Nobles' Club XL: Mehmed II of the Ottomans

[Mogur]

Update to 430 AD

Monarch/Epic

Spoiler :

Been trying to fill in the land. The builder in me could not resist the temptation of a few wonders though. Built the Parthenon, Statue of Zeus, Great Library, and took a shot at the Mausoleum of Maussollos but missed it by 2 turns. I think Im done with wonders for a while now.

I really need to get back to expanding. There is room for 4-5 more cities on my land mass and tons of islands to settle. Every island seems to have goodie huts. I make a killing with a few galleys and scouts. Add in the ~650 from MoM failure and I have a stack of cash. Tech situation is pretty good. No surprise, Mansa and Willem are doing well.


Known world

NE

South

Diplo Glance

Cities


Got a Great Artist from Music and planning a golden age. Its a little earlier than I usually like but I need to switch some civics. I was hoping for MoM and make it a 15 turn golden age but it was not to be. I am going to switch to Caste and Pacifism at the start and probably Buro and Organized Religion at the end.

Im going keep expanding and get as large as possible. Not sure on victory condition yet. I think most any condition should be doable at this point.

 

[Groogaroo]

@Groogaroo: on looking at your dotmap for the area south of the start, I realized yours is much better and solves various doubts I had about mine. Consider it copied!

No worries, glad it helped.

 

[BigTime]

Monarch/epic to 1822 Domination win

Spoiler :

After taking lib from steel, I produced around 25 Janissaries and Cannon to wipe Mansa. It turns out he settled some far away land mass so I didn't cap him to keep WvO at friendly. He later volunatarily vassals to WvO, which proves to be a pain in my side.







After getting Communism, caste/SP/WS spam gives me a lot of production. So next up is Sitting Bull. He is backwards as hell. Janissaries and Cannon wipe him off the map, and I get a huge amount of land.





Next is Ragnar. He has grenadiers, but no cannon or rifles. I land rifles, janissaries, and cannons, and cap him, as well as his colony Lincoln.







Cathy breaks free from WvO, but I know she will voluntarily vassal next turn. So I declare on her with rifles and cannon, even though she has infantry. 3 cities and she caps as well.





Now it's time for the grand finale. My collection of vassals and me vs. WvO and his collection of vassals. Fortunately, he doesn't build that many units. Infantry and artillery and more than enough to take him. Unfortunately, he has 2 (!) vassals, Ram and Mansa, which means it will take forever for him to give up. Oh well, I slogged through his territory, took out Ram, and sloged out to a dom win. Mansa also broke his connection with Williem when he lost all but one of his cities, so I capped him as well.







Graphs:



Demographics:



Builds: (long game for me)



and Score:




One of my best ever! But really, with GL and this much room to expand, game was a cakewalk. I was still at tech parity after 1000 years of warring...

Thanks for hosting Dalamb!

 

[Freyas]

Prince/Epic 1784 Conquest Victory

Spoiler :

I continued on with my gameplan and started cranking out Jannisaries while teching for steel. Picked up steel from Liberalism easily, and after making ~10 cannons, I sent the invasion force after Mansa Musa. He capitulated after 2 cities, at which point I trucked my troops back across the continent and boated them in after Sitting Bull. He fell, followed by WvO, Ramses(+colony), Ragnar, and then finally Catherine, who I got to capitulate after annihilating her colony. With 7 cities pumping out units every 2-3 turns, I had 5 stacks of doom by the end, with extra machine guns in each stack for holding captured cities.








Although this map seemed almost too easy, from seeing everyone's dotmaps and city placement, it looks as though I've got a fair amount of improvement possible in my city placement. A few more victories like this, though, and I may look at trying my hand at Monarch again, if for no other reason than to keep my ego down.

Questions

Spoiler :

1: I noticed most people did settle in place- are the benefits from coastal placement greater than picking up an extra resource tile(grassland cow), and having a greater number of productive tiles in the BFC?

2: For a GP Farm, I saw most people took the city spot to the Southeast for a GPF with corn, 2 fish, and pigs. I set up my GPF to the north, with corn, 2 clams, sheep, and cow, and split the southeast site into 2 cities. Was there something I was missing that made the southeast site better, or was this somewhat an effect of my capitol placement?

