Ottoman Empire Question

[Kakafika]

I would like to give a little input, whatever it is worth. My feelings won't be hurt if you disagree.

I just recently played a game as Russia. As Russia, I almost always ignore china, prussia, and austria (too much headache to invade), support persia (I like persians ), and eat up scandinavia. In between scandinavian wars, I eat up eastern OE and try to support balkan nationalism.

This last game I just made it to 1888 or so before quitting due to an out of control economy and general boredom with Russia. This last game I was very happy with the difficulty in defeating the OE, while the time before this (many, many versions ago) it was incredibly easy to beat them. This time, while I knew I would win eventually, it took several years longer than I expected and I ended the war with a huge national debt. Towards the end, I was worried I might go bankrupt and drop my prestige several places. It was fun.

You perhaps know better than anybody what the power dynamics of the region should feel like, but I was very happy with the OE's military strength gameplay-wise, though I did notice Egypt losing the Oriental Crisis almost every game lately. For this reason, I was really looking forward to Rylock's new events to see how they played out in-game. I think the RP nerf to egypt was a fair compromise to strengthen it's military so it could stand up to the OE. I think we will see that when Egypt starts winning the OCrisis, the OE will be significantly weaker, due to not having the accepted soldier pops it is now gaining from the levant.

In the end, I would rather have an Egypt that is stronger than historically than an OE that is weak, even if it is more historically accurate. It seems egypt doesn't do much more with its army than put down rebellions when it isn't fighting the OE anyway, and the RP nerf seems a good idea to keep it as an unciv.

[Rylock]

In fairness, I had no internet connection while you were drawing up the plans for it, which made commenting difficult :P I also just plain dislike the 'oppression' modifier, which essentially just does something which there's already a mechanic to simulate (and which I've been tuning upward recently anyway, due to the general lack of nationalism world-wide, and a general level of overpower in multinationals). That's a stop-gap thing at best, in my book - we should avoid using events to correct other problems wherever possible, as they railroad the player.

I think the later-stage stuff with the young turks etc is good stuff; but the OE clearly isn't suffering much from the event-based approach to the early game. It would need adaptation to gel with this, but wouldn't need to be thrown out - just some minor effect changes etc. Since we need to re-do the OE structurally, the events were likely to cause problems anyway. The Young Turks can be used to speed up the constitution event, or hand out militancy, or might only show up on one path of the event tree.

It's one where I think we should approach it kinda like Ireland. You need to have multiple possible paths through an event series, as otherwise it's too deterministic; the 'oppression' modifier is cumbersome, and makes no sense when combined with certain other mechanics (if the OE somehow managed to pass full citizenship, then the modifier becomes a burden). likewise, the Tanzimat being a single decision with relatively low impact has always been a problem; while we're done a lot to change the lack of impact from Vanilla, the immediacy of a single decision which refers to a whole era of Ottoman politics still grates. Tanzimat needs work full stop.

Fair enough. Tanzimat needs work.

Going back and having this conversation all over again (since I'm sure everyone will just be chock full of opinions of exactly how this should work) doesn't really appeal, nor does the thought of doing a whole bunch more events for the OE after just finishing.

If you want a short-term solution for the OE, then I'll do that. If you want this whole Tanzimat chain done, then you'll either need to wait until I can stand to even discuss it again or someone else will have to do it.

[Naselus]

Fair enough. Tanzimat needs work.

Going back and having this conversation all over again (since I'm sure everyone will just be chock full of opinions of exactly how this should work) doesn't really appeal, nor does the thought of doing a whole bunch more events for the OE after just finishing.

If you want a short-term solution for the OE, then I'll do that. If you want this whole Tanzimat chain done, then you'll either need to wait until I can stand to even discuss it again or someone else will have to do it.

Well, you're pretty much the only person I'd trust to do it well, so it can wait. I'll strip out some of the accepted cultures it starts with, tho.

[Connor Mulhern]

Alright, here's what I'm thinking for the OE - it IS too powerful and unified at the start right now. Egypt is already as powerful as it needs to be; the real problem is that the OE is not decrepit enough.

