#2 Let's Play Civ 6 Mali - Mansa Musa - Civilization VI Gathering Storm Preview

[@tomw4955]

man he really bungled that medieval golden age. could have easily recruited some missionaries and converted cities to get that. feels like he forgot mali gets extra traderoutes for every golden age he hits.

[@Isengardtom]

Yeah I agree that was a mistake especially since he was only two points away so one conversion would have been enough. Also getting free inquiry golden age is good for Mali Learning a lot from these games though :)

[@jisookim6904]

@@Isengardtom it was 3 points but still a single missionary should have done the trick.

[@PotatoMcWhiskey]

Yeah I messed up this early game,

[@MM-od1sl]

He also forgot he picked church property(+2 gold/city) & he had 1600 faith in the end (+80/turn) and he could have used the missionaries to scout Hungary I think he should have gone for moksha so he can use his tons of faith to buy Suguba+market and a trader(with gold) 5 turns after deploying it

[@jeremyjones2361]

Could have also bought a great person with his faith to get to the golden age. In any case, he then could have picked monumentality and started purchasing settlers and builders with his faith to expand quickly and used his gold for purchasing buildings and units instead

[@Yanner39]

And I would have rushed Petra. 8 desert hills in your cap. It would have been great.

[@joshuabormes13]

Spends five minutes talking about why he shouldn’t have bought a settler in the capital then as soon as he has enough money buys one in capital

[@buitenhuis16]

ughh yes

[@dajonjames5759]

I literally had to get up and take a walk; I was so mad.

[@PotatoMcWhiskey]

SHHH

[@kingxav3164]

I was basically screaming at my screen POTATO YOU HAVE IRON IN KIRUKA! Then when he finally saw it I just took a sigh of relief. Potato we love you.🤣😂

[@Fairbranksthecat]

Same here :')

[@SubZer0Games]

this dude is grinding out civ at 1 am, that's prime time "one more turn" hours, next thing you know its gonna be 4 am

[@kazoospew3639]

Reyna’s ability to buy districts is extremely helpful for Mali

[@SCUB4Owl]

14:27 That sigh is where I would hit Quit to Main Menu

[@Rich-MarsEco]

You can just hear the tilt in his voice.

[@CarolusBuchwurm]

I think you made a Petra highly unlikely when you set the starting climate to high from the beginning, thereby relativizing your desert starting bias as Mali.

[@infamoussky22]

The first rule of high difficulty Petra: you won't get Petra.

[@moon_wizard1250]

I agree. At the same time, however, I just tried playing Mali because they looked interesting and my issue was that, in a standard map, you're only going to have one, maybe two cities on desert tiles unless you're really lucky with the terrain. So most of my cities couldn't even take advantage of a lot the bonuses the civ has. I'll admit I forgot about the bonus to holy site adjacency so I probably could have done better, but I never even hit 2K gold per turn. So it's kinda like damned if you do damned if you don't, but I'd rather have a large desert region than Petra tbh. That being said, I'm totally a civ noob as well haha.

[@maartencappaert]

I am actually looking forward to the rest of this play-trough to learn more about recovering from a poor start. I already learned strategic placement of defensive units is key to survival. In many ways this is much more interesting than your optimized plays where everything works out as expected, and you get every wonder you want.

[@Saracen93]

You could have used a couple missionaries (you had a shrine in cap) to convert Maori and Auckland to get into a golden age very easily. All that city center + holy site faith amazing potential for monumentality builders and settlers, which would be even more discounted to faith purchase because of suguba.

[@infamoussky22]

As much as a weak start is frustrating, I do believe it is nice to see some struggle and an eventual overcoming, leading to prosperity.

[@thekleptodeer1038]

I’VE BEEN WAITING A WHOLE 24 HOURS, PRAISE THE SPUD \o/

[@NADster36]

24:39 You made a Quill by overlooking the iron near Kirina (and losing the Petra). ;)

[@sripathykiran]

I don't know how it is in Gathering Storm rule set, but in Rise&Fall, once a district construction is commissioned, it can be built without requiring minimum population limit. AT 19:22, since holy site construction was commissioned at Gao, you can buy the settler there, and the holy site and suguba can be constructed even at 3 pop.

[@Yanner39]

Week early game, yes. But you built holy sites, and weren’t spending your faith. Instead on one holy site, you could have built a gov plaza instead.

[@infamoussky22]

Yes, he said it in the video that he made mistakes placing the wrong districts, and buying the settler in the capital.

[@Yanner39]

skyhunter156 but hey, if there’s a player who’s good enough to recover, it’s him.

