Ottomans are maybe too centered around military schools?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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They way military schools feel is they’re Ottomans only chance to keep up with other civs. So throughout the game, Ottomans only work for getting more value out of them.

Opting for other viziers than military school ones are too unviable. Because if you don’t choose them, you’re falling behind a lot. Like i would like to think, when I hit tier 2 viziers, “do i go for military schools vizier or do I pick y vizier and go for x strategy”. but such thought procces is not possible they way things currently are. (I exclude Trade vizier from this arguement since trading is viable only on paper)

And Ottomans aren’t an aggressive civ even though they’re introduced as such:
As Ottomans, you’re better off turtling, avoiding going all-in until imperial because its where their power spike is(military schools work the best).

So I would like if military schools would be nerfed and if Ottomans were given other mechanics/bonuses from vizier system or from landmarks to excel with instead. In a manner that you aren’t forced to invest landmarks or viziers onto military schools but you choose instead, or you do not and go for something else.

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I think Military schools is a “trap” that people tend to fall into.

I personally find Ottomans being suprisingly strong, if I play them almost the same way I play Mongols.
With a few ottoman twist on it.

They are very strong early aggression when you play them this way.

People have a tendency to fall into the “standard civ” economy play and want to boom fast into castle.
Because Ottoman Feudal is lackluster. (Which I agree is, but the Sepahi do a great job).

Also when it comes to Vizier points, people tend to get easily blinded by it.

I for once start with 2 Monks in the opening instead. (depending how succesfull my sheep game opening is).
The moment hte game starts, i send 5 vills to stone to then immidietly build Military school. and then from there dispurse them to regular resources.

This has the function of acting almost like the mongol Ovoo double production.

Within almost the first 2 min of the game, you can already start applying spearmen pressiure and force response of the opponent.
With the 2 early monks, you can get some crazy healing out and have your Sepahi act like french knights, constantly sniping vills and run back to heal up.
This using Sepahi ability becomes much more viable.
Start towering their resources like you would as a mongol player.
And deny them stone and gold.

You’re econ will be infront of them.

Infact, Drongo made a video about this where he played against Demuslim, in a suprsingly even game! Despite their skill differences!

But here is things I PERSONALLY like doing as Ottomans:
Go for 2 monks, they double as a healing for your units applying pressiure, and moment you hit castle age, you can grab and secure 2 relics immidietly.
Super handy when playing against HRE.

Depending on the map, but if there is a backline neutral trade, I always go for traders as Ottoman and go for the Istanbul imperial counchilhall in order to get 2 extra vizier points. Which I use to Buff the trade.
The massive gold income you get from this, especially in team games, makes it far easier to mass produce siege than relying on free siege from the factory.

If trade isn’t easy to secure, then coing for the factory instead is a must.
Regardless, the goal is to get Siege on-point to do a Castle age timing push.

Again, you pretty much just play them as you would mongols.
Spearmen + Sepahi, into castle, Mangonels and Trebs with Maa/knights and Crossbow(if opponent goes into MAA)/Janissaries (If opponent goes into a lot of cav/knights)

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yes , thats how u do it , mil school at 30 second mark its really nice…

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I agree this is the way to go currently. Though I don’t think they reach a “ovoo level” production with help of military schools in dark age yet they have their advantages(cheaper barracks+50 wood).

I gotta disagree that this is viable for 2 reasons though:

First, because 2 monks arent gonna be of much help in battlefield, 2 archers alone can just surpass healing of a monk by the other. Any more than 2 just determines how fast the monk dies. So they’ll be pretty short lived if you put them into frontline. Safer if you use them for healing bruised sipahis coming back home like you previously mentioned.

Second, I don’t know if you planned this fedual strategy assuming a dark age aggression in beforehand but it’s impossible to go naked faste castle faster than any other civ with Ottomans so they will lose the relic game.

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another idea came into my mind military schools can be upgraded for 100 stone to produce units %25 faster at age 3 for example

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They need to do the opposite and double down on military schools!! Wtf are you guys talking about? With the logic you guys suggest they should make mongols less focus around the ovoo? And Rus should do something else than their bounty and passive gold? Or delhi dont need mosque and scholars…You dont play mongols and forgo the ovoo? You might delay it but you’re absolutely building an ovoo and the white supa while we’re on the topic. Likewise you’re not gonna build a gold mine in dark age WITH RUS and not go get bounty with scouts on a land map??? Must we really even consider an alternative playstyle to delhi that doesnt include mosque scholars???

