ALC 15 Pre-Game Show: Playing as Mehmed

In the next ALC game, I'll be playing as Mehmed II, leader of the Ottoman Empire. This thread is to discuss, before the game, how to best exploit that particular leader's characteristics, which is the main feature and purpose of the ALC series. Just so we're clear, I'm playing with the Warlords expansion pack and the difficulty level will be Monarch. The speed is Epic, the map is Fractal. Here's the fact sheet:

Traits: Expansive (+2 health per city. Double production speed of worker, granary, and harbor.) and Organized (Civic upkeep reduced 50 percent. Double production speed of lighthouse, courthouse, and factory.)
Starting Techs: Agriculture and the Wheel
Unique Unit: Janissary (Replaces Musketman; Strength: 9, Movement: 1, Cost: 80; Unique Characteristics: +25% vs. archery, melee, and mounted units.)
Unique Building: Hammam (Replaces Aqueduct; Cost: 100; Requires: Masonry and Mathematics; Unique Characteristics: +2 Happiness points)

As I wrote up that list of unique characteristics, I got more and more impressed. Mehmed has 5 cheap buildings, all of them pretty darned handy, a very useful cheap unit, 2 very useful starting techs, an outstanding UB that improves both health and happiness, and a UU that can, albeit briefly, kick the sorry butt of just about any non-gunpowder unit. This guy ought to totally pwn, don't you think?

Where to begin? Let's start with the traits. Expansive is one of those traits whose power is hidden. +2 health doesn't seem like much, and it isn't. The advantage comes from one of the cheap buildings: granaries. As I discovered in the Victoria game way back when, what you want to do with an Expansive leader is prioritize Pottery, whip those cheap granaries into existence, and keep whipping, since the granaries mean you'll have population for whipping that much sooner. The 2.08 patch has added cheap Workers, though they're only cheaper from hammers, not from food, unfortunately. Still, any advantage in getting such a vital unit built is sure to come in handy.

Okay, so we've got Pottery as an early game priority tech, and both the starting techs (Agriculture and the Wheel) help us there, providing prerequisites for it. Should we take an unusal tack and pursue Pottery as our first tech, get the granaries in place, then go for Mining and Bronze Working? We may want to slip Animal Husbandry in there after Pottery to reveal and claim horses for early defense, however. We may even want to consider chariot-rushing someone if the opportunity presents itself.

The other trait is Organized, one of my favourites. Cheap civics and a bevy of very useful cheap buildings. With both cheap harbours and cheap lighthouses, I think it makes sense to try to build several coastal cities. Mehmed is sure to be stong in the mid-game, able to run two of my favourite high-cost civics, Bureaucracy and Organized Religion, at half price.

The Janissary, like the French Musketeer, just begs for a bee-line to Gunpowder--maybe even as a free tech from Liberalism? Although Nationalism also has its appeal there, since it would allow us to draft Janissaries. The Ottoman UU, like its ordinary counterpart, has a short shelf life. The way to get the most out of it is to get to gunpowder early and get the units built ASAP. I'll be very interested in hearing your ideas on achieveing those goals.

Finally, the Hammam. Wow. How can you not like a building that gives you additional pre-Calendar happiness, when it's most needed and hardest to come by? Combined with the quadrupled health bonus of the UB and the Expansive trait, I think Mathematics is a target tech. And why not go after the Hanging Gardens? We'll have the happiness and the health to handle the additional citizens, or we could always whip them away.

Overall, Mehmed strikes me as a very strong leader with many benefits. His shortcomings appear to be (a) no huge economic advantages beyond cut-rate civics and (b) a unique unit with an imminent best before date. I see myself going after one of the more peaceful victory conditions--space race or diplomatic, following an early war of expansion and a quick mid-game war with Janissaries.

Why would you want pottery first? You can't whip granaries without BW, and i think using your precious hammers that early for it isn't worth it. Going for BW then Pottery, or AH for horses/defense then pottery seems better in my opinion.

(maybe if you get a flood plain start, cottaging them early might be a reason to do this?)

But i would be interested in some more arguments why it would be a good idea, so explain!

One of the advantages of the expansionistic trait is that it becomes really easy to whip out workers. You can whip one with a single population point, after the crucial 1st turn of production of course.

Unlike my normal games, when I have an expansionistic leader, I don't lead with a worker, but instead let my city grow to size two (building additional units to explore) before whipping out a worker. New cities build a granery until they reach size two, and then whip out a worker... and then finish the granery.

Sjaramei said:

Why would you want pottery first? You can't whip granaries without BW, and i think using your precious hammers that early for it isn't worth it. Going for BW then Pottery, or AH for horses/defense then pottery seems better in my opinion.

(maybe if you get a flood plain start, cottaging them early might be a reason to do this?)

But i would be interested in some more arguments why it would be a good idea, so explain!

