Mali has a decent eco HOWEVER; it requires a setup time AND and excessive amount of resources up front! For example to get 90 gpm passive you need to invest 375 wood ( around a small gold mine and assuming 1 of the buildings is a mining camp); 375 wood ISN’T cheap ESP for the sub 4mins into the game!!
You can punish that!!! Now to to be completely fair Mali would have spent that 375 wood around the gold mine by the 5min mark?? AND normal civs naturally need 30-40 pop space (150-200w), so technically mali is ONLY over spending compared to standard civs by 175-225w (which is still SOMETHING for it being inside 5min game). So I’m arguing there is a window of opportunity.
Likewise their cow/ranch boom is relatively cheap compared to a TC initial setup and vil production; but you’re capped at 20 cows; so 2 TCs with constant vil production will out do the single TC cow boom by the 12+ min mark?? And much sooner with Abbasid IMO.
It’s just incredibly frustrating that they can’t make manned siege for reasons of “readability” yet the readability of most other units are abysmal. Zunge nu and crossbowmen are nearly impossible to distinguish. They also decided to give horsemen a spear instead of a sabre so they’re visually very similar to lancers and fire lancers.
Lancers lose their lance after charge and then have a sword. So changing it to a sword for the Horsemen wouldn’t help that much.
Some design decisions are definitely strange.
AoE2/3 have some inconsistencies too because the assets were made before the game design was finished.
For example in AoE2 the Man-At-Arms (Feudal Age) looks like a Knight (Castle Age) while the Long Swordsman (Castle Age) looks like the Cavalier (Imperial Age).
In AoE3 the Strelet was planned as a Musketeer like unit that’s why they have Musketeer like animations but they were changed into a Skirmisher. Which makes it stupid that they use a massive axe in melee to do like 0 damage.
I am not talking about it ecowise though. Their economy seems very well balanced.
The issue I see with them is in terms of their military composition of donzos and javelin throwers beeing too efficient in the early game and most civs wont have an effective counter against it.
Javelin throwers prety much function as archers and horsemen in the same unit, plus they have even more range than longbows. It would be fine if they were only avaliable in age3, but them being avaliable in age2 means malians only need to make 2 unit types in feudal and win most if engagements with it since in feudal most civs won’t have an effective counter against this composition, even civs that have early knights wont be able to trade efficiently with their army. Donzos would kill any cavalry and archers cant get close because of the high range of javelin throwers and the fact they have bonus against archers.
Not to mention that with javelin throwers being avaliable on age 2 there is just no reason at all for malis to make archers themselves at least not until they get their poison upgrade in age3
I dont think they are OP…Malis are perfectly designed civ. Love to play with them actually…They only seem OP against ottos because ottos are crap xD 11
Poisoned arrows blew my mind ( LOVE IT )
But their feudal seemed just little unfair but like i said against ottos like crap civ they look so probably.
I totally agree. I think it would have made more sense for it to be an anti-armor unit too.
Malis pretty much have no reason to make archers in feudal as their archers are pretty much redundant until they get the poisoned arrow upgrade
What is the counter for a Donso and Javelin Thrower army in feudal? I think the Javelin Thrower’s base damage should be lowered and the bonus damage increased. In castles they are killing man-at-arms very fast (also because they are slow).
