Maybe, but if Ethiopia is only viable on livestock abundant maps then the issue is also that ethiopia is a weak civ rn
2 Likes
not weak but unbalanced - either too weak or too strong depending on the map
1 Like
Itâs units are definitely weak (apart from neftenya). The oromo cav are very good but very expensive and have an annoying charged ability. Gascenya donât scale in later ages, shotels are kind of hit or miss, jav riders are underwhelming. Sebastopol is expansive, slow, pop heavy and in most cases not worth it.
Influence is hard to gain and many units and techs cost solely influence.
The whole livestock and influence system is weird and a bit confusing to properly utilise. Worl needs to be done to balance it I agree.
Also side note compare Ethiopia selection of cards to any other civs. It has much less options than other civs.
3 Likes
Curious how win rates would change if we could see map first then pick a civ. African civs winrates would go up quite a bit. Ethiopia needs some tweaking but I personally prefer Hausa anyway.
I seriously donât understand some of these civ nerfs: Both Portuguese and Ethiopians got nerfs when both civs are at the bottom 5 of winrates. Russians getting buffs for apparently no reason is also a bit iffy to me.
3 Likes
Feitorias nerf was not a whole lot and the Grapeshot nerf was long overdue with Organs being way too stron lategame. And with the current ranked queue Russia has not a lof of thing going for it with TP based age3 meta.
2 Likes
Here are the pick rates of elo1400+ after upateâŠ
Pick rate of Ethiopia is extremely lowâŠ
I play 8 of 32 games of Ethiopia, so the actual number played by others is only 24âŠ
5 Likes
Makes sense. Really what does ethiopia have to offer post update? Sure maybe it still has an edge over other civs on livestock abundant maps, but you donât know which map youâll get and youâre better off picking hausa for such cases anyway. Shame cause ethiopia is fun to play.
They nerfed the 4 least Played civs. But lets pretend that the devs know how to Balance this game. Give me 1 chance and i can Make the Best Patch of All time
1 Like
I wish I could have the full lineup of their outlaws to be pop efficient again when using Shiftas card for comp stomps I love the Desert Outlaws.
3 Likes
Just throwing this out there. With the abun nerf, is their population cost of 2 still justified?
I donât see why they should cost 2 pop now since their healing rate is now worse than a regular priest. Sure they collect resources 1.43x faster than regular vills but is that enough to justify 2x the population?
Healers, for some native civs, cost 0 pop, collect 1.2x faster on community plazas, have a better healing rate, higher train limit, same attack damage, hp and cost.
3 Likes
Its better than 1.43 gather when fully buffed
But its another apm tax on a civ that has annoying tasks like fields, rebuild MMs, cows etc. So more squeeze for less juice
2 Likes
These particular nerfs actually target some of the more overtuned aspects of Ethiopia so I think theyâre mostly fine. The fact that you could win any Explorer fight with an Abun healing you in the background felt kinda cheap and training a bunch to gather really quickly was quite strong. The exception being Big Benny down to 600 which is way too harsh in my opinion (700 would be perfect).
The problem is Ethiopiaâs design makes them weak and difficult to play outside a few gimmicky strategies propped up by the things that just got nerfed. Theyâre kinda like Aztecs where they get repeatedly hit by nerfs targeting the wrong things which increasingly incentivizes their niche broken strats because thatâs all that is left for them that is viable. When they finally get targeted nerfs to close the actual exploit, the civ is so hollowed out by the previous nerfs that not many options remain.
They need to buff other areas and revert some of the older nerfs to compensate. For example, with the state Ethiopia is in, I think they could move Jesuit Influence back to being an age 1 card.
Ethiopiaâs design is also just baffling in some areas. Why do MM give a gather rate boost and not a yield boost? Of course people are going to spam Abuns and set the things to coin only to FF when theyâre designed like that. But once thatâs done the things run out right away and need to be tediously rebuilt. In an ideal world they wouldnât have MM at all, and they could get something like a Church Forest that could be a slower but infinite source of resources.
There are also a ton of little issues that make the African civs tedious or not viable.
Having all natives, mercenaries, artillery, militias, many techs, and most unit shipments cost a single bottlenecked resource while also leaving gaps in their roster that must be filled by these units is a very bad design. You basically have to pick only 1 or 2 of those options because you simply canât afford more than that. Itâs especially bad with Ethiopia since your main source of Influence is finite. If they split the cost of these things with other resources (ex natives partly wood, mercs partly coin, militias partly food, etc) it would let you stretch what you can do with your influence.
Then thereâs Fields and Granaries that are such a PITA that they should be deleted from the game entirely.
10 Likes
Itâs still a needless nerf to a card that was fine and to a civ that still is bottom 5 in every single statistic.
Thatâs true, but does that mean that Ports shouldnât get a compensating buff somewhere else? Same thing with Ethiopians: the Abun nerf was necessary but Ethiopians are in an absolutely terrible state. Why did they only get nerfs and not a single buff?
And yet, it still has a much higher win rate than the other two civs. So why did it get another a new Card and some buffs and the others were exclusively hit with the nerf hammer?
The same as Sweden - long needed team game nerfs but nothing to compensate for it in 1v1 especially outside of the Port 10/10
Iâm sure another stupidly strong build will emerge soon with that civ and Abuns can still heal in combat afaik which is just insane.
Do I look like I do the balance changes? Russia should be dealt with in a different way than buffing them for TP maps as it is right now but Iâm in no position to change anything about it
1 Like
Ethiopian currently has the worst skirmishers, cost effectiveness of nefyenya is terrible, very expensive and has a bit more hp but a bit less attack than European skirms,
1 Like
âBit more healthâ
You mean 18% health base more in exchange for roughly 12% more cost (check my math) and 7% less base damage. The cost is mitigated somwehat by ethopias many bonuses to coin and food.
Imho the issue is that while it scales incredibly well, theres rarely deck space since all the upgrades are scattered accross numerous cards and techs. So while it will beat euro skirms often, they need 3, 4 cards whereas youll need 5 to 6 cards and specific alliances that are tempoless and less direct value (compared to say a 15/15 card). Meaning youre often to late to fully get value out of them (caveat that late game ethopia is incredible so post imp is fine)
My suggestion would be folding in several cards so they only need 3 or such. Like remove the 5% attack on the age1 card and the harq merc card and give it to the age3 hp one. Remove the ras if now too good. That type of stuff
3 Likes
Lion Heart said it needed a nerf and his word is law. Everyone knows that.
Im done with age. Everytime I start liking a civ they have to over nerf and cause me to pick a new civ. I cant keep up with all the bullshit. Its easier just to stop playing
I agree with this entirely, ethiopa has fantastic lategame potential but it is tedious and unrewarding to get it there.
3 Likes