Ethiopia - Tall or wide?

[rawrtrav]

It's as simple as the title really. I'm trying to make my way through all the strongest civs and see which ones play best in my opinion.

With Ethiopia though, I have a few questions. First of is the title-sake, is it better to play Ethiopia as a tall or wide state? The UA obviously wants you to play Ethiopia as a tall state, but the UB seems like it would be much more beneficial to spread out as early as you can and go for the wide game.


Secondly, what sort of VC is the best to aim for with Ethiopia? Is the tall UA strategy more focused on defense or offense? Would a science victory from things like Jesuit Education be a viable option? Any help here is appreciated.

 

[Resipsa]

Ethiopia is a strong civ on the higher difficulties as the AI will almost certainly have more cities than you. If you want to play tall do a 3or4 city tradition game if you want to go wider do a 2 or 3 city NC and then defeat your neighbors army and take his cities. In this manner you can play to all ethiopia's strengths. Victory conditions are very flexible although I find my self doing aggressive cvs with them. One thing I didn't mention was that Ethiopia can skipp pottery in the beginning to help you get a start elsewhere.

 

[Archerinho]

I also tried to play Ethiopia as well. The best thing for me is to play wide. However, this is purely because of interest, because I find tall tradition games kinda boring (sometimes), although my most wins on Deity come on these :S
Ideally, wider is better, because of the Stele. Add Ceremonial Burial and Asceticism to it and you kinda win... For me, Mehal Sefari is not that strong to go tradition because of their bonus.

 

[budweiser]

As Ethiopia, if you have more cities than the AI, you have already won.

 

[tommynt]

I dont really understand why there needs to be a new thread for general game questions ...

Why d u think u need some "special strategy" for some civ?
Basicly every civ plays the same and u can go every winning condition with every civ.

The abilities give a SLIM bonus.

 

[rawrtrav]

I dont really understand why there needs to be a new thread for general game questions ...

Why d u think u need some "special strategy" for some civ?
Basicly every civ plays the same and u can go every winning condition with every civ.

The abilities give a SLIM bonus.

I completely disagree. I like to try and take as much advantage of each civ's abilities, otherwise what's the point in playing anything than just one civ?

I find trying to make as much use and take advantage of each civ's abilities the most fun thing about the game.

 

[Santa Maria]

I dont really understand why there needs to be a new thread for general game questions ...

Why d u think u need some "special strategy" for some civ?
Basicly every civ plays the same and u can go every winning condition with every civ.

The abilities give a SLIM bonus.

Yeah you are kind a right, but the civs specifics enable you to do something special, which you cant do with other civs. Therefore there can be some special strategy viable only for that civ. Therefore the OP is right in wanting to know what special he can do with Ethiopia.

As for me I have never played Ethiopia, but find this thread interesting and am curius as what is possible with Ethiopia. As well with every civ.

 

[direblade99]

I dont really understand why there needs to be a new thread for general game questions ...

Why d u think u need some "special strategy" for some civ?
Basicly every civ plays the same and u can go every winning condition with every civ.

The abilities give a SLIM bonus.

You're right, except some of us try to have fun when we play games.

 

[Buccaneer]

You're right, except some of us try to have fun when we play games.

But that's completely irrelevant to the OP's question. If you want to take advantage of Ethiopia's UA (however minor it is), then you see simply have less cities than your opponents. Why ask whether to go tall or wide when that's the wrong question?

 

[cpm4001]

To answer your first question: Ethiopia can really be played either tall or wide. The UA allows you to get 2-3 cities with Tradition in relative safety, even on higher difficulties, and you can then decide if you want to stop there or continue expanding (I personally prefer to settle just a couple cities and then further expand through conquest, and since many AIs will spam cities and thus have more than you do you'll still get that nice +20% combat bonus against them.) The Stele certainly does become much more powerful the more of them you have, but even with just two or three of them they still almost guarantee you your pick of religion.
To answer your second question: Any of them. Ethiopia has no "inherent" favored victory condition, but because it's very much religious-based (and has an excellent shot at getting a religion), you can select tenets that can help you get any VC. If you want Culture, take at least one faith-bought building and try for the Sacred Sites reformation belief. For Science, Jesuit Education certainly would work, and tying it together with Interfaith Dialogue would be a great choice. Diplomatic Victories can be accomplished by taking Tithe for that extra gold. Domination victory's a bit trickier, but perhaps Just War as an enhancer wouldn't be the worst idea.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

Every civ can win the game, and pretty much all victory conditions, going tall. Ethiopia is one of the few civs where playing wide is a viable option.

