Mosque FI post baltic DLC

After the Baltic Power DLC, the mosque FI has been nerfed, but not killed. Below is the adapted guide. A wood treasure in base immensely helps. Having 3 herds close to the TC is also a plus.

Game Plan :

Get to industrial and cheese the game with the ludicrous mosque techs from the ottomans. What you do after your initial push is up to you.

Age I :

Perform a TP+mosque+house opening. As with every fast industrial, herd early as you will be surrendering map control for the next 10 minutes. Build the TP and the mosque first, then the house. Chop will but two yörük if there is not treasure. the house must be up before the first shipment is available.

Transition and Age II :

The build can work with two different politicians. The click time to age 3 is very similar (~5'50").

• Quartermaster : Collect 300c in transition, then back to food. Use the wood from the age up to build a TP, a market and research hunting dogs (sell 100f for extra coin).
  • Situational : Wettin allies. If a wettin camp is available, use the wood from age up for a TP (trade route), a house, and another TP on this native camp. Research the cheaper age up tech (marriage politics). Slows down the age 3 time but saves a lot of money on age 4. Do not build the market and only collect 150c in transition.
• Imam : Chop for a market and hunting dogs and mine an extra 100 coins, then everyone back to food. Upon ageing, build the 2nd mosque in base, heal your explorer with the imam then put the latter in the TC to act as a pseudo tower.

Who to choose ? The quartermaster allows you to pivot to a "semi" if you spot a forward base. Build a military building and two houses upon ageing (forget about the TP and the market). You will be able to produce a full batch of whatever you need. This will massively delay the timing but you will stay alive. You cannot do such a pivot with the imam, but you are less exposed to harassment as you only have one TP outside your base instead of two. The imam will also help keeping your bombards alive later on.

Ship 700c as soon as you hit the 2nd age. Macro for 1200 food and 1000 coin. Then ship Palace Intrigue (the unique mosque tech card). You have a shipment available already and it shouldn't delay your fort in age 3.

In transition make sure you have the market and hunting dog research as well as 40 max population if not already (depends on the age 2 politician chosen). Mine 200 coins in transition as well (in case you need bashibozuk to defend your fort during its construction).

Age III :

Ship the fort wagon. Build it to protect your hunts and mines. Keep gathering food as we need a lot for the industrial age. Ship 1000 coins as soon as possible. At that stage in the build you will have a major decision to make. This will influence the next steps of build order.

Decision time :

Regarding the timing of your age 4 push :

• Push as soon as possible ? => Age up with the Tycoon
• Delay the push for a bigger power spike ? => Age up with the vizier. Build one extra house in transition

After the upcoming age 4 push do you plan to....

• Extend the push to maintain tempo ? => Ship mosque construction as your 6th shipment
• Revolt behind the push ? => Ship 1000 wood as your 6th shipment (you lose the unique mosque tech upon revolting so mosque construction is wasted). 1000w allows you to get the nizam 30sec earlier than mosque construction
• Boom behind the push ? => Ship mosque construction as your 6th shipment

In transition research gangsaw then put all but one yörük on wood.

Transition and Age IV :

We still need to gather wood to pay for the new order infantry (nizam fusiliers tech) and this tech needs to finish before the 7th shipment (2 great bombards) arrives. If you aged up with the tycoon, collect the coin and buy wood at the market to spawn the nizam fusiliers faster. If you aged up with the vizier, delay the bombards to make sure you have your nizam out first. the last thing you want is leaving your bombards unprotected. Once you have the nizam, the bombards (and the sipahi depending on age ups), push. You want to fight to get XP. What you do next depends on the earlier choice :

1. Extend the push : Transfer the yörüks on coin. If you need more artillery, ship the TEAM 1000c to combine with what you have mined to buy the topçu corp tech at the mosque. If you need more "meat" to cover your bombards, ship the 7 boyards. After that shift your workers back to food to pay for the kapikulu tech. If the enemy is not dead after this, you are in big trouble.
2. Macro for a revolt : Ship the factories. Set them on wood and macro your yörüks for 1000f 1000w 1000c to revolt to Egypt. This will instantly solve your population problems. You can set your factories on great bombards and ship Khevite fusiliers from the home city. If you enemy is massing culverins and light infantry, set one factory on food, the other on coin, train nizam from the fort (set in stagger mode for x2 multiplier vs artillery) and ship the sennar horsemen.
3. Boom behind the push : Avoid wasting your troops. You do not want to deal a killing blow, just creating space for your economy to expand. Keep gathering wood and make houses as fast as possible to enable your TC to train new yörüks. Ship the 2TC wagons and research the now discounted mosque techs to turbocharge your villager production. Replace your nizam when they get killed once you have population space. Ship factories/artillery depending on your needs and the state of the game.

Notes :

WTF why 7 boyars instead of an Age 4 unit shipment ? Because the only age 4 "tempo" shipment that does not require population space is 9 Qizilbash. However, they are more specialised than boyars, have worse siege and getting 1000c is long. It's easier to go for an age 3 shipment with similar resource value (~1000 resources).