ALC Game 15: Ottoman/Mehmed II

An isolated start ... at least the island is big enough to be useful.
And now? There isn't such a big need for a "hard" gunpowder beeline and, if we are really isolated, the main focus should be research ( there is a tech crazy guy somewhere, surely). Maybe a priesthood -> oracle monarchy (for Hereditary rule) and teching to maths (for the UB) would be a good idea, for some good sized cities, for a HE/SE (your choice)(Caste System required).
About city placing, second city should be jerVL/kg's red city ( I'm inclined to believe that in isolated starts we need a more mobile force, so we need Chariots. And, besides that, a gold/horse/cow spot makes a nice second city).
And I'm with Kietharr regarding a late medieval / renaiscence sea invasion, if we find someone suitable for that. Maybe there we could get some training ground for our Jans.
 
The dotmaps so far have been way too casual on early military. Alone on such a large continent, you have *got* to get copper or horses *very* early. Every warrior you build is just this side of a waste.

I would put the second city 1E of the copper, which gets two strong resources and can be connected with 1 road. The third city probably should go at the mouth of the river. The copper city placement messes up dotmaps for the south of the planet but I think the early gains are more important. Besides, with an isolated start you can't build too many cities since it'll kill your research.

Metal Working will be a key tech, for a) leveraging the gold since you're short on happy resources, b) the Colossus on an island and c) the path to Optics.
 
a sentry chariot next to pike will cover a huge sector.

Do you mean next to a peak? There are enough mountains in convenient locations that 4 sentry chariots can probably cover all but the southeast. The southeast might need 2 and/or a city.

One thing you don't mention is that it's not completely trivial to create a sentry chariot (let alone 5 of them). Sentry requires two promotions. A barracks gets you 3 experience, but you still need 2 battles before you get Sentry. I often find it difficult to obtain enough experience for my chariots, because they do such a good job of fogbusting that there aren't very many barbarians around.
 
given the isolated start, one way to make up the research deficiency would be to shoot for the lighthouse and colossus. orcale sling to MC then get the colossus built???

the lighthouse would be useful, but I don't think as much since you have no other civs to trade with. although merchants generated can pop some good techs for you on the way through the top path.

just my .02 this early in the game

NaZ
 
Is this really a fully isolated start ?

There is a small bit of land in the NE which could be a small island or the big continent where everybody hides
 
I have a quick question about exploring, since you place such a high priority on it.

Once you popped the hut for the map, your second warrior was only a turn or two from completion. Which direction did you send the second warrior in? And when/how did you fill in the gaps that the map from the hut left you with?
I find maps from huts distressing because of the gaps in the map they give. I'm tempted to explore the area the map didn't reveal (unless another hut is revealed) but backtracking to fill gaps is so inefficient.

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Sisiutil said:
Well, obviously, certain things become higher in priority, others lower. So, here are my thoughts on the matter. Let me know if you agree or not.

1. Military - Just enough to deal barbs. I think I should hold off on barracks until other civs are within reach.
2. Cities - Coastal cities are obviously a priority. There's seafood to the northwest, west, and southeast. There are other good potential coastal city sites due south (to claim the copper) and northeast (wheat and cow). I look forward to the dotmaps. Some REXing is in order, I think.
3. Resources - I think either copper or horses are the priority, for defense from barbarians. Which one I go for first really depends on which will be the better city site.
4. Techs - Obviously Fishing -> Sailing becomes a priority. However, with all that jungle to clear, so is Iron Working.
5. Victory Condition - And isolated start always makes me start considering a cultural victory. In which case, we'll need to figure out how to get to Music first for the free Great Artist, and how to get the Sistine Chapel built. However, much may depend on whether other civs are within reach.

I won't weigh in on long term priorities but in the short term I see a few areas that need to be addressed.

1. Barbs - Great Wall is a good possibility, as others have mentioned. I am kind of a fan of that since it would mean you can choose your sites at a more leisurely pace. Otherwise its a rush for Copper or Horses. Unfortunately neither site looks like it has great food resources available in the short term. Placing a city S or SW(also coastal) of the horses would give you horses and Gold in the first ring, no need for a border pop, with Cows in the second ring. You'd get two or three desert tiles for your trouble, but with Horses and Gold you'd have some decent early production. It does look kind of bad in the long term though.

2. Culture - with no religion in your near future and the likelyhood of settling 8-10 cities on your island, you will need a way to pop borders. Stongehenge might be a good call here. It costs the same hammers as 4 Monuments, so if you think you'll need to build/whip 4 or more it starts looking pretty attractive.

The map looks challenging and I'm looking forward to seeing how you tackle it. The second city site is a difficult decision, with a lot of other difficult decisions in the near future. Getting a workboat out to explore and make contact in the NE would be nice, but for now there's no reason to settle in that direction.
I agree with your assessment that Sailing should be a priority. Your UB is set to be the star of the show, which means you can't put off Writing (nor should you.) Getting Sailing and making contact will allow you to grab alphabet and tech trade, which you are quite adept at and seem to enjoy.
 
Seems like we might end up with oracle and stonhenge after all? :p You cold rush a settler down to the stone site and get the stonhenge going though that might hamper your economy severly. You could also go for great wall to let you rex in peace and possibly do an Great wall -> pyramids gambit(run a scientist from a library or a priest from a temple most of the time.

You can also build stonhenge in the same city a bit later for over 50% chance of generating a GE(for mids) when you are poping a GP, only problem is that it is likely to take a pretty long time...

even if you miss the mids you can rex realy fast cause of free monuments and no worries abotu barbs.
 