IMO lower the points needed per pvizor such that you can get your first one at 4mins if just making villagers or as soon as 3min if making dark age spears plus villagers.

Next we only get 3 pvizors to use unless we got the age 3 landmark option that will give us faster generation map wide, not just inside the age 3 aura (tower of victory treatment) but it only adds 1 more pvizor limit.

These are the adjusted tiers and buffs (only 6 total buffs)

  1. Tier 1 : 30% military school training speed; or 40% trade & 8 sheep & 5% all gathering.
  2. Tier 2: 25% siege recast speed + instant setup and packing!!; or free military school rickshaw that unpacks once(this will also increase the number of schools you can have by 1)
  3. Tier 3: unlock the ability to make knights and jans at MS; or ship 2 jans per school + add 30 hp to jans permanently AND you can resend this shipment for the rest of th game WITHOUT consuming an additional pzivor against your limit!!

Example of the last point is if you went the age 3 extra pvizor limit, you would have a total of 4 points you can use; so if you did tier 1 military school 25٪ then tier 2 free military school then the 2 jans per military with your 3rd pvizor, when your 4th pvizor became available you could re-use the 2 jans but that 2nd use of 2 jans shipment would NOT count toward your pvizor limit. This means if you unlock the " 2 jans" once you can resend it indefinitely for the remainder of the game each time you reach enough experience points for a pvizor (direct copy from aoe3 infinite unit shipment cards).

Also notice with only have 3 pvizor you can now have unique options!!

Do you open with faster schools? Or do you go the gathering route? Or do you do both and forgo tier 3? Or both and use age 3 landmark to gain 1 more pzivor for tier 3??? Do you get instant siege setup with faster reloads? Or do you increase your MS limit and get a free school? Do you go infinite 2 jans per school (30 hp is only applied ONCE)? Or do you allow your MS to train jans/knights? THE CHOICE IS YOURS!! And i dare say each of these buffs are functional and changes the dynamics if the ottoman play.

P.s. the healers and mehter buffs will now both be castle or imp age techs research at the mosque and stable respectively.

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I agree with what Kameho said. The military schools trapped me for 50 games into playing out a ramping economy with low aggression.

Lately I’ve been skipping the schools altogether and just using the blacksmith’s production bonus on the archery range and barracks in feudal age. You can pump out spearmen + archers possibly more quickly than anyone and get two vzier points quickly for the monks and mehter. Then you have heals and movement speed on a large army in feudal and I start building rams to pressure their base by 10 minutes. It feels like the most aggressive civ I’ve played when I play it this way.

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Another fun fact. Military Schools are more efficient than passive cow food generation even without bsm or pzivor buffs!! The real issues are you cant make that many schools soon enough compared to cow boom. And cow boom synergize with mali passive gold generation and the entry cost of cow boom is smaller and max number of cows (all accessible in dark age mind you) result in a higher resource total than max Military school effective resources totals until you unlock knights/jans AND hit imperial for that 5th school or hit castle and unlock jans/knights plus 25% MS training …

Oh and cows can be eaten in a pinch for fast emergency food…

Maybe we should be allowed to make 1 school in dark age then 2 additional schools per age for a standard of 7 schools by imp (or 8 with pzivor points)? Or maybe make the starting production rates twice as fast??

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I will say again that units that produced by Ms dont hold the battle line. Other civs units can beat theam easly. Ottomans gb, jan also sipahi dont have unique techs that change the course of the battle, Espacially jans are melted easly. Culverins beats Gb with one shot. MS dont give the ottomans uniqueness at current state.

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No I’m not saying that. I’ll try to explain better:

One of your main objectives as Ottoman throughout the game is making military schools compete with eco heavy civs or pop effiecent military civs.

