Came here to say this. They definitely have additional advantages in castle and imperial ages due to this. Not to mention the trade bonus in team games.
holy crap the fact that "top-tier" is 53% wr in this game is a testament to how well it's balanced Edit: if i learned anything from this video it's that maybe Burgundian Vinyards and Paper Money need buffs
Every civ is the same base tech tree besides their unique units and bonuses. Easier to balance that than completely different factions with different mechanics like Zerg vs Terran etc.
@@kommodore6691 I wish the devs try to make unique skins for regions at least. So Aztecs don't fight using europeans soldiers and things like that. Forgotten team and lots of modders out there already made a lot of excelent looking skins.
@@ScudForEver this is really cool, but I think it might make things confusing from a game play point of view. Especially at a high level, you need to recognize units within a second or less, on a screen filled with other information. I think it's great that there are a lot of mods for the people that want it, but it shouldn't be standard.
@@tokagerkun a guy in the AoE2 subreddit already made some art of regional skins and it's both unique and immediately recognisable. But I agree that if they do something like that it should be as a game setting like small trees.
speed is of the essence. thats why the direct bonus is so powerful compared to dragged out situations. if you can hit hard and fast, most likely you'll have map control and be able to control neutrals. then youll just snowball
Regarding Poles: you forgot the fact that Poles got that extra gold by mining stone, meaning they have both the stone and the gold, and malians would have to go mine that stone too separately, making the Pole bonus arguably better if not as good. Also it reduces villager load in the mid game :)
why does it matter, which resource gives you extra gold? i would even put it exactly reverse - if the resource you need is stone and gold is aplenty extra gold from stone gives you exactly nothing. however, the bonus directly on gold means it applies every single time at the moment you need it. btw who stops Malians from tasking the same number of vils to stone as Poles do? they gain the exact same amount of stone.
@@LeicaFleury not because of stone. in fact the same rate (33%) on wood or farms would be broken beyond repair. the Poles can only get to that high bonus number because stone is such a bad source for bonuses.
@@BayWa4eva the bonus is stronger in practice than what your comments say. It already got nerfed and it makes the beeline towards a castle less punishing which allows them to pick their knight discount tech or go obuch or sell it on the market. You just need to have levels of creativity that are not contemplated in your responses.
The most broken Hearthstone deck ever had something like a 56% win rate. In competitive 1v1s 3% is a lot. It's more than house edge in Casinos and Casinos are not known to be fair.
Yep. AoE2 is suprisingly balanced. Not only cause the most successfull civ is only in 54%-58% area, but because lowest winrate ones never fell bellow 36% winrate, and more vommonly hover around 42-46%
@@ethribin4188 I guess it makes a difference if mirror matches are possible, like in Hearthstone since then the deck itself can at most win 50% against itself so it's a self balancing mechanic, only casualty being deck diversity.
Malians are a civ that really just needed a slight buff to go into top-tier, given that they're probably one of the most flexible civs in the game. a good eco bonus, good infantry, good cavalry, decent archers, decent siege, decent trash, one of the best raiding units in the game, and even good defense, and all of that all game long. they don't really have a weak point, neither in terms of stages of the game, nor in terms of unit options. they can just adapt to every situation, so giving them such a strong eco bonus just puts them over the top. vs archers? good cavalry + tanks infantry vs infantry? hand cannons and good knights vs cavalry? great camels vs siege? good cavalry and tanky infantry
@@seraphimconcordant I actually think they're quite interesting, because it needs to be balanced somehow. For Malians, it's the classic "each unit is missing something in imp". Arbalest but no bracer, siege onager but no siege engineers, great champions against ranged units but no blast furnace, great cavalier and light cav but no paladin or hussar. Their heavy camel with farimba is basically their only unit that is strictly better than the baseline "fully upgraded" unit.
@@seraphimconcordant that’s interesting, I feel that “only good at X” civs are quite dull. Like goths pretty much only going inf and franks well it’s knights 90% of the time. So 🤷♂️
On the Spanish bonus: Keep in mind Spanish Blacksmith techs don't cost gold. Should that also be counted for the total gold? It is still gold available that the other civ has to spend.
nobody picks technologies of blacksmith worth of 1800 gold or even half of it, i think he mentioned that in the last parts when he compared results of some game
I feel that in the Malians/Spanish comparison there's been one element forgotten: the no-gold blacksmith upgrades of the Spanish. That has to be an advantage that probably puts them over Malians at least in the mid-run
On water maps i always pick spain, the 25% more gold trade bonus actually helps out so much, and the faster cannon galleon shots make you rule the waves and your trade untouchable
I remember back when Malians had the free gold mining upgrades, casters would always comment on how it synergized so well with Malians' flexibility (could do archers, infantry or cavalry in any age, tho archers drop off a little bit since they lack bracer). I think this bonus brings back that flexibility of having more gold available in the mid-game
A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow, so 15% extra through the regular course of the game is generally more powerful than up to 30% towards the end of the game.
It's not so clear, because in this game you can run out of ressources. So in a long game (when it turn into trash unit combat) 1 gold is worth more than in the middle of the game. At this point it's just a completly different bonus.
@@MrMorvana But if you ended up in the late game with 15% more gold available at every other stage of the game, you deserve to lose. You shouldn't be thinking about a game state that almost never happens and if it does is bad for you. Tbf it's still half of the old bonus, it's just vastly superior since you get the gold now rather than later.
There's general elections going on right now in my country, and I'm about to go vote, but Spirit decides to trigger my curiosity and keep me close to Wi-Fi.
I've been a ride-or-die Malians fan since release and through every patch. Love their military diversity and that all three unit types feel viable for them, love that Gbeto feel like the best raiding unit in the game, love their subtle-but-supportive eco bonuses. And now I love that they're finally getting the recognition as the top-tier civ they've honestly always been.
