[BTS] Nobles' Club 203: Mehmed II of the Ottomans

Just got around to this one. I'm playing Monarch-NH-NE.

In my initial play, I did settle 1N of starting spot, but realized that long term I was going to struggle to know where to place other cities. So I did a reboot and SIP. I lost a warrior to lions or wolves because I didn't heal it. Also, my micro isn't as solid as it needs to be. I believe I have been improving, but I know that it could be better.

Also aware of making mistakes on research. When I noticed (first mistake) that I was at 90%, I moved it to 0%. I intended only to do that for 1 turn. I forgot to turn it back to 100% the next turn (second mistake). Upside of that is that I had enough gold that I didn't need to go 0/100 for a few techs.

Followed same tech path as @krikav to mathematics and then switched to alphabet to get some techs from those nearby. I'm strongly considering using HA to take out my closest neighbors. Am I too late for that? I know that I have more leeway on Monarch than higher levels, but prefer to learn to make better decisions so that I can actually play the higher levels.

 

@as2w

Spoiler :

Can't look at the save right now, but I'll answer abit anyway.

Settling 1N of starting spot I think is the best play from the info you have on turn1. Especially if you send your warrior NE and don't see the second gold. Getting that extra hammer with an expansive leader is quite substantial.
I too often lose my starting warrior because I am too eager to scout my surroundings. This is a habit I'm trying to break.

That slider mishap is very common, one has to try cultivate the habit of checking some things every single turn.
HAs can be doable for quite some time if the target lacks metal, you can find out if he has by starting conversations with him a few times and see if he is boasting about his archers.

I wish I had thought of the idea of going for HAs! I made up a construction attack plan at around T5 and then my mind was too closed to stop and reevaluate, something that one should do all the time.

 

@as2w

Spoiler :

Took a look at the save, I think that things are looking good, you have expanded nicely and you haven't stopped.
City spots look good too, going for the food where it's available, wheat and corn. I would like to see a city close by the pigs up NW soon, pigs are such a lovely tile and cities powered by them develop nicely, and the fact that it's just inches away from the capital make it faster to get settled which is obviously good.

You could benefit from having more workers, math is in and you have penty of forests, ideally 3 forests should have landed in your capital the turn writing was in, to get a library up asap.
This capital can be abit tricky to get up to size, and you are doing very good with lending out the gold to a second city. It's also good that it can borrow the corn.
In fact, I like your position for Edirne more than my own, since it grabs the horse in first ring, and that it has another freshwater tile to farm early on.

I don't like the riverside plains cottage in capital at all, thats the only thing I see that I can denote as a clear mistake.
The green cottage might be ok, but I would prefer a farm. I farmed almost everything in this capital.

The closest save I had left was from T73, but this is how my capital looked at the time:
There was fierce competition of that farm 2N1W of capital, since both capital and pigcity wanted to use that tile.
Gold is very nice, but it does place a food curse upon the cities that have it.

 

Won my first-ever Emperor game a couple days ago (whoot!) and now want to try another Emperor game but with this NC game's variant! I appreciate any comments as I try to ready myself for my first Immortal game sometime in the near future.

Alright, here's where I'm at playing on Emperor w/ huts on Epic speed:

Spoiler T106 on Epic :

I considered moving 1N to settle the plains hill, but when I moved the warrior SW I saw the 2nd gold tile, so I settled in place. This revealed a 2nd wet corn in my BFC (yay!)

I started to research Mining so I can mine the hill to complement the irrigated corn, and eventually of course the gold. Also makes way for Bronze Working -- I intend to chop those forests to expand as quickly as possible!

Initial scouting shows that we are very close to 3 neighbors, so expanding as quickly as possible is my top priority! And after researching Bronze Working I can research Pottery so I can get granaries to expand faster. With my gold I should be able to afford some rapid expansion. There's a lot of good city spots nearby...

Once Pottery is researched, I research Iron Working because I notice that I have no copper. I need to see where the metals are so I can grab them (for military and for scenario purposes).

I get a random event of a barbarian uprising, and a barb archer starts walking toward my empty capital! I halt my settler production and race my scouting warrior home, and switch to Slavery civic so I can whip a 2nd warrior in the nick of time. The archer just walks past my capital and ignores my corn farm! (Is this normal?)

