Mali in the BTS 600 AD start

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Shawmane

Chieftain
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
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32
The UHV is impossible. Period.

Despite nearly 2k in gold (1852) at 1300, it still wasn't enough to be first in money :(

I've never seen another Civ with any where near that much gold at that time in any other game I've played. Is it the Byzantines with the cash? China? No idea, I just know that Mali, in the 600 AD start, is not possible to achieve it's UHV.

What I did:
Found Timbuktu, 1 square SE of start spot, Accra on the coast due south of Timbuktu, Djenne between the rivers and mountains. Timbuktu makes a market and hires 2 merchants as soon as possible. Accra builds 1 turn wealth, then a work boat then a trireme then wealth. Djenne built a scout, then wealth.
I popped one Merchant before the first date and put him in Timbuktu.
I researched Fishing, Sailing, then turned science off completely.

I made contact with Spain but they weren't coming off of anything reasonable (code of laws for divine right...no thanks).
When it was all said and done, I had 1852 gold in 1300 and a grayed out 0/3.
Aside from making contact with the Euro's (ie France and Spain) and selling Divine Right (the only tech you have that they don't) for paltry money (100-ish gold is the best you can hope for, hardly worth selling DR for that even for the UHV) I don't know anything else that could possibly done to achieve the UHV.
Long and short of it, Mali needs serious help. It's bad enough that you can't even expand to the east to grab the cows early because of the incessant native attacks and the ever present, ridiculously over powered barbarian camel archers, or the fact that you are a medieval civ and have a freakin next to worthless ARCHER for a UU ( they are regularly owned by native impi's in every game I have played, even when fortified in a city for the full 25% def. bonus) you also have the worst starting area in the game, period. It's worse than the Maya even imo. At least the Maya can research a tech or 20 before they encounter hostile forces, aside from their little native problems of course ( much easier handled with longbowmen/crossbowmen which is no prob for Maya at all yet an impossibilty for the Malinese since you need gold ASAP. Never mind that the Maya start in the late classical era, yet you as Mali, start in Medieval times.
Historically, Mansa Musa made many tremendous accomplishments. Timbuktu was one of the greatest cities in the ancient world, primarily because of Mr. Musa's achievements as a warrior, tradesman and scholar.
Good thing you don't have to build the University of Sankore as part of the UHV, because as Mali, with that crappy starting area, it is literally impossible. Heck , it's usually built before you even spawn.
Anyways, I don't expect Rhye will be doing anything to help out the Malinese since he is basically finished with RFC, but that doesn't change the fact that Mali is in desperate need of help.
I will try an unlocked old style version from the 3000 BC start as Mali and see if it's possible then, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I basically consider Mali's UHV to be , like Ethiopia, the Aztecs and the Inca's UHV's, to be impossible.
 
Well yeah, in 1500 sure, heck you have to have that much with Mali. By then you have banking hopefully, and certainly France has banking by then. But the first cutoff is 1300, and in 1300, just shy of 2k gold is an awful lot (at least by any standard of game I have ever played of RFC, and I've played an awful lot of games of RFC hehe).

All I know is that there is nothing else I can do to get more gold than what I had in my last game before the first cutoff except sell Divine Right to Spain for whatever paltry sum of cash they have to offer (last game it was 55 gold).

I'm gonna try an unlocked 3000 BC start as Mali and see if that helps. We shall see.
 
Well yeah, in 1500 sure, heck you have to have that much with Mali. By then you have banking hopefully, and certainly France has banking by then. But the first cutoff is 1300, and in 1300, just shy of 2k gold is an awful lot (at least by any standard of game I have ever played of RFC, and I've played an awful lot of games of RFC hehe).
Click to expand...

I don't mean it's easy. I'm just wondering how they did it (without being backward in techs).
 
Yeah but that is badly out of date. Mali starts with Mints (forges), and aqueducts already in their cities now and there is no mention of plague at all, so I think the wiki might even be pre-plague. Also, he makes no mention of Machinery which is a pre-req of Optics. He also states he had around 1400 gold for the first benchmark making +85 a turn. Well, I was churning 103 gold a turn and had over 1700 gold in 1300 and that wasn't enough.
I achieved 1/3 with Mali in Warlords, so I know that it could be done then. Heck my best friend achieved 3/3 with me sitting right beside him watching him do it.
It just seems that something has changed significantly with BTS in regards to either the way the AI handles gold or because of their starting gold situation (IE. the 600 A.D. start).
Incidentally, I started my 3000 BC start with Mali and failed the first goal again, though I didn't have quite as much gold this time around as I had last time. Something like 1680 gold in 1300 A.D.
The only thing I did any differently was build a market in Djenne after I built a scout, then switch to wealth. Accra built workboat, trireme, wealth. Timbuktu built a market then wealth. Turned science off once I researched sailing.
On another note, tech trading in this mod is horrible. Best I could get was Divine Right and 5 gold for Machinery from Ethiopia who was pleased with me from the moment I met him.
Divine Right costs over 2k in beakers. Machinery is less than 1k. What's up with that?
 
The BTS AI values techs differently than in Vanilla/Warlords. If the wonders for DI have been built, the tech will be mostly "worthless" to the AI. Meanwhile, Machinery unlocks two very powerful units in addition to two tile improvements, so the AI gives it a higher value.
 
