RBC15f - Ottomans - OPEN - Emperor

Yes, this is what you've been waiting for so long, the Napoleonic Conquest as the Ottomans in an Open SG is finally here!


We will be playing as the Ottomans on Emperor level.



Here's our nation:



Science screen:



I have never played as the Otto's, so please could someone post some ideas on what to do.


Remember, that if you sign MA's/MPP's on the first turn, you aren't allowed to take anything from the deals, it is considered an exploit.

Everyone should play at max 5 turns, this is such a short scenario, only 96 turns.

Starting save, Jan. 1800AD

2 general hints:
You are really far away. Start travelling slow units to the N long before starting a war.
You are REL, have a lot of Luxuries, and are at peace with the world...Republic anyone?

You should make a bee-line to Artillery Tactics in science, and you need an FP as soon as possible.

...this looks interesting. Unfortunately I have nothing to offer for advice, since I've never played this scenario... but I'm going to at least follow this one.

This looked interesting, so I'm starting a solo game with the Ottomans. There are 5 lux in Ottoman territory (1 needs to be hooked up). I think the player can probably dominate the game by trade, using cash and lux to turn the Allied forces against anyone the Ottomans want to attack.

I'm guessing Belgrade for an FP, and Republic immediately. When war comes it can be against Austria and maybe Naples. Downside of the Ottomans is that they have weaker troops than either France or Britain. Good side is that the terrain looks terrific, and cheaper troops can mean the ability to blitz the enemy. [Being Religious also means one can be a Republic until war, and then switch back to Monarchy.]

I'm also taking a gamble at the start of the game by queueing up 11 workers and 4 Courthouses in the 16 Ottoman cities.

I'll probably take a turn or two in this one. Especially if I find something interesting.

Couple of other things I've noticed:

Republic has the old unit support, zero free, 1 gpt above that.

Forests take 10 turns (base) to chop.

And be prepared to an array of alliance messages every IT.

I was trying this Conquest on Sid once as Britain and the Interturns were really nothing else in the beginning but alliance and Embargo messages...


Noone's gonna start this?

Well ... I thought you were, as the thread starter.

I did take the liberty of writing up the first 5 turns of my solo game, but I won't be able to post those for another 12 hours. No need to wait for that, plenty of time for someone else to start the game.

A trick the person who starts the game can use (I didn't figure this out until around turn 27): On the first turn, pay Russia for an ROP. When you buy your first slave, send it to build a colony on the Spices that are available east of Russia's boundaries. There are 8 lux in the game, and the Ottomans start with 5 of them inside their borders. The three missing lux are Spices, Silks, and Ivory. Silks can be bought from Naples, but the only way to obtain Spices is to colonize the source east of Russia. There appear to only be two sources in the entire game, so you can't get them by trading. No one should be able to obtain Ivory. I found that Naples wants ~30 gpt for a lux, so the colony pays for the slave and ROP in 6-7 turns. It is a hike though, so do it on the first turn and they may be online but turn 20.

Another nice thing I found was that trade routes are very secure. I had active trades for 20 turns despite any and all combinations of wars. So the biggest fear in trading is that your partner ends up dead. [Translation: No resources to the Dutch.]

Oh, and on the subject of WW and Republic: If one is not at war with Russia and can obtain 6 lux without trades, I think all citizens can be kept working even at max WW. You need to balance a maximum of 23 unhappies. Six lux w/Market gives 12, a seventh lux bumps that to 16. Temple + cheap Cathedral is 4 more and a Colosseum adds 2. So I figure a lux tax of 10%, maybe 20% keeps everyone working in a Republic.

Sounds like a plan there.


I didn't think I would need to start... I usually go last in my own SG's to, and I really was only gonna host this, not play...

Alright. I'll start this thing. Got it.

I’ll start fresh in this game. Have to see how much changed from one start to the next. Luckily I saved the game after the initial MM.

1800 AD (Jan)
We start with 2 workers. I queue up 11 more. Gambling that we can get through the first 10 turns without someone declaring war on us.

