floodplains count as desert
[GS] Mali Discussion Thread
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Amrunril
Emperor
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I think they'll do fine outside of desert if they're able to work a lot of mines to fund their purchases. Or, if they have just one desert city, they can use it as a hub for their international trade routes and fund their infrastructure that way.
ChocolateShake
Prince
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Finally a correct prediction! 
Yup a 20% discount on buying libraries, ampitheaters/other t1 buildings isn't very helpful for the other victory types. Though I can see some unique plays by getting a ton of trade routes and swimming in gold.
Yup a 20% discount on buying libraries, ampitheaters/other t1 buildings isn't very helpful for the other victory types. Though I can see some unique plays by getting a ton of trade routes and swimming in gold.
Banazir864
Warlord
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Seems like Morgan Industries light: focus on buying rather than building.
Might be good for peaceful gameplay: don't build units, and just insta-buy an army if you're attacked. The downside is that the AI probably doesn't take unit purchasing capacity into account when assessing your strength, so using that strategy will guarantee you'll be attacked. If so, this won't save you from having to create troops, but could be used to bait an opponent into attacking and taking grievances, making it more of a sneaky warmonger strategy than a peaceful one.
Might be good for peaceful gameplay: don't build units, and just insta-buy an army if you're attacked. The downside is that the AI probably doesn't take unit purchasing capacity into account when assessing your strength, so using that strategy will guarantee you'll be attacked. If so, this won't save you from having to create troops, but could be used to bait an opponent into attacking and taking grievances, making it more of a sneaky warmonger strategy than a peaceful one.
DeepKing
Warlord
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I’m thinking Dido gets a lighthouse replacement, Kristina gets a unique govt building, and Sueliman gets a unique armory.
Eleanor is the wild card for me .
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We've seen the Cothon in tooltips giving the same adjacency bonuses as the Harbor. It's pretty much a done deal.
Hakan-i Cihan
Emperor
Guandao
Rajah of Minyue, Hlai and Langkasuka
Mansa Musa reminds me of the genie in the Aladdin musical in Broadway.
I'm not too big on the production loss though.
I'm not too big on the production loss though.
What I find surprising is the lack of praise for the "huge benefits accompanied with big downsides" approach.
Wasn't this exactly what many Civfanatics asked for all the time?
Well, Mali's design features exactly this (alongside with other civs in GS, of course)!
Can we have some cheers, please?
Wasn't this exactly what many Civfanatics asked for all the time?
Well, Mali's design features exactly this (alongside with other civs in GS, of course)!
Can we have some cheers, please?
Wielki Hegemon
Emperor
This Civ is great because it provides all what civilization should be.
Unique gameplay.
It is completely out of the meta (omg -1 mine production) and this is what makes this Civ challenging to play.
I love Civ design in this expansion.
Unique gameplay.
It is completely out of the meta (omg -1 mine production) and this is what makes this Civ challenging to play.
I love Civ design in this expansion.
Jewman
Prince
Love all the unique bonuses/ synergy and even the negatives. lets take a second to analyze a few things that are absolutely true:
1. free faith/food from start is amazing (assuming desert start), also it can add to be quite a bit. More than Indonesia, and we already know Indonesia's free +2 faith is a very good, if a bit unexciting, bonus.
2. free trade routes are good. How often will you get free trade routes with Mali? probably alot, at least starting in medieval. Your trade routes have an inherent bonus (gold from desert) that kicks in from start of game? free gold. also very good.
3. commercial hub is one of the best districts in game, discount on it alone, regardless of any other bonuses, is very good (production penalty also doesnt apply to districts)
4. knight replacements are the best UUs in game (I actually don't know if this is true anymore, i don't play online and the AI never put up much of a fight anyways but i assume knight rush is still a thing)
With those 4 established facts lets talk about some of the whackier, fun stuff.
1. Faith economy: While I personally don't play faith games very often, the few times I've built faith-economies they have been surprisingly powerful. Imagine beelining to commerce hubs then buying up holy sites. at first it'll feel kinda silly converting all your gold to faith but around medieval (right when you get your UU) you'll be converting that faith into cheap mandekalus and your mandekalus will be converting your enemies into gold. very powerful. If you really wanna go off the deep end with it, you could adopt the pillaging military policies and have your mandekalus run amok in neighboring empires just looting and killing for $$ instead of to conquer. I always found that fun to do with Lautaro to cause loyalty issues, could be fun do it for the money instead.
