Nobles' Club 216: Suleiman of Ottomans

[elementoffear]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.
Our next leader is Suleiman, whom we last played in NC CLXXXI; we last played the Ottomans under Mehmed in NC 203. The Civs start with The wheel and agriculture.

Traits: Leader is Philosophical and imperialistic.
The UB: The Hammam Compared to the Aqueduct it replaces, the Hammam gives your people an extra 2 happiness. Build Hammams when you want to grow a city, or when the populace begins clamoring for it.

The UU: The Janissary , Compared to the Musketman, which this unit replaces, the Janissary is 25% more effective against Archers, Melee units and Mounted units.

And the start:

Spoiler :

Spoiler map details :

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The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC216_Suleiman_Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.
For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
Exit the worldbuilder.
Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.
If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

Last note, I made the saves with the generate_games script, so let me know if you see an issue.

 

[elementoffear]

Saved just in case

 

[krikav]

Nice, Sulliman is an awesome leader, and elephants at the start should spell doom for any neighbour!
Forests available, so phi-powered math-bulb could come into play.

Regarding start:

Spoiler :

Is that coast up NW of the elephants?

Settle NW of settlers location (on the northern wine) would yield a extra hammer, keep freshwater and get all resources in the capitals BFC.
But it pains to leave such a nice riverland too... Maybe move warrior SW -> SW, so see if something warrants moving settler back to the river T1?

Wonder if early mining could be sensible, that sheep mined would work nice with IMP settlers.

 

[earthy]

Spoiler about the start :

if that's coast to our left we might want to push a bit more inland to claim some land. for all we know there's a Joao 10 tiles away waiting to expand towards us, or a fish that we might kill by settling the wine.

also with only plains cow and hills/plains sheep, we might struggle a bit with food here if we want to whip(and with this much forest I feel like we want BW pretty early).. you can see three green unforested tiles over those hills to the east which are what interest me. some corn/pig/copper could be nice. with the warrior in such a bad position I find myself tempted to move the settler 2E1N on a gamble. maybe the warrior can go 1SW to see what this gamble leaves behind?

 

[deity 420]

No extra challenge? Extra challenges makes playthrough more fun.

 

[Whisker]

@deity 420 How about Janissary rush on BCs?

 

[elementoffear]

No extra challenge? Extra challenges makes playthrough more fun.

Honestly, after 215 I re generated so many times until I was content, I forgot about a challenge

I hope I'll win this one, but I'm open to suggestions for a 2nd more harder attempt.

 

[krikav]

Haved started playing this now.
Up at T61 right now, like map alot.

Spoiler :

I moved settler NW up on the PH, a move that yields a quicker worker, and also grabs the ivory in BFC.
Seeing that it's coast up NW and tundra (Zzzz) in the SW I move warrior up.
He discovers wet rice, and I contemplate moving toward it, but decide against it anyhow.

Found a nice way to get a speedy settler, while working cow+sheep, (7H) toward pop3 I built a warrior in 3 turns, with a sizable 6H overflow. Two of these cycles went into IMP settler.
AH -> Writing -> Mining, then I hold and saved gold for a while to build a library.
Rushing out a second settler before library as I desperatly need to block off some land.

Not sure this position was ideal, wanted to utilize the peaks to create a barrier.
Short on workers now, and this city will only work oasis and then probably 1pop whip a monument or possibly it's own worker.
Ramsy has a settler party going for that clam, and I'm positive he would have settled right in my face without this blocking city.
This will likely cost me though, and if he goes longbows before I have a elepult push comming up, I'll be annoyed.

Overview of empire at BW. Revolt right away to whip a worker in Edirne.
I'll bulb math no matter what. A academy would be decent in capital after monarchy, but long term not great.
Math is looking really solid with all these forests. Abit worried about teching pace, and I need alot of different things hunting/myst/fish. WvO is hardly putting any points on me, so he likely knows more AIs, want a pair of workboats out soon too.
A sweet city spot to backfill at cow+coastal fish, but marble I don't know... Perhaps gift a city to Ramsy there and let him develop?

