That’s my fault… TG players and Imp mass then fight players have a different concept of small than me; small to you is probably 20-30 units given you ppl are use to 80-100 units in your regular fights; meanwhile for ppl that fight straight out the gate small means 6-10 units; heck 10 is bordering my definition of mid size.
So yes the resource comparable amount of horsemen vs 6-10 archers, horsemen would never lose that ESPECIALLY not in the beta??? (b/c if you played the beta…you’d remember archers had a melee attack that was weaker than their range attack…)
But back to my point, if you can sneak a surround around a small group of archers (6-10), with 6-10 warriors, you can trade effectively bc you’ll prevent the kite from being effective.
Overall after playing in the my fair share of plat-conq games and watching the top players, play mali; Mali is best played as an aggressive civ on open land maps. On closed maps they thrive with a defensive trade boom, and on water you got some cheese. I believe all this is clearly the design intent, however!!!
Late game, IMO, Mali really really suffers, because they have no meatshield!, and Raiding becomes less a thing with walls, esp stone walls, everywhere. Yes they have high dps with archers/gunners, but again no meat!!
Either give Sofa progressive piercing armor the same way you do with standard horseman OR give donso/warriors extra HP buff like the china MAA buff.
And the most frustrating matchups late for me are against HRE bullshit maa/landsknecht; which require either ultra ultra archer mass + warriors and kiting; or Mangos (which need protection from run by’s) + warriors; both require the Mali player to out maneuver and outplay the LEFT-CLICK HRE player…
The other matchup that is extremely oppressive, is China… yes China is OP vs everybody, but mali really realllllyy struggles to do anything vs zhuge,HC (with range) + fire lancer/horsemen… Donso get melted, warriors get melted and have no bonus vs that comp, nothing is gonna protect your archers nor your mangos… And sofa ultra mass with hyper micro might be able to force a unit switch by him, but still I see the Mali player having to outplay and out maneuver JUST to stay relevant…
Both these late game matchups are not solvable by my little brain as Mali.
So until they change Mali, I suggest we finish the game in feudal or early castle; if you get roped into the juicy boom of mali and get a late game… I hope your eco is overwhelming stronger than the opp; otherwise.
Reduce the pit mine cost to 100w. This cheaper cost will reduce the impact of losing the pit as well as allow for faster establishment and allow for initial pit mine to be dropped immediately with 2 houses without chopping straggler.
1 tower and only 1 tower can now be added to the salt pit mine and contribute 50% of the base rate (15 gpm). This will reward a defensive tower which in itself is typically expensive early (100w and 60s build time) and decrease the vulnerability of the pit mine.
Next the musofadi warrior:
Sleath last 30s
Warriors get 8 bonus dmg on initial dmg out of sleath (until age 4 landmark that doubles base dmg out of sleath). Also that bonus dmg expires 20s after leaving sleath.
Give base musofadi warrior 10hp and 1 extra attack.
P.s. if the 100w cost is too strong then reduce the base gold generation to 25gpm and have houses and mining camps contribute 30% each, that would equate to a net loss of 5gpm given the standard configuration; but the benefits would remain that the pit is cheaper and towers now contribute to the generation while naturally added defensiveness to the position.
You humble brag without actually understanding what’s going on. Sofa don’t need a buff. They’re already better than knights when it comes to tanking arrows from imported armour. Go do the math instead of humble bragging
Malians have issues, but sofa definitely aren’t one of them
This seems the common consensus
Effectively a 50w twr, considering the mine buff. I think it’s a good idea that scales well.
Javelin throwers might still need a buff though (at least from castle age) if anything we could argue besides for the weakness to a dark age rush/MAA, malians start struggling from castle age specifically, not necessarily feudal, due to their units being better than other civs in feudal
Did you do the math? B/c had you done the math you would find that ONLY standard archer fire (fully upgraded) takes more volleys to kill a fully upgraded sofa compared to a fully upgraded knight; meanwhile every other range unit kills a sofa faster than it kills a knight?
Next maybe do the math yourself before you talk about something you dont know??
The javelin throwers attack animated is sooo long? Did you know a max range javelin thrower will end up launching his javelin at the same time as the enemy archer that has to walk 1 tile closer then shoot an arrow??? This plus the long recast time makes kiting vs range units impossible and I’m convince this was done on purpose to reduce the power of the javelin thrower vs melee units (cavalry esp). With that long animation i think javelin throwers can use 7 range!!!
Alternatively give javelin throwers +1 piercings armor which makes them immune to arrows
Javalin Thrower : What about make it a bit like archer ship, throwing more than 1 projectile (maybe 2 or 3) with main projectile lock to target but other aim at ground around main target within 1/4 tile radius [like Satyr from AOM]? Could be upgrade after age 2.
Musofati Unit: Instead of active stealth skill, what about stealth stance like AOE3; unit stealth all the time until being found or start fighting, but move slower while stealth. This may make positioning and timing for ambush easier. May even able to use as stealth observation like SC Observer.
Having a permanent sleath stance is extremely strong even if its used for just for LOS.
And that splash dmg from javelin throwers sounds OP, given one of the biggest issues with javelin thrower mass is OVERKILLING…
If they removed the mangonel from the Mali roster and allowed for a castle upgrade that turn javelin throwers into splash dmg units?? That might work given magonels are optimal vs blobs of range units??? And to keep it from being op make most their dmg bonus dmg to keep ppl from just making javelin masses to kill everything.
I love the idea. Literally they just copy the mali arrow ship mechanic!!!
People took a while to understand Rus; same with Delhi; I think it settled that Mali SHOULD be based on establishing trade; everything else flows from a strong trade (gold turns into optimal cow food, and all your decent units cost gold).