Malians Rework- good early game but worst late game

[HasanIchess]

The videos that support the arguments are in this Reddit publication

r/aoe4 - Mali - good early game but worst late game

Early-game
Malians have an exaggerated excellent early game when there are battles with equal resources, but that advantage vanishes when the population limit is reached, in late game you cannot win by quantity but by quality

Civilization centered on Musofadi

Musofadi sometimes replaces Donso

Only two civilizations have heavy cavalry in feudal age so with other civilizations I don’t see the need to produce Donso, Musofadi is strong against horsemen in equal resources
Propose: Shift some of Musofadi’s base damage towards the bonus against heavy

Musofadi and Javelin
Musofadi’s counter is the archer, so he must always be in the company of the Javelin, Mosofadi is excessively strong in feudal but loses that advantage (in equal resources) when the population limit is reached
I propose: Decrease Mosifadi’s stats in feudal but make him stronger than he is now in castle age, include a technology that increases his damage

Landsknecht and Heavy Cavalry
Musofadi is very good against heavy cavalry on equal resources but when the population limit is reached Musofadi is no longer effective (Malians have no crossbowmen). The Landsknecht always beat Musofadi and even more so in late game when the population limit is reached, they win by quality (they even lost with the help of Archers)
I propose: Give Musofadi area damage, not only because of Landsknecht but also because of heavy cavalry (in late game they lose for quality); Malians don’t have crossbowmen and their only unit against heavy cavalry is Musofadi, (Heavy cavalry only have a little bit of health left, but a Frenchman would walk away from the battle and heal due to his ability)

Donso
The heavy cavalry is very strong in the late game because the spearmen, or in this case the Donso, cannot have double or triple the number of units to win with equal resources, I did a test and the cavalry beat Donso with 10% less than units
I propose: Give damage in area, to Musofadi

The Archers
Malians focus on Musofadi because Sofa is weak so I will not have the need to produce archers since the rival will not make spearmen if I do not produce cavalry, (Musofadi is already effective against horsemen), the poison arrow technology does not motivate me to produce archers
I propose: Give an ability for archers to increase the attack speed of all ranged units except gunpowder (this will help the javelins who must defend Musofadi quickly from archers)

Sofa
He cannot have an even battle against heavy cavalry with equal resources (including +2 defense, he loses) so it is essential to have Musofadi in battle. Sofa has low health which makes him inefficient in late game unlike cavalry heavy, it holds more the arrows of Tc or Keeps for that reason heavy cavalry is more effective to raid villagers
I propose: Increase your stats either health, damage or attack speed
Madrasa buff increases cavalry health by 30% not 20%
Another idea is for Sofa to reduce cavalry damage like Camel does.

Conclusion

All Malians strengths are based on early game when quantity trumps quality (i.e. on equal resources) bonuses like producing units with only gold at a reduced cost of 20% don’t benefit late game, because when reaches the population limit, you win by the quality of units. Also the civilization focuses a lot on Musofadi because he is the only one who can counter the heavy cavalry (because they don’t have crossbowmen) so give Musofadi area damage

[KnowingLamb8370]

they have one strenght they can build a strong economy with less villager thanks to their standing resource production so they can make bigger armies and donso ranged ability probably deals bonus against cav too when i played with them they took down couple of knights with only ranged but it was big numbers fighting there just wanted to add

[PlumpDucklin]

Why did you bother sharing images of the start of your tests? Also half of them are meaningless, sofa aren’t meant to be great at fight cavalry. It’s like showing us that camels aren’t good enough Vs MAA

Why is your answer give musofadi area damage? There’s no reasoning to this conclusion, more than likely it actually needs generic stats boosted like minor hp or bonus dmg boost.

Currently the stealth mechanic arguably doesn’t work as effectively as intended,and isn’t fully explored properly. This happens with any game that gains a very different mechanic

We know from other games that quantity can beat quality. It’s a matter of tweaking the numbers. Remember Malians have the massive production boost through the grotto. On top of the massive siege bonus.

Neither of these have been fully explored either

Conclusion: you’re way ahead of the gun. Wait and see how the civ plays out when explored more.

It’s more than likely an issue of pacing and not unit stats. Malians have a weak point transitioning to passive income, and that needs to be determined if it’s too weak or not.

[PlumpDucklin]

@HasanIchess

Musofadi is strong against horsemen in equal resources

This is fine. It’s an expensive fragile melee infantry, horsemen shouldn’t counter it. They’re meant to counter archer types and siege, not melee infantry

@HasanIchess

does not motivate me to produce archers

That’s on you. Not the unit. Poison archers still eat xbow, spears, landsneks, HC, etc and do better Vs all the targets archers usually struggle against. If anything imo they’re one of the last things that need a buff

@HasanIchess

The Landsknecht always beat Musofadi and even more so in late game when the population limit is reached,

again a terrible comparison. Landsneks are massively gold intensive on a civ that doesn’t get the level of passive gold that malians do, are literally designed as the pinnacle of killing units in melee, are slower and don’t have stealth with auto healing

[HasanIchess]

Bad statistics of Malians in the tournament

Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 Age of Empires IV – Tournaments – AoE4 World

[HasanIchess]

I dare you to only use Maliens in the qualifier, it is inconsistent for you to defend them and not use them

Malians Rework- good early game but worst late game

Bad statistics of Malians in the tournament

[BdelloidBore5]

Is there ban statistic too? Or am I blind

[HasanIchess]

Malians – Civilizations – AoE4 World

As I argued, Malians is only good in early game, has few wins in late game and has a low winrate

All red (less than 50%) from Diamond up

[HasanIchess]

I will put the data of different Elos

… almost everything is in red!

