Mehmed (again)

[futurehermit]

I've discussed Mehmed on these boards before, but was playing a game as him recently and I was reminded that I rarely, if ever, have a bad game with him.

This is in spite of the fact that he lacks any of the "strong" traits (fin, phil, ind, etc.).

Why then do I think he is such a good leader? Why do I have so much success with him?

Here is what I'm thinking:

-One of his traits supports horizontal expansion (organized) and one of them supports vertical expansion (expansive) = excellent

-Organized and Expansive results in many cheap, EARLY, and important buildings: courthouses, lighthouses, granaries, harbors, and factories

-Two of those buildings synergize nicely to help get coastal cities up and running more quickly: lighthouse/harbor; this helps with coastal starts in particular

-His starting techs are really strong (ag/wheel); you can basically go worker first everytime and research whichever starting tech you feel is most important (fishing/mining/animal husb/*pottery* [synergy with expansive])

-His UB is early and respectably strong imho; two extra early is nothing to sneeze at and it also really helps to offset WW = good

-His UU is a respectable upgrade on a subpar unit (I rarely use regular muskets), is draftable (!!!), and comes at a time when I want to be going to war = excellent

-Finally, I think he is very balanced and also extremely flexible; I've played him both heavy SE and heavy CE and feel he's very versatile and able to adapt to the map well; his traits and starting techs don't direct him in any one particular direction in terms of econ/opening. The fact that he gets some bonuses to coastal buildings means he's not hopeless on a coastal opening like some other leaders (although he is not as strong on coastal starts as some others, admittedly)

I think that, overall, Mehmed is a really balanced and flexible leader with good starting techs, synergistic traits, and a UU and UB that really also helps out with the synergy to horizontal and vertical expansion that are given by the traits. Frankly, I kind of wish that other leaders were as well constructed and balanced as Mehmed is

 

[Yeosol]

I was thinking about this the other day while reading (forget the authors) post on the 'DFA' economy. Although the post was about not focusing on leaders too much I was playing devils advocate and thinking about which leader would be best at adapting to any map situation.

Mehmed was an obvious choice. I also thought of two others, Khmer and Zara. The three share the combinations of the three most adaptable traits. Exp, Org, and Creative. As well, Mehmed and Khmer get a good UB for any situation. Cheep buildings are slightly underrated however I find when two of these 'buildings' traits combine it's really powerful as you can put up almost all the main infrastructure very quickly. As you already stated Mehmed gets 5 half priced buildings, as well as dose Khmer (and don't forget the worker bonus), and Zara gets 6!

I'm not too sure what other leading have that kind of adaptability. Warlords Augustus did with Zara's old traits. I'd like to say Napoleon dose but I think I might be a little impartial on that one.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I've always liked Mehmed for precisely the reasons mentioned. Those cheap buildings are substantial in getting a city up and running. Oh, and his UU is great for getting rid of pesky neighbors who aren't building their own Muskets.

 

[Molybdeus]

I think you mentioned the key to Mehmed: flexibility. Organized and tons of cheap buildings help him if you are warmongering, while Expansive and tons of cheap buildings help you with peaceful infrastructure development.

The other key is that he gets off to quick starts due to his great techs and slightly cheaper workers. Expansive also helps your early cities with jungle or floodplains. And a lot of his cheap buildings are available early.

I also think there is a psychological reason he is good for human players. For a lot of people playing Industrious means you build every wonder you can. When playing an aggressive leader you feel like you should attack at every opportunity, and so on. But building every wonder or attacking at all times isn't necessarily the best choice. Mehmed's traits don't suck you into sub-optimal strategies.

 

[timmy827]

I don't know about all coastal starts, but for archipelago maps I think he has got to be one of the absolute best; certainly the best non-financial leader. When you're starved for production, having the three most essential buildings for spamming lots of cities is huge, as is having a strong UU that is draftable.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't get the hate on muskets - they dominate everything but knights in the field until grenades and rifles show up. Only 1 or maybe 2 AI's will go that path though, and they're usually the more backwards ones, meaning you have some time to lay hurtings down with the muskets, drafted or just given counter promos.

