why are Mansa Musa starts so bad?

[Mad]

What the hell happened? The race is unplayable now.

[SlasH]

The start location has got nothing to do with the nation you play, unless you use True Starting Locations

[jmerry82]

Starting biases are a thing; Mali has a desert start bias, for the obvious reason that they get a bonus settling adjacent to desert. Those start locations aren't bad for Mali. Your ideal start location is right on the edge of a desert, so you can get your food and faith (plus later gold on trade routes) but also have tiles worth working.

[mrp8196]

if you want to play Mansa Musa. you must play on the Earth map. Mansa is great with desert , making money but produces slowly

[grognardgary]

If you are a desert bias country, Try to get the wonder that improves desert located in your capital.

[Mehno]

Originally posted by Mad:

What the hell happened? The race is unplayable now.

The "race"? Wtf

[Mad]

Originally posted by Mehno:

Originally posted by Mad:

What the hell happened? The race is unplayable now.

The "race"? Wtf

the funniest part is that I personaly don't even believe in races. It's an old habit when talking about factions in video games dude. Keep breathing.

[Mad]

The starting can vary a lot but it seems to have desert more often. I was unlucky for a while I guess.

[grognardgary]

Originally posted by Mad:

The starting can vary a lot but it seems to have desert more often. I was unlucky for a while I guess.

It is supposed to.

[Shockwave]

Mansa Musa is probably one of the most critical to get a start location that suits Mali's strengths (i.e. desert). One of my most dominant games ever was playing as him with a start which was a massive desert area with lots of hills and rivers and a good coastline, and I managed to get the Desert Folklore belief + Work Ethic for my founded religion so my production, economy and faith generation were absolutely insane.

But most of the time I seem to end up spawning with three desert tiles and a bunch of grassland. :( I usually go random civ and there aren't any civs in the game I actively refuse to play, but Mali is probably the one I least look forward to seeing on the loading screen.