Zigzagzigal's Guide to the Ottomans (BNW)

By land or by sea, the Ottomans dominate the renaissance era. This guide goes into plenty of detail about Ottoman strategies, uniques and how to play against them.

Introduction

Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



A new day dawns in a brave new world. One where another chance is given to the greatest of history's nations. The Ottoman state from the earliest days faced superior numbers and lacked allies. But the brillance of their leaders built up their empire, in the earliest days finishing off the rump state that was once the Eastern Roman Empire, then through the 15th and early 16th centuries conquering much land around the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Even the mighty empires of Europe feared the Ottomans.

While the Ottoman Empire went into decline in the late 16th century onwards, its influence on the region was (and still is) significant. While many reforms throughout the 19th century were unsuccessful, it helped pave the way to a more progressive future, leading to the situation of modern Turkey. But could you do better? Could you avoid such decline and make the Ottomans feared and respected, by building a civilization that stands the test of time?



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Melee unit - Used to describe all military units without a ranged attack. "Standard melee units" are Warriors, Spearmen, Pikemen, Swordsmen, Longswordsmen and all unique replacements for them, as well as Spanish Tercios.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Spotter - A unit which allows a ranged unit (usually a siege unit) a line of sight with its target. Typically, siege units have a higher maximum range than their sight radius, hence the need for spotters.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Improvements and Great People

At a glance (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

The Ottoman Empire is biased to start on coastal tiles. This lets you make use of your UA sooner rather than later.

Uniques

All the Ottoman uniques are military focused - the two renaissance-era Unique Units for land warfare, and the Unique Ability for the seas.

Unique Ability: Barbary Corsairs

• -67% naval unit maintenance cost
  
• All naval melee units recieve the Prize Ships promotion which allows them to capture enemy ships on a decisive victory
  
  • Captured ships will become in your control with 50 HP, but unable to perform any action until the turn after capture
    
  • The chance of capturing a ship can be as high as 80% against much weaker ships or as low as 20% on stronger ones

Unique Unit 1: Janissary (Replaces the Musketman)

A gunpowder melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Gunpowder Renaissance era 1st column (8th column overall)	Rifling Industrial era 1st column (10th column overall)	Longswordsman (70 )*	Rifleman (160 )*	150 *	540 *	None

*Assumes a normal speed game.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
24	N/A	2	N/A	2	None	25% strength bonus when attacking 50 health restored on a non-Barbarian kill

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

• 25% strength bonus when attacking
  
• 50 health restored on a non-Barbarian kill

Unique Unit 2: Sipahi (Replaces the Lancer)

A mounted melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Metallurgy Renaissance era 2nd column (9th column overall)	Combined Arms Atomic era 1st column (14th column overall)	Pikeman (200 )* Landsknecht (290 )*	Anti-Tank Gun (240 )*	185 *	640 *	1 Horse

*Assumes a normal speed game.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
25	N/A	5	N/A	3	No defensive terrain bonuses 33% combat penalty when attacking cities	Can move after attacking 33% bonus vs. mounted units (Formation I) No movement cost to pillage

Positive one-off changes

• 5 moves, up from 4 (+25%)
  
• 3 sight, up from 2 (+50%)

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

Note: Lancers have the Formation I promotion anyway, which carries over on upgrade.

• No movement cost to pillage

At a glance (Part 2/2)

Victory Routes

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 4/10
Diplomatic: 6/10
Domination: 10/10
Scientific: 5/10

The Ottomans are almost single-minded on a domination victory. Cheap naval maintenance goes a long way with the Autocracy tree's Gunboat Diplomacy, leaving diplomacy a possible (but by no means exceptional) backup.

Similar Civs and uniques

Overall

England is also a midgame warmongering Civ with a mix of land and sea. While the Ottomans can support sheer numbers thanks to only paying a third of the usual naval maintenance cost, England instead goes for sheer power. Ships of the Line for example are 25% more powerful and 40% faster than Frigates (taking into account England's UA.)

Same start bias

The coastal start bias is the most common in the game. Aside from the Ottomans, it's also the start bias of Byzantium, Carthage, Denmark, England, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Polynesia, Portugal, Spain and Venice.

Similar to the UA

The Prize Ships promotion is held by all Privateers, and by extension, Dutch Sea Beggars. The ability to convert other units to your side has a parallel with Germany's Unique Ability, but in that case it's for Barbarian land units once you take their encampment.

Germany's UA also has a reduction to unit maintenance costs - in their case, it's a 25% reduction in costs for land units, rather than a 67% reduction for naval units. The Zulus also have reduced unit maintenance; 50%, but only for standard melee units.

Similar to Janissaries

Both attributes of Janissaries can be found in different promotions for Indonesia's Kris Swordsmen. The Ambition promotion offers a 50% attack bonus (rather than 25%) but comes with a 20% defence penalty, while the Recruitment promotion allows Kris Swordsmen to heal 50HP on kills, just like Janissaries.