My 2nd city went southwest to grab the marble and wheat before Korea or the Holy Romans can grab them. My 3rd city goes east to grab the stone and corn before De Gaulle can get to them.

I also note that Korea has gems, which means I will need to turn on him later. Hmm... He founds Hinduism and it spreads to my civ. Looks like we'll be friends for a while! I trade him my extra corn for his extra gems. My capital is capable of growing to size 7.

When I finish Iron Working, I see that iron is in my capital! I research Animal Husbandry to reveal horses, and luckily there are some within my 2nd city's radius. I research Mysticism so I can build monuments in my 2 border cities so they don't get choked by culture. I research Masonry so I can hook up the marble.

I move my next settler north and settle next to the grass pigs. I hope to next settle southward to grab the horses (unsure exactly where to place it though... I don't want to miss the southern coast, but if I settle there I leave some unused tiles including a gold tile in the center!), and southeast toward the sugar and incense if I can.

Here is a screenshot. I have 2 cities building barracks that I don't intend to be production centers, but there is nothing better for them to build while I wait for them to grow a little before going back to settler/worker production. I am researching Writing so I can get Open Borders and get the capital and the border cities ready to build libraries (for GP points and culture respectively).

 

Won my first-ever Emperor game a couple days ago (whoot!) and now want to try another Emperor game but with this NC game's variant! I appreciate any comments as I try to ready myself for my first Immortal game sometime in the near future.

Nice going! Congratulations to that victory!
It wasn't in NC202 I guess? That map was kind of harsh. This one is way more accomodating.

Spoiler :

First of all, playing on epic speed and with huts/events on are not the settings that are in consensus use right now. Most people (posting on these forums!) play on normal speed with no huts and no events.
Thats the settings you will want to use, if you want as much feedback as possible.

That you like BW and chops are good. Slavery is an completely overpowered civic, but I have started to appreciate the capability for chopping even more. There are situations where you will only use slavery sparingly, but chopping is nearly always good.
Choping crazy good on normal, abit worse on epic and insanly good on marathon iirc.

IW you should almost never self-tech, since the AIs always go for it, and you will be able to trade for it in the wast majority of cases. I do see your sense of urgency here, but I think the right call would have been to remain calm and patient. Or go straight for horsearchers.

You are in no need for another horse, even though it can be nice to trade with (you get alot of resources from horses with the AI).
The placement of the southern city. I placed it NE of the lake, to grab freshwater and to open up the ability to borrow the corn from the capital to grow this city, and to have the ability to borrow the gold to take food load of the capital.
NW has the same benefits but also gets the horse in the first ring, and it also has one more tile close by the lake to farm.
W of the horse is also possible with the extra early hammer, but that can't borrow the corn so I think it's worse.

I don't like the position of ankara at all. I conqured orleans 1N of that spot, and that was one of my better cities with a lighthouse and all that lake. I eventually built moai there. Awesome city.
if you wanted the corn, you should have placed the city 1S or 2S1W which would also taken the gold.
And slap those workers for farming a plains-tile. Thats a complete waste of workerturns!!

 

I have been whipping pretty heavily in this game so far. I'd been focusing on settlers/workers and didn't see much use having extra pop when the additional tiles wouldn't be working much commerce anyway.
Thanks for the tip on IW. Horse archers sound like a better choice.

"take food load of the capital"? Can you please expand on that?
"NW has the same benefits but also gets the horse in the first ring..." I assume you mean NW of the horses, yes?
You are opening my eyes to tile-sharing. I can see the logic.
What does fresh water mean for a city? Is it a health bonus?
You say Ankara could be 1 tile north. You're right in that I wanted the corn. Is it to get access to the coast to build navies?
I assume gold-corn makes sense, since you need bonus food to support a gold tile.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CHALLENGE SCORING:
Does the +1 scoring care about having multiples of each type of resource?
And is the +10 score achieved by having ONE of each type of resource?

 

Taking load of the capital:
Each tile you are working is costing you 2 food, so if you are working a grassland farm (3F) you are yielding 1F per turn. If you are working wet corn (6F) you are yielding 4F per turn.
Gold hills doesn't provide any food at all, and thus gives you -2F when you work it.
It's way harder to grow a city in pop while it is working a -2 food tile.
So it's convenient to have some other city that can work the gold at times when the capital wants to grow!
Tile-sharing is a really important concept, and the source of alot of micro-optimization in this game.

