# African Reworks and Ethiopia Balance **URL:** \ **Category:** III - Discussion\ **Created:** [February 25, 2023, 4:44pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/african-reworks-and-ethiopia-balance/225710 "2023-02-25T16:44:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/m00z1lla/32/104042_2.png) [@M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/M00Z1LLA)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 4:44pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/african-reworks-and-ethiopia-balance/225710/1 "2023-02-25T16:44:43Z")
# General African Buffs ### Artillery Training Paying influence to research _Imported Cannons_ to even get the chance to train cannons for another 500 influence each is practically unachievable in a normal game and needs to be reworked. The latest patch reduces this from 300 to 150, but that’s still not enough. Cannons should be trained/shipped in the manner of the Italian Basilica and available by default. This would eliminate the expensive upfront tech but have the drawback of taking up bandwidth in the shipment queue. Cost should still be 500 influence, and the batch size should be limited to one. The _Imported Cannons_ upgrade should be replaced by a _European Advisors_ upgrade that enables the following: - Allows cannons to be trained normally in batches and not take up shipment bandwidth - Cannon cost changes from 100% influence to 80% influence and 20% wood - Grants the guard and imperial upgrades to all artillery once the appropriate age is reached ### Increase Field Size The small capacity and slow creation time of Fields makes it unduly difficult to transition to farming when natural resources run out. In a previous post, I detailed a way to double their capacity but still fit around Granaries: > [@Simplify African Fields](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/simplify-african-fields/215219): > > African Fields are way too small and tedious to deal with. This isn’t AoE2 where people think wasting half your APM on fiddling with drop off points and re-seeding farms is “skill”. Issues Every other faction needs to place a dozen farming buildings at most while the Africans will have to place closer to 40. They also have to be manually switched over to coin, but this can only be done once constructed. Since they are hard to select and take an inordinate amount of time to build, setting them … ### Rework Levied Units The African Levied units simply don’t function in a way that fits the role of how militia units should work. They cost too much of a resource that is generally in short supply and trickle out too slowly and dispersed to be able to make an impact. In this post I covered some of the issues with African and Native militias and some possible solutions: > [@Balance the Militia Units](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/balance-the-militia-units/213771): > > Militia Units The role of militia units (Militiamen, Minutemen, Sentries, Irregulars, etc) should be primarily to aid in defending your base. A burst of strong but diminishing units from your town is the best way to achieve this. Unfortunately, the African and Native militia units fail to perform this function. African Levied Units Levied units are very uninspired and not very useful. Issues: They cost influence which is usually in short supply. They train one at a time which prevents them… ### Rework African Outlaws The African outlaws are simultaneously too much and too little. They’re supposed to cover the gaps in the African unit rosters by giving Ethiopia viable cavalry and light infantry, and Hausa a heavy infantry option. But the units that aren’t filling those gaps are redundant and unnecessarily bloat the number of units the Africans have. Even the units that are needed have been significantly nerfed due to certain strategies and are only marginally viable now. The outlaws are also very bland and generic, and more outlaws could be added to provide more variety and better fit the needs of these civilizations: > [@Rework/Additions to African Outlaws](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/rework-additions-to-african-outlaws/201139): > > The outlaws of other regions represent actual outlaw traditions like Western outlaws, Caribbean and Woku Pirates, Daicots, etc. The African outlaws are just an extremely generic “Desert \_\_\_\_”. Considering that only about half the African maps are even desert, these outlaws are usually a poor fit. Some superficial changes to the existing outlaws and addition of some new ones would greatly improve the situation. Existing Outlaws Desert Warrior Rename to “Bush Warrior” and limit them to forested… # General African Nerfs ### Remove Shadow Teching Instead of needing to buy upgrades for natives, artillery, and alliance units, Africans get these granted automatically and for free upon ageing up. It is understandable considering how expensive it would be to upgrade each native unit individually, but there is another way to do this that I think would be more fair. The African units have grouped upgrades that could be extended to apply to all the units they have available instead of just the ones in their standard roster. Ethiopia has these upgrades split between infantry and cavalry, while Hausa has it split between ranged units and melee cavalry, but this could easily be extended to all melee units. Artillery could be upgraded by the _European Advisors_ tech mentioned above. ### Javelin Rider The latest health nerf was probably justified, but tweaking them like this is eventually going to lead to them being Ruyter clones. A different approach to nerfing them would be to reduce their range instead. This would make them fight less efficiently in the late game, and overall have a harder time initiating a fight and pursuing fleeing units. It would also force them to go into melee more often to play to their strengths. And it just makes more sense that a guy with a javelin wouldn’t be able to strike as far away as a guy with a gun. # Ethiopia