Nobles' Club 282: Mehmed II of the Ottomans

[SillyGoat]

Ah, but how many hammers does a flat grasland city with Levee get on the city tile.

One.

It gets the hammer from the levy which brings it up to a 1h tile.

Flat plains or grass hill produce 1h naturally so they produce 2h with a levy.

 

[Fabled]

This might be the end. Maybe I'll play it out to the bitter end, but I think I no longer have a chance to come back. If anyone has suggestions or feedback I would love to hear it.

Spoiler Turn 50 to Turn 251 :

I didn't keep as detailed of a log this time around, so hopefully there isn't anything crazy inefficient going on at this point.

I spent until turn 188 filling out my part of the continent and building up a stack of elephants and catapults pointed at Portugal. Here's my empire at it's height, on the eve of war with Portugal.





Portugal doesn't put up a meaningful fight. It's simply a waiting game while the catapults do their job, and then my dozen or so elephants make short work of whatever city defenders are present. After securing the continent, Joao capitulates.

A couple of turns after finishing Portugal, Rome surprises me with a declaration of war. I wanted a war with them in the near future, but I was hoping to consolidate my gains and tech into gunpowder units first. At this moment, I have nothing but 3 or 4 archers in the area.

Rome takes my first 2 or 3 border cities, but my elephant / catapult stack arrives just in time to push back the invasion and reclaim my territory. Rome is fighting with knights, trebuchets, and mustketmen, so I have trouble trading favorably. I do what I can but the front stabilizes with Rome reclaiming their initial conquests. I lose my stack in counter attacks, but I'm rebuilding with janissaries and cuirassiers.

Turn 251 Saladin drops an amphibious invasion on my shores. Rome moves up their first riflemen, as well. I can match cuirassiers and I'm only 3 turns out from cannons, but I have nothing left to upgrade and it was taking all the production I could muster to keep the status quo with Rome before rifles.



I think my mistake was taking too long to hit with my late classical push. By the time I had finished my expansion and had a stack ready to go I was attacking into medieval armies. That's fine if you're bullying a weaker neighbor, but I was too far behind to deal with an equal.

Alternatively, I should have pushed for optics quickly, and tried to play tech broker between the continents. I never made tech parity on my own continent, and the other continent was even further ahead.

I might restart the map and see if I can clean up my play. My start was good, so if I don't lose cities to barbs, hit my timing attacks on time, and contact the other continents more quickly I should do fine. I'm pretty rusty and it's been years since I've played something other than pangaea, I guess I've formed some bad habits.

 

[krikav]

The game of the month I was playing ended much quicker than I anticipated to I went back to tackle this one.
Super strong start and I like Mehmed too.
Deity NH/NE T120

Spoiler :

I went AH first with the intent of settling on that PH getting a quick cow, was happy to see the horses too.
Built a ton of warriors early on to fogbust up in the north.
Fishing before mining to get the two lake tiles and speed up teching abit.

3 chariots of mine managed to snipe Angle way out in the east and after that I manage to block off August decently.
Gave a gift settler to both of the guys and was very happy to see August start plotting shortly after I had both at pleased.

Screwed up tile micro last turn, should have gotten currency this turn. Tech has been horrid.
Managed to get alpha for aestethics+60g with August and then Drama for Math with Joao, but haven't managed to get any other trade.

I don't have anything to bribe off August from Joao, so he will likely just continue to roll over him, but Joao was already weak and having him further weakend will make it possible for me to do some catchup-trading with him later.
I should be able to conquer August eventually.
A pity that neither of my continent-mates has managed to get any religion, might have to watch out for some fast culture attempt abroad.

Economy is not good.
Should improve dramatically now with currency and once cottages start to mature though.

 

[konata_LS]

@Fabled

Spoiler :

Not sure if Monarch level methods (the level I play at) can be applied at Emperor. But judging from your screenshots, your expansion and worker management looks good: you have 10+ cities and most of them are working improved tiles. So maybe it's Emperor AIs' tech pace which makes you feel uncomfortable?

Is it your first game at Emperor? Mehmed's traits are solid, his starting techs good, but he's not the best candidate for someone who just challenges a new difficulty. FIN leaders are better choice when one moves up in difficulty. After several games, feeling more at ease with Emperor AIs, then it's time to try some non-FIN leaders.

There are some recent NC games such as NC 262 , NC 250 , and NC 268 , all are FIN leaders with a strong start, good choice if you want to practise your games on Emperor.
Huayna Capac is also a strong leader, and NC 278 would be worth trying as well. But playing too often as Capac may lead you into some "traps", as Capac is a too good leader.

