Working on the changed spawn dates of other civilisations had me thinking about Ethiopia. I think their spawn date is fine, but there are other things that bother me about this civilisation:
- their end game goes very late and kind of peters out with the third UHV, which isn't really historically accurate and does not come with sufficient challenges because of lacking colonisation in Africa
- the UP isn't very useful and thematically mostly related to the late game, not the core of most of Ethiopia's playing experience
- the Kingdom of Aksum is thematically most important but not represented by a leader
So far, I would like to try the following changes:
I think for leaders it would be great to add Ezana as a leader representing Aksum. Also maybe it makes more sense to have Menelik instead of Haile Selassie because he had a greater impact in shaping the modern Ethiopian Empire.
In terms of the UP, I would like something that represents early and medieval Ethiopia, and the best I can think of here is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. I considered some effects and what I liked most would be "Cities of your state religion can trade with all other cities of your state religion". This would represent the connection they had to the Christian world in Europe and other Christian churches in the Muslim world, and would help them not being cut off from the rest of the world when the Arabs and Ottomans capture North Africa.
For the UHV, I think the second goal works very well both in providing an interesting and unique challenge and representing a historical facet of the kingdom. I don't think the first goal is anything special but it goes a good job of representing Ethiopia's role as an early Christian kingdom. I would like to have a third goal that is centered more in the Ethiopian middle ages or at least concludes before the historical collapse in the 16th century. By all accounts this goal should also relate to Orthodox Christianity. Here are some elements of the goal I could think of:
- build an Orthodox Cathedral
- build the Monolithic Church
- allow no Islam in [Upper Nile and East Africa]
- make sure Orthodoxy is present in more African cities than Islam
- spread Orthodoxy to X Catholic cities
The first two are kind of boring and too straightforward. There is no goal for Orthodox Cathedrals yet but there are already quite a lot of goals in that direction and with no competing goals to strive for it's not that challenging or complex. You research the tech and build the thing. I think the other later oriented around religion spread are more interesting because they allow various possible solutions, are less generic and imo reflect the role of Ethiopia as the African refuge of Orthodox Christianity well. The last goal reflects Orthodox contacts and missions to Western Europe at the time (by the way, interestingly, I found out that Ethiopian emissaries in Europe may have influenced Martin Luther's thoughts because many customs of Ethiopian Orthodoxy actually found their way into Lutheranism, and the Lutheran Church actually is in communion with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church). I guess some form or combination of the latter three goals would work well.
An Orthodox Cathedral or the wonder (or both) could still replace the first goal, but there still should be some aspect to it that necessitates and early adoption of Orthodoxy.
Lastly, I don't like how the AI behaves in the late Ethiopian game, including the fact that it tends not to collapse. A few thoughts on that:
- their stability/settler map should probably be more limited and not encourage expansion into the Horn of Africa and the Swahili coast
- maybe there should be independent city spawns in Somalia (e.g. Berbera or Mogadishu) to represent the Somali sultanates that were historical rivals to Ethiopia
- there definitely should be a wave of barbarian Oromo spawns to take out Ethiopia unless it is doing very well. This could combine with a UHV goal that (implicitly) requires you to survive until they occur.
Oh, lastly lastly, to compensate for the lost UP and throw some bones to modern Ethiopia, I guess they can receive Mehal Sefari as a second UU to replace Riflemen with some extra hill strength.
- their end game goes very late and kind of peters out with the third UHV, which isn't really historically accurate and does not come with sufficient challenges because of lacking colonisation in Africa
- the UP isn't very useful and thematically mostly related to the late game, not the core of most of Ethiopia's playing experience
- the Kingdom of Aksum is thematically most important but not represented by a leader
So far, I would like to try the following changes:
I think for leaders it would be great to add Ezana as a leader representing Aksum. Also maybe it makes more sense to have Menelik instead of Haile Selassie because he had a greater impact in shaping the modern Ethiopian Empire.
In terms of the UP, I would like something that represents early and medieval Ethiopia, and the best I can think of here is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. I considered some effects and what I liked most would be "Cities of your state religion can trade with all other cities of your state religion". This would represent the connection they had to the Christian world in Europe and other Christian churches in the Muslim world, and would help them not being cut off from the rest of the world when the Arabs and Ottomans capture North Africa.
For the UHV, I think the second goal works very well both in providing an interesting and unique challenge and representing a historical facet of the kingdom. I don't think the first goal is anything special but it goes a good job of representing Ethiopia's role as an early Christian kingdom. I would like to have a third goal that is centered more in the Ethiopian middle ages or at least concludes before the historical collapse in the 16th century. By all accounts this goal should also relate to Orthodox Christianity. Here are some elements of the goal I could think of:
- build an Orthodox Cathedral
- build the Monolithic Church
- allow no Islam in [Upper Nile and East Africa]
- make sure Orthodoxy is present in more African cities than Islam
- spread Orthodoxy to X Catholic cities
The first two are kind of boring and too straightforward. There is no goal for Orthodox Cathedrals yet but there are already quite a lot of goals in that direction and with no competing goals to strive for it's not that challenging or complex. You research the tech and build the thing. I think the other later oriented around religion spread are more interesting because they allow various possible solutions, are less generic and imo reflect the role of Ethiopia as the African refuge of Orthodox Christianity well. The last goal reflects Orthodox contacts and missions to Western Europe at the time (by the way, interestingly, I found out that Ethiopian emissaries in Europe may have influenced Martin Luther's thoughts because many customs of Ethiopian Orthodoxy actually found their way into Lutheranism, and the Lutheran Church actually is in communion with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church). I guess some form or combination of the latter three goals would work well.
An Orthodox Cathedral or the wonder (or both) could still replace the first goal, but there still should be some aspect to it that necessitates and early adoption of Orthodoxy.
Lastly, I don't like how the AI behaves in the late Ethiopian game, including the fact that it tends not to collapse. A few thoughts on that:
- their stability/settler map should probably be more limited and not encourage expansion into the Horn of Africa and the Swahili coast
- maybe there should be independent city spawns in Somalia (e.g. Berbera or Mogadishu) to represent the Somali sultanates that were historical rivals to Ethiopia
- there definitely should be a wave of barbarian Oromo spawns to take out Ethiopia unless it is doing very well. This could combine with a UHV goal that (implicitly) requires you to survive until they occur.
Oh, lastly lastly, to compensate for the lost UP and throw some bones to modern Ethiopia, I guess they can receive Mehal Sefari as a second UU to replace Riflemen with some extra hill strength.
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. Despite me clearly not having Orthodoxy.
