Nobles' Club XL: Mehmed II of the Ottomans

[BigTime]

Monarch/ epic to liberalism (1050 AD)

Spoiler :

Like I said before, cakewalk. Awesome land with GL makes tech rate insane. I could have gotten lib in 200 AD if I wanted. But, I went after some wonders, like this:



and this:



and this: (founded Tao and it spread to Mansa)



and this:



Yeah, you get the picture. It was a romp. No one came close to me in tech. Williem is my only competitor, but he's woefully behind me. The only reason he is a threat is because he vassaled Ramesses. I took STEEL from lib, and am preparing to smash mansa with janissaries and cannon. After that, it should be easy mop-up to take out SB, ragnar, Cathy, and if needed, Williem.

Some pics:



South empire:



and North:



Like, I said before, endgame should be a cakewalk. I plan on stomping Mansa with janissaries and cannon. SB should be easily taken care of with Cavalry, since I seriously doubt he will get rifles. Cathy and Ragnar shouldn't get rifles either, so this wars will be easy as hell.

 

[Amao]

Monarch/Normal

3000BC Intial thoughts

Spoiler :

OK. I moved capital SE for a better cottage site in exchange for may be unable to secure GLH. Seriously, there are too many foods near the capital. I can see 3 super food cities including the capital. I really hope Mansa can build the Mids for me.

Initial tech was Mining -> BW. So now the Gem is mined and the tech rate is boosted.

My first warrior was killed by a bear, which crippled my initial fog busting. But he popped Myst so that I can build monument in the new city now. Too used to Noble difficulty was the problem. Anyway, I built another while growing the capital to 3, and will build more after first settler is out. Where to settle, is a question.

 

[lymond]

Monarch/Epic (BAT 2.0 - the new one is whacked) to 155BC

Spoiler :

Very interesting map and leader. I've not played Mehmed before and I really like his UB. The Hamman has to be one of the best. Normally, Aqueducts are fairly situational builds, but the Hamman rocks. I'm focusing more on growing my cities at this point than usual.

6 cities up and I plan to do some more REXing. I probably should have more cities at this point with all this land. I was hesitant to move my settler away from the sea, but settling 1 SE made for a great Cap with lots of food and production. I'm losing the TGL benefits but it's still a very good Cap and Bureau should rock.

Lot's of huts gave me Arch and AH.

Really a leisurely game with Mansa to the south and Sitting Duck...well...just sitting on some land mass. I expect SB will eventually try to move to the other land mass.

I built the Mids, Great Wall and the Great Lighthouse. I feel I'm teching well, but not sure who else is out there in the world. Teching Philo for a religion and Lib race. Usually I would go for Lit at this point and the Great Library, but I'm not as concerned about it this game.

Mansa has founded the only religion - Conf - at this point. I'm hoping it spreads soon. Right now, I plan to stay friendly with Mansa as long as possible for trading and attack SB with Janissaries.

Great map and relaxing game so far. I hope to send a settler over to the islands in the west soon.

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

Thanks dalamb, I've been looking forward to this.

Can you tell me please, should I be modifying anything to play the map on Prince, because the archive contains different files for varying difficulties, but not Prince. I select Prince during the startup wizard, but is this sufficient?

Thanks.

 

[Amao]

Thanks dalamb, I've been looking forward to this.

Can you tell me please, should I be modifying anything to play the map on Prince, because the archive contains different files for varying difficulties, but not Prince. I select Prince during the startup wizard, but is this sufficient?

Thanks.

Select the noble one.

 

[GrayInvisible]

Looks like a great start. I've never tried Mehmed before, but I like the sound of his UU. I'm gonna take a risk, and try Prince. Especially considering the start.

 

[Amao]

@dalamb regarding the map

Spoiler :

when i showed the map to a local forum, there was an outcry of too much food. did you make it or it was naturally generated? i don't have a problem, though. actually, i like it. it's like a city spamming heaven.

 

[Freyas]

Prince/Epic:

Spoiler :

Scouted the hills south with warrior, and decided to settle 1SE to pick up the cow. Starting Tech is Mining for the gems, since the corn should feed me until I pick up AH. I plan on going Mining/AH/Pottery/BW, unless I run into a neighbor who needs to be dealt with by a quick rush, in which case I'll move up BW before Pottery.

