[GS] Lack of Desert in Mali Start

[Victoria]

Enjoy playing with a 30% production handicap. Deserts enable Mali to grow pop quickly to offset this (somewhat). Hope it's not Deity!

It was Deity, Robert the Bruce killed me in T22.

 

[NukeAJS]

Even with Canada's Tundra bonuses, they're really quite underwhelming. I mean, it's kind of suitable for Canada to be the civ that just stays in the tundra and kind of just, sits there doing nothing. But the more I look at them, I feel they could be a competitor to Tamar as the worst civ. It definitely feels like they need something else - even if you gave them +1 culture on tundra tiles, I don't even think that would bring them up to middle of the pack.

I'm in complete agreement. The only thing Canada has going for it is not having to spend faith to get national parks. But how many national parks do you really build? The most I've ever built is 5 but I more typically build one or two. So, Canada saved me 3,400 faith (2 national parks) at the cost of 800 production or 3,200 gold ...

Oh Canada ...

I mean, why would I ever want to settle a tundra city when I don't have to? Sure ... occasionally you get that magical tundra city with 3 fish, 2 deer, and 4 tundra hills but that's the exception and not the rule.

Canada is bottom tier, easily. It's harder to think of a civ worse than them actually. It's a real shame because I see potential in their general design but it's like the devs decided to get super-cautious with Canada just to make up for their wonton assortment of amazing bonuses given to the other GS civs.

 

[Onii-chan]

I'm in complete agreement. The only thing Canada has going for it is not having to spend faith to get national parks. But how many national parks do you really build? The most I've ever built is 5 but I more typically build one or two. So, Canada saved me 3,400 faith (2 national parks) at the cost of 800 production or 3,200 gold ...

Oh Canada ...

I mean, why would I ever want to settle a tundra city when I don't have to? Sure ... occasionally you get that magical tundra city with 3 fish, 2 deer, and 4 tundra hills but that's the exception and not the rule.

Canada is bottom tier, easily. It's harder to think of a civ worse than them actually. It's a real shame because I see potential in their general design but it's like the devs decided to get super-cautious with Canada just to make up for their wonton assortment of amazing bonuses given to the other GS civs.

As someone that just finished my Canada game earlier today, I'll say that Hockey Rinks are actually quite good since you can get max yields from them very easily, and the diplomatic favor bonuses are not bad if you're going for a diplomatic victory. As a whole however... Canada sucks. There's no way getting around the fact that most of their bonuses are pointless because of how bad tundra bias is. Maybe if they made it so that their tundra farms also got +1 food on them so that they'd effectively be the same as grasslands yield-wise then it'd be okay, but as is they really don't have much going for them

Now Mali in comparison, while having a rough early game due to the very low production, at least they will get plenty of food and faith from the desert adjacency bonus (assuming you actually get a desert start, which as OP mentioned doesn't seem guaranteed), and with Pingala's +science/culture from citizens bonuses you'll double your early game yields for those two resources thanks to your early high population capital which will go a long way towards rushing Sugubas and probably Petra right thereafter. If you can get a Golden Age by the turn of the Classical Era then you're in great shape. You get a trade route for free and also you can pick the Monumentality dedication to just gold/faith buy all the settlers and builders and traders you need for a while. Hell you can do the same for the Medieval Era probably, and once you're that far into the game you'll be swimming in money. So yeah Mali's only weakness is getting rushed by the AI in the Ancient Era really, otherwise they're very strong. Canada on the other hand have terrible terrain bias and their only useful bonuses come into play by like the Industrial Era or later, which is so late into the game they will rarely be much of a game-changer. So yeah I'd personally argue it might be the weakest civ in the game. Although if you manage to just ally and befriend the whole map all game like I did then you can get a relatively quick diplomatic victory all things considered (had not finished either the tech or civic tree by the time I got it)

 

[Sostratus]

You get a trade route for free and also you can pick the Monumentality dedication to just gold/faith buy all the settlers and builders and traders you need for a while. Hell you can do the same for the Medieval Era probably, and once you're that far into the game you'll be swimming in money.

