Spain can keep Otto off tps if he is prepared to invest heavily enough.

Destroying tps is a good option. Often I will try and replace them with tps of my own because then you get res generation and especially if he has atp he can't just build another for 150 wood.

Try raiding them with pikes. They go down pretty damn fast and Otto armies walk slowly.

If he goes walls, kill the tps take yourself if possible and boom while massing army. (cav is good)

Will post more later

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

LOL. I love it!

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

Actually I do exactly that, these days, against Aztec. Especially on maps without good light infantry natives. I even double wall.
Especially I love that new map with the 3 TPs in a straight line that only has a single entrance into the base. I put double walls there during the transition to Colonial and make a foundary right away upon age up. Not only do my Abus get protection from any Coyote Runners that want a piece of them, but it also prevents raids on my villagers and scouting by my opponent's Warchief.

The only way for my opponent to take down the double walls is to bring in Puma Spearmen or Jaguar Knights, his only real seige. But by that time I have Abus Guns waiting. Or even Minutemen if they come super early. When I "break out" of my little shell, I have enough of a mass of Abus and Jans to take on anything an Aztec can throw at me in Colonial (and even Fortress).
Now don't laugh, but this was actually inspired by the novel "Use Of Weapons" by Iain M. Banks. Tagline: "Anything can be a weapon".

And it works on Sioux as well.

It doesn't quite work against Iroquois because they just come so damn early, and they have capable seige very early as well. It's hard to have enough Abus to deal with them. They also tend to have the forces to go after your trade posts, if they see you turtle. Which is why I've taken to using local native light infantry against them, as per the TNOW strat.

What is particularly annoying about Iroquois, and can halt the Stagecoach boom in it's tracks, is Warhuts placed right beside trade posts. Sometimes covering two at a time, which can be 2/3 of the TPs you can use! And it's not that they can kill an explorer before he finishes building the TP, it's that they have LOS and see you coming. See you building it. So along come 5 Tomahawks or Aenna and your explorer gets a few axes or arrows in the back.

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

Absolutely. Too many people these days go aggressively after trade posts. At 3000 HP they just don't last long enough for you to get there with your forces and "save" your TP. And having to rebuild trade posts for 250 wood a pieces, well, I'd go broke real fast doing so.
This is why I indeed use ATP as first card in the majority of cases.
I may arrive in Colonial with 3 villagers less, but I often arrive there with two-three TPs instead of one. This gives me more XP, and a hell of alot more resource generation once Stagecoach is researched.
There's also the small benefit of me being able to gather treasure better and scout better with my explorer, when he doesn't have to spend a minute building a TP at the start of the game.

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

This really isn't the case against the old civs which are succeptible to pure Jan rushes. Against these, you'll be able to stream Jans from a single Barracks even if you use ATP as first card.

But TWC changed all that. All natives, Dutch, British and Russians force you to get Abus Guns, as early as humanly possible. And not just 2-3, but a minimum of 5. The more the merrier, since low numbers are so easily overwhelmed.
And having to get Abus right away slows you down A LOT. This is the moment of opportunity for natives. A hard, fast rush in this early vulnerable period can simply take an Ottoman out of the game right then and there. Or cripple him so much he'll never recover and lose sometime later.
Right now it's a balancing act, getting enough Jans to protect from cavalry or pseudo-cavalry (Coyote Runners, Jaguar/Coyote pets, Warclubs, Puma Spearmen, Jaguar Knights, etc), but getting enough Abus Guns so the likes of Cetans, Aenna or Macehualtin don't annihilate your Jan screen.
Thankfully, walls or local natives seem to be a decent enough answer to this problem.
But this can often mean sacrificing your trade route, letting it get destroyed until you have your minimum of 10 Jans and 10 Abus Guns to break out and re-establish it. Which is when ATP really comes in handy.

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

Not always, but it does. Which is why it's a good thing that villagers can build or finish trade posts.
Particularly ones you already have close by, the ones that were going to build a forward barracks (pure Jan rushing stil works against Spanish).
I've had games where an idiot Spanish player tells me "GG" after killing my explorer, before I even get any ATPs up (he got lucky with aniticipating where my explorer will be). Only to see 10 Jans arrive at his hunts 30 seconds later and two TPs come online a minute later (built by villagers).

