[GS] Mali Discussion Thread

[MarigoldRan]

+4-6 food means that ALL of your worked tiles are hills and plains, which balances out the production malus. Extra gold means that you can spam slingers and warriors early on, so you can upgrade them into archers and swordsmen.

Here's a fun Mali build:

Builder, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger. Use the initial builder to build 3 mines. Then beeline archery. Then kill all of your neighbors. As Mali you can easily upgrade 8-10 slingers to archers by the time you get archery. Helps if you also get the Forge pantheon.

 

[God of Kings]

+4-6 food means that ALL of your worked tiles are hills and plains, which balances out the production malus. Extra gold means that you can spam slingers and warriors early on, so you can upgrade them into archers and swordsmen.

Here's a fun Mali build:

Builder, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger, slinger. Use the initial builder to build 3 mines. Then beeline archery. Then kill all of your neighbors. As Mali you can easily upgrade 8-10 slingers to archers by the time you get archery. Helps if you also get the Forge pantheon.

Mali could compete with Scythia in being a Zerg civ.

 

[Disgustipated]

A reported bug that appears to apply Mali's -30% production malus for buildings and units twice

Could someone explain this bug in layman's terms? I looked at the thread briefly, but not in detail, but I'm not exactly sure where this 50% is coming from. Wouldn't this production bug affect ai civs as well making everything a wash?

 

[Lord Lakely]

Say if you have 10 production in a city and are building a 100 prod unit. Normally the penalty would reduce your production by 30%, meaning that while you're recruiting that unit, your city's production output is 7. (since 10 - (30% of 10) = 7)

To calculate time needed to build your unit, the unit's production value is divided by the city's production output while recruiting the unit: 100/7 = 14,3, which translates to 15 turns for a unit that will otherwise take 10 turns to complete. (effectively a 50% increase in recruitment time)

(Nota Bene: I say 15 turns, rather than 14. This is because yields are expressed as Real Numbers in Civ6 and not as Natural Numbers, ie there is no rounding the numbers up or down. Your city will actually spend a full turn building up that 0.3 production you have leftover, with the rest (6.7) as overflow for the next unit you recruit; But that's besides the point right now.)

If the malus is counted twice however, then you'd get another 30% penalty on top of that. 30% of 7 is 2.1, meaning that your total produciton would be reduced from 10 to 4.9. Like Lily said, a 51% penalty to production. In reality this malus is even larger than it appears, because that 100 poduction unit you'd otherwise build in 10 turns, is now built in 21 turns (100/4.9 = 20,4), effectively halving your unit recruitment and building construction speed. And well, your desert mines are not producing anything on top of that as well.

In conclusion, you'd better be making an INSANE amount of gold because your production will be rubbish.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

I know I'm a bit late to the party but I just had to say that since I've had time to take in all that it can do, I really do like how Mali looks in the game.

Firstly, Mansa Musa himself looks great. I had imagined that he'd be skinnier but it isn't hard to imagine that, like Robert Baratheon, he got a bit fatter after years on the throne (though I don't doubt he was still very strong and capable on the battlefield when need be). It does fit his jolly personality anyway so it works. I was also expecting that he'd wear more desert clothing but what he's wearing here looks great and golden as I'd expect (plus its what most people think of as west African anyway).

The civ itself looks great too. Its a bit late to mention that much of Mali's territory was savanna instead of desert but I understand that its desert trade routes were famous. I was worried about the loss of production as well but I'm glad to hear that its only for units and buildings so I'm free to use it for wonders and districts. The amount of gold that could be made will be ludicrous and the Mandekalu look awesome. This will probably be one of the first few civs I try out when the expansion comes out!

 

[ehecatzin]

The civ itself looks great too. Its a bit late to mention that much of Mali's territory was savanna instead of desert but I understand that its desert trade routes were famous.

I'm glad gathering storm is adding much more variety on dinamic terrain features, but there's plenty of biomes missing, like mangrooves and savanna, (heck even forests that aren't just pines) hopefully they will add them on DLC or another xpack.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Say if you have 10 production in a city and are building a 100 prod unit. Normally the penalty would reduce your production by 30%, meaning that while you're recruiting that unit, your city's production output is 7. (since 10 - (30% of 10) = 7)

To calculate time needed to build your unit, the unit's production value is divided by the city's production output while recruiting the unit: 100/7 = 14,3, which translates to 15 turns for a unit that will otherwise take 10 turns to complete. (effectively a 50% increase in recruitment time)

(Nota Bene: I say 15 turns, rather than 14. This is because yields are expressed as Real Numbers in Civ6 and not as Natural Numbers, ie there is no rounding the numbers up or down. Your city will actually spend a full turn building up that 0.3 production you have leftover, with the rest (6.7) as overflow for the next unit you recruit; But that's besides the point right now.)

