[GS] Mali Discussion Thread

[Boris Gudenuf]

The way they warp how you play should be insane. Weird part to me is that you'll probably not want to hammer out much of anything except districts and the occasional wall. Going to have to revisit the conversion into yields on projects and basically taking a fairly different approach to trade routes and policy cards is also fun.

Wonder if that 50% settler buyout thing will still be a big thing. This is a Civ I feel will start slow and isolationist and can quickly explode in the mid game.

Don't forget, Mali can also be a Faith/Religion powerhouse from deserts, and Faith is another form of Gold/Production: get Monumentality in a GA and with Mali's Faith production, you will never have to build or buy with Gold another Builder or Settler until the next Era: you can spit them out with Faith points and surge in size. I confess if I get a strong faith start for whatever reason, I use the Faith not to spread a religion (I detest the Religion Game) but to 'hoard' Faith Points to 'buy' Great People, Settlers and Builders. As soon as I get a Golden Age, and I can usually manage one no later than the Medieval/Renaissance Era, I have Settlers trotting out in all directions.
Mali will be able to play that game with either Religion or Gold: look for a Mali that survives the Ancient Era to be a Holy or Financial Terror: expanding like crazy in the next two Eras...

 

[Sostratus]

Rome was the largest empire in its time. Trajan hated everyone?

It's too bad they rely on denouncing as part of leading AIs into wars. I get that it helps AI trajan target small civs, and Victoria establish herself on every continent in the ideal world. I would almost rather some AIs be friendly with you but if needed just say "sorry bro, it's just business, you understand" as they march legions across your lands.

 

[Steamboat Willem]

And that penalty will affect chopping!

How many trees do you think there are to chop in a desert?

 

[God of Kings]

Welcome to Civ VI, Golden Sultan!

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

Mali is all and fun, really asymetric, and it would definitely will be one of the first civ of GS I'll try (even if I had the impression that I said that for Hungary, Maori and Incas too...). But for me, the most important is...

HAVE YOU SEEN MANSA MUSSA ?

He's so adorable! So vivid! He replace the Belly Award winner, much better than CivV's Suleiman. And his smile! He look so happy, and not the "adorable old granny"-happy of Wilhelmina, no, the joyful, euphoric, communicative happiness!
Aside the great mechanic linked to Mussa (which tied perfectly with the gameplay I prefered in CivV - Venice's), I think I would LOVE to have him in my plays, only to see his jolly belly greeting me in his gold palace!

(I also think we should surname him Jolly Belly, but it's just me...)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Rome was the largest empire in its time. Trajan hated everyone?

Rome's greatest enemies were the bigger rival empires, not the smaller ones.

Regardless, in game context on higher levels, Rome is always going to be bigger than you, so Trajan is always going to hate you. The agenda might as well be "always hates the human player." That would be fine if it drove interesting or fun interactions, but it doesn't.

My personal favorite is when you're fighting Alexander and he sues for peace, and then complains that you're not at war with anyone, and then denounces you as a warmonger.

Trajan's 'Agenda' doesn't even make sense for Trajan historically. He conquered Dacia, a smaller 'empire' but it was just to get a better boundary. Against the Persons (almost as big) and the German border (not even a City State in game terms) he was pretty defensive. And his most interesting trait was his utter indifference to religion. When a governor asked for guidance, he replied that he didn't care if the Christians worshiped the Emperor or not: they could worship anything or anyone they pleased as long as they paid their taxes!
Now that would have made an interesting Agenda - welcomes any religion, but extracts extra Gold from each population point following a non-Roman religion - then don't start your own religion so that you rake in the Gold from Foreign Faiths - which is what the Romans officially considered Christianity and Judaism to be...

The idea of the real Alexander denouncing anyone as a 'Warmonger' is ludicrous: the man spent his entire life at war and thought it a normal existence. And the stronger the opposition, the better: if you put up a good fight, he would be almost insanely generous after he beat you - see Porus in India.
On the other hand, if you revolted against him, he was genocidally merciless: his Agenda might be to Raze any Free City or, possibly, be automatically At War with any City State that he lost Suzereignty over. And God Help You if you started a Surprise War against him...

 

[Furycrab]

It's too bad they rely on denouncing as part of leading AIs into wars. I get that it helps AI trajan target small civs, and Victoria establish herself on every continent in the ideal world. I would almost rather some AIs be friendly with you but if needed just say "sorry bro, it's just business, you understand" as they march legions across your lands.

The common complaint against that is usually something along the lines of... "OMG I had +50000 friendship points, but the AI still decided to backstab me WTH". Disregarding the underlying causes which probably lead to the AI backstabbing you, it is fun to some extent when the AI has some degree of transparency in what it does and why it does it.