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

It is, but usually it's only one ATP for Spanish, because they have to gather the wood for them (no Quartermaster politician, not much starting wood). The natives sometimes send their 3 TP card, but I've never seen a native use ATP, so they are quite easily taken down once you have your Jan/Abus force.

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

This is actually a MUCH bigger problem than either of the two above. Particularly against Aztec. The seige damage on Puma Spearmen seriously pisses me off. They're fast and they take down even ATPs in seconds. You have to keep playing catch up with your explorer, wasting 150 wood, while he lost at most 100 resources from the one Spearman the ATP managed to kill.
By the time your explorer gets to the now empty ATP socket and rebuilds it, you lost a bunch of resources.
And while you're re-building the ATP on this side of the map, 10 Puma Spearmen strike another ATP on another side of the map. Which forces you to make hard choices. Do I leave my explorer here unprotected, taking the risk that he may take a Coyote Runner blade in the back? Or do I make an educated guess on where the Pumas will strike next, and try to have forces waiting for them there? There is no point in trying to save the ATP currently under attack. Your slow Jan/Abus force will never get there in time.
And you obviously don't want to use Hussars in this situation.

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

Hard early rushing, raiding, and attacking ATPs, preferably at the same time as engaging the Ottoman's main force or while raiding him. These are the ways to stop a Stagecoach boom.

Quoted from Beatnik Joe:

But you should be aware that knowing the above, we're working on methods to solve these weaknesses.
I had to lose to a good Aztec player three times in a row, before winning the next two games, armed with the above knowledge and understanding.
Since then, the only time I lose is when I failed to heed my own lessons.

With some civs, there aren't counters... not if the otto doesn't make unnecissary mistakes.I think the only civs that can overwhelm the otto early are spain and iro.

Quote:

in practice this is very rare, we talking about less than 3 minutes into the game, spanish has to invest heavily into dogs which slows done their colonial time significantly, and that still doesnt guarentee them anything, what if otto didnt bother getting more than 2 TPs? his extra minute colonial time will kill him when your 10 jans show up at 5:00.

it only seem to happen if the otto explorer was unlucky enough to be stumbled upon while building.

Quote:

no one can do this. otto is the only one starts with 400~500 wood and can get start chopping wood from 2:20~ish onwards(after aging began)

if anyone do actually chop wood early, he had to be sacrificing colonial time badly, in which case it is a much bigger risk to take.

Quote:

Aside from natives who can age up fast, no European civ has the spare res to make any units to siege when you are at their door step killing their villagers and burning down houses at 5:30, most will have to to put every last res and shipment into defending this rush, a shipment of 8 pikes will kill 1 ATP at best, the cost will be 8 xbows or 6 skimishers, which could safe the TC.

ATP in general in extremely uneconomical to take down, anything less than 10 pikes will take too long, as little 3 jans can put a full stop to it. after which, if ATP werent killed, it only cost the ottoman less than 75 wood to repair.

I've never used ATP as ottos. I just feel so behind when aging with 9 vills to my opponents 16-18. Also, the TP's go up much later seeing as you dont spend your initial wood.

As for aztecs, I've never had a problem beating them with normal silk road rush. I've beaten many good players, including Serge (twice) and Bish (twice), each time doing the same thing (IOR). Personally I think aztecs are kinda screwed vs ottos (as are brits).

The key to beating silk road is effective early pressure. If using sioux, ship 4 axe riders and make 5 locally. This will keep the otto locked in his base, and since he delays his janissary production slightly you will even win head on engagements, such as 9 axe riders + WC vs 15 jans. Once you mix in cetans, gg.

With french, a good musket rush with a few xbows mixed in does wonders. 8 xbow shipment + 10 locally made muskets handily take down an ottos 15 jans, and your double rax production temporarily outraces his unit production, putting him on the backfoot. From there you can aim for TP's and harrass economy while going to fortress for cuirs and skirms, gg.

With brits, germans, and the aforementioned aztecs, you are screwed. Hope to God you don't get ottos in QS and when you do, don't bother wasting the 10 minutes of your life trying to stop them. I'm sure you have better things to do.