Currently Ottomans don’t have the option for not investing everthing they earned throughout the game(Viziers, Landmarks) to military schools because they don’t have anything else:
No eco bonus like eco heavy civs, no population efficient unit nor in early or in late game like strong military civs(Rus, French, Delhi). Every non unique unit they have is generic without bonuses.

So their only chance to compete is spam generic units with help of military schools similar to eco heavy civs.

But the procces for improving military schools to make them competetive is all-over the place that it’s almost all the civ is about. You improve them through vizier system, through Landmarks. And for comparison the Abbasid’s golden age as a civ identity plays a more subtle role in the civ. They don’t have landmark bonuses or civ unique techs that just improves Golden Age, same with Ovoos same with Bounty.

My two suggestions to fix this toxic, one-way playstyle is to:

First, decrease the amount of steps you need to take for the whole ‘make military schools work’ procces, Cap the military schools at %50-60 of the current max train rate and give them unique high pop effiecency unit like royal knights, streletsy, Chinsese HC.

Or; Second, keep military schools at same max train rate or maybe buff them( still decrease the amount of steps needed to get max value out of them) and give ottomans an option to choose between max rate military schools and high population efficient units. For spamming generic units and massing strong units respectively.

The way you can implement the second solution is similar to your second suggestion about vizier points; Decrease the amount of vizier points you can spend, make all military school improvement vizier points bundled into one vizier point and add a vizier point that improves an existing unique unit or adds another unit to the roster. So that you can choose if you wanna spam generic units or amass pop effiecent units.

P.S. I find your suggestions quite well thought.

Edit: Text was a mess the first time I posted it. Had to edit to make it more articulated and simple.

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Delhi and Ottomans are very similar in their design and both play basically 1 way…but to YOUR POINT (once Delhi suffered nerfs to make it non-OP), Delhi has THE lowest pick rate in the game and not the lowest win rate so it’s not an issue of it can’t win… I also agree Mongols and Rus and Abbasid which each have a unique system centered around a concept have a few if not multiple avenues to fledge out that uniqueness (on paper)? Hmmm

Another issue is because Ottomans do not get any actually resources buffs (except for the 10% mining pvizor buff), I think they wanted trade to be that eco path? Problem is trade on open maps require sooooooo much to establish and defend AND get so easily interrupted AND for ottomans trade isn’t superior comparable to villagers (better actually) until you unlock the pvizor trading buff AND the Imp landmark (effectively getting 1.96 times trade plus 10/10 armor)… But all this is too late since you needed something to survive this long into Imp??

OKAYYYY I got it!!! We’re just gonna copy AOE3 some more!!! Instead of just units generating experience points for pzivor ALL THING CREATED/BUILT/DESTROYED/KILLED will generate experience points for pvizors! And instead of just having the 1 infinite card (my suggested 2 jans per school + 30hp) we’ll have at least 3 infinite cards. For you non-AOE3 ppl it will be similar to Mongol’s boon for setting things on fire, but instead of getting standard resources we’ll get the experience points toward pvizors! All we need are viable ways to expend these pvizers to build and maintain momentum?

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Ottoman have a few more eco bonuses than what most people suspect them to have.
The anatolian hills isn’t just 10% faster gold gathering rate (which is technically a free mining upgrade).
They also get free 2000 food out of thin air, which can provide a safe food source.

The Twin Minaret is also a very strong landmark giving you a massive food boost, again, free food out of nowhere. With increased food gathering rate from it. Almost akin to the Stepperedoubt increased gold drop off. (40% increased food gathering rate from 1500 Food)

Although I will have to say that the Twin Minaret landmark is increadible macro intensive which is a huge negative.
but if they can work out the macro-intensity, instead of all bushes spawning at the same time, it should be able to constantly sustain X amount of villagers. giving you a nice 1500 foodburst in the beginning.
Right now its even bugged that it dosnt spawn all bushes or any bushes at all upon completion.

The Increased Gold income from trade is increadible nice, giving hte Ottomans the highest gold-traders in the game.
With the Sea Gate castle, their traders move twice as fast as Mongol traders, almost doubling the gold income rate.
Not only that, but that landmark also makes your Traders almost unraidable by melee units. with 10 armor and runspeed as fast as any cavalry unit.
With Castles dotted along the traderoute. Your trade becomes suprisingly safe in the mid to late game.
And getting Free-military units is in itself a econ bonus upon itself without denial. Nomatter how “slow” the trinkle is.
Infact if you go Observatory, that trinkle becomes quite significant with the right Vizier points and relocating all your schools onto the Observatory.

