ALC Game 15: Ottoman/Mehmed II

I have to agree with Whitefire, Sisiutil. Rex your whole island asap, regardless of commerce. After that, farm or cottage up, and catch up to the AIs. If you're near AIs, then you can forego ReX and instead take cities from the AI, which is usually the trade-off I see between ReX and early teching. Here, there's no AI to take cities from. Instead, if you delay expansion, you'll delay long-term teching. Also, there's less short-term tech pressure, as you have no AIs to military keep up with.
 
I agree with cabert on the Optics beeline. In general, there are two reasons why people are recommending getting there quickly.

  1. We need contact with the other civilizations!!!
  2. We need Astronomy for trade!!!
QUOTE]

Trade?
I wanted us to lightbulb our way to Astronomy for domination.
I have a domination fetish! :blush:
 
I'm gonna jump on the 'REX the island ASAP' bandwagon and say, "Yeah, Yeah ... do that."

Actually, I just happen to agree. :D

Since we lost so many turns watching barbs dig ruts in the lawn from the front porch, we've lost quite a few turns in which we should have had cities going up. I reckon now's our chance to make up those turns.

We have the workforce and the food supply (nearly two per city) to whip up some pretty fast Courthouses, so the economy shouldn't see a hit for too long (after which I expect it to boom). Plus, the two great rivers running through our Empire should alleviate the need for any excessive road-building between our land-locked cities for now -- allowing more focus on tile improvement.

It's my belief we're a lot further behind in tech than we think. I'd also vote for building a lonely Trireme or something to go find out.
 
Good advice so far (as usual). :)

Now, to open a can of worms: SE or CE? I hear both being recommended.

In favour of the CE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to cottaging.

In favour of the SE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to farms.

:lol:

Since I've mostly improved tiles with farms around Istanbul, I might be well on my way to a SE. Certainly I haven't played a ALC with a SE for some time (Frederick, and sort-of with Alexander). SE certainly offers early-game tech advantages, whereas the CE takes a lot longer to get going.

On the other hand, as I recall, the SE relies upon war booty for gold and popping GP to trade techs. I see problems here already. Let's assume the worst (always a good idea): we're isolated from contact until Optics, and from military until Astronomy. That rules out warring and tech trading for a long time. Also remember that although Mehmed can run larger cities earlier than other civs, he's not Philosophical.

At this point I'm leaning towards the CE, and the deciding factor is my familiarity and comfort with it as opposed to the SE. With all the other challenges this isolated start is presenting, I think I could do without an economic model I barely know how to implement and manage, especially not, in these circumstances, optimally.

However, as always, I am open to convincing arguments.
 
I wanted us to lightbulb our way to Astronomy for domination.
I have a domination fetish! :blush:

OK, so you're going to beeline to Astronomy and then dominate with your awesome swordsmen and chariots? If I'm correctly understanding the plan that cabert was responding to, we would have Astronomy but no Civil Service (no macemen), no Feudalism (no longbowmen), no Guilds (no knights), no Horseback Riding (no horse archers), and no Gunpowder (no janissaries or grenadiers). Would we even have Construction (catapults)?

I guess if we're realistic about it, getting Astronomy that early would give you some trade opportunities to catch up on missing technology, but I still think you'd have an overpowered navy with no worthwhile ground forces to back it up. You'll also probably have an underpowered economic and happiness situation which will lead to poor production hampering your ability to actually build any of those great naval and land units in time for an effective assault.
 
Either economy you choose, just make sure you expand fast. I hate stagged expansion in isolated starts. I'll usually get all my settlers completed, then hike them out to the site I want, waiting for my economy to recover enough to settle the next city. Of course I'll have 1 axeman guarding with a chariot a few moves away in case an Axe pops up. Although without the Horses, you'll have to play Hide n' Seek in the jungle for a bit.

If you do go CE, I'm thinking Currency will be the next tech to go for. We want Maths for our UB and Currency is just beyond that. The question is whether you want Maths before or after Iron Working.

As far as the new cities. After whipping or building cheap Courthouses, build Granaries for growth, then whip a Hammam, build a worker to wait out the unhappiness, then build/whip a Market (Library if you still don't have Currency). You should be able to claim the continent and recover your economy in 100ish turns.
 
I say again, since no one seems to have noticed the first time, don't bother with Astronomy. Grab Constitution with Liberalism, beeline to Democracy and spam cottages. The AI's will come looking for you as they love Optics and caravels anyway. Especially since you have a weak start, catching up with a powerful CE is the best bet. I've seen it work twice firsthand, once on Emperor and another time on Immortal. Space race or even cultural is highly possible. Domination doesn't seem to be realistic, but maybe I can't judge for Monarch.

To get to Liberalism first, you probably need to run some form of SE. It's fine. The transition to CE can happen post-Emancipation.
 
OK, so you're going to beeline to Astronomy and then dominate with your awesome swordsmen and chariots? If I'm correctly understanding the plan that cabert was responding to, we would have Astronomy but no Civil Service (no macemen), no Feudalism (no longbowmen), no Guilds (no knights), no Horseback Riding (no horse archers), and no Gunpowder (no janissaries or grenadiers). Would we even have Construction (catapults)?

I guess if we're realistic about it, getting Astronomy that early would give you some trade opportunities to catch up on missing technology, but I still think you'd have an overpowered navy with no worthwhile ground forces to back it up. You'll also probably have an underpowered economic and happiness situation which will lead to poor production hampering your ability to actually build any of those great naval and land units in time for an effective assault.