@@SammyBoyy300 If you've ever done Conqs vs. Gbeto, they feel very similar and infact their head-to-head matchup can go either way because Conqs have the better hit-and-run DPS whilst Gbeto have the better stand-and-fight DPS. The absurd damage on Conqs also tends to overkill really bad vs. Gbeto. In my experience it usually ends up with Conqs running from Gbeto so much that they can't get the damage in that they'd like, and IF Gbeto get a counter-raid in, it can be damaging for Conqs, who can be unfortunately semi-slow to stop it, giving Gbetos a couple free swings at getting vil kills in before the Conq shots lead to kills. But what Gbeto can do that Conqs can't is burn through walls. And opponent who has walled extensively = Conqs won't get much damage in and miss their window. An opponent who *has* walled in will still see their walls burned down in seconds by mass Gbeto, because as an infantry unit they get bonus damage vs. buildings and have perhaps the fastest, most *practical* DPS vs. buildings in the game. (for example, Shotels theoretically burn through buildings faster, but can't be stacked as well vs. walls, so here Gbeto outperform them in practice) I would say Conqs are the more user-friendly option and the one that feels cleaner and easier to manage, especially without walls. If we're talking about a walled opponent or the potential of use though, I'd still rank Gbeto higher. Conqs are legit only good at raiding and tend to flop in direct combat, precisely because their reload speed is pretty bad. (something that running tends to "cancel") Gbeto are much better on this front.
@@Longknife Conqs are way superior when microed properly. Reload time doesn't matter, what's important is initial fire delay before doing the attack - and Gbeto are one of the slowest units in the game to perform their attack after stopping. Conqs can stop, shoot and run away before Gbeto finish their attacking animation. This is also why Gbeto are so susceptible to mangonels if you ever get caught out - they need to stand in place for a long time before their attack activates and they lose most of their HP to single shot. Speaking of, Gbeto die to 1-2 volleys of town center while Conqs can survive multiple and keep killing villagers. Yes, Gbeto are by far the best at taking down walls, especially house walls etc. but you made it seem like Conqs aren't good at busting through walls. That's wrong. Their attack is so high that they can make a hole in palisade walls very quickly. Only house walls or stone walls stop Conqs. Direct combat isn't just Gbeto vs Conqs. You will rarely see that in practice. Spanish player will likely be raiding with conqs before Malian player has a castle and by the time to make one, they will switch to Knight line. What's much more important is how they do vs knights or crossbows, the dominant castle age units - and Conqs, while forced to run away in low numbers, actually murder knights when microed and in good mass while Gbeto get slaughtered and can't run away unless there's a chokepoint nearby. Gbeto can run away from crossbows due to their high speed but if they take a fight they will suffer heavy losses.
@@Progeusz First wanna point out the assessment "Spanish player will be raiding with Conqs before Malian player has a castle" is absurd and there's nothing to support this. These are factors decided by individual match, and if anything, Malians have the stronger eco bonuses to get them to Castle faster, as well as the better means of doing damage in Feudal. My point was that if both players make raiding squads, yes Conqs have the superior hit-and-run game, but not superior *enough* that they're not taking losses to Gbeto in the process. This means a defensive Gbeto squad that chooses just to tail the Conqs and fire back at them will be doing enough damage and enough of a threat that the Conqs are not getting in the damage that they'd like. Additionally, in terms of cost, Gbeto can gladly throw bodies at the fight because Gbeto are the cheaper unit that's also made quicker, meaning Malians both spend less and rebuild their numbers quicker. This is again padded by the fact the Malian gold bonus is stronger. *Long-term,* as this battle escalates, this favors Malians, precisely *because* Conqs are so dependent on hit-and-run. Hit-and-run means single target, Hit-and-run means lots of overkill damage or more squads micro'ed to remain effective, Hit-and-Run means more numbers matter less and less. You mention Conqs can kill walls, but precisely this is unlikely vs. Gbeto. Standing still is their death condition. This means the Gbeto are successfully defending during Conq's power spike, and because Conqs benefit less from mass squads whilst Gbeto benefit more alongside the fact Conqs are at their strongest in early castle, this all means that the longer the match drags on, the more Gbeto will overwhelm. You likewise claim that Gbeto being better at reload/standing and fighting doesn't matter. 100% it matters, because precisely when the Gbeto are counterattacking the Spanish base, this is when the Conqs cannot hit-and-run. They *must* engage to defend, and they're at a disadvantage here. This is why the Gbeto are as much a threat to the Spanish as the Conqs are to the Malians: because whilst the Conqs have better hit-and-run, the Gbeto have better staying power and are a better threat to enemy defenses/buildings. There is a difference between Conqs "killing palisades quick" and losing a stone wall in mere seconds because your opponent snuck a squad of Gbeto to your gate, or a palisade instantly crumbling to even a modest squad. As a pure hit-and-run unit, if we're talking about a map like Atacama with no walls and vulnerable vils, this is where Conqs are going to shine and their speed + better hit-and-run will give them an edge. They can gladly patrol the woodlines and never really have to stop or turn back to take shots from an opponent. If we're talking about a neutral Arabia setup though, with no particular incentive to put vils in danger whilst both teams have an opportunity to build walls, then this is really just a test if the Malians player can stave off those initial raid attempts, because the more the match goes on, the more cost effectiveness, unit creation time, a better gold eco, superior building damage and better capacity for Gbeto to stand and fight are going to start becoming factors. This is not a game of absolutes, but situational advantages. However, yes, I would absolutely argue Gbeto are the better universal, well-rounded raiding unit and waaaaaaaaaay better suited for an enemy with defenses up, precisely because Conqs slow reload speed begins to become a very crippling weakness as the game draws on and the opponent can afford to throw more mass armies at you; hitting-and-running and killing one unit out of 40 every 3 seconds is not a productive use of an army.
