New player here, advice needed (emperor game, ottoman empire)

[AthalaRanger]

So, this is the third time i try emperor difficulty, never finished the other two.

the situation is bad, my empire consists of 7 cities, some of them still building infrastructure. i have two luxuries, iron and saltpeter, lack horses, so i cant build sipahis, military is non-existent,i border the Greeks (current #1 in power), the Byzantines and Carthage.

I avoided early wars until middle age, thought i was ready to take on the greeks, so refused to pay tribute, big mistake, lost 1 city to them, signed peace as soon as possible.

Due to lack of horses, i started building cannons, still waiting for someone to trade for horses, im behind in tech, just advanced to industrial age, sold nationalism to some nations in exchange for missing tech of middle age.

at this point, Greece started to build railroads, and im watching the hordes go after Carthage.

I dont know what to do, lack enough forces to take military action, any advice is appreciated.


Also, sorry for my bad english.

 

[Cyc]

Bail on this game. Start another using a larger map. Your starting position is not good. You need more cities to support a larger Army.

Start with a large continents map (I play Huge Pangeae). Use 60 or 70 percent water. No more than 7 AI tribes. Give yourself room to expand, room to grow, and grow quickly. Max out your research whenever possibly. If you don't have iron, go to war to get it. If you don't have horses, go to war to get them. If you reach the Middle ages and don't have three (3) luxuries, go to war to get them. Once you have these, you shoud be large enough to stand with the toughest nation. Start planning your world domination.

 

[Lanzelot]

The case is not hopeless: you have well-developed size-12 cities, while the AI mostly has small towns. Also in terms of population you are in a good middle position: the Greek and Celts lead with 140 and 108 citizens, and then there's the main field at a medium population of about 80-90 citizens (Carthage, Aztecs, Babylon and you) and two weak nations, Byzantium at 49 and Arabia at 5.
You are only 2-3 techs behind, not that bad, considering that now the AI will research lot's of useless stuff (Communism, Facism, Espionage...) that you don't need.

In short: the game should be quite playable, you just need a plan. I think, both military and peaceful victories are still possible here, though it won't be easy.

My plan would be:

• Get rid of the clowns in Izmit, Iznik and Antalia. 5 clowns is too much, better increase lux to 20%.
• Don't build riflemen. If you really need defense, use some cash and upgrade the muskets. And no bank in Izmit!
• After you upgraded the units, sell your banks! Why did you build banks and universities?! Either one researches techs, or one buys techs, but not both... Then start researching Medicine full blast. No one knows it yet, so you'll be able to trade it for Steam Power and perhaps 1-2 more techs!
• The Greeks are willing to trade their horses for your gems! Take that deal!
• Afterwards declare war on Arabia. That will ruin your reputation, but you'll get your gems back and the over 100gpt you are currently paying them.
• With the greek horses build 10 Sipahis. Then attack Byzantium, they have horses as well, so you can then cancel the gems deal with the Greeks after a while. (The Byzantine ivory will be handy as well...)
• Once you've swallowed the Byzantines, you should have closed the gap to the Greeks and Celts and can decide on the next steps.

For a peaceful victory (e.g. United Nations) the plan would be similar, except that you omit the step of declaring war to Arabia. You'll keep a clean reputation, but it'll be harder to conquer Byzantium and get a good research rate going.

Edit: and of course wake up your workers and build a handful of settlers! You still have prime territory (very close to the palace), which is not yet worked by a citizen!!
PPS: ok, keep the banks, at least for now, while we have such a high unit upkeep. (Need 30% tax, so the banks still pay off a bit.)

 

[AthalaRanger]

I wanted to thank you both for your answers, advice is appreciated.
I haven't touched the game, yet, but ill post an update when i decide to continue it.
once again, thank you.

