Mehmed

[futurehermit]

I've got a game going right now with Mehmed and I am enjoying him quite a lot. I usually avoid him because I feel his trait combination is underwhelming.

However, I am realizing that he has a lot of synergy.

Organized: This to me means 4 cities early on if peaceful or more if rushable neighbour. Cheap courthouses makes additional expansion quite painless. If you have the land going to 6-8 cities peacefully is pretty easy, which is good. 6-8 is a nice number to shoot to the renaissance era for early cav.

Expansive: One of my least favourite traits, but it's growing on me as I use a CE more and more. With hereditary rule, is a non-factor and health becomes the limiting factor for growing to size 20 asap. The extra health is a boon here as are the cheap granaries and harbors. Plus the trait has nice synergy with CE (early pottery).

Ag-Wheel: My favourite starting tech combo. Allows for pottery as first tech (synergy with expansive) if floodplains or animal husbandry if wheat/corn/rice + pigs/cows/sheep in capital and surrounding area. It also means worker first every time because he'll always have something to do.

UB: Great UB for the synergy expressed above. A health building that gives 2 meaning 2 less units per city you need, which saves you money, which is synergy with the organized trait!

UU: Nice UU to defend your empire with once you're finished conquering!!!

Ok, so here's how my game is going and it illustrates a crude first attempt at my Mehmed strategy. I'm playing here monarch/pangaea

I opened by going worker-warrior-worker-settler-settler. I grabbed a production site with tons of forests to chop out stonehenge/oracle (monarchy--had numerous wine patches + hereditary rule; used to prophet on theology) and a great commerce site with lots of snaky rivers (iirc it was able to work around 15 cottages at size 20 with a lot of them on river tiles).

I wanted to build 2 more commerce cities to the SW and S of my empire (the SW one would work 15 cottages and 2 gems at size 20 and the S one would work 13 cottages and 2 dyes) at size 20. Unfortunately england was close by and nabbed them before I could get there. They were covered in jungle, so I was happy to let him develop them for me for awhile.

The sweetest thing about this game was that I claimed corn with my production city, rice with my commerce city, and Rome's first city I would capture to my NE had wheat...LOTS of early health

I took one of Rome's cities and razed two before suing for peace. Besides his one city, the others were too far away. I turned most of the continent (including my BUDDIES shaka and alex ) against Rome to keep him too busy to retaliate. Then I turned my sites on England and took the two commerce cities.

Then, since I had 3 of the 4 resources I detoured to guilds for grocers before beelining liberalism. With granaries (all 3 resources), hammams, grocers (3/4 resources), and expansive and hereditary rule I was AMAZED how fast my commerce cities were size 20!!!!!!!!!!!!! Long before 800AD is all I can say, which is amazing to me as my cities are never that size in the medieval era.

I got liberalism ca. 800AD (the detour to guilds was a bit of a delay since I wasn't able to trade for feudalism or machinery) and am just about to beeline democracy (yummy printing press, emancipation, and universal sufferage) and to wipe out England. I took the Roman capital and one other city leaving him with a couple cities that I will let Shaka and Alex fight over.

I am pumped to see how fast I can win this one. I'm looking forward to repeating this process with other expansive leaders (I think the trait is growing on me, lol!!!) and am REALLY looking forward to exp/fin coming back in the xpac

 

[Florian]

I'm playing Mehmed for the first time right now too. I agree about the synergy. Also, in my case, it means the massive flood plains I started on don't have nearly the impact they could have had on my health.

Sounds like you're being much more militant that I've been so far. I've taken two barbarian cities and flipped a Zulu settlement, and that's it so far. You're farther along, though. Probably en route to a much more convincing win also.

 

[futurehermit]

I think peacefully building 5-7 cities after your capital is great with Mehmed if you have the land. Cottage spam and then go for cavalry via guilds and liberalism. One short, decisive war to get another 7-8 cities and you're done. However, if you have 1 or more close neighbours, expanding via conquest is the way to go. My goal is to have all warfare ended by 1500AD (preferably as early as humanly possible) and diplomacy squared away, preferably with multiple defensive pacts asap. That way I can just focus on building the space ship as fast as humanly possible.

 

[carl corey]

I've played a few games with Mehmed and apart from one I always went for Janissary wars. Even on Monarch I had 4-5 cities up to Liberalism -> Gunpowder, one of which was building units all the time. Then I massed Janissaries and went for Nationalism and took over my continent. Most of the time I don't even have Machinery until later when I'm aiming for Engineering (speed) & Chemistry. I find the various Janissary bonuses to be too good to use only as defense.

