Rhye's and Fall of Civilization - Turkish strategy
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General Turkish UHV strategy (Monarch)
by Pacifist
With their unique power of culture (which guarantees enough living space as a 3x3 block after you capture or found a city), Turkey is really hard not to win. The trick is to make sure your third goal is acheived by 1870 (not too late or too early). Your strategy will differ depending on the map you start with (I chose the 3000BC start, which in retrospect was more difficult as you have to contend with the older civilizations).
Goals
- Control the Bosporus (the Istanbul Strait) by 1500 AD
Note that this means you HAVE to get Istanbul. If once in a blue moon, Byzantium was not where it's supposed to be, you have to raze the nearby city and refound Istanbul (otherwise it will not count even if you conquer Greece)
- Control the Balkans, the Black Sea and Mesopotamia in 1700 AD
This means 3 cities in each of these areas (conquered or founded). This is usually easy if you start from 3000 BC. All you need to do is found 2 more cities (Sinop and one on the north coast of the Black Sea). The rest you can just capture (Iskunderun, Jerusalem, Babylon, Athens, Istanbul and usually either Pella or a more western Greek city). If you start from 600 AD, you will need to build at least 3, if not 4 settlers, as Arabia usually does not found a lot of cities in the Fertile Crescent, and Greece usually will just have Athens.
- Have as vassal states at least 3 other civs in 1870 AD
Starting moves
You spawn in Sogut at the western end of Asia Minor. There are at least several reasons why this is a very poor location for a capital (or a city, for that matter):
1. It is too close to Istanbul, and its tiles are never going to be enough for it to be as productive as Istanbul, Babylon, Athens or even Per-Wadjet
2. It is not near the center of your future empire (Babylon or As-sur would be more appropriate)
3. It is surrounded by hills and even if you build all windmills, you will only get your population up to 6-7 until you get supermarkets (by which time you should have won already)
Comment on capital (by wr4th): An alternative is to move all your initial troops to take over Istanbul without founding Sogut. This will make Istanbul your capital right away on the second turn, plus you save a settler and your civ is in anarchy anyway so you dont lose any production.
So the trick is to found the city and switch your capital as soon as you've captured a suitable location (Athens, Istanbul or Babylon). Switch to hereditary rule and either organized religion or slavery at the first move; you need to build some barracks as soon as possible. If you play the 3000BC start, you will be surrounded by Greece, Babylon, Arabia, Rome and Germany soon. Because you want to expand towards the east and south, after you capture Greece, you should convert to Christianity (usually Rome builds the Apostolic Palace which helps your production). This will buy you a relatively peaceful front with Germany and Rome until the late game. If you start with the 600AD map, it's a toss between Islam and Christianity (your west will usually just be Germany and war is usually inevitable on both fronts).
The majority of the western Fertile Crescent will flip to you and usually Arabia will declare war on you. This is the time to vassalize Arabia (in either 3000BC or 600AD starts). If you don't (like the pacifist game I just played), Arabia will eventually become too unstable and will collapse after you force it to capitulate. You have to balance the goal of capturing Byzantium/Constantinople before 1500 with Arabia; usually the former is very weak (unless it has already been captured by a Western civ) and you should be able to have minimal losses. You then have to get Athens before anybody else gets it (otherwise you will end up without enough space for your 3rd Greek city without declaring war on somebody, and Athens is a great production city).
Politics
This will depend a lot on whether you played the early or late start. If you play with the 3000 BC unlocked map, your biggest rival (at least in terms of score) will be Rome, which usually is the most advanced civ up to 1700. It is therefore crucial not to antagonize Justinian as you want to get your vassals in line before getting a major war on your western front. Germany will be jealous of your Greek possessions and will also demand (like Russia) your northern Black Sea city. The trick is to have enough troops in these 2 cities to provide a deterrent while you war with Persia and Arabia. Later, if you declare war on a potential vassal who is currently a vassal of another civ (like England, France or Spain), the masters will declare war on you, but they are usually unable to do much due to their distance from you. (in my game, Persia vassalized to Japan who promptly disintegrated after I declare war on them, leaving Persia free as a vassal for me)
As for your vassals, there are a variety to choose from. Arabia and Persia are the most obvious, although both of them tend to collapse after you capture some of their cities. Rather than get all 3 of your vassals in the beginning, it's best to accumulate them slowly so that your science will be able to catch up to the rest of the world. In my game I vassalized Arabia (1450) which unfortunately collapsed soon afterwards, Ethiopia (1550), Egypt (when it spawned in the mid 1600's) and Persia (1820, which had collapsed by 1400 after I captured Babylon, but respawned in the late 1700's). India was a good friend before they collapsed, and unfortunately they never rematerialized in the later 1800's as a free vassal.