I imagine it's a fine balance for the devs between having an AI that wants to win, and having an AI that does things within a certain set a rules that a player can understand but isn't immediately exploitable.

 

[Disgustipated]

So Democracy is pretty much the go to government with these guys. Assuming they haven't changed the government bonuses, which they may have. And we don't know anything about future era governments. I'm assuming the Democracy purchasing discount will stack with the commericial hub discount.

The idea of the real Alexander denouncing anyone as a 'Warmonger' is ludicrous:

Alexander will never denounce your warmongering in this game. He hasn't with me anyways.

 

[Zaarin]

So Democracy is pretty much the go to government with these guys.

There are third-tier governments other than Democracy?

 

[Bechhold]

So Democracy is pretty much the go to government with these guys. Assuming they haven't changed the government bonuses, which they may have. And we don't know anything about future era governments. I'm assuming the Democracy purchasing discount will stack with the commericial hub discount.



Alexander will never denounce your warmongering in this game. He hasn't with me anyways.

Except that is every Warmonger AI from Monty, to Khan. Even if you liberate cities you are still denounced.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I hear what you're saying, but you'll be forgoing some era score via tribal village-clearing without a scout. Missing a classical era golden age means missing an extra early trade route and monumentality.

You're going to miss out a bit on Tribal Villages, but a squad of chariots should be able to harvest barb camps well enough. And you will still get all the era score for meeting civs and city-states eventually. If you buy a Great Prophet with Faith, you can get era points there too.

 

[iammaxhailme]

*Crawls out of his cave after hearing about chopping*

I almost never chop and I often don't use Magnus.

*Crawls back*

I use magnus mostly so I can spam settlers without losing pop in my capital

 

[kryat]

This may have been brought up already, but the production malus doesn’t look like it applies to wonders, districts, or projects.

 

[Sostratus]

I imagine it's a fine balance for the devs between having an AI that wants to win, and having an AI that does things within a certain set a rules that a player can understand but isn't immediately exploitable.

Yes, indeed. perhaps I should have said- I would prefer if there wasn't such an all or nothing relationship. (maybe a two-axis thing.) It's okay for what it is- I can't be friends with everyone and also be a huge jerk who just invades when needed. Probably not worth the dev time over other stuff.

 

[Isengardtom]

Maybe the production deficit will be mitigated somewhat by the increased need of industrial zones for power?

In any case I like this Civ a lot
Gathering Storm has civs with more original game mechanics compared with Rise and fall

 

[Aurelesk]

I can't wait to see Catherine siphons all my Gold!

Do you remember when you use your Great Zimbabwe city? That attract all the Spies in the world and siphons thousand of gold if you don't go into counterpsy? Mali will have this everytime in more than 1 city.

There are third-tier governments other than Democracy?

The legacy cards of Democracy is too good. If you grow wide, Democracy is the way to go because you have more than 6 cities and the overall gain of Production is far greater. If you grow tall, Democracy is also the way to go because you will need the Housing to further grow (and +6 or more Housing is awesome). In fact, I don't get why Democracy give so much Housing like that.

I know that Communism was created toward Science Victory that can defend itself: you gain major production only to key cities, those with the districts. They should add a Science per citizens yields to make it more obvious and less useless. But with

The card distribution is horrible for me: too much Military slots and not enough Diplomatic! I hope that Communism tranforms 1 Military into Wildcard to have at least 2 Wildcard. I hope that Fascism and Democracy transforms respectively 1 Military and 1 Economic into Diplomatic. So, if I want to go full Military → Fascism, full Economic → Communism, and full Diplomatic → Democracy.

Communism: 2 Military (-1), 3 Economic (=), 1 Diplomatic (=) and 2 Wildcard (+1)
Democracy: 1 Military (=), 2 Economic (-1), 3 Diplomatic (+1) and 2 Wildcard (=)
Fascism: 3 Military (-1), 1 Économic (=), 2 Diplomatic (+1) and 2 Wildcard (=)

 

[pgm123]

Rome was the largest empire in its time. Trajan hated everyone?

Rome's greatest enemies were the bigger rival empires, not the smaller ones.

Trajan conquered all of Thrace. He only took part of the Persian Empire. Though that would be hating everyone more than his successors who found a working relationship with the Persians and even negotiated with them on an equal footing.

 

[Pietato]

I wonder if you want your capital to have a lot of mines. Might be better be have other production resources and then expand out to massive mining areas, so you can get initial units.

 

[Pietato]

*Crawls out of his cave after hearing about chopping*

I almost never chop and I often don't use Magnus.

*Crawls back*

Sure, but worker charges are still more important than production for the space race.

 

[sonicmyst]

Seeing that sandstorm in the image and video, I think it will be more challenging for Mali to repair pillaged district and district buildings. Repairs cannot be bought with gold, no?