Hybrid Tall/Faithmongering Empire w/Ethiopia

This is sort of a two part question...

Firstly, how viable is this strategy? Obviously the way to generate massive faith is to spam cities and rack up the steles, shrines, mosques, etc. But the culture cost gets excessive, you've probably got to divide up your early SP's between liberty and piety, and you're likely to come into conflict with neighbors. Instead, if you can keep to 2-3 cities (I play on small maps) you limit your science penalties and SP costs. National College is likely to be quicker as are the other NW's. With ethiopia, two steles and two shrines will probably give you a religion. Early pantheon should really help with culture or faith as well.

Perhaps another civ is better suited. If so, which would you suggest?

To the second part of the question. How do you work the social policies? I think tradition is obvious on the surface but delaying the stele to get it for free seems counterproductive when you can nab the faith so early. Then again, early piety policies aren't very strong unless your going wider. Then AGAIN, if you are focusing faith, why not hit the reformation belief? Glory to God, Jesuit, and the one for increased gold gift influence are really strong. If you split the policies up (beyond a one policy dip into either) it can be difficult to finish.

Side note, liberty could free up your early build order by giving that free settler and worker. If you finish it out the GP can jump start your game. Free GE to nab a wonder vs +15% wonder prod? Free prophet to enhance a religion? GS academy?

Is piety a must to provide a faith boost to make up for the lack of faith production from staying small? What if you don't have the food to support holy sites because you skipped tradition?

I'm tired of the typical Trad-Aesth-Rat-Freedom gambit.

With Ethiopia, get the stele first thing. The stele is an incredibly powerful building that basically guarantees you first religion. I'd ignore the shrine and piety completely, unless you want to go for the 20% discount. It's sad but true, piety is just terrible. If you are going tradition, just get legalism on your second policy, and you can get free steles in your second through fourth cities.

I played a great game with Ethiopia/Immortal 3 cities a while back. Since you'll get an early pantheon, just choose a faith generating pantheon to make up for going tall, and you should be fine. If you want to avoid tradition, I think liberty could also work, but honestly, Ethiopia is even more suited to a tradition start than most civs. Getting legalism for the free steles before dipping in to liberty might be an interesting idea though.

Basically, as Ethiopia, you'll never need to worry about faith. Your choices are a good religion or an incredible religion.

This is a completely viable strategy. Ethiopia is frequently thought of as being a solely tall empire because of the UA, but they really can go wide or tall. What I advise for Ethiopia (and I play them a lot, so I guess for once I might actually know what the heck I'm talking about) SP-wise is either this, the more "Traditional" Ethiopia playstyle:

1) Tradition opener and legalism -> Full Piety (choose a Reformation belief to fit your VC; Ethiopia can go for pretty much anything) -> Finish Tradition -> Aesthetics/Patronage/Commerce (based on your chosen VC) until Renaissance -> Full Rationalism -> Ideology of your choice. Hard build 2-3 cities and turtle until the Industrial Era, then use your UU, if you so desire, to go and capture another couple from an AI (yes, it can be used for offense too - remember, the Mehal Sefari starts with a free Drill I promotion). This gets you a full religion and should keep you safe, but can get a bit dull.

Or this, a slightly different version:

2) Tradition opener (if you want; it'll get you some extra culture early on) -> Liberty opener, Republic, and Collective Rule (if you have extra culture at this point, consider taking Citizenship) -> Full Piety -> Finish Liberty -> Some or all of Rationalism -> Ideology of your choice. This may slightly delay getting a religion, and that is a lot of SPs to take, but if you're willing to take the chance you can hard-build more cities and crank out much more faith than you ordinarily would. Also, this can lead to a very interesting game, as you're playing Ethiopia in a more unique way.