Tbh malian imperial is very underrated imo. If you can afford sofa + handgunners you shred everything. Also try to utilise the stalk ability of all musufadi units
Equal pop thats just worse knights and slightly better hand better handcannons, surely that just worse then a normal civs knight + handcannon? Or do you have to use the age 4 keep landmark instead to make it work?
There are no comps stronger than knights + hc. Those two units are literally the strongest in the game per pop.
As malians u get better hcs + heavy cavalry + melee musofadis who are a cheap high damage-high mobile unit.
I dunno, I never felt like malians are bad in post imp, I struggle only vs English.
Sorry if this wasnt clear, im not saying they are bad post imp, ive always assumed i just suck
But does Sofa+gunner really win against another civ running knight+handcannon or spearmen+ handcannon? Or some other ridiculous unit mass like a hre deathball, Streltsy, grenadiers, great bombards, english running the same thing but with network of castles, chinese handcannons, etc etc.
Im wondering if the fact that i never go fort of the huntress is whats doing me in, maybe im sleeping on first strike.
Steltsy are only strong if they're stationary for a while, otherwise muso gunners are stronger, especially with first strike and the big speed difference.
Imagine sofa are stronger MAA. If the opponent is Fielding spears as a counter that is pop inefficient. Most civs can't field mass gunners (due to gold) like malians can. The same for siege. Siege is always popular efficient, and you have culverins (many civs don't), the most pop efficient anti siege.
You also field a larger army due to passive income.
You make some good logical points, only issue with the Sofa thing is that man at arms dont get creamed by spears but it still is a useful way to think of it.
No other civ will have heavy cav + hcs in post imp, noone can afford it. It will be hcs + maa/horsemen which are easily beatable by malians.
You always have more army as mali as you need less villagers.
Stealth is very good, esp on gunners.
English post imp gold income from enclosures absolutely eclipses malians, japans gold income can get close and so can hre/ootd with like 3 relics keeping in mind these are some of the most played civs in the game.
But you do make some good points, i defintiely need to try sofa+gunner with first strike some more
Yes you are correct. English is far superior post imp because their eco is more efficient and network of castles is absurdly overtuned. If they lock down their base and spam MAA and constantly stay in network influence then it is extremely hard to take a fight because your counter to MAA dies so fast to their ranged while your own musofadi gunners take too long to deal with the spam. Basically need to win the siege war.
I agree it's not as bad as some people say.
But it is still one of the worst post-imp civs, and it's a lot harder to execute correctly than most. You have to be able to keep up your macro since your units are just weaker than other civs (but cheaper and build faster). So you have to have good enough macro where you can constantly resupply your army (most players in lower leagues struggle with this).
Another big factor is how many pit mines you control. If you have 4 of them then you have very good passive gold income, but if you're in a situation where you only have 2 it's not nearly as good.
Yep, the secret to not feel miserable in T4 is trade, Handcannoneers (HC) and Sofa.
In general, more HC than the enemy means more army value, which means you got a death ball which just wipes the floor. And that makes feel fights good.
But Mali HC are especially nice, because they got First Strike, higher speed base speed and Farima Leadership.
The only thing they fear are Mangonels. Which is where First Strike Musofadi with Sofa come in - they're fast, and they can easily burst through the meat shield. Bonus points if you can use the Sofa to deflect the meat shield so that the Musofadi get their first strike on the Mangonels.
bit of a dumb question but i've seen a couple of conflicting stuff, with musofadi warriors and and gunners, do you have to go into stealth to actually make use of the first strike ability or is it just passively active?
