Advice for Playing Malakim?

[Pudding]

I played Malakim for the first time today and had a bit of a shock as I watched the lovely riverside grassland I'd settled next to turn into a mass of floodplains that instantly made my city sick. I'm guessing the area within the cultural boundaries slowly turns to desert because the change seemed to come as the borders expanded, but the Civelopedia didn't have anything on it. This took me by surprise because if this happens automatically, why give Scorch to the workers?

So, that said, anyone who plays Malakim have suggestions on how to do them well? I'm not sure what to do if all my plots will eventually be turned to desert, other than rake in huge amounts of Commerce with the caravan routes. As nice as that is, how do I produce hammers, or food without getting sick?

 

[Azhral]

!?

Floodplains are way better than Grassland, especially for Malakim. Make sure you settle next to Fresh Water for early health bonus, collect as many resources as you can and build appropriate health buildings. Only real problem I've had with Floodplain Unhealthiness is when I managed to build a city not next to fresh water with only floodplains in its BFC.

 

[Valkrionn]

I played Malakim for the first time today and had a bit of a shock as I watched the lovely riverside grassland I'd settled next to turn into a mass of floodplains that instantly made my city sick. I'm guessing the area within the cultural boundaries slowly turns to desert because the change seemed to come as the borders expanded, but the Civelopedia didn't have anything on it. This took me by surprise because if this happens automatically, why give Scorch to the workers?

So, that said, anyone who plays Malakim have suggestions on how to do them well? I'm not sure what to do if all my plots will eventually be turned to desert, other than rake in huge amounts of Commerce with the caravan routes. As nice as that is, how do I produce hammers, or food without getting sick?

If you mouse over the civ in the pedia (or the flag in game), you'll see Climateform: Arid. Means that they autoterraform their empire; The worker having scorch is a holdover from before that code existed and is gone next version (as well as the worker itself).

If you notice, the Malakim also get better yields for Oases (which your Arcane units can create, roughly one per city (5 tiles between themselves; Can only ever have one in a BFC)), and less unhealth (half) from Flood Plains. Unless your BFC is completely covered in Flood Plains, you shouldn't be sick honestly.

As for how to play them... TRADE. Check their Merchant civ trait; Food and Hammers from trade routes. Make use of it.

Stay in the desert; All your units get bonuses while in desert. Your Shadow UU (Dervish) is awesome, and can be very powerful.

Build Bedouin Sits everywhere you can. They end up able to support themselves and a bit, plus providing plenty of commerce.

Hammers you will be short on. That's how I designed them, honestly. Plenty of food and commerce (particularly commerce), short on hammers. Encourages trade.

Next version, you won't have any roads at all in desert. They trade over it as though it was ocean.

 

[Pudding]

I was, actually, almost completely surrounded by rivers; one big one went straight through the entire city radius, and then turned, so a total of ten or so plots were flood plains. Being not aware of the auto-terraform, I assumed this was a good idea. Thanks for the tips, I'll go back and not suck a bit.

 

[Pudding]

Forgive the double post, but I figured it's less littering than a new thread on basically the same topic. Are scrubs supposed to be removed when you build something in the tile? I ask because mine were not, creating some remarkably productive tiles. And am I supposed to be able to build cottages on flood plains?

 

[Valkrionn]

Forgive the double post, but I figured it's less littering than a new thread on basically the same topic. Are scrubs supposed to be removed when you build something in the tile? I ask because mine were not, creating some remarkably productive tiles. And am I supposed to be able to build cottages on flood plains?

Scrubs are not meant to be removed, and cottages are allowed on Flood Plains. Bedouin Sits are not.

 

[lordrune]

You'll get a nice treat if you can find the Mirror of Heaven.

 

[Valkrionn]

Yes... Either a hero, or stronger disciple units. Either way, nothing but a good thing.

 

[Trappisto]

Is council of Esus considered best match relegion for Malikim?

Thanks.

 

[isthmus]

I think empyrean is meant to be the most synergising and lore-correct religion to have as the malakim. If you're playing as Varn Gosam then you ought to be concentrating on disciple units, and CoE doesn't have any of them so i wouldn't recommend that.
The religious shrine gives sun mana which adds to the one you already have - always helpful to have your adepts start out with sun 1 to scorch everywhere, and the empyrean hero has an extra vote in the overcouncil as well. Combine this with the extra vote you get in with the civ hero and you'll dominate the overcouncil, although the set of resolutions might need some work.

 

[Valkrionn]

Malakim should go Empyrean. The emphasis on sun mana is great, particularly if you get their UU Shadow, the Dervish (which does not require Esus), as he has Sun Affinity.