First goody hut popped Mysticism- will help for border pops, but no difference in tech path. Another goody hut gave me Pottery just after starting on AH, so that makes things simple. Ran into Mansa Musa to the south, but I can typically handle him nearby, so no rush, especially as it looks like I'll be able to clam plenty of land.

While exploring, I found Sitting Bull, though his capitol is across the water from me- I should be able to keep him off the large continent I share with Mehmed fairly easily. I intend to block Mehmed in the south with cities to either side of the mountain range in the jungle. This should leave me with lots of room, though I'm planning on going quickly for CoL so I can get some cheap courthouses out to afford the blocking cities.

2700 BC

Spoiler :

I've finished exploring the continent, and nearly have my first settler out. I've got 3 warriors from goody huts, so I'm planning on growing my capitol another pop(2 turns from 4) and then building a new worker then a second settler.


1300BC- completed oracle, picked up Philosophy- I've now founded both Confucianism and Taoism, thanks to beelining CoL. I'm a few turns away from blocking Mansa to the south, and then am going to focus on settling east and making sure Sitting Bull doesn't send any settlers my way. After that, it'll be expanding as fast as my economy will let me. I'm planning on running Caste and Hereditary for civics to fuel a couple super-specialist cities while working on chopping down the jungle to the south for cottages. Capital is going to be specialist/production as soon as it's off settler/worker duty.

520 AD

Spoiler :

A couple more cities to finish off this continent, and I should be able to take over the large islands to the west and north. No wars so far- I've given into a couple of demands from Cathy, but nothing major, and have gained a fairly substantial tech lead. Winning the Lib race should be easy, and I'm going to see if I can pick up steel from it. From looking at my land, I'm thinking I'm going to set up 4-5 cities for production and aim for domination starting with Jannisaries and Cannons, and progressing up to Rifles/Infantry as I get the techs. With 4 cities + my capital pumping out units, along with a globe theatre draft factory in my secondary specialist city (Samsun, with the pigs,rice,and fish southeast from capital), I should be able to crank out a sizeable army pretty quickly.

 

[Cialite]

Wish i'd seen this before making my own thread!

I played up to 1000BC, and comments/criticism would be great!

Spoiler :

Found Istanbul on the spot. I sent my scout to explore, going towards the left,
found Sitting Bull. I was annoyed as he's protective and with Dog Soldiers he's next to
impossible to rush. But it looks like he's not on the same landmass. Yay!

Mansa Musa appears with a warrior near my capital, he should be good to trade with or rush if need be.

Istanbul builds a second warrior and sends it south to see where the Mali are based, as well as scout out some more city locations.

I found Edirne(Edirne still sounds weird to me, after it being called Edrine all that time when I played CIV3) next, on top of the Ivory(as the bonuses of just settling next to it and working it weren't very great, i'd planned Edirne to be a production city)

I built another settler in Istanbul, and another worker or two, and with nothing else to do, decided I'd go for Stonehenge(With forest chopping). As at this point i'd also found the Mali and they were on a peninsula, so I sent a settler down there to block them off and let me freely expand to the south in the future. I'd initially planned to found Ankara on top of the Silk to become a coastal city, but they would've beaten me by one turn, so I settled one tile away, crippling Mansa Musa as he'd have to build galleys if he wanted any more than 4 cities.



Here was my city plan for the South, which may change slightly as Cyan(Ankara) was settled to the west one tile.



I finished the Stonehenge and started work on a library to boost research towards CoL. My plan is to found Confucianism, and send it down to Mali, and hopefully SB. As well as expand, spamming Courthouses.

Founded Bursa, NE of Istanbul by clams and Cow. (Productive naval city?)
I don't really have any commerce cities yet, but will probably stick a couple to the South of Istanbul.

Empire as at 1520BC:



After the library, I started the Oracle(With forest chopping) as it was only 10 turns, and didn't really need barracks at this point in time as I had no plans for war anytime soon. (plan to keep Mali as a trading partner.)

Got the Oracle, got Alphabet as free tech, traded Mali Writing and Priesthood for Hunting, Pottery and Fishing.

I also have a Settler/Warrior NE of Edirne waiting for CoL to finish before piling on the maintenance.

Here's my empire as of 1000BC:



I think for tech I went Mining, then BW, then AH, IW, then Writing, Meditation, Priesthood, CoL( Sorry, I stupidly forgot to document teching, which is what I think I need to work on) Alpha for free(Oracle).

