[GS] The Ottomans Discussion Thread

[Ondolindë]

Less artistic license and more the fact that the real structure is insanely detailed.

The question now is, @ferretbacon, has Firaxis given you back your Ottomans?

 

[steveg700]

I don't know if I need buffs as much as abilities that make sense with each other. I don't think every civ needs to take you by the hand and lead you the way you should play it (my favorites tend to be generalist civs many consider to be weaker) but it's nice when the different components work together.

But the tier lists, man! What about the tier lists? WON'T SOMEONE AT FIRAXIS THINK OF THE TIER LISTS???

 

[Returning Lurker]

I’m not a huge fan of Suleiman’s entire ability being “has someone else to do the work for him”. It makes him seem like a powerless despot who just so happens to have a competent cabinet, which is certainly not who Suleiman was and frankly I can’t think of any leader who could be described that way who would be a good choice for leader of a Civilization. If the unique governor were a PART of his ability, and he had some other really inconsequental ability unique to himself just to add flavor, then I’d have 0 problem with the unique governor but having it be his one and only ability would just make me ask, if I didn’t know who Suleiman was, “well why isn’t that guy the leader?”

Obviously every leader in the real world is only as good as the subordinates who carry out their will, and every leader ability in Civilization is tehnically just “all our people are better at doing x” rather than the leaders themselves doing something, but that is all abstracted game mechanics whereas having one person with a face and a name doing everything while the leader’s ability is “has access to this other guy who actually runs stuff” is much less abstract. This also wouldn’t be a problem if the civs were more akin to Civ 5 where the leaders were just a figurehead for their civilization and their power was just a reflecion of their entire civ rather than themselves, but since Civ 6 has leaders who actually do something distinct from their civilization ability having Suleiman do nothing but “have someone else to do something” feels hinky.

 

[Disgustipated]

People are just assuming you can upgrade into Janissaries. I'm not sure why you would assume such an easy exploit. I'm sure this is disabled. Which would be unusual for a replacement unit such as this, but reasonable in this circumstance.

 

[_hero_]

The potential for stacking his bonuses with stuff already in the game is quite good.

-Ibraham's +20% unit production combined with +25% from God of the Forge and +50% from Agoge military card will make for extremely fast military production in the Ancient and Classical era. Especially For catapults with the additional +50%.

-If you choose to go for a religion, Ibraham's +10 combat strength vs districts promotion or his all friendly units in city territory receive +5 combat strength promitions stack well with the Crusade enhancer belief. The +5 combat strength vs districts that siege receive is just gravy

-Conquered cities not losing pop was already a big loyalty buff, considering pop is the main source of loyalty. Them also gaining +1 Amenity and +4 Loyalty means that not only will you never have to worry about conquered cities flipping back, but you also can employ a powerful "divide and conquer" strategy. Capture a few big cities in the heart of the enemy empire quickly and then simply sit back and watch as your loyalty pressure flips the rest of their empire to you over the next 20-30 turns. Especially powerful when combined with the various +loyalty/amenity policy cards. Ibraham's Grand Vizier promotion may not even been necessary in light of all the other loyalty buffs.

-The Barbary Corsair's coastal raids costing no movement point is especially powerful now that pillaging has been buffed in GS. If the Raid military card is unchanged, that will be quite powerful.

Finally, I think people are far too bothered by the Janissary pop cost in friendly cities. Aside from the fact that you can avoid this using conquered cities, a constant complaint about Civ 6 is that food and pop don't matter and are too easy to come by. With that being the case, why does everyone suddenly panic the moment something that costs pop is added to the game?

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

one trick pony domination means that most games will have the exact same way . you will want to hard build swordsman+catapults and then upgrade and rampage . get UG + agoge policy + pantheon for lets say 10-15 turns right before gunpowder and ou will have an army ready to be upgraded. without any penalties this is easy to do unless you start next to some of the early game civs like macedon sumeria nubia rome where they will never allow you to do those things ( multiplayer of course , i imagine there is no chance in hell the AI will do anything to prevent this simple strategy )

 

[Tiger Genocide]

True. When I jump my neighbor in the Ancient Era, I often have to raze their second city before conquering their capital or it will flip back while I do that. That bonus will probably help prevent that.

