Hey guys, Spirit of the Law here. This Civ overview is going to be all about the Ethiopians.
Not only do their bonuses look really strong on paper and help with a variety of early game strategies,
But their tech tree also has some really pleasant surprises,
Especially the siege. In fact, I would say siege defines them much more than archers, but we'll get into that a bit later.
Let's check them out.
The Ethiopian team bonus is that their towers and outposts have +3 line-of-sight. You can see on a watchtower that's actually quite a bit.
Of course, that's in every direction, so the number of extra tiles you're seeing can be larger than you'd expect.
Now line of sight is increased in a few different ways, like with Town Watch and range upgrades.
Maybe surprisingly though, the maximum possible line of sight for a tower is secretly capped at 20 tiles.
So in the post-Imperial age, they don't actually end up being able to see more than anyone else's.
It's the same thing for outposts.
As Ethiopians, it just means Town Patrol is giving you less than usual.
Some of you may have noticed a similar cap also exists on the range of units, which maxes out at 21.
Overall I consider this a pretty weak team bonus.
Line of sight on outpost is occasionally nice if you're worried the other team might cut through a forest.
But since they end up with a normal line of sight in Imperial age anyway,
You're not actually getting anything out of it once you pick up Town Patrol.
The fact it's a team bonus though means it might come in handy for Korean or Teuton allies,
who are doing tower rushes with other bonuses for that already.
In fact, Koreans are a great ally for Ethiopians because of the way their team bonuses help each other out.
Now the first Civ bonus is that their archers fire 15% faster.
First of all, it's worth knowing what's being considered an archer in this context.
It turns out it's quite literal and just applies to the archer line.
Skirmishers and cavalry archers aren't affected at all.
With actual testing, the 15% turns out to be about plus 17% before thumb ring and plus 14% after.
Thumb ring, of course, increases the firing rate of archers, but the exact amount varies, depending on the unit.
Now, an extra 15% attack rate is pretty good in terms of damage per second.
But in practice, it's hard to nail down exactly how important that is.
The effect is relatively minor against skirmishers, for example, and
Even against generic crossbowmen the fights can still go either way with two AIs,
Which I think says something about the size of the bonus.
It's not as overwhelming as some other Archer bonuses like the Italians extra armor.
Overall, I'd say it's a solid Archer bonus without being overpowered.
It's gonna be doing the most in the late game with lots of arbalests attacking continuously.
But at the same time it's still helping with early game archers and crossbows, as well.
The next bonus is that they receive an extra hundred food and gold after every advance to the next age.
This is a very different sort of eco bonus
and they usually revolve around either discounts or collection rate increases that add up over time.
It actually reminds me a lot of the politicians in Age of Empires 3.
To get a sense of its effect size, it's roughly the same as temporarily having one or two extra farmers and gold miners while you advance.
If you're really good, that's something you can compensate for in how you distribute your villagers, taking one off gold for example.
Alternately you could also go up faster by sacrificing a bit of economy, and hitting slightly earlier times.
I do think it's a newer player mindset to think of advancing as a winning strategy in itself though.
You always want to make sure you have the economy when you hit the next age to do something productive with it.
Their last Civ bonus is that they get the Pikemen and Halberdier upgrades for free.
In terms of total resources, it's saving you 515 food and 690 gold, which, even on its own, is pretty strong.
You also have to add in the convenience of not having to remember those upgrades or wait for them to research.
It streamlines adding Pikemen to your crossbow army in castle age or to throw in as a melee unit with your siege
The 600 gold for Halberdier can be particularly inconvenient,
Since it's a unit you're more likely to turn to you as you run out of gold.
Just to use a worst case scenario,
assuming you have no gold left and want to get the gold for the halberd your upgrade by selling
resources at the market, the upgrade could set you back anywhere up to a maximum of 4600 food.
Again Ethiopians are getting it for free instantly in Imperial Age.
So those are their bonuses: you have one in there for archers, one for infantry, and the age-up bonus that theoretically helps any strategy,
including Scouts or Knights.
You have a lot of options available to you in the mid-game, which makes you unpredictable.
Speaking of fast and unpredictable, let's take a look at the unique unit, the Shotel Warrior.
Looking at their stats, What stands out the most is their incredibly high attack, much higher than the swordsmen line and on par with
Janissaries and war elephants.
That's offset by the fact that they also have unusually low HP and armor,
putting them still on roughly equal ground with the champion in melee fights with equal numbers.
In fact the champion seems like a fairly good comparison to me, with both of them being effective against largely the same sorts of units.
If anything, champions have a bit of an edge especially when you consider that Shotel Warriors cost nearly double the gold.
Ethiopians don't have access to champions though, so unless you're really short on gold or fighting Eagle Warriors,
The Shotel looks to be like the better option
The two units also share a similar weakness against range, with the champion performing slightly better, thanks to its extra HP
Over the long run, I'd say they're a worse performing and more gold intensive version of the champion
But with the hidden advantages of fast movement and an incredibly fast creation time.
They're also significantly better than champions at very quickly taking out siege and buildings.
The best strategy I found with them is the surprise Town Center raid.