3: I gifted several of my captured cities back to my vassals after they capitulated to reduce maintenance(mostly before I got communism for SP). From looking at the victory conditions, though, it seems as though I may have been able to reach the domination threshold had I kept those cities. Do you typically keep all the cities you capture, or take additional cities with capitulation? How much more benefit do you get from having the land yourself instead of a vassal controlling it?

 

[Amao]

Prince/Epic 1784 Conquest Victory

Questions

Spoiler :

1: I noticed most people did settle in place- are the benefits from coastal placement greater than picking up an extra resource tile(grassland cow), and having a greater number of productive tiles in the BFC?

2: For a GP Farm, I saw most people took the city spot to the Southeast for a GPF with corn, 2 fish, and pigs. I set up my GPF to the north, with corn, 2 clams, sheep, and cow, and split the southeast site into 2 cities. Was there something I was missing that made the southeast site better, or was this somewhat an effect of my capitol placement?

3: I gifted several of my captured cities back to my vassals after they capitulated to reduce maintenance(mostly before I got communism for SP). From looking at the victory conditions, though, it seems as though I may have been able to reach the domination threshold had I kept those cities. Do you typically keep all the cities you capture, or take additional cities with capitulation? How much more benefit do you get from having the land yourself instead of a vassal controlling it?

Spoiler :

1. By moving SE, you pretty much giving up the GLH race and dedicated your capital for a cottage site. Have you done that? I moved to SE and one side effect was it perfectly sealed Monsa from exploring east and secured all the huts for you.

2. the east GPF is 1 river corn (6), 2 fish (10 before lh, 12 after), and a hill pig (5), that's 23/25 food with 4 people working on food which means 8-9 available specialists if you have that much happyness. and you can irrigate more grass land for extra food. And the north GPF is 1 corn (5), 2 clams (8/10), 1 plain sheep (4), 1 grass cow (4), and that's only 21/23 food with 5 people working on food. Also, those 6 food alone can support 3 specialists which is more than good enough before you get CoL. Considering we have 6 happy cap at the beginning (gem +1, ivory +1), that means it's an awesome settler/worker pump before you have writting, and a good one even you have 2 scientists working for your first GS. And actually, I didn't have my second fish workboated until 600BC, because I've already reached happy cap. So i sent the 2nd wb to explore and met Willem and Ram.

3. dunno. no Prince, i'll probably keep them all by myself because the vessals are useless in watery warfares, and their tech speed is slow.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Prince, Marathon, 1000 AD

Spoiler :

I guess you can call it a goodyhut economy hehe. After getting all I could from galleys I loaded spies on caravls and had em snag as many huts as I could find. Got TONS of gold AND:



Not 100% its all that good a thing on this map tho. Dont need it for trade routes since everybody is connected anyways and as soon as I get to banking I'll be in merc anyways. Plus it shutdown stonehenge and col AND it made me lose out on TWO quests horsewhispering and master forge. But on plus side it does give me shot at getting some cities on some of the other islands before the ai so maybe it can help me toward a dom win. We'll see.

There was nothing ambiguious about this event tho:


Free pinch for my jannies

Aside from hut grabbing game mostly been trying to fill out my land mass. My empire at this point:



The north and:



The south. I picked Nat as lib tech and am close to finishing the sports league quest so hopefully I can time things for back to back GA's. Im also going for DR which normally I wouldnt do BUT:



Tech sitch seems to be going my way so stopping off to get DR shouldnt put me behind much if any. Also I managed to get AP built and have UofSankore almost done so I am gonna be spamming religion buildings LOTS anyways so might as well try and add Spiral to it hehe

Demos:



Starting to fall behind in power but not TOO worried cuz Willie been busy warring off and on with rags so I dont think he will pick on me much. Cathey starting to feel froggy too but she is far away and is waaay off her game. Look at this:



She is stuck at 4 cities even tho she has TONS of land up north with NOTHING blocking her. No peaks no enemy cities nothing. SHe doesnt even have metals even tho there are TWO copper spots up there but she doesnt seem to feel like settling anymore :/

Also noticed SB wasnt as messed over as I thought, At FIRST it looked like he got put on a one tile island JUST off the coast of the main landmass but it looks like he had space to his south. Still kinda sucky start tho and he hasnt been doing all THAT well tech wise either.