A few turns down the road I reach pottery. Have whipped a monument in Ankara now. Seeing that math is comming soon and can probably 1pop whip a library there soon, myst was probably a mistake.
Food situation is dire in most cities, will probably have to farm most sites. Teching will have to come from scientists/bulbs/trades, and later perhaps burocracy with the collection of wines.
With some luck, Ramsy will mature alot of cottages for me.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler To T88 :

T65 WvO can trade alfabet.
I start to put beakers into it, and manage to get it for math at T69

T71 Ramsy builds GLH in Thebes. <3

Then he goes on and builds this.

I meet Gandhi, I want monarchy for all those wines, but I also want sailing quick.. Difficult with trades here.
Ramsy is going Math, so can't get IW (which I want to broker to Gandhi) for math, and I need to save something to trade for monarchy.
Also can't get sailing+IW if I don't give him both math+alfa, and I don't want to give him too much, as he will become too difficult to kill if I do.
I settle for alfa for IW, and the next turn I can't get anything at all for IW from Gandhi. >_<

Sprint through med->Pristhood, but when I get there:

Two turns later, things get worse, when Ramdy and Gandhi trade math<-> alfa and leave me out in the cold.

The guy with the temperament saves me a few turns later. Worst enemy trade with Gandhi, oh well.

Ramsys pyramid-powered culture steals my cows. :'(

Overview at HBR.
I'm focusing my energy on getting HBR and then construction, this is what I need to attack Ramsy. Even if I don't get anything else, I can almost guaranteed take his pyramids city and the other flatland city close by the clams.

T87 Ramsy demands HBR, no way! Don't want him to have his own elephants.

This was really sweet! Usually don't get MC until waaay later. This will keep me in the trading game for a long time.

Ramsy is going bananas with the teching. He has some gems, and is developing alot of calendar resources too. Likely he will get to longbows before I can attack.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler To T111 :

I want Ramsy as my neighbour every game.
Thanks @elementoffear

Have a stable in Edirne, and a forge in capital which is doing 20hammers per turn raw. Construction is in, now it's all units.
Trying to snail my way to currency which I'll need eventually. But luck came my way and WvO didn't go for construction himself, so I could trade construction for abit more than half of currency. The extra traderoutes was golden as the other AIs are on another continent and we get overseas bonus.

T99 Gandhi begs me for HBR, I gave in as I thought he would become friendly by that, but no.

T100 he wants to trade feudalism anyway though, as Ramsy has also reached it.

T101 I get CoL for Feud with WvO, nice brokering.
I just trade whatever I can get. Once I start to chug along on Ramsy I think I'll be left behind for some time.

I have a strong feeling I won't be the civ having the fortune to get to lib, so I get this while I can too.

Knocking on his door, time to hand over all those nice wonders you built!

Can never have too many catapults. Nasty longbows.

Oh... that is one wonder I didn't want him to build.

Suprisingly few buildings, perhaps because he spent all time building mids?

I put some turns into CS, and then bulb philo and trade with Gandhi to get CS at T110.
Don't have any religion, so paci won't do me much good, and I decide to stay in vass, so only swap to police state, something I should have done the turn I got Memphis, but I forgot.
In hindsight (T119) it was probably a mistake to do it now too, as I didn't need many more units.

Build units Ramsy!!

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Spoiler @krikav :

Why didn't you settle Ankara one south west of the cows? best tile in first ring imo and the 2 from the oasis aren't too much delayed...

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T111-T119 :

No luck with keeping buildings.

Only Pacal who still doesn't have CS. This get me up to cautious again, good.

Lovely!

Haven't even lost any units. Ramsy still busy building wonders instead of longbows.
He has castles now so bombarding takes forever even with CR->Bombard promoted catapults.

Closing in.

Alot of nasty pikes, and brutal longbows too. Only numbers cracks this nut.