[@Flor-um1zu]

Dat inflation gonna hit

[@niIIer1]

Technically you did loose a 5 charge builder as the charge he used instantly got destroyed as well. Also why not levy some city state armies to help you in the war? I mean you got the money.

[@sripathykiran]

Ah, good old salt rubbing to the wound :)

[@bigearthurs]

Potato, love your videos. I'm learning so much. I feel like watching your vids has revitalized my love for Civ. Keep doing a great job man!

[@masterzedd4]

After playing the Mali a few times, I have found that the early game weakness is lessened greatly by being super super aggressive. Using your money to buy military and take over city states and other civs nearby. For the cost of a single settler you can create 2 warriors and a slinger. Production used build city infrastructure and districts.

[@maltesony]

It's really nice to watch you learn and struggle too. It is actually very educational, thanks for the content! :)

[@SourceOfBeing]

You said Mali was weak but how much of that is them being objectively weak and how much of that is them not working great with your preferred strategy?

[@Golladan]

They have an objectively weak start. No doubt about it.

[@JimmyMon666]

his build also suffers from a 51% production penalty. The 30% they said was not correct, and the math works out to 51%. This bug is supposed to be fixed on release though.

[@Rich-MarsEco]

Other things you might have wanted to do was improve your religion with some apostles, since you had tons of faith, so you can get religious builds; the science or growth one. Yes the government plaza is city #2 would have been best, and in city #3 mirror your capital, then building settlers from cities 2 and 3, while growing the capital for wonder production (like Petra) as well as a third district so you could get a Campus finally up! I agree the Governement Plaza with building for faster/cheaper settling with free builders is extremely needed. His early game is gonna always be brutal because like on diety every time you meet someone you will be behind in every way and even more so with army now, so the AI will always declare war, we need a strat for this, like not scouting much (which isnt a great idea in general) or using all early good for Warriors (since they are no maintenance) or right after Astrology & Mining get Wheel to buy a bunch of Heavy Chariots you can later upgrade, since you don't need horses for them and can continue to build mines, plus if you have wheat or rice (probably wheat) the extra food (and lesser the extra production) from water mills being available early is good too! Also, I think you neglected growth a little bit, the faster you grow the more gold tiles you can work and districts to build. Like you heavy food city center is good for up to 4 pop, but like with your capital with has a 6 housing, getting one food tile that is +4 or a couple of +3s is the way to go, especially with a granary before 5 pop.

[@mrbastone1992]

So Potato not sure if you are aware but theres a new report screen that has a breakdown of all of the luxuries and strategics each civ has all presented on one single screen. I know its habit that you individually searched each civs diplo screen but maybe thats a quality of life change youd appreciate! keep up the good content man

[@IS-bi4wc]

Potato probably didn't notice that option of foreign aid is at the sity production menu among with district projects, it takes 6 turns to produce so if you have 8 turns to do the aid you have one more turn before you have to start it. Those one gold you sent Canada was not necessary.

[@trengilly01]

While it would have been nice I think Petra is less important for Mali than other civs. They don't really care about the extra production or food for that matter. By midgame they literally won't need production for anything and can just faith or gold buy everything. And large cities would just require amenities. Pretty sure I would never bother building an industrial zone as Mali either. Mali just needs tons of little cities packed in so they can get as many Suguba and Holy Sites as possible.

[@SafeTea237]

I feel like potato isn't utilizing his diplomatic favor effectively. In the last game he was gaining so much from friendships, alliances, and city states claiming that he wanted to save up in case he needed to use it as a substitute for gold or policies in the world congress. Yet, he barely used all that favor to pass rez's that woulda benefited him and he never traded any favor for gold or amenities. I think in this game when norway asked for diplomatic favor and open borders for gold+open borders, it woulda been a good idea to take that. It was still early game with the world congress a fair amount of turns away and the benefit was pretty large.

[@jimik89]

Take a drink everytime he says he had a poor start! 😂🍺

[@Saki630]

What's your opinion on the Mali? Do they have a weak early game or a slow early game?

[@refinedbrass]

have you ever done a el dorado or atlantis play through where you focus wonders and gold and for atlantis you try to make it in the eye of the sahara

[@LoserZalbo]

Would have instantly quit the game if I couldn't get petra

[@Ohdonnyboy]

Love watching your videos, hope you keep on keeping on❤

[@thomaschambaz7946]

Just thinking about it without beeing able to play it, I was wondering if it was possible as Mali to limit your cities to 3-4 at start and be stingy with faith and gold purchases in order to buy some great people, specifically the scientist that gives science to holy sites and after that look at the great engineers for walls or wonders, then proceed to buy the world

[@theral056]

Music and game sounds should be boosted a fair bit. If I turn up the volume to perceive music you're way too loud to bear, so I can only listen to it without music :(

[@DaBsolja]

have you thought about mainly using production in cities for district projects (since you dont get a penalty for them).