Very powerful stack/city defense/field fighters. They can't match CR maces when hitting cities, but basically nothing in medieval times except well-promoted trebs can. Jani's are great though...they beat everything in their era without promos and do so very respectably with them. Strong synergy with spies...nationhood, draft, spam janis.

His traits are good, I don't care what anyone else says. I war alot, so whenever I don't have organized, I miss it.

expansive is just underrated in general...cheap workers and granaries = stronger earlygame, even if it isn't as obvious.

 

[Solon70]

I guess it depends on your research path. In my games, it always seems like rifling becomes available so soon after muskets, it's hardly worth it to build any of them. Maybe other people beeline gunpowder, or maybe they shine more on the slower speeds where you get more of a chance to exploit each unit.

 

[Guardian_PL]

The longer I play CIV, the more valuable muskets become to me. Gunpowder obsoletes walls/castles defensive bonus, so I kinda don't need cats/trebs to deal with 100%+ city defence, especially when I can draft units with free +25% vs archery
Same goes for DeGaulle and his charismatic drafted Musketeers

 

[obsolete]

Walls only give what, 50% defense? The AI Culture defense should be at least 60% by that stage. So using gunpowder without cats/trebs is still giving you the same penalties even if you remove the walls.

 

[NintendoTogepi]

Mehmed is my most forgotten leader. I'd say I have never seen him in a game that I did not download from here or where I actually selected him.

EVERY other leader appears in my games a lot, but not Mehmed. The only leaders as rare as Mehmed are Stalin, Peter and Washington (IMO).

 

[DigitalBoy]

I think Expansive/Organized is mediocre as far as trait combos go, but the multitude of production bonuses is nothing to sell short. Granaries and courthouses are usually built in your new cities sooner rather than later, and the fast lighthouses and harbors are situationally useful too. It's a good combo for expansion, but nothing special aside from that. I'd rather have Creative/Organized, but Mehmed makes up for it in other areas.

Starting techs are dandy. Worker first is usually a strong open, especially starting with Agriculture and The Wheel.

But I think the uniques are what really sell Mehmed. The Hammam's bonus is huge. +2 happy cap with Mathematics? Yes, please. And the janissary comes at a good time for Mehmed to wage war. Expansive/Organized doesn't offer a lot in the area of early war or builder strategies, but it is good for expansion. You support your empire with reduced civic upkeep and fast courthouses. Then your cities can grow out fast thanks to fast granaries and the easy happiness that the Hammam offers. You allow your cities to grow and bide your time, then wage war with janissaries when the moment comes.

Expand, grow, conquor.

 

[Iranon]

I'd vote him to be one of the leaders with the least noticable traits/uniques. He isn't given any special incentives for any economy type, for grabbing land, for building wonders or for warring.

What he does have is decent discounts to things that you'll be building practically everywhere (and early), and a generic economic benefit that doesn't force one into a specific economy. Cheaper workers are also a nice head start.
Additional health, to supplement the benefit of Expansive, is unexciting but solid. Jannissaries are the only non-generic benefit... reasonably strong but hardly exciting either. They come too late for a rush and don't dominate an age the way Praetorians or Cho-Ko-Nus do; they are decent on both offense and defense and a main benefit is that the frontline troops will be less open to counterattacks.
All of this just reinforces the 'boring, but solid' vibe Mehmed gives me.

 

[futurehermit]

Organized doesn't help for grabbing land? I would say it does.

 

[UncleJJ]

Mehmet is a very good leader for a middle game war based around the janissary. The cheap infrastructure and workers allows big cities to be built early on under Hereditary Rule and the UB significantly boosts this. Research Currency, CoL and Monarchy and then beeline to Liberalism, taking Nationalism and you're set up for middle game warring on a massive scale. Build the Taj Mahal and research Gunpowder and switch civics to HR, Nationhood, Slavery and Theocracy to combine whipping and drafting for a huge army.

If that's the sort of game you want then Mehmet is just about the best leader to pick. Non of his traits or the UU or UB or starting techs seem to be outstanding but they all fit together well if you follow that approach. The cheap buildings are probably the main reason for his underlying strength that enables his UU to be fielded in a timely manner and the janissary is pre-eminent in its era. After that expansion the game can go in many directions and all victory paths are open.

