There should be viable strats for Ottoman Military school opening in DARK Age. This is why I suggest the cost of the Military school go from 100 stone to 100 g! This will allow for immediate school opening strats
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Even if you switch stone for gold, no significant amount of units would come out on time from a military school during dark ages which are usually gone by the 4-5 min mark. You can’t build a blacksmith to speed up production either and at most you would get 1 spearman.
They would need to do something like the staggered research times they did for Delhi, but I’ve always thought they ruined Delhi’s imperial by doing so.
My approach would be keeping the stone cost, but if you risk it and go for a military school in dark, it spawns 3 or so trash units immediately after its creation and then the default slow queue afterwards.
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I dont think its logical to lose all of your gold to dark age military school since its easy to gather 50 stone than 100 gold. Wouldnt it be better if it was 50 stone instead of 100?
Thou i build them on fedual its looks correct way to me
I just became aware they get 50 starting stone!! Because they effectively start with 50s the cost, as it pertains to feudal transition is ONLY 150w and the villager gather/walk time of getting 50 extra stone; therefore the immediate start with a Military school will get you 5ish units by the 6 min mark. 6 spears for for effectively 262 ish resources is not a horrible investment!
Not only that, besides waiting for that extra stone (or depleting your age-up gold) you would need villager(s) to build the actual academy, so that’s that amount of villagers less gathering other resources to age up. There’s also the time it takes for the academy to get built. All in all, I really doubt you would get 2 or 3 units by the time you’re thinking about that Feudal Landmark. I still think if you got 2 or 3 free units immediately with a new academy, it’d make it a worthy investment.
I agree but not sure about the gold price change. Sinking so many resources into being able to get a single spear on the field at the 2 minute mark is lame. Like, why even have it available in Dark Age. What I would do is change it so Sipahi can be made in the Dark Age, but only from the military school.
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I just played against a military academy dark age opener and just did it myself. Im here to tell you this building has potential in the dark age!!!
Let me first compare this idea to something else. Mongols is notorious for dark age aggression. They build ovoo for 150w then chop for typically barracks (another 150w), build it on ovoo or have it move to ovoo. Then pull 1 to 2 villagers to tower rush after making 2 to 4 spearman assuming the enemy isnt aggressively defending.
MONGOLS
Well in my humble experience and in watching some top level players; it’s not uncommon to have the the 2 spearsmen pop out the barracks by the 1min 40sec ish mark and be in the enemy woodlines around the 2min 40s ish towering something. So let’s count the cost of this strat.
- 150 starting wood on ovoo
- 150w chopped for barracks
- 60f, 20w and 80 stone (free) for first 2 spears
- 100w for tower (we will ignore this for now)
- Vil walk and build time" 60s tower, 60s walk across map, 20s ovoo walking, 15s ovoo build, 30s barrack build . (We will ignore for now costs associated specifically to towering)
- Not needing houses we’ll discount 50w per house not needed up to the point of strat execution (100w). (Factoring this on later).
So total NON feudal age up resources spent is 380 net resources plus 65s not gathering assuming a 2res/3sec gathering rate valued at bout 43 resources not gathered and not going toward feudal age up. We can argue about the ovoo cost, how mongols more or less has to make it pre feudal, so JUST to make my argument ill discount the cost of the ovoo but not the build time since it’s still time NOT gathering age up resources (new totals net 230 resources + 43 res worth of walk time/build time).
One last thing, assuming you’re just making the 2 spears and 1 tower then transitioning to feudal age up gathering, what has to be done to accomplish that? As mongols you get a free ger so you dont need to gather for one. This means mongols need do NOTHING additional to transition from tower rush to age up gathering.
OTTOMANS
NEXT LET’S take a close look at Ottomans. The military Academy cost 150 wood and 100 stone. You start with 150w (essential for age up prep) and 50 stone (non-essential and otherwise cannot be used until feudal).
If at the start of the game you pull 5 villagers to stone which is typically 9s walking time (one way); mine 50 stone (assuming 2/3 resources per sec gathering rate), walk back!! 9s to TC then take 30s to have 1 villager build the academy. All this should take about 62 seconds. But it would have cost you:
- 150w, 100st (50st was effectively free)
- 18s walk time with 5! Vils
- 30s build time
For an adjust net total of 200 resources plus 120s build/walk time valued at 80 resources.
