This civilization has a few mechanics that I hope the community could fledge out. However the civ has been overshadowed by the overpowered rush which swayed top players from investigating the civ in masses. I hope we could utilize the forum discuss the many different concepts of this civ.
For one example the cow market system is IMO a sophisticated concept that could really use the community to maximize the effectiveness of this system.
So let’s talk about it.
I personally think they are a little weak right now outside of the rush.
It feels like getting the alliances which give you livestock for each shipment is mandatory if you want to boom. You are also very map dependent on having easily defended trade posts to get your university going.
It also seems that focusing your villagers on wood and exchange cows for gold is more efficient than the other way around.
They are very much an ff civ outside of that one rush and that ff itself is very fragile.
You can reach age 3 at like 6:30 with nearly no eco and like 3 shipment in bank bu defending yourself until the shipment arrives is a daunting task.
Most of their units are also available in age 2, which ironically means that outside of native and mercs (and lifidi), none of their units get shadow teched when going age 3 like other civs
They also don’t get any particularly game changing units in fortress. Javelin riders are still the backbone, and they are age 2, so no upgrades. Cannons aren’t easily reachable, and it feels like their FF is simply the weakest in the game. Maybe it is just me not discovering their greatest strengths.
They are also having a very hard time dealing with civs with good dragoons. Ports, dutch and British are annoying to deal with.
they have a pretty potent cav skirm composition actually.
Lifidi with durbar parade are faster then normal cav and when supported by griots are actually about the same speed as goons, so they can catch and snare goon armies. They also have splash so they have decent damage.
fulanis are also speedy and have high ROF so they can dish out damage. You also have the option to go skirms if you go morrocans.
Griots are actually a key part of the composition, since they can stun units from range, effectively allowing range snare, speed up your army and tank with their 360 HP (more if you research tech in mosque). They also dont count as infantry, so cav like lancers doesnt deal any extra damage. Their ROF debuff also can save your army from being snared since cav delay their attack.
It can be a potent comp, the problem is getting there
I know the civ has many gimmicks but I don’t think it has any TRUE strengths. Yes the Javelins are efficient and the lifidi is tanky, Raiders are cheap strong! But the skrim you can ally with is expensive to unlock and has low dps and low base hp… the fulani archer has low base range and is actually expensive (75f 25w). Depending on the mercenaries/natives available you can complete a well rounded trio composition with minimal upgrade shipments.
hausa tem um grande lacuna em questão de cerco perdi 3 jogos por falta de canhões ou uma unidade com cerco decente
I like the previous round of balance: they nerfed it but they didn’t nerf it enough so they could get the data for a more precise balance next month.
Having that in mind there are a couple of ways to nerf the rush without taking Hausa’s power away:
Nerf Songhai’s coin to 200g ( euro gets 200 coin with the Governor)
Remove Military Wagon and add 200 wood instead ( euro get outpost which is 200w 100 coin). It’s actually a buff but it nerfs the rush.
Hausa get too much power from their bonus and minor civ already. No need to give them the full power of the Governor.
towers are worth 250w and 50 sec villager time building a tower. And the current state of the hausa rush is almost powerless since the main units lost 30hp cost 5 more coin and hausa starts with less resources and resources shipments, and the upgrade for the native/merc is moved to age 2… For all in tense and purposes the rush is no more except at lower levels.
I am pretty certain both hausa and Ethiopia will be buffed next time.
Ethiopia still strong! I would like if they revert the starting cows. And I would like if they made the fulani archer age 2 range shipment an age 3 upgrade, even if they made it cost separately.
I haven’t played with EthiOPia after the patch, only against them, and they just don’t have the fire anymore…I win many engagements that I shouldn’t against them.
IMO the starting cow nerf was necessary, but the food to influence ratio should be reverted.
Hausa’s late game is very strong. Barrack/palace/tower spam, corsair skirm spamming from tower, cav/anti cav from barrack, and maigadi/cannons/merc from palace. Early game is kinda tricky, i think it’s all about turtle: maxing universities and palaces, and using the mechanic of the levies to protect you from rushes and ff’s. You have to send the card from age 2 that prevents the levies from losing health and then, when you are attacked, you have protection from 4/5 palaces and you can send batches of musk levie that are pretty decent and only cost 90 influence, and you will have stock influence from the palaces/universities. With food and gold make some raiders, and then you have decent protection and strong eco. You can send the technology from universities that allow 3+ town centers to be built in age 2, so you can have a long and strong age 2 before going to age 3.