2. Wonder economy: Imagine, you start the game like you would any other time except you build only a few settlers. You set up your commercial hubs and you build your government plaza with the building that boost newly settled cities. then you start spam buying settlers/ districts/ workers in the late classical/early medieval and start expanding out of control while your core cities are building wonders (pyramids + petra should be a target in every game). Sure its not as good a strategy as conquering your opponents or playing in a more typical way, but freeing up your production from units/districts allows for unique gameplay.
1. free faith/food from start is amazing (assuming desert start), also it can add to be quite a bit. More than Indonesia, and we already know Indonesia's free +2 faith is a very good, if a bit unexciting, bonus.
2. free trade routes are good. How often will you get free trade routes with Mali? probably alot, at least starting in medieval. Your trade routes have an inherent bonus (gold from desert) that kicks in from start of game? free gold. also very good.
3. commercial hub is one of the best districts in game, discount on it alone, regardless of any other bonuses, is very good (production penalty also doesnt apply to districts)
4. knight replacements are the best UUs in game (I actually don't know if this is true anymore, i don't play online and the AI never put up much of a fight anyways but i assume knight rush is still a thing)
With those 4 established facts lets talk about some of the whackier, fun stuff.
1. Faith economy: While I personally don't play faith games very often, the few times I've built faith-economies they have been surprisingly powerful. Imagine beelining to commerce hubs then buying up holy sites. at first it'll feel kinda silly converting all your gold to faith but around medieval (right when you get your UU) you'll be converting that faith into cheap mandekalus and your mandekalus will be converting your enemies into gold. very powerful. If you really wanna go off the deep end with it, you could adopt the pillaging military policies and have your mandekalus run amok in neighboring empires just looting and killing for $$ instead of to conquer. I always found that fun to do with Lautaro to cause loyalty issues, could be fun do it for the money instead.
2. Wonder economy: Imagine, you start the game like you would any other time except you build only a few settlers. You set up your commercial hubs and you build your government plaza with the building that boost newly settled cities. then you start spam buying settlers/ districts/ workers in the late classical/early medieval and start expanding out of control while your core cities are building wonders (pyramids + petra should be a target in every game). Sure its not as good a strategy as conquering your opponents or playing in a more typical way, but freeing up your production from units/districts allows for unique gameplay.
Ceydezed
Warlord
I think it does actually, if I'm not mistaken.
Ferocitus
Deity
It looks perfect for the largest Terra TSL-like maps I like to play.
I always have 5 civs in Africa - Egypt, Nubia, Zulu, Kongo and Arabia.
Out of those, Nubia and Kongo are way ahead of the other 3. Mali will provide good competition for them, in a similar way to how adding Mapuche to NAm/SAm
has helped counter Aztec and Brazil dominance on those continents.
I always have 5 civs in Africa - Egypt, Nubia, Zulu, Kongo and Arabia.
Out of those, Nubia and Kongo are way ahead of the other 3. Mali will provide good competition for them, in a similar way to how adding Mapuche to NAm/SAm
has helped counter Aztec and Brazil dominance on those continents.
Leathaface
Emperor
Mali will be very weak in the early game on Immortal/Deity difficulty. If you're playing as them you better hope Montezuma/Shaka/Cyris aren't nearby at the start.
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luigilime
Prince
i don't understand why mali uses the egyptian architecture set and not the african architecture set, that is based on malian architecture...
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I'm pleased to see another asymmetric civ design, although this one doesn't cater to cultural Victories like I prefer.
Ceydezed
Warlord
It could i think: faith-buying naturalist, less incentive to buy appeal-reducing mines, appeal-increasing holy sites... just have to make sure to not have only-desert cities!
Disgustipated
Deity
Buy spaceport and buy builders to rush space projects. Does anyone even hard build space projects anymore? I certainly don't. Though my Australia game I was so far ahead in science that I couldn't get my 3rd tier government and had to hard build launch satellite and apollo mission.
The production penalty is going to be deadly quite often at the high difficulty levels.
But basic Mansa strategy:
1. Rush Reyna to gold buy bonus
2. Desert Folklore pantheon
3. Rush to commerce hubs
4. Run a massive faith/gold economy, where you literally buy everything with faith and gold.
5. Run projects, since production is horrible
6. Rush to Theocracy (cheaper faith buying) and Democracy (cheaper gold buying)
I already buy a lot of things in the base game, Mansa is probably going to give double cash compared to anyone else. They'll also be sneaky good for religious victories, since the unique CH gives reduced faith buying as well they said, meaning they will be able to overrun the world with apostles.
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