Also, if you got a Pond, just build a Dock and the Unique ottoman grand galley, and you can have double the amount of military schools! Because they act as military schools and produce units for free aswell.

All in all, I really don’t have much issue with Ottoman econ.
While yes, Abbasids, Malians and HRE have god like econ in comparison. I think they fall in line well with the French, english and tbh, much more comparable towards Dheli econ than anything.

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Twin minaret is +2.5 villagers worth of gather rate effectively. which can’t compete with any eco civ.

Civs other than HRE, French and China mines barely any gold in fedual. And when you reach castle where gold has a use, you’re already surpassed in eco by any eco civ. They’ll have at least 50 villagers gathering resources so that your +2.5 villager bonus and %10 mining bonus won’t even be half the bonus villagers they get from their eco bonuses.

You also can’t compete with military civs(Rus, French, Delhi) in castle because of lack of a high pop effiecency unit.

Thats why as Ottomans, you always have to offer sacrifices of Landmarks, Vizier points to military schools so that they save your neck.

KEKW… ehm ehm… Sorry something funny came to my mind.

It doesn’t exceed the military school limit though. If you build ship school you can build one less military school.

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Then they might patched it out, But it wasn’t that long ago I had 5 military schools and 5 Grand galleys on a pond in Spires, giving me 10 free units.

The Goal of the Minaret is not about giving you a stronger econ by upon itself.
The goal of the Minaret is to give a big burst of food very early, allowing you to hit a very early castle age, ALTERNATIVLY, which is much prefer.
Save you on Wood, wood that is to be used to get into a rapid 3 TC with Ottomans.
Because you’ll be sending those vills immidietly on the bushes when the minaret completes in feudal.
Gather empty them, and straight to wood/stone, and get your 3rd TC asap. And back onto minaret when the bushes respawn.

It’s more of a Timing thing than a econ thing. But a crucial timing especially if you can hit 3 TC before the opponent, you’ll have an advantage. Unless your up against HRE

With 3 TC and a food burst every now and then, you should be able to outproduce vills, severly boosting your own econ.
Not to mention ottoman rax and Blacksmith have reduced woodcost, which is quite significant in itself.

my Main issue with the Ottomans aren’t really their econ, nor their units.
It’s the tardyness that comes from being extremely micro-intensive.
Constantly keeping an eye on the minaret, and shifting villagers to and from.
Managing the Military school unit production at times.
Paying attention to the Vizier points.
And the Extra microing needed for Ottoman armies because you usually always run a siege composition, so you gotta keep babysitting your siege ontop of microing your econ in the back.

So with the Ottomans, its far more easier and punishing to “mess” up your micro than compared to other civs.

When I play Ottomans, my APM is almost 3 times higher than playing Mongols as an example lol.

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You got a lot if inaccurate info in your post.

But first let me agree with everything that’s right. The 8 sheep + 10% is a defacto take as the other 2 tier 1 bonuses are extremely niche and or effectively useless. Also the verry landmark IFF it did spawn with alll 4 bushes at once would sustain 4vil per slower berry size and 10ish on the big ones but the total food available is only 175 each bush. So basically a 700f boar every 2mins. Assuming we’re talking early game you could put 4 villagers on each side of the berry landmark then shift click each set of 4 villagers to bush, bush, sheep1, sheep2, sheep3, bush; so you’d have a total of 8 villagers depleting both sides in about 90s then switching to sheep for 2mins 20s (8 villagers at standard gather rates need 3 total sheep). Assuming you found 4 sheep on the map to add to your 8 sheep shipment you could bounce between berry sheep for a total of 15min!!! Mean you at an average food gather rate of 47 food per min (this is very good).

In other news the Imperial landmark doesn’t make traders twice as fast, but instead gives 40% speed (1.4 tiles) and 10/10 amror. Both trader buffs combined do almost reach twice the effectiveness of a standard un upgraded trader (1.96 × std_trader); nevertheless trade is too risky on most open landmark and you need the Imperial landmark to mke it worth.