Even if buying wood and stone might be less production-efficient on paper, another thing youd need to take into consideration is how it can factor in as weaponizing the market economy. If you know (or at least predict) that your opponent is going to be using the market for extra wood or stone for a particular strategy, then preemptively using your gold advantage to drive up the price before they can get to it will effectively undermine them. They're caught with their pants down in a position where they have some gold with no where to go and a bunch of tower/wall/castle blueprints and no stone to build them.
Hey Spirit, Just messaging to say that I love the content. I am always super excited when I see you post a new video and you're honestly my favourite TH-camr! Keep up the good work!
i love gbetos. them getting a 10 hp buff is so nice. gbetos are probably my favorite unit for comp stomping since they can break AI rams from range. this buff is huge for me and the homies.
The other major consideration is that for a lot of build orders this bonus means you can move 1+ vills off gold and onto another resource without losing out on income. While thats technically true for all bonuses, its much easier to leverage on simple ones like Malians vs. more calculated ones like Spanish or Portuguese.
Yeah, this is looking pretty strong. They probably went with 15% faster collection to match their previous bonus, but this is better than what they had. With the winrate being high, I expect it to get dropped to 10% to get off the Turks' lawn a little bit. PS: I assume it was just an oversight, but I'll have you know that the Mayans get 15% longer lasting everything, including gold, so their total is 1800 above generic.
Another way to think of the bonus is in terms of flexible eco. For roughly every 9 villagers a generic civ needs to have on gold, Mali gets to take one and put it on another task without falling behind in resource generation. That isn't a game-breaking bonus, but for a civ that already specializes in being flexible, a flexible economy is powerful. The downside to generalist civs is that you can't specialize on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. That means you don't have the luxury of picking one military building to ignore. In other words, your villagers will need to spend more of their time building instead of collecting resources than a specialist civ. Mali's solution then is the ability to free up a builder for construction tasks without falling behind in resources. You can debate whether or not that's more valuable than the extra gold. Either way, the Malians are buying the one resource you can't collect in the game- time. In RTS games, time can be worth more than gold.
Hey spirit! Do you have a reason not to mention feutoria when talking about the protuguese comparison? Surely that is a 1vs1 gold bonus that should be considered. Together with the 20% cheaper gold units I would argue that portuguese are the best lategame gold civ, whilst holding up quite ok in the early game with the discounts.
With the Turk comparison, you'd also have to take into account that the Turks would be moving onto neutral gold quicker, like you said earlier in the video so do in some ways have access to more gold
Very interesting video as always! Two small mistakes i noticed. When accounting for wood use in the food generation, you wrote Heavy Plow, even tough the numbers where horse collar numbers. And in the end - Mayans should have about the same extra gold as the new Malians - they have 15 % longer lasting res...
Mistake with the Mayan bonus it is 15% not 30%. The Malian bonus is most of the Mayan, Turk and Aztec bonus in one now when it comes to gold. It is incredibly strong and probably will be nerfed down to 10% as the wood bonus and Malian tech tree are good too. The UU buff is also not to be ignored, 5 hp on a low hp unit is a solid buff.
I still don't understand back when malians bonus is free gold mining tech. Why did the dev nerfed it to just feudal tech that's free? Is free mining tech OP back then?
Gambisons ruined this, but that's honestly understandable since it'd be downright broken on Malians and we'd suddenly have people calling to nerf (Malian) infantry lol.
@@timoschmonsees2652 Yeah I mean I guess TECHNICALLY you can argue they get it for free. FFS they could even just patch the text to say "Malians get +1 pierce armor in Feudal, Gambesons for free and +1 pierce armor in Imperial" and they're back to fully qualifying for your statement.
@@The-jy3yq ??? Malians have Supplies. Malians have every technology - save for Gambesons which they get in a roundabout way - all the way up to Imperial. They are only missing Imperial techs, nothing else.
I still think this was a bad change in that it made it too similar to the turks. Would rather they kept the higher total extra gold percentage rather than the current one
Mayans resources only last 15% longer. They've never lasted more than 20% longer. If they lasted 30% longer I think it would be, by far, the undisputed strongest eco bonus in the game as it would drastically improve their dark age to a point that nobody else would be able to keep up (hunt, herdables, and berries all lasting 30% longer would be unstoppable).
Yeah, normally bonus that apply to every resource/bulding are lower, like portuguese faster reseaeching, mayans longer lasting resources or incas cheaper rome buildings, the the bonus with less applainces are greater to compensate, like longer lasting sheeps, faster universities or cheaper castles.
Hello Spirit Of The Law. I came up with the same gold bonus for my civ the nubian. A funny thing is that both are African Civilizations however, on the opposite side of the continent
About the Malian/Spanish comparison: Graph most likely comes very close to reality, that's how it should be. A flat bonus of 20 gold per tech is handy in the early game where techs are cheaper and 100 gold piled up makes a much bigger difference. In mid to late game, where a tech can cost up to 800 gold or more, those 20 gold don't matter nearly as much. Compared with a percentage bonus that affects all gold miners - therefore keeps getting better over time with added vils on gold it just can't keep up. So yeah, your assumption should be correct as well as the graph
So here's a question: In a team game, would it ever make sense to have your Malian ally mine your gold for you? Or would the tribute fee cancel it out?
heh... fractional reserve banking would be an interesting perk.... get 20% extra gold on collection but suffer inflation where all gold costs go up by 2% every 10 minutes or something xD money printer unique tech... research and instantly get 5k gold, but all gold costs doubles in 5 minutes just kidding of course
It's also fitting that the bonus makes the civilization quite strong; too few people realize how powerful West Africa was in the Late Middle Ages. If the Sahara Desert hadn't stood between the Malians and gunpowder technology, African history would likely have looked quite different.
