Malay

#10 9.8

The Malay in retrospect are a naval civilization that puts a lot of emphasis on strong Fish Trap economic bonuses, since Fish Traps and Fishing Ships are not only cheaper, but provide unlimited food. This in turn allows the Malay to completely ignore building any Farms in water maps and put all of their Food economy on fish and Fish Traps, since Fish Traps will allow the Malay to save wood in the long run. The naval line is very strong, only lacking the Heavy Demolition Ship, and thanks to the wood saved from unlimited Fish Traps, the Malay can easily produce more Naval ships in water maps. To add extra defensive measures for Fish Traps and Fishing Ships, researching Thalassocracy upgrades their Docks to Harbors, allowing them to shoot down any ships that attempt to raid the Fishing Ships and Fish Traps. Their ability to advance to the next Age faster means the Malay can save a lot of Town Center time, allowing the Malay to have an early game lead over their opponents in both water and land maps. In terms of their tech tree, their tech tree is very similar to the Vikings in retrospects (since both civilizations are strong early game civilizations in land maps that fall off late game due to a limited army composition). Both civilizations have fully upgradable Arbalests and Elite Skirmishers at their Archery Range, but lack Hand Cannoneers, Parthian Tactics, and Heavy Cavalry Archer upgrades. Both have a solid infantry line, a unique tech that boosts their infantry, and unique infantry unit where they lack a key important unit upgrade for their infantry (in Malay's case, it'll be the Champion upgrade to offset their strong Forced Levy Imperial Age tech where Two-Handed Swordsmen doesn't cost gold). In the case of the Malay, Karambit Warrior are infantry units that spawn nearly instantly akin to a Shotel Warrior, but far more frail (although Karambit Warriors only take up half a population space to offset their frailness). Both Vikings and the Malays also have solid siege weapon lines (in the Malay's case, they put more emphasis on long range sieging thanks to them having access to Bombard Cannons in exchange of not having Siege Rams). Both the Vikings and Malays have the worst cavalry in the game and the Malay takes the step further of not only lacking Bloodlines, but also lacking the Chain Barding Armor and Plate Barding Armor at the same time. That being said, much like the Viking Knight rush, the Malay have a viable cavalry rush in which despite having one of the worst cavalry lines in the game, is compensated with their strong economic bonuses. In the case of the Malays, the Malay Battle Elephant rush is suboptimal, but viable thanks to their age advancement bonus and a civilization bonus where their Battle Elephants are cheaper than Knights in terms of gold efficiency (as Malay Battle Elephants will cost 96 food and 56 gold as opposed to Knights that cost 60 food and 75 gold). In terms of civilization matchups, much like the Mayans and the Ethiopians, facing the Goths will be a nightmarish matchup for the Malays. This is because the Malays have no cost effective answer to the Huskarl unit (across from their Forced Levy Two-Handed Swordsman, but even so, a Malay Two-Handed Swordsman will not always win a melee trade with the Huskarl), the Goth's faster spawning and cheaper Champions will outshine the Malay Two-Handed Swordsmen with Forced Levy and Karambit Warrior, and the Goth's cheaper Halberdiers will make quick work on the Malay's already fragile Battle Elephants. Conversely, the Malays are a top-tier civilizations against civilizations with incredibly poor trash unit lines such the Turks and the Malians, since even without the Champion upgrade, the Two-Handed Swordsman with Forced Levy is enough to make them trash units that counters trash unts.