The Malian nerf in late 2023 went into the wrong direction, as I and also others find.
Instead of nerfing the cow base income on cattle ranches, the Fulani Corral should have gotten a nerf, as the Farimba is already almost never being played anymore.
The early game while trying to cattle boom is already the Malian’s weak point and their castle timing isn’t the greatest, especially with all the new super fast variant civs.
So, reducing the Fulani bonus to cattle income (probably a bit more drastically than then 3 food/min base rate cattle nerf) would have been the right tool to lower their age3 power spike.
At the same time the Malians should get a technology that you can research in the Fulani Corral in Imperial age to compensate for the nerf and their already weak lategame, which would increase the Fulani Bonus to a level in Imperial age, which is slightly above the original age3 value.
On top, they could get an Imperial tech to increase pitmine income.
Either to research in the pitmine itself, in the Mansa quarry or including it in the age4 mining camp upgrade, which was recently enhanced with a drop-off bonus.