In a perfect world your first spearman would be trained at 2min 12s ish.
Similar to what we considered with mongols. You WILL NEED AT LEAST 100 WOOD for a house and a mining camp to transition from drush to feudal age up gathering. So effectively net is 300 resources plus 80 resources required to execute this opener prior to age up macro.
All this to say as a defensive strat delaying your age up by 50s maybe 60s??? But have 4 spears at home by the 5:41 mark to defend from french or Rus raids? Or having 2 spears at the 3min20s to help defend against mongol tower rush?
Untapped potential here!!
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I feel sad about the military school now.
Even if speed went up 50% (blacksmith bonus down a bit), no one would build it in dark or early feudal.
What would Bruce Shelley and Sandy Peterson say about this Ottomans situation?
I disagree with your assessment; and here is why.
Standard micro with this civ and many other civs for the matter makes it so fast feudal resources (400f 200g) is achieved by 2:40 (with few exceptions, Rus faster, delhi slower, china slower, etc); but with 4 vils on landmark you’re looking at a 4:15? ish timing; during that transition you’d have transition to other macros for whatever it is you’re planning to do in feudal…
But WITH the NEW straggler tree placements you can REMAIN optimal by delaying lumber camp AND still get a 2nd house before the 4min mark; THIS is huge! It means that 50w for lumbercamp most civ need can now be used otherwise if need be!
In this case I’m saying if you an immediate go for a dark age academy you’ll only delay your age up by 40-50s AND have a barrack (just the first one) that will pay itself off BEFORE you hit feudal!
Wait how does a building that cost 250 resources that pays off every when its 80 resounces units produce every 65-69s??? Well you start off with 50 stone that YOU CANNOT USE AT ALLLLLLLLL until you hit feudal, except in the case of making the academy; Likewise since you can take advantage of the straggler trees near base (AT LEAST ONE OF THEM…) and REMAIN optimal; you effectively have 50w FREEE; so the net cost of JUST your first Academy is (250 resources - 100 free resources)= 150!! WELL 2 spears would take less than 140s; and you SHOULD have Academy up by 60s into the game latest 1min 30; meaning by 3:20! to 3:50! YOUR ACADEMY is now paid for!!
ANDDDD those 2 spears can now be used in the way you use to use your old scouts and go harrass gold villagers or stone villagers; there is NOOOOOOO way they’ll have a tower up already NORMALLY!
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I appreciate your effort.
But all this effort flies in the face of logic when none of the best, smartest players on the planet even cares to build a Military School early game, and when Fitzbro, Demuslim, Marinelord, etc highlight it’s really too slow.
All the players you just mention are NOT meta setters they literally make proficient establish Macros! PPL that ACTUALLY create BO’s are 3DBEE, Szalamii1, Kasva, Wam/HUT (in the proscout build). The building is not intuitive so the real meta setters NEED time to test stuff out, thats all and its only been 5 days? since we got PUP?
I think military schools could benefit from 2 buffs that would make the investment payoff sooner YET not make it a mandatory have to open with it NOW. Unlike like delhi where you have to build the mosque on land maps asap and likewise mongol ovoo.
Curently the build time for all the units i tested with zero blacksmith aura took 66/15 times the base training time (it might be 67/15 bc the counter starts asap). Which for most units averages out to 78 ish resources worth per minute.
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Once the academy is built the FIRST (and only the first) unit in que will spawn in just 15-35s (normal que times). Then standard que rates apply.
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Give Ottomans early spahi that can only be trained via the academy school while in Dark Age.
BASICALLY I’d have academy work almost like mongol pastures that spawn a sheep upon being built; the reason for the short time instead of instant spawn is to give you time to select the available unit you want to essentially get regular training time instead of it always being a spear. This would also make the return on investment of the school pay off sooner the higher the cost of the unit is!!
This initial quick return on investment would taper off into normal behavior in the long run; but it would give unique opportunities to capital on investment.
And if relic things having the first unit que at standard training times is too strong then have the first unit take twice as long istead of 66/15 (4.4) times.