ALC Game 15: Ottoman/Mehmed II

[Sisiutil]

I gave the start another try tonight and fared much better with a Specialist Economy, and probably would have fared even better if I was more skilled and experienced with the SE. I didn't play all the way through, of course--just to when I was making contact with the other civs. Monty and Huayna contacted me first (Monty won the circumnav race), but I was the one whose Caravels contacted everybody else. Oh, I also managed to hook up that stone quickly and built both the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens!

I was able to trade several lightbulbed techs to near-parity with the AI; I suspect if I'd kept going I would have overtaken them. If I'd kept going I probably would have tried aelf's trick of bee-lining to Democracy, then shifting gears to an Emancipation-powered cottage economy.

Lesson learned: when isolated, the CE just takes too long to get going. Even if you're not Philosophical, the SE is the way to go in the early game.

 

[vormuir]

"Running a Specialist Economy when not Philosophical" would be a good article.

Anyway, looking forward to the next game.

cheers,


Waldo

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

There were a few mistakes I saw with the game, but first, the ones that aren't a mistake:

- The oracle was not a mistake. It's a very "meat-and-potatoes" wonder, and courthouses for an organized leader is very useful.
- Second city: I suggested horses, but copper won't be wrong either
- internet beeline attempt: duh.

The mistakes:
- not building warriors or not researching archery. I usually have 2-3 warriors per city if I'm not doing a rush against an enemy, just in case the RNG tries to do anything funny. Fogbusting is also useful. They aren't useless against archers, and axeman don't really show up until you do have a strategic resource. If no strategic resource, research archery.
- not beelining for liberalism. No AI should ever beat you to liberalism when the human player makes a dedicated effort. You don't even have to take astronomy with liberalism, just take anything you can get your hands on, since you'll need optics badly anyway.
- Specialist economy: 'nuff sad.
- Diplomacy: check the AI every few turns to see whether "we have enough on our hands right now". Maceman could've held off for a while.

 

[Sisiutil]

I've started the pre-game thread for the next game HERE.

 

[Validator]

Lesson learned: when isolated, the CE just takes too long to get going. Even if you're not Philosophical, the SE is the way to go in the early game.

I don't think that's a fair conclusion to draw based on your limited experience.

I think there's a consensus that SE is strong early and CE is strong late. The main issue with an SE is that if you can't find a way to win the game early you need to make a very tricky SE->CE transition in the mid-game. In your case you used an SE to stay competitive early but then quit the game before dealing with the hard part . All you offered was a rather cavalier comment that you would have done a bee-line to Democracy before switching to a CE. There's no doubt that expert players can pull this off, but most can't (including me). I don't think it's fair to conclude that SE is the way to go until you've actually played the game out to some sort of a victory (other than diplomatic).

Personally I think CE is the way to go with this start. If you're going to have to win the game late you might as well use the economy that is strongest in the late game. I think the fundamental problem with the way you played the game was that you didn't expand properly. I understand that the barbs caused problems early, but by the 580 BC save the barbs seemed to be under control and yet you only founded 4 cities in the next 100+ turns. You didn't start REXing until 1100 AD, and that's just too late. Also you didn't prioritize founding the right cities. Despite knowing that economy was going to be the big problem in the game you left some of your best commerce cities for last.

I played a shadow game starting from your 2260 BC save and focused on founding the commerce cities as quickly as possible once barbs were under control. When I met the AIs I was behind in tech (but not as bad as you were), I was last in power and last in GNP, but my economy was getting better each turn. I got lucky as I didn't get attacked until 1709, but if I had been attacked in 1448 as you were at least I would have had Janissaries. Eventually I ended up #1 in GNP and power and reached tech parity with the AIs. I allowed myself to get distracted by a war with Cathy (during which you'll be glad to hear she lost several cities ) until WW forced me to make peace. After that I finished off the game with a space race win in 1923.

I'm not saying that the game can't be won with an SE, but I think it will require more skill than needed for a CE based win.