I mostly agree with this, although, I must repeat again that you must not over compensate for the sultans stupidity,

Firstly, I don't think it should have all those accepted Arab cultures at the start of the game. Not a one, in fact. As with Austria, this is a multi-ethnic Empire being ruled by a minority; that's best represented by a lack of accepteds, which the OE currently does not suffer.

Agreed, it does lean more towards that end, although the issue is there is no middle ground, its either all one way or the other, and I think it would be best to make them historically weaker

Getting rid of Mashriqi, Kurdish and Bedouin acceptance will force the OE to rely a lot more heavily on irregulars, which is fairly accurate - only the Turkish regiments were well-trained elites after the destruction of the Janissaries, and that pattern continued til the First World War. Likewise, the Janissaries had only just been destroyed at this point - a major part of the OE's troubles in this period were due to internal struggles between the Emperor and the military from 1800-1820ish. This should be represented by giving those few Turkish soldier POPs left a high starting militancy, making them somewhat unreliable.

Well I would say the anatolian muslim pops were the well trained ones, so maybe keep Kurdish around (They were probably the most loyal until the turks became a majority). The turks should have a smaller number to trained soldiers, and almost no non-turkish and kurdish soldiers. The turks should have to keep a 100 military slider to get any resembalance of an army back before the war. On another note, the yeni ceri-sultan sultan conflict started around 1450, I took turkish history, I know my stuff, just not how to represent it XD

In all this would make the OE's starting position considerably weaker. It's army would be pushed toward a more irregular form; it's level of accepted POPs would come close to nothing, and it'd lose a pile of literacy, too.

Yep, I would think that work to make it closer to history

To make sure that it doesn't stop being worth playing, we then expand the Tanzimat reforms into a series of decisions and events, introducing an element of choice. The OE can gets a bunch of free reforms etc regardless of which way it chooses to go - and a bunch of accepted cultures - but it must pick between a Western OE and an Eastern OE. It has to pick between cultures in a series of events - do I take Mashriqi or Bosnians? Do I accept Greeks or Bedouins? It takes the accepted culture it picks, but gives the one it refused a bunch of militancy. Compromising (i.e., trying to pick one West, one East, one West) leads to an Empire full of pockets of discontent. Hell, there could even be a 'final' event, once the others have all been taken, which outlines the kind of Empire you now have - if you take all the Western ones, you get a load of relations with Europe and a general reduction in militancy in the Balkans, but are forced into a constitutional monarchy; if you pick all East, you get a big militancy reduction in the Arab World (and maybe some free cores), but are pushed into an autocracy; if you fudge the two, then you get a much smaller bonus (Small Empire-wide mil reduction).

Yes, this works, but can you think of any way to slow down the turkification of the arab world, maybe add multiple layers of extra cores overlapping to slow it down?

So, here's the outline:

Activating the Tanzimat reform decision an RP bonus event modifier, and sets the 'Tanzimat' flag.
The Tanzimat flag activates three new events, each picking between a Western Empire culture and an Arab culture, and each handing 50% liberalness in the UH, so you can pass a reform. Each also gives a flag, depending on your choice. The events don't have short MTTHs - give 'em like 5-10 years each, tops.
Once you have three flags, you get the final event - Western Empire, Eastern Caliphate, mixed bag. Call it 'the first Ottoman Constitution', since that is what ended the Tanzimat. Have this remove the modifier. Again, this doesn't need to happen instantly; it just hits after a while when all three reform decisions have been taken.

That took a bit more than ten minutes, tho the Tanzimat lasted forty years, and could really do with being drawn out over a little more than a single decision.

I wouldint give them so much liberalness, historically, it was a mixed bag, yet the arabs still were 99% conservative, but fairly good

[Rylock]

Well, you're pretty much the only person I'd trust to do it well, so it can wait. I'll strip out some of the accepted cultures it starts with, tho.

I'd also look at the .oob file and change some of the army units to irregulars, then-- the ones which start off from provinces with unaccepted cultures. I can do that, if you like.

Insofar as the events go, maybe I'll just take a deep breath and give it some thought rather than get exasperated at objections which haven't even happened yet. I'm not having a good morning, so I'm probably less eager than I would be on a better day. I'll see if I can come up with a new plan based on your initial outline, and we'll go from there.

