Ethiopia is the latest Civilization added for the game’s New Frontier expansion. This guide will look at their strengths, and how to use them.
Civilization 6’s New Frontier Expansion just received its second wave of content, featuring Ethiopia as this month’s new civilization. Led by Menelik II, Ethiopia focuses on faith to advance through the eras, leans toward culture bonuses, and benefits from hill terrain.
There’s a lot to keep track of to ensure Ethiopia’s success, so here’s a strategy guide that explains their unique abilities, how they’re used, and how to achieve victory.
Menelik II’s ability, Council of Ministers, is all about hill terrain. It grants Ethiopia’s units +4 combat strength when fighting in hills, giving players an advantage when stationed there. While this boon is quite useful throughout the game, it’s second ability is immensely more powerful: Cities founded on hills gain science and culture equal to 15% of the faith, a currency, generated in that city. This alone makes Ethiopia a strong contender as one of the best faith-focused Civilizations in the game, as the player can advance through the technology trees as they devote their production to other endeavors. Science and culture are required for researching new technologies and civics respectfully. These 2 yields can be harder to obtain, typically by building campuses, for science, or theater squares, for culture. Council of Ministers lets Ethiopia acquire these yields, and make progress through the tech trees, while they build up faith. To win Civilization games, players will need to multitask their production and resources to create a balanced kingdom which is not slacking in any one field, whether this is in science research of economic developments. Ethiopia can tackle two parts of the game at once when they generate lots of faith, allowing them to focus on other areas. Basically, building up lots of faith lets Ethiopia multitask!
As Council of Ministers provides bonuses for having lots of faith, Aksumite Legacy, Ethiopia’s civilization ability, grants faith itself. Each improved resource, like horses or wheat, in the city’s range grants +1 faith to that city. Normally, cities gain yields from tiles or from buildings. The number of tiles a city can use at once is based on its current population, so players need to choose which tiles to work based on their current population. Aksumite Legacy will always grant faith regardless of whether that resource is being worked, so it’s a permanent buff that lasts forever. Considering that the population is lower at the start of the game, Ethiopia is able to gain this bonus faith regardless of its population level so long as those resources have been improved. Aksumite Legacy also grants faith to foreign trade routes for each of its own improved resources, so look out for trading partners that can improve Ethiopia’s faith yield even further.
Unlocked early on with the Drama and Poetry civic, Rock-Hewn Churches are Ethiopia’s unique improvement. They can only be placed on hills, or volcanic soil if the player has the Gathering Storm expansion, and yield faith equal to the number of adjacent mountains and hills (or just +1 faith if there aren’t any). When placed correctly, they can provide a large quantity of faith early on, which synergies perfectly with the bonus from Council of Ministers. Building as many as possible will help improve Ethiopia’s faith generation substantially, but they can’t be placed next to each other. Use the in-game tile marker to plan out which hills make for the best Rock-Hewn church to optimize their faith output.
The Oromo Cavalry, famous for defending Ethiopia from the Italians in real life, is this civilization’s unique unit. They are slightly stronger than the Coursers they replace, but their real strength is their incredible mobility. Hill tiles typically impede military units, but Oromo cavalry traverses them as if flatland terrain. Add on to the Courser ability to bypass enemy zone of control, meaning they can pass tiles adjacent to enemy units, and this horseback unit has free reign over hilly areas. As Ethiopian cities will primarily be in hills to benefit from the Council of Ministers’ ability, the Oromo cavalry will let players confidently defend those areas from aggressive foes.
Ethiopia’s Play Style In Civilization 6
When settling cities with Ethiopia, there are 2 things to keep in mind: Hills and resources. Without settling in hills, they won’t obtain their passive science and culture from Council of Ministers, so be sure to settle every city on hills. Even if this means taking the time to move the starting settler into the right position, the lasting impact of the ability will make up for the lost time. Also be sure to settle in areas rich with resources, as each one will help improve the faith gained from Aksumite Legacy. Mountains are useful for strong Holy Site adjacency, which will buff Council of Ministers further, and are important for the Rock Hewn Church Improvement, so prioritize settling in those areas.
The first thing Ethiopia should usually build is a scout. This is normal for most civilizations, but because Ethiopia depends on hills and resources to thrive, they will need to scout out and secure those locations as soon as possible. While this is going down, start researching Astrology for Holy Sites. Thanks to their natural faith accumulation, Ethiopia can play the religious game very well (the units required to spread religion are purchased with faith), so building a Holy Site will get that ball rolling. Another particularly important part of Ethiopia’s early game to-do list is making a builder. Because the bonus faith from resources is only gained if they’re improved, players will want to get a builder ready as soon as possible to improve said resources. What resources are available also changes the research order, so research Animal Husbandry if there are lots of sheep in the vicinity. Don’t forget training new settlers; every civilization needs to do that to found new cities. To summarize, early-game Ethiopia should focus on scouting territory for hills, improving resources, and founding a religion to maximize the bonuses from their abilities.
Because Ethiopia gains so much from generating faith, what religious beliefs they pick can greatly amplify their potential. Most pantheons improve yields to certain resources that can be another source of faith. Earth Goddess, which grants tiles faith based on how appealing said tile is, can be an amazing choice if available. The Rock-Hewn Churches also improve their tile’s appeal by 1, making this a more viable option than normal. Speaking of pantheons, Ethiopia is in a good position to get their pantheon early because they generate faith, needed to found a pantheon, from resources; another reason to quickly improve said resources. When picking religious beliefs as Ethiopia, it’s important to pick ones that increase faith to benefit the Council of Minister’s ability. The Dar-e-Mehr building is great for this, as it normally grants an additional +1 faith per era since it was built, on top of +3 faith. This means the faith bonus will gradually increase over the course of the game, provided they aren’t pillaged. If that building is already taken, Synagogues, which yield +5 faith, are a solid pick. Spreading religion with Ethiopia is easy thanks to their surplus of faith, so pick religious beliefs that grant bonuses to having a widespread religion such as World Church, which grants bonus culture based on how many followers there are.
Once players have all their cities settled, they should start building Theater Squares. The Aksumite Legacy ability also lets Ethiopia purchase Archaeological Museums and Archaeologists with faith, so building many Theater Squares will let Ethiopia take advantage of this skill. Archaeologists themselves are expensive to purchase with gold and take a long time to train, so having them available at a fixed price makes them much easier to use. Also by mid-game, Ethiopia should have spread their religion out as far as they can, likely taking out a neighboring religion or 2 if possible. Religious victories are possible the earliest in the game, and Ethiopia has a solid chance of obtaining one thanks to their ludicrous faith output. At this point in the game, Ethiopia will have lots of cities each with its own improved resources and Rock-Hewn Churches, meaning their faith income should be extremely high. Use this to purchase more and more religious units to spread their religion farther, in hopes of a religious victory.
By late game, players should realize if they are able to win a religious victory or not, as some civilizations may have too strong of a religion to counter. The cost of religious units increases every time they’re purchased, making them harder to obtain as the game goes on. Fortunately, Ethiopia can easily transition into a Culture victory rather well. The Naturalist unit, required for making national parks, is purchased with the faith Ethiopia will have no shortage of. Not to mention, the Archaeological Museums that Ethiopia has easier access to will yield tourism for each artifact placed. The unique Rock-Hewn Churches will also generate a little tourism once the flight technology is unlocked. While Ethiopia’s faith will let them pursue a religious victory, the pieces are already in place to go for a Culture victory.
The Ethiopian Herald July 30, 2020
BY JACK VANDER
