Ethiopia questions

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Germany aligator92
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Ethiopia questions

Post by aligator92 »

So, I wanted to learn a new civ and started playing Ethiopia. I am getting a hang of the civ and I feel like it has some glaring weaknesses so I wanted to know how people play around that or if I am missing something.

1. They are the only civ without a ranged infantery in Age 2, leaving you pretty vulnurable to other ranged infantery. Sure you can age with the Sudanese or ship the Canoneers but you can only get so many of them. Is it ever worth building a tower to get the Archers form there? Is there another option?

2. No culvs or similar unit. The big Mortar doesn't do much against artillery. How do you beat Falcs?

3. Shotel warriors feel underwhelming. Do you agree?

4. Sudanese/Somali to 2nd age for early mass and Habescha to 3rd for the TC wagons seem like the valid age-up options to me. Is anything else worth it?

5. Is shipping 3 Abuns early and training them for a boomy opening a thing?
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France Aykin Haraka
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Re: Ethiopia questions

Post by Aykin Haraka »

i don't play anymore the civ in 1v1 but you have access to cannons age III
for that you have to build a fortress and make the tech that cost 300 influence
then you can train culv and falcs
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Re: Ethiopia questions

Post by Garja »

aligator92 wrote: ↑
03 Feb 2023, 18:05
So, I wanted to learn a new civ and started playing Ethiopia. I am getting a hang of the civ and I feel like it has some glaring weaknesses so I wanted to know how people play around that or if I am missing something.

1. They are the only civ without a ranged infantery in Age 2, leaving you pretty vulnurable to other ranged infantery. Sure you can age with the Sudanese or ship the Canoneers but you can only get so many of them. Is it ever worth building a tower to get the Archers form there? Is there another option?

2. No culvs or similar unit. The big Mortar doesn't do much against artillery. How do you beat Falcs?

3. Shotel warriors feel underwhelming. Do you agree?

4. Sudanese/Somali to 2nd age for early mass and Habescha to 3rd for the TC wagons seem like the valid age-up options to me. Is anything else worth it?

5. Is shipping 3 Abuns early and training them for a boomy opening a thing?

1.
Ethiopia has relaively easy access to influence via monastery so cannoneers are actually an option.
Alternatively you can send the card which unlocks the skirm in age2, which realistically means you play a 2combo unit for a while and then add them only when needed (e.g. when opponent reaches third age).
Or you can use the 700 influence tech at the monastery with the port age up which gives 10 xbows and unlocks them for 40f 40c.

2. Honestly just with other units, it's not hard to kill 2 falcs and for more falcs you should be in a position where you have either huge mass or atleast one soft counter unit. Alternatively artillery at the palace.

3. Shotel are about as good as coyotemen but with no ups (except from inf breastplate at the arsenal).

4. The resource options are actually the best ones imo. Sudanese is good specifically for doing gascenya/dervish timing (nerfed last patch).

5 It is a thing if you do a more lax build. I don't like it.
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Re: Ethiopia questions

Post by DragonFruit »

I think the cannoneers can be useful against a musk + 2 falc push since you can kinda cheese the falcs down with the cannoneers like you can with abus. I've seen routeline do a FF where he sends 700 influence in transition and gathers 300 influence so he can send the 14 cannoneers as the first age 3 shipment. If there are too many falcs to cheese then you can make 2 culvs with the 1k influence shipment.
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Re: Ethiopia questions

Post by Invictus »

I struggled a lot with ethiopia, until I saw these games of this player :
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1706014873?t=00h52m16s
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1698188710?t=00h41m19s
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1658754788?t=01h06m21s

From that, I do everytime the same build order :
- I age up around 3min at 15 pop (send 1 abun + 2 vils) with portuguese
- During transition, I put all my vils on wood to build asap a monastery with my abuns. I continue to collect wood until I have 200, after I put all my vils on food.
- In age 2, I build a war camp with my 200 wood, I collect the 300 from the age up to build a house or two. Card order in age 2 is always 3 abuns then 1 palace+300 influence (build the palace forward but not to much, in a strategic position)
- I put my monestery on gold only to build the more abun I can (with the card the limit is up to 8, after that you're eco is so good). During that time, I produced Gascenyas by selling two cows (I can produced 3 batches)
- When I have all my abuns or when the next shipments is almost ready, I rapidly switch to 50/50 in monastery to have enough influence to send 8 canonneers. From that I stop Gascenyas production and switch to shotel warrior. You can have 1 or 2 batches of shotel warriors when the 8 canoneers arrive. The time of pushing is come !
- After is depending on the ennmy reaction of my push. Generally I continue shotel warrior production and send the two shipments of big benny. The first is convert with gold to age up, the second to wood in transition to build another war camp, houses, and produce batches of gascenyas. I always age up with Habesha for the gold.

Age 3 is up to you. I like to switch monastery on 50/50 in transtion to first ship 14 canoneers in age 3. I love these guys ! So I go with a strong composition of canoneers, gascenyas and a lot of shotel warriors. In a fight, shotel warriors can easily pass throug ennemy army to killed canons. If not, or if one canons still alive, then the canoneers can focus and killed the canons. The next shipment is generally the mortar to destroyed ennemy's building. If you need, you can buff your eco by sending the eco card (I don't remember the name, it boost the collect of everything) or the 8 cows. Do not forget cows if you have a lot of gold, it's a great investment.

good luck with that
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Re: Ethiopia questions

Post by aligator92 »

Thanks for the comments @Garja . I agree on the Shotel/Coyo comparison. The thing with Coyo is that you have upgrades and attack dance to turn them into good units. I also feel that they path better than Shotel.
@Invictus I didn't liek the build from reading it but after watching the games and trying myself I think it is decent vs more passive opponents. So thanks :)

I really feel like the tech that unlocks artillery in the palace is too slow and too expensive
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Re: Ethiopia questions

Post by Invictus »

@aligator92 what is your build order ?

After the game, some people said to me that ethiopia is a crazy civ, mostly OP. Are you agree with this statements or is it just a kind of rage ?

And what do you think of oromo cav ? I think they can be better than shock inf because they don't suffer against enemy art.
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Re: Ethiopia questions

Post by aligator92 »

Invictus wrote: ↑
18 Feb 2023, 10:38
@aligator92 what is your build order ?
I pretty much copied the build from the videos. 3 Abun, castle+influence, cannoneers. And then adapt from there

After the game, some people said to me that ethiopia is a crazy civ, mostly OP. Are you agree with this statements or is it just a kind of rage ?
If anything they still feel a bit underwhelming to me. They do benefit strongly from livestock maps though. And 5k mines are great for Abun builds. But as I said in another thread, I don't think civ balance is deciding games below 1800 ELO.

And what do you think of oromo cav ? I think they can be better than shock inf because they don't suffer against enemy art.
I never really gave them a serious try because I already heard a few times that they are bad. Also, it is difficult to fit them in any build as you always want the infantry upgrade and upgrading them aswell is just too much of an investment. Not sure if they would perform much better vs artillery because shock inf also take reduced damage from art.

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