[@clarkharris3828]

Magnus is a boss governor for spamming out settlers...all he needs is one promotion and then you never consume population in your cap as you train/purchase settlers :D

[@TrevorCaldwell]

Might have been worth building a couple farms in the cap to get that grow a little faster?

[@NocticonPlays]

as far as I could tell, you didn't make any mistakes, the most important thing, was that you did not over commit to that early war. you good man!

[@socratesdeekte6321]

I have the feeling you’re missing out on a lot of food and production by settling in the middle of the dessert. I know you get some faith/food bonus in the city centre as well as ‘trader gold’ bonus, but every single hill with a mine (4 gold + production + food) is still worth more than every 4 flat dessert tiles you own imo. And you can easily make up for the food bonus by settling grassland.

[@leosand9801]

Why is it that you want to place down a district when you can even if you're not gonna hard build it right away?

[@coopercoin]

Cost of districts is scaling with number of techs and civics opened. Placing the districts locks the price

[@leosand9801]

@@coopercoin Gotcha, thank you for replying!

[@LazarNaumoski]

What difference would it make if he bought the settlers from another city? (he talks about it at 16:45)

[@rebeccanorman2894]

Settlers decrease population everytime you build and buy one. He was trying to get up to population 7 so that he could get the government district which would give you more governers. If you buy settlers in another city, you allow the population to grow in the capital.

[@luftspeiler]

Shouldn't any half-decent desert city go for the pyramids if none others would care to bother at the momen? It does increase your builder productivity by at least 39 percent in the long run.

[@12Monkeysable]

Poor Potato, with every breath you exhale, we can hear your suffering. You are struggling, but i am certain, you will make in the end!!!

[@DarthStanM]

Just letting you know been living the content. Keep up the great job!

[@jeremyjones2361]

This is the worst I have ever seen you play. So many devastating mistakes. You sound a little tired and depressed. Hope everything is okay outside of your let's play life

[@RogerMacCallum]

Petra. It was depression from having not finished Petra. I felt it too. That capital would have been epic. Especially with the Alcazars (or other unique improvements) in the flat tiles with no districts.

[@Littlebob1986]

I was just thinking the same thing. He doesn't have the same life in his voice he has even with the Maori stream. Hope all is OK mate

[@lam3359]

Well, I wouldnt say that, but the AI nabbing Petra was definitely a massive *O O F* from me dawg

[@LauchaRuggieri]

Is it me or he worries about wars a little too much? Literally plays around weak enemy units around a heavily defensive terrain city. He gets so stressed every time some random warriors ahoys in his borders.

[@luftspeiler]

@@lam3359 Well then. I suppose he will and can and wants to steal Petra instead. Then he succeds and creates the industrial core of his empire.

[@MidlifeCrisisJoe]

Hey Potato! What's a good video of yours to study up on how to handle this game on deity? I've gotten up to Immortal, but every deity game I play ends up with me either losing outright quickly, or simply getting so far behind it becomes useless to continue by turn 200 (otherwise normal settings).

[@luftspeiler]

How about that iron in Kirina. Could that be something worth to divert your sand washed eyes?

[@Legendendear]

Chopping a river wood tile doea hurt me. Especially as the Mali where Production is super important

[@tomw4955]

too bad for petra but interesting to see how mali will do without it

[@elbonnybar]

did he not see the iron right outside of the city borders?.....i mean he even zoomed in on the city, he should have seen it.

[@Littlebob1986]

What am I missing, what's so important about the government plaza?

[@hamedjabbari5883]

After building it and adopting your first government at Political Philosophy, you can build one of 3 buildings in it, in this case the Ancestral Hall which gives you 50% production towards settlers and new cities start with a builder.

[@BigBadAmerican]

I don't like how dominant the canals are in the cityscapes especially in the earlier parts of the game.

[@LividRealities]

So exactly what kind of victory are you going for here? I think Religious victory would be the best bet considering the start and your current yields.

[@lykkj]

Love the content man!

[@rubyalexey8692]

don't you better off with the money one, instead of +4 culture/+4 science guy?

[@MM-od1sl]

@Ruby alexey Or perhaps the faith guy right from the start? :D He would be buying districts with faith by now - for example: settle city & buy suguba+market with faith, then traderoute

[@S23K]

I don't think so, since he's skipping Campuses and TSs, if he had he would be even farther behind than he already is.