Yes, NW of the horse, that is what I ment. I think thats the best spot. (Not the one I took in m game).
Placing your citites near lakes/rivers give that city a +2 health bonus which doesn't matter at low pop, but is getting beneficial at higher pop.

I'm not sure that I would place Ankara 1N, it would take time to develop.
I had DeGualle settle at that position and i could conquer it later.
You have to have coastal access to be able to build a lighthouse, and a lighthouse makes lakes provide 3F, Ankara 1N would have 7 of those lighthouse-powered lakes. Very nice!

You are correct in going after the corn before any such slow-to-get-going things as lighthouse dreams though.
But the corn should have been in the first ring. Probably 1W of the corn.
If you make the call that you want stone, you should settle a city 1SW of stone to make sure you get it.
Hoping to get resources in time with a borderpop, and then to hold them against cultural pressure is a tall order.

Settling a city to work a gold, staying at pop1 working the gold, and never build anything (but wealth) at all for the rest of the game can be good in many situations, but if you have any other plans for a city, it does need some food, else the gold will be a curse.
(Regular plains-hills are the same too, and are one of the worst tiles there is.)

 

First thank you @Undefeatable for keeping NC alive. Haven't played Civ IV in a long time and started this scenario for a little comeback. Went with monarch since it has been a long time.

Spoiler :

Was already pretty decided on settling the PH north for that extra production, since the river ain't that important with Expansive, but the hut gave me a map which should me the second gold in the south, so after much thinking I did SIP (was thinking about using that gold for a second city to not forfeit the PH start).

Started out with Worker and Warrior for scouting, found Charlemagne - Wang Kon - Gaulle, found that there's a crazy amount of empty land to the south south-east of the continent. Not sure about my tech path, but after I found no bronze but horses, decided for a horse rush on paris, because not protective. Got the second city up (Istanbul, shares wet corn with capital, swap it from time to time, depending on who I want to grow) to secure horses and the gold from Wang Kon, started producing Horse Archers (after I researched Archery, which I forgot until after horse riding, yes it has been a while). Got third city for wet corn & gold south east before.



Gaulle was an easy war, only had three cities, all badly defended, razed two of them, he had bad land and even worse city positioning, kept Paris, probably gonna turn it into a great Person fram with all that sea food.

After that I had a lot of HA over and Wang Kon just took my Gold from Istanbul by culture, so I paid him a visit, but he had iron up and swordsmen, so not much gain, Razed the city that took the gold and peaced out (got some cheap techs).

All in all I should be able to dominate easy from here, but I do have two AIs on my contintent that don't like me, both Buddhist. I have no religion (found Confucianism).

Currently at 225 CE. Four cities (three founded and Paris.) Gonna fill up some interesting spots south and north, maybe expand a bit into the south east before.

If you don't mind me speaking in a weird language, you can see the first part on Twitch (; (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/361411962)

https://puu.sh/CvvKb/062f7a44ba.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

Nice coincidence @Marvinlegend
I think the first map I took a shot at when I did return to this game was this one:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ncoln-of-the-united-states-of-america.472785/
A NC-game which you hosted.
Welcome back!

 

Ah the good old days, when I was more active here, hosting NCs and helping with Civ Illustrated. It's a small world (;

 

Thank you for the game @Undefeatable ! I finally found some time to play again, and you made a great one. I loved it even tough loosing

 

@elementoffear

Spoiler :

Was it Sally with his huge empire that got you? You did you have an unlucky DoW early on?

 

@krikav

Spoiler :

I stole a worker from the french, and just camped near their city until I got an army and finished them off, but just continued getting more and more land which was empty and got also a couple barbarian cities. But forgot to watch my back and the Holy Romans just rolled in while my army was so far away...

 

Continued my play on this.

I'm aware of several things that weren't optimal in my play. First thing to note was in my war against the French. I needed to build a larger stack to begin with so that after the first city goes down that I have enough troops to march on and get the second very quickly. I pumped out HAs until the war ended so that went better than in previous games. One question for you experts out there. When the war finishes, what is the best play with cities that are in the middle of a unit build? Is it best to let it finish and then move on? Or is it better to switch to something else? In this situation, I do not plan to go to war with any other neighbor. They have iron and iirc, HAs versus swordsmen is worthless.