If the malus is counted twice however, then you'd get another 30% penalty on top of that. 30% of 7 is 2.1, meaning that your total produciton would be reduced from 10 to 4.9. Like Lily said, a 51% penalty to production. In reality this malus is even larger than it appears, because that 100 poduction unit you'd otherwise build in 10 turns, is now built in 21 turns (100/4.9 = 20,4), effectively halving your unit recruitment and building construction speed. And well, your desert mines are not producing anything on top of that as well.

In conclusion, you'd better be making an INSANE amount of gold because your production will be rubbish.

You're assuming the malus gets counted twice. You're also ignoring the impact of Forge.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

I'm glad gathering storm is adding much more variety on dinamic terrain features, but there's plenty of biomes missing, like mangrooves and savanna, (heck even forests that aren't just pines) hopefully they will add them on DLC or another xpack.

Definitely agreed though, at least with what we're given, I can understand giving them desert bonuses. Giving them +1 Food and +1 Faith for each grassland or plains tile would be a bit...odd.

 

[God of Kings]

Here's Mali's trade delegation gifts:

Jump to the 23:38 mark

Indigo cloth, Kikeliba tea, 100 porters carrying sacks of gold dust

 

[thecrazyscot]

Here's Mali's trade delegation gifts:

Jump to the 23:38 mark

Indigo cloth, Kikeliba tea, 100 porters carrying sacks of gold dust

No mention of sending the porters back...

 

[Zaarin]

No mention of sending the porters back...

"Keep them! I have plenty more."

 

[God of Kings]

"Keep them! I have plenty more."

Mansa Musa must have a few thousand porters carrying sacks of gold dust to give to every civ.

 

[Ondolindë]

I wonder where all that gold is now. It would be fun to see how it moved all around the world in time.

 

[scry887]

Mansa Musa must have a few thousand porters carrying sacks of gold dust to give to every civ.

It's the ancient form of a glitter bomb .

 

[AmazonQueen]

Mali looked pretty strong in Many A True Nerds playthrough.
He did have some luck, pretty isolated, lots of CS, a natural wonder close to his starting position, and plenty of rivers and desert.
Then again his play was far from optimal. Given his position he didn't expand enough, settle his cities in the best places and certainly didn't place CH and HS in such a way as to get the best adj. He did get Reyna and promote her quickly which looks important.
He was still raking in the money and faith and fairly quickly buying almost anything important. Chopping hardly figured at all. Theres not much to chop in desert and forests (and quarries) are Mali's best production when they are around.
Barring an early war I think Mali is very strong.

 

[God of Kings]

Here's a very powerful strategy for Mali:

You see, the Suguba has a 20% gold discount on purchasing everything (including units). The Democracy government adds another 20% gold discount on purchasing units. If Mali also has suzerainty over Ngarzagamu, for each building in the encampment, it gets a 20% discount on purchasing units.

Thus, a Malian city with a Suguba and all three buildings in its encampment under a democratic Mali with suzerainty over Ngarzagamu means that Mali can essentially purchase units for free. Mali produces so much gold that unit maintenance would be negligible and the only limiting constraints would be space and strategic resource availability.

 

[BrotherInJah]

 

[Sagax]

Here's a very powerful strategy for Mali:

You see, the Suguba has a 20% gold discount on purchasing everything (including units). The Democracy government adds another 20% gold discount on purchasing units. If Mali also has suzerainty over Ngarzagamu, for each building in the encampment, it gets a 20% discount on purchasing units.

Thus, a Malian city with a Suguba and all three buildings in its encampment under a democratic Mali with suzerainty over Ngarzagamu means that Mali can essentially purchase units for free. Mali produces so much gold that unit maintenance would be negligible and the only limiting constraints would be space and strategic resource availability.

The free purchase exploit has been known for a while. Honestly, not too big of a deal, because you have so much gold and discount as Democracy Mali anyway. Still needs fixing, though.

 

[UWHabs]

The free purchase exploit has been known for a while. Honestly, not too big of a deal, because you have so much gold and discount as Democracy Mali anyway. Still needs fixing, though.

Also it relies on one specific city-state being in the game and you having suzerainty over it, and you still need an encampment with all the buildings.

I mean, *anybody* can take suzerainty over them, go to Democracy, and you pay a fraction of the price for units. It's something like 300 gold to buy a tank for anyone else who gets Ngar... + Democracy, meaning that you can buy a tank army for less than 1000 gold.

 

[Zenstrive]

I am buying and luring great people on my latest playthrough with Mali on King. That makes me owners of so many wonders. The capital alone has like three wonders. The next cities has two. Every city has one excep the one surrounded by mountains. Even the small city flipping from Hungary has one built.