David’s Thoughts on Civilization VI’s Ethiopia Pack

As of July 23rd, the second major piece of downloadable content for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI’s New Frontier Pass is now available for purchase, or as a free and automatic update for everyone who already owns the New Frontier Pass. I’m sure many of our recurring readers will know that I’ve pledged to cover every piece of DLC that ends up becoming part of the New Frontier Pass in some form. To that end, I’m quite excited to offer my thoughts on this content. Therefore, let us delay no further and get down to business, shall we?

The second DLC pack within Civ VI’s New Frontier Pass contains three main attractions. Namely, this pack adds Ethiopia as a new playable Civilization, it presents a new optional game mode known as “Secret Societies,” and it includes new versions of two existing leaders in the form of what are called “Persona Packs.” Let’s start by discussing these “Persona Packs,” then we can get to covering everything else included in this DLC pack.

Through these so-called “Persona Packs,” American leader Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt and French leader Catherine de Medici have received new playable iterations available to everyone who already owns or newly purchases the entirety of the New Frontier Pass. These new iterations include new character models, new gameplay agendas, and a fair bit more that I don’t totally understand quite yet.

For President Roosevelt’s part, his Persona Pack turns him into “Rough-Rider Teddy.” Civ VI developers Firaxis have said that this version of Teddy “excels at keeping the peace on his home continent.” To accomplish this, his leader-specific trait known as the “Roosevelt Corollary” grants all American military units +5 combat strength on their home continent. I’ve found that this bonus combat strength is quite useful, especially when paired with certain military-specific social policies.

Additionally, the act of sending an envoy to any city-state to which you have an active trade route counts as two envoys rather than one. This version of President Roosevelt also unlocks his eponymous “Rough Rider” unit upon unlocking the Rifling technology. Note that selecting this specific iteration of the American leader doesn’t mean you lose access to the other unique aspects of playing as America. You’ll still be able to produce such things as the P-51 Mustang unique air unit and the unique Film Studio building.

By comparison, through the aid of her unique Persona Pack, the Queen Mother of France becomes “Magnificence Catherine.” According to Firaxis, this version of Catherine de Medici seeks to essentially overwhelm opponents with culture and tourism via acquired luxury resources. To that end, Magnificence Catherine’s unique leader-specific ability grants the French empire +2 Culture for each improved luxury resource adjacent to a Theater Square district or to France’s unique builder improvement, the Château.

In addition, each city under Catherine’s rule which contains a Theater Square district automatically receives access to the Court Festival project. This project grants bonus Culture and Tourism based on the number of improved luxury resources in French territory. Due to this, Magnificence Catherine’s leader agenda means that she will try to acquire as many copies of various luxury resources as she can. Catherine will, therefore, tend to favor Civilizations who frequently trade such resources to her and dislike those who don’t.

Before I move on to the next main attraction in this DLC pack, there are two more things I want to explain about Persona Packs. Firstly, the act of enabling these packs does not eliminate the original versions of Teddy Roosevelt and Catherine de Medici. Should you wish to play as these versions, which are known as “Bull Moose” Teddy and “Black Queen” Catherine, respectively, you can absolutely do so. However, you cannot have both versions of either of these leaders in a game unless you disable the default limiters preventing you from doing so.

Secondly, I mentioned in my previous article on the New Frontier Pass that I hoped these packs would give these two leaders amusing new character models. It seems that Firaxis must have heard my plea, since their new outfits look endearingly ridiculous. To help illustrate my point, I ask that you gaze with me now upon the glory of Rough-Rider Teddy and Magnificence Catherine.

Let us now switch gears for awhile so that I may begin to discuss the addition of Ethiopia to the ranks of playable Civilizations. In this iteration, Ethiopia is led by Menelik II. Menelik’s leader-specific trait grants Ethiopia an additional bonus to Science and Culture equal to 15% of its Faith generation in all cities founded on hills. Ethiopian military units also receive a bonus +4 combat strength on hill tiles as the secondary aspect of Menelik’s unique ability.

In addition, Ethiopia’s “Aksumite Legacy” trait consists of two parts. Firstly, it grants all international trade routes +0.5 Faith for each resource (whether strategic or luxury) at the Ethiopian origin city. If these resources are improved, trade routes grant +1 Faith for each copy owned by that city. Secondly, this trait enables Ethiopia to purchase Archaeological Museums and all subsequent Archaeologists with Faith.

Ethiopia also brings its own unique unit and builder improvement to the metaphorical table. Its unique combat unit is a member of the light cavalry class and is known as the Oromo Cavalry. This unit can be built in place of the Courser; it is stronger in combat and has a greater sight range than the unit which it replaces. Ethiopia’s unique tile improvement is the Rock-Hewn Church. These improvements provide +1 Faith as a baseline, as well as an additional +1 Faith for each adjacent mountain and hill tile.

