mao and Julius.
After completing my worker I improved the cow tile and then chopped a
settler. The settler is going for blue dot, another beautiful city site with
fish, cow and corn. It also will prevent Hatty to settle North.
Research was set to pottery.



After pottery, writing was next. Timbuktu produced a handful of warriors to
protect the city from barbs in the North, then production was set to a
granary and a library.
Research was set to mysticism - medidation - priesthood - CoL Yes, I am
going for the CS slingshot again. There are no real good city sites close
by, so I rather let the AI build cities and conquer them later.
In 850 BC I finally build the Oracle and set my research to Alphabeth.
The reast untill 0 AD was uneventful.
I made contact with the remaining AIs: Roosevelt and Tokugawa
I settler my third city in the relativ best spot NW of Timbuktu, then saw a
one tile island with fish. When I moved a galley and a settler closer, I saw
a larger island (the island turned out to be part of the landmass near
Rome).
So I settled Gao there and conquered the barb city next to it.
I also capured a nice barb fisihing village way up north. Hatty settled 2
mediocre towns north of Timbuktu.





Now I prepare for my first war. The victim will be Hatty, I really want
Thebes and Elephantine.
In 95 AD I declare war on Hatty and open two fronts:

One for Elephantine


and One for Thebes



Goal was to take these two cities and then file for peace. They will greatly
improve my empire. The final blow for Egypt should come as soon as I have
macemen.
Elephantine fell immediatly, Thebes took longer then expected, but in 245
AD, Thebes was conquered and I filed for peace the next turn.






Ronald's report epic 8 part 2

I decided not to wait untill maces and take down Hatty before. First city to
fall: Memphis



Next will be Heliopolis


Then Alexandria and finally her 3 cities in the North:



On the research side, I was first to liberalism, took nationalism as my free
tech and started to research military tradition to get to cavalrie.
Timbuktu started to build the Tal Mahal for my Golden Age.
I was way ahead in research. This was surprising since usually I can't get
that far away on monarch difficulty.
With my golden age, I upgraded all war elephants to Cavalrie and my veteran
swordsmen to macemen and prepared for the next war. This time against
Saladin:

First city to fall Was Damaskus and now my troops are on its way to Baghdad:



This war was extremely easy. Not much trouble at all. In 1274 Arabia is
destroyed



Since that was so easy, repeat with England, same outcome, last city to fall
was Hastings



Well, actually the reat of the game was more of the same: Destroyed China,
took all of Tokugawas cities on the main continent, took halve of Rome for
domination in 1568 with one of my highest scores I got so far: 121817
I researched to assembly line, upgraded some macemen to infantry with city
raider 3 + 10% strength, but they never saw the frontline.

Here a picture about the last part of the game:



and final victory



A very enjoyable game. I'm looking forward to comare notes with my fellow
Malinese and how the other civs did. Great game concept.