Mali dark age rush IMO is a viable strat similar to English dark age maa rush. The problem with mali’s version is the macro and micro is less forgiving as well as the transition out of the rush into feudal.
The idea is to get 2 donso across the map and chucking spears at or before 2mins!! If you take 3mins to get across… well at that point you have to commit to some sort of tower rush as most civs will have what they need for fast feudal by 3mins. The macro I’ll post is for a 2 donso into feudal, but you can easily change this macro into a tower rush follow up .
At time 0
- 3 vils on nearest straggler tree
2.3 vils on startijg sheep
3.Que 3 vils in TC (yes 3) and rally the first 1 to gold - Scout for at least your starting sheep around your base, need a min of 4 but 5+ will give you optimal leeway (you only get 60s to get these sheep…)
- Pull one food vil immediately to make a barracks
At time 20s
- trained vil comes out heads gold in order to build a house then come back…(first vil idle walking time…but you need the houses on gold for later). Not doing this step would save you 11 ish resources…but it’s not worth the resources you’ll lose eventually even your pit is up, plus the 11(soon to be 22) resources will not greatly improve this rush. After building house rally that vil to food.
- All new villagers after the first will rally to food.
At time 40-45s
1.Barracks should be done and 30w drop offf should line up perfectly to que your first donso at 45s max!!
At tme 60s-70s
2. Your 2nd donso should be qued immediately after at the 60s mark ONLY if you optimal micro waa done right and you’ll not idle TC. IT CAN BE DONE.
3. Sheep gathering is done for now, go find enemy. Ignore wolves.
3. Baracks rally to the enemy location.
Don’t lose the donso only poke and safe seige
Time 80-85s
2 donso acrossing the map (don’t lose these just poke] . All you want is idle time from enemy if you can kill a vil? Wonderful! But we jist need the idle time. If you struggle micro just place the units in between the mine and camp then stand your ground facing enemy.
To transition into feudal your 4th trained vil will go to mine to create a house followed by a mining camp. Send 2 more vils to mining until and rest on food until 400f 200g. (You’ll need 2 to keep houses coming…so be ready ).
To optimize straggler treees be sure to pop vils in and out the TC to jump from a cut one to the new one.
You’ll get your pit in transition to feudal.