I've had some time to think about the reveal and pull together some thoughts. Overall, I'm really happy with this civ, as one of my favorite playstyles is to play the trading magnate game - and, as an added bonus, desert is my favorite terrain, so I generally feel positively about any civs which synergize with it.
I'm trying to focus on the numbers here, as it seems like everyone is getting hung up on the production malus. So the question is, is it a crippling disadvantage or necessary to balance out an otherwise OP civ?
LUA: Sahel Merchants
+1 Gold on international Trade Routes for every flat Desert tile in the origin city. Gain an additional Trade Route for every Golden Age earned.
In the ideal placed city with nothing but flat Desert tiles and the maximum working radius owned, international Trade Routes receive +37 Gold. This is obviously not going to happen, but Mali only needs ONE city placed in an ideal spot to maximize gold yields from trade. Early game, I think it's safe to say that Mali can easily get +5-10 gold per trade route, mid to late game, +15-20 per trade route. We still don't know how the trade route modifiers are calculated, but since those are modifiers, they will have an outsized effect on Mali's trade routes since their base yields will be so much higher than any other civ.
I think it's safe to say that Mali will be earning 2-4x as much gold from their trade routes as competitors, in all stages of the game.
The additional trade route per Golden Age is not a huge bonus, but a nice reward for planning for and achieving Golden Ages (planning is a theme which will come up again and again for Mali). You will want to shoot for multiple Golden Ages in the first half of the game to maximize the return you'll get from those early trade routes.
The nice thing about international trade routes is that they synergize oh so sweetly with the diplomatic game, and Mali really can't go wrong with any of the choices (except for a Military alliance - that has no trade benefit).
An Economic Alliance means an additional +4 gold per trade route and more city-state influence
A Scientific Alliance means +2 science per trade route
A Cultural Alliance means +2 culture and +1 Great Merchant Point (+ any other districts you have) per trade route
A Religious Alliance means +3 faith per trade route
With extra trade routes, Mali will be able to massively invest in one of these alliances or spread trade routes out to all of them and get some moderate gains to everything.
Overall, this is a slow-burn snowball, with moderate bonuses in the Ancient Era to truly insane bonuses by the end-game. I think it's going to be perfectly reasonable for Mali to get well over 1000 gpt from trade routes alone with a moderately sized empire.
CUA: Songs of the Jeli
City Centers receive +1 Food and +1 Faith from adjacent Desert and Desert Hills tiles. Mines provide +4 Gold but -1 Production. Commercial Hub buildings may be purchased with Faith. -30% Production when constructing buildings or units.
The ideal Mali start will result in a capital with a minimum yield of +8 food, +6 faith, and +1 production (from the city center tile alone). So, right off the bat, Mali can support a size 4 city and get a pantheon on turn 4 or 5, all without working any tiles. You'll definitely want to settle near fresh water if possible, so the best spots will be next to an oasis or a river, otherwise your food bonus won't mean much.
Intrinsic yields are very powerful, as you receive their benefit regardless of city size or fertility of terrain. This means that, if you want, you can settle a bunch of desert cities in inhospitable areas simply to build the City Center-Holy Site-Suguba triangle. Those cities don't even need to do anything else or grow any bigger, as once you have that triangle those tiny cities are cash and faith cows that can spend the rest of the game spending their small production on projects.
Speaking of production, this is the big sticking point for most people, it seems. This will hurt the most at the very beginning of the game since you won't have cash reserves to just buy everything yet. What's the solution? PLANNING. You will have population and growth to spare, so place them on high production/low food tiles. Utilize policy cards which reduce production times. You'll find that at the beginning of the game, units will probably take 1-2 turns longer to produce than for other civs. This may be fatal IF you are not taking advantage of the extra population to get extra production and getting trade routes up and running as quickly as possible.
The point being, the production malus is not insurmountable. You just need to account for it. The lack of production from mines hurts too, but early mines aren't ALL that great anyways, and beyond the Ancient/Classical eras Mali should be fully transitioning to a gold-based economy, not a production based economy. Early production can easily be gained from other sources, like resources, quarries, pastures, and even unimproved forest.
A final note on this ability: every Malian city should ideally have a Holy Site and Suguba. Being able to purchase Markets with faith means that it is VERY EASY for Mali to get trade routes. 1/2 price Commercial Hub, insta-build Market - boom, each trade route takes about 1/4 of the time it takes most other civs to get one.
UU: Mandekalu Cavalry (replaces Knight)
Receives Gold from kills equal to the strength of the unit defeated. Unembarked Trader units within 4 tiles are immune to being plundered.
