Because of stall in development of african civs, i decided to share my vision of some aspects i would like to be implemented for this civ.
1)Cards and shipments.
Sadly, compared to other civilisations, ethiopia (from now and on- “itiopia”) has way fewer shipments. And even some of those they have, are not playable in any mode. Below i mark all of them in my humble opinion.
I would really like to see following cards revised and added some more to encourage different strategies.
P.S. Some shipments are really underwhelming to use, and math beyond them is too loose.
for example 8 conquistadors in age III for 500 inf. which is effectively:
1 120(units cost) -500inf. =620 res value of shipment itself
whereas incan
And let me mention, for example, german 9 black riders shipment,
which is 2430-1000c=1430 res value of shipment itself, effectively double the itiopian one, for 10% extra XP cost.
2) Age ups and techs.
In brief,first of all, people are complaining about sudanese rush(which i never had trouble to play agaisnt, and i see this effectively as 400w age up).
But this play is the best ethiopia can offer, just because all other approaches for them are way too slow (dont forget itiopia doesnt have 3 vill shipment and crates, making it one of slowest age up civs).
Well, to encourage Itiopia play in age 2. I request to Swap sudanese and India age ups.
So people can finally benefit from Goa Followership tech (vill per shipment). (before it just was too late to make difference.)
And sudanese in Age 3 will be pretty useless, unless we switch Red sea wagon tech for other (because africans benefit the least from wagons, its capped to 200w buildings, when other civs can get 400w-700w buildings). And also if allying sudanese allows training askari and sennar horseman by default it will open way for some interesting strategies.
Next problematic tech is Oromo tech " Irreechaa" which " make Fields reward 10 influence to the player upon being built." People wont ever go for it consciously,
I just find this tech totally useless and wortheless, same mountain monastery tech “solomon dynasty”. which costs 1500 inf. and makes Itiopia get around 15% of killed unit cost as reward in influence. So, for example, for each killed longbowman, player will get 1 (ONE) seashell…
In order to make it better, need raise % of reward, and make it also apply to killed enemy artillery (which it, for some reason doesnt apply to). (all following also can be said about “cartridge currency” tech in age 3, which gives small coin bounty for killed units.)
Arab age up is very situational, but i feel like underwhelming to use. Better to both of techs this age up allows merged in one, and grant them additional tech… (any).
Overall Itiopian Age up options are more viable than hausan.
3) Last but not least. Units. Javelin rider is pretty meh, after all those nerfs. 6.75 speed doesnt allow them to catch raids. Their stats are not impressive for their cost. They do very poor vs arty (which african civs always struggle against), and they have only 1 card for upgrade (compare eurocivs casually having 3 upgrade cards for their goons).
Also javelin and oromo are tech’ed separately, which makes them kinda redundant, itiopia can do just fine with musk+skirm+shotel, which all tech’ed together…
My heart aches, but i would suggest add shotels to “elite cavalry”, even tho it kinda defeats idea. This also will make Oromo warriors more viable, altho they still outclassed by shotels… and their charged attack is is annoying, when they need to dive into arty or chase.
African outlaws - Sadly, not viable at any case, i dont ask to add cut outlaws from unknown, like knife thrower or swashbuckler, but at least give some cards/techs to make them what they meant to be- supplimentary units for warcamp compo.
Overall african dream is 2 culv shipment. Everything including arty nukes them.
2 falc push timing.-> if survived, have to deal with more arty. and heavy cannon spam is just instaGG for africans. They, even with new tech, still cant deploy arty and add it consistently throughout the game. it wouldnt be such problem if their primary compo included unit like hand mortar /huaraca /arrow knight, but they simply dont have it.
Itiopia, at least has options to go somalian skirms and somehow barely kite cannons, unlike hausa.
4) Last one. fields suck… make them employ 5 vills at least.
Thanks for attention, cringepost is over. (maybe one day will do about hausa, if requested.)