My usual MO is to take over a neighbor early, then play peaceful builder for the rest of the game. The Ottomans might just be the nudge that puts me on a warmongering spree.

Finally! A warmonger civ for us warmongers. You other guys salty need to give that up. This is the only domination civ in the entire expansion! You guys cannot spare even one for us warmongers? Most of you groaned when the Zulus came out, so I am not surprised.

He even fits Ottoman history well. Ditto for the Janissary.

I'm playing these guys first hands down. This is a Tier 1/S Tier civ based upon the unique governor since he can be used early. This civ will be great in multiplayer and immortal/deity. The only hard part is figuring out when to build with Ibrahim or when to move him for an attack, but since he has 3 turns to establish, that's likely a non-issue. I usually do not build siege units until bombards due to battering rams being so good until civil engineering, but I will build them with the Ottomans, especially since they get an attack bonus too! This means I won't have to back off a war with a deity AI that builds walls and I was too slow to knock the city down or whatever. Will have to beeline catapults though. More room for error is always welcome lol! Since production is better than just about anything else in this game, those production bonuses stacked with cards should make things very easy. I will use the first capital I take to build all my Janissary units. I will just build barracks + armory and encampment to be ready for when I get that unlocked.

 

[Ziad]

why does everyone suddenly panic the moment something that costs pop is added to the game?

I can't wait for when the third expansion adds diseases and makes food/population a lot more important

 

[Alexadamz]

I’mnot a huge fan of Suleiman’s entire ability being “has someone else to do the work for him”. It makes hims seem like a powerless despot who just so happens to have a competent cabinet, which is certainly not who Suleiman was and frankly I can’t think of any leader who could be described that way who would be a good choice for leader of a Civilization. If the unique governor were a PART of his ability, and he had some other really inconsequental ability unique to himself just to add flavor rather, then I’d have 0 problem with the unique governor but having it be his only ability would just make me ask, if I didn’t know who Suleiman was, “well the why isn’t that guy the leader?”

Obviously every leader in the real world is only as good as the subordinates who carry out their will, and every leader ability in Civilization is tehnically just “all our people are better at doing x” rather than the leaders themselves doing somethig, but that is all abstracted game mechanics whereas having one person with a face and a name doing everything while the leader’s ability is “has access to this other guy who actually runs stuff” is much less abstract. This also wouldn’t be a problem if the civs were more akin to Civ 5 where the leaders were just a figurehead for their civilization and their power was just a reflecion of their civ rather than themselves, but since Civ 6 has leaders who actually do something having Suleiman do nothing but “have someone else to do something” feels hinky.

I guess it could be worked the other way, with the Vizier being the Civ's ability and the Bombard being the Leader ability. That would justify the change of the leader some people were asking for, to have Mehmed II, the Conqueror, as the Leader. And he would simply have the Agenda "The Conqueror", with that last part, "likes civs who has conquered enemy's cities". But I guess Firaxis wanted to stay with Suleiman, who is the most famous Ottoman Sultan, at least in the West.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Finally! A warmonger civ for us warmongers. You other guys salty need to give that up. This is the only domination civ in the entire expansion! You guys cannot spare even one for us warmongers? Most of you groaned when the Zulus came out, so I am not surprised.

Oh, I'm not against them don't get me wrong. If they're not my thing there are literally dozens of other civs out there.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Finally! A warmonger civ for us warmongers. You other guys salty need to give that up. This is the only domination civ in the entire expansion! You guys cannot spare even one for us warmongers? Most of you groaned when the Zulus came out, so I am not surprised.

He even fits Ottoman history well. Ditto for the Janissary.

I'm playing these guys first hands down. This is a Tier 1/S Tier civ based upon the unit governor since he can be used early. This civ will be great in multiplayer and immortal/deity. The only hard part is figuring out when to build with Ibrahim or when to move him for an attack, but since he has 3 turns to establish, that's likely a non-issue. I usually do not build siege units until bombards due to battering rams being so good until civil engineering, but I will build them with the Ottomans, especially since they get an attack bonus too! This means I won't have to back off a war with a deity AI that builds walls and I was too slow to knock the city down or whatever. Will have to beeline catapults though. More room for error is always welcome lol! Since production is better than just about anything else in this game, those production bonuses stacked with cards should make things very easy. I will use the first capital I take to build all my Janissary units. I will just build barracks + armory and encampment to be ready for when I get that unlocked.