As spain, a good musket + rodelero rush will own an otto silk road rush. With a 15 vill age up, you can have 5 wardogs, 10 muskets, and 13 rodeleros by the time your opponent has 15 jannies. Ouch. Only one player has ever been able to successfully do this to me, and that's Nightscr3am, but I've tried it vs other otto players and it seems to work well.

With iroquois, either 3 warhut FF and spam prowlers or attempt a 4:00 age up followed by mass aenna and a few toms. Even then, its a rough match.

With dutch, be happy when an otto silk roads vs you. Make +15 skirms and then start going hussars, and remember that he wont have abus until after 6:00. Raid his econ, find his rax and shoot his jans (very good), do whatever during that time frame. Then make sure that his jannissary count stays low so that you can snipe down his meatshield while sending hussars in ftw! Dont go overboard with banks here, 2 is fine until you have a significant hussar force. HUSSARS COME BEFORE BANKS!!!!!

As ports, resign ftw! Russia also has issues, but not with silk road.

Matt, how do you manage to fight off 19+ Macehualtin, 6 Jaguar pets, 3+ Jaguar Knights and 6 Puma Spearmen + converted guardians with just the simple IOR?

Also do you have a rec of those games against Bish?

P.S.
You don't age with 9 villagers if you use ATP. When you hit Colonial you have 11-12. But you usually have 2-3 ATPs instead of one normal TP.

[This message has been edited by Ender_Ward (edited 01-18-2007 @ 07:41 PM).]

Wow, this is great stuff! You guys certainly did not let me down. I'm a little time-limited, so I may have to reply to this in two chunks!

Quoted from somme:

Quoted from Ender_Ward:

I think I'm catching a theme here! I would agree that Puma Spearman siege rocks. I'll start thinking about the best way to "hedge" in sufficient pumas without compromising my ability to defend against earlier Jan \ Abus from a 1-TP Ottoman.

Quoted from Ender_Ward:

Clever stuff. I was really impressed \ horrified when I had it done to me. No offense to any Ottoman players out there, but there's a large contingent of them that do pretty much the same thing every match (though they do it well.)

As I slowly grind my way into tougher and tougher opponents, the one-trick-pony rushers are slowly being replaced by more cerebral, much crueler Ottoman players. An Ottoman that's flexible and engages the ol' thinking cap is a most formidable opponent.

Quoted from Ender_Ward:

I would also add that psychologically, it is extremely frustrating to bang away as hard as you can at trading posts only to have them get replaced for 150 wood. Somme's tip of rebuilding right behind them sounds good. The only danger, of course, is that if the Otto army is out and on the move, securing the arealong enough for a TP re-build is a real trick. I'd need a lot of coyotes to do that, and if I'm puma-heavy I am unlikely to get the chance to fight back. Pumas seem to do best just running away.

Quoted from Ender_Ward:

It's encouraging to hear that the wimpy macehualtin are at least intimidating during those early skirmishes. Unfortunately, once you get any abus contingent going at all, their tragic 8 damage per shot (12 vs. heavy infantry) means that the abus get them far faster than they get jans. 20 macehualtin shots kill a jan, but 2 abus shots kill a macehualtin. (I feel like crying just typing that.) Therefore, I've been quite discouraged about the little suckers lately (once abus are out and about.) This is why I've been going after Ottoman like a wild hyena. Abus pretty much end my life, so the walling was a really slick move on my opponent's part.

Quoted from Ender_Ward:

Thanks, this was my conclusion as well. I've been taking the hard, early rush approach, but the wall really cooked my goose. As Aztec, I need to kill any skirm- or abus-type units that are on the field pronto. Once they get too big and out of hand I'm going to be looking at a really daunting combat situation. Big Button techs give me the quick jolt I usually need for that, but the wall delays that long enough for the trade route to bring Otto over the top. Looks like the counter for the wall approach is to find an efficient way go after the trade route directly.

Quoted from Ender_Ward:

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Quoted from Ender_Ward:

Quoted from Str_Sinister:

Quoted from xMatt the Greatx:

Oh dear... I think we have a theme going!

I'll reply more later -- got more to respond to! Thanks once again for the thoughtful replies, I appreciate it.

When building TPs and using ATP as first card, what is better, build one TP imediately (for 250), so get shipments sooner, or wait for ATP and then build TPs?

there is a lot of debate over that.

waiting for ATP and not build one until it arrives has the following merits:

- near indestructable TP for first 10 minutes of the game

- can get 3 and easily 4 TPs with minimal chopping.

