Nobles' Club XL: Mehmed II of the Ottomans

[Gocho]

You got a ton of new players/first timers in this NC dalamb!

People love huts I guess.

 

[dalamb]

4000-3000 BC with dotmap
3000-850 BC
850-125 BC
125 BC - 490 AD
490 AD - 1560 AD

Spoiler :

As others noted, I was sufficiently far ahead last time as to be able to win any way I liked, so I went for:



Not too long after starting this session (which began just after conquering Sitting Bull) I got:

Initially I spun off SB's former island as a colony (Lincoln, as it turned out) but after a while decided I really should have kept the territory and built Forbidden Palace there, so I backed up and did that. Eventually I built Versailles in a production city far to the northeast.

Ragnar was busy building on other continents and getting tired of the maintenance:

• 1706:
  
• 1758:
  

These guys wound up warring with various people -- I didn't track all of the machinations, but they must have broken free of Ragnar at some point.

I spent my time working through the tech tree, building up infrastructure, getting cities to grow, and spreading the shrine religions everywhere. I kept missing messages about unhealthiness and unhappiness, but by the end of the game recycling centres had taken care of all the unhealthiness, and a few Future Techs (7) took care of the last of the unhappiness. I managed 4 golden ages -- the Taj and 3 with Great People. With Sid's Sushi you can run so many specialists that in the late game I was getting great people fairly quickly, including two or three Great Engineers, one of which founded Mining Inc (which was great for those weak cities I added to meet the Blessed Sea quest). I knew how good Sushi was, but had never looked into Mining Inc. before; I may try for it again in future games, maybe by running post-Industrial Park engineers in as many cities as possible, including my national epic city.

There were a couple of very useful events:

• This gave a +1 boost in relations with everyone; together with the Best Defence quest (7 castles, +3 relation boost), this led to people being very happy with me (several Friendly, the rest Pleased).
  
• I don't understand the inflation rules, but this had to help:
  

I didn't want to get into any real wars but, since I was keeping up my military anyway (something I forgot in some old space games, getting myself dogpiled), I figured in late game it would be fun to have a short fight with jets and modern armour vs riflemen:



Only one of the two tanks needed to do anything, because of blitz.

Status at end of game:

Spoiler :

People seemed to be pretty happy with each other, even people who'd been at war with each other not too long ago:


Demographically I was far ahead in every category I cared about -- 4.5 million soldiers out of 181 million population, for example. However, the bottom 3 lines (approval, life expectancy, and exports-imports) weren't so good; does anyone know how these are calculated?


Willem apparently was doing fairly well, and as I was spreading missionaries around I noticed some cities defended by fighters, so if I'd gone for a late-game war it might have been tedious.

I don't finish most games I start, but was determined to finish this one before I got too involved in this term's course (Astrophysics). Like all my civ games, it was long, but unlike many, it was fun all the way through.

 

[BigTime]

@ Dalamb

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/demographics.php

 

[dalamb]

@BigTime: Thanks! Looks like I could have gamed the life expectancy and approval numbers some. Approval, for example: run 100% culture with theatres in every city, on just the last turn of the game.

Edit:

You got a ton of new players/first timers in this NC dalamb!

Wow! I just noticed we're up to 204 messages, which is only 11 less than the record-holder: 215 for NC IV, the Frederick game.

 

[Amao]

Monarch/Normal 1160AD retired.

4000 BC - 3000 BC

3000 BC - 1000 BC

1000BC - 1 AD

1 AD - 1000 AD

Spoiler :

The war on SB ended in 1090AD with SB completed wiped out. The next turn, my fresh new army invaded Holland and now WvO capitulated. This is done with the SB invasion army still in transport. So now with all the army cross the ocean, Ram should be an easy target who's still warring with Rag. I'm sure the army should be more than enough to have both guys surrender. And in the meantime, I should be able to build an new army that put mansa on his knees and probably enough boat to transport them to Russia. Well, all just labor. So, I called it a game and retired.