Shawmane said:
Yeah but that is badly out of date. Mali starts with Mints (forges), and aqueducts already in their cities now and there is no mention of plague at all, so I think the wiki might even be pre-plague. Also, he makes no mention of Machinery which is a pre-req of Optics. He also states he had around 1400 gold for the first benchmark making +85 a turn. Well, I was churning 103 gold a turn and had over 1700 gold in 1300 and that wasn't enough.
I achieved 1/3 with Mali in Warlords, so I know that it could be done then. Heck my best friend achieved 3/3 with me sitting right beside him watching him do it.
It just seems that something has changed significantly with BTS in regards to either the way the AI handles gold or because of their starting gold situation (IE. the 600 A.D. start).
Incidentally, I started my 3000 BC start with Mali and failed the first goal again, though I didn't have quite as much gold this time around as I had last time. Something like 1680 gold in 1300 A.D.
The only thing I did any differently was build a market in Djenne after I built a scout, then switch to wealth. Accra built workboat, trireme, wealth. Timbuktu built a market then wealth. Turned science off once I researched sailing.
On another note, tech trading in this mod is horrible. Best I could get was Divine Right and 5 gold for Machinery from Ethiopia who was pleased with me from the moment I met him.
Divine Right costs over 2k in beakers. Machinery is less than 1k. What's up with that?
Click to expand...


Hah, that wiki is my strategy guide from a ways back. I didn't even know that it was added to the wiki (not that I mind). Anyway, you're right, that guide was done pre-plague and on Warlords. I may tool around with the new BtS version and see if I can get it to work and will post a new guide if it works.
 
Okay, I’ve played the BtS Mali civ a couple of times and created a chart below comparing it to the time I succeeded in accomplishing the Historical Victory in a Warlords game about six months back. (I wrote the strategy guide that’s currently on the Rhye’s wiki, although it is only semi-useful anymore.)

In any case.

Things that made the Mali civ easier in the current BtS version:
*Cities now start with mints and aqueducts.
*Portuguese and Dutch civs are good for trading.

Things that made the Mali civ harder in the current BtS version:
*Plague.
*Amped-up barbarians and natives in Africa. This may be selective memory on my part, but I don’t recall having to deal with such a huge army of pillaging impis in the old Warlords version.
*Machinery as a prerequisite to Optics. Machinery is so expensive that it makes beeline researching for Optics seem like a foolish goal.
*Other civs seem to be getting much wealthier, faster. In the old version I could become the richest civ in the world by 1300 without any real effort: now it is nigh impossible. I could not do it in many, many attempts.
*The 600 AD scenario set-up precludes having nearby neighbors like Carthage, Rome, Greece and Egypt with which to trade. Now, I like this because it is more historical, but it does make life for Mali much more difficult. This is somewhat offset by Portugal and the Netherlands, but without optics sooner it is much more difficult to meet other civs.
*You “forget” trading partners after a period of no contact. Since rapid and frequent trading was essential in my old strategy, this seriously cripples my approach to the Mali as well.


With the above +s and –s, I have to admit I couldn’t even get past the first goal The first goal used to be so easy that I often beat it without even consciously trying; now I think it may be impossible without a tremendous amount of luck.

Now, a lot of these changes have been in place a long, long time, so it does tell you that I’ve not attempted this civ's historical victory for a while. The AI is a lot more savvy, too, which makes the Mali goal even harder. Things like forgetting civs and the plague are now essential parts of the Rhye’s experience, so I don’t think we can get around that, but I have some ideas for making the Mali experience challenging rather than frustrating.

My suggestions for helping the Mali in future updates:
*Perhaps no -1 health for mints
*Perhaps make Impis spawn later, fewer, and less frequently
*Perhaps have the Mali start out with more gold
*Perhaps have the Mali start out with Machinery
 
In the 600 AD start, their are no ethiopians strangely.
Further I noticed when playing as the dutch. That the germans and particulary the french spam GM. France ussually has already around 1500 gold when starting as the dutch.
 
Greeneyedzombie said:
In the 600 AD start, their are no ethiopians strangely.
Further I noticed when playing as the dutch. That the germans and particulary the french spam GM. France ussually has already around 1500 gold when starting as the dutch.
Click to expand...

Oof, you're right. I had assumed the Ethiopians were coming around the corner. I'll edit my post accordingly.
 
France ALWAYS has a duvet filling load of money. It's always so tempting to trade techs with them for the cash, but it's tough to give up the advantage (as other euros).

It sounds like you're on the right track, just maybe getting a little bad luck. Do you check the statistics/demographics to see what the top rival has? If it's something utterly outrageous then I'd say it very well could be Byzantine gumming up the works, otherwise I'd bet it's Napoleon just a bit ahead of you.

YOU CAN DOO EET!
 
I've tried Mali a couple of times and had the same problem. The last time, I had over 1500 gold in 1300 AD and had met every European civ (except Russia) as well as Arabia. None of them had anywhere near 1500 gold, and I doubt very much that the other civs did either. Could this be a bug?
 
I agree that the 600AD start is extremely difficult for them, however the 3000BC Unlocked is a lot easier! I managed to be the richest with about 500 gold because I'd met every civ and traded tech's for money. The only tech I wanted was Machinery which I can get from the Spanish for a price.
 
coko said:
I agree that the 600AD start is extremely difficult for them, however the 3000BC Unlocked is a lot easier! I managed to be the richest with about 500 gold because I'd met every civ and traded tech's for money. The only tech I wanted was Machinery which I can get from the Spanish for a price.
Click to expand...

Why would this be easier? You still start at around 900AD. Is this because of the Ethiopians/Chartage bieing still around?
 
What Coko said would make sense for that very reason Greeneye.

Wert's original guide involved trading with everyone you met for as much as you could get all the time. Its amazing how much gold you can pick up from a tiny map each turn with contact with 10 or more Civs. Even the min 10gp could net you 100gp and you could probably repeat it the turn after. Not that I have been able to do Mali for a looonnnngggggg time (early 2007 late 2006 possibly?). So anyway more trading partners, especially close by and developed would be a good thing. Providing they dont decide to assault your little Jungle Empire.
 
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