Week 17 with the Ethiopians is completed. I played 32 games over the course of about two weeks with a roughly even win rate.
Ethiopians were an interesting challenge in particular because I couldn't find any build or strategy suggestions for the October patch (i.e. after all rebalancing), so I spent the first few days theorycrafting and practicing different openings. I settled on the opening I described here but found that the FF was too greedy in most matchups so often I went for age 2 gascenya, shotel, and the cannoneer shipment instead. The advantage of this composition is that you only need a single upgrade in age 3 and it upgrades both unit types by 25%, plus a 10% boost to the neftenya as well. I basically never made cavalry (or palace units) at all, shotels felt quite strong and the extra upgrade never seemed worth it. Ethiopians are actually the only civ in the game that have both a musk-type unit in the gascenya and a shock infantry unit, which I think is a really strong combination.
I enjoyed the challenge of working out my own build and it was very satisfying to see it work out reasonably well, reaching a rating that for me is among the highest I've achieved with any civ so far (mid 1400s). Unlike with some other civs, I haven't found any one cookie-cutter strategy or timing that really stood out; the civ is just overall well-rounded, has interesting units available and even a limited age 2 boom option with monasteries and abuns. I would like to play them more, but queue times have been getting longer since the AoE4 release so we'll see how things go.
This completes the challenge.
Thank you to everyone who posted, upvoted, or messaged me in game with your feedback and suggestions! I really appreciate the input and encouragement!
