[GS] Mali Discussion Thread

[UWHabs]

I would say yes the mines have to be worked to get that gold, same as any other tile improvement.

You are right about that builder. My biggest decision in my first game (which will be Mali of course) is do I go scout first or builder first? I suppose it may depend on how many turns to research mining. Which will be the first tech researched by most people I imagine. After that do you go for astrology for a religion or say animal husbandry?

Ideally I would love to have 2 grassland hills to mine at the start, even if I had to sacrifice some food/faith by not settling in all desert.

I think early game they'll be similar to anyone else - you just have to know that you're getting ~1-2 production less than a normal civ, and that you can't throw a mine down to speed up that settler production. And you also have to realize that they do get the production bonus from quarries, and they do get them from pastures.

So I think I'm still going to research for whatever resources are around me. I'll still go slinger-builder early on. But I'm also definitely more likely to move my settler by a tile or two to set me up better in the desert, and if I do happen to have lots of desert around my starting city, thus giving me lots of free food, then which tile I work certainly will change. The interesting questions will come up if you have a food tile that you can work in the first ring - do you work it to grow super fast, or do you need some production early? If I'm growing faster and have lots of desert around, do I have to be more aggressive in buying tiles?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I think early game they'll be similar to anyone else - you just have to know that you're getting ~1-2 production less than a normal civ, and that you can't throw a mine down to speed up that settler production. And you also have to realize that they do get the production bonus from quarries, and they do get them from pastures.

I think it will be interesting what economic policy you pick first at Code of Laws. Do you get Urban Planning to compensate for the lack of production or go for God King and wait to buy your first settler.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Obviously as Mali it's production as you're swimming in Faith for Pantheon.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I would say yes the mines have to be worked to get that gold, same as any other tile improvement.

You are right about that builder. My biggest decision in my first game (which will be Mali of course) is do I go scout first or builder first? I suppose it may depend on how many turns to research mining. Which will be the first tech researched by most people I imagine. After that do you go for astrology for a religion or say animal husbandry?

Ideally I would love to have 2 grassland hills to mine at the start, even if I had to sacrifice some food/faith by not settling in all desert.

Even more than most Civs, I suspect Mali will be one where the 'tactics' of play will be decided by your starting position and what kind of Tiles you have to work with: flat desert, mineable tiles of any kind . . . On the very first turn they will determine what you build first, and I don't see how you could ever have a situation with this Civ where "in every game I build X first". . .

 

[Cyberian]

Even more than most Civs, I suspect Mali will be one where the 'tactics' of play will be decided by your starting position and what kind of Tiles you have to work with: flat desert, mineable tiles of any kind . . . On the very first turn they will determine what you build first, and I don't see how you could ever have a situation with this Civ where "in every game I build X first". . .

Totally this... starting position will make insanely different games. Any production resources around like something with quarry or pasture or stuff to chop on edges? Earlier worker. Else I don't care for worker that much maybe want to go settler sooner. The initial added food and faith leads to higher yields from going wide and also means insane early growth. The chance is quite high that there is at least one oasis or floodplains within your starting city including moving settler one tile. That would be up to 9 food which is insane and of course you want production instead but you might have to wait a few turns until you can expand to one side with bought or grown tiles to add some better terrain.

Whatever I want to get densely settled desert cities to maximise the city center bonus and special district yield. Probably means much earlier Settler than I usually do also helps with the housing limit and is not much of a problem with this civ insane early popgrowth. Maybe even Slinger - Settler if theres not much nice terrain around. Even if the settler takes 15 turns. Getting more cities early gives insane yields. I think peoples will go for a super dense city net as early as possible which should be possible with the increased food.
Classical game is not an issue once you got your first CH and traderoute out you are fine. But its the first 50 turns where this civ is hurting. I only usually play civs with early advantage as thats when the game is decided on immo/deity. But maybe the center tile bonus can be that early advantage depending on some factors.

Anyone knows the specifics of what they changed with faith purchases?
Full desert with 1 floodplains or oasis mean growing to size 2 in 2 turns right? 9-2 = 7 food net 14 needed for 2.

 

[acluewithout]

The more I think about it, a half-price Commercial Hub really is going to be very good. I mean, England pre-Nerf was at least still okay just because it had a half-price Harbours.