False! Hungary is a warmonger as well. That they get a pittance of envoys for levying city-state troops doesn't make them diplomatic.

 

[Temppu]

First clear domination civ in GS, Im sure we can afford it. Glad to see an innovative way to buff conquest!

 

[Dragonflow]

Time to conquer the world in the name of magnificent hats.

 

[Jewman]

Have we talked about the fact that based on the wording, Ibrahim sounds like he would give 20% boost to military unit production in city even if hes based on an OPPONENT capital? would be hilarious if you really need the military bonuses to conquer an enemy but hes churning out unit after unit in his capital cuz of the discount Ibrahim is giving him lol

 

[tedhebert]

I'm not overly excited by this civ... I NEVER build siege unit (because ram), corsair = meh but pillaging with no move cost is ok I guess, usually the game is pretty much decided by the time I could build banks, so grand bazaar = meh

I do LOVE the UG on the other hand... I think people are underestimating those T1 promotions... I know that I'll be getting very nervous when I see Ibrahim installed in one of my cities !!!

Also, I like the 3 turns install, and the fact that you'll have to maje choices with him... remember, therés only ONE of him... T1 promotions will be great for expanding, but once conquered, if you want to move him to another city for conquest, it's byebye loyalty bonus to the first city... also, once you get to T3, he HAS to be in capital to be useful, so choices have to be made again

I really like this design

And I think he will be OP as warmonger but hey, he certainly isn't the first one to be

also, i'm with @Disgustipated ... I don't think you should be able to upgrade to Janissary, unless you lose the bonus upgrade

***edit : Sorry just reread the civ abilities... the + 4 loyalty is NOT tied to Ibrahim so I was wrong on this :-( sad, should have been IMHO

 

[steveg700]

I’m not a huge fan of Suleiman’s entire ability being “has someone else to do the work for him”.

Meh.

Effective leadership is chiefly about delegation. Find the right people and empower them to execute your strategies.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I probably won't play them first or often since I don't tend to warmonger but I like them. They look well designed and like Hungary will require a bit of thought to get the best out of them. Overall the GS civs look better designed and more interesting to me than the R&F civs.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

one trick pony domination means that most games will have the exact same way . you will want to hard build swordsman+catapults and then upgrade and rampage . get UG + agoge policy + pantheon for lets say 10-15 turns right before gunpowder and ou will have an army ready to be upgraded. without any penalties this is easy to do unless you start next to some of the early game civs like macedon sumeria nubia rome where they will never allow you to do those things ( multiplayer of course , i imagine there is no chance in hell the AI will do anything to prevent this simple strategy )

I can easily see myself getting rushed very early in multiplayer. This is not a civ you want nextdoor and allow to get siege weapons. A timing push with swordsmen, a few archers, and a few catapults, turns into several Janissaries with commando promotions right off the bat. Catapults are tough to save for later unless its peaceful. Your neighbor needs to stop you as soon as possible as if you were Zulu, Mongolia, or Australia, etc.

Yeah I agree about the AI. They cannot recognize the player doing this stuff and stop them. I'm not sure the AI will be able to use that governor correctly if it were the Ottomans.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Have we talked about the fact that based on the wording, Ibrahim sounds like he would give 20% boost to military unit production in city even if hes based on an OPPONENT capital? would be hilarious if you really need the military bonuses to conquer an enemy but hes churning out unit after unit in his capital cuz of the discount Ibrahim is giving him lol

Why put him in an opponent's capital? The combat bonus has a range of 10. Put him in a nearby city-state or the city of a disinterested bystander.

The grievances thing you would use to assuage other civs who have become alarmed by your conquests, not in your enemy's cities.

 

[steveg700]

Have we talked about the fact that based on the wording, Ibrahim sounds like he would give 20% boost to military unit production in city even if hes based on an OPPONENT capital? would be hilarious if you really need the military bonuses to conquer an enemy but hes churning out unit after unit in his capital cuz of the discount Ibrahim is giving him lol

Presumably works like Amani, where some promotions work in a CS and others work in one of your cities.