Alhambram vs TheArchduke (Alhambram's Thread)

[Alhambram]

For 1st round, ancient start, I pick Mali for novelty.

[Alhambram]

Turn 1:

Opening the save.
   
Good part: desert tiles to make use of Mali's power. Bad side not really many tiles with 3 production or more in direct surroundings except where my settler is standing upon.

I wanted to settle at turn 1 and not delay too much, so I decided to settle upon cow tile. This way I get 13 in first ring while having adjacent desert tile.
   
Here some of Mali's powers kicks in, city next a desert tile get 11 per adjacent tile. So I gain 1:faith per turn now and city grows little faster due desert tile and settling upon cow tile.
I start researching pottery, if possible I want go to currency asap to unlock Suguba.

Let's see what Mali does:
   
It plays much around with gold and faith. For starters if I find city state, I can send trade route for 5 extra GPT because my city get 5 flat desert tiles (need to get them inside borders first), more trade routes, stronger the bonus.
Extra trade route for every golden age encourages attempting to chain succesive golden ages for Mali.

Cities settled next desert tiles get food and faith bonus, it mostly helps cities grow to size 5 middle in desert lands and early faith generation often means that Mali is among first civs to grab Pantheon.
Mines get 4+ gold and Mali can buy commerical hub buildings with faith.
Now the painful part comes: -1 production at mines and 30% more unit and buildings cost, ouch!

But Suguba the Unqiue District for Mali is the key: it makes distircts, units, buildings 20% cheaper to buy with faith. Half cost commerical buildings and spam trade routes for more gold.
Notable Suguba don't get bonus from harbors, instead it get big adjacent bonus from holy sites, it is easier to zone them then harbor due lack of room along coast sometimes (similar as Germany's Hansa/commercial hub zoning).
It encourages me to build holy sites and go after religion and pump out more faith for eventual purchases.

Unqiue unit Mandekalu Cavalry protects many trade routes from raiders and they can farm gold by killing enemy units.


So how to play as Mali from start to end?
Most ideal opening: 1 desert tile next city center and a lot 3 production forests/hills to help through first part.
First 60 turns, Mali is at its weakest, production/mines penalty hurts a lot and gold/faith is still scarce. The idea to go through this painful part is go with unit then settler.
The reason for that to lessen painful production penalty, I build settler before I hit 25 faith. When I am able to pick pantheon, I pick free settler.
If I do hit 25 faith before finishing settler, picking free settler pantheon increases the cost of currently built settler and that is hurtful for Mali especially.
That is why I try to have extactly 1 desert tile next starting city, to get 1 faith per turn extactly to avoid triggering pantheon too early.
After settling 3 cities, price for next settler is astronomical for Mali, but around that time, I should unlock colonization card and improve some tiles which makes settling production bearable.
At turn 60 I should have 4/5 cities, some improvements and decent army size, mostly archers, warriors and heavy chariots. Maybe 1 Suguba needed to gain era points to trigger golden age.

Turn 60-120, trigger golden age and pick dedication to purchase settlers and builders with faith. This way I can spend production in cities on units, districts and buildings alone (though buildings can be purchased with gold or faith at my discretion).
Pump out Sugubas, Holy Sites, some campuses and encampments. First 2 districts if possible in every city adjacented. Every Suguba should haveat least 5 adjacent bonus. I repeat spam Sugubas in every cities with high adjaceny.

Then turn 120-180 reap the reward of hard work and break the game: golden age again and pick dedication that gives commerical districts science bonus based upon adjacent bonus. So suddenly all of spammed half cost Sugubas gives me 5 science per turn, and there is more! Around turn 120 I should finish Guilds civic with policy card that doubles commerical hub adjaceny and put Reyna with another doubling bonus in city with best adjaceny commerical district. The result: It should not be strange for Mali to have over 200 science per turn at turn 120.
And as bonus build University of Sankore to have many Malinese trade routes give 2 science per trade route towards city with Sankore (ideal city to put Magnus with food from trade routes promotions).

From here outtech every opponents and decide how to win at own terms. Get in space faster while opponent don't dare attack you due tech difference or get nukes/Death Robots waaay earlier then opponent and wipe him out map.

Mali is probably strongest Single Player civ of civ 6.

At Multiplayer other hand first 120 turns is going be problematic, especially first 60 turns where production penalty do hurt Mali greatly. But once Mali hit tech advantage from turn 120, it should be Mali's game to lose.
TheArchduke did pick civ which don't favor Mali: Nubia with ancient age UU, high rush potential. Probably no good idea to bring Mali to duel, but we shall see how this develops but I hold my heart.

[Alhambram]

Turn 4:

I noticed borders of science city state at turn 2 SE of Niani already, it took me 2 extra turns to move through marsh and forests to meet them.
   
It is Bologna, which did inheirt suzerian powers of Stockholm, so extra 1+ GP for any building that gives me GP and Bologna wants me research irrigration.
I am fairly pleased with extra science, it gets me to Suguba slighty faster.