You forgot the food only monks and monk techs for bohemians reducing demand for gold... Don't forget the mailan unique unit is strong. It can be compared with the mighty mamluke but while slower moving and has less hp than mamluke, makes up for it with longer range and higher damage. Still weak to elite teutonic knights but does more than 1 damage per hit to them...
Malians are always a great civ on 1v1. They just can pull off a lot without having too much. Still waiting to see Gurjara extra bonus damage camels vs Malian Farimba camels.
So Malians are now masters of Stonks when it comes to mining. Guess Malians now have a leg up on everyone else, at least somewhat, compared to everyone else when it comes to more gold heavy units like Knights or Siege.
Considering how malians already had a pretty solid eco bonus I think the one needs a bit of nerf. 10% should be just fine for them, and that might be a biased take since I'm a big fan of the malians.
Malian + Portugese team bonus. Malian player sends vils to mine the Portugese gold, then send the gold to the Portugese player for the 20% cheaper units.
Am i stupid, or are Malians not bested by Mayans in total Gold available to them. Mayans have the bonus of 15%longer lasting res. Malians drop off 15% more gold. Shouldnt it be exactöy the same gold available to both of them? Malians just collect it faster. But the mayan bonus obviously doesnt stop at gold, and is also usefull on all other res, so its hard to say, that the Malian bonus is just better. Am I mistaken somewhere?
It was so (I tested) before wheelbarrow since the April 11 patch. Not sure if there was a fix for that recently, but I still wonder why this 20% was not mentioned.
Yeah but you will no longer have 20% advantage over other civs after they research wheelbarrow. You're wasting your bonus by staying behind. Not mention wheelbarrow is absolutely crucial for farming and important for everything in general.
this patch basically overbuffed various already good civs, while lefting mediocre/forgettable civs as they are, or even making weak civs worse or unchanged (which means still worse by comparison since other civ get better)
As a long-term Malians player, it sucks to see your Civ get overbuffed and as a result overpicked... Suddenly everyone wants them. Also some of those economic Techs (like Vietnamese and Burgundian) really need to be buffed, they're almost useless.
Hey Spirit, wondering if you have an answer for this question, currently what is the Civ with the Lowest Win Rate on any map? What is the highest? and how big of a difference is there?
I don't know who SOTL can still squeeze out content for this game, all of useful information from this game to help newbies and veterans is all covered already.
For the spanish you maybe should also take into account the gold free blacksmith upgrades as an "extra gold for the late game" bonus
Came here to say this. They definitely have additional advantages in castle and imperial ages due to this. Not to mention the trade bonus in team games.
holy crap the fact that "top-tier" is 53% wr in this game is a testament to how well it's balanced
Edit: if i learned anything from this video it's that maybe Burgundian Vinyards and Paper Money need buffs
Every civ is the same base tech tree besides their unique units and bonuses. Easier to balance that than completely different factions with different mechanics like Zerg vs Terran etc.
@@kommodore6691 I wish the devs try to make unique skins for regions at least. So Aztecs don't fight using europeans soldiers and things like that. Forgotten team and lots of modders out there already made a lot of excelent looking skins.
@@ScudForEver this is really cool, but I think it might make things confusing from a game play point of view. Especially at a high level, you need to recognize units within a second or less, on a screen filled with other information.
I think it's great that there are a lot of mods for the people that want it, but it shouldn't be standard.
They be mixing it better than Walter White cooking.
@@tokagerkun a guy in the AoE2 subreddit already made some art of regional skins and it's both unique and immediately recognisable. But I agree that if they do something like that it should be as a game setting like small trees.
speed is of the essence. thats why the direct bonus is so powerful compared to dragged out situations. if you can hit hard and fast, most likely you'll have map control and be able to control neutrals. then youll just snowball
Regarding Poles: you forgot the fact that Poles got that extra gold by mining stone, meaning they have both the stone and the gold, and malians would have to go mine that stone too separately, making the Pole bonus arguably better if not as good. Also it reduces villager load in the mid game :)
Poles will have to mine gold as well anyway. 33% roi on villagers is pretty bad especially since stone is the slowest resource to mine after farms.
why does it matter, which resource gives you extra gold? i would even put it exactly reverse - if the resource you need is stone and gold is aplenty extra gold from stone gives you exactly nothing. however, the bonus directly on gold means it applies every single time at the moment you need it.
btw who stops Malians from tasking the same number of vils to stone as Poles do? they gain the exact same amount of stone.
@@BayWa4eva the pole bonus is far more powerful in practice than your comment implies.
@@LeicaFleury not because of stone. in fact the same rate (33%) on wood or farms would be broken beyond repair. the Poles can only get to that high bonus number because stone is such a bad source for bonuses.
@@BayWa4eva the bonus is stronger in practice than what your comments say. It already got nerfed and it makes the beeline towards a castle less punishing which allows them to pick their knight discount tech or go obuch or sell it on the market. You just need to have levels of creativity that are not contemplated in your responses.
It says a lot about how balanced this game is that the highest win % for a civilization is 53%.
The most broken Hearthstone deck ever had something like a 56% win rate. In competitive 1v1s 3% is a lot. It's more than house edge in Casinos and Casinos are not known to be fair.
@@ruukinen waaat? :o
Yes. 3% advantage is a lot.
But its not so much that its a must pick.
Yep.
AoE2 is suprisingly balanced.
Not only cause the most successfull civ is only in 54%-58% area, but because lowest winrate ones never fell bellow 36% winrate, and more vommonly hover around 42-46%
@@ethribin4188 I guess it makes a difference if mirror matches are possible, like in Hearthstone since then the deck itself can at most win 50% against itself so it's a self balancing mechanic, only casualty being deck diversity.
