Imperial Self-destruct?

[thebigboss-89]

I've been playing as sweden now for a while and been successful good economy, big territory and so on.
but... there's another massive empire close to me (ottoman empire), someone might think that's just fun, but no.

you see the ottoman empire has a "indestructable empire" it seems... I have an income that's 5 times as big, a nation 3 times as big, much lower inflation and much better stability (I have 2+, they have -3) and I have much better researches

Even though I have all these massive streangths (+ the other 3 strrongest nationns in europe as allies, they have none) the ottomans win all the time! (it seems like they can start wars with -3 stability aswell)

how should I defeat them?? I was thinking of "waiting them out" so that they would fall of thier own weight (almost all thier provinces has a revolt risk of 14) is that a good tactic? any other ideas?

/johan

[lenny]

If you have a higher income but still lose the war you are obviously not spending enough on your military.
(How is the tech looking, btw?)

Anyway, fight defensively, only engage in battle when you have superiority and do not shy away from retreating if a fight does not go your way. Wear down their manpower, and once they suffer from high casualties, go on the offensive.

[Dvoid]

If you have better tech, but still lose to the Ottomans two immediate things come to mind. One, have you been employing sufficient numbers. If you have manpower and tech, then you should employ some overwhelming force with leaders. Better and more troops should win. Two, strategy! What type of strategy have you been employing on the Ottomans?

[thebigboss-89]

my techs is far better then thiers at least 4-5 levels better.
it's true that my army is smaller then it should, but the ottoamans has an army thats enourmus for their income!

we share a really long boarder too, so when I attack one way they attack another where my defence is low.

[thebigboss-89]

Originally Posted by Dvoid

If you have better tech, but still lose to the Ottomans two immediate things come to mind. One, have you been employing sufficient numbers. If you have manpower and tech, then you should employ some overwhelming force with leaders. Better and more troops should win. Two, strategy! What type of strategy have you been employing on the Ottomans?

you see we share a long boarder, about 5 large fronts. that makes it difficult to make a large attack since that makes other fronts low on defence. (if you don't hava massive army, which I maight get... should I?) the ottomans have a gigantic army compered to thier income, I don't nderstand how they can afford it!
still with my economy I might be able to employ about 20 000 more troops.... if I dare to ( I DO NOT want to ruin my economy... it took so long to build up!)
thanks for replying! =)

[thebigboss-89]

how big is the chance that the ottoman empire falls by it's own weight?

[lenny]

Originally Posted by thebigboss-89

how big is the chance that the ottoman empire falls by it's own weight?

Slim to none.

[Ahaz Flagg]

Well in all my games, at some point I make it my goal to clear the Ottoman out of Europe. The key is short wars, what I do is send in 50-70 k troops to take 4 provinces, my Armies are grouped in 7's. I always keep 14-21 k as reserves to go where the Ottoman make a push, after you take around 8 provinces you should have a 99% war score, demand 4-5 provinces and 50 Ductas. In 5 years do the same thing, depending on how much land they took in Europe, you should have them out of there in 50-75 years. Than, go take over the HRE.

Also, keep some cash reserve, because you may need to hire 10-20 k mercs.

Why on earth would you not want more troops? I always try to keep max allowed, in my current game i have well over 200k troops, and as soon as i can i will build more!!!

And like has been said, try to have a General in as many Armies as you can. I found the best way to keep and have alot of generals is to always be at war. What i like to do is have 3 main enemy's. That way i can always have some type of fighting going on. France, at least in my game is best to fight, Fight just to fight, i do not want any of their land, but those massive battles do keep the war score up.

[berhaven]

Originally Posted by Ahaz Flagg

Well in all my games, at some point I make it my goal to clear the Ottoman out of Europe. The key is short wars, what I do is send in 50-70 k troops to take 4 provinces, my Armies are grouped in 7's. I always keep 14-21 k as reserves to go where the Ottoman make a push, after you take around 8 provinces you should have a 99% war score, demand 4-5 provinces and 50 Ductas. In 5 years do the same thing, depending on how much land they took in Europe, you should have them out of there in 50-75 years.

