Mali TC should only cost 350 wood in order to allow Malian to just collect straggler trees the way other civs do. Right now Mali has to forgo building the pit (not happening) or collect 550 wood total in order to reasonably get 400 wood for a TC.
100w for the first 4 houses (will need 30 population cap by 4mins period).
50w for mining camp (or long distance mining+300g…)
50w for lumber camp (or long distance chopping for 50w to get enough for the TC and likely another long distance chopping to then get the 50w for the lumbercamp of the TC isn’t on the tree line).
To make it fair increase the gold cost and reduce the wood cost. This would allow Malian to get 2nd TC timings comparable to other civs.
I have a renewed interest in freeborn! Although in our typical gameplay styles this unit appears underwhelming and at best redundant? I think there might be an opportunity if we can FC before our opponent???
Right now it’s the only other non cav unit that can sit under TC fire like maa but it’s the only non cav unit that has the speed of a palace guard and is NOT countered by crossbows. In other words if you can force the issue, it’s a decent raiding unit.
But how do we:
- Get to castle before the enemy
- Secure enough safe resources to sustain the freeborn production
Pro scouts and 2 safe golds is more than enough resources but I’m not confident you can get the timing right esp vs the big shot pro scouts civs like China’s, Rus, frenched, HREs, etc??
China’s will beat you to castle and knights will shit on freeborns. Rus will beat you to castle and horse archers will shit on freeborns. French won’t let you pro scouts in peace and definitely not age unscathed, then their early knights will shit on freeborn anyways? Maybe this could work vs HRE? Can’t work vs Ayyubids bc desert raiders will shit on freeborns…
Despite my enthusiasm about the novelty of the unit, I can’t imagine how to make it work more times than not?
Okay… Let’s try this.
Dark age full pit mine/ defense, then landmark the nearest deer pack and tower your gold or vice versa. If you anticipate less aggression from enemy then Mansa instead and tower accordingly. Build a barracks for minimum pro scouts defense on your deer and maybe a lil denial on enemy packs. Next FC farimba, freeborn and go all in raiding. And sneak relics on the backend. Avoid prolonged fights, even if it appears favored bc we’re working on momentum. We want to stifle the enemy eco. This way, if we’re successful we’ll have a comparatively overwhelming mass to force critical engagements.
In the end we want freeborn donso mix Frontline with springs and poisoned arrow archers in the back. At high numbers springs chew thru everything infantry and donso keep cav in check.
The freeborn will only do 5 damage per hit if the enemy has upgrade infantry
So i just went freeborn warrior against sushi and lost to mass Zhengu. This unit is terrible becouse it is too slow. It is not just a worse version of horseman, it is a useless unit. Its very existance is a trap and likely responsible for Mali’s terrible win rate.
It fails to counter what its assigned to, and when the opponenet make a single man at arms it can 1v3 them. Never build this unit no matter how tempted. Only a noob will lose to it.
this unit is not noob friendly that much is very true. However Freeborn are a raid unit, so the only way to make them count is to FC where you can flood the enemy eco with this unit. Yes their dps is low at 9 base, 1.375 attack speed; however with 175hp and +5 range armor it can sit under TC fire longer than early knights. This (if you can afford it) you can constantly send waves into enemy eco pockets and stagnant their production. Esp if the enemy went into pro scout then immediately FC.
However Knight civs… Frenches, Mongols can hard counter the play if you go straight freeborn. Yet, the strat isn’t dead in the water, you can mix musofadi and donso to hold against knights. You can run away from all maa until you have the numbers and/or unit composition you want.
The freeborn is a unit addition, the other two options are like 1000 gold upgrade enhancements to jav and mansof. its a no brainer
the freeborn isnt like some extra great unit
Honestly since late game is lacking synergy i think the cattle ranch is the way to go.
Lets think about this for a second - just how bad is t3 landmark? It is a t3 barracks with “unique upgrades” you know what else has unique upgrades? The t2 HRE Meinwork.
This building is truly a ripoff. It gives no production speed increase and isnt even fully realized until imperial which MOST games will never get to!
EDIT: I think what mali needs is some juice to the t3 landmarks. Both are terrible. The cattle ranch is the only “conditional” t3 landmark meaning it assumes youre already doing decent, and have cows.
Compare that to an instantly viable keep which produces units, a rolling super priest that gives everyone regen and +20% damage, or hell, even the french guild hall which lets you pick what to harvest.
FC freeborn worked very well for me vs all non knights in feudal civs.
You only need 1 deer pack and 1 secure gold (eventually).
Freeborn can kill standard maa in a 2 free to 1 maa ratio, plus you can pick your engagements. Vs knights you need to add donsos or musofadi (I prefer muso bc you keep the group speed and don’t have to change the macro and wood units when you need to make a billion wood costing facilities, is cancer).
Again the idea is eco damage, not direct army engagements. You’re right! 9 base dmg per 1.375s is meh, and their total DPS vs range is less than vet horseman, heck less than vet warrior scouts!!! This is why you’re just raiding everywhere. As you raid and force him to chase you collect relics and build a proper army behind it all. Since you already prepping barracks, musofadi switch is instant, and donso requires a macro shift but still very much doable.
Currently these OP civs hard counter this strat for one reason or another.
Rus, China, Zhu Xi.
Next Drush civs can force you to alter or abandon this strat all together .
Its not the freeborn thats the issue, its the t3 landmarks.
Minor adjustments would make a world of difference such as:
Abbility for cattle ranch to make cattle
Increased production speed for t3 barrack landmark by 50%
Bam, mali fixed just like that.
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I’m supposing they have limited bandwidth to adjust everything at once. But so much of what the two new variants got appear to somewhat share in the uniqueness concepts of malians.
Hopefully malians get revisited and revamped. KTs unique unit per age is like the famriba but so much better bc it’s not just the units you unlock but unique techs. Both the new variants civs unique roster really stands out of niche and refreshing.
I’ve tried Farimba a bit recently, and I’m afraid its just bad.
Freeborn are fun. If your opponent isn’t expecting the switch and masses range, and you can get to a critical mass, they just die. Notionally in the right proportions Donso/Freeborn/Musofadi counter everything.
But there’s no world “unlocking freeborn” (or slightly better Musofadi/poisoned Javs) is worth 400~ food a minute. And every minute that goes by makes this gap more and more obvious.
And you can go “okay, I won’t Cow Boom, I’ll… Fast Castle.” But then you have no eco to make these weaker units that really need to be massed to have effect. Freeborn are not MAA, just as Sofa are not mounted Samurai.
You can go 2 TC but I’m not convinced you have material economic benefits versus other civs to justify it.
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