I don't remember exactly what I did in those games, but bypassing Military Tradition altogether is also possible. It is a dead end tech after all, requiring Music (another dead end), and I'd rather aim to upgrade my promoted Janissaries to Rifles.

Of course with a smaller empire you have to play a careful diplomatic game as you don't want to become a target, but it's doable. And it probably doesn't work on Emperor since I'm not sure of winning the Liberalism race in the first place and I'm certainly not able to outproduce the AI with only 4-5 cities.

 

[Florian]

I was expecting to have my war when I got janissaries also. You know, UU and all that. Why not attack with janissaries, FutureHermit?

 

[InFlux5]

What a great summary. I agree completely with what you've said, FutureHermit.

Mehmed's starting techs are the best you could hope for if you want to get the most out of the Expansive trait. Mehmed can begin employing the whip before anybody, and rarely can this not be used to your advantage.

The traits mean you are quickly getting every key piece of infrastructure up and running quickly. (I don't consider libraries "key" since there will be cities that don't need one. However courthouses and granaries are things that every city needs.)

Militarily, Mehmed might be considered a bit lacking in the early game; this, I think, is his greatest weakness. This is a leader that needs a good bit of starting land to really make the most of his features.

But then there's the Janissary. If you survive the early eras, and bee-ling to Gunpowder, you can easily take over your landmass. This isn't a strategy that's appropriate for every game. But sometimes it is. If a bee-line to Gunpowder isn't doable, the Janissary is more or less inconsequential.

And, of course, the UB simply rocks.

So yeah, Mehmed is definitely one of my favorite leaders. I may have to change my icon soon, in fact!

 

[obsolete]

I really do hate mehmed when I stumble into him. Doesn't matter if he is on another continent, he will still declare war on you for no reason but to declare war, and give you a hard time.

 

[BARBEERIAN]

Mehmed rocks! Man he truly is the king of massive cities and building a large empire. Great worker techs (god I hate having to reasearch wheel and agri in MP) coupled with Expansive, and Organzied so you can spam way too many cities and still tech well, and the Hammamm is one of the most useful UB's compared to it's counterpart.

 

[Phoenician]

Hammamm is one of the most useful UB's compared to it's counterpart.

Hammam in Arabic means Bathroom. I'm not Turkish so I don't know if they referred to these cleansing areas as "Hammams". But I highly doubt it.

Also, Madrassa in Arabic means school (any school-whether it be a University, grade school, or Religious school)...Saladin's UB is called a Madrassa.
However, the civilopedia says a Madrassa is a religious (theocratic) school.
That's not correct.

When I was going to grade school, my parents ask me how I was doing at the Madrassa. As I am finishing up college, my parents ask me how I am doing at the Madrassa.

I really had a puzzled chuckle the first time I got out Warlords and found these names of Sal's and Meh's UB.

Mehmed is a lot of fun, those Janissaries kick major ass. I just wish they did not go obsolete so fast though. I can never really get more than one war out of them in Marathon....They get obsolete too fast, even when I get liberalism. By the time I'm done with one war, my rivals have rifles.
I will end up having to mix rifles with them in order to go further, but there were a few times when I had a few janissaries so elite that they could stand up to Cavalry and Rifles.

 

[futurehermit]

Well the first game in question went into the toilet because England vassaled to Shaka causing Shaka, with a massive power graph, to DoW on me

It sucked because I only wanted to take two more cities (capital and one other) and then I was going to be completely done warring

Shaka was also pleased and still DoW on me

I started a couple more games with Mehmed. One of them I went with 6 cities, growing them as huge as possible, and then attacking with grens (had no horses). It was too late.

My thought now is that it is important to be done warring with around 15 cities asap. Then go for huge cities asap. That may mean going FE initially outside capital and whipping like a mad person. Then once you have the land, cottage spam like crazy and go for size 20 cities asap.

I'll report back on how it goes.

 

[carl corey]

Again, why would you wait for Grens? If you shoot for Gunpowder you'll have Janissaries before anyone has reached musketmen, and no unit will have a bonus against them. You might lose some troops, but they're easy to rebuild and if you have Nationalism you can also draft. Waiting for Grens will likely make Janissaries obsolete because when attacking cities they'll face muskets...

 

[Ozbenno]

I also had thought Mehmed a fairly poor leader until the first game I played with him, the trait/UU/UB combo is probably the best of any leader for having a large empire.

 

[futurehermit]

Again, why would you wait for Grens? If you shoot for Gunpowder you'll have Janissaries before anyone has reached musketmen, and no unit will have a bonus against them. You might lose some troops, but they're easy to rebuild and if you have Nationalism you can also draft. Waiting for Grens will likely make Janissaries obsolete because when attacking cities they'll face muskets...