We have 4 native lux hooked up, and a 5th waiting to be roaded. Only Napoli has a lux we don't. I think I can get theirs before the IT.

We are at peace and intend to stay that way for a little while. Anticipating an attack on the Austrians, I start a Courthouse in Belgrade to prepare to build our FP there.

Very different scenario. No need to go exploring. We have the advantage of a short front, so we can load up a couple of cities with Muskets and Cannons.

How in the world do you get a conscript boat? Send our Frigates out for a short stroll.

If Russia were to sneeze we could be dead. We have 1 city building military: Istanbul will do 3-turn Muskets for the forseeable future.

I will revolt us into Republic. Research to Code Civil in 100 turns. I expect that to drop with the gov't switch.

Trading time! Silks from Naples for Iron + 15 gpt. They are a good bet to survive 20 turns. Wines + ROP to Russia for 100 gold + worker. Dyes to Prussia for 231 gold. Why are the Dutch even in this game? Will they survive the IT? Wines to Britain for 220 gold. Wines to Austria for 210 gold. Horses to Sweden for 145 gold. The Danes get the same deal. A bit of a gamble there, but not likely to die in 20 turns. Absolutely nothing to the Dutch.

Once the monopoly techs start to get around, we'll buy in. Although I'm not sure we want Nationalism right now. Our UU is a Musket with an extra attack point, costing 15 shields more than a Musket. Not a good deal.

Sell Courthouse in Istanbul. We now have 1251 gold and make 51 gpt.

Now to revolt! Draw expected 2-turn Anarchy. Slave starts to run for spices.

(Mar)
The people rather love our Anarchy. WLTSD breaks out all over.

Buy Prussian worker for 117 gold. It's all about how many workers we can put out there in the first 20 turns. Preferably in the first 10. Catch Spain with one in it's capital. Yoink! for 117 gold. And take another from Portugal.

All 3 slaves head out to put a road on our Furs. The regular workers will start around the FP location.

(May)
We form a Republic and make 149 gpt. Even researching at max sustainable would take 37 turns to discover Code Civil. So we're just using a lone scientist to be social.

Oooh ... Danish worker available! Ours for 117 gold. Note the presence of Silks outside Russian territory and send another slave that way.

(July)
We now have a few native workers. Rush Courthouse in Belgrade.

(Sep)
Thessalonika and Athens are each 2-turn worker farms.

More moves of native workers. Still haven't built a Military unit. Belgrade goes to FP, due in 34. Will be sooner with a bit of growth and some mining.

7 gpt nets a Prussian worker.

(Nov)
First vet Musket completes. Should head for FP city.

7 gpt nets a Spanish worker. Britain gets the same deal.

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So that's a year in the life of the Ottoman Empire. I leave the next player with 13 Native workers + 6 slaves with 2 more slaves destined to build lux colonies. If the next player takes a 1-year reign and doesn’t cancel all the workers I have queued up, we should have a terrific workforce. I would suggest that any city not named Athens or Thessalonika can complete the current worker and then move on to an infra or military project.

The general plan is to try to get through 1 more trading cycle (40 game turns) and then start aggressive war. The next player gets to build mostly infra and military, with an emphasis on Courts and Markets. I don’t see us researching anything much in this game.

By turn 40 we should have an FP and should have almost completely improved our terrain. (I’m looking for 30+ native workers, and we’re industrious.) We’ll be behind in VP but we’ll have a hellacious GA relative to the AI. I figure we swarm Austria and Prussia, then maybe turn on the Neopolitans. I think this start position is winnable by domination.

If successive leaders agree with this general plan (no aggressive war before turn 40), it behooves us to trade away almost everything we can. Don’t risk our rep by trading goods to a dying civ, but we don’t want to be in a position where Austria demands something on turn 27 and forces us to either start a war before we are ready or postpone when we can attack them. In my solo game (that is only out to turn 27) I gave away a lux to Austria to prevent this from happening. I’ll have to see how that turns out.

Tech can be acquired via 2-fer and more-fer. We don’t need anything we can currently buy, and Nationalism is a slight negative until we can get two defenders in each front line city. Our “UU” with Nationalism is worse than a Musket, so we don’t have to be in a hurry to get the tech.