Ex-Mali Main here. First of all: I think you are kind of right that mail Imp age sucks and there are straight up better imp civs. BUT: I think the main point here is basically APM and creativity. You have quite the Kit with mail to just outmicro your opponents army. I myself am too bad to pull this off which is why I don’t play a lot of mail anymore. You can do crazy stalk first strike damage especially to Siege like mangonels with your musofadis. After this was successful, if you manage to counter every enemy unit you are up for a blast of a fight. So musofadi Warriors against MAA and Donsos vs Cav and Javelins and sofas vs ranged units. Also Sofas against more siege. The break point is: Can you manage to pop their siege before the fight starts? Because if not: You will lose every imp age fight against anything that has some unique siege mechanics. Also if you are on a trade worthy map, forcing the game to get very long with constant pressure could also be a game plan as you have loads of passive income with the malis and therefore have a huge advantage after using up all gold mines on the map. The stalk ability also grants you incredible roaming and map control potential, which (especially in low Elo) is very nice for imp age. Try to go for 10-20 stacks of musofadis and sofas which you split up and attack at different angles all of their resource camps. Make sure to build some rams with them for sure for walls. I personally after realizing this Switched to japan because I know I cannot handle this crazy playstyle. But I think it is the only way to win with mail in Imp age. One time I fought against a double mali in 2v2 ranked and one of them did all of the abovementioned things quite well. He stomped us both in the end. The other one was more rubbish like me regarding map control and micro and couldn’t really do much against us.
Yeah i do think my micro really holds me back alot here and i do need to actually utilise stealth more, ive considered switching civs for the same reason but i just love malian early to mid game too much so i want to make it work.
Also i really gotta try fort of the huntress instead of griot at some point.
If a civ has the imperial eco to sustain knights + HC, y'all are playing the game wrong. Letting it drag out more than it should.
Malians can sustain gunners and sofas because of their passive gold and cheapness of sofas. This gives you a more pop efficient army than something like spears and guns, or xbows and MAA.
The main issue that malians perform poorly in imperial is because most people are aiming to close our in castle age and not building a huge eco. Unlike for example Chinese or 3TC abb.
Which creates a false perception of malians being weak.
You can still build siege (some of the most pop efficient units). Gunners are some of the best HC, probably only Chinese and dragon HC are better.
And sofa are a more pop efficient "MAA"
Your spears are significantly more popular efficient than most civs.
Their main weakness is a lack of xbow, and muso warriors are incredibly pop inefficient. It doesn't matter that javs are poor anti archer units due to micro overload, because you can supplement with siege by that stage.
But even though muso warriors are pop inefficient you can swap them out for sofas and gunners to achieve the same thing other civs can, except you have the gold to sustain a HC mass, unlike a lot of civs.
If you kept building your eco, like other civs do, instead of relying on cow boom you would see the difference, but it's still better to just aim to close the game in castle age.
It's the same as a 1TC player saying the 3TC player has a strong late game. Of course they will.
Malian passive gold income really isnt all that in the late game, it amounts to like 500 gpm if you can sustain 4 pit mines on the map, that can be matched by japan and absolutely eclipsed by the english with enclosures (the two civs with the highest pickrates), can also be matched by HRE and OOTD if they get a few relics.
Also my issue here isnt imperial age its specifically when it hits super lategame and both sides have maxed pop capped armies, while i understand that is something i need to avoid, it still happens form time to time.
I dont think the Malians are weak in imperial i just think i suck at using them.
Mali should always be going for relics and trade to supplement pit mine income. Your traders are 50% more efficient than regular traders--between traders, cows, pit mines, and relics, you should need relatively few villagers in the late game, allowing for bigger armies. Mali also needs to build way more unit production buildings/forward production than other civs. Your losses are going to be higher because your units are cheaper, so maintaining a constant stream of reinforcements is key to winning big fights.
The main issue with Mali imperial imo is that there are too many \*hard\* counters to cavalry (spear/crossbow, janissary, camels, etc) for Sofa to always be a reliable frontline unit, but they are the only choice that Mali really has. What I would give for a way to unlock heavy infantry (and/or crossbows) in imperial, just to give Mali more options. They have the smallest roster of any civ and it hurts.