Malians are a civ that really just needed a slight buff to go into top-tier, given that they're probably one of the most flexible civs in the game. a good eco bonus, good infantry, good cavalry, decent archers, decent siege, decent trash, one of the best raiding units in the game, and even good defense, and all of that all game long. they don't really have a weak point, neither in terms of stages of the game, nor in terms of unit options. they can just adapt to every situation, so giving them such a strong eco bonus just puts them over the top.
vs archers? good cavalry + tanks infantry
vs infantry? hand cannons and good knights
vs cavalry? great camels
vs siege? good cavalry and tanky infantry
"Good at everything" civs are the most boring design wise
@@seraphimconcordant I actually think they're quite interesting, because it needs to be balanced somehow. For Malians, it's the classic "each unit is missing something in imp". Arbalest but no bracer, siege onager but no siege engineers, great champions against ranged units but no blast furnace, great cavalier and light cav but no paladin or hussar. Their heavy camel with farimba is basically their only unit that is strictly better than the baseline "fully upgraded" unit.
@@jordivermeulen2519 Yeah, it's more like "good at everything but excelent at nothing"
@@seraphimconcordant that’s interesting, I feel that “only good at X” civs are quite dull. Like goths pretty much only going inf and franks well it’s knights 90% of the time. So 🤷♂️
I am 1000 elo and I hate when my opponent picks turks on Arena but I also don’t like playing as turks.
On the Spanish bonus: Keep in mind Spanish Blacksmith techs don't cost gold. Should that also be counted for the total gold? It is still gold available that the other civ has to spend.
nobody picks technologies of blacksmith worth of 1800 gold or even half of it, i think he mentioned that in the last parts when he compared results of some game
I feel that in the Malians/Spanish comparison there's been one element forgotten: the no-gold blacksmith upgrades of the Spanish. That has to be an advantage that probably puts them over Malians at least in the mid-run
1695 gold all told, or 1995 gold, if you include the 20 gold/tech bonus.
@@GoranXII So, the bonus could end up being almost as strong if you research enough blacksmith upgrades, right?
@@joaquinreisin9372 Yep.
On water maps i always pick spain, the 25% more gold trade bonus actually helps out so much, and the faster cannon galleon shots make you rule the waves and your trade untouchable
@@Sven73524 I always love it when SCPs come out of their holes to play some good old Age of Empires
I remember back when Malians had the free gold mining upgrades, casters would always comment on how it synergized so well with Malians' flexibility (could do archers, infantry or cavalry in any age, tho archers drop off a little bit since they lack bracer). I think this bonus brings back that flexibility of having more gold available in the mid-game
One of my favorite civs when they first dropped, it's great to see them getting some much-needed love.
Ah, another Malian appreciator. My number one civ by a huge margin.
@@aoefsmrap Fancy seeing you here!
@@robbylava Of course.
A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow, so 15% extra through the regular course of the game is generally more powerful than up to 30% towards the end of the game.
It's not so clear, because in this game you can run out of ressources. So in a long game (when it turn into trash unit combat) 1 gold is worth more than in the middle of the game.
At this point it's just a completly different bonus.
@@MrMorvana But if you ended up in the late game with 15% more gold available at every other stage of the game, you deserve to lose. You shouldn't be thinking about a game state that almost never happens and if it does is bad for you. Tbf it's still half of the old bonus, it's just vastly superior since you get the gold now rather than later.
There's general elections going on right now in my country, and I'm about to go vote, but Spirit decides to trigger my curiosity and keep me close to Wi-Fi.
go vote and reward yourself with the video afterwards. as a random internet man I'm legally bound to say to you how important voting is.
Are u from arg?
@@tomasferraz7655 Paraguay
@@AuronDdraig so are any of the candidates good? Or you are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils?
Vote for the best party: The Malian party.
I've been a ride-or-die Malians fan since release and through every patch. Love their military diversity and that all three unit types feel viable for them, love that Gbeto feel like the best raiding unit in the game, love their subtle-but-supportive eco bonuses.
And now I love that they're finally getting the recognition as the top-tier civ they've honestly always been.
Malians were dope when you could spam +3 pierce armor halbs and fuck up archer and cav civs
They are great but conquistador is better, come on
@@SammyBoyy300 If you've ever done Conqs vs. Gbeto, they feel very similar and infact their head-to-head matchup can go either way because Conqs have the better hit-and-run DPS whilst Gbeto have the better stand-and-fight DPS. The absurd damage on Conqs also tends to overkill really bad vs. Gbeto. In my experience it usually ends up with Conqs running from Gbeto so much that they can't get the damage in that they'd like, and IF Gbeto get a counter-raid in, it can be damaging for Conqs, who can be unfortunately semi-slow to stop it, giving Gbetos a couple free swings at getting vil kills in before the Conq shots lead to kills.
But what Gbeto can do that Conqs can't is burn through walls. And opponent who has walled extensively = Conqs won't get much damage in and miss their window. An opponent who *has* walled in will still see their walls burned down in seconds by mass Gbeto, because as an infantry unit they get bonus damage vs. buildings and have perhaps the fastest, most *practical* DPS vs. buildings in the game. (for example, Shotels theoretically burn through buildings faster, but can't be stacked as well vs. walls, so here Gbeto outperform them in practice)
I would say Conqs are the more user-friendly option and the one that feels cleaner and easier to manage, especially without walls. If we're talking about a walled opponent or the potential of use though, I'd still rank Gbeto higher. Conqs are legit only good at raiding and tend to flop in direct combat, precisely because their reload speed is pretty bad. (something that running tends to "cancel") Gbeto are much better on this front.