[Naselus]

I'd also look at the .oob file and change some of the army units to irregulars, then-- the ones which start off from provinces with unaccepted cultures. I can do that, if you like.

Insofar as the events go, maybe I'll just take a deep breath and give it some thought rather than get exasperated at objections which haven't even happened yet. I'm not having a good morning, so I'm probably less eager than I would be on a better day. I'll see if I can come up with a new plan based on your initial outline, and we'll go from there.

Meh, bollocks to the inevitable historicist objections, I'll field those (mostly by saying 'tough, the matter's closed', tbh, since this and Austria's cores are starting to get on my tits). I've just been seeing you pump more and more work into an OE that simply isn't changing very much, so it's time to rethink what we're doing - we're layering event upon event and modifier upon modifier here, and a lot of them are gonna get pretty arbitrary if we're not careful. Better to reduce the complexity, when adding more didn't help, and simply making a few starting position changes is better than putting stuff that needs balancing in itself on top of stuff that isn't balanced right in the first place.

[Connor Mulhern]

Meh, bollocks to the inevitable historicist objections, I'll field those (mostly by saying 'tough, the matter's closed', tbh, since this and Austria's cores are starting to get on my tits). I've just been seeing you pump more and more work into an OE that simply isn't changing very much, so it's time to rethink what we're doing - we're layering event upon event and modifier upon modifier here, and a lot of them are gonna get pretty arbitrary if we're not careful. Better to reduce the complexity, when adding more didn't help, and simply making a few starting position changes is better than putting stuff that needs balancing in itself on top of stuff that isn't balanced right in the first place.

TBH, its basically impossible to do a good ottoman empire under the current mechanics, the best you can do is make it work decently

[Rylock]

Okay. Having calmed down a bit and looked at this, a few questions for Naselus:

To make sure that it doesn't stop being worth playing, we then expand the Tanzimat reforms into a series of decisions and events, introducing an element of choice. The OE can gets a bunch of free reforms etc regardless of which way it chooses to go - and a bunch of accepted cultures - but it must pick between a Western OE and an Eastern OE. It has to pick between cultures in a series of events - do I take Mashriqi or Bosnians? Do I accept Greeks or Bedouins? It takes the accepted culture it picks, but gives the one it refused a bunch of militancy. Compromising (i.e., trying to pick one West, one East, one West) leads to an Empire full of pockets of discontent. Hell, there could even be a 'final' event, once the others have all been taken, which outlines the kind of Empire you now have - if you take all the Western ones, you get a load of relations with Europe and a general reduction in militancy in the Balkans, but are forced into a constitutional monarchy; if you pick all East, you get a big militancy reduction in the Arab World (and maybe some free cores), but are pushed into an autocracy; if you fudge the two, then you get a much smaller bonus (Small Empire-wide mil reduction).

Question: Do we really want the option of the OE getting Greek or Bulgarian as accepted cultures? I suppose one could argue that, historically, the OE just didn't take those options-- but you'll probably get people swearing up and down that it's not even possible that they could have. Historical arguments aside, wouldn't that make the OE incredibly powerful?

And if the decisions are between being a Western-style constitutional monarchy or an Eastern-facing autocracy, shouldn't the decisions be between having reforms and not? And even if that's not the case, didn't the OE historically become a constitutional monarchy (at least briefly)... which, in this case, would have meant it accepted a bunch of the European cultures as accepted? I'm just a bit confused as to what the two paths are supposed to represent.

Once you have three flags, you get the final event - Western Empire, Eastern Caliphate, mixed bag. Call it 'the first Ottoman Constitution', since that is what ended the Tanzimat. Have this remove the modifier. Again, this doesn't need to happen instantly; it just hits after a while when all three reform decisions have been taken.

Again, does the First Ottoman Constitution event just remove the Tanzimat modifier? Or do other things? And what would have been the historical result... an Eastern Caliphate?

[Naselus]

Question: Do we really want the option of the OE getting Greek or Bulgarian as accepted cultures? I suppose one could argue that, historically, the OE just didn't take those options-- but you'll probably get people swearing up and down that it's not even possible that they could have. Historical arguments aside, wouldn't that make the OE incredibly powerful?

