Ondolindë
Emperor
Watch them get someone else to drive this week.
I think Carl would quit if they did that to him.
[GS] The Ottomans Discussion Thread
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I think Carl would quit if they did that to him.
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Nicely summarized.
Datian
Prince
They are, simply put, terrifying.
It's not so much the domination victory path, as the conquest path : as said above, they open the way to awful tactics that will make an empire crumble. Grab a few cities, make them immune to loyalty pressure, let them lead the peripheral cities in revolt, and watch as very soon, only the capital remains (you will have to let Ibrahim in it until the very end).
That's something the other conquerors can't pull. Shaka or Alexander can conquer capitals and win a domination game, but they have to raze cities, which means they don't conquer so much as dominate their opponent.
The "no population loss on conquest" is very, very powerful : the +4 loyalty helps by itself, the high pop garantees you can keep your new cities, and won't have to raze half of them. They can be productive as soon as the war ends, you can pop districts quickly.
As for the population loss for janissaries, I think it's mostly for historical flavour : the core of your army will come from upgrades anyway (they are a replacement so it's safe to assume you can upgrade swordsmen into them).
The sad part is that I can't imagine how the AI would use half their potential.
It's not so much the domination victory path, as the conquest path : as said above, they open the way to awful tactics that will make an empire crumble. Grab a few cities, make them immune to loyalty pressure, let them lead the peripheral cities in revolt, and watch as very soon, only the capital remains (you will have to let Ibrahim in it until the very end).
That's something the other conquerors can't pull. Shaka or Alexander can conquer capitals and win a domination game, but they have to raze cities, which means they don't conquer so much as dominate their opponent.
The "no population loss on conquest" is very, very powerful : the +4 loyalty helps by itself, the high pop garantees you can keep your new cities, and won't have to raze half of them. They can be productive as soon as the war ends, you can pop districts quickly.
As for the population loss for janissaries, I think it's mostly for historical flavour : the core of your army will come from upgrades anyway (they are a replacement so it's safe to assume you can upgrade swordsmen into them).
The sad part is that I can't imagine how the AI would use half their potential.
NegativeZero
Warlord
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The Ottoman's bonuses appear to work for both land and sea combat equally well.
I could see them flipping from navy to land combat (or visa versa) on a dime when circumstances call for it.
That % bonus to localized production from their UG could swing grindy battles into the Ottoman's favor soloy due to quicker reinforcements and less time needed to travel into relevant areas.
I could see them flipping from navy to land combat (or visa versa) on a dime when circumstances call for it.
That % bonus to localized production from their UG could swing grindy battles into the Ottoman's favor soloy due to quicker reinforcements and less time needed to travel into relevant areas.
I rarely have to raze cities when I conquer with any civ. I just have to have a governor and some policies on tap from the mid-game onwards (which is about the earliest I'm likely to have the vizier be fully promoted). Just gotta work from the edges inward, set any captured cities to growth until they're regrown enough to self-sustain (get out of that always-set-to-production-focus mindframe). All the same, I will looking to have one or more spies prepped to Neutralize Governor if I'm playing against him (that's a tactic the AI needs to have primed).
Whether or not a janissary can be upgraded to is a question for Thursday. Also, if you can, does the janissary still get a free promotion? That they are a replacement does not make it safe to assume that promoting a swordsman won't just net you a musketman. "Because everything we're accustomed to it working that way" is not a reliable refrain with this expansion.
On a side note, still not sure what the historical flavor is here anyway. Janissaries were soldiers recruited from outside the empire (which doesn't work out well when they're mercenaries, much less a slave caste, so what genius thought this would end well), so I'm not sure what having them consume population inside your empire represents other than Firaxis' unwillingness to commit to simply having them only be recruitable within captured cities.
Cagarustus
Prince
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Civilisation ability names should in my view have two aspects:
1) does it represent the ethos of the civilisation;
2) does it represent the totality of that civilisation’s history.
Some civs in Civ 6 are great in this regard:
Australia: Land Down Under
Netherlands: Grote Riverien
Nubia: Ta Seti
Germany: Free Imperial Cities.
Georgia: Strength in Unity
Macedonia: Hellenistic Fusion
Other civs are really bad:
England: British museum
Japan: Meiji Restoration
Sumeria: Epic Quests
For the Ottomans I think their Civ ability name should be ‘the Eternal State’ which was their motto.
Sumeria should’ve been Cradle of Civilisation.
Japan should’ve been Yamato Dynasty.
England should’ve been the Legacy of Westminster.
If they're a musketman replacement, then I can't imagine not being able to upgrade into them. The big question is whether upgrading into them gives a free promotion, or if that's only if they're hard-built.
Could very well be the case that the corsair goes with Suleiman, just not explicitly spelled out (a la Bluetooth and the bonus longship UU). Such interconnection, is of course, not meaningful until such a time as we have an alt leader.
There's no real gauge for majority opinion. People overreact to a civ based on a perception of power. Which seems to boil down to "wah, can't do nothin' early game, sux, mover over Spain n Norway" or "totally wrex early grame, bro, next Aztex #topteirdiety".
Once people were able to be convinced that there were indeed early applications for Ottomans in the early era, we then moved to waxing pedantic and nitpicking minutiae, like harping on their UA not being a sufficiently all-encompassing catchphrase, or the UA for the civ and the leader should have been inverted, and so on. Speaks well of the design that we got to fussing over details so soon. It's only when folks are digging in their heels to gush about why they like a civ that I can tell it needed more time in the oven (a la Sweden last week).
Such is the way of things here.