[@rubyalexey8692]

​@James Wilkinson in that case, shouldn't he go for Magnus/liang? for the bonus chopping+settler freebes/build chargers?

[@Anima40]

Potato my man after you've done a few videos of the Civ 6 expansion you should give Endless legends a try. I've started it the other week and loving it!

[@socratesdeekte6321]

David Boyle no Civ 6 GS is just fine for now

[@kristoph17]

Ooh, eating lunch. Perfect timing :D

[@konplayz]

kristoph17 no, its 10 in the evening

You could use a little of faith to buy a missionary and enter a gold age

[@briarinnes2397]

All praise CASH MONEY, and his holiness, the Profit Prophet

[@Kevin-eb6dw]

I predicted the Mali would be generating less gold than the Maori (because of all the fishing boats) and I was right. The first patch will either have to remove the production penalties on units and districts or the -1 penalty to the mines (perhaps even adding +1 instead) if they want the Mali to be even remotely viable. Or maybe just nerf the Maori? 😂

[@vanman266]

LOL, Mali are not a weak start! You wasted huge production in faith you didn't need or use.

[@Locrian87]

First impressions on new leader?

[@keeloka]

AI gets hit by natural disaster - Quick send Aid Player gets hit by disaster - Fix your own problems

[@luftspeiler]

You should settle 1W of the jade by the rivers. At their confluence. Lot of commerce, reasonable prod and a lot of faith. You should up your religion because you are in a good position and can afford it. First get an apostle, launch inquisition, complete the objectives of your religion, then line your strategy to cater to the possibilies

[@Jojjo450]

HELL yeah potato upload

[@zeko858]

What do you think about taking the City Patron pantheon with Mali to help with putting down sagubas first?

[@MM-od1sl]

CRO 4evr i think buying districts with faith is probably way more powerful, while buying the building with gold and market with faith

[@a37n31]

I don't think Mali early game is intrinsically weak. You dediced to settle densly in desert in a hot map

[@Shain3333]

The -30% is brutal. He needed ten turns for a scout if he wanted one. The only reedeming factor is the early food and faith, but you need to settle near bad tiles to get it.

[@JimmyMon666]

@@Shain3333 It's currently a 51% production penalty. Firaxis has said this bug will be fixed upon release.

[@socratesdeekte6321]

Nooo Petra 😩, how unfortunate. In my experience you should always rush and chop the Petra if you have have at least 6 desert hills. Ai will go for it no matter what, even if it has only 2 flat desert tiles.

[@mookelmier951]

THE SUGUBA PLACEMENTS MAKE ME WANT TO THROW MY DOG AT THE WALL AAAAAA

[@TrevorCaldwell]

Thanks for the videos, they're fun. Just a little note: I've heard you (and several people) continuously refer to this civ as "The Mali". I'm not sure why that seems to feel natural to so many people... maybe because "the Maori" sounds similarly *is* correct. Mali is the proper name of the country/empire, not the people, whereas Maori refers to the people, not the people. Saying "the Mali" is like saying "the Sweden" or "the Canada" -- using "the" we need the adjective for the people; "the Swedes", "the Canadians", "the Maori", "the Malians".

[@dkjphills79]

Potato - if you are having difficulty playing this civ, what chance do I have of even putting up a good fight when i get the expansion. You keep saying this civ is week do you think they will get buffed.

[@saurabhjhanjee2408]

You talk about how you shouldn't have bought settlers in your cap but then go on to buy 2 more there...

[@PotatoMcWhiskey]

Its too late to do the thing I wanted to do

[@arseniysuslov9]

No Reina to buy districts with gold makes Potato a dull boy

[@akincanawebb7355]

How come he never builds farms... Is there something I'm missing here?

[@trengilly01]

Food isn't very useful in Civ6. You don't actually want to grow your cities, the extra people just require you go add housing and find amenities. Its more efficient to have lots of small cities. With Mali even more so. They need as many cities as possible so they can have lots of trade routes.

[@akincanawebb7355]

@@trengilly01 ah yeah that makes sense

[@XCXVX-uo6ku]

MANSA THE SUPREME FLEXER

[@darnwrong794]

I like the videos a lot, but please stop stressing that the Mali have a rough start. We know you messed up some decisions, let it slide and please focus on making more content, not keep redirecting every topic into saying that you have a rough start. Even your usual explanation of your decisions/choices has reduced because you just keep telling us about how rough the early game was.

[@darnwrong794]

You know, you can make mistakes too. Don't stress too much on some mistakes because you never made those previously.