This is all irrelevant now anyway because we have meditation which we needed to avoid.
BUT :) don't forget we would have only been one tech away from Macemen, and one more tech away from Catapults. In the meantime, go exploring, find the weakest neighbour to attack.
Those veteran Macemen can be upgraded to Grenadiers later.

Anyway, with our current situation I certainly wouldn't take that route anymore.
 
Now, to open a can of worms: SE or CE? I hear both being recommended.

In favour of the CE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to cottaging.

In favour of the SE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to farms.
[. . .]
However, as always, I am open to convincing arguments.

I think you need. . . a hybrid. :lol:

Early on, focus on population growth and try to get one early GP farm, because we will need some bulbing, academy, and settling to juice the tech pace. At the same time, have some cottages worked in your capitol and a few other cities, ready to take on the heavy lifting around the liberalism shift.

What this means in a practical sense is that cow/clams in the northwest might need to be an earlier build, along with help from other cities to get some workboats to it quickly (perhaps your scout should head there after a bit of exploration in the northeast). Then whip a library and get to work on some scientists. After REXing is over, switch to caste system to maximize things.
 
REX -> Farm -> Hybrid Economy ( mostly SE ) -> ... -> Emancipation ->cottage farms -> CE -> Space ?
(I'm with aelf ; His Monty Immortal challenge proves that is doable)
 
Another question is do you raze barb cities and place your own (short term costs with long term benefits) or use existing barb cities to speed up colonisation. Along with that is the question of how many cities do you want to fit in the island.
 
As for contact, yes, contact would be very useful. Presumably there will be a technology gap when we meet our overseas neighbors, and it would be useful to get working on that as soon as possible. However, as far as contact goes, we're no better off if we contact them than if they contact us. Furthermore, if we assume that we'll be behind on technology, what are we really going to offer them in trade?

If we can manage to contact them early, and we're behind in tech, we'll at least get the beaker discount for contact with other civs that know the techs we need to catch up on. If I understand this thread correctly, meeting all other civs would give us approximately a 30% research bonus. Is that such a minor factor that it makes no difference?

However, we don't even know at this point whether we even need Optics to meet the other civs. Perhaps they're all hiding on that rocky island to the NE. Let's go send a workboat there to check it out!
 
You have no choice but hybrid. Half of your cities won't have fresh water (eg Edrine) and can't farm until Civil Service, which you're going to need a functional economy to get. OTOH the first few specialists are so insanely efficient you'd be crazy to give them up. Fortunately your capital will make an excellent GP farm so run specialists there and maybe in one more food-rich cities. Otherwise, cottage.

Astronomy will give you foreign trade routes, which are a HUGE benefit.
 
Grab Constitution with Liberalism, beeline to Democracy and spam cottages.

Sorry. I meant to say grab Nationalism with Liberalism.

Astronomy will give you foreign trade routes, which are a HUGE benefit.

Overrated. Pales in comparison to an Emancipation-powered cottage spam. You can do the math.
 
I say again, since no one seems to have noticed the first time, don't bother with Astronomy. Grab Constitution with Liberalism, beeline to Democracy and spam cottages. The AI's will come looking for you as they love Optics and caravels anyway. Especially since you have a weak start, catching up with a powerful CE is the best bet. I've seen it work twice firsthand, once on Emperor and another time on Immortal. Space race or even cultural is highly possible. Domination doesn't seem to be realistic, but maybe I can't judge for Monarch.

To get to Liberalism first, you probably need to run some form of SE. It's fine. The transition to CE can happen post-Emancipation.

I'm with Aelf here. By the way, could you figure out how big your island is in comparison to the others?
 
By the way, could you figure out how big your island is in comparison to the others?

By the looks of it, the island ( maybe small continent fits better) where we are should have between 20 - 35% of the dry land of the map. I'm betting for atleast other small continent.
 
I say again, since no one seems to have noticed the first time, don't bother with Astronomy. Grab Constitution with Liberalism, beeline to Democracy and spam cottages. The AI's will come looking for you as they love Optics and caravels anyway. Especially since you have a weak start, catching up with a powerful CE is the best bet. I've seen it work twice firsthand, once on Emperor and another time on Immortal. Space race or even cultural is highly possible. Domination doesn't seem to be realistic, but maybe I can't judge for Monarch.

To get to Liberalism first, you probably need to run some form of SE. It's fine. The transition to CE can happen post-Emancipation.

Exactly. Don´t bother with Astronomy. If you´re too backwards, you won´t get yourself out of the hole with the Astronomy.

The only chance you have is a massive cottage spam ( SE is good for war, now whom exactly do you plan to fight?)

The other AIs will make contact soon enough and if not, you will have astronomy in no time when you got the CE up and running.
 
To determine how much of the total land this small continant is, could we not simply look at victory conditions for current percentage, then figure what it would be with all the land on the continant.
 
Good advice so far (as usual). :)

Now, to open a can of worms: SE or CE? I hear both being recommended.

In favour of the CE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to cottaging.

In favour of the SE is a lot of grassland (underneath that jungle) that lends itself to farms.

and the answer is HE ! :p

What i mean is you want to grow fast, to overcome both the bad start and the AI advantages. being isolated is already bad so you need to be bigger to have a wider beaker base.

that means more than +5/+6 foods in each city (there is an excellent analysis somewhere on this forum, there is really a threeshold on this value). With HR and MMII health bonus you can afford that. it is also a big advantage when :whipped:

So you need at least some farms in each city ( at least 3 i think). From there, you can have cottages, but i would still favor a mix with more farms, at least early. Also be carefull to have production (mine or bonus tiles) everywhere.

in the middle game you can cottage the farms in the commerce cities, or go full CE post emancipation.
 
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