7 catapults, and then a CR3 promoted sword dies at 99.5% odds. Grr!
Break now, trying to get a GPerson to run a 12 turn GA and get to teching civics, but it takes 12 turns, sloppy planning. :/
Probably should take a ceasefire and revolt before I mop up the rest of Ramsy.
Have started building galleys too, perhaps I have steam enough to continue to roll over WvO too with this army, or at least kick him of my continent.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler @krikav :

Why didn't you settle Ankara one south west of the cows? best tile in first ring imo and the 2 from the oasis aren't too much delayed...

I didn't have any worker to spare for a long time. Was at 1 worker at the time, and capital was building library while I saved up gold.
So oasis was more important as it's decent even w/o worker.
But chief reason was to to block Ramsy from moving in my direction completely by making a wall with the peaks.
The wheat was still vunerable and he could have marched down and settled that and caused me a headace.

 

[krikav]

T133

Spoiler :

Abit more luck with flatland cities.
Ceasefire to not lose that worker I stole, and to have him build less units.

I missed the notification, but apparantly, he have also built Notre Dame.

Lightly defended, so can split the stack. Sending mostly elephants here as the xbow on hill could be nasty.
Most melee units goes north.

Finaly got a GSci and ran a GA, rep+bur+caste+paci.
Here I got too greedy, have not replenished catapults as I should have done.

One extra turn of espionage against wilhelm, plus all the points since I met him.

Lovely.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler :

War elefant+catapult+maceman was way to eager and stod alone on the flatland SE of Rotterdam, they got what they deserved.

Starting to panic here, WvO has Astro and reinforcements could arrive at any turn.
Luckily, only a lone Xbow joined the citys defense and I got it next turn.

This wasn't fun.

And this wasn't enough, but 20GPT got peace.

12 turns later, after a horribly inefficient mopup of Ramsy, with big losses in units because I was too sloppy to build siege in time.

I give WvO this city to get fair trade, have nothing else to give him and I desperatly need to get open borders with him, as he is my connection to all the other AIs.

The losses have really piled up, but now the continent is mostly mine.
The half-dozen galleys that was planning to ship over my veteran units look abit dissapointed that I managed to kill them all.

Two GPersons ready for yet another MoM powered golden age.
Going for steel at the moment.
Not sure what I should hit the other AIs with, but perhaps Janisaries (drafted?) and cannons (upgraded trebs?), if I can get astro, perhaps frigates could aid?

 

[pi-r8]

Partial playthrough, with some variant play

Spoiler :

I decided that I wanted to try the Janissary beeline (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/case-study-gunpowder-beeline-janissary-rush.651392/), but I don't have much confidence in that strategy and I wanted a break, so I played it at noble difficulty (normally I play immortal or deity).

Settled in place, expanded to 4 cities while avoiding pottery and fishing. Built 4 libraries and ran scientists everywhere, while continuing to expand.

I modified the bulb tech path a bit. I teched currency and built wealth, since without cottages there was no good source of commerce. Then, no one had built the oracle yet, so I built it while teching Code of Laws and took Civil Service (good ol Civil Service slingshot works like a charm on noble!). Backfilled fishing, sailing, calendar while trading for a few things. Could have gotten gunpowder faster, but I wanted to have some economy behind it too.

I got gunpowder around 150 BC (bulbing paper, 2x education, and gunpowder, so i went from classical -> medieval -> renaissance in one turn). My invasion of Egypt started in 150 AD... and finished in 300 AD. He had barely any units, so the Janissaries cut through him like butter. I was building catapults too, but they were totally unnecessary. He had 4 cities, and I took them all with a loss of only one janissary. He was starting to research feudalism, but I killed him before he could finish it.

I had lots of hammers, and marble, so I went to town building wonders behind the invasion. I built The Great Library, The Great Lighthouse, The Mausoleum, The Colossus, The Parthenon, and I'm starting on Maoi Statues, Heroic Epic, and National Epic, and Hanging Gardens. Those Noble level AIs are so slow at building wonders... especially when you kill Ramesses (He built Stonehenge and the Great Wall. At least the Great Wall is keeping me safe from the barbarians in the northern, uninhabited part of the island).