Because of their high attack, even a relatively small group can take out a Town Center before the other player has time to react.
A tip about doing this is: instead of just clicking on the Town Center to attack,
Which makes them all bump into each other, you want to get them into the open area
That way when you click the Town Center, you can get them all attacking at once
Hopefully they haven't noticed you until their alarm goes off and by then it's far too late
But how many Shotel Warriors is enough to successfully take down a Town Center?
Of course it's going to depend on how many you're losing to enemy units and defensive buildings
But let's just take that out of the equation for the moment.
These are the numbers of attacks required against town centers with different combinations of upgrades.
Keep in mind you should always get the arson tech from the barracks when doing this if you can.
In general, It's a hundred and seventy attacks or less, and with large groups that adds up quickly.
For example, it only takes 17 Shotel Warriors in Castle Age to take out a fully garrison town center with masonry,
and just ten are enough against a fully garrison town center in Imperial Age.
That compares quite favorably to some other town center sniping units.
A good rule of thumb is that four Shotel Warriors are about the equivalent of a battering ram in terms of damage per second.
Military buildings or houses are also good targets, but generally a Town Center does the most damage to their economy.
Just a quick thing to note though is that they aren't as great against
Castles, where they need more than 20 to bring one down and the losses are much higher.
I see a castle drop and Shotel Warriors as a surprise novelty strategy,
and much more risky than the standard knights, or crossbows.
Don't forget their faster creation time can also be useful defensively, and work a bit like Minutemen from Age of Empires 3.
Speaking of which, their already fast creation time is helped even more by their unique tech, Royal Heirs,
Which allows Shotel Warriors to be created, quote, "nearly instantly".
So what is "nearly instantly" mean? Well, before the tech they're created at a castle in eight seconds
That's pretty fast. For comparison a long swordsman is 21 seconds and an Eagle Warrior is 32.
After royal heirs that eight seconds becomes four. That even drops to 3 seconds after Conscription.
As a reference, Goths create Huscarls at the barracks at the relatively slow rate of one every five seconds
Ethiopians can do even better though. With a Berber ally making their castles work faster, the three second creation time actually drops to 2.4.
That makes a forward castle from an Ethiopian player particularly dangerous. Just one has the output of roughly 5 Barracks.
Again, that can be used defensively as well to create a quick army if you're raided or to take down rams, trebuchets, or bombard towers attacking your castles.
For a unit that doesn't hold up well as the bulk of an army, it certainly finds situational uses, thanks almost entirely to that nearly instant creation.
Moving on their second unique tech is torsion engines which says it increases the blast radius on siege workshop units.
Arguably the most affected by this is the Mangonel and Onager line.
Now, while it's true, that one thing it's doing is changing the affected area from a 3x3 to roughly a
5x5 the actual damage in that extra area of attack is quite small, usually 10 damage or less.
To me, that's not what makes this technology really good.
The secret thing it's also doing is increasing the damage within the original 3x3 area
Onagers don't just deal their full advertised damage to everything they hit
It's a bit more complicated than that.
After torsion engines they do roughly the same damage to the center tile but anywhere from 20 to a 100 percent more damage in the tiles immediately around it.
Yes, the area of attack is larger, but most of the extra damage is concentrated in the middle,
You could go as far as argue that this makes them the best
Onagers in the game, with an even higher damage output
potential than Celts if the enemy units are even sort of close together
I say you could argue it because the Celts also have extra HP on top of their faster firing rate
Which I consider more useful than pure damage output.
And there are other candidates like
Koreans with their better range and Mongols with their faster movement rate.
The main point though is even if it doesn't advertise it, Ethiopian Siege Onagers hit harder than anyone else's.
It also means they get the most friendly fire. Though if you're doing it right you're hitting the enemy more than your own units.
That doesn't mean it's always the case, but, you know, you try your best.
Now Rams work a bit differently, they actually do hit with their full damage to every tile in what I'll call their damage zone.
With Torsion Engines, that area increases as advertised and the damage to each tile is the same.
Arguably the most important tile to be aware of is the one directly in front which
Extends their maximum range and can break through three consecutive walls at once.
That even works if there's a space in between.
Now, Scorpions are also affected in a comparable way.
Without Torsion Engines, each bolt damages in a straight line about half a tile wide, doing full damage to the targeted unit and half to everything else
After getting Torsion Engines the damage to each unit is the same,
But the bolt is effectively doubled in width, to a full tile.
Keep in mind units aren't normally this tightly packed so this doesn't necessarily mean they're going to do double their damage output in a real situation
It may only be an extra hit here and there.
Now as for bombard cannons, it's the same sort of thing as Siege Onagers.
Normally, they just damage the single tile that a unit is on, but after Torsion Engines,
They do a bit of damage to the surrounding ones.
Depending on how tightly packed the enemy units are, that could either mean nothing or it could mean double the damage.
As a general rule the more tightly packed your enemy's units are the better the Ethiopian siege is going to look.
Just to clarify something though, the extra damage output is because of the extra units in the blast radius
It's not because they have a higher attack.
Against an individual unit or building
Ethiopian siege units do the exact same damage as any other.
