I think it has been a great patch overall. Some great changes such as the rus bounty rework, OOTD buff, Byz got faster cataphracts and cistern of the first hill buff at last. The khan hunters look interesting too and might make mangudai much more viable.
What do you think of the patch?
Would love to be able to find out! Unfortunately, my game continues to constantly crash from BugSplat error “Incorrect function” at random and I don’t get to finish any games.
Well… I play with Rus. The hunting cabin has lost its meaning. Civilization grew with the hunting skin trade so it made perfect sense the way they designed it. I hated the new update, I’m going to stop playing this game.
Good balancing changes (mostly) so far.
I really like the change to the Rus, as having a Rus in the match, ALWAYS completely shook up the dark age.
Also having an enemy Rus forced you to skip 1 villager and make a 2nd scout, which changed your whole build and for some civs like Malians made it very tricky (before last patch) to get your sheep back on time.
The HRE eco buff was a terrible mistake.
In fact, HRE passive bonus should have been nerfed, yet they did the opposite…
The villager printer landmark (cost) nerf is waaaaaay overdue, why is it not happening???
I was kinda excited to start playing this game (1v1 ranked) again, but it seems it is not yet ready.
Meta is still f**** up.
Byz eco (olives) still too strong.
I do like the change of the catas though, they were too slow before.
Honestly this patch is kinda underwhelming, considering the amount of time we have been waiting for big changes since the last DLC.
Meta is still super broken and stalled out, tcs still machine-gun any early aggression down, HRE is still uber turtle FC/FI boom, English as well, Byz olive oil still broken, Malians still have no answer for MAA+Landsknecht combo and for Byz spear ram Feudal push.
Hopefully the Devs will wake up and massively ramp up their patching speed and deliver waaaaaaaaay larger patches any time soon.
Still waiting for attack prio fix, no news about it anywhere.
My thread in bug section has been unanswered for a year probably.
Requesting this bugfix for this mega-bug since Betas.
Devs keep silent about it, pushing the problem under the carpet.
Yet, this problem massively influences matches, even tournament matches.
Archers till get stuck on attacking buildings, rams still wiggle arround instead of attacking, same for Mangos.
I have no interest in playing this BETA-version of an aoe until they fix it god damn.
oh come on, @_e_o_ka ,your Malians got a nice buff 
You should try it
It seems to me you did not read my post.
Malians still have TONS matchups/situations, where they are omega-hardcountered and can’t do ANYTHING against someone of same skill-level or even lower skill-level.
Meta is still omega-stalled out turtle boom.
TC still megamachinegunning any Feudal (light unit) aggression down without making any army.
There is zero variation for matches and every match feels the same in each matchup, same #### #### all the time because defending/turtling/booming is just way too insane and certain civs (hello HRE!) are just dumb nonsense to play and also to play against.
Also, there are technical issues remaining since Beta, which stop me from having any fun in this game.
No reconnect-option either after crash/dc.
Budget beta-version of an aoe…
Won’t play until fixed.
Dude, I read your post, I’m not arguing about the current meta. I just said that you should try the Malians again, as they have gotten attention that they haven’t gotten in a while.
I’m just happy they’re not giving up on improving the game for the sake of new content.
Alrighty.
Malians still need tons of love.
They are/were giga-strong vs certain civs last patches, for example vs Rus, but they got so many hardcountered matchups and stalled out ones where you are forced to play one very certain way and ONLY that way, that it is just not fun to me at all.
Devs have to work on that hard before I return.
Malians are probably the most unbalanced civ in the game (1v1 conq).
Their matchups go in both extremes, mostly getting bullied though.
The hunting cabin still makes sense. The bounty system has changed and that is celebrated by most players.
If you’re going to stop playing the game because you can’t do the minigame of hunting with 2-3 scouts (which is tedious for many others), well, nothing can be done to it.
The term “hardcounter” does not exist at middle and low levels. It can be countered, but players make more mistakes and there are more alternatives.
Malians have received improvements, another thing is your complaints with issues that can be discussed in another thread.
Are you referring to the playerbase in general or me specifically?
When I stopped playing last season, I was at the ~top 3% of the playerbase in 1v1 ranked (conqueror) and even higher in team.
Very honestly, I think I have enough of expertise to judge about something being hardcountered from experience of playing it and playing against it, when facing good oponents who know what they are doing.