Aztec Jaguars heal 25HP on kills - half that of Janissaries - and don't have an all-round attack bonus, but instead have the Woodsman promotion and a 25% strength bonus in forests and jungles.

Similar to Sipahi

Other Lancer UUs include Sweden's Hakkapeliitta and Poland's Winged Hussars. Sipahi and Winged Hussars both have a +1 bonus to speed, but they have very different roles. Sipahi are a support unit mainly, while Winged Hussars can form the centrepiece of Poland's renaissance-era armies.

Free pillaging is also a feature of Landsknechte, which comes before Sipahi in the upgrade path and can be built by any Civ, so anyone can have Lancers with one of the attributes usually associated with Sipahi. Celtic Pictish Warriors can also pillage for free, and Denmark's UU gives all new standard melee units the promotion. In all cases, the promotion is kept on upgrade.

Unique Ability: Barbary Corsairs

Introduction

Most warmongers are either good on land or sea, and typically not both. The Ottomans are an exception - with both land-based UUs in the same era and this naval-based ability for the whole game. Nonetheless, this doesn't necessarily mean their potential at both is equal. In more land-based maps, their UUs will become more effective at the expense of their UA, and in more sea-based maps, the other way around.

Barbary Corsairs makes naval maintenance a non-factor, while also allowing you to use any naval melee unit to capture more in the same way any Civ can do with Privateers, meaning you can potentially raise a huge navy only ever building a single unit.

The Early Game

It's a good idea to get a Trireme built early on, probably as soon as you've dealt with the first few needed Worker technologies. Use it to scout along the coast for other Civs, good city spots and, most importantly, Barbarian encampments. Any located on the coast can spawn Gallies and eventually Triremes or even Caravels.

It's not a good idea to leave alone encampments which are on your starting continent, as you can destroy them for City-State quests before other players, and get culture out of it with the Honour tree. Instead, the best "Galley farms" are encampments located on small islands, where Brutes are likely to fill all the tiles thus forcing the Barbarians to spawn naval units.

Gallies have a strength of 7 and a speed of 3, compared to your Triremes' strength of 10 and speed of 4. This means that you can easily chase them down and capture them. Be careful of Barbarian Archers on such persuits, as they can attack your Triremes without you being able to attack them back.


Above: My Trireme being stronger than the Barbarian Galley makes capturing more likely

If you're successful in capturing a Galley, it'll convert to the Ottomans on half health, and will be controllable the following turn. Being incredibly vulnerable, it's in your best interests to take the Galley back to your own lands, heal them up and upgrade them.


Above: It's cheap to upgrade Gallies to Triremes, luckily. This is on a normal speed game.

Overall, for the early game, your aim is to build up a navy which can be upgraded later into good escorts for your land armies. Because you don't need to build more than one Trireme, (though it may be a good idea in maps with long coastlines,) it saves your cities production to build up an infrastructure, ready for midgame conquests. Additionally, a decent-sized cheap navy makes it easy to get valuable sea Trade Routes going.

The Mid-Game

In the midgame, your aim with your navies is to get sea superiority - much alike the importance of air superiority in the late-game. This allows you to easily escort your Janissaries, Cannons and Sipahi over to new lands to conquer, but the challenge is achieving it.

Going into renaissance-era warfare, it's quite possible your navy is behind that of your rivals, seeing as you probably (and should've) beelined Gunpowder for Janissaries - on the opposite end of the tech tree to all those naval technologies.

The solution to this problem is to work towards Navigation while your Janissary army's being built (or while it's conquering lands on your starting continent.) True, this will probably mean you'll be getting Sipahi fairly late, but as a Lancer replacement, they still see use in the Industrial era.

Try bombarding enemy naval units with Frigates while your Caravels/Privateers go in for the final hit. Converting their navy to your side quickly turns the tables. To keep pressure on the enemy, expend a Great Admiral to heal up all those new units rather than bringing them all the way back to your lands.

Generally, your naval units work best as escorts and to clear other naval units, so most of the time melee naval units should go down the Boarding Party line rather than Coastal Raider.

The Late-Game

While for most Civs only ex-Privateers have the Prize Ships promotion, for the Ottomans in the late-game, new Destroyers (as well as newly-captured ones) will have it as well. However, there's a problem - late-game sea warfare is mostly based around ranged naval units such as Battleships, Missile Cruisers and Submarines.

You may be able to take a few Submarines, or finish off other units with Destroyers, but on the whole, the Prize Ships promotion is much weaker than it was at this late stage of the game. The reduced naval maintenance cost is still effective, though, allowing you to maintain a huge number of powerful late-game vessels.