I'm a suguba power user so maybe my perspective is different, but I feel like Golden Age Free Inquiry can be competitive with monumentality. It's really not hard to get 5-8 base adj on a suguba right away.
EDIT: I realize it kind of locks down Reyna from roaming to rush buy districts; but even with 3 cities you can easily get a trio of sugubas pushing 5/5/16 (more if you have a river) gold+science right at the start of classical. A handful of cities can double or triple your science rate, nice to rush mandekalu with.

Maybe if they made it so that their tundra farms also got +1 food on them

If they had +1 food from all tundra tiles they would be rockin'. Like it would make them a perfectly balanced tundra civ, much more so than Russian tundra, because they can't build farms.
The big issue is obviously early farms don't cut it (2 food is useless,) and double tundra strategics only matters when you get to fuel type resources later - but extra iron is meaningless when your crappy cities aren't productive enough to build that many swords in the first place. Like I settle a few tundra cities to scoop up extra oil as regular civs; being able to support a half dozen additional armies/armadas, or actually being able to afford an oil plant, is a huge bonus. Does coal/ uranium even spawn in tundra?

 

[King of Prussia]

I just wanted to say that my first game in GS was with mali. It took 3 starts to get a desert start. I did try one without a desert start, and found it was unimpressive. The capital was just too slow at producing stuff, and the growth wasn't impressive. I want to play a TSL as them.

 

[Furycrab]

I've rolled about 10 Mali games and only 2 have given me sufficient desert tiles to take advantage of Mali's abilities. I assumed Mali's start bias would give me the proper terrain to put their acclimation to the desert to use, because their abilities are so obviously geared to that climate.

This raises two questions for me:

1. *Should* civs like Mali or Canada *always* spawn near a large region of "useful" terrain? I'm not necessarily asking if this is a bug (see next question).

OR

2. Is it best to think of their climate-specific abilities as situational and starts near relevant terrain as fortunate?

I've had that experience too. Standard settings. I think it's a consequence of the map gen to where some maps on standard settings just don't have a reasonable desert so it spawns you on the best starting spot that might have desert tiles in a small range. Made me kinda give up on playing them while testing early build orders with them. Also has a problem if you play with Random civs where you can get multiple Desert Bias Civs. Had one game that was a bit too cramped for my taste when the world gen put me and Cleo on opposite ends of a rather small desert.

Why not use the map setup options with "hot" and "dry?" That always gives me a map with lots of desert and plains.

Call me a purist, but I like playing Standard settings. It's like the more developer intended thing to play. So I don't find it that interesting to say make a map hot and dry to get a god game with Mali, or put it on Wet to cheese perhaps a Jungle civ or have a lot more forests to chop. So for me, it kinda sucks that I have to restart a bit more heavily than I would like to get a reasonable start.


Edit: Unrelated someone to original subject, but since people bring up Canada. I find them rather interesting to play in a rather weird way. The Tundra farms blow, the Ice Hockey Rinks and Mounty feel like they take forever to get, but it's almost hilarious how greedy you can be with your opener. Want to build 3 Settlers, a few buildings, and a few builders while you still only have like 1 scout, your starter warrior and 1 slinger? Probably can! Definitely not MP viable, but I don't know how I rate a Civ that can play like they were isolated from almost any start.

 

[Onii-chan]

Unrelated someone to original subject, but since people bring up Canada. I find them rather interesting to play in a rather weird way. The Tundra farms blow, the Ice Hockey Rinks and Mounty feel like they take forever to get, but it's almost hilarious how greedy you can be with your opener. Want to build 3 Settlers, a few buildings, and a few builders while you still only have like 1 scout, your starter warrior and 1 slinger? Probably can! Definitely not MP viable, but I don't know how I rate a Civ that can play like they were isolated from almost any start.

Yeah the fact that they can't be rushed is definitely a big strategical advantage, but I mean in theory any civ can get a big early game advantage by playing greedy depending on what their neighbours decide to do. It's more just that Canada don't have to worry about the potential of having to restart after 20 turns due to getting warrior rushed with your pants down. So I don't know if I'd call that an advantage or not, in practice it'll only really save you time by not having to remake games as much lol

 

[IvoryPavane]

It does make me question the QA that goes into the game when Canada and Maori release in the same expansion. They are clearly in different leagues in terms of bonuses they offer.

