[GS] Mali Discussion Thread

[ShahJahanII]

Seems like a great idea and one that would be easy to balance if it's too strong/weak. Just add or take away bonuses as necessary with patches.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

This mechanic is extremely situational and currently not very useful at all. The AI would have to stop taking city states as often as they do now for that to be even remotely useful. Based upon the livestreams it seems that they still take them. If there is no serious diplomatic penalty or means to dissuade them, what is the point?

I'm really hoping they give it another look-over as they're basing an entire civ on the mechanic. Right now, yeah, it's not great . . .

 

[darkace77450]

The real damage will be wonders, you won't be able to buy those.

You can't purchase wonders, but you can purchase great engineers that rush production of wonders.

They better get a whole lot of money because buildings are very expensive to purchase. Mali get a 20% discount, but that is still very expensive.

Presumably, their discount will stack with other purchase discounts (the Oracle, Merchant Republic, etc).

 

[Kimiimaro]

I guess? Personally I didn't feel any of that out of Civ V. The animations were nice but I felt like they were the least developed leaders.

A hundred people - a hundred opinions... I felt that Civ V were, with the amounts (I admit it's not much, but they spoke, were able to switch between hate and neutral speech, and had several responds for "yes", "no" and "what do you want") of dialogue they had, much better at subtly presenting the leader's personality than Civ VI's "Hi, I'm Cyrus, I love to scheme and backstab, if you don't do this as well, you are stupid and I, and thus everyone in my empire, will suddenly hate you."

 

[Sostratus]

Gold to production ratio is 6 to 1.

It is 4:1. You previously posted in another thread that you play on epic where costs are inflated 50%. I can assure you, it's 4:1 for purchases. Just remember: warriors cost 40 prod, and are 160 to rush buy on normal speed.

They get -1 on mines, but mines give +4 gold. Given that the general purchasing power in the game is 1 prod = 4 gold, you're really not any worse off for them. Especially once they get their purchasing economy started, then even that ends up being a bonus to them overall.

I think a lot of commentators here are not seeing that their mines do not have an appreciable buff. It's just converting from one to another.

Now, what I like about the civ:
They look good. Mansa himself looks good. They have a unique CH that has some serious potential.

I love how settling a city in the middle of barren desert conveniently gives +6 food, together with the city tile leaves you with 8: just enough to hit 4 pop and put down a CH&HS. Nice.
The UD giving a broad based district buying ability and discounted purchases is really neat. Being able to go CH first in a new city and then not have to worry about Reyna will be really nice.
I really like Mansa's bonus gold to routes.

But...
Gold in game is generated in most places as 2:1 with other resources (3:1 for science and culture.) Look up luxury resource yields to see this.
The CH buildings almost have 2:1. I suspect that they originally planned districts as having +2/3/4 buildings. CH would have been 4/6/8. Then, before release, they decided 1) there wasn't enough science in the game, so they added science to Unis and labs, and increased the base science rate per pop to 0.7; They felt there was too much gold in CHs, so they reduced all the buildings by 1, to 3/5/7.

Okay, what does this have to do with mali? They want to get as much gold as they can. Gold naturally appears 2/1 with other stuff. Purchases are 4:1. CH is less than 2:1. The economic implication is that it is "cheaper" to generate production from terrain than to generate gold from terrain and then buy stuff. Gold can be spent anywhere though, so normally you can think about the fact that gold is found 2:1 as the "flexibility penalty." Mali still has to live with that reality.

Strategy: I think the best use of mali's abilities is cramming a bunch of cities into empty deserts. Get to 4 pop, get you CH and HS down, and you will be set. the cities aren't supposed to do anything other than generate gobs of gold and faith for you.
DO NOT FORGET that the unique CH's bonus with holy sites applies to each holy site: this means we have to dust off our hansa playbook. You can make a diamond of 2 holy sites and 2 CHs and instantly have 5 gold CHs. Not bad for a pair of sandy outposts in the deserts. Use the TRs to get those outposts up to 4 pop then move them somewhere profitable. (If you found in the middle of the desert you're getting +7 gold off the bat anyways.)

So basically you can settle most of the map normally, but really work to cram in desert cities as sort of a "gold and faith farm" you keep in your back pocket. Grandmasters chapel will be huge. Theocracy or merchant republic would be well suited. Big Ben for obvious reasons. Colonial taxes will be a crucial card to try and slot for because that's even more gold from all those mines.