I had met Willem, and he had both philosophy and metal casting, but not feudalism. He also founded a city in the northern part of my island so... time for him to die. After building some galleys and moving them up there, the invasion commenced around 600 AD with an amphibious attack on The Hague (one loss, despite high odds) and then a regular attack on Amsterdam the next turn (no losses). Finished off the rest of his army in Utrect, and took his two cities on my island.

I don't know if I'll finish this game or not, because everything is too easy now. I still haven't made contact with Gandhi and Pacal, but I can see them on the map because I traded maps. I'm sure neither of them will be able to stop my janissary/catapult army. Meanwhile I'm building every single good wonder in the game, and getting my first of many golden ages. Nothing left to do except the clean up.

Gunpowder/Janissary beeline was fun, and an interesting variant. I actually didn't miss cottages too much in the early game- just running scientists gave me enough science, and riverside mines building wealth gave me even more. The hard part was playing without granaries. Luckily there were lots of forests to chop, and a lot of riverside grass hills to mine.

If the oracle->Civil Service hadn't worked, it might have failed. At least, I think Ramesses would have gotten feudalism before I had Janissaries, and everything would have gone much slower. But going through theology is probably viable, too.

 

[krikav]

To T166

Spoiler :

I have great persons comming out of my ears.
Trade mission yields 1300g, was hoping for more, but need to tech right now.

Shrine, why not? Will have enough Gpersons for another GA soon anyway.

I trade chemistry for PP with WvO, and chemistry for 820g with Pacal.

Have given Ragnar almost all resources I had to spare to get him to pleased.

Perhaps I overestimated the need for Astro? With GLH and this many cities, the AIs cities isn't enough anyway, and with representation and pacifism, merc was probably the way to go.
Should perhaps have beelined banking myself earlier?

Haha, forgot to road that sheep.

Suddenly, everyone declareds on Gandhi.

I do what I can, to join in on the fun.

 

[krikav]

To T182

Spoiler :

Getting ironworks up early is sweet. Even w/o coal.

During the GA, I have partially built janissaries and cannons in most cities, but haven't finished them. Now the last turn of the GA I swap into vass+theocracy and they will all be finished with +4 xp.

Unit situation at T171. 13 knights, 12 Janissary, 11 cannons.

My opportunistic units took a foothold in coastal varanasi, and that gave me a significant bump in economy (21 commerce per turn). Apparantly other cities can trade with cities that is in revolt.
Was greedy here, waiting for Saladin to bombard down Bombay, so I didn't bribe Saladin off Gandhi. Also had two cannons by the elephant, ready to hit Bombay at T175. Too bad Gandhi capitulated to Saladin before that.

But I have bigger fish to fry.

Doing what I can, to gain a friend in this world.

Trying to hit everything at once.

Amsterdam was a really nice city. But WvO is willing to capitulate, and rather he have the city right now, than I in 12 turns.

Unit situation at T182.
52 cannons, 20 Janissarys and 17 frigates.
Have built abit too many cannons and abit few Janissarys, was thinking that rifiling would come sooner but economy isn't that great.
4 more turns in police state I think, then probably Rep, nationalism, caste, merc, theo, to tech away while drafting support to the cannons+veterans.

 

[elementoffear]

So, ok , I finally forgot what was in the map and I'm ready to play it. Now I've been thinking that I should work with the Imperialistic trait, but honestly, without organized is spamming settlers a good option?

 

[AcaMetis]

If you can keep your economy alive enough to get to Currency, yes, more cities faster is better. Focus on good cities that can be build up quickly and that can work cottages and/or run Scientists, though. You really don't want to wait dozens of turns for cities to start paying back for themselves while your economy is in dire straits and your slider is fruitlessly trying to limp it's way to Currency.