Dalamb, thanks for the fun game. I just didn't have a block of time long enough to continue playing. Otherwise, some of my game play could have been better, I guess. Say build Oxford earlier, say won't lose my naked settler some barb when I tried to populate Kate's island, and 3 workers to barb, etc.

Looking forward for next game. And at last, some screen shots.

Spoiler :

1100AD, Right after SB is gone.







And the invasion to Holland starts:



And the dutch capital fell:


Current military, the main invasion component


The AI techings

 

[dalamb]

@Amao:

Spoiler :

Glad you had fun; too bad you ran out of time -- but that's a problem I keep having, too. You conquered SB earlier than I did, but I went after Mansa first. Did you keep him around for a tech trade partner? In my case Timbuktu had two shrine cities for two widely-spread religions, so he Had To Die.

 

[Amao]

@dalamb

Spoiler :

yes. I used mansa as tech partner, and traded a lot of techs: optics, divine right, machinery, engineering, nationalism, military tradition, are just the later techs researched by mansa and traded to me the at the earliest because he was +16 with me. He does have a nice capital, but i like his research ability better.

 

[GGS]

Prince/Epic. 1800 AD. Conquest victory.
This involved a forced grand tactical option and weird AI tech paths.

Spoiler :

The Willem/Sitting Bull War commenced in 1610 with an initial convoy of 13 cannons, 2 knights, 4 machine guns, 1 rifleman and 15 janissaries. Target Amsterdam (central position) fell in 1620. The mix was designed to also destroy/diminish the enemy field armies. High quality, low quantity troops and Ragnar, of course, immediately came in to support the Dutch. The Ottomans had to defend the east and south coasts against an East Indiamen thrust and prepare for a potential invasion to the south. Defence, new army, replacements. Not overly easy.

In Holland cities could be taken but no troops were available to hold them. So, the Ottomans ran a tag-team SoD city-razing/beat field armies but not resource wrecking healing operation out of Amsterdam over and over. Ragnar bought peace in 1690. After the southern city-keeping operation Willem and Sitting Bull finally capitulated in 1734. The Ottoman folks were very, very tired of war.

Game over. Capitulations: Ramesses II 1748, Ragnar 1774, Catherine and her colonial Saladin 1798.

The AI thing? No AI discovered gunpowder until 1768 while studying such items as: physics, electricity, radio, communism, democracy, military tradition. A glitch or a gimme? Well, a win is a win is a win.

@dalamb Thank you for an unusual and obviously popular game.

 

[Trystero]

Prince/Epic, to 505 AD:

Spoiler :

Continued with peaceful expansion and exploring (to meet neighbors as well as for the hut economy). I met more neighbors (Willem, Ramesses, Ragnar), and used my hut-gained tech advantage to alter my strategy somewhat.

Tech path: Finished Alphabet > MC (from a hut) > CoL > Calendar (hut) > Construction > Civil Service > Paper > Compass (for trade route bonuses) > Philosophy > Machinery > started Education.

I founded both Confucianism and Taoism.

Getting MC from a hut was the biggest early game development in this round. After self-researching Alphabet, I immediately traded MC to Mansa for IW, Polytheism and Archery. I used MC for other trades to back-fill the early religious techs and get Monarchy.

I used my tech lead for a few diversion from the Gunpowder beeline. I picked up Construction since I was debating an early war to eliminate Mansa, but decided he was more valuable as a potential trading partner. I also detoured to Philosophy with hopes of winning the Liberalism race after getting Gunpowder. Specifically, I hoped to grab Steel as the free tech and build a Janissary/Cannon invasion force. My research was greatly aided by the GLH-assisted trade route economy. So much so, that I ignored the Great Library, and tried to avoid most wonders. Although I did build the Colossus in Istanbul, I wasn't working that many water tiles, so it really wasn't much use. I started Ankor Wat mostly for GP points to build a shrine (and will end up finishing it in the next round), but I probably could have made better use of those hammers as well.

The west of the Ottoman island:



and the east (with future city sites):



And the tech situation at 505 AD:

 

[dalamb]

@Trystero:

Spoiler :

I see you avoided one of my big mistakes: you started a commerce city to the south far earlier than I did. For some reason I had it in my head not to crowd Mansa.

