Fun with Ottomans - Using the Barb Navy

Prince game, I go with random leaders (I like surprises), and end up with Suliman. Having read many of the threads here I was less enthused with thought of the 'useless' UA ability of recruiting barbarian vessels, but I was determined to give it a go, even though I was on a continent map.

My starting placement on the coast on what turned out to be the bottom of a large continent. In keeping with with the naval motif, my first techs are all based on planning to hit the water as soon as possible, I need boats! Triremes ahoy!

First off, it took me a while to figure out the mechanics of recruiting the barb boats, my first couple times I would get in to range (but a space away) and sink them, thinking it would respawn on my side...nope. I found you just have to get up next to them, and they'll either join you or not, immediately. Ok, got it.

I finally get my first recruit, barbarian galley, and naturally hope to upgrade it to trireme to be semi-useful, but alas, no such luck. Ah well, maybe will be upgrade-able eventually. Used it to do some scouting of the coast for me, so not a total loss.

Continuing on with my lone trireme in search of more galleys, I eventually hit on the PERFECT spot for gathering barb galleys, to the south of me (attached via coastal waters, luckily) was a 2 hex island with a barb encampment on it. So I camp my trireme there on 'alert' status and wait. Just about every 5 turns, like clockwork, POP comes a galley. I move my trireme next to it and it either gets recruited or gives my trireme exp (via sinking it), either way I'm happy!

I eventually have a massive army of barbarian galleys, which, well, were still pretty useless. I did use them to clog up the coast so other civs couldn't scout with their boats. Still less then impressed, I continued down the maritime path hoping I'd eventually be able to upgrade them into something useful.

I eventually get caravel tech...ooh, upgrade to that? Nope
Then the payoff...Frigates...oh look! 230g to upgrade each galley to a Frigate!!!

BAM! In a few turns my 'free' Navy was dominating the seas and my frigates were a floatilla of unkillable coastal artillery, letting me mop up the rest of continent with relative ease. And my little barb island continued to produce! Eventually I had so many I would just disband them or gift them, turning them into nice source of gold/influence.

Obviously finding the barb island in just the perfect spot is what made this work the best, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable game with an 'underpowered' leader.

Sounds like your "free" navy cost 230 gold each, plus however much you paid in upkeep costs for it over the years.

The ottoman's unique trait is useless. At least the German's unique trait has something going for it early on but the Ottomans...Sorry man, it's terrible.

If they made the recruited Barb units into unflagged privateer units that could attack without DoW and cost the Ottoman player no maintenance then they'd be decent. Agree it's a useless ability in the current form.

he stated that he won (or took over the continent) using this tactic

and everyone keeps saying the unique unit is useless in spite of personal experience and evidence

which reminds me

the evidence is clear- Barbary Sea Tactics on the Planet of the Deaf

Well, 230g is quite a bit less then 690g (the normal cost for a frigate), so there is a fair amount of savings, even counting upkeep. If I wanted to get more efficient I could have waited until just a few years before the Frigate tech to start building them up, lowering upkeep further. And once I had Frigates, I was still gaining a new one every 5-10 turns for 230g, as many as I could want.

For my game it made a big difference having a whole bunch of Frigates available at one time. Not saying its the best or most efficient strategy on the planet, but with this leader and UA, it worked well, and was fun!

Yeah, the Ottoman UA is still pretty bad, but it can be fun on the right maps.

You'd never build your strategy around it in games where you're seriously trying to win, but building up huge barb galley navies is pretty fun in it's own way.

Also, the Ottoman UU's are both excellent.

it can be powerful, if they stop spawning trireme in later area, mean they spawn navy adjusting completely by the current civilization technology.

I do agree with pi-r8, it cost to much up-keep, and the fact its not free at all, Belzek, it cost 250 gold and it lots of money to invest for each trireme.

The barbarian galley is technically just a trireme with different name (the same as brute is the warrior), so it upgrades the same way.