 

[PhroX]

You're right, except some of us try to have fun when we play games.

Actually, I'm pretty damn sure that everyone tried to have fun when they play games. If they didn't, what would be the point?

 

[Soffacet]

A lot of you are whiffing on tommynt's point, which I believe is that the repercussions of tallness and in particular wideness are so stark at the moment that the idea that a UA or UB would significantly swing that decision one way or the other, is just silly. Consider that with each additional city a player faces escalating research and social policy cost penalties, national wonder infrastructure requirements, happiness requirements, maintenance requirements, and potential diplomatic repercussions.

In Ethiopia's case, how in the world is the prospect of 2 Faith per Turn per City more than usual going to significantly alter the settlement calculus in comparison to the factors listed above, and convince you to settle more cities than you would with any other civ in the same situation?

 

[justaquestion]

Every time Im Ethiopia I end up being wide, because even if I make only a few cities, I eventually take out someone with the mehal sefari as their combat bonus is nice against a close civ. But I've only played Ethiopia twice.

 

[Resipsa]

Actually, I'm pretty damn sure that everyone tried to have fun when they play games. If they didn't, what would be the point?

To feed their autistic nature, Idk?

 

[krc]

Actually, I'm pretty damn sure that everyone tried to have fun when they play games. If they didn't, what would be the point?

Agreed. But I suspect that @direblade's real point is that there is a difference between (1) Civ5 players whose main source of fun from the game is the fastest possible win time and (2) Civ5 players whose main source of fun from the game is exploring ways to extract more flavor (while still winning eventually...) from the unique characteristics of different civilizations.

 

[Buccaneer]

Except some of those uniqueness simply do not work well or at best, offer negligible benefits. It does not matter if the win times are fast or slow, it's a matter of using the tools that you have to make the good choices (which comes from experience). Sometimes you do want to play up to the UU and take advantage of the benefits it offers - if you use it at the right time (the window of opportunity).

 

[Buccaneer]

Here's another reason why playing smartly has to be the way to go. Let's say (for example) you wanted to duplicate the Mongol Horde because Keshiks are fun to play with (they are). But you goofed around too much and made lots of bad decisions and started building them when the opponents have rifles and 100+ defense cities. No matter how much flavor you wanted with your Keshiks, they will fail. If you want the flavor of the Keshiks, you still have to know how to play the game and effectively/efficiently plan for growth and science so you can start using them early enough.

 

[direblade99]

Here's another reason why playing smartly has to be the way to go. Let's say (for example) you wanted to duplicate the Mongol Horde because Keshiks are fun to play with (they are). But you goofed around too much and made lots of bad decisions and started building them when the opponents have rifles and 100+ defense cities. No matter how much flavor you wanted with your Keshiks, they will fail. If you want the flavor of the Keshiks, you still have to know how to play the game and effectively/efficiently plan for growth and science so you can start using them early enough.

Well yes, but the way tommynt was talking it sounded like he was just saying completely ignore what civ you're playing it's only a tiny bonus to some aspect of my 230 turn win or whatever. I don't really like that way of thinking because it seems like it would get rid of all replayability if you almost totally ignored what civ you were playing. Sure you still strive to do well but there is a bit of room to do certain sub optimal things occasionally to have fun.

Doing a 4 city tradition with 2 policies elsewhere and then into rationalism and either order or freedom every single game regardless of civ sounds boring and reduces the whole point of having multiple playstyles.

I'm sorry that my earlier response wasn't exactly constructive but it was a knee jerk response to what I felt like an overtly aggressive attack on someone asking what alternate playstyles are possible as ethiopia.

 

[tommynt]

Well yes, but the way tommynt was talking it sounded like he was just saying completely ignore what civ you're playing it's only a tiny bonus to some aspect of my 230 turn win or whatever.

If you want role play ethopia - gl and hf with starving cities everywhere ...

But the question was as if there is a special gameplay style needed due the ua and ub and there the answer is just no - you can play whatever way you want/ is best.