 

[Trystero]

@dalamb:

Spoiler :

I actually wanted to crowd Mansa. He can be a real tech monster if he gets a big empire early. Experience has shown that boxing him in is a good approach. That was a really nice commerce site too (post-IW), so I thought I'd grab it and the dye city when I had the chance. This actually worked out quite well, as you'll see in my next update.

 

[ilikepies]

Noble/Normal
1570 AD

Spoiler :

Mansa has 2 cities left, and one is on a tiny island. He got Gunpowder just in time for me to upgrade to Riflemen. I'm building Galleons and my next target is Sitting Bull. I’ll try the next game on Prince.

However, William is starting to swallow my territory, but he's too strong to take right now. Now I feel what it's like to be on the other end of the cultural borders....


And here is the world. I'm doing pretty well... hopefully I can snatch a Domination win before too late.

 

[Bisque]

Monarch/Epic - UN 1851.

Spoiler :

Settled in place.
Tech order: mining - hunting - ah - bw - writing
Build order: worker - warrior - warrior - warrior (to grow size 4) - settler - worker

I founded first 1st new city on the coast just NE of the cap, due to it being quickly useful with food and production. Used this city to build a library and run 2 scientist to get first GS around 1000 BC which was used for Academy in capital. Ran Bureau most of the game.

settled 3rd and 4th cities to the south to block in Mansa.

Spoiler :

then expanded to 10 cities by ~50 AD. Tech trading has always been a weakness but I made one here that I really liked and saved 7 turns on CoL.

Spoiler :

After seeing SB was not on my landmass, I went to a cat/mace war on Mansa and cleared him off the continent by 920AD. good payout too..

Spoiler :

With a good tech picture and economy rolling, I teched to one turn from Lib, then teched ahead so i could come back and take Steel with Lib. Then beelined rifles while building cannon and once my maces were upgraded, I went after Willem's west coast. took his core cities with several wonders, including Notre Dame which he beat me to by one turn.

Spoiler :

after this, I teched assembly line with a detour for democracy as the emancipation penatly was rearing its ugly head. Ragnar was the next best adversary and was 10 turns from Infantry when I attacked, but in a 2 stage war with a peace in between, I teched to flight and my fighters allowed me to wipe his main landmass for myself. I also eliminated his US colony with an expeditionary force.

Just a matter of time from there... I happened to get to Mass Media just as Egpyt's core cities fell, and when the UN finished I won with vassal votes.

Victory turn:

Spoiler :

Power Graph

Spoiler :

Stats:

Spoiler :

Score:

Spoiler :

I felt my military campaign was terribly disorganized at times. And I neglected my city development during the later wars. I used drafting for the first time to get my rifles ready for Willem.... with a golden age so I could swap civics. Felt good about how I handled that.

2nd Monarch win in 2 tries !

 

[ilikepies]

1675 AD
Noble/Normal

Spoiler :

Mansa capitulated with 1 city. I’m preparing for war with Sitting Bull.

 

[Trystero]

Prince/Epic to 1600 AD:

Spoiler :

The Tech Path:

My tech lead was such that the Liberalism race was well in hand, so I finished Education, followed by Gunpowder, and all but one turn of Liberalism. After Gunpowder I immediately began building a force of Janissaries. In the meantime, I began teching toward Steel, with the aim of picking that up as my free tech from Liberalism, which I did in 1030 AD. Simultaneously and fortuitously, Mansa offered to become my vassal, which I happily accepted. His empire was big enough that was a useful trading partner whose research I could direct. I teched Nationalism > Astronomy (for Galleons) > Printing Press > Replaceable Parts > Constitutuion > Democracy, and had Mansa research to the economic techs and Scientific Method, which I aquired in trade. I was first to both Physics and Communism for the free Great People.

