[GS] Hypothetical Mali Build Orders for Diety Pangea

[MarigoldRan]

Settle next to desert and plains hills (shouldn't be difficult with your desert bias). Get +4-6 faith, and +4-6 food automatically in City centre. Get Pantheon of the Forge (+25% military production) to cancel out Mali's production malus.

Builder first. Get Mining.

Build 3 Mines. Work them (as you'll have the food to do it).

Then: slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger slinger, slinger, slinger.

Beeline archery.

Upgrade slingers to archers with your insane amounts of gold.

Win!

I foresee Mali having an insane archer rush, second only to Nubia simply because of the sheer number of slingers you can upgrade as Mali.

 

[UWHabs]

You can upgrade a lot, sure, but even with the pantheon you're still building them slower than a regular civ. And if you want to archer rush, you're only building 2, maybe 3 of them before researching Archery. After that, they're not really in any better place than anyone else at handling that rush, and likely worse due to production penalties still.

So really, I don't see them as being a big threat for that rush. Now, where they might shine is in the swordsman rush. Their biggest advantage there is that since iron is often found in the desert, they get an edge in likely having it available to mine. They also have the advantage in that they can settle closer to the iron without worrying as much about horsehockey desert terrain. For example, a Mali city with a couple desert hills can still grow its first few pop points faster than anyone else in the same boat.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

All talk and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

When you settle on desert, you cannot expect a lot of plain hills. Desert hill only have 1 production , even with mine it is 1p4g

Mali -51% production malus work on your initial builder, so takes double time to build, maybe 20+ turns in normal speed.

After you build a builder that -51% still works, so building each slinger takes 6~8 turn, with God or Forge may be 4~6 turn per slinger, still pretty slow. Also you settle on desert so not many high-prod tiles.

When you build 8 slingers it is already T60+, your opponents are walled with horseman and swordsman, maybe knights. All you have is 8 archers. I don't feel 8 archers can take walled cities with 40+ defense. Normally for other Civs it is only T40 when you build 8 archers so maybe not facing walled cities, or walled cities with <30 defense which is easy to take.

In GS walls provide 100 outer defense. One shoot will lower maybe 2 defense since it is a 8 vs 48 combat (36(horseman)+3(wall)+2(one district)+3(palace)+4(difficulty)=48), not consider situations with 2 or more districts, Victor, or hill defense (sum up to be ~60 at most).

So in a turn you will lower your enemy by 16 defense, takes 7 turns. How can 8 15-defense archers stand under a 40+ defense city with horseman for 7 turns!

 

[kb27787]

8 slingers? While archers are great slingers are absolutely horrendous units which die in 2 hits from anything and cannot really group their fire.

Best hope that deity AI does not show up at your door with 8 warriors while archery is unfinished. I would probably beeline archery first, then get mining. That said 8 non-pitati archers are not sufficient to kill deity AI in my exp.

 

[MarigoldRan]

All talk and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

When you settle on desert, you cannot expect a lot of plain hills. Desert hill only have 1 production , even with mine it is 1p4g

Mali -51% production malus work on your initial builder, so takes double time to build, maybe 20+ turns in normal speed.

After you build a builder that -51% still works, so building each slinger takes 6~8 turn, with God or Forge may be 4~6 turn per slinger, still pretty slow. Also you settle on desert so not many high-prod tiles.

When you build 8 slingers it is already T60+, your opponents are walled with horseman and swordsman, maybe knights. All you have is 8 archers. I don't feel 8 archers can take walled cities with 40+ defense. Normally for other Civs it is only T40 when you build 8 archers so maybe not facing walled cities, or walled cities with <30 defense which is easy to take.

In GS walls provide 100 outer defense. One shoot will lower maybe 2 defense since it is a 8 vs 48 combat (36(horseman)+3(wall)+2(one district)+3(palace)+4(difficulty)=48), not consider situations with 2 or more districts, Victor, or hill defense (sum up to be ~60 at most).

So in a turn you will lower your enemy by 16 defense, takes 7 turns. How can 8 15-defense archers stand under a 40+ defense city with horseman for 7 turns!

Applies to you, too, as you have not played Mali either. -51% production malus? Pfffft. The developers themselves say it's a -30% malus. You're accusing me of not having played Mali and here you are espousing an unconfirmed rumor. What a hypocrite.

Moderator Action: Please address the issues in the post, not the poster. Name calling is trolling. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

On a more productive note, I ran 5 games with Nubia Pangea/Large to see the likelihood of mineable resources and plains hills next to desert tiles. It's not 100% but it's pretty reliable like 4 out of 5 had start locations next to 2-3 desert tiles and hills or resources nearby to mine.

