The Q-Meister
King
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2005
- Messages
- 774
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!
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!