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

@ Amao - Thank you.

@ Cialite - What speed/difficulty?

Prince/Normal 25 AD

Spoiler :

Things got off to a pretty good start, I settled in place and built worker-warrior-warrior-settler-worker-worker-settler-scout.

I had to build a few extra scouting warriors on account of the following bad goodie huts... the first popped four barbarian warriors, the second another four.

Anyhow, it didn't deter me, producing the extra warriors gave the capital something to do while it grew.

And what's up with this...? He might make easy pickings shortly if that start position hampers his expansion.


After teching CoL I founded Confuscism which helped keep the home fires happy whilst the war was raging.

Summary of events from turn 0 to 112 when the Malinese empire fell...

Turn 0/500 (4000 BC) Istanbul founded
Turn 1/500 (3960 BC) Research begun: Mining (6 Turns)
Turn 7/500 (3720 BC) Research begun: Animal Husbandry (11 Turns)
Turn 17/500 (3320 BC) Research begun: Hunting (3 Turns)
Turn 20/500 (3200 BC) Research begun: Bronze Working (9 Turns)
Turn 23/500 (3080 BC) Tech acquired (trade, lightbulb, hut, espionage): Horseback Riding
Turn 31/500 (2760 BC) Research begun: Pottery (9 Turns)
Turn 32/500 (2720 BC) Contact made: Native American Empire
Turn 37/500 (2520 BC) Edirne founded
Turn 42/500 (2320 BC) Research begun: Writing (7 Turns)
Turn 48/500 (2080 BC) Research begun: Archery (3 Turns), Ankara founded
Turn 52/500 (1920 BC) Research begun: Sailing (5 Turns)
Turn 57/500 (1720 BC) Research begun: Mysticism (2 Turns)
Turn 59/500 (1640 BC) Research begun: Iron Working (6 Turns)
Turn 65/500 (1400 BC) Research begun: Masonry (2 Turns)
Turn 71/500 (1160 BC) Research begun: Code of Laws (10 Turns)
Turn 80/500 (875 BC) Research begun: Research begun: Mathematics (349 Turns), Currency (349 Turns)
Turn 91/500 (600 BC) NC XXXX Mehmed II (Ottomans) declares war on Mansa Musa (Mali)
Turn 96/500 (475 BC) Research begun: Monarchy (6 Turns)
Turn 102/500 (325 BC) Research begun: Alphabet (412 Turns)
Turn 109/500 Research begun: Polytheism (2 Turns)
Turn 111/500 (100 BC) Research begun: Construction (7 Turns)
Turn 112/500 (75 BC) Malinese Empire has been eliminated

Mansa Musa was a bit of a bugger to move. He had four cities when I attacked and whilst I'd built stables in each city the horse archers I used in the rush were failing big time against his UU. But we got there in the end. Something I learned from and earlier game was when rushing an AI early on like this, go for the capital first, then pick off the stragler cities.

Looking forward: I've got the island to myself now. There are tons of good commerce sites so I'm going to get those cottaged up so I can spread my cities to the nearby islands and not worry about the maintence costs. I've never been much good on maps like this on account of my slow naval development. However we'll try and change that this game.

In the PCIX game I had problems after the AI snuck some cities onto my continent, in this game I'll 'try' and settle costal sites first preventing them from deploying a landing party

Win Type: Haven't got the hang of diplo yet and like I said, I'm rubbish at naval warfare so I'm not going to try conquest/domination, so to play it safe... space victory before 1970.

Some screenies...

 

[Cialite]

Oh, not sure how I managed to forget to say

Prince/Normal

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not a big fan of the BS map script, but I've played this one to ~500 AD and jeebus, you might as well have given us some HoF super start X_X. Immortal city spam w/o cottages and easy teching, no wonders >_>.

 

[Churchdown Yank]

Oh, not sure how I managed to forget to say

Prince/Normal

@Cialite - If you post your saved game, you'll likely get some better feedback about what you're doing.

Also, I found when moving up through Prince/Monarch that playing on Epic speed helped. Helped me anyway. Slowed the game down and also let me practice my military techniques, which is usually one of the first things to improve when you're in the "Prince zone".

 

[Cialite]

@Cialite - If you post your saved game, you'll likely get some better feedback about what you're doing.

Also, I found when moving up through Prince/Monarch that playing on Epic speed helped. Helped me anyway. Slowed the game down and also let me practice my military techniques, which is usually one of the first things to improve when you're in the "Prince zone".