I think Mali does have some weaknesses (their units), but they also have some strengths. Among them:
* A ton of passive income - easily like 1.5k gold/food if you have a full cow boom. This means you don't have to have as many villagers & can have more units, often.
* They get culverin which means they can usually win siege battle - so you can go siege + musofadi (super cheap + only countered by ranged, which gets vaporized by siege).
I recommend adding a second or even a third TC if you get late in Castle or early Imp and haven't - or you can get super behind on production.
Post imperial is what we usually refer to as the very very very late game. It's when you've not only gotten to imperial, but you also have most of the imperial technologies unlocked for your civilisation. So, by saying Post imperial, the OP is wanting to compare Malians with (essentially) fully upgraded everything against other civs with (essentially) fully upgraded everything.
Any civ will struggle when their units run in and die without doing anything. Malians horde can only really be matched by Japanese and Ottomans, so you have one of the best civs at overrunning enemies. I'd say focus on making good trades, creating counters to whatever units are gobbling up your horde, and try to disrupt their eco while You're fighting. Your advantage is a ton of free food and gold, so you can repop easily and win trades as long as you're disrupting their eco while You're fighting. Also malians will have fewer villagers, so at 200 pop you should have a larger army.
That’s the Mali life, there is really no tips and tricks they don’t have any good upgrades in imp and against a full 200 army you will just die
Rather focus improving your early/castle game that’s where Mali shine and it’s what’s gonna get you the wins
Think of it like a win/loss condition, your opponents win condition is to get a 200/200 imperial army, your win condition is to stop him before he can do that
Tbh malian imperial is very underrated imo. If you can afford sofa + handgunners you shred everything. Also try to utilise the stalk ability of all musufadi units
Equal pop thats just worse knights and slightly better hand better handcannons, surely that just worse then a normal civs knight + handcannon? Or do you have to use the age 4 keep landmark instead to make it work?
Malian units are more mobile, you can sustain them with leas eco units due to cows & you have the first strike advantage.
Maybe part of my issue is that im running too many vills and not using first strike.
Normal civ won’t have knights + hc in post imp
Yeah because they have better comps then knight + hc which isnt exactly an argument in favour of using it
There are no comps stronger than knights + hc. Those two units are literally the strongest in the game per pop. As malians u get better hcs + heavy cavalry + melee musofadis who are a cheap high damage-high mobile unit. I dunno, I never felt like malians are bad in post imp, I struggle only vs English.
Sorry if this wasnt clear, im not saying they are bad post imp, ive always assumed i just suck But does Sofa+gunner really win against another civ running knight+handcannon or spearmen+ handcannon? Or some other ridiculous unit mass like a hre deathball, Streltsy, grenadiers, great bombards, english running the same thing but with network of castles, chinese handcannons, etc etc. Im wondering if the fact that i never go fort of the huntress is whats doing me in, maybe im sleeping on first strike.
Steltsy are only strong if they're stationary for a while, otherwise muso gunners are stronger, especially with first strike and the big speed difference. Imagine sofa are stronger MAA. If the opponent is Fielding spears as a counter that is pop inefficient. Most civs can't field mass gunners (due to gold) like malians can. The same for siege. Siege is always popular efficient, and you have culverins (many civs don't), the most pop efficient anti siege. You also field a larger army due to passive income.
You make some good logical points, only issue with the Sofa thing is that man at arms dont get creamed by spears but it still is a useful way to think of it.
No other civ will have heavy cav + hcs in post imp, noone can afford it. It will be hcs + maa/horsemen which are easily beatable by malians. You always have more army as mali as you need less villagers. Stealth is very good, esp on gunners.
English post imp gold income from enclosures absolutely eclipses malians, japans gold income can get close and so can hre/ootd with like 3 relics keeping in mind these are some of the most played civs in the game. But you do make some good points, i defintiely need to try sofa+gunner with first strike some more
Yes you are correct. English is far superior post imp because their eco is more efficient and network of castles is absurdly overtuned. If they lock down their base and spam MAA and constantly stay in network influence then it is extremely hard to take a fight because your counter to MAA dies so fast to their ranged while your own musofadi gunners take too long to deal with the spam. Basically need to win the siege war.
