Mali UHV in 1.184: First Condition is Broken

[Zagoroth]

I am pretty sure building wealth will net more money than putting up soldiers for hire, my idea was simply to declare war on France knowing they would never attack, like you said.

 

[Zagoroth]

Sorry, double post correction

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

This declaring war strategy would only work as part of a new strategy that somehow incorporates the best parts of the old one. It'd never work alone simply because it wouldn't get you enough gold and remember, mercenaries can be killed.

 

[Zagoroth]

Yes, i intended to use the strategy posted by Tigranes, and declare an early war on France.

 

[TDK]

The 2 approaches are not mutually exclusive.

Unpromoted mercenary Skirmishers will bring in 3 gold/turn and a one time payment of 39 gold. It's clearly more efficient than building wealth if we assume they can be hired out, and the ones not hired out will increase security and prevent sacking of cottages.

It should be possible to max gold, decrease french treasury and hire out mercs at the same time.

 

[Wessel V1]

And, it's possible to whip Skirmishers, whereas it's not possible to whip wealth.

 

[onedreamer]

@spy missions

I don't know about you guys, but whenever I checked for "steal treasury" spy missions, the amounts of gold I could steal were ridiculous. It would certainly not help with Mali's goal, unless I am missing something on the matter, in which case I'm ready to be enlightened

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The amount of gold you can steal is proportional to your espionage against that civ. If you had a vast amount of espionage with a great spy, you can potentially steal 1000-1500 g with less than the same amount of espionage if your spy has been there for 5 turns. I routinely do this with excess great spies after I have a tech advantage, mostly flying spies to my vassals. (e.g. as Japan in the 3000 BC game I stole in excess of 5000g late game from Greece in about 20 turns, which sustained my tech rate for a long time)

 

[onedreamer]

The 2 approaches are not mutually exclusive.

Unpromoted mercenary Skirmishers will bring in 3 gold/turn and a one time payment of 39 gold. It's clearly more efficient than building wealth if we assume they can be hired out, and the ones not hired out will increase security and prevent sacking of cottages.

It should be possible to max gold, decrease french treasury and hire out mercs at the same time.

*ahem*
we need a bit more demostration/testing and a bit less guessing here. What you have said is pure theory, there is no guarantee anyone will hire a crappy skirmisher in the Middle Age, and even if, I doubt it can ever go beyond the 3 units. Plus, I am not an expert on this matter, but I seem to recall that once you put a unit for hire you don't control it as long as it is for hire (and you don't pay maintenance), so they would hardly protect your cottages, assuming you can actually succeed to protect them vs Camel Archers and War Elephants with skirmishers O_o

 

[onedreamer]

@AP

so the 12 EP a turn from a Great Spy would be enough to steal that much money ? How many EP do you think we need to steal 1k from France ?

There is a problem with this though, first you need to rush a courthouse instead of market (bad1) and second you can only use one spy specialist whereas you could use 2 merchants or infinite merchants with caste system (bad2+bad3), so you would waste a lot of turns in the process and you may still fail (I think ?).
This can be easily checked "on the paper" though, with a math on how many turns you need to create a great spy and the amount of gold per turn from merchant specialists you miss in the process, + the money from a Great Merchant's trade mission, compared to the gold you can steal from France (which will still need a lot of turns to accumulate EPs, though) divided by 2.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I'll try it tonight. You can always switch back to castes for your great merchants and if you happen to get a great spy afterwards, so much the better.

 

[The Q-Meister]

The gold AI shows on the diplo screen isn't the total gold they have, it's only the gold they are willing to trade.

Yup they're right...unfortunately lol. I found this out the hard way myself. The Mali UHV is one of the toughest in the game IMO. Even Ethiopia I was able to do in 2-3 tries, Persia was the only one I needed more tries to complete but that was my first UHV attempt when I didn't really know the game that well. Anyway, the first time I was able to do the Mali, I got very lucky and had no plagues in the game. But yes as frustrating as it is you don't really get to see the true amount of gold the AIs have. 1500-2000 is the target area needed for goal 1 on monarch.

 

[Tigranes]

RE: Skirmishirs

Maybe it's just me, but my Mercenary mod allows me to get gold only for one unit from each type. My second elephant dissapeared without trace and without any per turn income

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So onedreamer you're right, it's impossible to get the great spy to France in time. It would be a potential strategy if Rhye saw fit to include code of laws in Mali's starting portfolio. I know it's kinda lawless in Congo right now, but there certainly is enough evidence for laws in Mali:

The Great Assembly

The Gbara or Great Assembly would serve as the Mandinka deliberative body until the collapse of the Manden Kurufa in 1645. Its first meeting, at the famous Kouroukan Fouga (Division of the World), had 29 clan delegates presided over by a belen-tigui (master of ceremony). The final incarnation of the Gbara, according to the surviving traditions of northern Guinea, held 32 positions occupied by 28 clans.[5]

[edit] Social, economic, and government reform

The Kouroukan Fouga also put in place social and economic reforms including prohibitions on the maltreatment of prisoners and slaves, installing documents between clans which clearly stated who could say what about who. Also, Sundiata divided the lands amongst the people assuring everyone had a place in the empire and fixed exchange rates for common products.

The only other solution would be to encourage Spain or France to found an early colony closer to Mali, since right now they typically don't found African colonies till after 1300.