Ah yes, that might help >.<

 

[Churchdown Yank]

Ah yes, that might help >.<

Actually I think you did - and I missed it. Sorry - it's early in the morning.

Signing in on Monarch/Epic.

Initial thoughts:

Spoiler :

Playing as Mehmed II - Expansive and Organised. Both useful traits and don't require a specific strategy to use them (i.e. especially economic strategy like PHI does). The UU doesn't come along for a while, so we're not looking for special resources early like copper or horses for that. The UB is nice in that it adds +2 in addition to the health at construction, which is time that we might be busting out the happy cap.

So all in all I'm looking at a pretty standard expansion inland away from the coast at the moment.

Starting position. Wow. 2 food resources, 2 luxury resources and lots of river for that extra commerce. Extremely strong starting position. I don't think I've ever seen a grassland/gem/river tile! LOL. That'll be like 3 villages just on it's own!

Seriously - it's a great start and should be a thriving captial from the word go. Time to settle in place (get the +1 hammer for settling on a brown hill) hook up the resources and hopefully find 3-4 other good city sites nearby. I'll probably start mining/hunting/AH. And I may even start my build with a worker rather than a few warriors, because that grassland/gems tile will BE my economy for round 1 probably...

Key thing here now will be the neighours - and whether we need to start thinking early war or whether we can expand unimpeded.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Immortal/Normal ---> Revenge on the big and stupid map script that has tormented me in the past...

1848 AD Space

Spoiler :

Settled in place. Whoops, gems. Whoops, enough land for >15 cities easily blocked.

Worker techs ----> alpha ----> trade for monarchy and (!) col (mansa) ----> currency ----> CS

Spam farms. Get pissed because an AI gets 30 cities or so w/o war (happens a lot on this script for some reason) and opt not to bother with asinine, cumbersome micro. Whip like crazy, win liberalism (nationalism ---> taj), GM trade mission ----> speed tech communism ~1100's. Get DP with huge AI (willem). Blast the AI to hell in the tech race, win space.











So after communism, whatever wasnt whipped of forge-library-obs-uni was hammered out, then built wealth while auto workers spammed work shops. Then, build wealth until 100%. Then build research. Head to AL, industrialize (completely ignoring the massive health problems), then more wealth/research. This nets > 2000 BPT, internet, and ultimately easy construction of many parts at once.

This map is very popular for corps but SP takes a lot less micro with all the land we have .

 

[Amao]

Monarch/Normal

1000BC

Spoiler :

I went no wonder route and only got 4 cities up so far. I was focusing a little more on getting the capital to grow to its limits. Settled the 2nd city to the east SE of the corn for 2 fish/corn/pig for a good GP farm and the access of horse; the 3rd city to the north E of the corn, so that I'd have another worker/settler base once the 2nd city is dedicated to GPs; the 4th city SW of the copper. Just built a settler and another one in a couple of turn. But won't settle until I got the currency so that I can get Currency in 3 turns.

Tech went Mining->Myst(hut)->BW->AH->Pottery->Hunting->Fishing->Writting->Math->Archery(hut)->Masonry->Currency
I was not aware the aquedapt requires Masonry. Probably going for CoL and CS soon for the bureau capital. Will have my first GS in a few turns which will build academy in capital to boost science. Already focusing on cottages there.

Met Mansa first, my capital perfectly seal him from exploring eastward. So I kept border closed until I claim all the huts in the east. Mansa founded Hinduism and eventually spread it to me. Met SB next, who is off coast on some island. SB later founded Judism, which is not good because the rest of the world only saw Buddism. However, my wb went east and met Willem who founded Buddism... None of us has alphabet yet, so, i'll wait.

The next target is to spam more cities, the goal is to have 8-10 cities by 1AD with around 150 beakers at 100% and decent gold per turn at 0%. I probably rush SB first because he's really weak in production. However landing on his island requires a lot of galley with means hammers. So I won't be busy until I have enough cities (6+).

 

[Churchdown Yank]

Monarch/Epic to 1000 BC

Spoiler :

So I quickly figure out that I've got a lot of territory to expand into... I did build a worker first (to get the gems online) and then a lot of warriors for exploring and fogbusting. Tech was Mining/Huntin/AH/BW for chopping mostly/Pottery/Alphabet... I dunno - sort of whatever I needed for expansion and economy really. IW fairly early on too for jungle clearing.