So thats bout it. I have a lil tech lead at this point and still have LOTS of spots to settle more cities so I need to get all that sorted out then see where I can go from there. Im thinking maybe chem/steel after DR is done and try and go for a dom or conquest win. I just did a peacefulish culture win in the PC Salad game so Im mood to go kill stuff not to mention Rags DOES deserve a beatdown for being a TOTAL dillhole at the end of that game and he is my arch nemesis so I need to kill him anyways on principle. So thats my plan at this point wish me luck

Kaytie

 

[Gocho]

@Freyas

Spoiler :

*note* I'm only at 1000AD but accidently read a spoiler so figured I'd read them all.

1. I'm regretting not moving it as it's not the best cap ever, still it's damn good. I built TGLH in my 2nd city so it's certainly doable.

2. Double clam is my GP city as well, I split that other city up and maybe not the best choice but both of those cities are doing very well, one is my HE pump and the other will be WS.

The SE site is better due to the quality of the food but with so many cities I didn't think it would matter as I wasn't leaving slavery until the very late game so I couldn't abuse caste.

3. I tend to keep any I think might get resettled but generally I imagine I burn more then most.

@Katiekat

Spoiler :

Damn you! I tried so hard to pop astro from a hut! 7 tries no luck, one day I guess. I agree it's not the best it's just on the "needs to be done someday" list.

Why kill Mansa though, he's such a useful vassal!?

 

[Amao]

@Katiekat

Spoiler :

Damn you! I tried so hard to pop astro from a hut! 7 tries no luck, one day I guess. I agree it's not the best it's just on the "needs to be done someday" list.

Why kill Mansa though, he's such a useful vassal!?

Be nice to young lady.

 

[Gocho]

Be nice to young lady.

I'm more angry with my luck then hers. Obviously it's all in good fun.

 

[roberteriksson]

Emperor until lib:

Spoiler :

Gems start together with massive amounts of land, the best tech trader as neighbour and easy blocking options made this game very winnable. Add the Great Lighthouse, spice it up with the Pyramids and the superb UB, and we got a massive empire with good tech rate. Settled 1SE and continued to settle the floodplains site to the east and blocking Mansa to the south. From there on, there's massive rexing helped by TGL and the pyramids until Sitting Bull declares on me with 2 cats and 2 chariots (?).

I take out his settlements on my continent, while at the same time I've settled every piece of island visible to me. Grabbed Nationalism from Lib before I stopped as from here on it's pretty much an win. I'm massively ahead in tech, equal in power rating with all all AI's, and have the most amount of land.

Overall a fun game, even though it felt as a setup at times!

 

[dalamb]

@KaytieKat:

Spoiler :

goodie hut econony -- nice phrase . I probably won't add so many ever again, but all those useless islands annoyed me.

Free pinch for my jannies

I either never knew or forgot that event existed! It's one of the best for somebody with a musketman UU.

Also noticed SB wasnt as messed over as I thought, At FIRST it looked like he got put on a one tile island JUST off the coast of the main landmass but it looks like he had space to his south. Still kinda sucky start tho and he hasnt been doing all THAT well tech wise either.

I've now started looking over the AI positions when I create a map, so they should never be totally hopeless. Unfortunately I just looked at continents overall and made sure they had some strategic resources; I sorta trusted the map script to give decent starting locations. One more item to add to my map review checklist (not that I have one; maybe I ought to.

@others: I still need to go back and review a few early-stage games, so if you've been waiting for somebody to comment, don't give up yet!

 

[ilikepies]

Noble/Normal
4000BC

Spoiler :

Mehmed is a very nice leader. I’ll try to knock out my first neighbor with a rush and claim their land, then build up and get to Gunpowder. Once I’m well into the medieval age, it’s war time.

