Nobles' Club XL: Mehmed II of the Ottomans

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Mehmed II of the Ottomans.

EXP means extra health for bigger cities sooner, whose maintenance you can afford because of ORG. Faster granary and harbour from EXP, and faster lighthouses, courthouses, and factories from ORG. All that means REXing or conquering a large early empire can make a lot of sense. The Ottomans start with the Wheel and Agriculture, which lets you go for pottery (and thus cheap granaries) very quickly.

• His UB: the Hammam.
  
  An aqueduct that gives +2; combined with Mehmed's EXP trait, this means you can get larger cities sooner.
• His UU: the Janissary.
  
  A musketman that gets +25% versus melee, archery, and mounted units: basically, everything he's likely to face if he gets to Gunpowder first. Musketmen are often looked down upon as not-very-strong units that are soon obsoleted by riflemen, but "soon" depends on your tech path, and Musketmen have no counter-unit until Riflemen. It might be worth beelining Gunpowder.

And the start:

Pigs, wheat, starting on a coastal plains hill on a river, with gems and ivory in the BFC; what's not to love? Concerning the map, which some players might prefer not to know:Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:

There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do request that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards.

Tentative posting updates are suggested at:

4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didnt, met other continent if applicable, etc)
1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)

Remember, these are only guidelines. What we really want are your thoughts as the game goes on, so if your strats don't fall into line with those dates, feel free to adjust your reports accordingly.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number or stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps for most of the series, and all of you for playing.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 40 Mehmed Noble" (or Monarch, if you want the AI to start with its usual Archery bonus tech, or Immortal for Archery+Hunting, or Deity to add Agriculture). This allows you to play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Let me know if I messed up any of the WB saves. I checked Noble, plus Deity, where the one AI I looked at seems to have all the right units, but skipped checking Monarch and Immortal. Once Noble is OK generating the others is just adding some techs, so there shouldn't be any problems.

I expect to start in place on the plains hill, having had many experienced players comment on the utility of the extra hammer at the start of the game. Does pottery first make any sense? Or just go the usual mining > BW.

Some thoughts on strategy, which no doubt a more experienced player should correct comment on:

1. EXP means you get a 25% bonus to when building a worker -- which means, if you settle in place on the PH, building a worker goes faster only after the first border expansion, when you can work a forested plain or plains hill. Might be worth building a warrior for a few turns if you usually go worker-first.
2. Gunpowder requires Education or Guilds. The Guilds path requires two fairly expensive techs, machinery and engineering. Education is very expensive but it can be partly bulbed with a Great Scientist (not too hard to obtain via running the two science specialists from a Library) and is usually a high priority anyway. Education requires Paper, which requires either Theology or Civil Service. CS is often high priority because of Bureaucracy, and at lower levels you might be able to get it via the Oracle. If you're going for early warfare you might have taken Theology for the Theocracy civic, and if you built the Oracle you might have generated a Great Prophet, which can be used to bulb it.

I am so going to play this. Prince, though, although trying it at noble is attractive

dalamb said:

Let me know if I messed up any of the WB saves. I checked Noble, plus Deity, where the one AI I looked at seems to have all the right units, but skipped checking Monarch and Immortal. Once Noble is OK generating the others is just adding some techs, so there shouldn't be any problems.

I expect to start in place on the plains hill, having had many experienced players comment on the utility of the extra hammer at the start of the game. Does pottery first make any sense? Or just go the usual mining > BW.

Some thoughts on strategy, which no doubt a more experienced player should correct comment on:

1. EXP means you get a 25% bonus to when building a worker -- which means, if you settle in place on the PH, building a worker goes faster only after the first border expansion, when you can work a forested plain or plains hill. Might be worth building a warrior for a few turns if you usually go worker-first.
2. Gunpowder requires Education or Guilds. The Guilds path requires two fairly expensive techs, machinery and engineering. Education is very expensive but it can be partly bulbed with a Great Scientist (not too hard to obtain via running the two science specialists from a Library) and is usually a high priority anyway. Education requires Paper, which requires either Theology or Civil Service. CS is often high priority because of Bureaucracy, and at lower levels you might be able to get it via the Oracle. If you're going for early warfare you might have taken Theology for the Theocracy civic, and if you built the Oracle you might have generated a Great Prophet, which can be used to bulb it.

Click to expand...

Education is always a pretty high priority for me. If you go liberalism next, and grab GP from that, or frab gunpowder and get another tech from lib race, it's very certainly worth it.

What a start

I'll have to pick this up next week when I get home from vacation.

I'm gonna go with settle in place .

Should have time at work tonight for this, never played the Ottomans.

That's one of the best starts I've ever seen, it has the perfect balance of everything - 2 happy resource, good hammers, gems for commerce, decent food. Will give it a try soon.

Played to 1000bc Emperor

Nice start! I'm struggling on Emporer at the moment so can use all the help I can get.

dalamb said:

I expect to start in place on the plains hill, having had many experienced players comment on the utility of the extra hammer at the start of the game. Does pottery first make any sense? Or just go the usual mining > BW.

Click to expand...

With the gems in the BFC there's no rush for pottery, there arn't even many cottage tiles available before Bronzeworking.

But saying that this start is baffling me on the best early techpath to many goodies in the BFC, Animal husbandry unlocks the best food tile, but mining is relativley cheap and gems will boost early techs. I'd also like to keep the Great Lighthouse as an option but don't really know how to fit that in on Emporer!

Probably Mining > Bronze then see what happens after that.

Settling 1SE may be good, plenty of food to work those plains hills. Unlikely to be seafood in the fog, but you never know.

This looks like a good one. I don't recall playing Mehmed before. Thanks, dalamb! Hope you are feeling better...

Feeling fairly good -- I've been on antibiotics since Tuesday, and only have a very small amount of congestion, which is probably the original pre-pneumonia virus (p. is apparently usually a secondary infection).

I was thinking pottery first for the cheap granary, rather than for cottages. I also figured that if I start this game today, there might be a faint chance of actually finishing it before classes start (in a week), so...Advice appreciated.

@dalamb

Too many water tiles makes it not an ideal cottage capital. I'll go mining first to utilize the grass gem first for extra golds. Start a worker which could farm the wheat and then mine the gold. Probably tech BW next so that the first worker can chop trees while waiting for AH and other techs online. Hunting is not a priority until happy cap is near. Not sure if I should play Monarch or not.

@Gocho:

@dalamb

Signing in. WOW nice start! Settling in place seems obvious.

KingMorgan said:

Settling 1SE may be good, plenty of food to work those plains hills. Unlikely to be seafood in the fog, but you never know.

Click to expand...

Moving sounds tempting, I'll move warrior 1S to take a look before making decision.

@dalamb

Monarch/epic to 1000 BC



Suggestions welcome!