I agree, but Japan does it in a way that doesn’t feel like pulling teeth. You don’t have bs like having to research techs or send cards in age 2 that immediately become obsolete in age 3.
No you don’t. Most civs don’t deal with the horribly tedious African Fields or have a 4th resource that completely dries up in age 3.
That seems very vulnerable to heavy infantry pressure since they can just come burn it down and you don’t have light infantry to stop them. Somalia is also kind of a waste of you go with them on non-water maps.
The problems with Ethiopia is not simply a different play style preference. Just about every feature is done by Hausa better. From major things like always having cows to smaller inconsistencies like Hausa Kingdom Builders giving good value when building a 400 resource University but Ethiopian ones paying 400 resources to get a 150 resource MM. On top of that there’s the deficiencies common to all African civs like how bad Fields are and a lack of unit shipments that don’t cost 1000 influence.
i think Ethiopia is almost a good multiplayer civ. a few tweaks and i think it would be an enjoyable civ comparable to an economic aztec. I’m not sure exactly what it needs but its so close
They need to fix the abun cards, if you can build 2 more abuns you can’t send the 3 abun card even though it increases build limit by 1, you need to kill an abun to be able to send it, same happens with age 3 abun shipment.
The age 1 card that gives each MM 900 coin when built needs to have a button that just charges you the 130 wood and refills the 900 coin and saves the constant need to delete and rebuild them late game as it is tedious af.
Shotels need a small buff.
Something needs to be done to make more use of cattle without ruining your tempo, perhaps increase starting cattle but extra cattle are completely unfattened, or get a free cow with age ups.
And do what? You just stalemate them. If you were playing any other civ and saw a mass of pure heavy infantry coming, you’d make light infantry and punish them hard.
Some tweaks to cards and techs would go a long way:
Jesuit Influence - Move it back to age 1. The strategies that caused this to be nerfed aren’t really an issue anymore.
10 Desert Archers - Replace with Maya Archers that also buffs the Desert Archers. This would give a reasonably reliable light infantry option no matter what age up you went with.
Goa Followership (Indian Alliance) - Sends a Villager and a Cow with each shipment. That would give an actual reason to age up with India and provide an alternative to shipping or buying cows.
There could be some alterations to different age ups to make them more viable. Maybe the Conquistadors from the Jesuit age up could be reworked to be more like Rifle Riders and supplement the lack of light infantry. That would have to consider the ramifications to other civs, but it could make the unit in general a lot more interesting.
Fixing general African stuff like how tedious Farms are would greatly help Ethiopia as well as Hausa.
Most of the other issues stem from how MM are just so much worse than Universities in all respects. They’re temporary instead of permanent, you give up coin for the influence, they are a rip off when using Kingdom Builders, and they run out at the worst time. There are certainly things that could be done to make them a bit more user friendly like a recharge button, but that feels like just as much of an exploit as smashing and rebuilding them. I made a post contemplating Church Forests as a hypothetical alternative, but something like that could really fix most of Ethiopia’s issues. It would change up how they’re played quite a bit by giving them a very reliable source of wood without necessarily needing to go out to chop, but that could also be a very interesting play style. The whole building on a mine thing would fit a lot better for a Malian/Mandinka civ.
I like a lot of those ideas, especially the farm one—I hate those things. I just wanna say that what I’ve said is just what I’ve done to get to 1500 as Ethiopia. So just take it for what it is, just my experience.
adv fields is the palatine settlements of Ethiopia. free fields. build faster. also granaries boosted 75%hp for some reason
trust me if you are really struggling that hard with field transitions its worth it
and if you all in pop as is often the meta for ethopia, since most cba to exploit how bonkers abun/MM and market abuse can be, field transition is a point of game it likely wont go to. but for those going for less “gascenya go brrrrr” types, its a really solid card
Just to be clear, I’m not saying the lack of light infantry is an insurmountable issue. I find a shipment of Cannoneers and a mass of Gascenya is generally sufficient to survive age 2.
This is the issue I’m complaining about. The gaps in your roster are part of the massive incentive to just skip age 2. That combined with the speedy coin collection from MM, top tier age 3 units, immediate shadow techs, and good discount cards in age 3 make it insane to do anything other than try to FF. But once you get to Fortress there’s only a moderate window before your economy is in shambles because everything runs out at once and Fields are a pain to transition to.
