And then there was one: Ethiopia

[The Q-Meister]

Just completed my 27th UHV: Ethiopia.

I kind of intentionally waited to do this one last because of the horror stories I've been hearing about it from other players as well as the difficulty with stability which I have experienced as well. I understand with this latest patch getting to Theology is easier.

My impressions in the game were kind of sad in the sense that Ethiopia really did have the potential to be a major power (in my UHV winning game for instance, I discovered Gunpowder before any of the Western European civs did and in the 1600s only France had a higher score than me) And keep in mind this was with me holding back some and not being quite as aggressive as I would (or could) be because of constant stability issues.

Impis were a pain but Longbows and especially Oromo warriors pretty much put them out of business. At some points in the game, I felt somewhat like a petty dictator announcing "great triumphs" over rebel forces and what not

The trouble was with stability and specifically their economy rating: even with commonwealth it was still terrible. I was running culture at 70% and had 4 star cities and was still on Unstable at the end. I consider staying alive more difficult now than really any other UHV condition.

I also think the Strategy Guide for Ethiopia might need some updating. It is recommended to take over Egypt, in my game I took Alexandria, but with the now much more aggressive Arabia/Turkish AI in North Africa I no longer think this makes sense. IMO, you have enough problems with stability as Ethiopia and the last thing you want is a war with Turkey/Arabia. Even if you have say War Elephants/Cannons and can destroy the Arabic Camel Archers the stability penalties you will have for having an empire from South Africa to Egypt, the resistance penalties from the newly conquered cities, the penalties for taking another civs homeland and the foreign rating for having civs hate you, will drive your stability even lower even if you do win the war. If that wasn't enough, Egypt loves to respawn and that means yet another war or giving up your cities which (surprise!) hurts your economy rating. It's bad either way and again, I would say not worth the trouble if you're playing just for the UHV.

That's why if I were to play again I would just concentrate on taking East/Southern Africa with as few cities as possible and avoid war and confrontation. I believe 6-7 cities should do the trick:

3 in Ethiopia: your base cities
2 in South Africa: you need these ASAP as the Dutch/English are coming. Also finally some nice places to build villages so you want time for them to grow.
1 city in East Africa to connect your homeland with South Africa.
1 Mbanza Konga: just in case Portugal gets it.

Now that I've completed all 27 I really do have an appreciation for the thought and effort behind all of them. Personally I would say Persia/India/Mali were my 3 toughest UHVs. I remember being such a noob first playing RFC and complaining how the Persian UHV was "impossible!!" In those games, almost embarassed to say, I had a hard time taking Jerusalem much less India, Egypt or Greece! Mali drove me nuts: in my winning game, I was incredibly lucky and didn't have the plague once!

So despite the complaints and all, it was a lot of fun and challenging working on the different puzzles and goals of the UHVs!

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The French and Portuguese are the only ones that colonize Magadascar, and it doesn't count against your UHV. I leave them alone, and if they have a colony there my espionage might even be cheaper since they don't always build Tunis.

 

[Ekolite]

Congratulations for doing all 27! I have onl done a couple, although to be fair I don't play RFC all that often and don't usually go for the UHV when I do.

 

[The Q-Meister]

The French and Portuguese are the only ones that colonize Magadascar, and it doesn't count against your UHV. I leave them alone, and if they have a colony there my espionage might even be cheaper since they don't always build Tunis.

Thanks AP - I wasn't sure if Madagascar counted or not...just wanted to be safe rather than sorry. Darn, 1 more city than I needed. Thanks anyway.

 

[thadian]

Congratz, Q! I love playing Ethiopia and i still have not done much with them. i usually pretend there is no fat cross, and place my cities to claim what is in the 8x8 around them. this lets me get more cities without harming my stability too much. the best thing about Ethiopia is that you already know they aren't exactly great when you go into it and there is a challenge on every corner.

I agree we need a better strategy guide, how about you make one? I have read quite a few of your posts, and your certainly one of the most worthy to do so, as your a very seasoned player.