[Shneider177]

None of these status suggest your thesis??? The majority of these games are resolved waaaaaaaaaaay before population cap…

And the stats suggest the cov is strong late… not early.

Also as a new off meta civ, it could be the mali meta is undiscovered or umder developed and or weak. Its still too soon to tell.

I remind you of rus and delhi when first released where both undiscovered, then OP strats bevame meta and both these civs have been getting nerfed patch after patch.

[Michaelan96]

Malians are the one civ that plays and feels different to the rest. The units look great (graphically), have unique weaknesses and strengths, and landmarks have different impacts. Hopefully they don’t change these aspects when doing balancing.

The stealth mechanic definitely is too weak when all the enemy needs is a scout. Should only be revealed by town centers and castles or something, since it’s such a short duration anyways with long cooldown.

[Oligarchical]

I think its reasonably to say Mali has issues late game because the limiter becomes pop not resources. If your opponent has 100 pop of knights and MMA etc, then having 100 pop of Sofa as “little knights” and Musofadi as “little MMA” (even if you think they are meant to be melee crossbows etc) can be a problem. Arguably you should have a bigger economy due to cows+pit mines so can re-max - but that doesn’t necessarily help if you have one set piece battle, lose, and then their cannons etc destroy your base.

But really, most games don’t go that far. So I think the real issue is the economy. Or basically, Mali doesn’t seem to get much of an economic advantage, despite seemingly being designed as a Boom civ.

So for example you have pit mines.
But they aren’t free. You have to chuck quite a lot of wood (pit mine+8 buildings, 350-375) to get 90 gold a minute. Sure, that will pay off - but you look at other factions and they tend to have an economic advantage that is just there. Thinking Rus, Abbasid etc.

Then you have cows. On paper this allows you to boom in addition to however many TCs you have. But before the Castle Age wonder, this is only about as efficient as building another TC. As in if you were to instantaneously spend 2700 resources on 20 cows+7 enclosures, you’d get 28*20=560 resources a minute. So you’d “pay back” (assuming food=wood=gold=stone, which is arguable) in about 4 minutes 50 seconds. And if you build a TC, have the villagers work to generate resources (without much walking time) it will also take about 4 minutes and 50 seconds to pay both for the extra villages, and the 750 resources you used to build the TC. (Clearly the exact maths will depend on upgrades etc but in rough numbers.)

But every faction can add an extra TC - and some have active advantages to doing so. Therefore, you are not getting ahead unless your opponent doesn’t follow. The wonder helps - but that’s sort of what its there for. I don’t think “if you’ve committed 2700 resources this generates an extra 400f a minute” is broken by any stretch.

This doesn’t mean you can’t win via booming - but its not obvious what advantage you are getting versus other civs, many of which have additional bonuses on top. In the same way you can harass the opponent to bits - but you could do this with any civ etc.

[PlumpDucklin]

@Oligarchical

Arguably you should have a bigger economy due to cows+pit mines so can re-max - but that doesn’t necessarily help if you have one set piece battle, lose, and then their cannons etc destroy your base.

well you shouldnt be fighting like that

in case you didnt know, there are other games with civs like this, where their units are not pop efficient so they rely on high turn over to maximise their civ advantages, but in order to do that, they need to fight a lot, and fortunately the groto actually has a festival to aid with this

the same design likely applies to malians

@Michaelan96

The stealth mechanic definitely is too weak when all the enemy needs is a scout. Should only be revealed by town centers and castles or something, since it’s such a short duration anyways with long cooldown.

agree, i wondered if perhaps the anti stealth range needs to be reduced on the detectors as well, or remove the types of things that can detect it

even with that reduction, i think they need to increase the stealth time as well, as fix the issue with warriors not triggering their “first strike” thing (unlike gunners)

[KnowingLamb8370]

maybe at castle age their donso should get +1 range armor and in imperial another +1 range armor with the unique tech at the blacksmith because i think their weakness is no tanky infantry and they all get countered by range units

[TwinsenOdyssey]

I would like to add unit which replace the siege since Mali empire doesn’t have gunpowder, not sure about trebuchet and mangonel but probably not. Stealth could be added to other units also or units who pop from stealth to have bonus dmg and speed. Some different aoe stuff instead of mangonel would do good job.

[HasanIchess]

excerpt about Malians

AOE4 SEASON 3 CIV TIER LIST

[HasanIchess]

As I mentioned: the worst late game

Malians – Civilizations – AoE4 World

[Happy7345]

Agree with you malians is weak with solo but dominated in team ranks now. Believe me on 3-3, 4-4 if one team have malians the other not 80% win rate. Hard to balanced now.

[Shneider177]

Comparing my experience with others in the diamond + (currently not diamond but trying out some new stuff and on a losing streak until i figure it out) and we collectively appear to be winning the same matchups and losing the same matchups.

HRE and French are freebies especially if they do the usual. The collective problem appears to be English Mongols Rus and especially Ottomans… (the collective screenshot shows chija os a problem for most but i thino they’re playing that matchup wrong trying to play boom vs boom instead of playing the timings)

Javelin throwers need something to be a better EFFICIENT answer to archers especially longbows. They are currently high micro intensive if you dont wanna over kill. They SHOULD feel like archers vs spears OR if they want to enforce the attack micro give them way more range armor (suggesting 5 base armor) . Or an idea someone else brought up make javelin throwers work exactly like arrow ships allowing the Javelin to do slash dmg (maybe nake it an upgrade).

Common theme behind the civs mali struggles with are you can’t push or its extremely hard to push those civs early (English Mongols Rus Ottomans) ; next related issues is all these civs are exceptionally at doing the archer blob thing and having a perk over that of mali feudal archer blob (and javelins become inefficient). And they are all too aggressive to safely pull off a fast castle.

[HasanIchess]

Diamond