The Case For The Ottomans

[Zero]

Well, if you ask me, I highly doubt that we should even choose Ottomans... Glory of war is intentionally going for a early UU civ for a reason, but heres my advice.

Ancient era. - I actually agree with Trip. Being able to see horse ASAP would be quite important. That way if we don't have any within us, we can quickly expand toward whereever it does. quick unit also means being able to extend you empire a little more without worrying about logistics.

We gotta expand.

I also suggest we do some serious researching. On SP games on high diffculty, you can rely on AIs to trade techs while affording to lower your research priority. However if there is going to be no AI (no "predictable" trading partner) then we will be faced with trading with human player. They may be more reasonable in some aspects, but humans can also decide to hold off the tech all by himself. And also they way I see it, most of the human player won't focus too much in tech in ancient era. We could possibly be a tech salesman and make some good profit. We gotta abuse our sicentific trait of building quicker sci building as much as we can.

By Medieval era, we definitely should be the leading in science. No one has sci trait (as far as I know. Legoland is still indecisive) so with one free tech and library and university available to us, there shouldnt be any reason why we shouldn't be #1 in sci.

I say skip chivary and go straight to mil tradition. Making use of our advantage by having it ASAP is IMO the best option. we might be able to trade it from another player but humans will prolly be aware of how important this tech is, so if we can go straight for mil tradition.... (im being optimistic)

I think we can really do some damage in mid industrial era if we make it with strong cohesive empire. Generally, war wise its sleeper period where defense is more practised and even when infantry shows up, with stat of 8 VS 10... we could probably launch many succesive campaign.

PS. Im hoping we can launch a GA thru Great library + Pyramid combo. Some may think that might be lil early but my issue is HAVING those two wonders more than really launching a GA. w/ GL, we could afford to tone down research and allocate resource into more treasury. but most likely other non sci human civs will be targetting for this wonder as well

[WarriorPoet]

As far as wonders go, I say hit pyramids first, then shoot for the Great Library. I also like getting the Colossus, but that is a secondary wonder with good cumulative benefits.

All of Calc's points are valid. I would like to add that there will be some AI around, it might be advantageous to find them ASAP. For tech early on, and for better targets later.

[Jon Shafer]

Okay, priorities:

- Horses (and making use of them)

- Infrastructure to strengthen our country as a whole (and to assist with building wonders)

- Tech lead (strong tech budget and libraries)

- Getting to new form of government (Monarchy is ideal, since we'll be going to war, and republic can be REALLY annoying... quick strikes may not work so well against humans, especially when they know the enemy has a Republican government [drag out the war until the republics have to surrender])

- Military Tradition (once we get this, we'll be nearly invincible)

[CiverDan]

I agree that going to Republic in MP is much trickier Because wars can drag out much longer against human opponents. As far as skipping knights, It may not be practical if we are at war in early middle ages, although we could get by with med. infantry. But the problem with that idea is that they dont upgrade to our UU. This means keeping a lot of horsemen around that really arent that much help in any war in this time period. (I dont want to attack knights with horsemen). Of course, If we dont have iron for some reason, the skip it regardless.

[Zero]

I was being optimistic... I know the reality is far more worse and we may have to dive into chivary if necessary.

Only team that is showing public war face as of now is GoW. Others are putting genuine interest in building good relations... we'll see how the game goes.. it's too early.

Watch out for religious civ when determining wether we can put their government at unrest. GoW is mil/rel, meaning they will be far more impervious to our dragging the war tactic, That goes with Roleplay team as well.

[Jon Shafer]

GoW is built for war.
We'll be able to hold them off if need be, and find an ally to crush them. However, I must reiterate, Republic will be very detrimental to us... we MUST maintain a form of government that isn't hurt by war weariness since we aren't a religous civ.

Knights will probably be a big advantage to us. There ought to be 3 cycles of war that we fight. 1st: once we get horsemen. 2nd: once we get knights. 3rd: once we get our Siphais. Each cycle we'll strengthen our empire, and give our forces an increasing amount of experience.

[Zero]

Im thinking of not being too aggressive early if we have enough room to expand w/o confrontation. War with horsemen can be a bit risky considering we are agst the celts and carthage

[Jon Shafer]

Of course everything will depend on the situation.

There's some quote that says something like "having a static plan is worse than having no plan at all". Basically, we need to have some sort of strategy, but make it flexible enough to adapt to any situation that may arise.

Facing the Celts with 5 horsemen in 400 BC is a baaaad idea. However, if we find a settler in a goody hut, we're stuck in the middle of the jungle, we find horses and we find ourselves next to Legoland... well, then I think we all know what happens next.

I do believe that weakening our neighbors and giving our mounted troops some experience will be vital, when the real wars come around later on.