Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

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Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by Astaroth »

A bit of a silly question, but as the title goes.

I feel like the Otto free vills are not actually much of a bonus and more of a downside because of how slowly they train (after just like 10mins of game time, basically every other civ has double the otto eco).

I believe that Otto's strength comes more from their units and the large amount of starting wood (instant TP).

I think that if Ottos started with 100f instead of one wood crate (to be able to start vill production asap) and just normal vill creation (no vill ups needed, normal creation time etc) they would overall be stronger than right now.

But Idk, I haven't tested it. Maybe the assumption is wrong because obviously Ottos would be much slower early on which might make them weaker. Also, they thus couldn't do all of their classic fast strats (2rax Jan, fast FF) and might not be able to grab TPs, turning them into some kind of less eco version of France with somewhat better units early on...
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by duckzilla »

My interpretation:
They are a strong bonus at the beginning, but their usefulness declines until it becomes negative, roughly from ~8min on.

If you can manage to make use of the bonus within the 8min timeframe (rush/ff/whatever), then you have the edge in the game. Otherwise, Ottomans quickly become a terrible civ choice.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by Garja »

It's not supposed to be a bonus. It's just the cov mechanic.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

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Post by Kaiserklein »

It's an insane bonus early on. Otto easily have the best "effective" eco early on. If you think about it, when you hit colonial (a bit before 4 mins) you have a TP and the equivalent of 19v (14v + 5v you don't need on food to produce vils). That's why otto is able to mass so much in the early game, you get a ton of shipments and have a ton of resources to use.
Later on obviously, it becomes a huge drawback, unless you have several TCs with mosque ups.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by Imperial Noob »

Every villager you don't have to pay for early on is a 100f for another Janissary.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by Astaroth »

Kaiserklein wrote:It's an insane bonus early on. Otto easily have the best "effective" eco early on. If you think about it, when you hit colonial (a bit before 4 mins) you have a TP and the equivalent of 19v (14v + 5v you don't need on food to produce vils). That's why otto is able to mass so much in the early game, you get a ton of shipments and have a ton of resources to use.
Later on obviously, it becomes a huge drawback, unless you have several TCs with mosque ups.
That's a really good comparison, but it also shows how quickly the bonus turns more into a drawback. I'm too lazy to do the exact math, but e.g. France reaches age2 roughly 40sec later with 17.5 vills, at which point Otto has "20 vills", but another 2 or so minutes later, France will already have more vills, even without market ups, not to mention 4 cdb.

Ultimately this means that especially with market ups, almost every other civ will already have a better eco than Otto around minute 6 at the latest (discounting TPs etc).

Obviously this doesn't make Otto UP or anything, but it does show that their civ speciality is probably more of a downside overall.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by howlingwolfpaw »

yes it is a downside.. well kind of... to compensate for their awesome units. because if Otto had France economy later could spam out the abus more crazily and still be able to ship spahi etc... I personally love the free vil mechanic. the only down side is if getting housed you lose that whole train time. I also love that in FFA or treaty you can easily delete vills for a strong push or when in trouble then they rebuild automatically and without depleting food. Overall otto is pretty strong civ despite having an unusual economic curve
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by dansil92 »

It roughly works out that every vill you get your opponent gets two, but you start out with "five extra vills" from not needing to pay for settlers. Ignoring tradeposts you roughly break even at settler count at when your opponent reaches 18-19 vills. Tradeposts exaggerate this as does the small but significant reduced depletion of hunts otto has. Id say once an opponent reaches 24-26 vills they are definitely out-ecoing you and this will just scale from there continuously.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by gamevideo113 »

I'd rather see it as a feature than an actual bonus. Anyway, since otto vills train during aging, and considering the fact that 6 vills on food are needed to mantain vill production, otto eco might effectively be better early on. Also they need less hunts. It has both pros and cons obviously, but overall i think it benefits otto more than it harms them.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by duckzilla »

gamevideo113 wrote:overall i think it benefits otto more than it harms them.
I think this strongly depends on your playstyle. With many civs you have the option to take a more defensive playstyle with building your economy and defending against early aggression. This is not the case for Ottoman. You are forced to play the game "fast" since you are constantly under pressure of your economy falling behind.

I recently tried to do some economy centered builds for low level random 3v3s and omg their eco is so shitty.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by gamevideo113 »

duckzilla wrote:
gamevideo113 wrote:overall i think it benefits otto more than it harms them.
I think this strongly depends on your playstyle. With many civs you have the option to take a more defensive playstyle with building your economy and defending against early aggression. This is not the case for Ottoman. You are forced to play the game "fast" since you are constantly under pressure of your economy falling behind.

I recently tried to do some economy centered builds for low level random 3v3s and omg their eco is so shitty.
Defensive play with otto is definitely underrated i think. The fact that you don't need hunts to keep villager production means that turtling will be a lot easier. The problem, as you say, is that their eco is slow and you canot rely on getting 50 vills at the 7 minute mark like brits, so you'll need to be patient and eventually get all the mosque upgrades (which are expensive as hell on RE :cry: ). I've been relatively successful in team at cpt-1st lieut level with a FF into cav archers and 3 TCs. Once your eco starts rolling, (it will take time, but eventually it will), otto becomes quite scary imo, since abus become more affordable and train fast. Imo that's also why the ottoman full eco is locked behind such a "high obstacle".
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

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Post by deleted_user »

Kaiserklein wrote:It's an insane bonus early on. Otto easily have the best "effective" eco early on. If you think about it, when you hit colonial (a bit before 4 mins) you have a TP and the equivalent of 19v (14v + 5v you don't need on food to produce vils). That's why otto is able to mass so much in the early game, you get a ton of shipments and have a ton of resources to use.
Later on obviously, it becomes a huge drawback, unless you have several TCs with mosque ups.
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Re: Are the free Otto vills actually a bonus?

Post by sebnan12 »

deleted_user wrote:
Kaiserklein wrote:It's an insane bonus early on. Otto easily have the best "effective" eco early on. If you think about it, when you hit colonial (a bit before 4 mins) you have a TP and the equivalent of 19v (14v + 5v you don't need on food to produce vils). That's why otto is able to mass so much in the early game, you get a ton of shipments and have a ton of resources to use.
Later on obviously, it becomes a huge drawback, unless you have several TCs with mosque ups.
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