Stealing Unique Units

Usually, the Ottoman Empire won't get into warfare until the renaissance era. But the ability to steal enemy ships at pretty much any point in the game (rather than just around the time of Privateers) is powerful against those with naval UUs. Just be careful about Polynesia. Capturing their Triremes or Galleasses on ocean tiles won't allow you to move them - all you can do is delete them or hope your national borders stretch that far.


Above: You're not the only one who can steal Unique Units, but you're particularly good at it. Here, Zurich steals a Barbarian Galley using a Privateer.

Ancient Era

Dromon (Byzantine Trireme)

Lower base strength than a Trireme makes it more likely to be captured, but remember that Dromons are very powerful against your naval units. Try a pincer movement or cornering one so you can pick it off without losing a Trireme. Once it's in your hands, you can use it to weaken other Triremes before going for the kill.

Quinquereme (Carthaginian Trireme)

While the higher strength makes you slightly less able to capture it than a normal Trireme, you should be able to pull it down by swarming it with Triremes or using lots of Boarding Party promotions. Once you have it, its higher strength increases the odds of capturing more naval units.

Medieval Era

Great Galleass (Venetian Galleass)

Because of its higher production cost, it's cheaper to upgrade than a regular Galleass, and it's the dominant sea unit of its era. However, such strength also makes it very hard to take out, seeing as Triremes have half the strength of its ranged attack.

Renaissance Era

Nau (Portugese Caravel)

A lovely one to go for. Intercept them on their way to selling exotic goods, so you can sell them yourself. Their higher speed makes them great at chasing down enemy sea units to get that final hit to capture them.

Sea Beggar (Dutch Privateer)

Wonderful targets to take off - arguably the best. Lacking a strength bonus, they're no harder to capture than regular Privateers, and their supply promotion lets you heal them up without bringing them back to your own lands. With two Coastal Raider promotions, you can see how the Dutch like having their Polder gold stolen off them.

Ship of the Line (English Frigate)

One of the hardest targets of all, seeing as the English can move their navies faster than you, and the Ship of the Line's extra sight makes it hard to get near them undetected. Not to mention the higher strength. Manage to capture one? You'll have naval superiority over most other nations. But not the English. Generally, you're best off not attacking the English until later in the game.

Turtle Ship (Korean Caravel)

A tough target, but if you're successful, the rest of the world may as well admit you're the ruler of the sea. Chip health off it with Frigates, then move in for the kill and hope the low percentage chance of capturing is in your favour. If so, heal that Turtle Ship up and use it to obliterate enemy navies.

Unique Unit I: Janissary

Janissaries are one of the game's most effective front-line units, owing to their ability to heal a massive chunk of health every kill they make. Backing that up is the ability to deal 25% more damage when attacking, essentially making them strength 30 on attack!

The layout of the technology tree makes it very easy to beeline Gunpowder - and you should, the earlier the attack, the more successful it'll be. Of course, don't beeline it from the start - you're going to need Sailing for Triremes, Writing for science and Worker technologies to get your cities going - but don't get too sidetracked by technologies that won't help the war effort.

Because preceding units upgrading into Janissaries need iron, it's quite possible you lack it and hence need to build them from scratch rather than upgrading Longswordsmen. That's not too much of a problem, as you can build them up while researching Chemistry or Astronomy (the former should be first if your first target shares your continent, the latter is probably best first if they don't.) Just don't spend too long waiting around.

Into War

Janissaries are exceptional at clearing enemy units, giving you an opportunity to get Trebuchets/Cannons in to attack cities.


Above: Janissaries don't recieve the 25% attack bonus on cities, making them no better than Musketmen at such a task.

What they really excel at is outlasting opponents. A Janissary on low health can pick off a vulnerable opponent and be restored up to a safe level. It's not a bad idea to whittle an opposing unit's health down with your Trebuchets/Cannons or Janissaries on high health before hitting the final blow with a low-health Janissary.


Above: That Janissary may be walking right in range of enemy Russian units and St. Petersburg, but thanks to all that health, it'll be safe over the next turn. You'll get situations like this from time to time where you can take out retreating enemy units without having to sacrifice a unit yourself.

Otherwise risky manoeuvres similar to the one shown in the preceding screenshot become a lot more practical, allowing you to pick off enemy units before they can heal up again.

Because Janissaries are good at outlasting opponents, you probably won't lose that many and as such can get onto high promotions. With the March promotion, you can build upon their strengths even more, making them exceptionally hard for enemies to take out without focusing all their attention on the unit. With Blitz, you can really take advantage of the 25% attack bonus. Often, Blitz is limited by the fact you'll often make your unit very vulnerable from the damage taken from two attacks. Now, if you kill, that won't be a problem any more.

