Gotm19-Ottomans Pre-Game Discussion

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Karasu
... Go all the way towards Sipahi and therefore try to speed up (own) science ...

That sure is tempting on this map. I'm thinking that with very aggressive research we could become the tech leader and get to Military Tradition somewhere between 300AD and 600AD. The faster end of the scale if we're on a Pangaea type world, the slower end if continents. (And perhaps slower again if we're very isolated.) That's a bit later than I'd like to start the main conquests but it isn't bad. And if we follow this approach the fast tech pace won't give the AI time to build up much resistance at all - the Sipahi with strong attack and three movement shouldn't have trouble with any opposition they have at that date. Still, it will be tough to build many of them quickly with this approach - there won't be money left over from research for a mass upgrade approach. Might have to build the Sipahi from scratch.

I think I'll go for early Sipahi if no better possibility for early aggression shows up in initial exploration.

 

[Ribannah]

Originally posted by Moonsinger
Other than the free tech for each era, the scientific civ get very little benefit at this level.

I'm not so sure about that. I've outresearched the AI in more than one emperor game from the early Middle Ages onward. The cheap Libraries are nice - for culture, too, which is important on emperor to maintain relations if you're not planning an early military presence.
I've yet to see how this goes on a small map though.

ROck, small is not the same as tiny. I hope to have room for more than 7 cities.

 

[Ebomb808]

I want to know what people's advice would be on building Temples or Library's. Wouldn't Temples be better especially on emperor when discontent can become a problem, i guess this all depends on what luxuries are around, but i usually always go for temples first. I understand libraries help science and culture, but isnt going for the tech race a stretch on emperor with so many civs on a small map?

 

[DaveMcW]

Temples are VERY BAD on higher difficulties if you're not religious. There are much better things to do with your shields, like building workers, barracks, military units, or even granaries.

You can keep everyone content up to size 3 using warriors as military police. You shouldn't need to go above size 3 in the early game, and hopefully by then you'll have some luxuries hooked up. If you really want some size 6 cities, just bump the luxury slider up.

I usually build temples right after aqueducts.

 

[Txurce]

That's interesting, Dave. How do you approach ancient-era wonders? If I go for one, it's usually in a city with no aqueduct requirement, which I grow to size 8-10. Even with a temple, the luxury slider is getting up there.

 

[DaveMcW]

A river counts as an aqueduct. In that case I wait until it is size 6 before building the temple.

In order to win a wonder race on Emperor, you need to use the 60 shields for a head start, not an extra happy face. If the luxury slider is too expensive, try using entertainers.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by OneFastWarrior
Maybe one day I will grow big and strong like a pro!!

Drink more milk! Milk would help you grow much stronger and bigger too.


Ribannah,

Thanks for your advice. I will try to build some library in this game. This would be some thing new for me becuase in most of my game, I rarely build any library. That would explain why I don't focus on research. For some reason, I was brainwashed into thinking that it's cheaper to buy techs then to research them myself.

 

[BigBrother]

Dave says that we wont need cities much over size 3. I can see keeping the cities at size 3 for a little while building settlers and an adequate amount of workers, 2 per city or so...but with the limited space available for needing settlers and workers will it be easy enough to keep cities around size 3? How do you intend to keep them there or by that time is it fair enough to let them grow to 6 or larger?

Bare with me, Im new to the higher level games.

 

[Shillen]

Originally posted by OneFastWarrior
I will also start research on Bronze working, Then I don't know if I should go for Iron working(might not be any nearby) or go for Horseback riding(also might not be horses, However I think there will be) Or I could go for writing. I am so confused, but I will figure it out.

To help you figure it out, scientific civ's start off with Bronze Working. Therefore you can go straight for Iron Working if you want.

I also want to disagree with Moonsinger's thoughts on the Scientific trait. I don't find it that hard to keep up with the AI on techs in the ancient age on deity or emperor. The most difficult part is right at the end of the ancient and the beginning of the middle ages. And getting that slingshot tech is an incredible boost. In the HoF thread I detailed a huge map deity game up to 1000BC and I had a monopoly on Engineering as the Ottomans. You can imagine what an incredible help that was.

 

[Txurce]

Dave says that we wont need cities much over size 3. I can see keeping the cities at size 3 for a little while building settlers and an adequate amount of workers, 2 per city or so...but with the limited space available for needing settlers and workers will it be easy enough to keep cities around size 3? How do you intend to keep them there or by that time is it fair enough to let them grow to 6 or larger?

I think Dave meant that he's better off keeping them at size 3 until he hooks up luxuries. You want to do that pretty quickly. The real point seemed to be that he holds off building temples until after aqueducts.

 

[Ebomb808]

Question: Do you think it is better to keep pumping out warriors at the beginning or do some spearman to guard the cities. I always have one or two spearman in each city, but i am starting to rethink the validity of that.

 

[alamo]

Originally posted by Yndy
... I’ll get Iron working in 40 turns and I’ll probably need 10 to 20 turns to hook the iron and upgrade the warriors and I plan to have 10-15 of them. ...

Earlier discussion mentions that research will go quicker, and that has been my experience in playing on a small map.

I'm playing a test game on a small map now. Spending on research actually hastened the discoveries at the start. I also have held the tech lead for some time w/only 1 tech trade. I think I'm on a continent w/just 2 other civs, though.

I would wager that iron or horses are not nearby but within reach.

@Ebomb808 - the more troops the better, but you build troops at the sacrifice of other priorities. I push the limits and build a wall and temple or barracks first, and finish the 2cnd warrior just as your hostile neighbor marches up w/2 warriors.