@@Longknife Conqs are way superior when microed properly. Reload time doesn't matter, what's important is initial fire delay before doing the attack - and Gbeto are one of the slowest units in the game to perform their attack after stopping. Conqs can stop, shoot and run away before Gbeto finish their attacking animation. This is also why Gbeto are so susceptible to mangonels if you ever get caught out - they need to stand in place for a long time before their attack activates and they lose most of their HP to single shot. Speaking of, Gbeto die to 1-2 volleys of town center while Conqs can survive multiple and keep killing villagers.
Yes, Gbeto are by far the best at taking down walls, especially house walls etc. but you made it seem like Conqs aren't good at busting through walls. That's wrong. Their attack is so high that they can make a hole in palisade walls very quickly. Only house walls or stone walls stop Conqs.
Direct combat isn't just Gbeto vs Conqs. You will rarely see that in practice. Spanish player will likely be raiding with conqs before Malian player has a castle and by the time to make one, they will switch to Knight line. What's much more important is how they do vs knights or crossbows, the dominant castle age units - and Conqs, while forced to run away in low numbers, actually murder knights when microed and in good mass while Gbeto get slaughtered and can't run away unless there's a chokepoint nearby. Gbeto can run away from crossbows due to their high speed but if they take a fight they will suffer heavy losses.
@@Progeusz First wanna point out the assessment "Spanish player will be raiding with Conqs before Malian player has a castle" is absurd and there's nothing to support this. These are factors decided by individual match, and if anything, Malians have the stronger eco bonuses to get them to Castle faster, as well as the better means of doing damage in Feudal.
My point was that if both players make raiding squads, yes Conqs have the superior hit-and-run game, but not superior *enough* that they're not taking losses to Gbeto in the process. This means a defensive Gbeto squad that chooses just to tail the Conqs and fire back at them will be doing enough damage and enough of a threat that the Conqs are not getting in the damage that they'd like. Additionally, in terms of cost, Gbeto can gladly throw bodies at the fight because Gbeto are the cheaper unit that's also made quicker, meaning Malians both spend less and rebuild their numbers quicker. This is again padded by the fact the Malian gold bonus is stronger.
*Long-term,* as this battle escalates, this favors Malians, precisely *because* Conqs are so dependent on hit-and-run. Hit-and-run means single target, Hit-and-run means lots of overkill damage or more squads micro'ed to remain effective, Hit-and-Run means more numbers matter less and less.
You mention Conqs can kill walls, but precisely this is unlikely vs. Gbeto. Standing still is their death condition. This means the Gbeto are successfully defending during Conq's power spike, and because Conqs benefit less from mass squads whilst Gbeto benefit more alongside the fact Conqs are at their strongest in early castle, this all means that the longer the match drags on, the more Gbeto will overwhelm.
You likewise claim that Gbeto being better at reload/standing and fighting doesn't matter. 100% it matters, because precisely when the Gbeto are counterattacking the Spanish base, this is when the Conqs cannot hit-and-run. They *must* engage to defend, and they're at a disadvantage here. This is why the Gbeto are as much a threat to the Spanish as the Conqs are to the Malians: because whilst the Conqs have better hit-and-run, the Gbeto have better staying power and are a better threat to enemy defenses/buildings. There is a difference between Conqs "killing palisades quick" and losing a stone wall in mere seconds because your opponent snuck a squad of Gbeto to your gate, or a palisade instantly crumbling to even a modest squad.
As a pure hit-and-run unit, if we're talking about a map like Atacama with no walls and vulnerable vils, this is where Conqs are going to shine and their speed + better hit-and-run will give them an edge. They can gladly patrol the woodlines and never really have to stop or turn back to take shots from an opponent. If we're talking about a neutral Arabia setup though, with no particular incentive to put vils in danger whilst both teams have an opportunity to build walls, then this is really just a test if the Malians player can stave off those initial raid attempts, because the more the match goes on, the more cost effectiveness, unit creation time, a better gold eco, superior building damage and better capacity for Gbeto to stand and fight are going to start becoming factors.
This is not a game of absolutes, but situational advantages. However, yes, I would absolutely argue Gbeto are the better universal, well-rounded raiding unit and waaaaaaaaaay better suited for an enemy with defenses up, precisely because Conqs slow reload speed begins to become a very crippling weakness as the game draws on and the opponent can afford to throw more mass armies at you; hitting-and-running and killing one unit out of 40 every 3 seconds is not a productive use of an army.
Always enjoy your analysis. I appreciated your observation about how the Malian gold bonus is basically three separate bonuses bundled together.
Even if buying wood and stone might be less production-efficient on paper, another thing youd need to take into consideration is how it can factor in as weaponizing the market economy. If you know (or at least predict) that your opponent is going to be using the market for extra wood or stone for a particular strategy, then preemptively using your gold advantage to drive up the price before they can get to it will effectively undermine them. They're caught with their pants down in a position where they have some gold with no where to go and a bunch of tower/wall/castle blueprints and no stone to build them.
Hey Spirit,
Just messaging to say that I love the content. I am always super excited when I see you post a new video and you're honestly my favourite TH-camr! Keep up the good work!
i love gbetos. them getting a 10 hp buff is so nice. gbetos are probably my favorite unit for comp stomping since they can break AI rams from range. this buff is huge for me and the homies.
This makes me want to see you revisit "OP Custom Civs" and to make a gold civilization
Persian unique tech I'd say. Crossbow line becoming trash unit is huge gold saving
The other major consideration is that for a lot of build orders this bonus means you can move 1+ vills off gold and onto another resource without losing out on income.
While thats technically true for all bonuses, its much easier to leverage on simple ones like Malians vs. more calculated ones like Spanish or Portuguese.
Yeah, this is looking pretty strong. They probably went with 15% faster collection to match their previous bonus, but this is better than what they had. With the winrate being high, I expect it to get dropped to 10% to get off the Turks' lawn a little bit.