They sort of self cripple because Sahel Merchants only works on international routes.

I don't think Mali are bad, but i do think getting just 70% production towards units and buildings in exchange for paying 80% of purchase price is "a bad deal." I see what they are trying to do but I don't think they were aggressive enough in the gold upside to justify that.

 

[seasnake]

Looked again at the first look and then realized: the penalty doesn't apply to districts, special projects or wonders! That makes a big difference!

 

[Haig]

Cheers, I'd like to know what the Mandekalu cavalry were, were they slaves, nobles, mercenaries or what?

Cant find much info from internet about them

 

[Xandinho]

The real damage will be wonders, you won't be able to buy those.

The exaggerated bonus in gold means that Mali is a civ aimed at domination. You do not have to build wonders when you can conquer them.

 

[djvandyke]

Lots of potential to run a commercial projects and specialist based economy.
I always loved Mali as a civ and this looks so much fun.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't think Mali are bad, but i do think getting just 70% production towards units and buildings in exchange for paying 80% of purchase price is "a bad deal." I see what they are trying to do but I don't think they were aggressive enough in the gold upside to justify that.

There's a point to that--but perhaps the hidden bonus is that as a player, you'll be doubling down on your efforts to efforts to get more and more gold. You're basically going to get a trade route for every city you own. Unless playing as Cree I basically never do that. The production penalty vs gold purchasing trade-off you mention would NOT be a good deal if you were playing as you would any other civ, but hopefully you would be playing them as any other civ and leveraging their strength. You're not going to have four times as much gold as others have production: if you're doing well it should be much more.

 

[Stomper66]

The real damage will be wonders, you won't be able to buy those.

Should be easy enough to secure Earth Godess which synergize well with the rest. Apart from desert having crap appeal...

They only victory type I can see Mali excel at is domination, because they can field and maintain massive armies.

I think the idea will be to get Desert Folklore in the first 10 turns and use then use the faith and gold income to purchase anything you need (buildings, units, districts etc). You will also have enough gold and faith to purchase builders and armies and also to patronage great people. Buying scientists will keep you ahead in the tech tree and you will also have gold to buy artists, writers, musicians and great works and relics from other players. You will only be wanting to build 1 or 2 wonders but bought great engineers will get you these quickly.

I am really impressed by Mali it looks like the kind of civ that I like to play. A desert civ with an emphasis on gold and faith generation. The UU also looks good but its trade unit protection bonus seems a bit pointless. I wish it was something to do with fighting in the desert or in sandstorms.

I also don't really like the look of Mansa Musa or his background. he looks too comical (he looks like a Toy Story Character) and the background looks too simplistic (compare this background to the great Mosque of Djenne artwork in CIv5).

By the way does anyone know if the great Mosque of Djenne will be a wonder?

 

[UWHabs]

It is 4:1. You previously posted in another thread that you play on epic where costs are inflated 50%. I can assure you, it's 4:1 for purchases. Just remember: warriors cost 40 prod, and are 160 to rush buy on normal speed.


I think a lot of commentators here are not seeing that their mines do not have an appreciable buff. It's just converting from one to another.

Now, what I like about the civ:
They look good. Mansa himself looks good. They have a unique CH that has some serious potential.

I love how settling a city in the middle of barren desert conveniently gives +6 food, together with the city tile leaves you with 8: just enough to hit 4 pop and put down a CH&HS. Nice.
The UD giving a broad based district buying ability and discounted purchases is really neat. Being able to go CH first in a new city and then not have to worry about Reyna will be really nice.
I really like Mansa's bonus gold to routes.

But...
Gold in game is generated in most places as 2:1 with other resources (3:1 for science and culture.) Look up luxury resource yields to see this.
The CH buildings almost have 2:1. I suspect that they originally planned districts as having +2/3/4 buildings. CH would have been 4/6/8. Then, before release, they decided 1) there wasn't enough science in the game, so they added science to Unis and labs, and increased the base science rate per pop to 0.7; They felt there was too much gold in CHs, so they reduced all the buildings by 1, to 3/5/7.