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A good point about putting the cart before the horse, (or the pot before the whip... or something ). However, yes, it may depend upon the start.

A very early granary will push the population to an earlier than usual happycap, so the heavy whipping that Sisiutil is contemplating can begin that much sooner. I like it. If the capital happens to be situation such that cottage-spamming is called for, so much the better.

I think this calls for a worker first almost certainly, even without seeing the start. I mean, double production of the woker, and farms and roads available. Plus the first techs will probably be mining, BW, pottery, and AH. There will be plenty for him and his partner (chopped) to do!

My early thoughts after playing a couple of expansive games, neither as mehmed, is to exploit the whip/granary option assuming plains etc start or if jungle is nearby to plant city two in the middle and beeline to IW making use of all those workers we can quickly generate.

Agree with Sjaramei and recommend BW first.

No, absolutely not pottery before BW. Happy cap is low enough that you benefit way more from workers that can chop a settler or another worker, than from a granary that keeps pushing you into the happy cap early on. You can't (or rather, shouldn't) be immediately building granary-aqueduct just for the sake of that combo. Get them a bit earlier than normal but not right off the bat.

I played a recent game as Mehmed in which I warred early and often and got double-teamed at one point when Rome bribed an otherwised Pleased Carthage to attack my other flank. Although my main offense was made up of cats, jumbos, swords, and axes, and later on Grens, Janissaries helped--but mainly by tagging along with my offensive stacks and by securing recently-captured cities while the bulk of my army marched on.

Janissaries last longer than you might think, as those +25% bonuses make them significantly stronger against non-gunpowder units, of which there will be plenty because the AI doesn't usually upgrade its entire army that quickly after discovering gunpowder. They make excellent midgame city defenders as the AI typically won't rush you with riflemen, and if the AI rushes you with muskets your fortify/city defense gives your Janissary the edge.

I wanna see the start before suggesting a research path.

you may have a idle worker if you go pottery too soon. k, you could road, but where's the profit in that?

Jannisaries are lots of fun on epic when you have more time to play...

Mehmed is amazing for running a SE with his gigantic cities and cheap courthouses and civic upkeep allows for a large empire. Jannisaries aren't that amazing imo, but his traits are what you should really aim to leverage. Hope for a bunch of high food locations and run away with tech. As always, axe rush your nearest neighbor. I agree with pottery>mining>BW, of course if you get a fishy start i'd do pottery>fishing (get granaries before getting fish hooked up for optimal whipping, with a heavy seafood start you'll need to whip off those angry citizens early on anyways)>mining>BW, it may delay bronzeworking but you can make up for turns lost on axe production with the good ol' whip.

But I figure the main problem with delaying BW is possibly missing out on bronze, if this happens Iron is often a good bet although your early war will be delayed, I'm sure you could handle slowing expansion down a notch after the Kublai GM "economy".

Kietharr said:

Mehmed is amazing for running a SE with his gigantic cities and cheap courthouses and civic upkeep allows for a large empire. Jannisaries aren't that amazing imo, but his traits are what you should really aim to leverage. Hope for a bunch of high food locations and run away with tech. As always, axe rush your nearest neighbor. I agree with pottery>mining>BW, of course if you get a fishy start i'd do pottery>fishing (get granaries before getting fish hooked up for optimal whipping, with a heavy seafood start you'll need to whip off those angry citizens early on anyways)>mining>BW, it may delay bronzeworking but you can make up for turns lost on axe production with the good ol' whip.

But I figure the main problem with delaying BW is possibly missing out on bronze, if this happens Iron is often a good bet although your early war will be delayed, I'm sure you could handle slowing expansion down a notch after the Kublai GM "economy".

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Wait, so you plan to immediately build a granary after getting pottery, and then what? You build a worker or settler, right? And that worker or settler stalls pop growth which is the whole point of having the granary in the first place. Better to build that first settler and worker (or maybe even 2 workers and a settler, depending on the map) and THEN a granary, which means pottery doesn't need to be first tech. Not to mention happy cap problems with getting too huge of a city early on. I suppose you could granary first and then whip but that just seems silly to have to whip out a worker and add the early unhappy when you could do the normal way just as quickly if not more quickly, and get BW earlier to see where to plant that 2nd city (among other things).

Sisiutil said:

(+2 health per city. Double production speed of worker, granary, and harbor.)

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I believe you've made a mistake it's +50% Production to Worker (not double Production), It's similar to the Imperialist trait giving a +50% boost to setters.

an early Ganary isn't that good unless you have Slavery,(Assuming I research Pottery first) I'd try to time the construction of my Ganary with the research of BW. If not then I'd try to research/time the research of Pottery the the time my 2nd City completes it's Monument so I can immediately build a ganary there.