Mali's food bonus is interesting. But if you build on a desert, where are you going to get your housing from? And what are all your extra citizens going to do? All your workable tiles will be awful... well, I guess you desert hill tiles will be okay.

 

[Wyvern_Parade]

Mali's food bonus is interesting. But if you build on a desert, where are you going to get your housing from? And what are all your extra citizens going to do? All your workable tiles will be awful... well, I guess you desert hill tiles will be okay.

I think it will be better to settle on the edge of deserts as Mali precisely due to the issues you mentioned. Maybe you start with 2 or 3 less food/faith in your city, but you'll have access to better tiles, and that is still plenty to get you an early pantheon and initial city growth. If you settle in the middle of a desert the only potentially good tiles you could work would be ones with resources or floodplains after a few floods have boosted them. Even a regular desert hill providing 1 prod/4 gold isn't very good.

 

[MarigoldRan]

With Mali you can easily grab Pantheon of the Forge to cancel out their production malus early on.

 

[NegativeZero]

With Mali you can easily grab Pantheon of the Forge to cancel out their production malus early on.

For military units that would work, but the production penalty applies to civilian units as well.

 

[MarigoldRan]

That's not a problem with Overflow.

 

[NegativeZero]

That's not a problem with Overflow.

Chopping for Mali will still be nice, but policy production overflow from walls/units/etc into other unit types/buildings/etc. is said to be fixed in GS.

Why not buy everything with Mali as they where designed to do?

 

[Lord Lakely]

Because you will run out of gold. You need gold for everything, you can't buy everything at once.

It's LESS of an issue with Mali, but never the less time is not on your side because everyone will outproduce you. You need to save your money to buy the trader as soon as you get Foreign Trade, set up a TR to a city state asap, then beeline to Currency, as you buy archers for defence and recruit settlers (colonzation ard, you can't afford buying them) , set up Sugubas, FB the Market, GB the trader, grab the GovPlaza + Ancestral Hall (to promote Reina and Moksha, and also to avoid buying workers in non-desert cities), Grab Maths (petra) and Feudalism(serfdoom), get started on Petra, get Mandekalu.

All this should happen before you even decide what victory type to persue. The above sequence allows you to levelpeg with the others. Musa Industries can do a lot of things with gold but your econ has to be on point first, otherwise you're just a bad civ with crap prod that will lag behind. Forever.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

I looked at the leader screen and Mali gets -30% production when constructing building and training units. So buildings and units will be more expensive to build?

That sounds like bad news combined with less production from mines.

-30% to units and buildings is a heavy penalty.

It's not just that, but worse. If this ancient bug hasn't been solved when GS releases, Mali will be punished (1-30%) * (1-30%), which is actually -50% to units and buildings. In the newest video we see that wasn't fixed.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ed-bug-that-will-probably-affect-mali.640705/

 

[Lily_Lancer]

So actually -51% production? Still playable of course, but with the real Deity difficulty (-51% prod, oh.)

 

[MarigoldRan]

They better fix that or Mali would be bad.

Key with Mali, like Kongo, is to upgrade units every era.

 

[DWilson]

I'm sorry, what bug?

 

[Browd]

A reported bug that appears to apply Mali's -30% production malus for buildings and units twice: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ed-bug-that-will-probably-affect-mali.640705/

 

[jddods]

A reported bug that appears to apply Mali's -30% production malus for buildings and units twice: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ed-bug-that-will-probably-affect-mali.640705/

Going to delay my first Mali game till this is fixed.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Lol it's actually even less than half because your mines don't produce anythink as well.

 

[Wyvern_Parade]

A reported bug that appears to apply Mali's -30% production malus for buildings and units twice: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ed-bug-that-will-probably-affect-mali.640705/

As someone in the original thread mentioned, I hope someone has submitted (or even resubmitted) a bug report to 2K/Firaxis about this. Could also be useful to post about it on the civ subreddit for visibility since we know that both the 2K community manager and Firaxis check there often.

On the other hand, if this bug has been in place for so long they probably balanced Mali around the current way percentages work in the game. So perhaps this functional -51% is actually what they found to be balanced in their play testing. However this does not resolve the fact that it is obscure and misleading for the player.