Turn pace has been slow for a duel, 1 turn per day average. Seem both TheArchduke and me have busy life. Just relaxing playing this PBEM.

[pindicator]

Glad to see you trying out a civ as different from normal playstyle as Mali!

Do you think there upcoming balance changes will affect any of your plans with Mali?

[Alhambram]

Glad to see you trying out a civ as different from normal playstyle as Mali!

Do you think there upcoming balance changes will affect any of your plans with Mali?

It seems no much change for Mali and Nubia. Maori and Georgia both got little buff but otherwise same for everyone for example little more food or gold from camp or plantation.

Turn 7:

Scouting to west, newly finished warrior after 3 turns shall check north, settler map do indicate a fresh water settling spot at cow tile in north. Found barb camp in west, I am getting rid of it before it causes more trouble.
   
It is my second turn at size 2, TheArchduke hasn't grow to size 2 yet, also working at 13 tile from start same as me? I already hit size 2 two turns ago due desert and settling upon cow.

Potenial city spot where my warrior stands now, 3 adjacent food/faith bonus but low production, maybe 1 tile NW if my warrior sees something in 2nd ring of that spot.

Because I don't get production from mines till Apprenticeship, it is important that I don't chop forests, it is my main source of production. Which means I also should go for construction since in Gathering Storm it do unlock lumbermills unlike vanilla version where it do unlock at Machinery. Also in GS lumbermill gives +2 production at all forested tiles when improved, not just +1 and +1 when along river anymore.
Quarry getting extra production bonus in GS when reaching gunpowder do help, so I also don't intend to harvest stones. So I basically don't need Magnus here.
In beginning use Liang to produce some 4 charge workers (with increased production costs for Mali, it is better to max out usefulness of civilian units), after that go for Reyna to unlock 2nd tier Harbormaster title to double adjaceny bonuses for Suguba which I do intend use when I hit turn 120 with golden age dedication to give Suguba's science bonus too based upon adajency.
Maybe invest in Magnus a bit when I plan to build University of Sankore, because Sankore only gives science bonus if I create trade route to city with Sankore, so Magnus with Surplus Logistics can placed there too for empirewide food bonus.

[Alhambram]

Turn 9:

At west I stumbled upon coast, which means that there is possibility that I and TheArchduke are at different islands. This is contintents maps after all, altough I did see sometimes contintents maps where all civs are packed at one big island and different contintent is a little island.
   
I decided to scout further instead dealing with camp, risky but I intend to attack camp when I get discipline promotion after 5 turns. So 2 turns more scouting and then warrior go back to south in direction of camp and arrive at camp when code of laws is finished.

Also with hopefully TheArchduke at other island meaning he need shipbuilding to rush me, I don't extremely beeline for Curreny but instead take little useful detours.
Starting with Animal Husbandry which hopefully reveals horses (if one is inside exisitng borders, hurray extra production!) around here and after 3 turns I need to think what to research.
If TheArchduke is at other island, I probably need fully research writing to reach currency because meeting could be delayed due sea. This also means I need decent navy here.

TheArchduke did grow at size 2 at turn 8 and also finished tech same time as me indicating that he did meet another science city state.

The tile picker suddenly favors rice over wine which has my preference. I don't buy wine tile, after 12 or less turns it should be added and then I buy much needed 13 tile SW of wine tile.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Separate islands has to be a good thing for you, right? No danger of a Nubian archer choke while you're in your most vulnerable early game.

[Alhambram]

Separate islands has to be a good thing for you, right? No danger of a Nubian archer choke while you're in your most vulnerable early game.

I hope that separate islands is the case here, the early UU of Nubia is biggest threat early game as long I don't have proper counter against it.

Turn 10:
   
Meet barb scout in north, probably from camp in west, in that case I neeto keep it north and not let it return to camp to trigger can of barb warriors/slinger or worse horsemen if horse resource turns out be next barb camp.

Start settler, next turn city grow to size 3 and I intend to pick urban planning for extra production to ensure I finish second settler before triggering pantheon. Only thing that can wreck this early plan is find religious city state as first player which forces extra 2 faith upon me.

[Alhambram]

Turn 15:

Finished Animal Husbandry, revealing 2 horse tiles in close surroundings including 2th range of Niani. This might complicate tile picker since it bounces between horse and wine tile.
In the case that tile picks horse over wine, I can optionally buy ivory tile, altough it do give me 1 less production then forested hill, I can improve it for amenity later.

Finished Code of Laws, pick Urban Planning and discipline as planned.

In north I found city state:
   
Bandar Brunei, not the best commerical city state but good for me since I plan to spam Suguba's and potenitally send trader routes to it.
Dealing with barb camp and it should be gone next turn.

TheArchduke's and my score are almost equal, only TheArchduke did pick up 2 era scores and I have one more pop then him, did TheArchduke probably already finished off barb camp?

[Alhambram]

Turn 16:

TheArchduke and I are at computer at same time and noticed that we both are online, so finally rush through early turns now.

I capture barb camp and of course I get extra gold. And of course no need to wait for tile picker. Just buy both wine tile and forested hill tile!