 

[Ghostslayer]

Emp should be the final religion, and you *must* have Dies. But Malakims can gain from any religion and I frequently switch between religions.
The different temples (with incence and religion) provide all the happiness that the large Malakim cities need.
And different religions can provide useful units.

A special mention to FoL. Despite the lack of leaves in the desert, I always search and convert to FoL. The main reason is that disciples can be upgraded to Rangers (and beastmasters) and it provides so powerful recons with at start a large experience and mobility, sentry, strong, medic1 and march (peeked by the disciple and otherwise forbidden to recons). Also a priest of leaves, with an adept with water 1 and sun 1, can cover your desert with scrubs. Last, temples of the leaves are good for your health!

Also AV and order are useful as they allow you to change your alignment and to build *all* the national disciples units (eidolons, druids and paladins). RoK and Emp priests make great druids. For paladins and eidolons, I generally prefer to upgrade OO or AV priests.
OO is also useful to make powerful stygians by upgrading zealots, and they are frequently the core of my army (these stygians are much more powerful and useful than a champion, their strenght is similar, but they have for free water walking and march and all the disciple benefits).
AV savants can be upgraded to mages at level 4, and you get this way a mage with medic1 (and potency, mobility, sentry and, with enough altars, almost the experience to be an Archmage). But medic1 is not the most useful promotion for a mage and I frequently only upgrade lightbringers...
And RoK, with their soldiers of Kilmorph, is also useful to dig dwarven mines in flood plains!

In one word, any religion is worth but Esus!!!

 

[isthmus]

Emp should be the final religion, and you *must* have Dies. But Malakims can gain from any religion and I frequently switch between religions.
The different temples (with incence and religion) provide all the happiness that the large Malakim cities need.
And different religions can provide useful units.

A special mention to FoL. Despite the lack of leaves in the desert, I always search and convert to FoL. The main reason is that disciples can be upgraded to Rangers (and beastmasters) and it provides so powerful recons with at start a large experience and mobility, sentry, strong, medic1 and march (peeked by the disciple and otherwise forbidden to recons). Also a priest of leaves, with an adept with water 1 and sun 1, can cover your desert with scrubs. Last, temples of the leaves are good for your health!

Never thought of this one, that's quite a handy recon strategy. Although you can't get the lovely dervish UU (replaces shadow) from that line since rangers can't upgrade to shadows.

Also AV and order are useful as they allow you to change your alignment and to build *all* the national disciples units (eidolons, druids and paladins). RoK and Emp priests make great druids. For paladins and eidolons, I generally prefer to upgrade OO or AV priests.
OO is also useful to make powerful stygians by upgrading zealots, and they are frequently the core of my army (these stygians are much more powerful and useful than a champion, their strenght is similar, but they have for free water walking and march and all the disciple benefits).
AV savants can be upgraded to mages at level 4, and you get this way a mage with medic1 (and potency, mobility, sentry and, with enough altars, almost the experience to be an Archmage). But medic1 is not the most useful promotion for a mage and I frequently only upgrade lightbringers...
And RoK, with their soldiers of Kilmorph, is also useful to dig dwarven mines in flood plains!

In one word, any religion is worth but Esus!!!

AV is good to spread but I'd advise against switching to it, since you can't build the altar then. Also, if hell terrain's in the game, you'll get a lot of burning sands and that causes horrible, horrible video memory failures from all that flames. The mage combo is pretty sweet though.
I personally prefer the Order for the Malakim however. Crusaders are disciple units. This means that with order you can get very high XP slightly-better-than champion units straight off the bat if you've got a few levels of the altar, the UB pagan temple and even better if you've got the strong promotion from the mirror of heaven event. Plus Sphener is a kick-ass hero. Think this is a bit better than OO in some ways in that you don't have to upgrade the 1st tier disciple unit to get the same power units.
OO has other things going for them though.
Run theocracy if you only have one religion (the happy boost is reduced if you have non state religions in the city) to really boost your disciples with the free zeolotry promotion, and it allows unlimited priests for more altar levels.

Edit: Also, would it make sense for druids, eidolons and paladins to all share the same national limit, or abandon on alignment change?
This is quite an exploit (sure, requires a bit of effort to set up) and I can't really see lorewise why eidolons would be fighting side by side with paladins. Will be even easier to have these units all coexisting in Broader Alignments as well, or at least two sets if you hover between neutral and good/evil boundary.

 

[Evalis]

I thought the malakim only got a food bonus from the merchant trait. If it's been changed, the civilopedia deserves an update.

 

[Valkrionn]

I thought the malakim only got a food bonus from the merchant trait. If it's been changed, the civilopedia deserves an update.

Just food. +30% from trade.