 

[patagonia]

The main issue with an SE is that if you can't find a way to win the game early you need to make a very tricky SE->CE transition in the mid-game. In your case you used an SE to stay competitive early but then quit the game before dealing with the hard part . All you offered was a rather cavalier comment that you would have done a bee-line to Democracy before switching to a CE. There's no doubt that expert players can pull this off, but most can't (including me). I don't think it's fair to conclude that SE is the way to go until you've actually played the game out to some sort of a victory (other than diplomatic).

The SE to CE transition isn't actually that horrendous once you've got democracy for emancipation. You just need a decent number of workers (which can be built quickly enough at that stage if you need more - especially with the potential food surplus in your best cities).

At that stage of the game you'd likely be running representation anyway (possibly free religion too) so the main hit you're taking is swapping caste system for emancipation. Use teams of workers to cottage farms in your most developed cities and sure, there may be a bit of a slowdown for 20-30 turns, but once things start to fire up you'll slingshot ahead without a problem.

 

[Validator]

The SE to CE transition isn't actually that horrendous once you've got democracy for emancipation. You just need a decent number of workers (which can be built quickly enough at that stage if you need more - especially with the potential food surplus in your best cities).

At that stage of the game you'd likely be running representation anyway (possibly free religion too) so the main hit you're taking is swapping caste system for emancipation. Use teams of workers to cottage farms in your most developed cities and sure, there may be a bit of a slowdown for 20-30 turns, but once things start to fire up you'll slingshot ahead without a problem.

I understand the part about using workers to replace the farms with cottages. The problem I have is how do you get to Democracy soon enough, keeping in mind that the SE is getting weaker at this stage and that a true bee-line for Democracy would leave you without military techs unless you can trade.

I know that in the general case proponents of SE talk about using SE to gain an early advantage so they're making the transition from a position of strength. In this case the isolated start doesn't allow any way to leverage the early strength of SE. If you're playing catch up in techs with the AI as you head to Democracy you won't be able to trade for any military techs, and we saw how well ignoring military works .

I'm not saying that the transition isn't doable, but I don't think that most Monarch level players would consider it to be easy.

 

[Bhruic]

There's a difference between ignoring the military and ignoring military techs. If you've got Catapults and Macemen in sufficient number, you're going to be able to hold off most armies up until Riflemen, because the AI won't land enough of them. So you can build up your military, you just won't have the more advanced units.

Bh

 

[Scaphism]

That, and having military plus walls (cheaper with stone) to boost your power rating as a deterrant. Unfortunately I don't know how much you need to act as an effective deterrant, but being leagues below everyone else as Sisiutil was in this game doesn't help.

 

[aelf]

I know that in the general case proponents of SE talk about using SE to gain an early advantage so they're making the transition from a position of strength. In this case the isolated start doesn't allow any way to leverage the early strength of SE. If you're playing catch up in techs with the AI as you head to Democracy you won't be able to trade for any military techs, and we saw how well ignoring military works .

I'm not saying that the transition isn't doable, but I don't think that most Monarch level players would consider it to be easy.

I don't understand what's so difficult about it. The key to the Democracy beeline is grabbing Nationalism for free with Liberalism. First, you get an expensive tech for less (comparing the beaker costs of Nationalism and Liberalism). Second, you research an important branch of the tech tree (the CS/Education route) that you need. And, lastly, you will have valuable techs with which to backfill for military techs like Machinery and Engineering. The AIs are not going to attack you right away when you meet them. In between first contact and tech trading and the AIs posing a serious threat, you have enough time to build up or update your military. If you do this right, the AIs are not going to have grenadiers on you (it's Monarch, so this is hardly possible if you were the one winning the Liberalism race). And, for Mehmed, you have Janissaries to help you out during this period, when the AI still has piles of older units.

It's not that hard. Have you tried it?

 

[baboon]

I loved it. Learned a lot too

 

[pigswill]

I ran a hybrid economy pretty much throughout my shadow. This wasn't really an issue. I think the keys to this game (from my experience at least) were early fogbusting, early rex (I stopped expanding when research was down to 30%, I should have carried on until research was 10%) and staying neutral and inoffensive during the catch up period. If you don't annoy people they're less likely to go through the hassle of an oceanic invasion when they have neighbours they can invade instead.