Picture in next post of the Russian lux.

[Side note: This is probably one of the worst starts in this scenario to run as an open SG. Most of the other starts are just about spamming units and slamming into the AI. Here, I think we need a plan. You live, you learn. I'm always happy to inflict a plan on a group of unsuspecting people. ]

The promised picture:

Blue circles are the lux, the blue arrow is the center of our empire. The next leader (should we stick with 1-year reigns) will not see either of these colonies formed. It will be just about until game turn 20 before these are on-line, but they will come in time to give us all 7 native lux and eternal happiness in Republic so long as we don't fight Russia.

I would try to concentrate 6-8 native workers on the FP site (Belgrade). There is a cluster of workers E of Istanbul. They should stay and work on the local terrain. Those cities can be very powerful, but they need some work. Also note the barb in our SE. May be worth flipping Istanbul to a Sipahi to frag the camp.

Remember: Athens and Thessalonika are 2-turn worker farms. Each requires some MM to function.

Got it and will play it now.

31 Dez 1800: the scientist in Belgrad takes his pike and shovel and helps building the Forbidden Palace, his brother in Mostar picks up his notes

IBT: Sweden asks for ROP and MP - no thanks; Russia "offers" a MP for -4gpt; i.e. they want us to pay - nope

Jan 1801: buy a Potugese worker

IBT: Danes ask for map - nope

Mar 1801: buy a Denish worker

May 1801: liberated dyes from barbs

Jul 1801: buy workers from Russia and The Netherlands

IBT: Spain asks for territory map - nope; we lose a ship to a privateer

Sep 1801: nothing

Nov 1801: nothing

I did not rush anything in my turns, but think that rushing most of the courthouses would be a good idea now. I saved you from posting all alliances and wars that were declared, but give you the diplo screen instead. Pretty uneventfull, but I reserve my spot for one of the later turns

I should have mentioned that the Scientist in Belgrade was to induce WLTKD in the city. If we can do that by pulling a citizen off of a non-shield producing tile we speed the construction of the FP at the expense of growth.

[Edit: I now realize that the Furs came online on the first turn of the last round. We probably have WLTKD in Belgrade without a specialist. When we can get a 2-fer involving Nationalism we should look to see if adding a Policeman to Belgrade would speed up the build.]

T_McC said:

[Side note: This is probably one of the worst starts in this scenario to run as an open SG. Most of the other starts are just about spamming units and slamming into the AI. Here, I think we need a plan. You live, you learn. I'm always happy to inflict a plan on a group of unsuspecting people. ]

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Don't bash that on me, I wasn't the one who's idea this was. I'm just hosting this because Speaker is so busy.

@Dave: yes Belgrad has a WLTK day due to the furs, but it will end on the interturn if not mm. I think growth in 4 while the fp is due in 17 is worth it. The new citizen will more than compensate 1 waste per turn.

@Ankaa - I wasn't blaming you. I apologize.

I hadn't played this scenario before (and didn't sign up for one the RBC games) because when I looked at the major players (England/France) it didn't seem like there was much to do but build troops. About the only decisions to be made were what types to build, and who to use them against first. With this start (and the Russian start) charging headlong into war is probably a mistake. Long-term strategy is more difficult in an Open SG than a normal SG, since we don't know who's playing, or when.

@grs & whoever plays next - Unless the only tiles the new citizen can work produce zero shields, I agree that we are likely to come out ahead by not employing a specialist. One weird case: Say the citizen can work a 1-shield tile, and the corruption calc works out that that shield is corrupted. By losing WLTKD we would then lose 1 shield net, with the benefit of growing faster. But this is the only case I can think of where we don't come out ahead immediately. When we can get a brokerage on Nationalism it may be worth investigating the effect of a Policeman on Belgrade. One specialist might recover 2 shields that way.

But I have no idea who Dave is.

T_McC said:

@Ankaa - I wasn't blaming you. I apologize.

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No offence taken. It wasn't me who decided this, so why should I be offended?

But I have no idea who Dave is.

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me neither