 

[kbk]

Well done on Ethiopia. I still need to do Mali, and I've all but given up on them.

I've come about 10 turns shy of using Ethiopia to win a domination game on Monarch (Roman spaceship!), so they really do have a lot of world domination potential. If I remember from my game, I was hitting the high seas about 50 turns before most of Europe.

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

Just completed my first successful Ethiopian UHV game too; 1st attempt at it post 1.181, and had no problems at all; rather anti-climactic in fact. I researched theology the plain old-fashioned way, no priests involved, as no religion spread to me.

You only need one city in South Africa, so long as you send a great artist along with the settler - Temple of Artemis helps here.

I was unstable for most of the 18th and 19th centuries, and just missed out on the Taj Mahal to India so couldn't switch civics until I built an olympic park, but by then it was almost the end of the 19th century, so was still in the GA at the game's end. Beat India to Liberalism by one turn. First to circumnavigate, but no conquerors - I suspect the date was too late and the time limit that Rhys mentioned had expired (1590). Interestingly, Spain already had astronomy rather than just optics by this point, but wasn't doing much with it. The poor Incans were stuck with the perpetual plague bug for the entire 19th century.

Russia founded Seattle some time in the 19th century, and for some reason Persia held Seoul until they collapsed in the 17th.

I think I have just mali and Arabia to do for the UHVs now.

Cheers, Luke

 

[onedreamer]

I have reset my UHV counter to zero after the last patch... too many differences. For example, I used to do Egypt with both eyes closed, I am not 0 on 3 with the last patch :/

btw, what are you 3 ethiopian cities ?

 

[BurnEmDown]

Arabia is rather easy, just takes a while to spread all the missionaries.

Persia often takes seoul because they have an Immortal scouting asia, which more often than not comes across an empty seoul and takes it for them.

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

I have reset my UHV counter to zero after the last patch... too many differences. For example, I used to do Egypt with both eyes closed, I am not 0 on 3 with the last patch :/

btw, what are you 3 ethiopian cities ?

Yeah, I think I'll be revisiting most of mine too.

I built Aksum in place, but am wondering if one north on the coast might not be better. You lose one cow, but in the long run, gain 5 extra fish-based food which would make up for it.


Built Moyale right at the constriction point in the south to get both the fish and the gems in the BFC.

The third one I didn't build for some time - in fact it was my 5 or perhaps even my 6th city. Before it I built that, I built one along Lake Tanginayika (sp?) but not on the coast (scared of sea-borne invasions...) to secure East Africa (I remember the spawning cities down there being less than optimally placed), and one in the middle of South Africa (again not on the coast). Oh, and I conquered the Native Congo one of course. I think I only built my 3rd (Kobbe) "core" city after that, in the south-west corner of the great Nile loop, after looking at the old settler maps and trying to figure out what wouldn't hit my stability, assuming it was still accurate... It doesn't get that big because of too much desert, but is still not unreasonable. So 6 cities in all; I built a 7th right at the end about 1900 in between the two bananas. I was itching to build that for centuries, but never got the GA, and was chicken about the stability hit. It's a great city site, even if you could only defend it with explorers for a while if you build it early. 2 bananas, gems and a bronze, pretty well much as good as any other site in Africa.

I also had a settler shipped over to Alaska of all places, because I got the holy mountain quest. The mountain turned out to be Denali. A worthy holy mountain to be sure, but I'm not too sure how it would fit in with a Christian ethos, especially since its position was devined before anybody had so much as circumnavigated! Anyway, I moved my settler there, and thought hang on, better check what this will give me (assuming it would either a GA, or a great prophet, so i could kick off a GA); searched the threads, and discovered it would be a lousy plus one happiness per city! So I gave it to the Incas instead...

By 1910, with basically 6 cities (plus one just built , and only size 1), I was rather astonished to discover I was 2nd in both GDP and maufacturing. Of course, being in a GA helped a lot, but even so; my 4 main cities, despite all being sized 11 or 12, were pretty decent.

