I threw in a few ideas for ottomans earlier, but I can’t leave mali hanging. I like mali’s complete unique roster (excluding archers), but the siege section is… uninspired. So while not completely original, I’d like to throw in a few ideas to make their siege stand out a bit. Not necessarily in power but in having more of a personality. Again no idea whether these will be underwhelming or overpowered.
So their siege units are; battering ram, siege tower, springald, mangonel, trebuchet, bombard, and culverin.
Now from what little I read, historically Mali Empire didn’t/couldn’t make use of gunpowder weapons en masse. So I’m going to remove bombard and culverin entirely. But bombard can be added if balance demands it. As for musofadi gunner, its… fine. Its just the 19th century looking rifle that bothers me most.
Now for the new unique mali siege roster. Warning, their names might suck…
Lumbering Fort: Replaces battering rams. So mali has a strong feudal age with most of their roster available. My idea here is to discourage rams in feudal age due to cost.
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Increase health to 500.
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Can garrison up to 20 units.
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Each unit garrisoned increases movement and attack speed by 2%.
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Increase cost to 300 wood and maybe 50 gold.
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Fortified Bulk (unique castle or imperial age upgrade from siege workshop) adds +10 melee armor.
Wandering Bastion: Replaces siege tower. Functions like a mobile outpost. Again jacked up cost to discourage feudal use.
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Increase health to 550 and ranged armor to 10.
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Can garrison up to 10 units.
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Each garrisoned unit increases movement speed by 4%.
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Each garrisoned unit can fire arrows from inside like an outpost.
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Increase cost to 250 wood and 50 stone.
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Fortified Bulk (unique castle or imperial age upgrade from siege workshop) adds +10 melee armor.
Catapult: Replaces both mangonel and trebuchet. Base line stats are compared to mangonel.
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Increase health to 200, movement speed to 1.05, range to 10, and bonus damage vs buildings & ships to +100.
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Unique castle age tech Burning Tar Vases allows catapult to start fire on buildings and ships with stacking damage overtime. This damage can be reduced by fire armor. In short poison arrow’s building & ship version.
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Fortified Bulk (unique castle or imperial age upgrade from siege workshop) adds +10 melee armor.
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Increase cost to 400 wood and 250 gold.
Springald: This one shares the fate of malian archers. They stay the same. 