[@markjaik]

This

[@Tommy-hp8je]

i thought you were going to do 3 1 hour episodes day 1 :(

[@wodzimierzabramow1544]

Maybe i'm just a noob , but i didnt notice you improve that luxury in your capital, why tho ?

[@rebeccanorman2894]

Do you mean the spices in the capital? He improved them at 35:35 he did say that he was "harvesting them" when he was actually putting a plantation on it. That might be part of the confusion.

[@wodzimierzabramow1544]

@@rebeccanorman2894 he was missing on these spices for way too long IMO. His cities had some amenity problems and he was spending all of his charges towards mines and chopping down forests. I just found that weird.

[@rebeccanorman2894]

Okay, I see where you are coming from. I do agree that he waited too long, even with loosing that builder due to the flood. He was making builders throughout the episode and one could have been spared for an amenity

[@robertposaric6419]

we need more and more quickly

[@FwendlyMushwoom]

Funny that you said "King Mansa Musa", because "Mansa" means king in Mande (Malian) languages. Mansa Musa's name fully in English would be "King Moses".

[@TheAntoine185]

Why don't you make the special commercial hub projects in your capital? It generates more gold than trying to build anything. Purchase anything in your city center/district!!

[@parthaveaswar]

just thought you should know that wonders don’t take the mali production hit.

[@kolaec123]

Says he wont buy any settlers from the capital city. Buys loads of settlers from capital city.

[@eduardo3652]

Potato there is iron right by Kirina!

[@DetroitDregs]

I don't think Mali looks weak, at all, it's just unforgiving. How much different would this video have gone if he'd had a Monumentality Golden Age with that 1600 faith, which he easily could have had, and was faith purchasing settlers out of a city he kept busting from 2 to 1 pop. A full desert Mali city goes from 1 to 2 pop in like 2 turns. Meaning the capital could have easily grabbed the gov district and worker building and ALL of that gold could have been used on a military.

[@eduardo3652]

I was literally yelling at my screen "There's iron right there!", I guess you heard me. ;-)

[@betradium267]

Everybody is pointing out mistakes and stuff and I'm here losing against prince difficulty bots :/

[@ZoidbergForPresident]

"The" Mali?

[@eduardo3652]

Shake it off Potato, you'll be fine.

[@Dr.Goodlove]

Dude, iron right there...

[@thelaurakyna]

turn 102, 102.9 gold per turn... it's just insane.

[@EnsoTB]

It”s not a surprise that Mali has the weakest early game. Their -30% hits even the basic buildings when you don’t yet have any real gold generation, and purchasing discounts aren’t available until you get the suguba. Also desert start bias clearly won’t help the growth/housing situation. Everything they do points to a very weak early game compared to what you would normally do with any other Civ.

[@jbbj9720]

are you left handed at all whiskey? how you missed the iron so many times is beyond me

[@ironpastry7560]

+200 Cash Money

[@Multibomberable]

Petra noooo!

[@orkiso1]

Multibomberable oh no, levi squad, they're dead.

[@benabaxter]

Trade route bonus for FLAT desert tiles. FLAT. Northern city is prime international trade location.

[@victorfransson9022]

Love !!

[@sch3204]

My least favorite thing you always say: "I'm going to call this an end to this episode." I want more :(((((((

[@titiyeahti]

Please buy some apostles

[@S23K]

tbh I think skipping holy sites might be the way to go. Religion is so bad and is nearly always a damaging opportunity cost.

[@ballpasteshlepp]

Yeah. I only rush holy sites if I'm trying to win a religious victory. Mostly I just get a few in cities i take, and wait to build a few later on when they're cheap.

[@nekroneko]

I dunno, faith can be pretty useful. For Mali, being able to faith purchase buildings for your Saguba means you save on wasting gold or production on them. And let's not forget being able to purchase units with faith if you build the right Government building later in the game. That would mean Mali would have the Gold they get being spent on other things such as buildings and such.

[@rebeccanorman2894]

@@nekroneko I agree, the way that Potato is playing especially, I think faith purchasing is going to pay off big time later and he will be very happy with all the effort he put into those holy sites.

[@S23K]

@@nekroneko Eh, it's ok, but I think getting the gov plaza down early would have been a better play (edit: both for the settler bonus and for the governor titles) and I would argue campuses have greater value. So maybe not skipping HSs entirely, but pushing them back to be the third district instead of the second. And again, just ignore religion. Can test my theory soon enough!

[@Sanglant4342]

Your forgetting the gold bonus the special commercial district gets from holy district.