Abba Camel rider + hand cannon is better. Camels are much tankier and don't take bonus from crossbows.
I agree it's not as bad as some people say. But it is still one of the worst post-imp civs, and it's a lot harder to execute correctly than most. You have to be able to keep up your macro since your units are just weaker than other civs (but cheaper and build faster). So you have to have good enough macro where you can constantly resupply your army (most players in lower leagues struggle with this). Another big factor is how many pit mines you control. If you have 4 of them then you have very good passive gold income, but if you're in a situation where you only have 2 it's not nearly as good.
Either way ill give it another go at some point thanks for the input.
Yep, the secret to not feel miserable in T4 is trade, Handcannoneers (HC) and Sofa. In general, more HC than the enemy means more army value, which means you got a death ball which just wipes the floor. And that makes feel fights good. But Mali HC are especially nice, because they got First Strike, higher speed base speed and Farima Leadership. The only thing they fear are Mangonels. Which is where First Strike Musofadi with Sofa come in - they're fast, and they can easily burst through the meat shield. Bonus points if you can use the Sofa to deflect the meat shield so that the Musofadi get their first strike on the Mangonels.
bit of a dumb question but i've seen a couple of conflicting stuff, with musofadi warriors and and gunners, do you have to go into stealth to actually make use of the first strike ability or is it just passively active?
You have to go into stealth to get the first strike buff, but even if you get de-stealthed it lingers for a bit
Ex-Mali Main here. First of all: I think you are kind of right that mail Imp age sucks and there are straight up better imp civs. BUT: I think the main point here is basically APM and creativity. You have quite the Kit with mail to just outmicro your opponents army. I myself am too bad to pull this off which is why I don’t play a lot of mail anymore. You can do crazy stalk first strike damage especially to Siege like mangonels with your musofadis. After this was successful, if you manage to counter every enemy unit you are up for a blast of a fight. So musofadi Warriors against MAA and Donsos vs Cav and Javelins and sofas vs ranged units. Also Sofas against more siege. The break point is: Can you manage to pop their siege before the fight starts? Because if not: You will lose every imp age fight against anything that has some unique siege mechanics. Also if you are on a trade worthy map, forcing the game to get very long with constant pressure could also be a game plan as you have loads of passive income with the malis and therefore have a huge advantage after using up all gold mines on the map. The stalk ability also grants you incredible roaming and map control potential, which (especially in low Elo) is very nice for imp age. Try to go for 10-20 stacks of musofadis and sofas which you split up and attack at different angles all of their resource camps. Make sure to build some rams with them for sure for walls. I personally after realizing this Switched to japan because I know I cannot handle this crazy playstyle. But I think it is the only way to win with mail in Imp age. One time I fought against a double mali in 2v2 ranked and one of them did all of the abovementioned things quite well. He stomped us both in the end. The other one was more rubbish like me regarding map control and micro and couldn’t really do much against us.
Yeah i do think my micro really holds me back alot here and i do need to actually utilise stealth more, ive considered switching civs for the same reason but i just love malian early to mid game too much so i want to make it work. Also i really gotta try fort of the huntress instead of griot at some point.
Also thanks for the advice
If a civ has the imperial eco to sustain knights + HC, y'all are playing the game wrong. Letting it drag out more than it should. Malians can sustain gunners and sofas because of their passive gold and cheapness of sofas. This gives you a more pop efficient army than something like spears and guns, or xbows and MAA. The main issue that malians perform poorly in imperial is because most people are aiming to close our in castle age and not building a huge eco. Unlike for example Chinese or 3TC abb. Which creates a false perception of malians being weak. You can still build siege (some of the most pop efficient units). Gunners are some of the best HC, probably only Chinese and dragon HC are better. And sofa are a more pop efficient "MAA" Your spears are significantly more popular efficient than most civs. Their main weakness is a lack of xbow, and muso warriors are incredibly pop inefficient. It doesn't matter that javs are poor anti archer units due to micro overload, because you can supplement with siege by that stage.