There will be lots of reasons why people don't want to vassalize:
"We don't like you enough"
"We're afraid of your enemies!"
"We have enough on our hands right now"
Just revisit them often and Khmer, India, sometimes even an early Portugal will agree to be vassals.
Science
You're going to be behind the most advanced Western civs (like Netherlands, Rome and France) so it will usually be impossible to build any new wonders (I did save a great engineer and got the Statue of Liberty before Rome). You should concentrate on the military ones: gunpowder (for your unique unit the Janissary which is essentially an upgraded musketman), guilds (to upgrade your horse archers to knights), military science, rifling, physics (for the airships), assembly line (which is very important as infantry will smash every previous gunpowder unit you have) and artillery). Even if you do not want to wage war aggressively against the west, the deterrent effect is often protective. You must get combustion early to get the oil online. Only Russia, America and maybe a super-advanced China will get oil, and you have both oil (lots of it) and the tech to start building tanks and destroyers to dominate Germany and Russia.
Trade
Because you will have vassals to work with, squeeze them for the last bit of juice. I demanded all of their resources and asked them what they wanted in return (usually just 1 iron). Occasionally they'll cancel the deal but then I just repeat the offer and they take it. The other good thing about vassals is that you can direct them to research where you're deficient. I traded 2 war techs for Constitution from Ethiopia and it was beneficial to both of us. Being the tech whore, Mali will usually trade you a good tech for less than the other Western civs, so build a Malian embassy early. Once you get oil, people will trade you more stuff (since except for the Americans and Russians nobody else has oil).
Civics/religion
As stated above, Christianity is usually a good bet. Even if you convert to Islam, Arabia usually is hostile to you (due to the city flips) and there's no benefit to antagonizing the whole west. In my game I had Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity in my cities. So I switched to free religion as soon as I got close to Scientific method (around 1650) and even though I lost the trust of the west, I gained in happiness and science. In the 600 AD start, I stayed with no religion until I got Liberalism; the instability with lots of religion is not good if you choose one. If you happen to capture Stonehenge, Emancipation is a great annoyance to the other civs (you don't really need slavery for a long time, and if you start from 3000BC, the infrastructure is usually in place, so serfdom has no great value). Because of my science lag, and the complementary 100% increase in culture with the most progressive civics, as soon as feasible I switched to universal suffrage, emancipation, free trade, free religion. When my empire grew big and after I had 2 vassals, I got the Viceroyalty 4+ stability/vassal civic, but not before since it was an additional cost. I was never below a stable my entire game, despite being the 3rd largest empire by the end.
Finances
You will have Jerusalem and Mekkah as your holy cities. Important therefore to spread your religions even if you don't use Islam or Judaism as your state religion. I tended to build a lot of windmills and cottages rather than mines since when you get electricity and switch to the appropriate civics, you will reap the scientific benefits and catch up to the more advanced civs. (I was 3rd in science by 1870). Since you have a rather large empire and vassals, you may want to switch to mercantilism (free specialist) and stay with representation (3 beakers per specialist) until you're first in tech. (If you build the Statue of Liberty that's even better). When your economy arrow starts to drift down, obviously economics and corporation will be good to open up your markets for trade routes.
The pesky conferences
By 1600 you will have pissed off a lot of your former friends (Rome and Germany will start to demand your cities), and your former enemies (if they are still alive like Russia) will not help your votes. The trick is deterrence. Rome wanted Constantinople in 1650; I said no and 1st world war started. Thankfully, due to my superior numbers, it was a stalemate. In 1800 they wanted Pella and Germany wanted my northen Black sea city. Since I was close enough to my victory, I decided to give them those cities, with the expectation that Pella will wither away under Istanbul's overwhelming culture. The Black Sea city was dead with only 3 square to work on, due to Moscow's culture. So it was their loss and my gain (I expanded a little towards the east by capturing Persepolis and vassalized Persia just before 1820).
Final words
Because of the late date for victory, your score will usually be just about 6000-7000 (Viceroy) or 5000-6000 (Monarch). Expansion is usually the reason why you cannot get a higher score (it limits your science). If you trade frequently and wisely, you can even get to first in science by 3-4 techs. If you play an aggressive game you may be able to get a much higher score, but being the Pacifist that I am, I tended to avoid war except to get vassals and defend them against the west.