Second question is specific to this game. When I took Paris I inherited The Pyramids. Now that I am trying to recover a war economy, what is the best civic for this next turn set? Do I move into monarchy as the cost isn't any different and I gain happiness for present military units? Or is it wiser to go to representation so that I can get more from specialist as I get my cities to grow? Or is it best just to stay as is for the time being?

Third, when you finish a war and don't intend to go to war with a neighbor, what is the best thing to do with all of the leftover troops? Some have been promoted and some not. In this case, I have sent some down to take out barb cities and fog bust way in the south. I am unsure what to do in these transitions of the game. So what is the prevailing advice?

At this stage of the game, I am at 10 cities, but my economy is in the tank. How do I recover it? Do I open borders with the neighbors? I have resisted this far in this game. I don't think either of the other civs were upset that I leveled the French. So if they had met them, it didn't hurt my diplo.

What else do I need to do?

I'm looking forward to your feedback.

 

1.
If you don't plan any way, just leave the half-built units in the queue. You will have them there if you want to build later on. And after 10 turns(?) the hammers start to decay, but that isn't something to worry about.
If you don't need units, you shouldn't build them. In fact, at times when I finish a war, I'll just delete a bunch of units.
A even better approach is if you manage to get a vassal, just give that vassal all units you have in excess.

2.
In almost all cases, representation is the way to go, when you are in recovery mode. Circumstances might vary ofcourse, but almost always rep.

3.
"when you finish a war and don't intend to go to war with a neighbor"
Why not? If you have alot of troops, why not change your intention?
But if a new war isn't at all on the table:
Replace warrior garissons with better units, this will increase your overall power rating. Delete warriors as the better units get to their cities.
Delete the units that you still have in excess.
Or.... Give them to a vassal.
You can also gift them to one AI which you want to boost, relative to another one.
Say you have Gandhi next to shaka, gifting Gandhi troops to avoid a fate for him as a vassal to Shaka might be a good idea.

You should have had open borders even earlier. Having closed borders is something you have in only rare circumstances. Best to keep them open for diplo bonuses and the valuable traderoutes.
If they where closed, open them up now.

How to handle your economy from now, depends on what you plan to do. Sometimes a short tech-burst to just get the next military tech is in order.
But if you want to tech alot, you need to grow your cities, run specialists and work commerce tiles.
Mehmed being ORG, it also makes sense to whip a bunch of courthouses.

 

@krikav Thanks for the advice on the transitions. I'll open borders and switch to rep as soon as I continue game play.

At this stage, I don't have a vassal and I'm not too worried about the others that I know about. In this case, on this map, I don't think it makes sense to go after Charlemagne or the Korean empire with this force. I don't have enough to kill their swordsmen and make good use of the remaining HAs. If they didn't have iron or the tech, then I would likely turn these units in that direction. It just didn't make sense to me in this situation.

One thing that I was advised in a walk through was that I didn't need to worry about using courthouses unless the costs were something high. I'll have to find the thread to remember what lymond recommended.

One thing I am doing is putting some turns into a WW that I expect to be fail gold. This seemed like a way to boost the economy as well as I don't expect to get the wonder. I get the double build speed for having marble so that should double my investment if I understand correctly.

I'm looking forward to getting back to the game play in a day or two.

 

Mehmed is organized, so the courthouses is half price.
It can absolutely be a good way to improve economy.

Everything has to be seen from a case to case basis.
Courthouse is 60 hammers for Mehmed, and if a city has 6 gpt in upkeep, it pays itself back in 20 turns. (Plus you get some espeionage point).
Is that better or worse compared to your alternatives?
Weigh your options constantly!

Putting hammers into wonders for failgold can certainly be lucrative, but it's not something that you should do automatically.

 

Thanks. I do understand that everything is case by case. Since the courthouses are half priced, then it certainly makes sense to me this go.

I wouldn't say that I automatically went for fail gold. I would say that I looked at the options for that city and knew that I didn't need anything further in that one at the moment. Also saw that my research at 0% wasn't yielding enough gold, so thought that this was a good time to try for some.

 

Thanks for starting this! I'm a noble player and appreciate this. I only know how to win by conquest on this level, playing small maps usually with 5 other civs. I will catchup and try this game

 

Thanks for playing with us! Do share your game.