I agree on the general line, but with a little variation: I would not ask for provinces, but for release of independent states. With two advantages: not get BB and have strong chances, if OE defeat was severe enough, to have new states (my allies) dow OE very soon, and be able to join the war without stab hits.

[thebigboss-89]

Originally Posted by Ahaz Flagg

Well in all my games, at some point I make it my goal to clear the Ottoman out of Europe. The key is short wars, what I do is send in 50-70 k troops to take 4 provinces, my Armies are grouped in 7's. I always keep 14-21 k as reserves to go where the Ottoman make a push, after you take around 8 provinces you should have a 99% war score, demand 4-5 provinces and 50 Ductas. In 5 years do the same thing, depending on how much land they took in Europe, you should have them out of there in 50-75 years. Than, go take over the HRE.

Also, keep some cash reserve, because you may need to hire 10-20 k mercs.

Why on earth would you not want more troops? I always try to keep max allowed, in my current game i have well over 200k troops, and as soon as i can i will build more!!!

And like has been said, try to have a General in as many Armies as you can. I found the best way to keep and have alot of generals is to always be at war. What i like to do is have 3 main enemy's. That way i can always have some type of fighting going on. France, at least in my game is best to fight, Fight just to fight, i do not want any of their land, but those massive battles do keep the war score up.

that's a good plan, but it only works if you play as france or ome other filthy rich country. I cant afford 200 000 armies!! right now I think I have 50 totaly... but that might bee enogh.

gonna play some now, thanx for the ideas!

[lenny]

As a general guideline on how much troops you should afford, use your supply limit.

[spl]

use attention to detail! really slow speed, plan it out so you can conquer and divide

[Grosshaus]

Are you certain you have chosen to upgrade your troops after gaining new military techs?

Also you should not forget diplomacy. If Ottomans beat you one-on-one, then avoid that. Get some allies and, most importantly, attack them only after they have fought already a long war with some other nation or alliance.

When they already have -3 stability and a lot of war exhaustion, you can also complement your troops with inciting rebels in their non-accepted culture provinces. That is how I as Sicily won my first war against Ottomans which started their slow decline.

[Merak]

Originally Posted by Ahaz Flagg

Well in all my games, at some point I make it my goal to clear the Ottoman out of Europe. The key is short wars, what I do is send in 50-70 k troops to take 4 provinces, my Armies are grouped in 7's. I always keep 14-21 k as reserves to go where the Ottoman make a push, after you take around 8 provinces you should have a 99% war score, demand 4-5 provinces and 50 Ductas. In 5 years do the same thing, depending on how much land they took in Europe, you should have them out of there in 50-75 years. Than, go take over the HRE.

Also, keep some cash reserve, because you may need to hire 10-20 k mercs.

Why on earth would you not want more troops? I always try to keep max allowed, in my current game i have well over 200k troops, and as soon as i can i will build more!!!

And like has been said, try to have a General in as many Armies as you can. I found the best way to keep and have alot of generals is to always be at war. What i like to do is have 3 main enemy's. That way i can always have some type of fighting going on. France, at least in my game is best to fight, Fight just to fight, i do not want any of their land, but those massive battles do keep the war score up.

if you have max troops does that hurt the tech research?
do you not need much of the yearly income to pay for the troops instead of building improvments?
now when you have a big empire that might not be the case, but i am wondering becase i have the same problem my self but with france austria and ottoman empire (do not want them to attack me when they have 6-7 times more troops)

[Bowfling44]

Originally Posted by Merak

if you have max troops does that hurt the tech research?
do you not need much of the yearly income to pay for the troops instead of building improvments?
now when you have a big empire that might not be the case, but i am wondering becase i have the same problem my self but with france austria and ottoman empire (do not want them to attack me when they have 6-7 times more troops)

You can set maintenance lower during non-war months, making it cheaper.

Note that the OE is likely using mercenaries to fill it's ranks, meaning they could have a very large army for their size.

