Save the Malakim

[mo123567]

In my last 3 games the Malakim were wiped out really early. It seems like they keep getting placed all alone in some barbarian wasteland. I have been using the standard Erebus map. Is this happening to a lot of people?

 

[Kyroshill]

Erebus maps tend to give flavorful starts.... and the AI has NO idea how to use desert terrain.... so having an AI civ based on desert terrain = AI death

 

[rusty217]

Erebus maps tend to give flavorful starts.... and the AI has NO idea how to use desert terrain.... so having an AI civ based on desert terrain = AI death

Actually the desert terrain usually turns out quite well for the Malakim, they usually end up with a large amount of flood plains and in most of the games that I play they end up the strongest good team...

 

[Kyroshill]

One great thing about this game is how different the game appears to each of us.

I have NEVER seen the AI play Malakim well.... they're always vassalized by some AV civ by about turn 250.

ADDITION: The problem they have in my games, is they do nothing but spam forts everywhere.

 

[PekkaR]

While AI likely knows very little about taking advantage of Malakim specialties, playing them in a generic way isn't bad. They ought to have equal chance with Bannor or (AI) Amurites, at least.

Malakim are very strong with flood plains and desert hills (river-neighboring for extra Financial goodness), both of which are abundant in Erebus deserts usually.

For a while now I've been playing Malakim more than 50% of my games.

 

[WarKirby]

I've never seen the Malakim do average.

Sometimes they fail horribly, but quite often in my games, they dominate. In my Illian game, they quickly rose to power and at their height, had 5 vassals, and were 50% ahead of the secondplace civ in score. This was just after they hit Mythril weapons.

Bannor on the other hand, unilaterally fail every single time. I've never seen them do better than adequate, and they tend to die early.

 

[Jules.lt]

Now if the Lanun AI built pirate coves we wouldn't have this kind of problems: they'd be ahead all the time and we could ignore all the others.

 

[mo123567]

I've never seen the Malakim do average.

Sometimes they fail horribly, but quite often in my games, they dominate. In my Illian game, they quickly rose to power and at their height, had 5 vassals, and were 50% ahead of the secondplace civ in score. This was just after they hit Mythril weapons.

Bannor on the other hand, unilaterally fail every single time. I've never seen them do better than adequate, and they tend to die early.

It's amazing how different the experience can be. The Bannor have done consistantly well in my last couple of games.

 

[mathkim]

Erebus maps tend to give flavorful starts.... and the AI has NO idea how to use desert terrain.... so having an AI civ based on desert terrain = AI death

What kind of benefit do they have from desert?
I'd never played Malakim so just curious about that..

I've played this mod for half a year and still no way to master every detail of it..
What a great mod!!

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

they get +1 gold on desert tiles. not nearly enough to keep you from casting spring on all of them, but a nice little bonus on floodplains

 

[Monkeyfinger]

They 1 get extra commerce from desert tiles, including flood plains and oases.

Unless there's lots of floodplains, there's no such thing as a good way to use a desert-heavy start. (Desert can be terraformed later, but good luck getting to that point if you start in a barren desert.) It's not just an AI issue. The real problem here is that flavor start is an unbalancing pile of horse manure and that people need to stop playing on a mapscript that has it built in while bringing up civ balance issues.

 

[Methuselah]

The real problem here is that flavor start is an unbalancing pile of horse manure and that people need to stop playing on a mapscript that has it built in while bringing up civ balance issues.

Quoted for emphasis.

The Malakim can do perfectly well if you play without flavour start. On tectonics for example, or pangaea, or any one of the many numerous maps that aren't Erebus.