As a quick reminder to finish on, you won't heal health for killing Barbarians (so you can't exploit the fact they're typically still churning out Brutes at this stage of the game) and capturing units won't work either (which makes sense seeing as you take no damage for doing so.)

Special promotions kept on upgrade

• 25% strength bonus when attacking
  
• 50 health restored on a non-Barbarian kill

You keep everything on upgrade making for some very good front-line units, especially as there's not many UUs in the late-game you'll be up against. You may never have to build another infantry unit again seeing as much of the former-Janissaries will still be alive for that role.

Be aware, though, that while your Janissaries upgrade well, Sipahi don't particularly, and your UA is a bit less significant in the late-game than in the renaissance.

Unique Unit II: Sipahi

Above: Note this Sipahi has a Sentry promotion, adding to its sight.

Sipahi aren't spectacular fighters, but they offer a range of uses that helps in the transition to Industrial-era warfare. The mistake to make is to get them really early, at the expense of technologies such as Astronomy. You need a lot more technologies for Sipahi than Janissaries, as well, so you shouldn't hold off on an early Janissary attack for these.

Taking out Knights, Lancers and Cavalry

The standard use of Lancers is to take out mounted units, as a kind of fast Spearman. After quite a few turns of Janissary combat, your rivals may be tempted to perform hit-and-run attacks with mounted units to get around your 25% attack bonus. Lancers would be useful anyway, but Sipahi can outrun Knights, other Lancers and Cavalry, meaning you can more easily use the bonus.

Pillage Sprees

This is what Sipahi are exceptional at. In more open terrain, coupled with your speed bonus, you could take out 5 improvements in a single turn. In rough terrain, you'll manage two with a move point left over.

So, how best to use this ability? The mistake is to tear up farms your Janissaries are going to walk over, as they can pillage for some extra health if needed. There are three main uses of Sipahi pillage sprees:

• Distractions - Tearing up a lot of useful improvements near one end of the enemy's empire may make their other end more vulnerable.
  
• Slowing enemy reinforcements - You can pillage both a standard improvement and a road on the same tile for no movement cost. This can very quickly cut enemy road routes, making it much harder for them to return.
  
• Wrecking their infrastructure if you can't immediately take a city - Pillaging lots of mines and farms will make it much harder for a city to build up defences, which should make it easier to take later.

Janissaries are hard to catch thanks to high speed and the bonus vs mounted units, and all that pillaging can quickly restore that damage.

Artillery Spotting

The extra sight Sipahi have is enough to make a city visible without moving into its attack radius - very powerful in conjunction with Artillery. With the Sentry promotion (the Sipahi in the screenshot above has it) you can keep the Sipahi even further away from cities so there's minimal risk of it being attacked.

Promotions kept on upgrade

This promotion is kept by all Lancers being upgraded:

• Formation I (+33% vs Mounted units)

And Sipahi have this as well:

• No movement cost to pillage

Above: I got lucky with some unexplored Ancient Ruins.

While Anti-Tank guns won't gain massively from free pillaging, (though it may help them live a little longer,) 6-move mountain-crossing hovering Helicopter Gunships will be able to rip apart improvements like mad. Helpful if there's someone like France or Polynesia who may need their Unique Improvements as a major component of victory. The Formation I bonus is pretty much useless by this stage of the game.

Social Policies

Some policies in Honour will help make it easier to build up an early-game navy, and to make your main renaissance attack more powerful, though it's not particularly good for infrastructure, so you might want to take just a few policies and go with Liberty instead. Afterwards, Exploration will further help your naval aims, and Rationalism ensures you don't stagnate technologically like the real-world Ottoman Empire did.

Liberty

Opener

Lets all your cities expand their borders right away.

Republic

A great early-game hand up for production, letting you develop new cities faster.

Collective Rule

Try to use the free Settler to get a good coastal spot - you'll want plenty of cities able to build naval units to take full advantage of your UA.

Citizenship

Faster Worker speed (and two free Workers) helps with getting new cities up to speed sooner (and repairing captured cities' improvements after your Sipahi tore through them)

Meritocracy

Helps lessen the burden of unhappiness, which can really slow your conquests down.

Representation

The free Golden Age is good for a bit of cash, culture and production, but the main reason for taking this policy is that it's needed for the Finisher.

Finisher

A Great Engineer's useful for a good wonder, a Great Prophet for a religion or a Great Scientist to get you to Gunpowder sooner.

Honour

Opener

Honour's opener reveals Barbarian encampments the moment they appear, (in revealed territory, of course,) meaning you know where good spots for taking Gallies/Triremes are. Higher combat strength against Barbarians makes taking such sea units easier.

Warrior Code

Faster melee unit production helps defend your lands from Barbarians (and possibly early warmongers) without using as much time better used on infrastructure. A free Great General makes it easier to wage your first war later. If you have iron, you can build melee infantry units cheaply then upgrade them to Janissaries later, making it faster to start your main war. Note that this policy doesn't make Janissaries faster to build, as the 15% production bonus only applies to standard melee units.