Specific Changes ### Shotel Warrior Shotels should have a RoF that is more consistent and comparable with their Oromo counterparts. Oromos now have a RoF of 1.25, so Shotels could be adjusted to have a higher base attack and lower infantry multiplier. Having their stats altered to be more generalist would help Ethiopia to have a more effective early raiding unit. ![Shotel Altered Stats.PNG](https://forums.ageofempires.com/uploads/default/original/3X/b/3/b378d9a3426a0e717e1f536f70c5eba82fbe34ee.jpeg) With the latest update Shotels now have a card to upgrade their attack and health by 15% in Age 3. However, this takes up another card slot and only brings them in line with the base stats of Oromo Warriors. With cards like _Shewa Riders_, Oromos become the clearly superior unit. Age 2 is when Shotels need a bit of a buff to their stats to make them viable. This could be easily achieved by making the Gascenya hitpoints and damage cards also apply to Shotels. Almost every other age 2 card that gives a 15% buff applies to multiple units so this would be quite in line with the cards available to other civs. If that proves to be too powerful, the health card could be moved to age 3. ### Sebastopol Mortar This unit has just been nerfed into oblivion. Even with the meager buffs in the latest update, its stats only justify a cost of ~700 influence and 6 population. If its massive cost is to remain, it should at a minimum have a x0.33 multiplier vs artillery and a x1.5 vs infantry and buildings. It should also have a range and line of sight at least as far as a Light Cannon (32 range, 36 LoS). ### Abuns and Mountain Monasteries This isn’t really a buff or nerf, but replacing the age up Monastery wagon with an Abun would be a cleaner design. Nearly every age up comes with a wagon so it gets pretty cluttered also having a Monastery wagon. Just having an Abun would simplify this wagon dump and avoid the situation where you’re already at the Monastery build limit and have a useless wagon. To compensate the extra wood cost of building the Monasteries, an upgrade that gives them population space could be appropriate. ### Cards _Jesuit Influence_ should be available in age 1. It was moved very early on after Ethiopia’s release when the Dervish rush strategies were being abused. Since that has been addressed and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a more flexible opening and the option to get an extra 100 influence out of the card. _Loyal Warriors_ was recently moved to age 3 which is another pretty big nerf. It is a very strong card, but without it, creating natives in age 2 is quite costly. It would be worth considering returning it to age 2 in a reduced form (such as only reducing gold and influence costs). Or leaving it in age 3 but buffing it to also affect artillery could be a better option. _Lalibela Rock Church_ and possibly also _Tabot_ should also increase your Mountain Monastery build limit. It’s really annoying when they run out and you have to scramble to find one to delete and place again. Or when you can’t actually build the wagon because you’re already at the limit. ---
**Author:** ![AgeOfAwesomenes](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/ageofawesomenes/32/71495_2.png) [@AgeOfAwesomenes](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/AgeOfAwesomenes)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2023, 3:49am UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/african-reworks-and-ethiopia-balance/225710/2 "2023-02-26T03:49:39Z")
Javelin riders need to be two population. They have the hit points of a dragoon but can be built in twice the number. Only thing good against them is skirms and shotels wreck skirms, you can build dragoons against shotels but they aren’t good against javelin riders. Shotels should be more vulnerable to cannons. On top of that they can spam out javelin riders and shotels and still build artillery. ---
**Author:** ![toaf17](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/toaf17/32/112683_2.png) [@toaf17](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/toaf17)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2023, 4:52am UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/african-reworks-and-ethiopia-balance/225710/3 "2023-02-26T04:52:55Z")
With the nerf of the update they seem good now, but before that totally agree with u, ethiopian javelins used to have the same stats of a dragoon. ---
**Author:** ![M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/m00z1lla/32/104042_2.png) [@M00Z1LLA](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/M00Z1LLA)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 2:35pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/african-reworks-and-ethiopia-balance/225710/4 "2023-02-27T14:35:50Z")
Wouldn’t heavy infantry easily counter that combination? Especially in age 2 when Ethiopia doesn’t have a skirmisher. And I’d much rather they just reduced the stats of Javelin Riders rather than making them 2 pop. Just cut their health by ~15 and drop their range a little and they should be fine. ---
**Author:** ![AgeOfAwesomenes](https://forums.ageofempires.com/user_avatar/forums.ageofempires.com/ageofawesomenes/32/71495_2.png) [@AgeOfAwesomenes](https://forums.ageofempires.com/u/AgeOfAwesomenes)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 4:50pm UTC](https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/african-reworks-and-ethiopia-balance/225710/5 "2023-02-27T16:50:44Z")
You can build heavy infantry against it but they still don’t work the best. I’m also talking about a late game situation where they are building units in large numbers. So if you build musks they just mix in a lot of skirms and they still can build artillery using their influence / I forget what it’s called. The issue is that javelin riders have the hit points of a dragoon but can be built in twice the number. Ruyters are only 1 population but their stats are much lower then regular dragoons including their hit points so countering them isn’t an issue