@krikav

Spoiler :

REX to 18 cities on Deity

Staying in an "atheist" continent offers a hidden advantage: the 4 unknown AIs have 4 or 5 different state religions, which means it's highly possible that some turns later a few GGenerals will be born in a far away land .

 

[Fabled]

@konata_LS

Yeah, this is functionally my first game at emperor. I was playing on emperor a year or two ago so I figured I could pick the game back up and do fine, but clearly I was wrong

The tech pace is the primary thing I'm having trouble adjusting to. I get into a situation that's comfortably ahead and transition into a "press end turn until you win the game" build, and then get sucker punched by a bigger army with better tech. My go-to at lower difficulty levels is to get untouchably ahead and then autopilot my way into space, and it's clearly starting to fail at emperor!

 

[Fish Man]

t211 science victory on noble, finally got around to finishing this.

Spoiler :

The only bad thing this game was that Sitting Bull's capital wasn't on my original continent, because holy **** that city is STACKED. I was getting over 100 base hammers per turn WITHOUT a golden age, and also basically every tile was a river tile. I don't think I'll ever find a better IW city than this...when I captured it, it was only about size 8 and had none of the buildings I needed, and it came out of resistance around when I was discovering industrialism/plastics...so I had to chop EVERYTHING to build a granary, levee, forge, factory, hydro plant, IW, observatory, grocer, and then lab.

I built TGD on the starting continent, and it was still worth it to save me the unhealthy, but in the new continent I had to make do with hastily spamming hydro/coal plants after cities came out of resistance only a few dozen turns before I was set to start building the spaceship. By far the most interesting part of this game was figuring out how to develop the unimproved and small cities I captured with extremely good terrain, in such a short amount of time - I made do by capturing as many workers as I could and porting a dozen or two over from the starting continent as well. Janissaries were sweet for carving a trail of destruction across virtually everything that stood against them, making taking on Monty and SB and then a bit of Saladin quite easy. And hammams came in very handy to solve happiness problems both early and late game. Fast lighthouses + factories were also a godsend on this map, fast granaries are by default invaluable, and I definitely needed every worker I could get my hands on...so you could say Mehmed was the perfect leader for this map, and specifically for rushing space.

It got close but I don't quite think the start is good enough for sub-t200 space on standard speed. Also it's super annoying that some extremely good city spots, and probably the juiciest flood plain valley I've seen in quite a while, is on a whole another continent. Perhaps if I had Sitting Bull's start and all the civs were on one landmass, I could've pulled off yet another legendary sub-t200...

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[BornInCantaloup]

I tried my hand at this map, under recommendation. It is very wild, a lot of fun.
This is my opener to T50 :

Spoiler :

Settle on the hill. Both sites scouted for early settlement reveal cows, so AH is my first tech. I follow with Mining, decide I don't have enough commerce for Bronze and insert Pottery next.
Situation at T30 :

Spoiler :

Second city gets another plains hills and a much welcome strat resource.
A barb city has spawned to the north.
Istanbul completed the settler at size 3 then grows to 4 to get some extra military and goes worker -> settler.

So, 5 turns later :

Spoiler :

Oh, look, another barb city
The workers part cottage 1S of the cow before improving the horses so as not to waste turns.
At this point, with knowledge of Pottery, research can go towards Bronze.
Note that Edirne worked the farmed bananas before the cow was improved. Now, Istanbul can take the tile back.

Spoiler :

Now, one of the workers moves ahead to road to the 3rd city (warrior location) while the other remains behind to start cottaging. This road does not speed up the settler's travel time, but it does connect the city to our trade network.
I know others researched Fishing to work the lake... hum... It pays off fast and the cottages start slower... but they're important tiles to develop. I am also not sure that Fishing gets you to Pottery + Bronze faster than skipping Fishing. The timeline to that duo of techs is what matters.
Edirne has a mission of its own, which does not include building workers and stagnating but rather growing to happy cap and building Chariots.
Look at that barbarian working laying down work, isn't he cute ? Also, having barb cities spawning like that, close to your base, is the perfect buffer against barb agressions. It can steal some city spots, sure, but we're not short-handed, here.

T45 :

Spoiler :

One of my workers completes a very useless road waiting on Bronze Working
My warriors flee from a barb archer. I'll try to get it in the field with my Chariot. Edirne goes second Chariot before Barracks.
Istanbul sets up a whip for another settler (so grows to size 5 first). It will follow with a worker and not the Granary. Now we need to free up the riverside to lay down improvements.