Discipline

It's a good idea to keep Janissaries together for flanking bonuses (unless you need to catch a fleeing enemy unit on low health.) A 15% bonus will be pretty good. It also makes it easier to use more than one melee naval unit together to make capturing more sea units easier.

Military Caste

Happiness is nearly always a concern come the mid-game, especially with all those conquests you'll be doing. This helps, and also offers some extra culture in a way that doesn't require building Monuments.

Professional Army

You're going to upgrade sea units a lot over the course of the game, chances are, so a reduction in cost can only be a good thing. It's also useful if you're upgrading your way into Janissaries rather than building them all from scratch. (Upgrading Pikemen into Sipahi is rather expensive and best avoided.)

On top of that, faster Barracks and Armoury building is very useful to ensure your cities are all ready to produce strong Janissaries and Sipahi by the time they come.

Military Tradition

You usually won't go into war against another Civ before the renaissance (unless they're very vulnerable or you can effectively use one of their naval UUs against themselves.) As experience is capped against Barbarians, there's no pain in putting off this policy to the last one of the Honour tree. Just make sure it's in time for Janissaries, so they can get to March or Blitz faster.

Exploration

Opener

A naval speed advantage helps to catch out enemy naval units and capture them. Extra sight makes it easier to find them in the first place, and also is useful for scouting out areas for enemy naval units so you can escort your Janissaries, Cannons and Sipahi over the seas.

Maritime Infrastructure

Hopefully, you can get this before Janissaries to make building them a lot faster (seeing as most, if not all your cities should be on the coast.) If not, you'll still need to produce more units during the war to back up any losses. In fact, this is just a good policy anyway for the Ottoman Empire.

Naval Tradition

Smash those mid-game happiness woes! Well, mostly smash them. Lighthouses, Harbours and eventually Seaports should be common throughout your empire, which can provide a considerable amount of happiness. This alone won't solve happiness issues, but it's a great help.

Navigation School

Great Admirals are useful for the Ottomans - both for getting the edge over rival navies to take their ships, and also for healing up damaged ships you've just taken (if you've got a lot of them.)

Merchant Navy

The trouble with early-game infrastructure to help with building Janissaries is that it costs a lot, particularly coupled with the cost of maintaining your UU-based army. Cutting such costs will help prevent your economy from taking a nosedive and pulling back your tech rate. Remember that every unit you own will push up the per-unit maintenance cost.

On top of this bonus, your East India Company city will produce more culture and production (if you have it.) That production boost will help out in building more Janissaries, but then again, requiring a Market in every city is a somewhat difficult requirement when you have plenty of other things to think about. So, consider it compensation for if your wide expansion is held back for whatever reason.

Treasure Fleets

Your UA makes defending your coasts easy, and you may as well use that to get highly-valuable Trade Routes. As much of the world will probably hate you for invading them, you probably need that gold to make trading with City-States more worthwhile.

Finisher

Unfortunately, the wonder associated with Exploration and its finisher don't fit with the rest of the tree (unless you're a Civ like Polynesia.) The best thing you can do with hidden Antiquity Sites is to excavate them before cultural Civs do, slowing their route to victory down.

Rationalism

Opener

Why take Rationalism? Well, you want to preserve your lead. And for that, you need to keep up technologically-speaking. Just be careful not to fall into unhappiness or you'll lose the 10% science bonus this opener offers.

Humanism

The main point of this is that it leads to Free Thought, but you may get the odd Great Scientist from time to time in your larger cities, so it's not a useless policy in itself.

Free Thought

Jungle cities you may conquer now become exceptional for science, and most of your cities will gain quite a bit from the 17% bonus to Universities.

The other line of policies offers less, but if you're pushing towards the free technology, it could be fairly useful. If you want cash, the Commerce tree may be preferable to driving towards Sovereignty.

Ideology

Autocracy is probably best. Besides being the strongest ideology for warfare, it offers a backup diplomatic route - Gunboat Diplomacy, which works very well with super-cheaply-maintained naval units.

This guide shows the best choices for the first "inverted pyramid" of tenets (3 from level 1, 2 from level 2, 1 from level 3) and assumes you're going for a domination victory.

Level One Policies - Autocracy

Elite Forces

Upgraded Janissaries fight just like regular Janissaries - pick off vulnerable units to restore lots of health. This policy makes fighting with them a fair bit more effective as you'll probably be doing most of your fighting with wounded units anyway. Blitz-promoted-former-Janissaries, anyone?

Industrial Espionage

Spies in cities let you see the units in and next to the city, as well as getting you technologies (and letting you see some of theirs you don't have.) Stealing techs faster ensures you don't fall behind come the late-game.

