With Malians, you can get a little greedier early on, especially against Chinese. You're not expecting dark age pressure.

Although that composition is so potent, especially when you get to the castle age and can upgrade a mass that you already have in the feudal age, it often feels quite difficult to pull off, especially against the civilization that can outmass you so tremendously like the Chinese.

China versus Malians I think is like one of the hardest matchups for China just because the food just doesn't run out for Mali. It is so difficult to get a gradual farm transition going with the Chinese. With China, it's very difficult to go for gradual smooth food transition. For Malians, it's their bread and butter.

Chinese can supervise production to get scouts and horsemen out very quickly, an advantage Malians cannot match.

Chinese Lancers are effective against Malian Sofas; Sofas struggle in direct heavy cavalry engagements and are not outstanding against Lancers.