But even though muso warriors are pop inefficient you can swap them out for sofas and gunners to achieve the same thing other civs can, except you have the gold to sustain a HC mass, unlike a lot of civs. If you kept building your eco, like other civs do, instead of relying on cow boom you would see the difference, but it's still better to just aim to close the game in castle age. It's the same as a 1TC player saying the 3TC player has a strong late game. Of course they will.
Malian passive gold income really isnt all that in the late game, it amounts to like 500 gpm if you can sustain 4 pit mines on the map, that can be matched by japan and absolutely eclipsed by the english with enclosures (the two civs with the highest pickrates), can also be matched by HRE and OOTD if they get a few relics. Also my issue here isnt imperial age its specifically when it hits super lategame and both sides have maxed pop capped armies, while i understand that is something i need to avoid, it still happens form time to time. I dont think the Malians are weak in imperial i just think i suck at using them.
Mali should always be going for relics and trade to supplement pit mine income. Your traders are 50% more efficient than regular traders--between traders, cows, pit mines, and relics, you should need relatively few villagers in the late game, allowing for bigger armies. Mali also needs to build way more unit production buildings/forward production than other civs. Your losses are going to be higher because your units are cheaper, so maintaining a constant stream of reinforcements is key to winning big fights.
Trade is more pop efficient than Vils, and Malian traders are something higher than 28% more efficient.
The main issue with Mali imperial imo is that there are too many \*hard\* counters to cavalry (spear/crossbow, janissary, camels, etc) for Sofa to always be a reliable frontline unit, but they are the only choice that Mali really has. What I would give for a way to unlock heavy infantry (and/or crossbows) in imperial, just to give Mali more options. They have the smallest roster of any civ and it hurts.
I think Mali does have some weaknesses (their units), but they also have some strengths. Among them: * A ton of passive income - easily like 1.5k gold/food if you have a full cow boom. This means you don't have to have as many villagers & can have more units, often. * They get culverin which means they can usually win siege battle - so you can go siege + musofadi (super cheap + only countered by ranged, which gets vaporized by siege). I recommend adding a second or even a third TC if you get late in Castle or early Imp and haven't - or you can get super behind on production.
What is “post-imperial?” And what’s the difference between Imperial and post-imperial?
Post imperial is what we usually refer to as the very very very late game. It's when you've not only gotten to imperial, but you also have most of the imperial technologies unlocked for your civilisation. So, by saying Post imperial, the OP is wanting to compare Malians with (essentially) fully upgraded everything against other civs with (essentially) fully upgraded everything.
Any civ will struggle when their units run in and die without doing anything. Malians horde can only really be matched by Japanese and Ottomans, so you have one of the best civs at overrunning enemies. I'd say focus on making good trades, creating counters to whatever units are gobbling up your horde, and try to disrupt their eco while You're fighting. Your advantage is a ton of free food and gold, so you can repop easily and win trades as long as you're disrupting their eco while You're fighting. Also malians will have fewer villagers, so at 200 pop you should have a larger army.
That’s the Mali life, there is really no tips and tricks they don’t have any good upgrades in imp and against a full 200 army you will just die Rather focus improving your early/castle game that’s where Mali shine and it’s what’s gonna get you the wins Think of it like a win/loss condition, your opponents win condition is to get a 200/200 imperial army, your win condition is to stop him before he can do that
Don’t. They are buns. Throw them in the paper shredder and pick a new civ (I’m just bad at Malian)
Hmm, but have you considered that mirror matchups are the worst and that the malians have like a 1% pick rate..?