Yeah, probably not Greeks, tbh. Pick three of the Empire's European cultures, and three Arab ones. It shouldn't make the OE too potent, given that either way, it's still going to end up with about half it's cultures non-accepted.

And if the decisions are between being a Western-style constitutional monarchy or an Eastern-facing autocracy, shouldn't the decisions be between having reforms and not? And even if that's not the case, didn't the OE historically become a constitutional monarchy (at least briefly)... which, in this case, would have meant it accepted a bunch of the European cultures as accepted? I'm just a bit confused as to what the two paths are supposed to represent.

Meh, I'm not sure that the First Constitutional Period really counts as a constitutional monarchy - in much the same way as the First Duma in Russia did not really turn the Tsar into a constitutional monarch either. The speed with which the Sultan could simply suspend parliament shows where the power really lay. But anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about the autocracy/ConMon stuff - the main point here is GAMEPLAY, not history. We need a weak OE at the start, so I'm taking out all the cultures. We need an interesting Tanzimat, so we're giving the player the option to build his own OE - to choose to abandon Europe or the Arabs, or to try and hold both. Hell, if you want, we could even make the reforms a separate option from either culture - you pick Bulgarian or Bedouin or healthcare.

Again, does the First Ottoman Constitution event just remove the Tanzimat modifier? Or do other things? And what would have been the historical result... an Eastern Caliphate?

The Mixed Bag would be the historical approach, tho we're taking some liberties with it; an attempt to create a system where (in theory) everyone is equal before the law (tho in practice, some groups don't - the ones who didn't get accepted).

I'd probably just have the constitution remove the Tanzimat modifier, and maybe toss in a -1 or -2 mil reduction Empire-wide.

[Rylock]

Okay, so. The Tanzimat.

1) Tanzimat decision. Set to be available when Ideological Thought is researched. Adds a country modifier which increases RP's but also increases CON.

2) First Tanzimat event: Mashriqi vs. Bulgarian. Picking one causes the other to get militancy, but adds it as an accepted culture.

3) Second Tanzimat event: Bedouin vs. Albanian. Picking one causes the other to get militancy, but adds it as an accepted culture.

4) Third Tanzimat event: Kurdish vs. Armenian. Picking one causes the other to get militancy, but adds it as an accepted culture.

5) Add three new decisions-- if all three Orthodox cultures were selected, it's a Western-facing decision. The OE gets a boost of prestige and relations with the GP's, the Congress of Berlin will not occur but the OE loses cores on the Levant. If all three Sunni cultures were selected, it's a Caliphate decision. The OE loses cores on Europe, but gains cores on more of the Sunni Middle East and the Arab Revolt cannot happen to them. If it's a mixture, it's the Kanun-i-Esasi decision, adding prestige, setting the government to Prussian Con and reducing militancy. Cores stay the same. No matter the decision, the Tanzimat modifier is removed.

6) Beyond that, the rest of the decisions/events stay the same. The Hatt-i-Humayun decision remains for the mixed version, though a different "advanced" decision for the other two versions of the OE is still possible.



Looking for Naselus' feedback, here. Insofar as suggestions from others go, the exact cultures are certainly up for debate (currently I'm going with Orthodox/Sunni but I suppose other combos are possible) and I'll have an issue if the OE no longer owns appropriate cores when the event fires (getting Albanian accepted isn't much use if Albania is no longer part of the OE) but I'll see what I can do. What the effects of the three versions are, and indeed what those three versions might be, is also debatable.

Making the progression significantly more complicated isn't something I'll really interested in entertaining, however.

[Naselus]

Okay, so. The Tanzimat.

1) Tanzimat decision. Set to be available when Ideological Thought is researched. Adds a country modifier which increases RP's but also increases CON.

2) First Tanzimat event: Mashriqi vs. Bulgarian. Picking one causes the other to get militancy, but adds it as an accepted culture.

3) Second Tanzimat event: Bedouin vs. Albanian. Picking one causes the other to get militancy, but adds it as an accepted culture.

4) Third Tanzimat event: Kurdish vs. Armenian. Picking one causes the other to get militancy, but adds it as an accepted culture.