Popped a few huts for gold and Myst. 4 cities now. Met Mansa and Sitting Bull.

Not much to report really. Got the copper just in time for a few axes now that barbs have just started to cross borders. Opened borders to MM and SB - converted to Hinduism to match up with MM. A couple of tech trades - slightly generous towards the AI to start cultivating a bit of favor there. Built the Great Lighthouse in the cap.

All in all, pretty happy with the start. Maybe I should have expanded a bit more... probably need to get my next 2-3 cities up next. Don't foresee any wars. Just peaceful expansion and teching.

This looks to be a fairly easy map so far. No one's even wonder hogging somewhere out there. The wonders are going slow. Should be a good map for people to move up a level on I would think.

 

[dalamb]

@L_Plate_Ruler: next time I'll figure out an update for the boilerplate that clarifies what to do for intermediate difficulties.
@Amao:

Spoiler what I edited :

I took the opponents and the core terrain as the generator gave them to us, then made the following edits:

1. As you suspected, I added some food.
   • I added those two fish to the southeast and two clams to the north. On reflection this morning I decided this was too much to change but I'd already posted the game by then.
   • I added the wheat in the BFC. I think the seafood was too much, but adding a plant in the initial BFC of somebody who starts with agriculture, when there was only one other food there, seemed reasonable.
2. One opponent had no metals on his continent; I gave him some but forget whether it was copper or iron or both. I forgot to check whether anybody (a) had a mounted UU and (b) lacked horses.
3. I changed some desert near a flood plain to our east into plains.
4. I extended one river; I think it was the one that had the flood plains. If so I probably made it connect with the copper where it didn't before.
5. Spoiler a couple of items that give away a few details you might not have encountered yet :

   • I added huts on many of the otherwise-useless teeny islands. Exploring is a Good Thing. Not sure I'll ever do this again. I think the AI tends not to explore with galley+scout early on (they seem to prefer cheaper fishing boats), so huts on islands might be less fair to the AI than huts on continents.
   • I thought about moving further from Mansa so he'd have more territory and we'd have less, but decided against it. Not all the AIs need to be in good positions; there's at least two other water-map AIs who should do reasonably well against us.
     Spoiler who they are :

     Willem and Ragnar.
   • I added one crucial 1-tile island that makes it possible to circumnavigate with galleys (if you can get the AI to open borders in certain places, and if you don't run into too many barb galleys in other places). Not sure if this was a good idea. Archipelago sometimes comes out like this naturally, but I don't have enough experience with Big-and-Small to know if I've violated some fundamental property of the map type. I may have been excessively impressed by my cleverness at noting the one spot that made this possible without one of r_rolo1's "put the city in the right location to grow past a 1-ocean-tile gap."

There might be some others I've forgotten but those are the main ones.

This is the most editing I've ever done so far. I don't think I'll ever add so much food again unless there is some Really Good Excuse. Still playing around with how much of the other sorts of edit to do, which is why I posted in the Bullpen.

 

[Mogur]

Havent played a NC game in a long time. Thought I would give this one a go.

Monarch/Epic to 1725 BC

Spoiler :

I've been considering moving up to Emperor. I think this would have been a good map for it. Crazy amounts of food and land for the taking with an EXP/ORG leader.

After some initial exploring this map seems perfect for the GLH. Plenty of coast and islands and water. I also have a very large area to expand and dont really want to share it with anybody. I decide to forgo all early wonders and focus on REX. Something I need some practice in.

Opening Techs: Mining, AH, BW, Hunting (hut), Myst, Fishing, Pottery, Writing, IW, Math

Build order: Worker, War x3, Worker, Settler...more Workers and Settlers


I meet Mansa to my south. Sitting Bull to the east but on a different land mass. I found Edirne first. I probably should have split some of the food but it will make for a killer GP farm. It also grabs horses for defense. Then I set out to block off Mansa with Ankara and one more city 1W of the corn (Settler waiting for escort).

I probably should have settled further south to box in Mansa even worse, but the last thing I needed was an early war. I tried to give him a little room to expand and keep him around for a tech partner.

To the NE

The South


My plan is to Rex as fast as I know how and claim as much land as possible. With Mansa blocked off I can focus on the east. Hopefully claim all that land before Sitting Bull gets tired of his island and decides to move to mine.