PS: I assume it was just an oversight, but I'll have you know that the Mayans get 15% longer lasting everything, including gold, so their total is 1800 above generic.
Glad to see the data of this finally revealed. Next on the agenda: how good is Sicilian’s new Donjon defensive start? 🤔
Another way to think of the bonus is in terms of flexible eco. For roughly every 9 villagers a generic civ needs to have on gold, Mali gets to take one and put it on another task without falling behind in resource generation. That isn't a game-breaking bonus, but for a civ that already specializes in being flexible, a flexible economy is powerful. The downside to generalist civs is that you can't specialize on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. That means you don't have the luxury of picking one military building to ignore. In other words, your villagers will need to spend more of their time building instead of collecting resources than a specialist civ. Mali's solution then is the ability to free up a builder for construction tasks without falling behind in resources. You can debate whether or not that's more valuable than the extra gold. Either way, the Malians are buying the one resource you can't collect in the game- time. In RTS games, time can be worth more than gold.
Hey spirit! Do you have a reason not to mention feutoria when talking about the protuguese comparison? Surely that is a 1vs1 gold bonus that should be considered. Together with the 20% cheaper gold units I would argue that portuguese are the best lategame gold civ, whilst holding up quite ok in the early game with the discounts.
I thought Mayans have +15% longer lasting res not +30%
They do, SotL is just wrong on this one. :P
You forgot compare it to the Magyar 1 hit kill bonus on Gold Rush.
With the Turk comparison, you'd also have to take into account that the Turks would be moving onto neutral gold quicker, like you said earlier in the video so do in some ways have access to more gold
Very interesting video as always! Two small mistakes i noticed. When accounting for wood use in the food generation, you wrote Heavy Plow, even tough the numbers where horse collar numbers. And in the end - Mayans should have about the same extra gold as the new Malians - they have 15 % longer lasting res...
Also, Spanish blacksmith techs doesnt cost gold, so they are saving about 1800 gold in total there
Take a shot every time he reminds us that the Malians collect more gold than normal 😉
Been waiting for this
Mistake with the Mayan bonus it is 15% not 30%.
The Malian bonus is most of the Mayan, Turk and Aztec bonus in one now when it comes to gold. It is incredibly strong and probably will be nerfed down to 10% as the wood bonus and Malian tech tree are good too. The UU buff is also not to be ignored, 5 hp on a low hp unit is a solid buff.
based subtle fractional reserve banking redpill
Remember that Spanish blacksmith upgrades doesnt cost gold. So thats a gold bonus too.
I still don't understand back when malians bonus is free gold mining tech. Why did the dev nerfed it to just feudal tech that's free? Is free mining tech OP back then?
What about Hindustani unique tech "Grand Trunk Road"?
An interesting sidenote is that Malians is the only civ with a full tech tree in castle age
Gambisons ruined this, but that's honestly understandable since it'd be downright broken on Malians and we'd suddenly have people calling to nerf (Malian) infantry lol.
@@Longknife oh right, i straight up forgot gambesons. But their civ bonus is still a better version of it.
@@timoschmonsees2652 Yeah I mean I guess TECHNICALLY you can argue they get it for free. FFS they could even just patch the text to say "Malians get +1 pierce armor in Feudal, Gambesons for free and +1 pierce armor in Imperial" and they're back to fully qualifying for your statement.
@@Longknife then you'd have to make them have Supplies as well which doesn't bode well for Slavs
@@The-jy3yq ??? Malians have Supplies.
Malians have every technology - save for Gambesons which they get in a roundabout way - all the way up to Imperial. They are only missing Imperial techs, nothing else.
I still think this was a bad change in that it made it too similar to the turks. Would rather they kept the higher total extra gold percentage rather than the current one
So in other words Malians, Spanish, Portuguese and Turks all together in a team would have a huge gold advantage combined.
A video containing a more rigorous analysis of the comparison between the Malian and Spanish gold bonuses would be great!
5:43 whats that folwark?? why is it smaller?
That's an African Mill (11)
It's hilarious watching the auto-subtitles try really hard to figure out 'Malians'. Mullions? Emollients? Mall eons?
Molly and was also there!
Having tried it, I feel like it'll absolutely get nerfed. It is so powerful right now.
Tbf, even with highest win rate, it’s just a mere 53%, which is not that impressive tbh.
The bonus actually gives good early game value and scales really well in Imp
Mayans resources only last 15% longer. They've never lasted more than 20% longer. If they lasted 30% longer I think it would be, by far, the undisputed strongest eco bonus in the game as it would drastically improve their dark age to a point that nobody else would be able to keep up (hunt, herdables, and berries all lasting 30% longer would be unstoppable).
Yeah, normally bonus that apply to every resource/bulding are lower, like portuguese faster reseaeching, mayans longer lasting resources or incas cheaper rome buildings, the the bonus with less applainces are greater to compensate, like longer lasting sheeps, faster universities or cheaper castles.
Spirit of the law who forgets about the Hindustani unique technology, which would allow him to do more maths. Unbealivable.
Hello Spirit Of The Law. I came up with the same gold bonus for my civ the nubian. A funny thing is that both are African Civilizations however, on the opposite side of the continent
Great old school spirit in depth
About the Malian/Spanish comparison:
Graph most likely comes very close to reality, that's how it should be. A flat bonus of 20 gold per tech is handy in the early game where techs are cheaper and 100 gold piled up makes a much bigger difference. In mid to late game, where a tech can cost up to 800 gold or more, those 20 gold don't matter nearly as much. Compared with a percentage bonus that affects all gold miners - therefore keeps getting better over time with added vils on gold it just can't keep up. So yeah, your assumption should be correct as well as the graph
I forgot this game existed
So here's a question:
In a team game, would it ever make sense to have your Malian ally mine your gold for you?