Okay, what does this have to do with mali? They want to get as much gold as they can. Gold naturally appears 2/1 with other stuff. Purchases are 4:1. CH is less than 2:1. The economic implication is that it is "cheaper" to generate production from terrain than to generate gold from terrain and then buy stuff. Gold can be spent anywhere though, so normally you can think about the fact that gold is found 2:1 as the "flexibility penalty." Mali still has to live with that reality.

Strategy: I think the best use of mali's abilities is cramming a bunch of cities into empty deserts. Get to 4 pop, get you CH and HS down, and you will be set. the cities aren't supposed to do anything other than generate gobs of gold and faith for you.
DO NOT FORGET that the unique CH's bonus with holy sites applies to each holy site: this means we have to dust off our hansa playbook. You can make a diamond of 2 holy sites and 2 CHs and instantly have 5 gold CHs. Not bad for a pair of sandy outposts in the deserts. Use the TRs to get those outposts up to 4 pop then move them somewhere profitable. (If you found in the middle of the desert you're getting +7 gold off the bat anyways.)

So basically you can settle most of the map normally, but really work to cram in desert cities as sort of a "gold and faith farm" you keep in your back pocket. Grandmasters chapel will be huge. Theocracy or merchant republic would be well suited. Big Ben for obvious reasons. Colonial taxes will be a crucial card to try and slot for because that's even more gold from all those mines.

They sort of self cripple because Sahel Merchants only works on international routes.

I don't think Mali are bad, but i do think getting just 70% production towards units and buildings in exchange for paying 80% of purchase price is "a bad deal." I see what they are trying to do but I don't think they were aggressive enough in the gold upside to justify that.

Yes, it will be very interesting to see how much they play out. I would agree it feels like the balance isn't that big, but also, I know right now I tend to buy an awful lot of things even at that 4:1 rate, since that rate applied globally and production has to be local. It's a lot easier to generate a lot of gold in one part of your empire and use that to buy monuments and builders elsewhere. And especially when combined with either Theocracy for faith buying or Democracy for gold buying, You're getting some pretty big discounts. Running the religion game will probably be their biggest edge - once they get to Theocracy, if they can get a religion and choose the -30% apostle cost, they would actually now be buying apostles for almost 1/3 of the base cost (20% from CH, 15% Theocracy, 30% religious bonus = 65% discount), so they're going to be able to spam the world with apostles like a mofo. Whether they last to that point, and whether that actually does anything, we still don't know. The same bonus applies to builders/Settlers during a monumentality golden age.

They'll also have a tough choice during golden ages, too. Honestly, if I'm playing as them, I almost feel that the best strategy for them is try to do Dark->Heroic right off the bat. I know against the AI on higher difficulty levels, the first era ends fast, so I could definitely see myself not getting that commerce hub down in the first era all the time. Grabbing that heroic age could be just what they need to springboard to the lead, and especially with them likely wanting both Monumentality and Free Inquiry for the medieval period. Get both of them, and now you have brutally cheap settlers/builders, and all your high-adjacency commerce hubs are now giving you the science that you need as well.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Kinda sad that the Mandekalu Cavalry was my favorite UU in Civ 5 and now it is back but total garbage in Civ 6. +1 bonus strength and generating gold on kills in late Medieval when you probably will be generating massive amount of gold already.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

Yes, it will be very interesting to see how much they play out. I would agree it feels like the balance isn't that big, but also, I know right now I tend to buy an awful lot of things even at that 4:1 rate, since that rate applied globally and production has to be local. It's a lot easier to generate a lot of gold in one part of your empire and use that to buy monuments and builders elsewhere. And especially when combined with either Theocracy for faith buying or Democracy for gold buying, You're getting some pretty big discounts. Running the religion game will probably be their biggest edge - once they get to Theocracy, if they can get a religion and choose the -30% apostle cost, they would actually now be buying apostles for almost 1/3 of the base cost (20% from CH, 15% Theocracy, 30% religious bonus = 65% discount), so they're going to be able to spam the world with apostles like a mofo. Whether they last to that point, and whether that actually does anything, we still don't know. The same bonus applies to builders/Settlers during a monumentality golden age.

They'll also have a tough choice during golden ages, too. Honestly, if I'm playing as them, I almost feel that the best strategy for them is try to do Dark->Heroic right off the bat. I know against the AI on higher difficulty levels, the first era ends fast, so I could definitely see myself not getting that commerce hub down in the first era all the time. Grabbing that heroic age could be just what they need to springboard to the lead, and especially with them likely wanting both Monumentality and Free Inquiry for the medieval period. Get both of them, and now you have brutally cheap settlers/builders, and all your high-adjacency commerce hubs are now giving you the science that you need as well.