Alright, numbers: On Epic, each slinger is 50 production. With Mali and Forge (which mostly cancels each other out) we're looking at 53 production slingers, which means that a Mali city working 4 tiles (which they can get to very very quickly)- forests or hills- (7-9 production) can generate a slinger every 6-8 turns pre Agoge. That's 5-6 slingers (and builder) by turn 60 on epic. If your land happens to be unusually good, you can stop at 4 and rush buy a second builder with your money and still have money to upgrade.

For those of you who think slingers can't fight off early warrior rushes, that's because you didn't get enough of them. They do massive amounts of chip damage in large numbers and the fact that they take 2 hits to kill means that after the first hit you can rotate them out and then sending a fresh one. With slingers you can consistently chip away at enemy health, leaving less enemy health by which to attack your city. I've held off lots of early rushes with slingers, without too much trouble. They're excellent early game units once you can mass them especially with the new AI algorithms which encourage them to ignore the slingers and suicide on your city. .

 

[Aurelesk]

With God of the Forge (+25%), it's 40 Production (50 ÷ 1.25)
With Mali's malus (-30%) it's 57 Production (40 ÷ 0.70).
You end up with a -12,5% Production, basicly 1/8 less than normal.

I don't know how Lady of the Reeds and Marshes will work in Gathering Storm, but if you have a bias towards Desert and Rivers, you will end with some Oasis and Floodplains. Isn't that kind of Production better?

You will have more Growth with the bonus Food from the start, meaning you will have more Population that will work more tiles, so more Production tiles. You may end up by having Slinger quicker than others... if you have good tiles to use.

I don't play on Deity, but is researching 'Foreign Trade' Civic early for the Trader is a good idea for Mali? You will get gold quicker to buy stuff but:

• You will not have the Production cards toward the Slingers
• Barbarian can plunder the Trader

Same question about beelining towards Currency for the Suguba. You will need 25 + 50 × 0,6 (if you meet someone) + 120 × 0,7 (if you make a Trade route) = 139 Science. But, I hope, the Suguba only need half production and you could buy the Market with Faith right after completion to enjoy the new Trader more quickly.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'd propose the following order

Warrior (you need to defend yourself) => Settler => then a few warriors and a builder => Another settler => more warriors and a few archers. Buy the Monument if you can afford it, maybe a scout as well.
Research Animal Husbandry => Archery => Mining => Horseback Riding => Pottery => Writing => Currency => Astrology before anything else.
Develop Foreign Trade => Crafstmanship => Early Empire. You will need Ilkum, Agoge and Colonization unlocked asap.
GB the Trade Route as soon as it unlocks and switch prod to a Suguba as soon as it unlocks. Send the trader to a City State. GB your workers and build pastures and quarries to offset the production penalty. Settling in the desert should give you enough Faith to FB the Market once the Capital finishes the Suguba, buy the second trader, repeat for other cities. Spend your early Governor titles on Reina first. (build the Gov Plaza for a cheap free title)

Getting your Econ up asap will be super important and starting in the desert gives you a small advantage (nobody bothers with it, so your start is often isolated). Mali is not an easy Civ to play as, I'd imagine. You need to conscieously think about what you spend your money on and what you don't spend it on and time isn't on your side. Spend your gold on cheap units, traders and city centre buildings.

 

[MarigoldRan]

With God of the Forge (+25%), it's 40 Production (50 ÷ 1.25)
With Mali's malus (-30%) it's 57 Production (40 ÷ 0.70).
You end up with a -12,5% Production, basicly 1/8 less than normal.

I don't know how Lady of the Reeds and Marshes will work in Gathering Storm, but if you have a bias towards Desert and Rivers, you will end with some Oasis and Floodplains. Isn't that kind of Production better?

You will have more Growth with the bonus Food from the start, meaning you will have more Population that will work more tiles, so more Production tiles. You may end up by having Slinger quicker than others... if you have good tiles to use.

I don't play on Deity, but is researching 'Foreign Trade' Civic early for the Trader is a good idea for Mali? You will get gold quicker to buy stuff but:

• You will not have the Production cards toward the Slingers
• Barbarian can plunder the Trader

Same question about beelining towards Currency for the Suguba. You will need 25 + 50 × 0,6 (if you meet someone) + 120 × 0,7 (if you make a Trade route) = 139 Science. But, I hope, the Suguba only need half production and you could buy the Market with Faith right after completion to enjoy the new Trader more quickly.

You may not have time as you'll need the gold and the production for slingers.

How do the percentages stack? Does the Mali malus hit before or AFTER the God of the Forge buff or do they just cancel out for a flat -5%?

 

[Sostratus]

-51% production malus?

