Rhye’s and Fall of Ethiopia
UHV
Ethiopias unique historic victory conditions are:
- Found one religion
- No European colonies in east and subequatorial Africa in 1500 AD
- No European colonies in east and subequatorial Africa in 1910 AD
Unique Power
Sovereignty: Ethiopian cities may not be claimed during a world congress.
Unique Building – Stele
Unique Unit – Oromo Warrior
The Ethiopian Oromo Warrior is very powerful and key to victory playing Rhye’s and Fall Ethiopia! It replaces the musketeer but has 1 first strike and starts with Drill 1 and 2, granting it more first strike chances. Depending on the situation you should go for Drill 3 as your first promotion. This makes your Oromo Warriors very powerful and versatile. Further enhance it with the usual garrison and hill bonus and they strongly support your defense of East Africa.
Ethiopian Strategy
Playing Rhye’s and Fall Ethiopia is incredibly ambivalent: Achieving the first goal is 95% depending on the AI and now on how you play. The rest of the game you will rule a small, weak empire, being hassled by Barbarians and despised by most other civilizations. So here’s how achieve the UHV:
Found a religion
- Find a good book or use dual screens and do something meaningful on the other screen.
- Start your Rhye’s and Fall Ethiopia game.
- Pray while watching the autoturns go by.
- If you’re lucky nobody has researched Theology before you spawn. You also need Jerusalem to be captured by a civ. If not it’s gonna be the (automatic) cradle of Christianity.
- Check the religion overview – if Christianity has already been founded -> go back to step 2
- Set your research path directly to Theology – there’s no faster way to get there
- Improve your resources (sheep and cow first), grow your city, build a library. Chop the nearby forest to speed it up. Remember: Once on the hill – build a road with both workers! This will save you a turn passing that hill again when improving the next cow. Improving your resources one turn earlier or later can make a huge difference here!
- Once you have the library – optimize for science (hire scientists as Aksum allows)!
- If this doesn’t get you Theology (and thus Christianity) -> reload at step 6 or go back to step 2
- Yehaah! You just fulfilled the 1st of 3 UHV conditions in Rhye’s and Fall Ethiopia!
No European colonies in east and sub-equatorial Africa in 1500 AD
Actually goal 2 and 3 are the same. Since the European can’t demand your cities in the World Congress, once you have covered the land in 1500 AD, there’s no way to lose it until 1910.
So how to cover the land?
In my first attempt after I finally founded Christianity I just settled the best spots in southern Africa, just as I would do as a European. Unfortunately sub-equatorial African cities give you a penalty on stability. In that attempt I went shaky, instable and collapsed around 1850. You will need to cover the maximum land with a minimum of cities.
I built only 4 cities covering the south of Africa:
- My first city (besides the capital) was founded 1 W 6 S of Aksum. Right beneath the mountain range, between the one mountain at the coast and the inland lake. I’m not sure anymore about my reasoning behind that: Getting the gems quicker? Covering more land towards the south? 1 NE of that position and I could have gotten the fish and the horses within city radius but I decided against it…
- The second and most important city goes into the middle of the Kalahari dessert in southern Africa: Gondar needs to be founded 4 tiles north of the south coast. Not besides the river – 1 tile south of it; 1 NW of the iron. It’s a shitty spot. Why there you will ask. Well: Once this city reaches 1000 culture (which you will push for) it will cover EXACTLY all tiles in South Africa. They will be out of city range, but nobody else can found a city there, which is your goal. With some farms and mines on iron and gems it’s gonna be quite okay later on.
- My 3rd city was Yeha (I think) at the east coast – basically somewhere between Gondar and the 2nd city, so that you cover the land there. Pick the best spot but take care that latest with the second border pop you’ll need to cover all land.
- The 4th city will be in Congo, where you will finally deny Africa to the Europeans.
Congratulations! You covered all the land and no European can settle in Africa anymore. What’s left to do until 1900?
Survival
If you spread Christianity across Europe, you won’t have many enemies, because you will share the same religion. This is an incredible advantage, because neither your economy nor you technology level can compete with Europe. So be nice and friendly. Sometimes it helps declaring war on China etc. when they do, so your friendship goes even deeper.
Place some units in the otherwise hidden areas of central Africa. This will reduce if not entirely prevent hordes of Impi spawn.
Mind your stability. Choose civics wisely and survive until the 20th century! If you get to 1900 AD without a civil war, you’ll achieve the UHV in Rhye’s and Fall Ethiopia!
The usual official strategy guides are still here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090514073418/http://rhye.civfanatics.net/wiki/index.php?title=Rhye%27s_and_Fall_of_Civilization_-_Ethiopian_strategy
Unlike for most other civilizations I don’t find this guide particularly helpful. Mainly because the settlements in that area will drain your stability, which will make your survival most unlikely.
Rhye’s and Fall Ethiopia – Beyond the UHV
In most of my games of Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization I tried to play the current civ until modern times. If that was successful I tried to gain world domination to eventually become the only one civilization left on Earth. While I came pretty close with Spain (only 2 other free civs left) the only civ I made it with was Ethiopia!
Here’s the story of the Rhye’s and Fall of Ethiopia until 2355 AD:
While the rest of the world was technologically far more advanced than I was they nuked themselves to ashed all the time. Empires rose and crumbled, while I slowly but surely caught up in technology (the other having the 20th future tech already). Having reached future tech I switched to 100% Gold. Nothing else matters.
With your economy slowly improving build the latest units: Some aircraft carriers including jet fighters, guarded by missile cruisers. Some transport ships carrying your most experienced units and some new modern armor. You will rarely engage in big wars with other civilizations. Instead what will keep you busy is: Whenever a civilization falls apart – go there, destroy the cities, prevent that civ from respawning.
This is gonna take a while: I started with Europe and America, because these areas will be settled again and again. For example I destroyed America and Europe. My vassal, Greece, resettled France. France spawned as a nation (became my vassal) and starting colonizing America again. Drove me crazy, but there’s nothing you can do.
Eventually all empires fall apart. So did I. I’ve had 6-8 civil wars. This is not a problem if your defense is normally placed 2 tiles outside your cities. When you crumble and your cities get independent, they won’t have any defense, so you can take back your African empire within one turn. There are two reasons why this strategy doesn’t work for other civilizations:
- Other civilizations have enemies – usually you can’t allow your defense to be placed 2 tiles outside your cities.
- Other civilizations have cultural influence by their neighbors. Remember: In Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization, when your empire crumbles, your cities go to the civilization with the biggest cultural influence in your cities. When I tried the same for America and I fell apart my cities went to the Vikings, Japan and Egypt (due to immigration, the Americans unique ability).
Finally in turn 815 (!!!) I destroyed the last Mongolian city and became the only remaining civilization on Earth!
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