So that's the unique units and techs. while the Civ bonuses push you toward a balanced army composition of
Infantry and archers the castle seems much more geared toward giving you some powerful options to finish the game by tearing down buildings
Whether that be with Shotel Warriors, or siege. Next we'll take a look at their tech tree starting with the archers
It's a really strong early game with the extra gold and food after hitting Feudal Age, combined with the archers themselves firing 15% faster.
In the late game, they have fully upgraded Arbalests, still with faster firing, and access to Heavy Cavalry Archer,
Though you probably won't use that on account of missing Parthian tactics and Bloodlines.
A big blemish is the lack of Hand Cannoneer, though Arbalests and siege can generally handle any infantry you run into.
Overall I'd say it's an A - for archers, but an A+ for the archer rush next up is infantry.
It's a little unusual for a civilization to be missing champion,
But in this case it's offset by the option of Shotel Warriors. They can fill a similar though at the cost of higher gold.
I'd also consider the free Pike and Halberdier upgrades to be a major convenience and make transitioning into those units seamless
Altogether though I'd say it's a B for infantry.
They play a role but are a long way from the top tier infantry civilizations like Goths and Japanese.
Moving on now to cavalry there's no Bloodlines, Paladin or Plate Barding Armor
Which is quite a lot to be missing. The Knight rush still has a lot of potential
given the extra food and gold you receive, though the effect of that bonus can wear off if you continue to make Knights over an extended period.
You do have camels, but again statistically they're quite weak on account of the missing techs
I'd say it's a C+ for cavalry.
There are some options,
But the unit's themselves are just too weak to hold up over the long run.
Things really step up next though with siege.
This is the only complete siege tree for any civilization
And it also comes with the unique rech Torsion Engines for Siege Onager, the extra blast radius itself isn't too impressive.
But the extra damage in the normal 3x3 makes your shots much more effective against bunched up units.
Considering all the siege options are available and how improved many of them are I'm gonna say it's an A+ for siege.
That's one step up from Mongols and Koreans, and on the same level as Celts which feels about right to me.
Next up is Navy.
There's no wood bonus, and they're missing a few late-game options.
So it's not overly impressive. To me the early game is a pretty generic B-.
Later on even with the missing techs the galleon is fully upgraded so they can certainly hold their own.
I'd say it's a B- in the late game as well. Now. let's take a quick look at the monks.
There's only two missing techs, but I'd say they're two of the most important.
No redemption means you won't be able to convert buildings or siege and no block printing means they don't get the extra
+3 range in the late game, making them a lot more vulnerable to
Cavalry and ranged units. The extra gold from advancing makes them somewhat tempting to try a monk rush if you're feeling daring
But I just think there's better civilizations for that. Again, I'm gonna go with a B-.
They're good for collecting relics and converting Knights, but not usually for much else.
Moving on to defenses having Bracer is nice,
And so is the option for Architecture and Fortified Walls.
The tower bonus is a bit deceptive as they don't really have much going on for towers, otherwise.
There's no arrow slits, bombard tower, or even treadmill crane. I'm gonna say it's a B.
Which is helped out by the fast creation time of the Shotel Warrior, and the free upgrades for the Halberdier since I found
Both of those units can be especially useful when you're on the back foot.
Next up is Economy, again the free resources every age are significant and help with nearly every strategy
They're completely generic in Dark Age and do drop off a lot in the late game
But have a solid economy in the middle which can have a big effect on your momentum
I'm gonna say it's a B for economy
But I'd probably consider it higher if the map lends itself to early aggression.
So just to wrap up with a few gameplay thoughts like I said
I consider them overall a good civilization for Feudal or Castle Age
aggression the archer rush and fast castle into Knights are popular strategies and
Ethiopians are quite good at both the fact
You also have the Pikemen upgrade for free and usually don't have to go out of your way for a barracks means
They're particularly easy to mix in if you feel the need. If those strategies don't work for a particular map
Or you want to do something a bit unexpected a castle drop right outside the enemy base is also extra dangerous for an opponent,
Given the quick creation time and braiding potential of the Shotel Warriors
They're a bit resource intensive to make, but if you can sneak even a modest army into someone's base
Unexpectedly, it can easily end the game or at least mess up their economy for a long time.
They're also quite good on closed Maps like Black Forest where you have the best siege tree of any
Civilization to look forward to the mass Onager and Halberdier combination is very popular online for a good reason.
It's hard to counter and the Ethiopians seem specially designed to encourage that strategy. If at any point
It's not working you have other strong options like ramss,
Bombard cannons or the fastest firing Arbalests in the game. The big weakness is the lack of late-game
cavalry since they're missing bloodlines and plate barding armor
But they are still usable in
Situations where you need to send units around quickly.
The main thing is that they just don't fight in one place for too long in fact
I'd say that goes for the
Ethiopians infantry units as well
Their main role is just to put something between your ranged units and the enemy. If things are looking hairy just, Planar Cleanse them with
Your Onagers. It's better than a few enemy units getting through your lines. Those are my thoughts on the Ethiopians
Thanks for watching guys, and I'll see you next time