Fortified Borders

This is a maintenance-free way of getting plenty of happiness. Cities you puppet will probably build Walls, Castles and so forth at some point, so you may as well make use of them.

Level Two Policies - Autocracy

Third Alternative

By now, your navy may be quite huge with all those stolen units. However, resource limitations may prevent you upgrading them. If you've got plenty of Coal and Oil, go for a different tenet instead. Food and science in the capital is nice, but not worth it for the tenet alone.

Police State or Militarism

Either of these will provide a good load of happiness which makes sustaining conquests easier. Militarism will be better if you built a lot of cities before Janissaries (due to all those Armouries) or puppet most of your conquered cities.

If you built taller, Police State may be superior as the land you didn't settle will probably be lands others took. Remember that Police State's happiness bonus will even apply in cities you conquered and built Courthouses in ages ago, so if you made a lot of conquests before then, prepare for a significant happiness boost.

Level Three Policy - Autocracy

Clauswitz's Legacy

Now, you've got the Janissary attack bonus on all your units, but only for 50 turns. Former Janissaries will now attack 50% better than their strength suggests. Against opponents who are ahead of you, this may be the push you need to defeat them and win the game.

Religion

Religion can help get the Ottomans ready for war faster, but it's not essential. Get one set up if you can, and don't waste too much time building faith buildings if there's fierce competition for beliefs.

Pantheon

Note: As usual, highly-situational Pantheons (e.g. resource dependent ones) aren't listed here. Some kind of faith-giving Pantheon is a good idea for giving you a better shot at getting a religion.

Messenger of the Gods

A good science boost early in the game will give you an advantage all through the game. This makes Janissaries vs Swordsmen closer to reality - a very easy war indeed.

God of the Sea

Coastal empires gain a lot out of this Pantheon. Until you form a religion, all the cities you found will immediately have this pantheon active, making for some very useful sea resources.

Founder

Tithe

Maintenance costs of your Janissary army, and all the buildings that helped build it can really put a dent into your finances. Tithe is a good solution, seeing as it doesn't require you to spread the religion far and wide (which Church Property requires.)

Church Property

Often harder to make work than Tithe as you need to convert cities rather than just have followers in them, but still a decent source of cash.

Ceremonial Burial

A minor happiness source, but one that may be needed at this point.

Follower

Pagodas

It provides 2 happiness, to let your cities expand or support more conquests. It also offers 2 culture, which will help defending a little against tourism later in the game and squeeze in more Social Policies. And 2 faith, which lets you build even more of these lovely things.

Mosques

Didn't manage Pagodas, or need more happiness? Mosques are good to build as unlike Cathedrals, you can use their full effects right away (and you probably won't be filling the Great Work slot Cathedrals have at any point anyway.) Plus, the 3 faith you get lets you quickly get more up.

Asceticism

Shrines gain a point of happiness for a token follower requirement. This doesn't give faith or culture like Mosques do, but doesn't require you to spend faith.

Holy Warriors

Both Janissaries and Sipahi can be purchased with faith, though if your faith generation's poor, you probably won't be able to do so.

Religious Community

While you need a tall city for this belief to have its maximum effect, it can still squeeze in a couple of units of production, making building infrastructure/an army that little bit faster.

Enhancer

Religious Texts

Religious Texts is good for those Civs that lack any form of decent faith generation, avoiding having to use many Missionaries to keep their faith strong within their own cities. The Ottomans are no exception.

Itinerant Preachers

This works similarly to Religious Texts, and can be more effective if you have a strong core of cities following your religion with relatively weak competition.

Just War

If you do manage to get a decently strong religion, you can spread it to other cities before you invade for the 20% combat bonus.

World Congress

Here's the hard part. You're unlikely to be much-loved, and your money will probably be supporting your land empire so you can't easily bribe City-States. So, your impact on most votes will be minimal. If other Civs are trying to directly hurt you, it may be a good idea to plant a Diplomat in a more neutral Civ and convince them to vote against the proposal.

If there's no neutral Civs you can persuade to vote in your favour, you could always try invading the City-States they're allied with in order to whittle down their delegate numbers. City-States are often exposed to the coast and hence build lots of ships you can take, so it's not too hard a fight.

Note "priority" refers to how high you should prioritise your votes if it comes up, not how much you should prioritise putting them forward. If someone wants to implement an army tax, you should prioritise to vote no, for example. If you could put forward a vote, then it'd be a bad idea to put Standing Army Tax on the table. Note also that voting choices can vary depending on your game.

Arts Funding

Low priority
Vote no

Great Writers, Musicians and Artists aren't as useful to you as Scientists, Merchants and Engineers.

Cultural Heritage Sites

Medium-High priority
Vote no

You wouldn't want a cultural player walking away with a potentially huge boost to tourism, now, would you?