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acluewithout
Deity
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I'm really not getting the negative comments here about the Ottomans.
They seem very well designed. Indeed, most of the warmonger Civs are well designed. I really like that they are both raiders and conquerors, that like Mongolia, Spain and a few others they are focused on mid game conquests, that they have a slight incentive to conquer instead of settle (i.e. Abilities that only really work in captured cities - that's unique) and the UG and (to a lesser extent) Bazaar create some unique play.
I agree Warmongering is generally boring. But, still, people do it. And his is a fun Civ for doing that. And hey, if the AI ever gets good at war, his Civ and the other Warmonger Civs would be very fun to play.
I think the more interesting question here is... why are the Ottomans the only Civ that can put a Governor into a foreign city?
Seriously. FXS need to take another look at Governors. There's some good stuff, but overall it's a criminally under developed mechanic. Here's hoping this UG is an experiment before FXS overhaul Governors more generally. #thirdexpansion #onemoreexpansion
They seem very well designed. Indeed, most of the warmonger Civs are well designed. I really like that they are both raiders and conquerors, that like Mongolia, Spain and a few others they are focused on mid game conquests, that they have a slight incentive to conquer instead of settle (i.e. Abilities that only really work in captured cities - that's unique) and the UG and (to a lesser extent) Bazaar create some unique play.
I agree Warmongering is generally boring. But, still, people do it. And his is a fun Civ for doing that. And hey, if the AI ever gets good at war, his Civ and the other Warmonger Civs would be very fun to play.
I think the more interesting question here is... why are the Ottomans the only Civ that can put a Governor into a foreign city?
Seriously. FXS need to take another look at Governors. There's some good stuff, but overall it's a criminally under developed mechanic. Here's hoping this UG is an experiment before FXS overhaul Governors more generally. #thirdexpansion #onemoreexpansion
Well, to my mind, having all civ's share the same pool of identical and ethnically diverse governors really has little place in Civ. Whether that means they aren't a good idea at all, or just need more time devoted to them, is something I can't quite decide.
Imagine upgrading a swordsman and getting a plain ol' musketman, and you're on your way there.
Could well be that the reason they get the promotion in addition to increased strength is to compensate for lack of upgradability.
Melliores
Warlord
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@steveg700
Janissaries where not recruited, nor were mercenaries. They were taken from exclusively Christian families and made to accept Islam as to be able to serve the Sultan and Allah. The real problem with that was that an overwhelming part of the boys were taken very young, at around 5-6 years old and would lose all previous identity. Moreover, their family rarely had a choice - even today the practice of taking children for the Janissary Corps is known on the Balkans as the "blood tax".
If you did not know, the only way to get a government position in the Ottoman empire was first and foremost to be a Muslim. They were not picky about your origins, yet there was no compromise with your religion.
So in essence, the Janissary not taking population in a conquered city represents very well what happened back in the day - the Muslim Ottoman population was not touched, only Christian boys were taken for that Corps.
Of course, some families volunteered their boys (much like selling their children to the army), even if they were muslim to begin with. But those were very rare cases.
Janissaries where not recruited, nor were mercenaries. They were taken from exclusively Christian families and made to accept Islam as to be able to serve the Sultan and Allah. The real problem with that was that an overwhelming part of the boys were taken very young, at around 5-6 years old and would lose all previous identity. Moreover, their family rarely had a choice - even today the practice of taking children for the Janissary Corps is known on the Balkans as the "blood tax".
If you did not know, the only way to get a government position in the Ottoman empire was first and foremost to be a Muslim. They were not picky about your origins, yet there was no compromise with your religion.
So in essence, the Janissary not taking population in a conquered city represents very well what happened back in the day - the Muslim Ottoman population was not touched, only Christian boys were taken for that Corps.
Of course, some families volunteered their boys (much like selling their children to the army), even if they were muslim to begin with. But those were very rare cases.
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Which would be an argument for not making them upgradeable, but if they are what was unusual about Janissaries for their era was the quality of their training, represented by the free first promotion.
If you are upgrading existing troops obviously they won't benefit from the training, having already learnt their trade.
I do know well what a janissary is, and my post actually referenced them being taken as a slave caste. I commented that this should not have been expected to go over well, and ultimately it did not. Still, I knew well I would likely receive eager tuition on the subject. Small matter.
Still doesn't explain the population reduction mechanism. If you build them in a native Ottoman city and that consumes a population of native Ottoman citizens, then that does not represent enlisting outsiders. Nor, for that matter, does exempting captured cities from population loss.
Rather, seems to me the way to represent that is to lose the population from a captured city, regardless of where it was recruited, which is a hit they can take given that they didn't lose any in the capture. But the end result is fine, since it ultimately encourages the intended design of capture-build. I won't remember this nitpick in the fullness of time.
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Lord Lakely
Idea Fountain
Yeah the only change I would make in that regard is that recruiting a janissary converts a non believing citizen to the Ottoman state religion and requires the presence of at least one follower of another religion for recruitment. What they went with is more elegant though, and less of a hassle.
The ability "Great Turkish Bombard" is fine in content (aggressive expansion + excellent siege is quintessentially Ottoman), the name isn't 100%, but I prefer it to generic ones such as "Gunpowder Empire".
The ability "Great Turkish Bombard" is fine in content (aggressive expansion + excellent siege is quintessentially Ottoman), the name isn't 100%, but I prefer it to generic ones such as "Gunpowder Empire".
I see the population loss mechanic as partly a way to represent their being mostly recruited from conquered areas and that later when their membership became Muslim dominated they became an economic drain upon the Ottoman state. Be nice if they could be a source of political instability as well.
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