How to beat
Byzantineas Malians
Matchup tips
In this matchup typically there's just not a whole lot of aggression for the first 6 minutes going on, so you definitely have enough time as the Malians to go for that second pit mine.
He's also going to need an absolute ton of archers if he wants to take any favorable engagements against the Limitanei, as that shield wall means they're barely going to be flinching when archers fire at them.
The shield wall ability massively reduces the attack speed of the Limitanei, so they barely do any damage to Sofa, and the Sofa can shred through the frontline.
With poison arrows, Cataphracts struggle to stay alive – the poison damage ticks them down quickly. Without Cataphracts, fights are much better for the Malian.
The sofa's also just slightly faster than the cataphract, so you always need to be chasing continuously. And eventually the sofas will still be able to get away from you or maybe snag a couple of additional villager kills.
Cataphracts are very strong against Sofa.
Varangian Guard have lower ranged and melee armor, so Archer and Sofa is a very good combination against them.
The window for Malians to punish Byzantines is when they have to make the olive grove transition.
Malians benefit from already having their food transition (cattle) in place, while Byzantines will need to invest into farm/olive grove transition later, creating a timing window where Malians have a superior food economy.
Cataphracts are significantly weakened by poison damage from Malian archers, especially with Painted Shields giving them 7 pierce armor, making poison one of the few effective damage sources.
Elite Limitanei (Byzantine spearmen) are very effective against Malian Sofas.
The Golden Horn Tower's ability to queue up free longbows allows Byzantines to rapidly remass military after losing a fight.
It's always tough when there's Limitanei in the game, right? And like you want to make sofa and suddenly Limitanei just rain on your parade. Especially since you get the painted shield upgrade. Suddenly they run at the speed of light at like 1.44 tiles per second movement speed. It's rough when you're up against fast-moving spearmen for sure.
Now Musofadi are interesting in the fact that they are actually quite good even up against spearman. They trade relatively well up against spearman and Cataphracts as well. Obviously they don't take bonus damage from the javelin throws.
One of the few situations where Cataphracts really struggle is against mass Musofadi Warriors, especially with the Fort of the Huntress, because the Musofadi warriors get that first strike damage from the stealth.
And it's one of those matchups, one of those situations where Byzantines are able to keep up with the Malian cattle economy quite well, even when just on one TC, courtesy of having the cistern levels, courtesy of getting all the olive oil in, the passive unit generation from the golden horn tower and all that good stuff.
Byzantine Unique Units
Byzantine Landmarks
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