Ever since the Rise of the Raja expansion came out, my favorite civilization is now the Malay.

Never mind that i’m an Indonesian (i’m not biased towards this civ… i promise). Ever since it appeared, the Malay has been considered one of the strongest civilization out there, having an edge in tower rushing, fast castle, and especially, thrash war.

Here’s a list why it’s good:

• Advancing to Ages takes only 60% of the usual time

The reason why Malay is considered very good. Faster aging up means you can either make more villagers, get that Man-At-Arms upgrade sooner than your opponent does, execute faster archer/scout rush, or even do a fast castle way ahead than your opponent (5 or even 8 lead in villagers count). Unless you stop this by making a mess out of their economy, chances the Malay snowball to victory.

• Fish traps cost -33% and provide unlimited food

Forget farming. The Malay is the only civ who can justify going for total fishing and zero farming (and the slower fishing speed is offset with extremely close fishing to the docks, and is proven faster than farming actually). Not only this is more of a wood bonus, it’s also safer from anything but a fire galley rush. But that’s not a big deal because;

• Docks +100% line of sight, Thalassocracy (upgrade Docks to Harbors, which shoot arrows)

HAHAHAH. Malay’s docks are so good it can be a dock, an outpost AND a mini castle, all for only 150 wood and 35 seconds of building! This is why on sea maps (or maps with ponds like Arabia), the Malay is trouble; With only 150 wood, they can just spam docks which will help deter units, gives a huge LOS and make any form of sneaking a transport impossible and train ships. If you meet a Malay player who is heavy on wood, he’s going to spam docks like no tomorrow.

• Battle Elephant is 30% Cheaper

The Malay has a theme of “Quantity over Quality”. For every 10 Battle elephants, you get 3 free. Now, the Malay has really terrible cavalry line, especially late game since they lack the Hussar, Paladin, Bloodlines and two cavalry armor upgrade. This also mean Malay Battle elephants are the worst in the game. However, they are at least more spam able, and will help soaking arrow fire.

• Elite unit: Karambit Warrior

Karambit warrior is weak. Alone, pretty much any castle age unit can kill it. However, the karambit warrior has a really fast training time, and only take 0.5 population space. Theoretically, that means it’s possible to have 400 karambit roaming in the map. En masse, and sent towards the enemy’s economy, they’ll destroy the opposition with “death by a thousand cuts”. However since they cost gold and are weak against a wall of thrash, i prefer to go with;

• Forced Levy (Militia line cost no gold)

Sure, the Malay has no champion upgrade. But oh boy - with two handed swordsman and full upgrade, they will destroy any thrash units, burn buildings (arson upgrade is important to get here), and you can spam them even more so than Karambit warrior. Have 5 to 10 barracks spamming two handed to the enemy base (with karambits to the enemy’s economy and soaking arrows) and i’ll assure you it’s a GG.

Of course, the Malay has it’s own weakness:

• Terrible cavalry. Like, very terrible. I almost never build stables unless i am in need of battle elephants or a knight rush. Thing is, the Malay has the one of the worst cavalry in the game, and even the cheap battle elephant isn’t that worth it to make. Just skip stables, and don’t even think researching that Cavalier upgrade. Unless you’re going for a strategy your opponent wouldn’t think of.
• Goth. You just can’t win against Goth, even in the late game. Huskarls are more spammable and will rekt your infantry and archers. Your cavalry is terrible so that’s out, and the Malay has no hand cannoneers. So it’s GG unless the Goth is slogged down to thrash war….
• Wood problems. The first 10 minutes is critical that the wood flow is stable. If your woodline is denied, you’re done for.
• Dependant on maps with water. Like the Vikings, the Malay has advantages on maps with water. Unlike the Vikings, without water, the Malay is in trouble (unless gold is plenty).
• Success depends on how well your booming goes. The Malay is a mid-late civilization that needs good economy to spam it’s units. If you gets rushed/tower rushed and you can’t recover, it’s GG.

I like the Malay because i’m a booming player myself. Just like the Goths, there’s joy found in spamming endless units out of your 10 barracks and overwhelm your enemy with pure numbers. With Malay, i’m also less prone to mistakes thanks to the faster age, and can execute my rush with better success.

Here’s some tips if you looked to play them:

• Malay is good with tower rushing especially if you can get a jump on them since you should be always faster than your enemy. Other than tower rush, don’t bother with towers at all - Malay towers are terrible, and those stone are better spend on making/repairing castles. You can however build bombard towers offensively.
• Aside from the cavalry archer and hand cannoneers, Malay has very good archers/skirmisher. Keep that in mind, and mix them with your spamming army.
• Malay has ok ram (no siege ram), ok onager (no siege onager), but very good heavy scorpion. Learn to use scorpions instead of onager.
• Malay also have good monks. Get one or two especially if your enemy is Teuton/Persian/Slav.
• Spam, spam, spam. Spam docks, spam barracks, spam 2Hswordsmen, spam karambits, spam scorpions.