Mind you, Korea and Georgia released together in R&F... but at least Georgia’s abilities are situationally powerful whereas Canada’s are niche at best :3

Perhaps there is a hidden depth that Canada lovers are going to tease out for us

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

The big problem with Canada is that it relies solely on Diplomatic victories to win. Having a skew towards only 1/6 victory conditions is not great.

 

[Kwami]

It does make me question the QA that goes into the game when Canada and Maori release in the same expansion. They are clearly in different leagues in terms of bonuses they offer.

Mind you, Korea and Georgia released together in R&F... but at least Georgia’s abilities are situationally powerful whereas Canada’s are niche at best :3

Perhaps there is a hidden depth that Canada lovers are going to tease out for us

It's not really QA's job to design the civs, though. They're just play testing what's given to them and providing feedback. Ultimately, it's up to the designers to ensure that each civ is fun to play and at least somewhat balanced.

 

[IvoryPavane]

It's not really QA's job to design the civs, though. They're just play testing what's given to them and providing feedback. Ultimately, it's up to the designers to ensure that each civ is fun to play and at least somewhat balanced.

True! You would hope that they did give feedback and it was “uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....”

So the Devs must know something I don’t

 

[Furycrab]

Perhaps there is a hidden depth that Canada lovers are going to tease out for us

The thing I'm finding with Canada is that it allows you to be insanely greedy with your opener and still be relatively safe. It's just difficult to rate because if you played on lower difficulties, that doesn't really matter and you'll be in a winning position before the other bonuses kick in. Also if you already play pretty damn greedy and just reset when things go wrong, you might not think Canada is that impressive compared to your games where your greed with other Civs pans out. It's also pretty worthless in Multiplayer since a reasonable player will just Denounce you the minute they see you as a neighbor. Finding some weird quirks that Russia also has from starting so often on the edge of Tundra like easy Era score from Barbs to hunt, and I'm pretty sure you also have a Horse Bias. I'm finding it fun.

If I'm playing in No-reset standard conditions, I legit think it's better than a lot of civs. However when they also added the Yield porn Maori in the game... It's definitely a tough sale.

 

[Kwami]

Nah, there's no horse bias. Just {tundra, tundra hills} at 1 and {snow, snow hills} at 5.

 

[Furycrab]

Nah, there's no horse bias. Just {tundra, tundra hills} at 1 and {snow, snow hills} at 5.

Guess I'm just lucky. Like 4 for 4 on starts with them. Might be another quirk of Tundra starts or RNG considering the sample size.

 

[Tuvok694]

Mali start without any desert is really a problem. Hope they change that soon in a patch. With that big production penalty and no good things to oppose it, you are definitely screwed and can hardly survive the early game.

EDIT: I tried five times today (on level emperor): I never started near a desert, and I never even made it until the renaissance until I was hopelessly left behind in every category. I HATE Mali.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Mali start without any desert is really a problem. Hope they change that soon in a patch.

For some reason their Desert start bias is only 2 instead of the maximum 1.

 

[BrotherInJah]

Thing is desert bias can be bad, flood plains are less common in desert then it used to be. I'm finding dessert to have less resources too.. maybe map gods hate me..

 

[Tuvok694]

I kept trying to play as Mali on level emperor over the last few days. Could never win any game, not even close. I have to confirm my bad first impressions. Mostly no desert near the starting point. AI settles close to you as they always do. I try to build slingers and warriors. But with 30% production penalty I cannot build enough units to be able to survive their attack. The three weakest civs are for me: 44. Georgia 45. Mali 46. Canada.

 

[Sagax]

So people dug into the files and figured out that Mali is given Tier 2 desert bias. Who is Tier 1, then?

I assume Nubia, but I am more interested in Arabia. You know, a civ that has NO desert bonuses in its kit in Civ 6.

 

[Victoria]

Mostly no desert near the starting point.

I want to play them again and see if their chop is 30% nerf as well. If not then... not starting in desert May in fact be better than starting in desert. Certainly a grassland mine with +4 gold helps nearly as much as a desert mine.