The military schools are effectively passive resources generation but with the low limit on schools available early and the high upfront cost, it’s hard to get going with them.
Dark age MS is 72 resources per min
Feudal age MS (w/ bsm) is 90 resources per min ( a bit higher with spahi and mehters)
Once you unlock the tier 3 25% MS tech, finally you get some respectable rates goven the overall cost
Feudal plus pvizor 25% MS buff = 120 resources/min (3 equivalent villagers worth)
Etc etc.
Knights with full MS upgrades is the best unit to make for the total effective resources per min and of course given the natural versatile of knights (best rate: 175 res/min per school).

HIDDEN BENEFIT & PENALTY
Now there is a less noticeable benefit of schools compared to other passive resources generation buildings and that i think Relic over punished us for!! In the case of any other passive resources you still have to build production and train units. MS combines the middle step and this is why I’m convinced they charge so much for the school. For example mongols ovoo (150w) in dark age generates 80 stone per min, but to use the stone you need build a barracks (150w) and have enough standard resources (60f 20w) before you can double batch spears. That’s 75 seconds effective training time for that additional spear and having to be production and additional resources ready to take advantage of the “free” stone? I believe they charged us beyond 150 resources to build the school to account for the direct production aspect of this passive resources. So instead of 150w ovoo+ 150w barracks (300w), we instead pay 250 resources and get an ovoo specific barracks! But there in lies the penalty!! Yes a MS is cheaper than ovoo+ barracks, but the mongol combo maintains regular functionality and gets relatively cheaper the more production using the ovoo. This why i hope they reduce the cost down to 100 stone 75 wood!!! I get that we dont need to make a production building to utilize this passive resource but our passive resources facilitate can only do the one thing (make units) so why should we be punished for that?

Either reduce the cost of schools. Or allow us to make 1 in dark 2 in feudal (without needing pvizors), 3 in castle and 3 in Imp for a standard total of 9 schools (+1 via pzivor). Or reduce the original training time, OR allow the training time to ramp up much faster.

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I actually previously replied your same arguement. Idk why you insist on the arguement but if you didn’t find my reply reasonable you can check reddit, theres a Ottoman FC record that hits Castle at 7:30 with twin minaret madrasa and anatolian hills. And any civ except French and English beats that.

Lemme just exactly point out how minaret madrasa gets outboomed by other civs right at the start of Fedual:

HRE Aachen chapel, Abbasid fresh foodstuffs + villagers gather during age up, Rus golden gate, Chineese imp officials, Mongol double production and even though French doesn’t catch up with you, Their TC negates your lead by having 1 more villager at the age up. So you just surpass 3 civs with this “burst”.

Good for you man… I don’t think I’ll answer you further because on the main thread, in my replies I’m sharing my arguements for how bad the design of the Civ is and that it will share the least picked civs seat with Delhi yet you constantly come up with balance arguements…

I don’t bloody care if they’re weaker than average or not. It wont even matter %70 of matchs I play in my elo. All I care is design and it’s currently full of illusion of choices and boring.

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They count towards the total of 5. I tested this specifically the day the PUP started because I was curious.

I love the idea of the grand galley, but unfortunately it has some issues. If you make it a military school it counts towards the cap and it cannot be sped up like your other military schools. Also, you cannot ever convert it back into not being a military school. Also, you cannot see the progress towards training the current unit.

It needs something in order to incentivize ever using it as a military school.

Like maybe you should only be allowed to have one, and you could toggle any of your military schools to make it so any unit they produced appeared in the Grand Galley instead.

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Saying military schools is Ottomans’ only chance to keep up with other civs is like saying relics are HRE’s only chance of keeping up, sacred sites are Delhi’s only way of keeping up, and pit mines are Mali’s only chance of keeping up.

You don’t have to build them, but they’re an advantage that other civs don’t have, and one of the few advantages that they actually do have, so might as well do it.

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Respectfully, I already posted an arguement on why it’s the opposite of your statement so here it goes:

to your analogy, I would rather say Ottomans without military schools are HRE without prelates, Delhi without free upgrades/scholars, Mali without pit mines and cows(maybe).