Aren't the Shoshone inherently superior to Ethiopia?

Fair enough, but when I was comparing the two, I was mainly taking into account their unique ability. Which it seems that the Shoshone UA almost makes the Ethiopian UA redundant and obsolete, except for some extremely rare cases.

Shoshone get combat bonus inside their territory, but they also get extra starting territory upon city foundation, and the combat bonus applies regardless of how many cities they have.

Athenaeum said:

Fair enough, but when I was comparing the two, I was mainly taking into account their unique ability. Which it seems that the Shoshone UA almost makes the Ethiopian UA redundant and obsolete, except for some extremely rare cases.

Shoshone get combat bonus inside their territory, but they also get extra starting territory upon city foundation, and the combat bonus applies regardless of how many cities they have.

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Oh, I agree with you on that. The Ethiopian UA is just rubbish. Especially because of the restriction, which limits your playstyle. It hardly ever plays a factor in the game either. I guess they figured Ethiopia should be a defensive Civ, so they gave them a stupid combat bonus against 'larger' opponents to go hand in hand with the Mehal Sefari (which fights more effectively closer to the capital).

The Shoshone's UA on the other hand is very very good. It gives you tactical advantage, resources and faster production/growth. The defensive part on top of that is just another bonus. There's no restrictions or downsides either.

The way I see it, some Civs have good UAs, others rely more on their UU(s) or UB, or the synergy between them. Just comparing UAs doesn't paint the whole picture. Ethiopia is literally all about its UB, the Stele. The UA doesn't really matter. Ethiopia might as well not have a UA at all. It's fine though, because the Stele is just that good.

I guess that's where we'll agree to disagree - on how good the Stele is. Part of it is just my perspective - when comparing civs, I tend to put more weight on their UA than I do on their UU or UB. I suppose some people like you see things differently.

Also on the harder difficulties (Deity and Immortal), it is extremely difficult to found a religion, so if you fail to found a religion with Ethiopia, I would consider the Stele nearly wasted. Sure you can use that faith to purchase GE's in the industrial era, but without founding a religion your faith production is going to be severely limited anyways.

@Athenaeum, I agree with you that UB doesn’t make up for the weak UA and average-at-best UU. I also think it is reasonable to value the UB less than other parts of a civ generally.

Athenaeum said:

if you fail to found a religion with Ethiopia, I would consider the Stele nearly wasted

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The Stele just guarantees a pantheon. A faith-oriented pantheon gives you better than even odds at a religion -- and a nice bankroll of faith in any case. Otherwise, skip founding, and get 50-100 turns out of the pantheon that best matches your dirt. Non-faith pantheons benefits are a strong boost to the early game. But the Stele is one of the best UB, and would never go to waste (unless the player purposefully picked a pantheon that did not match the dirt).

without founding a religion your faith production is going to be severely limited anyways

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This is not true. You can found, but not catch any faith buildings, so all you have for extra faith is your pantheon. Since lack of buildings implies founding late, and founding late implies that the faith from your pantheon was borderline, a player can maybe generate only enough faith to buy a single GP at the end of the game. On the other hand, you can miss founding, but then get early mosques from a neighbor’s religion (or even multiple buildings when the AIs fight over your cities), and then go into Industrial Era with 4000 faith banked. Neither scenario is all that unusual.

Even with founding, your faith generation may be severely limited. Even without founding, you can have terrific faith production. That said, my strong preference is to found, since I would rather have good control instead of having to leave things mostly up to RNG.

Athenaeum said:

Part of it is just my perspective - when comparing civs, I tend to put more weight on their UA than I do on their UU or UB. I suppose some people like you see things differently.

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I think you sell Civilizations like Arabia and the Mongols (and Ethiopia) short if you focus on the UA too much.

The Mongols' UA gives them extra combat strength against City States. That hardly ever comes into play. I rarely attack City States in the first place. Personally I'd rather send trade routes to them, especially in a warmongering game. The second part gives you +1 movement for mounted warriors. Okay, that's something, I guess. It turns incredible though when you combine this extra movement with the Keshik, and the Keshik gets better because of the Khan. The Mongols' UA is nearly useless by itself. It's the UUs that matter here.

Arabia is different. The UA, UB and UU don't really enhance each other. Their UU and UB are very good on their own though. The UA doesn't really come into play that much either. Just looking at the UA, you'd think Arabia sucks. But it doesn't.

Ethiopia is the best faith focused Civilization in the game, if you ask me. They get early, fast, reliable faith generation that increase the chance of getting the first religion significantly. The Celts get faith from forest tiles and their UU (both of which are unreliable and temporary, so it's only good for getting a Pantheon), Indonesia needs other followers in their cities to generate faith, Byzantium doesn't even get any boost for founding a Religion. IMO, the only thing that can stand up to the Stele, is the Mayan Pyramid.

RuleroftheHex said:

In terms of time, they conquer in the midgame and endgame, leaving an awkward lapse in which no one trades with you and you are trying to make up for playing militaristically. Everyone denounces you because you can't clean up the mess you made with Minutemen until you hit Radar.

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I don't get it.

There is Riflemen, musketmen, Great war Infantry, World war 2 Infantry, cavalry, ww1 tanks, ww2 tanks and then cannons and artillery. USA don't only have minutemen and a ww2 bomber.

I have played them both (once each), i was underwhelmed by the shoshone pathfinder- yes the ancient composites were nice (i took culture, pop, tech then an upgrade) but i only found 4 huts anyway

In contrast i thought the stele was fantastic, guaranteeing me the pantheon and religion i wanted.

TheMeInTeam said:

Good, but not best. The early advantages of nations like Huns, Arabia or Mongolia for example crush the warmonger advantages America gets.

Minutemen are good, but they aren't THAT good.

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Are you calling Arabia a standout warmonger civ just because of their Camel Archer?

Gen.Washington said:

America is the best civ in the game for combat. +1 sight means arty doesn't need spotters and if you keep minutemen and upgrade them all the way to mechanized infantry you have a super army that ignores terrain cost and probably has been promoted several time, combine those with a bunch of carrier-borne b-17s and you can invade any city even if it's out of range for your stealth bombers.
Plus buying tiles for 1/2 off is a huge help in the early game rush for resources and strategic positions.

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Spamming any early/midgame special unit and upgrading it several times to the late-game units is always going to result in awesome OP units. In fact, you don't even UU's for that. Spam archers and kill as many barbs as you can. They'll already be on level 3, and keep them until late game and they might have logistics.

Shoshone are more consistent, since you can pick ruins and plan around the first two at least. I always go for culture and then the unit upgrade to comp bowman for early defense and barb-killing missions. After that faith if possible, else pop, tech if I find another. (Tech seems overrated--it's a gamble whether it's something you want or something that'll take two turns to research by the time you need it...or its the tech you're almost done researching.) Shoshone shine right out of the game with their expansion bonus and pathfinder picks. However, without a faith CS or ruin, it's hard to squeeze in a religion at all.

Ethiopia is a gamble, as religious civ bonuses tend to be, especially on higher levels. But as has been discussed, the stele is awesome, and works well with both tradition and liberty. Ethiopia also shines in the early game, but more towards the mid game once religion starts to pay dividends.

Both of the combat bonuses are almost insignificant, especially insofar as the compare to each other.

The civs tend to play very differently for me. I've had much more success with Shoshone, but I plan to try a Piety game with Ethiopia soon and expect good results, although Maya seem pretty much strictly better for this.