I vote with jerVL/kg on his dotmap. I think that doing Gold/Cow/Fish leaves the horses and the stone out for way too long.

Also note jerRED city is connected pretty quickly with that long river running down the middle. The only problem is that it leaves bronze out, and that would be nice for the big bronze statue we want. Also jerRED doesn't need IW to be effective.
 
Although there is lots and lots of food on this island - including all that grassland under the junge - you are very short on happiness resources. The UB will help a lot there. All that food makes an FE, SE or HE a tempting option instead of the usual CE. Since you haven't done a FE before in the ALC, you might give that a try.

The bigger problem is that the bronze and the horses are on the other side of the jungle from your capital. You will very soon need barb fighters, but getting them will take time and be expensive in maintenace.

I would recommend the horses/stone site. It is a better city location and chariots are faster than axeman in fending off barbs.

Given the likely slow pace of play on an island start, you may wish to pack more turns than usual into each playing round.
 
I see a thread up on the first page here about a Food Economy, but I haven't heard of it before. Is it well known term/strategy? From what I understand most economies are cottage-driven, while the SE is a newer approach that is more specialized. It sounds like a FE is even newer/more fringe.
 
The FE thread was more a demonstration than an actual viable strategy. There's no reason he couldn't have easily gotten the benefit of those trade routes as well as a normal economy. Of course, pretty moot since we don't have foreign trade partners.

I'd say SE is also less attractive without foreign contact. One, a lot of SEs power comes in war through whipping, a benefit pretty much lost to us for a long while. Also, another strength is from the trade associated with its burst power - light-bulbing big techs and then trading them around. Without trade, a steadier pace doesn't lose much.
 
There is a spot on the map that would allow stone, horses, and sugar in the city's BFC. This city, with a quick monument, could at least have some good production tiles in the stone and horses.

Perhaps a Stonehenge here along with Oracle? You could get COL with the oracle, and with the proper techs researched a quick Prophet could lightbulb Theology (and thereby a head start on Sistine). Gives you two religions to work with if you can pull it off - plus who knows if you might be first to Monotheism on the way there. Just a thought - easy to get all of the 9 cities one usually goes for with regard to cultural...
 
The Great Wall would appeal to me because

a) No worries about barbs. Constantly shifting units around to protect tile improvements when you're alone is very annoying.

b) Points for a great engineer - is it 1 the GW gives? Small, but could be handy if you're going for the cultural victory - Engineers churning out the cultural wonders in your top three would be nice. Also, guaranteeing these wonders and therefore GA points gives you an easy culture run.
 
I think we neeed to see a return of the wonder-holic.

Definitely grab the GW and definitely grab the Oracle. You should also be able to grab Confucianism, which will help a bit with the Happiness situation.

After that, you need to decide how you want to win. If going for Cultural, I would suggest a beeline for Literature, with the added bonus of making Music available. Then, start bulbing GSs for Liberalism. Use the free tech for Nationalism, grab the Taj for an uber-bonus. Keep on Caste System and run a pure SE, screw cottages.

If going for some kind of Conquest victory, you definitely need to go the Metal Casting route for Astronomy. You should definitely pick up Colossus. I wouldn't recommend the GL since it's usefulness will be limited (Corporations is quick to follow Astronomy). After Metal Casting, beeline for Optics and try and tech trade your way up the tree. Then it's Gunpowder for the UU, Nationalism for blah blah blah, I'm sure you know the drill.

I'm a fan of either option. I would actually be interested in seeing how quickly you can grab a Cultural victory.
 
I don't think wonders are a good thing to push for early. You don't have Marble, so Oracle is hard to build. The stone site is far (= high maintenence = lost research) and will take a good deal of road to hook up. And what do you get for it? Stonehenge? - with no furreners nearby to have culture contests with? The Great Wall would be handy, but with the time lost to hook up that remote city makes it risky. If you fails, you'll have a pretty bad setup, with a dispersed empire, a slowed start, bad military, and no neighbors. I think the best goal is to REX out 4 or 5 cities on those nice rivers, to get the commerce.
 
I think we actually CAN afford to try for wonders given the situation, and this would be especially true if cultural becomes the victory condition of choice.

The arguments for and against an SE are difficult to solve. On one hand, there is not a great deal of 'natural' production (though workshops and water wheels can be used) and if the choice is cultural we would want more specialists to make use of the Sistine Chapel. On the other hand, there is not a great deal of happy resources to utilize and no very good sites with flood plains and the like to use. Even the areas with seafood are not all that great.

Still, if cultural is decided from the start, I would push for a second city by the stone as I mentioned (with horses so chariots can be hooked up quickly too). If we build Stonhenge here we don't have to worry about connecting to our capital right away, and I'd follow with the Oracle right away to push for an early prophet to bulb Theology - I can almost always get this done on Monarch.

We're bound to be behind in techs no matter what we do - even if we quickly get a caravel out there to meet others it means bypassing some key techs that the AI loves to trade for - leaving us in a not-so-great place for trade anyway. Further, when in cultural 'mode' I often lower or even stop teching slightly more than half way through the tree. Since we won't be in it for the space race or for a military tech advantage, it won't be so rough if we're trailing somewhat.
 
crap. i wanted a jannisary assault with trebs on some unsuspecting foo. go for really big city option on the dotmap.
 
Cities which can use the horse and stone have very bad food supplies. The only worthwhile food resource is the cow, and the only city which can use all three is a) one inland from the coast and b) has *no other* tile producing a food surplus until bureaucracy, and only one grassland even then! Cities northish of the horse and stone only get a few grass tiles and no usable food resources. A city with such tight food caps is just a colony, and I think the second city should be one with good long-term prospects.
 
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