5) Add three new decisions-- if all three Orthodox cultures were selected, it's a Western-facing decision. The OE gets a boost of prestige and relations with the GP's, the Congress of Berlin will not occur but the OE loses cores on the Levant. If all three Sunni cultures were selected, it's a Caliphate decision. The OE loses cores on Europe, but gains cores on more of the Sunni Middle East and the Arab Revolt cannot happen to them. If it's a mixture, it's the Kanun-i-Esasi decision, adding prestige, setting the government to Prussian Con and reducing militancy. Cores stay the same. No matter the decision, the Tanzimat modifier is removed.

6) Beyond that, the rest of the decisions/events stay the same. The Hatt-i-Humayun decision remains for the mixed version, though a different "advanced" decision for the other two versions of the OE is still possible.

That sounds like more or less exactly what I was hoping for. What kind of MTTH have you got in mind for them?

Also, re:5 - might three events not be better here? Players are unlikely to be aware of the Berlin Conference/Arab revolt effects (and it'd be a weird thing to be told anyway - 'let's pick this decision so that the event in 40 years time doesn't happen'), so the decision may not get used (since it boils down to 'lose some cores to get some prestige' in the Western case). Especially since they lose the valuable Tanzimat modifier.

Tho I might rip out all OE cores outside Turkey proper anyway, like with Austria.

Looking for Naselus' feedback, here. Insofar as suggestions from others go, the exact cultures are certainly up for debate (currently I'm going with Orthodox/Sunni but I suppose other combos are possible) and I'll have an issue if the OE no longer owns appropriate cores when the event fires (getting Albanian accepted isn't much use if Albania is no longer part of the OE) but I'll see what I can do. What the effects of the three versions are, and indeed what those three versions might be, is also debatable.

Making the progression significantly more complicated isn't something I'll really interested in entertaining, however.

RE: Cultures - possibly Bosnian might be better than Armenian; and maybe Maghrebi instead of Kurdish. I'm actually kinda keen for the 'best' culture choices to leave you in the mixed bag position, so you're left vulnerable to Berlin and the Revolt.

On the absent cultures thing - just give the AI weighting so it doesn't go for that option if it hasn't got that culture present anymore. Unless the Empire gets completely torn apart, that'll suffice.

[Hibernian]

On the issue of the cultures in the Middle East, now that I'm finished with the terrain stuff I can work on fixing the POPs there (like I outlined in the thread on that, though I won't add any new religions, per request). So shall I start on that?

[Naselus]

On the issue of the cultures in the Middle East, now that I'm finished with the terrain stuff I can work on fixing the POPs there (like I outlined in the thread on that, though I won't add any new religions, per request). So shall I start on that?

Sure.

[Hibernian]

Exellent. I'll start doing a bit of that then.

[Hibernian]

Forgot to say, do I have permission to create the 3 new cultures I talked about (Khaliji, Nubian and Assyrian)?


Edit: Just redid the POPs in Libyan (not a complicated area to do), but I've been thinking, would it not make more sense to represent the Ottoman-Tripolitanian war at the start with Tripolitania owning the coast (Tripoli, Misratah and Sirt) with the Ottomans just occupying it? Also, why not change the Ottoman's war goal to "make puppet" rather then annex? So that Tripolitania could actually serve some function as a country, rather then getting annexed within the first few months.

[Rylock]

That sounds like more or less exactly what I was hoping for. What kind of MTTH have you got in mind for them?

Probably 8-10 years each.

Also, re:5 - might three events not be better here? Players are unlikely to be aware of the Berlin Conference/Arab revolt effects (and it'd be a weird thing to be told anyway - 'let's pick this decision so that the event in 40 years time doesn't happen'), so the decision may not get used (since it boils down to 'lose some cores to get some prestige' in the Western case). Especially since they lose the valuable Tanzimat modifier.

True enough. I guess I was thinking that they'd be able to see the three decisions and how picking one or the other result in the events would affect that, but you're correct that some of the benefits would not be immediately apparent. Though they would see the core changes at least. And, actually, I could see adding a new modifier for the two extreme versions that adds militancy reductions to core provinces-- since they've lost cores on the "unwanted" portion of their Empire, they get less militancy with the areas they've now fully committed to. So the three versions all have some very evident plusses, with the mixed one being the middle ground.