This is actually a really interesting unit. Not because of its military prowess, which is...questionable, but because of its utility. The gold from kills is a nice synergy with Mali's other bonuses, and I can foresee having a horde of Mandekalu sweeping through an opponent pillaging and killing units while mostly leaving cities alone. That would be quite a profitable enterprise.
What's really interesting is the protection given to traders. This allows Mali to send long trade routes through uninhabited or hostile land territory by mid-game and have no fear of barbarians or enemies pillaging them. Plop a fort every 9 tiles (or not, doesn't really matter), garrison with a Mandekalu, and you've got a nice little Silk Road going.
All in all, not a great unit for domination, but one which you might actually keep a few un-upgraded ones around until the end game to utilize their unique bonus.
UI: Suguba (replaces Commercial Hub)
20% discount on every Faith and Gold purchase in the city in which it is placed. Receives a major adjacency bonus from rivers and Holy Sites.
And this is where the synergy really take off. First off, as already stated, 1/2 priced Commercial Hub and faith-buy Market = insanely fast trade routes. Since the production malus doesn't apply to districts, these babies should be up and rolling quite quickly. Plop next to a Holy Site for extra gold, and buy the Commercial buildings with the faith earned from the Holy Site.
And then, 20% discount on every faith and gold purchase? A discount which stacks with Monumentality, Theocracy, and Democracy? Yes please. Time for numbers.
Let's assume a unit with a production cost of 100. That usually costs 400g or 200f to purchase, so...
100p = 400g = 200f
However, with the production malus it's actually:
130p = 400g = 200f
Now let's account for Mali's discounts:
130p = 320g = 160f
What about if we stack government discounts?
130p = 220g w/Democracy = 130f w/Theocracy
What if we have Theocracy, Monumentality, AND we're building a civilian?
130p = 320g = 70f (200 - (200 * (0.2 + 0.15 + 0.3)))
So right off the bat, Mali's +4 gold from their mines more than makes up for the lost production, even when compared to other civ's conversion rate. If you PLAN well and stack up the right set of bonuses, in the Medieval and Renaissance eras your empire will EXPLODE with builders and settlers. If you have enough desert space, you could crowd as many cities as possible in to pump up your trade route capacity to astronomical levels. Or, you could just settle everything in sight. Every city is a net benefit when they cost pennies, even if they're not optimally settled. Once Mali really gets going, they should be able to catch up or surpass other civs which have a bit of an easier time in the Ancient era.
Plus, the great thing about gold and faith are that it doesn't matter at all if your cities are self-sufficient. You can have tons of small, low production, low investment, cash-cow cities which do absolutely nothing but produce gold, faith, and a trade route slot. If you have enough gold or faith, you can just buy whatever you want. And no one will be better at it than Mali.
----------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------
So, Mali is a civ which has a bit of a slower start (not dramatically slower, tbh), but can rapidly catch up and even surpass others. It will be more gimped than others with a bad start, but if it can find a large desert will have a sandy heartland to buy its way to victory from.
It's best suited towards a diplomatic victory, with a natural
affinity towards alliances, and the ability to buy favor in
quantities which no one else can match. It's also quite strong towards a Religious victory with its discount towards faith purchases and natural desire to build Holy Sites.
Achieving a Scientific or Cultural victory will take more planning than for other civs, since Mali will want to build Campuses/Theaters AFTER building Holy Sites/Sugubas, but with the right Golden Age dedications can leapfrog significantly up the tech or civic trees. Additionally, careful use of its many trade routes could more than make up for a lack of base science or culture yields when combined with the appropriate alliance.
A domination victory is the worst victory type to pursue with Mali, but still perfectly doable since you can easily buy and support a massive army. The flip side is that the fewer civs there are, the fewer potential international trading partners you have which reduces the effectiveness of your other abilities. But that won't matter much once you've conquered most of the map.
Alternatively, Mali could completely avoid building a military and just leverage its massive gold reserves to levy city-states when needed.
Most wonders are probably going to be a bit harder to get for Mali, but their production malus doesn't apply to wonders, and they can still use policy cards to reduce wonder costs. Mali will probably need to focus a bit more tightly on the wonders it really wants, though, with some particularly synergistic ones being Petra, Colossus, Great Zimbabwe, and Big Ben. Basically, any which boost trade routes and gold.
To conclude my novel, Mali has a very tight design with some incredibly powerful bonuses. The production malus is necessary to prevent them from being massively over-powered, and can be overcome with careful planning. A bad start could be very difficult to come back from, but a Medieval/Renaissance Golden Age could overcome a bad start and probably let them coast to victory. I can't wait to play them.