Embargo City-States

High priority
Vote no

Trading with City-States is often a safe bet as you can more easily monitor the routes for pirates. You don't want to lose that option.

Historical Landmarks

Medium priority
Vote no

International Games

Medium-High priority
Vote no

International Space Station

Medium-High priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no unless you have a Natural Wonder of your own

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority
Vote no

You can achieve naval superiority, which makes Nuclear Submarines and their ability to launch Nuclear Missiles very potent.

Scholars in Residence

High priority
Vote yes unless you're the leader technologically speaking

Sciences Funding

Low priority
Vote yes

Standing Army Tax

High priority
Vote no

World's Fair

Low priority
Vote no

Wonders

Getting good Wonders early on can really help the chance of your major renaissance war being a success. Here's a selection of the best, arranged alphabetically by era. Your game's situations may make certain Wonders more or less viable than normal.

Ancient Era

Great Library

Pretty much everyone'll be going for this Wonder due to the significant early tech advantage it offers. Getting it makes the road to Janissaries a fair bit quicker, giving you more time to use them or build a force of them.

Statue of Zeus (Honour Only)

The city attack bonuses apply to both land and naval units - particularly good in conjunction with Coastal Raider promotions. Well, capturing cities is your main objective, so something that boosts it is very desirable.

Classical Era

Colossus

The Colossus is a great source of gold for supporting army and building maintenance.

Great Lighthouse

Faster naval speed lets you more easily catch up enemy ships and capture them for your own fleets. The sight bonus means you can keep a larger area of ocean visible and hence safe for sending embarked units over. Importantly, getting this Wonder denies anyone else getting it, so they can't see you coming as easily as they would with such a speed and sight bonus.

Medieval Era

Machu Picchu

Like the Colossus, Machu Picchu provides a handy source of cash for supporting your land armies' maintenance.

Notre Dame

Being on the route to Gunpowder, there's a good chance you'll be able to start building this wonder before most other Civs. The 10 happiness it offers lets you conquer more without falling into unhappiness.

Modern Era

Neuschwanstein

Particularly strong if you're taking Fortified Borders in the Autocracy tree, giving you Castles worth 3 happiness, 3 gold and 2 culture. Both happiness and gold will be useful in supporting your conquests.

Prora (Autocracy Only)

Autocracy exclusivity makes building it easier - another happiness wonder to make conquests easier.

Atomic Era

Pentagon

The Ottomans won't build many units late-game compared to other warmongers, as a navy can be stolen off other players (and upgraded from there) and Janissaries keep their promotions when upgraded. Of course, all this upgrading is expensive, so the means to cut the cost is quite welcome.

Pitfalls to Avoid

I made quite a number of mistakes in my first BNW Ottoman game. Here's a pick of those I made so you can learn from them, and a few possible others.

Not launching an attack until Sipahi are avaliable

You need quite a few more technologies for Sipahi than Janissaries. While it's useful to have Sipahi supporting your efforts by providing a line-of-sight for Cannons or suchlike, you'll make a bigger impact by launching a Janissary-led attack sooner.

Researching Education, Astronomy and/or Navigation before Gunpowder

True, getting Education early will help you get plenty of science, but only in the long-run. It's the opposite side of the tech tree to Gunpowder which means getting it early will really delay your attack. And that's not something you can afford to do. Certainly, you shouldn't put off Astronomy too long, but early Caravels just doesn't have the same impact as early Janissaries.

The exception to this is if the map you're on consists of lots of tiny islands, in which case it's important to secure naval dominance. Even then, you probably will be able to send Janissaries over to a nearby neighbour without needing Astronomy.

Leaving your siege units vulnerable to finish off an enemy unit

Yes, 50 HP for a kill is a lot. But there's a time where it's not always the best course of action to do such a move. That's when doing so would make it easier for an enemy to attack your - very vulnerable - siege units. This shouldn't be a problem if you have a lot of Janissaries, but just be careful you don't leave a path open for your enemy to take out your Cannons.

Relying on a decisive victory when your attacking Janissary's on low health

Unless the enemy unit has significantly lower base strength than your Janissary (and sometimes even then) a supposed "Decisive Victory" may not actually kill the enemy unit due to the mild randomness involved. If the Janissary in question's on low health, the enemy could finish it off during their turn.

Pillaging with Sipahi before moving Janissaries in to those tiles

While this kind of "weaken them before you kill" strategy may seem effective on paper, be careful the tiles your Sipahi are spam-pillaging aren't ones your Janissaries are going to walk into. Even for units recieving 50 HP on kills, they're still going to find an alternative source of health (pillaging non-route improvements for 25 HP a time) useful, especially when they're fighting cities.