A lot of the time during the 19th century I was just building reasearch because I had run out of things to build, which is rather unusual.

Cheers, Luke

 

[The Q-Meister]

btw, what are you 3 ethiopian cities ?

Aksum, Moqadishu, Gondokoro (sp?) I followed the advice of the strategy guide for the latter and used it for its proximity to the Nile to spread Christianity.

I suppose you could get away with 1 in South Africa but I like having 2: 1 for taking the resources on the eastern side and the other on the south-western side for villages which I desperately need.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Arabia's culture is too strong for any coast-based strategy to work--they take precedence even if you have more culture there. Often you lose your only fish if you don't buffer Aksum with some wonders.

 

[Feyaria]

Played as Ethiopia a few days ago too. Founding Christianity is now a lot easier then before, because Babylon now takes all the indipendent cities. And Judaisms spreads better whne Jerusalem is a babylonian city. Bulbed Christianity on third try, Greece got it on my first try and the second i got a scientist.

Then i researched Feudalism and traded it around, maybe that helped Rome, Chartago and Greece to survive. Greece was killed shortly after the Turks spawned, Rome a bit later after a German invasion. Chartago survived all the time.

I collapsed about 1650, due to bad economy and expansion, maybe 9 cities was too much, and South African cities are counted as colonies, so they cost extra


I also played Egypt, UHV is impossible now, but i managed to survive till 2020 (England won time victory), it was a long time an OCC.

Then i used WB to change the gold-tile to a flood-plain and that was it... got to Music one turn before the deadline. Or is there a new secret method to get to 5000 culture with Egypt without a Great Artist?

 

[wr4th]

Then i used WB to change the gold-tile to a flood-plain and that was it... got to Music one turn before the deadline. Or is there a new secret method to get to 5000 culture with Egypt without a Great Artist?

Music is really not doable any more, but you can get a great artist by using caste system easily (get stonehenge for that).

 

[BurnEmDown]

On my try as Ethiopia I have a pretty good situation I think, Got my 2nd UHV right now (luckily because nobody colonized south Africa, I tried but Zulu kept razing my cities )
I got beat to Liberalism by just a few turns, if I could get it then my victory was assured, but can't cry over spilled milk. Can anyone give me some tips? I'm planning on taking the Arabian city on the northern Egyptian coast and then take peace for whatever they'll give me, using Oromo warrior rush (just got gunpowder) and then settle south Africa with Oromos to defend my cities (need couple more)

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

Arabia's culture is too strong for any coast-based strategy to work--they take precedence even if you have more culture there. Often you lose your only fish if you don't buffer Aksum with some wonders.

Not in my game; I dominated Arabia quite handily culturally, and if I was one tile closer it would have been even worse for them, not better. It was them who didn't have access to their sea resources for instance not the other way around; and so when the Turks arrived and they collapsed, Mecca instantly revolted to me. I disbanded it as the Turkish stack were reducing its defences...

Cheers, Luke

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Did you found Islam luke? In that case you might have enough culture.

 

[blizzrd]

Yeah, I think I'll be revisiting most of mine too.

Revisiting all the UHVs is on my to-do list also. But I will be waiting for the (soon-to be released?) minor-fixes update patch before doing so.

 

[Walliard]

The italicized ones in my sig are those accomplished in a previous version, though a number of the others were in 1.182.

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

Did you found Islam luke? In that case you might have enough culture.

No. Researched theology the plain-old fashioned way. Did build Artemis and later the Leaning Tower in Aksum - I wanted a GA for South Africa; building wonders is also good for stability of course. But nothing special no artists specialists for instance to boost culture.

I don't see why Mecca should be good culturally automatically in the AIs hands - they often fail to build any wonders there at all for instance, because of them being built by other Civs.

(As an aside why do the Arabs not get any missionaries to start with any more, at least when playing them?)

Cheers, Luke