Rhye's and Fall of Civilization - Ethiopian strategy
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Ethiopia UHV, monarch
by wr4th
Goals
Found one religion I consider this the ONLY goal for ethiopia, the rest is pretty much straight forward.
No European colonies in east and subequatorial Africa in 1500 AD No European colonies in east and subequatorial Africa in 1910 AD These go together, just settle all of africa south from your starting position to make sure nobody gets there (check the rfc atlas).
Found one religion
As i said before this is EXTREMELY difficult to achieve. The only possibilities are christianity and islam of which i only did it with christianity.
In order to get this it must be a rather perfect game until you spawn. Jerusalem must not be independent most likely taken by babylon No one should tech for theology this is somehow hard to see, in most games it gets discovered by Rome, followed by Greece and China, rarely in Babylon and even one time it was founded in Carthage... From my experience you need a LOT of tries to get such a game. I tried at least 20 times, while reading a book since there are quite some autoturns.
The fastest way to actually get theology is researching it right away. Found Aksum on spot. Do NOT switch to any civics yet (safe 1 turn). Build library. Use both workers to pasture the sheep and then one cow. After that chop the forrest with one worker and pasture the other cow with the second worker. When the library is done build research until you found Christianity. If possible send the missionary to europe via open borders.
Where to build the second town?
The best spot near is for sure moqdisho E of the horses, but it's not so good for the first few turns. Instead found Gondokoro 4 S and 3 W of Aksum on the nile. There are severall reasons:
- you have more commerce for research from the water tiles
- you create a nice choke point for the impis
- when christianity gets founded there it can spread through the nile and mediteranean to all of europe.
Also build a library here and speed it up with the two chops. Build a road to Aksum to get a trade route.
Techs
Those are the vital techs to get: Theology - well you know why. Feudalism - you need Longbows because you have no iron or copper. Gunpowder - you REALLY want those sweet Oromo Warriors. Biology - This turns your towns into huge cities. Until that time growth will be a big issue.
Civics
As i stated above only switch civics after founding christianity. Use Slavery/Organized Religion first. State religion will give you many enemys but you definately don't want to miss the 25% production bonus, since this is what you are most lacking. I used judaism since christianity will take its time to spread and most other civs in the mediteranean where jews at that point, so i had more friends to trade techs. When getting feudalism adopt vassalage and hereditary rule.
Defending from the impi hordes
If you really made it to this point, then prepare for an endless number of impis coming from southern africa. To defend it needs a lot of micro. Because of the impis 2 movement they like to pillage or capture your workers, so take care. Your two archers stay in your towns, the sword- and the axeman are defending your tiles whereever needed. Thats why roads are so important. Archers get guerilla promotions and your melee get combat I and shock, which will give you a nice 90% odd when attacking them even on hills. Also build a wall at least in Gondokoro since there will be most of the action. DON'T lose your melee troops, since you don't have copper or iron yet ther is no way to reinforce.
Egypt
Egypt is a nice place and you definately want to have it. The problem is you most likely won't get it with your troops yet. So you should wait until it falls to the barbarians and/or goes into civil war, thats the time to attack. Take 3 or 4 Longbow and take over the egypt towns. Afterwards build walls and a second defender in every town, only then buildings and workers to improve the land. Make constant use of the whip.
Settling Africa
The first town to settle (after your initial two) will be moqdisho E of the horse. With the fish it has nice food production and also nice production. Also build a workboat for Aksum.
Aksum is your military base, build barracks and with vassalage or great general produce nice guerilla II longbows and defend at several choke points from the impis.
Next city to found is Zanzibar 2 S of the gems. Maybe i was to quick since a few turns later Mombasa spawned on the gems. I invaded it and it got destroyed.
Quelimane and Zimbabwe are independant and you can take the easily with your two promoted melee units.
Found two more towns in south africa to deny it from the english and dutch. This should be done before 1500AD to be safe. Short after you should build two more towns on the west coast to have no free space to settle within the uhv area. In the centre there is room for at least two more cities, but thats not so urgent. Important is to get your state religion or one cultural building to the newly founded towns to close the 'gaps'. Also build courthouses everywhere to keep your stability high. Anyway you will be shaky most of the time.
Improve all tiles with irrigation/mills to have growth and be able to whip. Only after biology turn the mills into mines and thus turn zimbabwe into a production powerhouse.
Economy
Your economy will be really weak. To research at all Aksum should switch between building troops and building research. The towns in Egypt might also house some scientists. Make sure your christian holy city has market, grocer and a bank (if you can trade for the tech). If you are lucky judaism was founded in egypt, another reason to take it. If you have both holy towns they can give you like 50% research, which is a lot
Be nice to all other civs, you definately want no war and you want as much open borders as possible for trade routes, since you have many coastal towns you should also build lighthouses for that reason. When you reach biology you will most likely be the only one to have it. And since you are lacking behind in all other techs you can trade it to at least 10 civs for some nice techs. Try to get constitution to build jails for more stability. Also get nationalism and build the olympics to increase your stability with a second golden age. If you are not shaky you might consider switching to free market/bureaucracy (makes aksum spawn a drill IV Oromo every 1 or 2 turns).
I always had 10 Oromos ready in Aksum to counter the losses of plague and thus making your undefended towns split when you are shaky.
Conclusion
After reaching the first goal, which is pure luck and needs a lot of tries and surviving the impis until you settled all spawning areas its a pretty peacefull game with a really weak economy to deal with. So the problem is not to reach the last two goals, it is to reach them without becoming unstable.
Addendum: Roman start
by BenkyonoBen
If you wish to remove most of the random element from the Theocracy race you need to make sure that neither Yerushalyim nor Byzantium are independant on turn 123. The fastest way to do this is to start the game as the Romans. Start conservatively, settle Pompeii and automate everything you can. Taking Athens can result in a Greek collapse, an independant Byzantium and a second turn 123 Christianity start point, so circle around and ship your four Praetorians to Yerushalyim to take and hold it.
That's it. You'll add only a few minutes play, eliminate the most frustrating source of early Christianity and incidentally slow down the tech trading of most of the classical Civs. Switch to Ethiopia on turn 107 and you'll be able to start with a very good chance of founding Christianity.
Ethiopian UHV strategy: Egypt start
by Sinithar
Honestly, I found Ethiopia pretty easy using this strategy. Whomever considers this cheating and/or feels uncomfortable with it, good luck going for it another way. So basically, as previously stated, the only real problem is getting a religion. This problem is easyly solved by starting with Egypt, building Stonehenge and The Oracle in Niwt Rst or any other city, keep it poorly guarded, and then simply taking over that city with the Ethiopians. This way, you get a great prophet pretty fast (if you get one before Ethiopia rises, you can send it to the Ethiopian respawn point so that they'll automatically gets it), and bulb Theology, and thus scoring Christianity, no sweat.
Moreover, this strategy grants you marble, stone, and most importantly, copper for cute little axmen against those pesky Impis.