Suleiman Surrenders: The Counter-Strategies

While the Ottoman Empire fights well on the high seas most of the time, their land potential peaks in the renaissance era.

Playing against the UA: Barbary Corsairs

Low maintenance sea units may be useful in naval warfare, but it doesn't do a lot of good in inland battles. Sheltered harbours are good spots for coastal cities as it's hard for a large navy to take them out.

To prevent the Ottomans converting your own naval units, don't build too many, and focus on naval ranged units (so they can't use that unit to capture more.) Target their melee naval units first when attacking them.

Land-based ranged units are a decent idea as they can take out both sea units and hit Janissaries without as much of a risk of facing the 25% attack bonus they have.

Playing against Janissaries

While brutally powerful on the offensive, defending Janissaries are no better than regular Musketmen. A good way to take advantage of such weakness (or rather, lack of strength) is, as stated before, use ranged units. Hit-and-run attacks with Knights or Lancers can work reasonably well, too.

It's paramount that you don't let them finish off your units if you can avoid it, as the 50 HP restoration is very, very significant. Do not leave units without others nearby - flanking bonuses help to make kills easier. If a unit will die no matter what you do, try to position it nearer a Janissary on or near full health to minimise the advantage they get.

Like any other unit with keep-on-upgrade bonuses, once the Ottomans no longer can build them, it's a simple matter of picking off those which have the promotions. When you hold right-click to attack a unit, you can see their promotions before you fight. Gunpowder units with a large number of upward-facing-yellow-arrow promotions will probably have those bonuses.

Playing against Sipahi

These units don't fight any better than Lancers, but unchecked, they'll rip apart your tile improvements faster than a Danish Berserker visiting Polynesia. Make sure your open terrain areas are well-protected. A couple of Musketmen or Lancers stationed on nearby hills or woods may be a good way of stopping them going on a pillaging rampage.

If you're using Knights, Lancers or Cavalry for hit-and-run attacks on Janissaries, be aware that Sipahi will outrun them, meaning they can more easily use that 33% bonus against mounted units all Lancers have.

Strategy by Style

Early-game Aggressors - The Ottomans lack any land combat bonuses early on. They'll probably have a bigger army than your average Civ - being a warmonger - but generally they shouldn't prove much of a problem.

Mid-game Warmongers - It's not a good idea to fight the Ottomans at the time they fight the best. Instead, send a force early or late in the game. An earlier attack will probably be easier.

Late-game Warmongers - Use Submarines to pick off their naval units. As Triremes and Caravels are very common units for the Ottomans to capture, try to pick off their coal reserves so they can't upgrade them to Ironclads and from there to Destroyers. Try to gain air superiority - it's one area the Ottomans have no advantages in.

Cultural/Scientific Players - Take a technological detour to get Crossbowmen if the Ottomans look likely to attack you. Defensive Wonders will be effective, particularly the Great Wall.

Diplomatic Players - Having two UUs in the same era coupled with the fact militaristic City-States don't give naval units means the Ottomans are unlikely to focus much attention on City-States. Allying City-States between you and them provides a valuable buffer.

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Meta-guides

These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

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Civ-specific guides, in alphabetical order

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
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• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

[Lance Stroll]

lol they dominate the renissance but get to it around 1800

[Zigzagzigal]

Less useful because of the overlapping free pillaging promotion, but you can still carry over the double gold on city capture to a unit with better movement than the default Lancer. That makes them rather good for getting the last hit on a city after your other units have weakened it.

[Wulfram]

just playing an ottoman game and started rather far from the sea on a large map, so i took commerce instead of exploration (all those roads drained way too much gold...). Would you agree that Landsknechte are much less useful for the ottomans than they are for other civs because of Sipahi?

[Zigzagzigal]

Capture them from other Civs. Generally, it's too difficult to build pre-renaissance wonders on the top two difficulties, but if your science is good enough, you should catch up by the mid-game and be able to use some of the better later wonders.

[Hihoey]

Well... how can i get wonders on levels like immortal?

[Zigzagzigal]

Depends on the Civ. China's guide was the fastest due to their straightforward uniques, and took two days. Usually, I'd take two weeks between each guide release (but some would take longer for various reasons.) The guides that needed the most work were probably Byzantium and Indonesia.

[China]

how much time does it take to make a guide like this?

[Zigzagzigal]

My first Civ 5 guide was released in May 2013. I've spent about 1000 hours on Civ 5, but to be fair, a decent chunk of that time is leaving the game idle while doing other things.

[China]

A question not related to ottomans:
How many hours have you spent on civ5? Also why did you start making guides? Thank you for all of the guides, everytime I start playing a new civ I instantly search for your guides

[Zigzagzigal]

Most warmongering leads to the creation of a wide empire via aggressive expansion. Liberty is generally better at managing it than Tradition; Meritocracy for example will offer more happiness than Monarchy.