Or would the tribute fee cancel it out?
The tribute fee would more than cancel it out since it starts at 30%, coinage -> 20% and only banking in imperial gets it to 0%.
For spanish, you need to include the gold free blacksmith upgrades, not just the 20 gold per tech
Love ur videos
Oh great. Now I need to worry about inflation in AoE2 AND real life?
Kidding. But not really. Great video all the same~
How much extra gold do Saracens get from selling their extra wood and food at the market in late imperial? I can't remember.
heh... fractional reserve banking would be an interesting perk.... get 20% extra gold on collection but suffer inflation where all gold costs go up by 2% every 10 minutes or something xD
money printer unique tech... research and instantly get 5k gold, but all gold costs doubles in 5 minutes
just kidding of course
Malians showing everyone why you should invest in Karambit coins.
*Gbethereum
Honestly it fits that Malians of all civs would be the ones to have the best gold bonus, given how history went and all
It's also fitting that the bonus makes the civilization quite strong; too few people realize how powerful West Africa was in the Late Middle Ages. If the Sahara Desert hadn't stood between the Malians and gunpowder technology, African history would likely have looked quite different.
You forgot the food only monks and monk techs for bohemians reducing demand for gold...
Don't forget the mailan unique unit is strong. It can be compared with the mighty mamluke but while slower moving and has less hp than mamluke, makes up for it with longer range and higher damage. Still weak to elite teutonic knights but does more than 1 damage per hit to them...
Spanish also saves on blacksmith upgrades not costing gold. That would add up ryt?
Malians are always a great civ on 1v1. They just can pull off a lot without having too much. Still waiting to see Gurjara extra bonus damage camels vs Malian Farimba camels.
So Malians are now masters of Stonks when it comes to mining.
Guess Malians now have a leg up on everyone else, at least somewhat, compared to everyone else when it comes to more gold heavy units like Knights or Siege.
what if mayans convert malian villagers and use them to mine gold?
did only Malians get a new setup or other civs too? I just want to know if the site showing the civs is up to date or not
Fractional Reserve banking? I guess it's time for a stock market panic to cause a Bank Run! Do we have the Vietnamese Paper Money research?
Considering how malians already had a pretty solid eco bonus I think the one needs a bit of nerf. 10% should be just fine for them, and that might be a biased take since I'm a big fan of the malians.
Malian + Portugese team bonus.
Malian player sends vils to mine the Portugese gold, then send the gold to the Portugese player for the 20% cheaper units.
Ah yes bring back colonialism
Guess it's time to change the Karambitcoit graph in the intro again.
Do you know if is there any phisical copy of Age of Empires 2 or 3 DE available or the game was not published in any phisical forme
The CC is a goldmine: emollients, mullions, Molly and
Do Spanish still get goldless blacksmith upgrades?
Am i stupid, or are Malians not bested by Mayans in total Gold available to them. Mayans have the bonus of 15%longer lasting res. Malians drop off 15% more gold. Shouldnt it be exactöy the same gold available to both of them? Malians just collect it faster. But the mayan bonus obviously doesnt stop at gold, and is also usefull on all other res, so its hard to say, that the Malian bonus is just better.
Am I mistaken somewhere?
How nuts is it to give a civ with an almost perfect win rate of 49,9% a huge buff - along with 2 minor buffs?
So if i don't upgrade wheelbarrow, does the gold yield 20% more because of favorable rounding?
It was so (I tested) before wheelbarrow since the April 11 patch. Not sure if there was a fix for that recently, but I still wonder why this 20% was not mentioned.
Yeah but you will no longer have 20% advantage over other civs after they research wheelbarrow. You're wasting your bonus by staying behind. Not mention wheelbarrow is absolutely crucial for farming and important for everything in general.
Wow Turks on the 3rd... Interesting. I am not following aoe for a time did i miss something?
Okay, but hear me out. Remember the crafting OP civs vid ? Imagine a civ with Malians gold bonus, Turks gold bonus and Portuguese gold bonus.
Glad to hear mention of Mansa Musa. You’d think the richest person in human history would be more well known.
You should take into consideration that Spanish gets gold and also their blacksmith techs don't cost any gold that the malian player has to pay.
this patch basically overbuffed various already good civs, while lefting mediocre/forgettable civs as they are, or even making weak civs worse or unchanged (which means still worse by comparison since other civ get better)
Do Mayans still have a negative farm bonus?
what about Hindustani?
The about fractional reserve banking hurt the economist in me.
As a long-term Malians player, it sucks to see your Civ get overbuffed and as a result overpicked... Suddenly everyone wants them.
Also some of those economic Techs (like Vietnamese and Burgundian) really need to be buffed, they're almost useless.
good job ^^
I am malian, blade of miquella.
Somebody: well, counter arguments are.....
Sotl:+1800 gold, betteeer
I still really want neutral trade hubs like there are in AoE4. Makes trade possible even in 1v1.
Assuming u don’t get wheelbarrow, wouldn’t you just gather 20% more from gold mines so 960 per tile?
Love it
Honestly, thematically, i feel the previous bonus was more fitting.
I think if the bonus was lowered to 10% it would probably be in a fair spot
Hey Spirit, wondering if you have an answer for this question, currently what is the Civ with the Lowest Win Rate on any map? What is the highest? and how big of a difference is there?
nice!
catphract counter samurai
Malians no longer get every tech in the castle age now with the introduction of gambesons (although they do get a superior version for free).
I call it the Mansa Musa effect.
Historically they should have tge best gold bonus.
Snow on African buildings feels so weird lol
You forgot the Hindustanis gold bonus...
I don't know who SOTL can still squeeze out content for this game, all of useful information from this game to help newbies and veterans is all covered already.
I like gold!