This is T50 :

Spoiler :

Edirne is growing into unhappiness, now, and will whip its Barracks with max overflow.
The workers in the west are clearing adjacent tiles, so they can double up when its time to cottage. Note that we'll first improve the shared tiles between Istanbul and Ankara.
We have open borders with our neighbours and I've been perfectly oblivious to the South
Note that the settler is in position with no worker support. The city is instantly connected to our trade network and it can work an improved corn to start with (for some time, since it will follow with a Granary whip at size 1). This 4th city is a Library city. Ideally, in order to produce asap, the Library should be 2pop whipped and not 3pop.
The new worker from Istanbul will head East to balance the workforce and start with a chop 1N of Edirne. Between the Barracks whip and this chop, we're looking at 2 extra promoted chariots in 5 turns or so.

 

[soundjata]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

How much of a priority is it to aquire the 2 barbs city?
Rome will take them early with praetorians.
Do you have to go HBR or are there other ways?

Edit it's never too early to start on your great medic

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^ I've played as far as 500 BC, so I can answer you

Spoiler :

I think it's very high priority to capture those spots.
It's not "chop chariots over cottaging" priority but it is "dump all unnecessary production into chariots" priority. It is also "put mines in Edirne" level of priority.
Ankara gets its Granary then does Chariots, it doesn't get a Library. Edirne does nothing but Chariots. City 4 has another mission (Library). Istanbul is not very well-suited for production and wants its Library.

Parthian is on a hill, so it's tricky. It also holds Ivory, so... Yeah, high priority. It also ruined my riverside spot.
The other city is flatland, so easier.
Against flatland, you should count something like 2 chariots per barb archer.
On the hill, it's best if you get some AI to assist. It could be close to 3 chariots per barb archer.
Of course, if you have more, you have more. It's always nice to have some amount of security against bad runs.

I am thinking HBR at that point but more as a sensible follow-up to having mounted units than as a solution to the barbarian cities.

 

[konata_LS]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

Interesting - Pottery before BW . Cheap granaries are nice, after all. With your horse city, archery can be skipped. Edirne is a very good city

Agree about the importance of capturing the barb cities. Those barb cities have flood plains and can prevent AC from expanding towards the east.

Judging from your T50, both AC and Joao got early Writing..? So they're not far from Alphabet, and you might soon start trading techs with them.

Look forwards to seeing how your empire will develop

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@konata_LS :

Spoiler :

Maintenance control is essential on Deity and Immortal and maybe also on Emperor. I'm not sure at what difficulty level I'd change my tech path but I think it's good for Immortal as well. Maybe on Emp you go Bronze before Pottery, I'm not sure. There is a breaking point where the tech path changes.
This is also why you sometimes build a worker before a settler : maintenance control. You delay the maintenance hit from the extra city and have the extra worker to develop it faster.
Here, it's also maintenance control that leads me to tech Pottery before BW. I'd rather work the two cottage tiles than get the extra settler. It's a question of timings. My extra cities don't bring additional commerce. I'm not in a hurry to found city 4. Worse : I know I can't afford the 4th city before I have Pottery. And I don't go Writing before Bronze, no, because I need to clear forests to improve my tiles ^^
I think that double worker before settler (didn't do that here) or Pottery before Bronze should be classic moves on low commerce / high maintenance environments. I'm not sure why people don't do that more.
REXing is great. Land is power and all. But maintenance control (and land improvement) are essential to a successful REX. Delaying the maintenance hits (worker before settler ; pottery before bronze) give the means to do just that.
We can take a hypothetical situation where a player REXes to 5 cities with 1 worker and... well, it doesn't really pan out. And we can imagine many reasons why (lack of improvements, for a start, and then a horrendous maintenance to yield ratio).

 

[sampsa]

I think that double worker before settler (didn't do that here) or Pottery before Bronze should be classic moves on low commerce / high maintenance environments. I'm not sure why people don't do that more.

Maybe it could be done more often, but since a connected 2nd city usually breaks even -wise (2 from trade routes, 1 from cc, maintenance -3), there is big incentive to found 2nd city asap.

 

[soundjata]

Sometimes the fear of a city spot being taken by a nearby AI can also be an incentive to rush the first settler (often a lose / lose scenario)

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^ Yes, all true and valid. Especially true in the case of losing strat resources or some pigs/corn tiles.
I wrote my post more in a "solo development" consideration.