Of course, I have never played vs top-players and if I did, they’d just crush me like paper.
My point still stands:
The balance specifically regarding Malians in 1v1 ranked is catastrophic.
32% against Ayyubid and 76% against OOTD is absolutely unacceptable.
As I said many times, the civs are (looking at the whole picture) faildesigned, as the countersystem chosen does not suit the setup of the civs and availability of units (or unit classes) for each civ in each age.
There are many situations/matchups which are just a hit in the face for either side and this could be fixed, if the Devs did FINALLY approach that topic.
Parts of the Malians are oppressively strong (cow-boom powerspike early/mid age3), otherparts are almsot unwinnable for them.
Try dealing with MAA+Landsknecht with Malians, good luck!
No f**** way.
You don’t have crossbows or Maa yourself, absolutely unplayable matchup.
Same when you face ayyubid/abbassid, you can’t do anything because all their lineup hardcounters yours at even ressource budget.
Also, Mongol early towering Malian goldmine, ggwp. In 90% of the cases you can’t recover.
Delhi anyways death-push the Malians in Feudal, no chance either.
Byz I did talk about before. Ram+Limit deathpush in Feudal or fast castle and then death-push.
Otto unit lineup destroys Malians as well as only heavy unit is sofa and Otto got jans and can early pressure with spears vs mines, then Feudal hard push or just play for fast castle/Imperial.
JD anways destroys Malians.
So most of the civs hardcounter Malians.
Only very few are a good matchup for Malians and mostly youa re forced to play ONE SPECIFIC way against them, as their civ-design forces you to do so.
Most annoying is still HRE, as you HAVE TO go cowboom and giga-push their base before they can get too turtled up, while also making sure they don’t get relics with regnitz.
It is just ultra-annoying that you are always running on a ticking timer, having to focus more on denying the enemy’s nonsense than playing a strategy game and having OPTIONS.
I repeat myself, as I did many times:
Give Malians either Men at arms, or crossbows or both.
The civ is unplayable in many matchups because of the lack of either.
Give warrior scouts at least a small bonus vs ranged light inf in Feudal age.
Malians can not train horsemen and their only option to fight archers is Javs (sofas are too expensive age2 and got weak ranged armor age2), which makes Malians very onesided and super predictable at higher levels.
Fix the civ already!!!
Maybe Mali has that bad WR because they play like when they play civs with favorable WRs. Several times they make the mistake of being greedy like HRE or China.
I rarely see Mali innovating, to be honest.
The musofadi feudal change sounds promising. I’ve not tested it out myself but it sounds like its a buff to raiding which should have been the units main purpose.
The hunting cabin produces scouts to hunt more and generate more gold. But with the update, what is the point of producing a second scout from the hunting cabin? If it is only to catch sheep, there is no need to have scorts from hunting cabin, it no longer makes sense. The fact that the civilization needs to have scouts who are a form of cavalry and hunt across the map matches the essence of the Rus civilization: CAVALRY, EXPANSION AND HUNTING I’m not saying that, that’s the motto of “learning” about civilization in the game. This change in civilization changed its essence, it wasn’t thought of for Rus players, it was thought of for people who think they are obliged to make a second scout against Rus when in fact it isn’t necessary. Making a second scout is completely optional and with just 1 you can explore the map normally and deny to the Rus some deer.
And if players don’t like hunting, they should simply look for a civilization that doesn’t need fingers to play like England, Germany or France.
Nest of bees are op now if the mango needs to setup they need setup too.
Well, you can produce a scout to take more sheeps (more potential bounty) and you can research professional scouts there, being able to have more scouts for that building.
That applies to players which just once in a while play Malians, but not to people who play that civ a lot and understand the matchups and try to climb the ladder, hence try hard to win.
You are playing in gold elo, as I remember correctly?
Malians don’t do too well until higher elo and even up in higer elo they aren’t played that much because they have so many very unfavourable matchups and people hate being hardcountered in loading screen.
I did play Malians only in 1v1 ranked last season and until conqueror I rarely ever had a Malian mirror.
Im a bit concerned with it too, but lets see. I didnt have the time to test yet. At least springalds are more responsive
I don’t care what level I have, I play for fun, but I broadcast and watch high level games.
One of the frequent high level land map games (especially in tournaments) is Malians VS Delhi. In this game the Malians are usually more greedy than they get and the game plan is usually frustrated, just like that.