A civilization with English where they do have the short bows, they can very easily go for the boar. They don't have to be too careful when it comes to the Ottomans going for a like barracks opening just because the short bows means that the villagers can trade out quite nicely up against a Spearman. Might still need to force an outpost, but realistically, short bows, if you micron well enough and you like if your opponent doesn't go for barracks, but just a normal military school, the Spearman are going to trickle in so slowly that you can just ignore it, not even go for the outpost and just gather from the boar normally.

I think English long-term does want to beat Ottomans to castle age if they can.

The nice thing about English is if this for some reason goes into a protracted feudal fight uh being able to add in a couple men-at-arms later on as he gets ready to go to castle for some more meat shieldy tankiness can really go a long way as well.

Wynguard Footmen are really good against Ottomans because of the bonus damage against great bombards.

You're bulking the army quality early on with the men at arms, but that doesn't feel that good when you're up against Ottomans because if they mass up enough, they'll eventually get Imams in and then your men at arms are heavily discounted because they just don't do as much damage anymore against the healing.