Talk:Ethiopians/@comment-1643434-20160202105544

i've played this civ a lot and i really love them. however, i think it's wrong to say their an archer civ. their ideal composition endgame consists of a halb/skirm flood used to escort large groups of siege onagers, backed up by bombards, siege rams and trebs to counter enemy siege, break through walls and take out castles respectively.

Economy-wise, they don't have a specific bonus to this end, but their late game eco is pretty well-rounded and the gold+food they earn and save from aging up and getting free spearman line upgrades leaves them with ~600 food and 1k gold once they hit Imp that other civs wouldn't have, though most of it is pre-invested in your spearman line of infantry. on the plus side, this pre-investment will work in your favour if you have to build spearmen to defend at any point: your barracks will always have a counter to enemy cavalry readily availible, and your troops will "level up" along with your civ as you age up. As long as you're being an active military presence, it's fair to say the Ethiopians have a decently strong economy, though it is a little slow to start up.

Their foot archers are fantastic, of course, but they're probably not your best bet as a core unit all game. They're too easy to kill for their cost in Imperial, so you'll make the best use of them defensively and offensively in the feudal age and castle age. This is good, because you'll need them to fend off enemy cavalry in these ages where they tend to dominate (maxed out scouts in feudal and knights in general in castle are usually the archer's worst nightmare).

You still have plenty of power in the Imperial Age, as their siege line is impeccable. their siege onagers do less total DPS and are less tanky than the celts and the koreans have a reach advantage but the Ethiopian siege onager has a shockingly wide kill-range making them devestating when used in their intended role, arguably doing the best at it since their wide AOE shots tend to do the best job of hitting troops advancing towards them. Torsion engines also makes their siege rams hit all buildings in a five or six square radius in EVERY DIRECTION, meaning even a few ungarrisoned rams can flatten large clutches of buildings and punch wide holes in walls with relative ease. they have access to Bombard Cannons which, on top of being an OK replacement for trebuchets, do a great job of taking out enemy siege from a range (since you can't send out cavalry to dismantle it the old-fashioned way). The Ethiopians are great at punching through enemy defenses with their rams/trebs and then flooding the openings with halberds and skirms, backed up by siege onagers to threaten enemy formations and clear out less dangerous buildings

In general the Ethiopians don't have a very flexible set of strategies but the ones they do have are powerful. Lacking good stable units and cav archers defines them as much as their foot archer bonus does, since they don't really have any hit-and-run options avaible to them. They have to stand their ground and win each fight using infantry and siege in complimentary roles. You wont be doing much raiding (Shotel Warriors are said to be good for raiding but in practice they're generally too squishy and slow to replace knights) so you don't have the option of simply slowing down your opponent. you've got to smash through the front door or attack from an unexpected angle. Luckily, the Ethiopian's bonuses are set up perfectly to start you up quickly, keep you safe from enemy cavalry, and get you to the later ages where you get access to your Siege and you can start controlling the game. Since you don't have a lot of strategic options as the Ethopians, you must establish yourself as the dominant player in the game ASAP. If you're forced to react to the enemy's strategy, you wont always have a good answer to it, especially if the enemy out-sieges you or builds an overwhelming amount of cavalry that can slip by your halberds and attack your economy directly.