Malians Overview AoE2
Video Statistics and Information
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Channel: Spirit Of The Law
Views: 333,977
Rating: 4.9561481 out of 5
Keywords: age of empires II, aoe2, aoc, aoehd, strategy game (genre), malians, civ overview, Gbeto
Id: 8Be5qF1AOuE
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)
Published: Thu Dec 28 2017
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.
Malians, much like Chinese or Byzantines, seem to be a "we do everything" civ. Trouble is, unlike the latter two, the Malians "do everything" well.
I'm curious to here everyones thoughts on this.
I'll leave some of mine (just finished watching it).
Good comparison in the early video about what kind of civ they are.
Fair comparison on the wood discount bonus in comparison to other civs
Mixed opinions on when he said when others research gold mining they're on the same level as Malians. Unless going for FC Siege + Monks or you're Turks, free first gold mining upgrade is a bonus that lasts the second you hit feudal. Gold mining is usually researched on the way to castle age depending on the situation so for Malians not having to research this means they are well ahead of most other civilisations
I felt like he didn't really go into the infantry Pierce armour as much. I was kind of disappointed, more could have been explored, how champions stack up vs other melee units without the blast furnace or how they do vs other range units vs huskarls (it seemed rather short). Or how well Malian champs do under both melee and ranged units vs generic champs (like he did with the pikemen test)
Credit is due that he noticed their castle age tech tree is flexible.
Good comparison of Farimba cavalry.
Tech tree grading seems odd once again but not one to complain.
Eco rating seemed really odd. Sure they miss two man saw. But they have a very good early game economy and are one of few civs that can do almost any strategy (a bit like Huns but instead of the CA option you have camels). Eco grade could have been higher.
Good point that he noticed the civs lack of bracer and siege engineers and how those ranged and siege units drop off fast vs another civ with better Arbs and Siege (such as Ethiopians).
Surprised he didn't say that their bonus is good on nomad. In other civ overviews he usually mentioned how good a civ is on x map. Especially if Malians happen to have a Viking ally. Their start rivals a Persian start. But that's nothing major so this is perfectly fine to leave out.
Overall rating of the civ overview. 7/10. Personally think the Chinese Overview was probably one of his overall best and I tried not to be too harsh (reminder I actually like SOTL) just felt in comparison to his other overviews this one felt a tiny bit empty in comparison to others.
Regardless alot of time went into this so credit is due and considering SOTL isn't a top player by any means and his viewerbase are interested in the more math side and quirks I think it makes the pass.
What do you guys think? Feel free to discuss and agree or disagree with anything that I've said.
The Malians woods bonus makes them 1 of 2 civs that can build a fishing ship right away in Nomad games.
You can easily do a 2 or 3 docks dark age boom in nomad and crush as you hit castle with 40-45 pop and arson equipped piece resit long swords.
Still waiting for the Vietnamese civ overview, where he gives them an A for archers and a B- for everything else 11
Thought he already did this civ.
I was very surprised at his comparison of the Malian wood bonus to other civs' bonuses (Celts, Huns, etc.). The bonus is much more underwhelming after the numbers are crunched than I originally thought. I had thought it was on par with the Celts' bonus, but it's not at all...
I wasn't so convinced with SotL's gold mining eval, since I usually can't afford gold mining until Castle Age (and sometimes I forget it completely 11), so for me the bonus would be better than he is saying, though I still prefer Turks, Aztecs, Spanish, and Indian gold economies.
Like others have mentioned, this video confirmed the long-standing belief that the Malians are not only incredibly versatile (jack of all trades), but outperform most civs in most areas (master of all). They have better cavalier than most civs' paladins, better infantry, and a better eco than many civs (even though the two bonuses themselves are underwhelming, there are two of them, while many civs only have one), and decent archers.
The only downside to the Malians is that they're not THE BEST at any one thing they do, which I think SotL got right in grading the tech tree. Still, their all-around strength and their versatility makes it easy to see why pros think they're so strong.