 

[Iranon]

@futurehermit:

ORGs relevance for fast expansion in particular is greatly overstated. Sure, its benefits from maintenance reduction scale with empire size, but do the commerce bonuses from FIN simply because you will be working more tiles; we just don't register that quite as easily (but that would be for a discussion about psychology, not strategy).

While courthouses are more attractive for sprawling empires, they are rarely an unquestionable top priority (which means other building discounts would serve just as well... granaries definitely, forges for me and libraries for many other players).

The difference is that ORG gives a flat benefit that doesn't care about what you are doing. It's in full effect even when you're running your economy ragged (emphasising production over commerce... during things like fast expansion, warefare or merely infrastructure buildup) while FIN merely allows faster recovery from the abuse.

ORG can help maintain a robust economy in a large empire, but I certainly don't feel badgered into REXing lest I lose the benefits of a trait as I would with IMP or CRE.

 

[futurehermit]

Well, I rex or go to war in most of my games and the ability to whip a courthouse for 2 pop and to save $$ while being able to work primarily production tiles is a huge boon imo. Imp/Cre definitely help with the land grab, no question, but you have to pay the bills somehow lest your economy crash. Sure, fin is a strong trait, probably stronger than organized, I'm not disputing that. But organized is a strong trait for helping fund rexing/early warfare and I think it has a lot of synergy for Mehmed to boot.

 

[Roxlimn]

For my part, I think the courthouse discount on Organized is one of its strong points. A normal Courthouse is not as big a priority because it costs too much. A half price courthouse is a big deal.

Half price Forges don't help you expand or pay for maintenance. It just helps you build more stuff. Half price libraries also don't pay for maintenance. Neither of these discounts are as good for expanding horizontally as half price courthouses.

The comparison with FIN is perhaps inevitable, but FIN rather sets a ceiling on how fast you expand based on how fast you can work FIN-influenced tiles. Paired with a TRE, the TRs set you up without crashing your economy, and then your cities build cheap courthouses to improve the return even more (especially great for island cities), which allows you just that little bit of room to REX along the coast yet again.

Mehmed's main strength in his UB, I think, but the flexibility afforded by the Expansive trait is also one of those, too.

 

[UncleJJ]

The cheap courthouse is great and saves 60 hammers and allows it to be built earlier saving some gold and giving extra EPs. But the cheap granary is probably an even better perk for Mehmet. It allows a granary to be whipped with only one pop at size 2 with an overflow. A normal granary can only be whipped at size 2 if 30 hammers have been invested otherwise the city needs to grow to size 4 and that takes time and wastes food. At a small city size and with a full granary each is worth 2 to 2.5 . So if the cheap granary saved 20 food (depends on the map) that would be worth an extra 40 hammers and with the initial 30 hammers saved it would effectively contribute 70 hammers to the economy. In either a low food or low hammer situation the cheap granary is a particularly valuable building to kick start a city.

Add to that the effect of a cheap lighhouse (which effectively injects more food) in coastal situations and it is easy to see why Mehmet can REX and recover from conquests so quickly. The combination of cheap granary, courthouse and lighthouse is probably the best economic boost for any leader in the game. That benefit accounts for many players success with Mehmet more than the power of the UB or UU.

 

[Roxlimn]

Well, if we're going to be that way about it, Suryavarman is at least as good at recovering from REXing and conquest. His Creative trait allows you to pop culture borders into the BFC whether it's from a newly conquered city or from a new city period, and the savings from both the Monument, Lighthouse, and Granary early buildings translates faster into gains in infrastructure development, whereas Mehmed's Courthouse hammer benefits only comes into play when you're already at the stage where you're building Courthouses from CoL.

Saving 30 hammers from not having to build an early building like a Monument is very nearly the same as a price discount on a Library, Market, Courthouse, or whatever structure you care to build instead of a Monument, and Creative gets discounts on Libraries on top of that (IIRC).

Add that to the cheap Workers and I would venture that that's at least a comparable economic benefit to Mehmed's, if not better.

 

[futurehermit]

Surya doesn't get a bonus to lighthouses. He is good for what you describe, however.