I think Lily is referring to a possible bug where sometimes a penalty of the same type that people suspect mali's unit penalty will be coded as, is applied twice. .7^2 = .49% original production, or -51%.
We don't know yet but there was a thread recently about it. I certainly hope it will just linearly add in with other % modifiers so that running a build card or something puts you into workable territory. (Going from .7->1.2 slotting a unit build card is an 85% improvement.)

I think the play is going to be settle on/next to desert, take Desert folklore; a backup could be for city patron goddess, so crappy cities can rush the suguba faster. (You may want to save 2 traders to send domestic routes from new desert outposts because they will have no production)
get some cities in fertile areas up, like you would any other civ,
rush the Suguba and apprenticeship so mines actually give hammers.
then having a second settler wave where you basically pack as many cities into deserts as possible.
These cities you just build suguba+Holy site in in a nice cluster like you would a Hansa/CH. You should be getting AT LEAST 5 gold adj on each suguba in barren desert, up to 6 faith on each HS. If you can find a desert Natural wonder, all the better.
Either gun for reyna or Moksha's purchase abilities straightaway.
Spam trade routes to other civs.*
Pivot into mandekalu rush if there is an opening.
Profit.
*What you really want to do is get a desert city that can also build a harbor so you can get sea route bonus for 2x gold. Also vital to get those railroads down ASAP. Zimbabwe may be a great wonder with the right setup (half desert half plains city, etc.)

Religion options: feed the world could be a half decent pick to get cities stuck n barren desert up to 7 pop (they will get 8 food, 2 from city+6 from bonus, but FtW gives another 6) so they can put down a third district.
Tithe or church property can also work if you're sending missionaries on those trade routes.

Ideal empire: strong core of normal cities, ton of desert outposts around the world. Foreign continent deserts means colonial taxes. YUGE. The outposts are basically gold/faith farm. You have to remember to use both resources in tandem since they can generate so much faith too!!

 

[MarigoldRan]

On Diety you need early production, so I would definitely go Forge. If you can survive to Classical, you'll definitely have enough Faith from your city centers alone that anything else is Overkill.

On the other hand, if you feel like you're safe, go Harvest and aim for Classical or Medieval Golden Era and win with Settler spam from Monumentality. The fact that Mali will get first Pantheon pick is HUGE because it gives them flexibility. You're pretty much guaranteed one of the top 3 (Earth, Harvest, or Forge).

Mali comes down to Pantheon play. The BIG decision is: harvest, earth, or forge as each has a different playstyle.

Desert Pantheon is too slow on Diety, especially with Mali's production malus.

 

[Brentonator]

I think you guys are trying too hard to make Mali something they're not. These strategies that work well for other civs simply won't work for the Mali. There's a reason they have a production penalty. If you're trying to shove them in the box of a typical deity civ, just play another civ instead. For example, what good is god of the harvest/earth goddess if (presumably) you'll be starting in a desert and have large incentives to continuously settle more desert? I have a feeling you're just going to want to go desert folklore in 80% of your games, maybe if you start near monty/alex you'll be forced to go forge. I'm imagining small 4 pop cities with triangle of CH, holy site, and city center will be your bread and butter. Can either work specialist slots or whatever luxuries/mines are around. All that gold and faith will make for a monster midgame where you can build grand master's chapel and just steamroll. So in my opinion, you probably want to go purely defensive at the start, not even worrying too much about great prophets because 1. you can just buy it with your insane faith gen and 2. i feel you won't even really need a religion to get good use out of your insane faith economy. Get your economy up and running and overwhelm the AI with units in the midgame instead of trying for an archer rush or something like that.

Of course I could be entirely wrong in my analysis, but again I just wouldn't bother picking Mali if you're going to try and play them like any other civ.

 

[Sostratus]

Desert Pantheon is too slow on Diety, especially with Mali's production malus.

I guess it depends on the map start- would imagine for a lot of starts that Desert would beat out harvest and Earth given that you will actually build holy sites - and there's not much to chop out there.

I'm imagining small 4 pop cities with triangle of CH, holy site, and city center will be your bread and butter.

Exactly my speculation. It's just so profitable- assuming you run the adj cards, a nice expanse of empty desert can support 3 cities say, all 3 tiles apart.
You could guaranteed build 3 sugubas, at 5,5 and 8 base adj, and 3 holy sites at hopefully 7 each (at 6 from desert pantheon, 1 via adjacent Sugubas.)
Okay, so, gold-wise, that's 36 gold from the districts alone with the card, and 18 faith from cities plus 21 from holysites (42 if folklore counts with the card- i don't recall.) Each city, if surrounded by desert, probably has at least 5 flat desert tiles (city center should count for this.) That's another 15 gold from the traders plus whatever the base yields are. All you did was settle in absolutely marginal garbage terrain no one wanted, moved Reyna/Moksha around and bought some districts.