Tho I might rip out all OE cores outside Turkey proper anyway, like with Austria.

That would be easy to do. Then I'm just adding cores rather than taking them away (and the Western-facing decision/event would then add cores in Europe)... though then one would begin to wonder what they'd get in the mixed version. No cores? All their current cores? Might seem odd.

And if they don't have cores on the Levant, what happens if they peace out on the initial war? They wouldn't have anything driving them to retake it at all, not without me creating a special CB for them (which I certainly could do-- and not having cores in the Levant would certainly make the OE's occupation of the area more difficult). Although I suppose we could also make the Oriental Crisis add TUR cores onto Egyptian-owned areas (which they could later lose if they choose the Western-facing route or if they lose the crisis).

If you'd like me to do this, I can give it a shot.

RE: Cultures - possibly Bosnian might be better than Armenian; and maybe Maghrebi instead of Kurdish. I'm actually kinda keen for the 'best' culture choices to leave you in the mixed bag position, so you're left vulnerable to Berlin and the Revolt.

Sounds fine to me.

On the absent cultures thing - just give the AI weighting so it doesn't go for that option if it hasn't got that culture present anymore. Unless the Empire gets completely torn apart, that'll suffice.

Yes, that I can do. A player is unlikely to lose all that territory anyhow, I suppose.

[flame7926]

Also, re:5 - might three events not be better here? Players are unlikely to be aware of the Berlin Conference/Arab revolt effects (and it'd be a weird thing to be told anyway - 'let's pick this decision so that the event in 40 years time doesn't happen'), so the decision may not get used (since it boils down to 'lose some cores to get some prestige' in the Western case). Especially since they lose the valuable Tanzimat modifier.

Couldn't you just make the decision description tell about future consequences?

[Rylock]

Forgot to say, do I have permission to create the 3 new cultures I talked about (Khaliji, Nubian and Assyrian)?

Are the Nubians different from the Nuba, who are already in Vic2? If so, do we really need to add another culture which has no associated tag?

I thought Naselus had already nixed Khaliji as replacing Bedouin among the Gulf States. If it goes in, we'd just need to factor it into the history files as well as the Arabian formation events.

And what is Assyrian supposed to be? Again, another culture without a tag, meant to subdivide the Mesopotamian pops?

but I've been thinking, would it not make more sense to represent the Ottoman-Tripolitanian war at the start with Tripolitania owning the coast (Tripoli, Misratah and Sirt) with the Ottomans just occupying it? Also, why not change the Ottoman's war goal to "make puppet" rather then annex? So that Tripolitania could actually serve some function as a country, rather then getting annexed within the first few months.

It serves the same function as any other rebel tag once it's annexed. Beyond that, it serves the same purpose as Rio Grande do Sul, which is evidently to represent a war because it was happening. Having the coast be occupied just serves to make the Ottomans start off with positive warscore. As for changing it to Make Puppet... why? What's "function as a country" would a puppet Tripoli serve? Tunisia sits there and does nothing for the whole game until it's released... I'm not sure that's more exciting.

[Hibernian]

I think we already had this discussion, but anyway... No the Nuba are not the same as the Nubians and the Assyrians are supposed to be the Assyrians, the non-Arab Christian ethnic group of Northern Iraq and Syria and I think they should get a tag actually (haven't quite worked out where their cores should be yet, but in that general area), because there was a significant amount of them and they did have a national movement which could have resulted in a state for them after WW1.

[Rylock]

I think we already had this discussion, but anyway... No the Nuba are not the same as the Nubians and the Assyrians are supposed to be the Assyrians, the non-Arab Christian ethnic group of Northern Iraq and Syria and I think they should get a tag actually (haven't quite worked out where their cores should be yet, but in that general area), because there was a significant amount of them and they did have a national movement which could have resulted in a state for them after WW1.

Well, there was indeed Assyrian nationalism in the era. You're right about that (though it seems to be restricted to the Mosul province and maybe the one to its right). Pretty small, if interesting. Whether it's worth adding, or worth subdividing cultural pops even more, just for the sake of having them is far more questionable. But, yeah, let's not have this discussion again.