4000 BC- Settled in place, trained a worker.

2000 BC- I've met Sitting Bull and Mansa Musa. Sitting Bull seems to be seperated from the mainland by a small strait, and Mansa seems to be quite far away.. no rushing for Mehmed. Regardless, I've found about 4 spaces that would make great GP farms, so I'll just try to grow, grow, and grow some more. If I can't overrun my rivals with domination, I'll use specialists to speed ahead in tech.

 

[duckstab]

I'll probably give this a start this evening.

I expect to settle in place. Per Dalamb's advice, will put a few turns into a Warrior until I can work 4 or more hammers at once, then switch to Worker. I think I may buck the trend and go for Pottery first, not for cottages, but so I can queue up a Granary sooner rather than later. Then Mining, AH, BW, and backfill Hunting so I can build a Scout for faster fogbusting. Subject to change if I don't find Horses or Copper nearby...

 

[CivilizedTiger]

Groogaroo suggested that I play prince, after the last game, so here it is... I upgraded the difficulty to prince. (But downgraded the speed difficulty... gone from normal to marathon, which I like very much, but which also means easier play; also, considering gems in starting location, I might as well admit that I'm probably playing noble despite what the game says )

Prince, marathon, 990 BCE

Spoiler :

Considering that starting position was coast+river+plain hills, and surrounded by great resources, I decided to settle right there. I honestly have no clue why anyone would settle anywhere else.

Started with worker right away, following tks2103's advice from his 100 turns vid, and since there were grain, pic and gems close by, I don't think any other course would have been better. Teched AH right away, then mining, then BW, then pottery, then writing, then hunting for the camps (I had gotten used to playing as Pericles, the reason I took hunting so late is that I didn't even realize I didn't have it )

Then teched half way through currency, when a hut "happened"

Traded with Mansa Musa and Sitting Bull, IW from the tech whre for alphabet, mysticism as gift, archery and fishing. (I really needed archery, as spearmen started showing up, and there was no use trying to counter with chariots)

Settled a city I didn't want to settle, somewhere to the east, in order to get iron. Funnily enough, when I transported a worker north of my GP farm, I noticed that there was iron a lot closer. That just goes to show that no matter how good an opinion you have about your knowledge of the terrain, more exploring is always better. I would have already had iron now, with a great city and less defense worries. Oh well...

Founded confucianism, sent my free missionary to a MM city, but it got converted before I could reach it. MM converted to confu, and a few turns later he asked me to convert to it as well. !! As you can imagine, I was very upset with his request. Not only do I have my own religion, I got happy points for free just for converting on request.

My cities:
North is GP farm, southeast is first prod city

Planning on settling one of the dyes which allows me to get rice, to the west, and the eastern spot where I have a warrior now. Settled the southern city for strategic reasons, plus it's going to be a decent prod city, and a great one late-game, after some +food techs.

 

[Groogaroo]

Well this is all going rather well ...

Update - 10ad - Emporer/Epic

Spoiler :

After writing decided to divert from Aesthetics in order to have a stab at the Great LightHouse.

Tech Path - Fishing > Sailing > Masonry > Aesthetics > Litrature > Hunting > Iron WOrking > Maths > Currency > Code of Laws > Civil Service (14 turns to go) still no tech trades...

Managed to build the Great Light House in the Capital (My first wonder built on Emporer ) which really has made the spiralling costs on Emporer a little easier to bear. Got a fairly early Great Scientist for an acadamy in the Cap. After Aesthetics was in I checked the tech trade situation, nobady has researched Alphabet yet so just kept teching. I built the Great Library in my GP farm! and Statue of Seuz in one of my southern production cities to protect it from mansa's culture.

Teched right through to Code of Laws and still the tech situation was rather bizarre but finally at 10ad Mansa discovers alphabet ...




I've settled 7 cities (incl cap) could have really settled alot more but I've been enjoying 60% of the science slider toooo much! Milked the barbs to get a lvl 3 unit for heroic epic. Mansa is blocked off & Sitting bull is a bit slow out of the gates. Here's my empire @ 10ad...




119 beakers @ 70% slider is alright, 2nd Scientist due in 2 turns. There's a little barb city to the east that I'm preparing to take...

