Rhye's of Civilization Expanded - Ethiopian strategy
From Rhye's Mods Wiki
As Ethiopia, your main battle will be against the land itself. Luckily you're agricultural, which helps. Too bad it doesn't make granaries a little cheaper too...
The first choice you'll have to make, is whether you're ready to settle down. If you don't mind a little loss of historicity, moving your settler one tile to the planes in the west, will give your capital larger potential. You can capture Egypt's worker with one of your first warriors, so you won't have to build one immediately yourself. Send a warrior to Carthage and grab it's goody huts. After a short while, the barbarians in the west will come over to play. They are quite harmles however, unless threatened. So simply block them off with some warriors until you can make a catapult to throw stones at them, forcing them to retreat. Your next city will be up north, as barbarians still hold the west. The third city goes on the plains near the east coast, or maybe further south near the horses. The first position may seem quite bad, but it offers some production and your ships will be safe from barbarians. Ships? Well...
As your land offers little production, conquering nearby Arabia is a good idea. And it's best to do so as fast as possible, before they grow too strong. Go for the sailing tech, and trade for other important techs. Because you won't have horses early on, catapults are a nice addition to your army. Upgrade your warriors to spearmen; you need every man you can get. You may consider calling in the help of the Hebrews. Their maccabees can kill some of Mecca's defenders, and additionally trigger Israel's golden age, helping them to produce Temple Mount. Which you, of course, will capture later on. By now, the nations of the Middle East have filled up their natural expansion space. So they will all be heading your way, to claim central and west Africa. You can take advantage of this by picking off settlers from nations you can afford going to war with. Each settler you capture gives you three much needed slaves. Egypt will be your favourite supplier, until you decide to destroy them. The next target is Israel. Their position allows for acces to the Mediterranian, provides additional salpeter, and - if all goes well - Temple Mount. In one of these wars you can trigger your golden age with an Oromo horseman. This first UU is somewhat cheap, and it's blitzing capability may prove useful. By the time you get chivalry, you've probably gotten behind in tech. Use your golden age to catch up, and to build the infrastructure needed to stay at the head of the race. Make sure you already have libraries in at least your top cities before you trigger it though. By choosing and trading your techs wisely, you will find yourself back at the top by the time your golden age ends.
To make best use of your native land, you should cut all forests to reveal normal plains, and plant new forests on the LM ones. Later on, clear all marches and cut the jungle. Expect it to take a while. It's not all bad though. There are sufficient resources at your disposal to make some money. Also, the India Trading Company is within reach because of easy acces to spices. What you don't have, is coal and iron. These can be traded for, or you can take both from the Zulu's with a single city. Don't underestimate the Zulu's, they have strength in numbers! Your second UU, the shifta, is rather unimpressive. You should have enough gold to upgrade to and support better units than that. But if you for some reason plan to unite Africa, they might be of use. As for actual victory conditions, a diplomatic victory is probably your best bet, if it can satisfy you.
Author: Perikles