The real strength of the ottomans is what you gain money from this AND could sell the free galleys for gold. But after the latest patch decreased the gold amount from unit selling I'd suggest increasing the direct money which Ottoman get.

I'm with the OP on this. Played an archipelago game with Ottomans. I built just ONE trireme the whole game, ended up with a navy of frigates. If you're playing pangaea, its not a very strong ability. If you're on archipelago, your one ship becomes two, becomes four, becomes eight and very quickly you have a huge navy exploring the map faster and finding new civs long before you would with only one or two triremes. Plus there's the savings on all the ships you don't have to build - so your coastal cities can focus on other builds.

There are always a lot of barb encampments along coasts. By firing on them you can train each of your galleys up to 30xp in no time at all - which carries over to your frigates.

Oh, and BTW, when the barbs start sending out destroyers, you can capture them too.

In later ages barbarian encampments start spawning more advanced ships. In my OOC game they wer eventually spawning Destroyers.

I suspect Barbarians automatically get each technology that everybody else has. So if everybody has Astronomy they will start spawning Caravels and when everybody has electricity they start spawning Destroyers.

I have no proof though, it's just a hypothesis that fits my limited observations.

Ottomans UA is vastly underestimated under normal map conditions (maps that contain large bodies of water). It saves you quite some production as well as providing unmatched military support, as long as you march your armies near the coastline.

troytheface said:

he stated that he won (or took over the continent) using this tactic

and everyone keeps saying the unique unit is useless in spite of personal experience and evidence

which reminds me

the evidence is clear- Barbary Sea Tactics on the Planet of the Deaf

Click to expand...

First time you ever made a clever comment that made sense.

How does it feel?

Ontopic:
Combine the Ottomans with the rarely taken Honor tree making upgrades cost half money, and dont forget that every time you gain a ship you also gain money.
Throw in the +1 speed policy, and if you are lucky the TGL.
You just got a free navy with the boni of england.

Fluxx said:

You just got a free navy with the boni of england.

Click to expand...

Well, not really. The huge part of England's bonus isn't the speed for naval vessels, which as you say can be reproduced with a policy and a wonder. It's the bonus for *embarked* vessels. Your colonization and invasion fleets go at double speed before Nav (not that important), almost double speed with Nav (huge), and 1.5x speed with Steam Power (a bit late to matter).

The free part doesn't refer to money -- it refers to production time. Granted that you have to pay upkeep for early captures, those early captures still go towards pointy-stick ratings, correct? Park barb galleys in your cities and let them help wipe out intruders -- they won't count toward towards the 1 upt that the Archer or whatever takes up. About the time you get some nice UUs, you'll be ready to upgrade the ships -- which I believe is cheaper than rushbuying the same amount of ships, right?

Nunya said:

In later ages barbarian encampments start spawning more advanced ships. In my OOC game they wer eventually spawning Destroyers.

I suspect Barbarians automatically get each technology that everybody else has. So if everybody has Astronomy they will start spawning Caravels and when everybody has electricity they start spawning Destroyers.

I have no proof though, it's just a hypothesis that fits my limited observations.

Click to expand...

It doesn't seem to be consistent, in my experience. Sometimes I'll see barb camps spawning destroyers and galleys during the same period.

Though perhaps the galleys were just leftovers from an earlier era that just got *really* lost for awhile.

In my advanced start game Barbarian encampments were spawning everything from Brutes to Paratroopers. So maybe for them units never go obsolete. But they will start spawning better units as the game progresses, which was my main point.

It's very fan to play with Ottomans! If you play correct in Renaissance era you will have 2 UUs and great low cost fleet of frigates! It's a very nice time to war!

Now I almost finish my Ottomans game on Emperor level and it's very good game. Using UA I created a fleet of six destroyers and I upgrade 4 janissaries to infantry that can full recover after battle. With this army I already have captured capitals of all countries on my continent.

I could be wrong but doesn't the Ottoman's UA also include 1/3 maintenance on naval units? This means that maintaining 3 naval units is the same as 1 for every other civ. So those barb ships aren't costing you that much.