However, you claim you have 50,000 for a "large empire". that is woefully small. if yo land limit is 100+, you will need more. Double your land forces immediately, either by building back from the front line, or from mercenaries. Your 5 tech level lead may well be the result of paying too much for slightly better tech, and not enough for people to use that tech.

[insolent1]

Don't bother fighting them till you get landtech14 as this gives you a decent cavalry unit until then the ottomans have better cavalry.
You pretty much have 2 choices loads of wars or one big long one where you go for turbo annex. If you go for normal wars make sure you get the four provinces that border Thrace as this will give all their provinces the -30% overseas penalty it will also reduce their census tax by 30%. Build a huge fleet & make sure you destroy theirs in the wars as this will make them build a new huge fleet which is a massive expenditure. If you think taking down the ottomans is bad wait till you have to take down a massive France, Austria or Burgundy.

[Dominique]

Tech alone is not sufficient to win wars. You need good generals and to get good generals you need TE...

I just played Muscovy, and I had no manpower and no tech but I won several wars against Lithuania and Kazan. It was a ruff one believe me. I learned several tricks in that game. Like:

1) Let the mammoths armies wear themselves against your cities, attack them when they assault your fortresses -their moral drops down a lot when they assault -

2) Try creating a medium size cavalry unit (6-8000 strong) and send them in deep penetration in your enemy's territory. Attack relentlessly the small reinforcements units dragging alone behind the frontline. It will build up your TE, and help you buy generals with good stats. PLUS, the AI will pull back big infantry units from the front to run after your cavalry army.

3) To destroy large armies you need High shock value.

And my advice?

Don't mess with the steppes! The Ottomans have pretty good early units. The Spahis kick the knights and caracolle around and so on. It's not until you get units like gustavian infantry that you can compete with the turks 1000 men for 1000 men. And it's historically correct so it's ok. (It makes my eyes burn each time I see AI Austria gut AI Turkey with landsknechts... Something that never happened IRL) . Same thing with Persia (their Kizilbash can ruin your party early) and Timurids (If you think you fought large armies against the turks...). So avoid the middle east, the steppes and central asia until mid game. Ducat for ducat, it's not worth it. You could bath in Inca gold for a tenth of the effort.

[thebigboss-89]

Originally Posted by Bowfling44

You can set maintenance lower during non-war months, making it cheaper.

Note that the OE is likely using mercenaries to fill it's ranks, meaning they could have a very large army for their size.

However, you claim you have 50,000 for a "large empire". that is woefully small. if yo land limit is 100+, you will need more. Double your land forces immediately, either by building back from the front line, or from mercenaries. Your 5 tech level lead may well be the result of paying too much for slightly better tech, and not enough for people to use that tech.

I've now tried out some tricks, and it seems to be working, my army was way way to small (around 85 000, that's really a small army since I am the biggest nation in the world) now it's bigger. and I've attacked I think I can beat them... If I can beat the clock, theres not much time left...(it's now late 1720's)

[berhaven]

Originally Posted by thebigboss-89

I've now tried out some tricks, and it seems to be working, my army was way way to small (around 85 000, that's really a small army since I am the biggest nation in the world) now it's bigger. and I've attacked I think I can beat them... If I can beat the clock, theres not much time left...(it's now late 1720's)

Well, if it's late 1720's you don't have to bother to much about economic development any more: it's time to HARVEST

If you have high income (I guess you should be in the several hundreds per month), lots of inflation fighting tools and good tech (i.e. you research more than 8 years ahead) you can mint up to 40-50% of monthly revenues, and you can spend huge amounts of money on military budget.

Build a huge army; if you do not have manpower hire mercs; beat hard with defensive-counteroffensive tactics. Use all the tricks (army rotation in long battles, attack while big enemy armies are assaulting, let your arty join the battle on day 5 or multiple, let some enemy armies come into your lines and defeat them on and on in many battles, land some of your armies in a completely undefended area - best where there are 0 level forts, create havoc in their rear); if possible DOW when they are busy somewhere else, or when they have revolts;
in peace negotiations always ask for releasing of independent countries instead of provinces: the odds of being at war very soon are very high.
In 60 years or so, you can eat them up.
Let the Variag Guard return to Constantinoples