An early Worker is a given, but make sure it's working, you don't want to waste turns having it being Idol, I guess you could have it build roads as you begin with the wheel.

the Liberalism beeline begs to you build the GL, all those GS are needed to lightbulb those key liberalism techs (Philosophy, Paper, Education), plus those an early Academy before researching CS will help too.

I'll Assuming you want to Produce your UUs quite quickly before they become obsolete, so the Liberalism beeline to pickup Nationalism as free tech and researching Gunpowder is a definite.

Make sure before hand you have Drama for theaters and the Culture slider. Theology for Theocracy and also make sure all if not, most of your cities have your State Religion so you can draft your UU with 2XP for a Promotion, Make sure they have Barracks too.

You may not use this method but I generally run my culutre silder in an extreem case as high as 40% combined with theaters and Collosseums for an extra 10 Happiness points so I can draft an extra 3 units per city for a extremely huge army of UU muskets, but I only go that far for Louis because he's Creative (for cheap theaters and Colloseums) but it's an option.

Going as far is 20% should be fine for an extra 4 Happy Points (includes theater) 2 Happy points from Barracks and 4 from Culture Slider, will be enough for 2 Drafts per a city, you get another 2 from UB but I generally usethat Happiness for pop Growing, as it comes quite early.

While you wait for your UU for war, build up alot of Seige units, as your UU won't have a counter until gunpowder for the Pinch Promotion.

While you wait for your UU for war, build up alot of Seige units.

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Sisiutil wait for war? Hah!

I agree with the Pottery-BW initial tech path. After that, why not do a Oracle slingshot to Code of Laws? I know you've been weened off your Wonder addiction, but I think for Mehmed it would be appropriate. We'd want to see if there is a Marble resource around the start location before deciding on that.

I'm not so keen on the Liberalism beeline this time around. If we want to leverage the UU at all, we'll need to go for Gunpowder before the AI can grab it. It's not much of a detour from Liberalism, but we'll probably lose the race to Mansa (50 bucks says he shows up again).

It's always hard to predict the early techs before you've even rolled a start, but mining then BW would seem a good choice.

AH, Pottery, Writing then Maths, your citizens will love whipping those Hammams, happily sacrificing themselves.
Hanging Gardens as well maybe? With all that health from expansive, hammams and HG you'll be ready to run the London Marathon.

Of course you may end up on the coast and need fishing early, so who knows what path you may go down.

I always love the bottom of the tech tree anyway, Gunpowder, Chemistry, Steel, so with your UU I would certainly be looking at that area as soon as possible.

Anyway, whatever path you choose I'll be watching and wishing you good luck.

I just realized, after your Liberalism beeline, if you have Nationalism Gunpowder and Music, you can beeline to Military Tradition for Early Cavalry combined with your UU you'll be unstoppable, or you can do the tried and true method of Engineering and Chemistry for Grenadiers, but that's boring, try something different.

kniteowl said:

I just realized, after your Liberalism beeline, if you have Nationalism Gunpowder and Music, you can beeline to Military Tradition for Early Cavalry combined with your UU you'll be unstoppable, or you can do the tried and true method of Engineering and Chemistry for Grenadiers, but that's boring, try something different.

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There's nothing more boring than the Liberalism beeline with a few lighbulbs along the way.

PublicEnemy said:

There's nothing more boring than the Liberalism beeline with a few lighbulbs along the way.

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Do you know another effective method, where you could use to research gunpowder and build your UUs quickly while they're useful and not used for City Garrison duty?

The southern route, Metal Casting, Machinery,(Monarchy or Montheism, Fuedalism) and Guilds, maybe faster but your economy would suffer and your neglecting the Economic techs and Medmed doesn't have any leveraging economic traits apart from half cost civics Organized.

Besides I don't see the point in the ALC to obsolete your own UU by researching a better tech when your trying to keep them useful for as long as possible.

kniteowl said:

Besides I don't see the point in the ALC to obsolete your own UU by researching a better tech when your trying to keep them useful for as long as possible.

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It does make sense to want to get the most out of the UU, especially in the ALC series.
Hopefully with the game being played on Epic we will see plenty of UU action in this game, because missing Chemistry to avoid making the UU obsolete is probably not the point of the game. I would assume that making the best use of it in its available window is really the point.

like I said before, i wanna see the start.

but, what if S does no big wonders before say, GL? think SE and axe rush.

PublicEnemy said:

It does make sense to want to get the most out of the UU, especially in the ALC series.
Hopefully with the game being played on Epic we will see plenty of UU action in this game, because missing Chemistry to avoid making the UU obsolete is probably not the point of the game. I would assume that making the best use of it in its available window is really the point.

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I agree although, it's pretty obvious most people would want to see the UU used within a reasonable timeframe, before Grenadiers take over, most likely when the AI researches gunpowder themselves, it 's time for us to pick up Chemistry and Steel.