- slightly faster age up as no need to gather crates in the start (~10 seconds)

the bad points about this approach is:

- 30 seconds to 1 minute slower first shipment, and therefore every following shipment, it is possible to NOT have 3rd shipment ready as soon as SR arrives this could be dangerous.

- 3 less vils.

therefore the deciding factor is mostly one's playing style and a balancing calculation of the security of TP versus speed of growth.

Ehm, i got bit lost. I'll try to say what possibilities, ads and cons i see. So someone can correct me.

Btw, i play only vanila.

1) 1st card ATP, building TPs as soon as ATP arrives:
+as ulti said, no need to gather wood imediately
-1ST TP later
+2ND TP sooner (so shipments should not be delayed so much)
+having ATP (replacing, durability, defence aginst realy small attack)

2) 1st card ATP, building 1 TP imediately, then other TPs as soon as ATP arrives:
+Sooner 1ST TP
+having ATP
-100w "wasted"
-gathering wood imediately

3) 1st card 300wood, build TP imediately
+fastes TPs possible
-not having ATP (and i'm not good enough to not allow my oponent even think about attacking TPs)
-gathering wood imediately+later

imo 300 wood is really crap, and should never be used, if you want to build more TPs, get 3 vils, they get 90 wood per minute.

build 1 TP at the start, then send ATP for one more is viable, but you end up with 3 less vils and you have to spend some more wood to repair the first TP (not very much though).

if there are only 2 obtainable TPs, then your first card could given you less than 100 wood worth in savings. so i guess that really denpends on your confidence in getting at the least 3 TPs.

1st card ATP, 2nd card 5 jans, 3rd card 700 food for jan rush. 1st card ATP, 2nd card 700 gold, 3rd card 600 gold for abus rush. Keep in mind that this is a strategy I use with my allies.

Quoted from ultimitsu:

Yeah, it's exceedingly rare to have 10 pikes just kind of lying around during an oh-my-God-we're-all-gonna-die Otto rush.

Quoted from xMatt the Greatx:

It's interesting that there's not consensus on this. Makes it pretty clear an Ottoman player at any level could wind up taking either approach and do just fine.

Quoted from xMatt the Greatx:

You didn't find yourself needing to wall to make it work out? The one chance I thought Aztecs had was to make a Hail Mary charge at the Ottoman's military buildings, houses and town center with macehualtin and Big Button jaguar warriors. Are you able to get some abus guns out before that? Jans alone don't do it, but well-microed abus certainly can. And once you get a good number of abus out, it's obviously curtains for the Aztec.

Quoted from xMatt the Greatx:

LOL. I think I completely believe you. Unfortunately for me, I will fight any civ on any map. The good news is that not every Otto makes all the right moves, so there's still at least a chance in the Captain-Major range. I have not seen the LC's and Colonels making many identifiable errors at all though.

Quoted from xMatt the Greatx:

If anyone missed this excellent run-down of civ-specific counters, you should really go back and check it out! I think this could be very handy.

Thanks to all for the informative replies!

I've been meaning to take ATP out of my ottoman decks cause I never use it as a first card, unless the map is great lakes. Quite simply, if you play the game aggressively enough it doesn't matter if your TPs will be able to fight off pike raids or not because there aren't going to be any pike raids - because if your opponent does invest in pikes then he's left with that much less army at home, which means he dies.

Also I've been finding the best way to beat an otto is not to go for his TPs first but straight for the TC and garrison all villagers and destroy all his military buildings (do the latter first). I find that if I spend time destroying TPs when the otto doesn't have a big enough army to fight me, by the time I DO destroy all the TPs, he has enough jan+abus to be virtually unstoppable in colonial - and his eco isn't really that bad either. When I'm playing otto and have just sent SR, done stagecoach and built 3 TPs - and my opponent has 25 muskets to my 10 jans i'm begging for him to go for my TPs to give me time to recover and make some abus.

I dunno, this is just what I do vs ottos with france (and it works every time if I don't make any big mistakes) but I guess it would work with any civ. I have much more trouble against an otto who only goes with 1 TP and just masses jan+abus and builds TPs+stagecoach later on.