How to beatMaliansas Ayyubid

Sofa are really tanky with Imported Armor, but the camel unease cannot be understated.

Manjaniq fire shots can target and destroy Malian cows.

Ayyubid gets hit by a brick wall when they run out of food, especially without a farm transition. It's really tough to claw into a long game against Malians once the tempo is lost.

The sofa switch always hits really hard. Archers are great against Donso, but barely make a dent in sofas.

With a Dervish and a tower on gold, one or two Sofas won't be much of a threat early.

Donso make quick work of Camel Lancers, so Ayyubids should limit stable production.

Ayyubid archers need veteran upgrades to overcome a decent mass of Malian Javelins.

Manjaniq makes Javelin and Sofa compositions tricky for Malians.

When Malians start making Sofas, Ayyubids should respond with Camel Lancers and Crossbows.

Desert Raiders and Dervish give Ayyubids early pressure options that other civs can't, punishing Malians' greedy cow boom.

Faster veterancy upgrades for Malians make Ayyubid timing pushes difficult.

For Ayyubid against Malians, holding the center is often the only win condition because economically they'll be behind.

The issue when you're up against Malians typically is that even if you get an age up, Malians will still have a whole bunch of counter units readily available to face off against you. That is until Manjaniqs come in; Manjaniqs kind of put a dampener on that.

Camel Lancer mass up to plus two pierce armor as well. So these units can tank up a couple of arrow shots from the TC as well as the Javelin Throwers.

Logistics wing is usually the choice where you're like, 'Okay, try to put some aggression on my side. I'm just going to heal up anything you try to do with early Sofa play, if there is any, and then all of a sudden I'm clicking up to castle without taking any damage because all the healing.'

Naked fast castle has not worked out too well for Ayyubid in this matchup in particular.

Sofa and Warrior Scouts do really badly up against Desert Raiders, but Desert Raiders is not something you want to make too many of in order to faint aggression. Typically, it's more like something along the lines of horsemen and spearmen.

The Ayyubid game plan against Malians: make a few units in Feudal to force the Malian player to make units instead of going for the cattle cow boom, but avoid a big fight. Then age up to Castle quickly and push with Manjaniq to burn down their pit mines.

I think Ayyubid probably just want to play a little bit into Feudal Age, maybe get some Horsemen out, maybe some Spearmen, and just try and put some early aggression onto those Pit Mines. You can't really lean too much into Desert Raider mainly because both the Donso and the Javelin Thrower both counter them out quite effectively.

Going with Camel Lancers, I feel like the Malians won't have enough Donso for you anyway, so if you can pump out three or four at a time you have a good spot.

Those incendiary shots from the Manjaniq can do real damage to the Malian economy, not just to the cattle but the houses as well.

Musofadi are squishy, so Ghulams are going to have free reign over them.