As described I think Mali on open land maps are meant to thrive on early aggression against the back drop of cheap passive income.
I’m talking Drush with 3 Donso to your foe’s expose resources and just put in stand-ground formation IFF the resource is covered by TC fire. Every 15s you’ll hit the vils for 6 dmg each, which at minimum will require the enemy to rotate the low villagers out eventually. Also even IFF, he doesn’t rotate the vils, these villagers will be ideal for being raided later in the game so he’ll be force to keep them close or lose them.
Secondly (assuming you’re not going for an super fast Market boom in which case I’d forgo the Drush…), the Mansa Quarry is one of those landmarks that somewhat negates the fact that you use more villagers to build it. The sooner you have, comparatively the sooner your gold trickle kicks in.
For example If you use 8 villagers to build the landmark that’s a 57s Feudal build time which cost you 456s of villager gathering time. But you compare that to the standard 4 building time of 95s which is 380s of villager gathering time, and the 8 villagers have a net loss of 76s of villager gathering time comparatively. BUT!!! B/c the 8 villagers complete the landmark 38s SOONER; that’s 38s of 75gpm trickle which equals 47.5g; if we use a standard gather rate of 0.66 resources/sec; that 47.5g is worth 71.97s of villager gathering time! That essentially erased the NET villager seconds of gathering time between 8 villagers building vs 4 villagers building!
NOte: real gathering rates are actually lower than 0.66 so the equivalent villager gathering seconds worth of 47.5g is MORE than 71s.
Thirdly, the Sofia is actually OP!! And Musofadi Warriors are IMO decent units in small (keyword is small) skirmishes vs ANY feudal engagement. I think both these units should be your focus they are raiding units, formidable in small fights AND they have a gold cost which marries well with your passive generation. Just raid and raid and raid. And if the counter raid becomes heavy eat the cows inside your pastures, build Szalami walls on your woodline and tower/defend your pit mines.
Finally Next to Mongol Silvertree, Mali trade is the best, IMO for how quickly you gain 50% on your traders; And if you have a full map trade route each trader is worth 2+ villagers; this is not including the Feudal Tower landmark buff which would add 30% food to the above math.