 

[SirPleb]

Another thing about Temples: Once a town has grown to a city it is often better to build a Marketplace. If you have four luxuries, a Marketplace will give two happy faces for a 100 shield investment, vs. a Temple which gives one happy for 60 shields and 1gpt. The Marketplace gets better again as you connect additional luxuries, and usually pays for its own maintenance.

Though there are cases where a Temple for happiness is a good thing, I tend to miss them because I often forget that Temples produce happiness, it just isn't that important to my mind. They are more important to me as culture generators. And in this game since we're scientific, libraries are far superior culture generators.

 

[alamo]

Those are good points. The library is cheaper to build, so is a better bang for the buck culture-wise. It may be some time before libraries are available, though.

IMHO getting culture early is important for avoiding culture flips in the future. This may be better in PTW, but having towns flip burned me several times in vanilla civ.

 

[Smirk]

I'll most likely just settle at the start, there isn't many strategy paths that will change much given what I know of the map and game specs, that is with a move for bonus resource.
Even if the extra warrior would see anything, I still may pospone that for city 2. I'll also consider joining that first worker after irrigating a couple plains, maybe also mining that shieldland. On this difficulty, unless the development gives real benefits quickly it will be wasted effort if you can't keep up with the expansion.
Not to mention the other benefits of leading the world in scoring. This should have a big effect on a small map, since you'll likely have early contact. I think my research will be from war or the threat of war. This could all be thrown out if the other civs already have cities from the start, but that can be checked as soon as you load since they'll be ranked.

I'll ignore any early rush to iron, and instead just get horses. I can't believe cracker would deny the Ottomans of horses and will expect to see some nearby. And maintain a high tech pace to MT. Although prior to that horsemen can get the job done, I'll be annoyed if we see Carthage and/or Greece again this month, that is as a neighbor. If there are more plains nearby all the better, this can give an early turn bonus for irrigating instead of mining so we should be able to get a lot more early production that with grass. And really thats all I will need, if the game even lasts until MT that will be the last nail in the AI coffin.

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Shillen
I also want to disagree with Moonsinger's thoughts on the Scientific trait. I don't find it that hard to keep up with the AI on techs in the ancient age on deity or emperor. The most difficult part is right at the end of the ancient and the beginning of the middle ages. And getting that slingshot tech is an incredible boost. In the HoF thread I detailed a huge map deity game up to 1000BC and I had a monopoly on Engineering as the Ottomans. You can imagine what an incredible help that was.

With zero reseach, I could easily keep up with the AIs on tech. I usually could buy the same tech for at least 30% cheaper than the research cost. However, I do try to reserach Scientific Theory so that I could sling shot pass them. Since I rarely shoot for the fastest SS victory, the slower the tech pace, the more enjoyable game for me (because I really hate to deal with poluttion caused by the AIs).

 

[Ambiorix]

Think I'm going to change my initial strategy a bit. In stead of settling directly, I may move the warrior and settler first, then decide. Not sure yet.
Also, pop-rushing a settler may not be a good idea if no bonus food is available in the first city's radius. Anybody has any thoughts on that ? I pop-rushed a temple a couple of times in the previous GOTM, and at 1000BC I only had three cities - seems like the price for pop-rushing may be too high if there's no food bonus.

Here's another simple question, although I could just test it : if cutting a forest is done in 5 turns, and you're building something that's also going to be finished in 5 turns, do the bonus shields get wasted ? Should I finish my build in 4 turns ? That would mean the new build gets production from the first turn and 10 bonus shields in that same turn. Right ?

Thanks for all the thoughts, opinions and tips, folks !

 

[Karasu]

I tend not to pop-rush very often, and generally not at all in low-medium food cities, but that may be a mistake. Of course, there are always exceptions...


For this game, if a military approach is indeed what I'll eventually take, I am thinking of going to Monarchy as soon as possible.
In this respect, going straight for Polytheism may also be a good idea both for trading (as SirPleb said) and for changing government.

An early, relatively small, Archers army would fit nicely in this picture -before one gets enough Horsemen. Still, I don't know what my first tech will be...

Another potentially key point in this respect is planning Leonardo's Workshop. Sipahis are expensive, and I don't think I would be able to build many from scratch.

 

[Hellfire]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to mention this, as I don't play the GotM but I keep an eye out since the Mac versions have been released.

My comment is that it said that versions were available for Mac 1.29f. I wasn't aware 1.29f was available for Mac and I can't find it anywhere. Did Thunderfall mean 1.21g for Mac? It does make a big difference, especially with that stupid rampant tech trading thing which makes the game a hell of a lot more unbalanced at higher levels and was fixed in 1.29f.

Thanks all.

 

[runifoc]

Originally posted by hotrod0823


This statement also leads me to believe we are smack dab in the middle of the map with the Europeans to the NE and the Chinese and Japanese to the SW.

Contacts will go through us. Keeping the two sides unknown may be key. In a recent SG game we had the lighthouse and found 1 continent with 4 civs that were activelytrading. The other side of the map revealed the other 4 more civs. WE went from 5 techs behind at first contact to the tech leader with simple trading. The longer the 2 sides don't have contact the higher the value of the trades. Play one side against the other and trading can be very lucritative. Research a key tech and you can control the entire tech pace.

If this is the case, do you avoid signing RoP? If yes, are you active about ordering units out of your territory? I'm asking because this is my first game at this level.

runifoc