Buildings would add another 24 base gold for market/bank and 18 faith for shrine/temple, +50% with cards thanks to adjacency. And these cities cost 1 amenity each. Completely free with zoo coverage.
Pulling in 50+ gold and 60+ faith from three little outposts is insane. I guess getting that magnus promotion for no-pop settlers will be handy.

You don't need to found a religion, but I think at least having one somehow will be useful since many beliefs boost holy sites somehow, and you'll be making lots of those.

These strategies that work well for other civs simply won't work for the Mali

Unfortunately i think certain things are just so strong that you almost always want to do it. Mali will still really want to chop and harvest, rush early units, warmonger, etc.

 

[MarigoldRan]

But the point is that going purely defensive requires at least 4 slingers on Deity.

 

[MrRadar]

I think you’re right about going mining first and builder first. But then switching to slingers would be like trying to headbutt a brick wall. Why insist on doing what Mali is so apparently the worst at? You want to avoid building units as Mali as much as possible, it’s getting gold infrastructure ASAP is what you want. Ideally you want only to build districts before anything else.

And why waste a pantheon on something which will only mildly mitigate a major drawback and only in the first two eras, instead of picking something that will be increasingly useful from the get go throughout the whole game and also go in hand with one of Mali’s advantages? Nearby river, mountains, oasis or coast would be very good reasons to pick Earth goddess I think.

So the first builder would net you two mines and maybe a farm, if on a river and no oasis nearby. Couple of silver or diamond mines would be a dream. Second build probably settler, unless there are more mining/production and farming potential for a second builder. By the time they complete, the first mines would let you to buy some units strictly for defence. I believe you don’t want go scouting as Mali very much at the start and keep your starting warrior very close. Probably it’s better not to meet a neighbour before your first expand.

I don’t think one city archer rushes could happen or would be wise to attempt with Mali, you’d lose too much momentum and stall or be horserushed instead.

 

[MarigoldRan]

The thing is that on Diety you often don't have a choice. Get archers or die.

Major point: Mali's production bonus doesn't mean a thing if you can mass earlier era units and upgrade. Building archers with Mali is a pain. But building slingers and upgrading to archers is fine.

 

[Equilin]

The thing is that on Diety you often don't have a choice. Get archers or die.

Major point: Mali's production bonus doesn't mean a thing if you can mass earlier era units and upgrade. Building archers with Mali is a pain. But building slingers and upgrading to archers is fine.

What about buying slingers/archers to fill the time gap (and put hammers in districts)? Would that be better or do you think buying builders/saving gold for settlers would be better? I haven't done numbers btw.

 

[kb27787]

I think you’re right about going mining first and builder first. But then switching to slingers would be like trying to headbutt a brick wall. Why insist on doing what Mali is so apparently the worst at? You want to avoid building units as Mali as much as possible, it’s getting gold infrastructure ASAP is what you want. Ideally you want only to build districts before anything else.

And why waste a pantheon on something which will only mildly mitigate a major drawback and only in the first two eras, instead of picking something that will be increasingly useful from the get go throughout the whole game and also go in hand with one of Mali’s advantages? Nearby river, mountains, oasis or coast would be very good reasons to pick Earth goddess I think.

So the first builder would net you two mines and maybe a farm, if on a river and no oasis nearby. Couple of silver or diamond mines would be a dream. Second build probably settler, unless there are more mining/production and farming potential for a second builder. By the time they complete, the first mines would let you to buy some units strictly for defence. I believe you don’t want go scouting as Mali very much at the start and keep your starting warrior very close. Probably it’s better not to meet a neighbour before your first expand.

I don’t think one city archer rushes could happen or would be wise to attempt with Mali, you’d lose too much momentum and stall or be horserushed instead.

Pretty much agree here... Builder first is ok if you have gifts to give AI... (horses or mining/animal luxury) settle on lux if possible. Beeline tech neccessary for gift.

Then when you meet the first AI (avoid scouting as much as possible) send delegation and free gift afterwards... Get friendship with neighbors ASAP then play normally.

Prior to a certain patch I found that this works well... But when they made AI be absolute jerks (will commit to attacking regardless of relationship modifiers and will refuse friendship offer once they give the command to march their troops) this no longer is valid. Hence my prediction is that possibly this civ is going to have a terrible, terrible time on deity.

Id rather build most of my archers as straight full fledged archers rather than slingers though... Simply because by that time you have agoge.

 

[MarigoldRan]

With Goddess of the Forge, Mali is fine. However, you won't be able to afford that first settler as the malus hurts it badly and Forge doesn't' help with that. Hence the slinger into archer build, because it plays into Mali's early Pantheon choice and their gold bias.

You need to mitigate that drawback as Mali on Deity or you die and never get the benefit of whatever other Pantheon you got.