On top of all of that, the Rock-Hewn Church also provides +1 tile appeal and extra Tourism from Faith; the latter of these bonuses comes into effect once you research the Flight technology. It also cannot be destroyed by natural disasters. Bear in mind that these improvements can be pillaged, however. In exchange for everything provided by each Rock-Hewn Church, you’ll have to contend with the fact that these improvements can only be constructed on hills or volcanic soil and cannot be directly adjacent to another Rock-Hewn Church.

In all honesty, I’ve never come close to a successful attempt at a religious victory. Even so, I think Ethiopia would constitute a great candidate for that victory type due to its potential to generate massive amounts of Faith if you’re willing and able to play to Ethiopia’s strengths. Alternatively, if that plan fails, you could always fall back on a Science or Culture victory instead.

Granted, to accomplish that, you’ll need to found as many of your cities on suitable hill tiles as possible. However, I would honestly say contending with that stipulation is worth it in order to get the most out of the passive bonuses to Science and Culture within cities that meet this requirement. After all, if you find yourself locked out of a Religious victory despite generating tons of Faith every turn, you might as well put that extra Faith to good use by allowing it to boost your Science and Culture.

On a final note, I would definitely like to spend a fair bit of time discussing my thoughts on what I consider to be this DLC pack’s most intriguing aspect. Just as the first pack of the New Frontier Pass added the new, optional game stipulation known as “Apocalypse Mode,” so too does this pack add another way to shake things up in any given round of Civ VI. This new game mode, when enabled, adds four titular “Secret Societies.”

To put it bluntly, these are essentially cults with which every Civ present in a game can choose to become allied in order to receive unique bonuses as the game progresses. As I said, there are four of these “societies” to choose from. They’re known as the Voidsingers, the Sanguine Pact, the Hermetic Order, and the Owls of Minerva. In my experience, it’s possible to discover the existence of these societies by doing such things as sending a unit to examine a Tribal Village, for example.

Since these societies are relatively easy to discover, all things considered, I think it’s important to note that the act of finding one of them doesn’t mean you automatically join that society if you haven’t already pledged yourself to another. Rather, you’re free to take your time and decide which (if any) of the four of them you want to join. Bear in mind, however, that the act of joining a society binds you to it for the rest of the game.

Additionally, other Civs who have joined opposing societies may react to you with hostility or, by contrast, favor you if you’re both members of the same group. In the screenshot below this paragraph, I’ve included an example of the reprimanding dialogue you’ll likely get from the leaders of any Civs who have joined a society different to yours.

Once you discover a secret society, that society’s representative will appear on your governor management screen until you align yourself with any of the four clandestine groups. In order to officially join a society, you must simply spend a governor title to complete the initiation process with the group you’ve decided upon when you feel the time is right. Based on the occurrence of certain events, such as the act of finding a representative of an opposing society after you’ve already allied yourself with one of the four, joining a society will occasionally reward you with additional governor titles.

These can then be used to appoint and promote non-society governors in your cities. For example, there have been several occasions in my experience wherein I’ve joined the Owls of Minerva, encountered a random event wherein I met a member of the Voidsingers, and been granted a governor title by essentially showing the Voidsinger the error of their ways.

Considering how they’re represented in-game, the Voidsingers seem to worship the Lovecraftian Old God Cthulhu, or at least a being similar to Cthulhu. The Sanguine Pact, by contrast, is essentially an order composed entirely of vampires. They’re even kind enough to gift you with a unique Vampire military unit after you join them.

I’m not sure exactly how best to describe the Owls of Minerva or the Hermetic Order. However, I can tell you that the former involves itself in your gold per turn generation through its unique “governor” promotions. The latter instead has a different unique aspect in that it reveals the existence of special “ley lines” on otherwise ordinary tiles which boost the output of all nearby specialty districts.

There you have it, my friends! I’ve essentially summarized my thoughts on the newest downloadable content pack that falls under the banner of Civilization VI’s New Frontier Pass. Assuming everything regarding the pass proceeds as scheduled, I would expect the next major piece of DLC to be released sometime in September. As always, you have my word that I’ll cover the next DLC as best I can either here on the main site or on our YouTube channel once I’ve spent some quality time with it.

As an aside before I sign off, however, I feel compelled to mention that I’ve been uploading an entire beginner’s guide to Civilization VI on our channel since April. The guide covers the “vanilla” version of the game with no expansions, as well as both the Rise & Fall and Gathering Storm expansions in their own dedicated portions.

I did my best to explain the mechanics of the game in as much detail as I could think to muster as I recorded the guide. New episodes of the guide will be live on the channel every other Tuesday at precisely 1pm Pacific time until it reaches completion in December. If my recent coverage of Civ VI has gotten you interested in trying it for yourself, you can check out the playlist containing my beginner’s guide right here!