Good points. I also think Religious victory is their strongest based upon what we see so far. We don't have all the details for Diplomatic victory yet.

Going Dark to Heroic might actually work well in a strange way. You get an instant trade route for the trouble.

One thing I sort of been playing with idea wise, is if you can hit 3-4 golden ages, can those trade routes gained from that be the best way to cover that 30% production penalty? You might need an encampment and/or industrial zone then send each route out to a key 3-4 cities that are your best producers of units or whatever you need (projects, wonders, the odd unit or few). If you have a Commercial Hub in each city and lets say you have 6 cities, then your international routes will have 6 routes out, and you can have 3-4 internal.

One thing I don't like about this civ is that I do not always want to use the builder production card, or the unit ones. With these guys if you cannot buy all the units and settlers are very expensive, these cards are mandatory.

This civ is funky. Gonna take some experimentation to see if that nasty penalty can be minimized.

 

[Furycrab]

More or less this.

I'm also concerned by the fact how the leaders' characters changed from Civ V to Civ VI. How they often become way too simplified and flanderized just to fit their agenda. We've gone from Ashurbanipal, a greatly modeled and voiced leader that felt like a strong man and conqueror (I love him being literally enraged in times of war), from Darius, a powerful monarch ruling the most powerful realm in the world, who is well aware of this fact (his shock by him being attacked is great - it just doesn't make sense for him that anybody would dare to attack the glorious and powerful Achaemenid Empire), from playful Theodora that ceases to play and becomes serious and cold to you when in war, to likes of Genghis Khan who doesn't forget to mention his horde or cavarly in almost every cutscene, to Cyrus the Great, who was reduced from a very well respected leader to a mere untrustworthy backstab-loving enemy of Tomyris, to Philip II the dramatic sword-waving maniac (while being historically known as "the Prudent"), and so big religious fanatic that he doesn't forget to mention his faith whenever he has opportunity.

Pedro II is the saddest example of this, turning from this respectable, old, tired man, who was still determined to work to ensure the best for his people and country, to a red-nosed jerk who keeps whining about great people all the time.

I'll admit the reminders aren't that cool, but the general gameplay idea behind them is pretty good. Spain hates civs with Rival religions and when you look at his bonuses, these are the Civs a real player would likely conquer to win or treat as real rivals to win. I think that's more important in terms of behavior from an AI opponent, than a Spanish AI that is more "prudent" but will never properly play to the strength of it's given bonuses.

 

[pgm123]

I'll admit the reminders aren't that cool, but the general gameplay idea behind them is pretty good. Spain hates civs with Rival religions and when you look at his bonuses, these are the Civs a real player would likely conquer to win or treat as real rivals to win. I think that's more important in terms of behavior from an AI opponent, than a Spanish AI that is more "prudent" but will never properly play to the strength of it's given bonuses.

From an immersion experience, I also get annoyed when I get reminded about the hidden agenda when I don't have the visibility to see it.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I'll have to try them out, but Mali doesn't look that strong.
Early game could be slow until you get your first UDs, but extra food on the city tile frees up some citizens for production tiles and faith from turn 1 will give you first pick of the Pantheon beliefs.
Building wonders could be a bit of a problem. Guess I'll need internal trade routes and a few forest cities with lumbermills for that.

 

[bbbt]

I know. Mansa Musa is the only leader who makes sense to have that agenda, so I'm happy they gave it to him.

I'm sort of disappointed they didn't go with something referencing his philanthropy (i.e. likes leaders who contribute to gold emergencies as someone suggested).

 

[Tiger Genocide]

Potato has weighed in on Mali:

 

[WillowBrook]

I like the asymmetry. I'm sure I'll have fun playing him, but not first. I want to get used to the new mechanics before playing a civ like Mali or Maori. Overall, an excellent addition, IMO.

Of course Mansa's may be backwards. He should want to go after people with large sums of gold, not small sums.

I see it more like he thinks, hey they have a lot of money, let's trade. And if they're poor: they're managing their empire poorly, I'd better take over and show how it's done.