That's a good point. I guess I will try that if I go for a smallish empire off the start. I'm also going to try going for early 15 cities and then always peace and see how that goes. It may cripple my research early, but I figure by 1500AD my empire should be the clear favourite to win early space race.

 

[carl corey]

If you go with huge number of cities just remember that you can build gold/research. It saved my behind more than once when I overexpanded due to either having a great UU or War Elephants.

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, I'm thinking of running merchants. Check out the other thread I have going on Rome/Egypt/Persia.

 

[Florian]

My Mehmed game is going very well. I got Gunpowder way before anyone else and made a heap of Janissaries, with which I took out the Aztecs (I mentioned Zulus in a previous post; I meant Aztecs). Toward the end of that campaign, Montezuma became Ragnar's vassal, and the Vikings began causing trouble, but they aren't big enough to cause enough trouble. Basically they just gave me another logical target.

As this game has developed, I see I've had some nice geographical advantages I wasn't able to appreciate earlier. Everyone is on one continent (I play fractal maps mostly), and the landmass, while large, is not that big once you consider that seven civs are sharing it. It's roughly heart-shaped, and I started out in good position to expand from the western "prong" of the heart towards the middle, while keeping a good amount of land open to the west of me, where barbarians thoughtfully founded a few well-positioned cities for me to take later on with minimal fuss. My empire isn't all that large, but it's been the largest in the world (by land area) since before my Aztec campaign, and I've had the Great Library in Istanbul (on Bureaucracy) cranking out science for some time. This, along with the way the close quarters (and the presence of Montezuma, Ragnar, and Louis XIV) have led the AIs to squabble amongst themselves, probably accounts for the nice size of my effective Janissary window.

I in fact did do what FutureHermit has mentioned as a FutureStrategy, and started out with a lot of farms on my floodplains. It seems to have worked well, though I've recently begun cottaging more. Anyway, all this to say, Mehmed seems to be a strong leader who can quickly expand in the early going and then convert that position into a short but lucrative second (less peaceful) period of expansion once Janissaries come around. One thing to note, however, is that Melee troops will not upgrade to Janissaries, so you have to build them all from scratch when you get Gunpowder.

I really do hate mehmed when I stumble into him.

Me too. AI-Mehmed is a complete ass. Impossible to work with. This may be another benefit of playing the guy instead.

Hammam in Arabic means Bathroom.

Well, look at the word "bathroom." Obviously that used to be a place for baths rather than defecation too. If you had plumbing in the pre-Modern world, it was so you could bathe in water and drink water, not so you could pee in it. Don't assume that the modern word means the exactly the same thing the medieval one did.

Madrassa in Arabic means school

Remember, Universities started out as schools of theology the same way Madrassas did. It's just that higher education in the West has gotten a lot farther away from its origins, and has been there longer.

 

[frob2900]

Mehmed is a really good leader. Hammam is one of my favorite UBs since it effectively allows a city to be two sizes larger, immediately.

Still, I disagree with your assessment of the UU:

UU: Nice UU to defend your empire with once you're finished conquering!!!

Defend?? Finish conquering?? The janissary can be gotten rather early and is a very, very good unit exactly for conquering. Don't waste them on defence. They are even draftable! The janissary is the point where you either win by conquest/domination (Pangea/Great Plains) or take your entire continent (Continents/Fractal).

 

[gettingfat]

I think peacefully building 5-7 cities after your capital is great with Mehmed if you have the land. Cottage spam and then go for cavalry via guilds and liberalism. .

Do you need guilds for cavalry?

I've played a few games with Mehmed and apart from one I always went for Janissary wars. Even on Monarch I had 4-5 cities up to Liberalism -> Gunpowder, one of which was building units all the time. Then I massed Janissaries and went for Nationalism and took over my continent.

I love Janissary wars as well. But I usually go for liberalism -> nationalism, then research gunpowder myself. Then draft the janissaries. Medmed's traits and UB means big cities, so it's not difficult to draft a dozen in a hurry, and hit the foes who still use longbows.

 

[Roxlimn]

I would also have to agree with using Janissaries as attack troops. They're simply awesome. They are the main reason I use some of the bigger cities to farm GPs. The GPs and the Oracle pave the way to leapfrog to Gunpowder ASAP. I once fought the Romans while they were still using Praetorians and Knights. No contest.

I haven't tried drafting them, though. That must be pretty awesome with the Hammam around to offset the Draft unhappiness.

 

[gettingfat]

You know what? After I've read this thread I started a game playing Mehmed. This is my start location.



3 health and 1 happiness, river side and by the sea. I counted 7 floodplain cottages. Can you find a better spot that fits Mehmed's style?