 

[Lanzelot]

I played the next 10 turns, just to see how it would work out. Of course the plan needed some adjustment (as Clausewitz once said: "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy"... ) The highlights of the first 10 turns were:

• Got horses plus gold from the Greek for gems, and declared on Arabia to get my gems and gpt back. (In retrospect, this wasn't really necessary, as 2-3 turns later Arabia got killed by the Greeks anyway...)
• Then I decided to take a little risk and signed a mutual protection pact with Greece. They were paying with another luxury, so I couldn't resist...
• This of course dragged me into their war with Carthage, but it wasn't bad at all, because Carthage at that point was already worn down by the Greek, so I was able to capture a few of their towns even with my limited forces, among them (very important) a town with coal and silks.
• Built 5 settlers and founded 5 new towns in core area. Let the other cities grow back to 12 asap. Here I noticed that you must have set a "rally point" in Istanbul, and all my settlers first went off to Istanbul instead of where I had planned for them to settle... This delayed all my new towns by 2-3 turns, until I finally noticed and managed to turn off that stupid rally point....
• Babylon came up with Steam Power and I was able to buy it for Nationalism. Also I finished Medicine during that time, but the AI had it as well.
• The first Sipahi triggered the golden age, which can now be used to research to Replaceable Parts (important for getting the rails up asap) and Scientific Method. The GA production can be used to build the Forbidden Palace (should have been built a long time ago), Theory of Evolution and lots of Sipahis.

After the war with Carthage, which should be over quite soon, we can go back to the original war and run over Byzantium. Then "consolidate" the gains in Carthage and Byzantium, after which we should have caught up with Greece. Greece is currently turning into the runaway AI, as they have swallowed large parts of Arabia and Carthage. So one plan would be to sign an alliance with the Celts against Greece and use our technological superiority (Infantry and Artillery combined with our Sipahi strike-force) to wear down the super-power. (They already have lots and lots of Cavalry, so it'll be a tough fight.)
For now the priority is to found a few more towns in captured territory and south of Iznik/Izmit and build lots and lots of workers to finally get our railway network up. Capture Carthage before the Greeks do it: the Sistine Chapel will be quite useful (we are at 0% lux at the moment, thanks to the captured silks and two lux trades, but sooner or later war weariness might be an issue).

 

[AthalaRanger]

first of all, i apologize for the rally point, i completely forgot!

played 10 turns , so i don't screw up our chances of victory

Conquered most of Carthage on the mainland, but Greece beat me to the last city (they actually completely blocked the path so i could not send sipahis in a suicide, desperate attempt to take the city before them)

Built 1 city, moved troops to the frontier with the Byzantines (at the moment 13 sipahis. 13 cannons, 8 medieval infantry and 1 fusilier.

Discovered electricity just the turn before, i didnt know what to research, but there is not wasted research, either.

also, i didn't know what to build in the new cities so i went for courthouse once the libraries were finished. ( none of the courthouses if finished so you can change that for a more "optimal" build.

i have a question (and this has been bugging me for a while now) , and i guess this is a good time to ask.

where should my workers irrigate / mine for an optimal setup ? the "mine green, irrigate brown" just doesn't cut it... (i know it depends on the situation but i really could use some guidance on that)

well, thanks for taking the time to read this, any advice is appreciated!

 

[Theov]

where should my workers irrigate / mine for an optimal setup ? the "mine green, irrigate brown" just doesn't cut it... (i know it depends on the situation but i really could use some guidance on that)

well, thanks for taking the time to read this, any advice is appreciated!

I'm not good at that either but some things to remind you of:

- until aqueducts cities can't grow beyond 6 without fresh water (river/lake) so if they reach 6 they shouldn't have any surplus food. Mine some irrigated tiles so you get more shields and less food until there's no surplus.
- Same for cities of 12. They shouldn't have surplus food either until you're gonna build hospitals. So if you see a 12 size city, check out if it has surplus food and if it does, turn an irrigated tile to a mine.

 

[Lanzelot]

Theov described it quite well.

As for research: you need Replaceable Parts! First for Infantry/Artillery (Greece won't be an easy push-over like Carthage and Byzantium...) and most of all for doubled worker speed!

All the corrupt towns should build workers! You need many more workers for the railway. (Once the railway is complete, you can join them to core cities to bring them to size 12 asap.

And: now that the war with Carthage is over and your Mutual Protection Pact with Greece may end any time, too, you should probably build 3-4 rifles to protect against any sneak attacks from Greece. (I left core cities unprotected while having a RoP with Greece. This was a certain risk, but could not be avoided, as our military was weak. But I was sure that Greece wouldn't attack as long as they are gracious and have an MPP. Now things may be different...)