To be honest I think Dalamb is spoiling us somewhat with this map... Not that I'm complaining, my last couple of Emporer games have been a real grind so its nice to have a more relaxing and enjoyable game.

 

[Groogaroo]

Groogaroo suggested that I play prince, after the last game, so here it is...

Well in that case I hope you game goes alright... you seem to be doing fine by the way.

You know I always get confused at first when I look at your reports thinking "what are all those barb cities doing there"... then I realise you always change your default civ colour!

 

[lymond]

Monarch/Epic to 1475 AD

I'm going ahead and reporting now since this is really decision time for me. Looking for advice on how best to proceed.

Spoiler :

I think my game is very winnable but I'm undecided about going for Space Win or Dom/Conquest. Willie is certainly a problem and the overall Diplo is kind of screwed. No options for bribing anyone to war since everyone is in love with each other despite differences. Mansa is my vassal but is still a concern from a tech standpoint.

I attacked culture whore Willie to knock 3 of his cities off my continent. He brought in Ramses who I'm still at war with simply because he won't talk - I haven't decided whether to pursue his backwards self or not - just harrassing him for now. I have pretty much the whole continent with the exception of Mansa. A lot of land and cities that could probably suffice for the game if I want to sit back.

overview


As you can see, there is not a lot of hatred in this world - except for me. I'm a little surprised by this. Makes it hard to distract the other civs.

diplo




Teching is going well at the moment. A lot of civs are quite behind but that could change quickly at this level. I'm going for the Comm for the Kremlin and a US switch to buy buy buy. I'm generating good gold and beakers at the moment.

tech



Willie had constantly had a strong power lead despite at the moment my having more advance units. Amsterdam would be a lovely city to capture. He's built a lot of good wonders in that city, including the AP. He tried to vote back one of his cities I captured. I defied it and have the happiness hit.

power



Pretty decent list of cities. I don't think I need to focus too much on expansion at the moment.

cities



Any thoughts on what route you would take would be appreciated.

 

[GrayInvisible]

Prince/Epic 1200 AD

Spoiler :

This game has been pretty standard so far. Settled in place, and explored my surroundings, built my worker etc. The land in the map is very nice, very food heavy. I quickly built up a nice cottage economy (and for the first time made a dedicated GP Farm), which allowed me to expand. I made sure to play nice with Mansa Musa, adopting his religion, trading, giving in to demands, which payed off with him becoming my voluntary vassal. Right now I'm preparing an invasion to kill off the weakest civ on the map, Sitting Bull. Technology wise I'm up to grab Lib, but I'm getting some more techs first so I can bulb steel.

Screenshots to come after I edit the post

 

[GGS]

Prince/Epic 975 BC.

Spoiler :

Holy huts - 13 of them - 199 gold, 2 maps, a scout, 3 warriors, mysticism, writing, archery, 1 hostile. The rest rather pales in comparision. The other good luck included the tower shield thing and decision-wise the timing of AH and IW.

Settled in place and started with warrior, worker, barracks, worker. The tech path was mining, BW, AH, fishing, sailing (could see two off-shore huts), hunting, masonry, IW, alphabet - currency within 10 turns. Mansa Musa was located in 3750; Sitting Bull in 2275.

With AH in hand, Edrine was founded 1SW of the horse in 2450 for a fine continental divider and GPF. Ankara was placed on the sugar toward Mali in 1600 and will be a solid forward base. In four turns it should be twinned by the fourth city 1S of the west coast elephant. In 1275 the GLH was constucted in the capital. The economy if fine, the tech lead is real and the Ottomans are no worse than second in soldiers, land and population.

The start is serious; many options are open. Is there luck left to be had?

 

[L-Plate Ruler]

Monarch/Epic to 1475 AD

I'm going ahead and reporting now since this is really decision time for me. Looking for advice on how best to proceed.

Spoiler :

You've got the tech advantage and it's (reasonably) early days, why not take out Willem, Sitting Bull, Ragnar and then Ramesses II and see how that positions you for world domination?

I'm thinking that would be the attack order because if you get knee deep in war Willem who is already with you might take advantage and attack when your back is turned. With him out of the picture first the others will be easy sauce