All the things you mentioned are indeed neat about the civilization… however imo can only be thoroughly enjoyed at the low to mid level play. Once you get higher level play some of the things you mentioned take too long to pay off. For example the 800 influence upgrade that allows u to build 3 additional TCs. That’s a very expensive tech and the 3 TCs aren’t cheaper nor free, when are you gonna have the time to gather/ship, let alone have it pay off?
I was hoping for more like a Dutch base building experience. Something efficient strong and defensive. (Having said this… there is a current lame in certain matchups where you can go full griots cards while base building… if the opponent doesn’t have mortars access or petards it’s gg…more on that later).
Outside the previous rush lame and age 4 16 unit shipment card and the current griot lame, I’ve only found the semi ff and ff to be the most honestly viable way to play this civ vs opponents upwards of rank 200.
The base building is just too expensive and or inefficient. Example Asian civ castles cost 200w 100c? Why is African castle equivalent cost 100c more? TCS and palaces get the 1 age 4 upgrade for 3000 influence? What other civ has to spend that much on building’s HP upgrade? And most civs have an earlier shipment card they could send by age 1… How is it the base building civ NOT have early access to building HP? Unbalanced if they had an early upgrade? Then what about Inca? What about Aztec dance?
Last issue listed in this one post. The hausa church is less cost efficient than a regular church. I suspect that is due to the griot unit being a VERY VERY strong unit in masses plus carded, but at someone point the unit will be balanced if not down right nerfed… then what about the cost of the church? I understand you build the church near TCs and palaces. But even with the first TC being free the hausa church STILL is less efficient than a regular church ??
Griots need to brought back into balance. The previous patch didn’t permit the shear number of griots you can have now although the upgrades were all present. But now that you can have units with 666 hp by age 3, 7+ walk speed, does seige dmg, has 16 range, has high hand attack, cuts the enemy’s ROF in half AND has ZERO DIRECT COUNTER…
I made a previous post about the hausa base building scheme is too expensive and inefficient… however th current state of the griot more than covers. AND IF YOU GET a good palace mercenary/native access then you have an extremely extremely defensive base building civ that only extremely dependent on gold mines. Now I do think given the design this was what they wanted: a heavy gold dependent, defensive base building civ reliant on mercenaries and natives.
griot numbers dont matter that much tbh, you only really need 5 griots for combat once the combat card comes in since they deal their stun in an area. Their tankiness is a plus but their true power to me so far is their low ROF combined with the fulani allows you to almost stutter step micro your way to kill like any enemy arny
You don’t know the lame… what can you do versus 27 griots with 7.25 walk speed 666hp 21 hand attack 16 range 3 seige damage per second? And they can have all the stats mentioned minus the hand attack by age 2…?
They can raid they can defend they can boost building productivity
yeah but to max them you you need to send like 4 cards and a specific age up
age 1 Hp card, age 2 build limit, age 3 5 griots and build limit and the combat card
on top of that missionary fervor for extra HP, then you still need to build like a chunk of them.
Feels like way too much set up
I feel like you will just get hit by a 6 min timing with musk and just die by that point
Anyone know the rates for fattening at the African market?
I switched to hausa when they came out and never rush, always open 12/10 hausa age up getting university + 1 tp card. I used to sell 2 cows for early exp university but now only sell 1 since nerf for early tp and honestly I think it’s better. Now I can go 3 tp stagecoach and sell the gold cow later for market upgrades or units if I need. Only downside is I spend so much wood on stagecoach it’s hard to afford early fulani, but once it’s done I can set it to wood and assign all vil to food/gold which I think is most efficient given hausa’s granary boost.
I also like to ship 700 inf asap or delayed 250 + palace if I need early units to research the hausa builder with every shipment upgrade, and then leave all universities/tp’s on exp…
Maybe my experience is totally wrong, I’m only about 1300 so not high level at all.