The Dutch War:

At this point in the game, the Dutch empire was my biggest rival. After picking up Steel from Liberalism, I immediately began building cannons. At this point I was still the only civ with Gunpowder. I was somewhat concerned when I started producing Janissaries, since my Power rating was half Willem's. By the time I had a force of Janissaries and Cannons constructed, we were about even. I used galleys to ferry this force over to the Dutch island. Longbows and Catapults were no match for Janissaries and Cannons. I rapidly captured 6 or 7 Dutch of the largest cities with minimal casualties (at most 4 cannon). By this point, Willem gladly capitulated. His remaining cities were on scattered islands, so he will not be much use other than getting me one step closer to victory. Speaking of which, during the war Ramesses also asked to become my vassal.

Demographics to 1600 AD:


Tech situation:


Diplomacy:


and Victory conditions:


I already exceed the population limit for a domination victory, but only have about half the land. My fleet is on it's way to Viking territory. If Ragnar will quickly capitulate, I will turn my attention to Sitting Bull. At this point a Domination victory seems like a reasonable goal.

Almost forgot:

Spoiler :

As if things couldn't get better with the hut-driven tech lead (I popped HBR, Literature, and Music this round), I also got the "Musketmen" quest during my war with Willem, which of course I'd already completed. The free Pinch promotion was a good reason to delay Rifling for a while.

 

[dalamb]

@Trystero:

Spoiler :

By this point, Willem gladly capitulated. His remaining cities were on scattered islands, so he will not be much use other than getting me one step closer to victory.

Watch out for a build-up of "overseas maintenance" costs; you might want to prioritize building the Forbidden Palace on the former Dutch mainland. or Versailles, if you have Divine Right.

@ilikepies:

Spoiler :

Those teeny island cities sure can be annoying! In my game, he had 3 of them.

I forget what happens after capitulation: do you still get "we yearn to rejoin our motherland" penalties in your former Malinese cities?

 

[Trystero]

@dalamb:

Spoiler :

State Property does wonders in that regard.

 

[dalamb]

@Trystero:

Spoiler :

Yeah -- I've recently been reading about SP in various threads but haven't incorporated it into my games yet.

 

[Trystero]

@Trystero:

Spoiler :

Yeah -- I've recently been reading about SP in various threads but haven't incorporated it into my games yet.

@dalamb:

Spoiler :

It's a fantastic late warring civic. It was the primary motivation to get to Communism quickly in my game (other than to beat Mansa to the free Great Spy). In addition to no maintenance for distance from the capital, you get an extra food from workshops (or watermills) and a 10% increase to hammer production. Both of which help in building up your military.

 

[Trystero]

Prince/Epic to 1754 AD: Conquest Victory (My first one! )

Spoiler :

At the end of my last update, I had vanquished Willem, and had acquired 3 vassals. One by force (Willem) and the other two voluntarily (Mansa and Ramesses). My Janissary/Cannon invasion force next targeted Ragnar (I was his worst enemy). Apparently he and Cathy had a Defensive Pact, because she declared on me the same turn I declared war on Ragnar. Ragnar was willing to capitulate after his first city fell, but I waited a few turns until I had captured a better port city from which to attack Russia. I took two Russian cities (including Moscow) and Cathy capitulated.

All that was left was SB who put up slightly more of a fight. He wasn't willing to capitulate until three cities fell (including his capital):



Domination would have been pretty difficult on this map given all the isolated landmasses that were available for settling. I reached the Domination population limit after conquering the Dutch, but only had 50% of the land area needed at that time.

The graphs show this game was well in hand after I got to Gunpowder:



And my final score:



My highest score ever, by a pretty big margin (I think my next highest was in the 70K range.)

Overall, I think all the goodie huts made this game play at a difficulty level one lower than the one played. This map was also conducive to early expansion followed by a military build-up. I didn't build many units at all until I reached Gunpowder. And the hut-powered tech lead allowed me to grab Steel as the free tech from Liberalism. I didn't meet any gunpowder units until I invaded Russia, and SB was way behind so my final war was cannons (upgraded to artillery) and Riflemen against Longbows.

Still, I felt quite pleased that I pretty much stuck to my original Janissary beeline plan, and largely manged to ween myself of my Noble Wonderspamming habits.

Thanks to dalamb for hosting a really fun game!