Ethiopia could be more interesting and fun if options other than FF were more viable. But if you want to mix it up and stay in age 2 you basically have to take the Portuguese ally, and if you tech into anything to get light infantry for an extended age 2, it’s obsolete by age 3.
That’s a good one, but I’d also want to save some unique bonuses in the hopes of applying them to future African civs if we ever got any more. I’d love to have at least one more like Shona to round out the continent.
Ethiopia’s shtick is getting stuff when they age up so that would be my preferred way to go. Each age up right now gives half a dozen wagons so it could be a good change to cut down on that and give a few cows and maybe an Abun with each age up instead. Once you get Cow Loans you don’t need to replace them as much so that would probably be enough to get through most games, especially if you could supplement other sources like the India alliance.
Really the entire system of hunting near Granaries all the way to the transition to Fields is extremely frustrating.
Granaries take forever to build and require shift clicking the builder to move away after it’s done otherwise they just immediately shoot all the hunts almost out of its effective radius. Then once it’s built there’s so much wasted pathing trying to move around it or position vils in the correct direction so they don’t shoot all the hunts away.
It would be nice if the footprint was a little smaller so vils could path around it more easily, and if the animal attraction was a little stronger so it wasn’t so easy to chase all the hunts miles away from it. The actual building size could be kept the same so it fits with Fields, just let vils walk on the edges like the crops near Mills. I’d be totally fine with them having a small cost if that meant a faster build time and it was compensated by giving one of the starting cows an extra 25-50 fatness so it could be sold to afford the first Granary.
Fields themselves are just beyond stupid. I always end up building like 50% more than I need because they are so hard to keep track of and switch between resources. They should really be double the size and split into 2 styles for food and coin. Something like this:
Cereal Crop - Supports 5-6 vils on food. Oriented like this: ▭ Cash Crop - Supports 5-6 vils on coin. Oriented like this: ▯
Researching the Crop Rotation tech lets you swap each Crop/Field back and forth.
that is not a reasonable card. you do remember why the desert outlaws got the pop nerf right? the tourney
where all the ethiopian players went nothing but outlaws and were winning, it would create the opposite of a diverse playstyle for ethiopia, it would be all that they ever do.
ethiopia still has the shiftas card, this added would basically allow 1 pop desert archers back into the game which would be bad enough and you want to give it more stats when they would be already getting 20% hp from shiftas and even more hp if you go port. Not to mention it will be cheaper in age 3 with loyal warriors
This unit is already the fulani archer on ######## at 1 pop, which is already getting nerfed, this unit would have the dps of an age 4 unit at base and then extra stats and poison damage on top of that so they will be psuedo musks as well.
There have been enough nerfs since then to make this nearly impossible even with a buff of potential 1 pop Desert Archers. The desert outlaws had their pop increased, so even with Maya Archers and Shiftas, you’d still be stuck with 2 pop Desert Warriors. Loyal Warriors is age 3 so you need to wait awhile to get that discount. Shiftas is also only +15% health, not +20%.
If it is on the strong side there are lot’s of ways to tone it down a little.
Reduce the quantity of Desert Archers it sends
Make it increase the cost of units it affects
Nerf Shiftas to give only +10% health to outlaws
Nerf Loyal Warriors to only discount coin and influence costs
Some combination of these nerfs
I suppose the simplest way to keep it balanced is just to make Maya Archers limited to giving poison and not mess with the population. But it would be nice to have viable light infantry from just one card, and I’m not sure if Desert Archers are viable at 3 pop even if they also dealt poison damage.
If you want ethiopia to have instant access it would be easier to just make xbow accessible from the age up alone and the crusader tech could give them the unique port discount+a batch of units
The point is to have some kind of access without having to go with Portugal. That alliance already gives you guaranteed Cannoneers, xbows from the crusade tech, or early skirms with CIR if you send the card. If you go with them, you’re set for light infantry.
Early skirms + Smokeless Powder from Jesuits or Sudan and Dervishes are other options, but they’re not quite as good.
Shiftas and Desert Archers is also okay, but still better with Portugal because you can get Infantry Breastplate.
I think a Maya Archers card that ships some Desert Archers and gives them poison would give a good backup to any age up. It wouldn’t really be a waste of a card since you’d probably want a light infantry unit shipment in your deck anyways. But they’re still tough to manage at 3 pop, so maybe the card could give poison to Levied Bowmen as well as Desert Archers (and Holcan Javelineers for the fun of it). That might actually make their terrible militias not completely trash.