A History of the Ottoman Empire: 1688-1718
Reign of Sultan Mus.t.afâ II Khan,
Emperor,
Sovereign of the House of Osman,
Sultan of Sultans,
Khan of Khans,
Commander of the Faithful and Successor (Caliph) of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe,
Custodian of the Holy Sanctuaries (the Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem),
Master of the Deccan,
Lord of India and Africa,
Emperor of Rome,
Emperor of The Three Cities of Constantinople, Adrianople and Bursa, and of the Cities of Damascus and Cairo, of all Azerbaijan, of the Magreb, of Barka, of Kairouan, of Aleppo, of the Arabic and the Persian Iraq, of Basra, of Al-Hasa strip, of Ar Raqqah, of Mosul, of Diyarbakır, of Cilicia, of Ahmadabad, of Bombay and the Deccan of India, of the provinces of Erzurum, of Sivas, of Adana, of Karaman, Van, of Abyssinia, of Tripoli, of Damascus, of Cyprus, of Crete, of the province of Morea, of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and also their coasts, of Anatolia, Rumelia, Baghdad, Kurdistan, Greece, Turkistan, Tartary, of the two regions of Kabarda, of the Steppe of Kypchaks, of the whole country of the Tatars, of the City and Fort of Belgrade, of the province of Serbia, with all the castles and cities, of all Albania, of all Eflak and Bogdania, as well as all the dependencies and borders, and many other countries and cities, of Benin and Songhai, of the Vaal and Transvaal, of the oases of the Sahara and protector of the faithful.
Europe 1718
If You Wait Long Enough, Everything Changes
1688-1698
After the double betrayal of the previous session I knew that I couldn't trust France to stay out of Ottoman affairs. Conveniently, I wasn't the only one displeased with French meddling. John was still upset over the loss of German cultured provinces earlier in the century and it was hoped that HAL was also upset about the inequitable distribution of Italian lands. Although trust between Turk and Austrian was difficult to come by at first, eventually a deal was hammered out. The Prussian monarch was forced to cede enormous tracts of land in North America and significant land in Europe in order to secure his border for the upcoming war, but he was willing to make the sacrifice. I knew before the session that I could get land tech 35 around 1694 or 1695, so I estimated Drake (with his LT lead: LT31 to my LT28 and higher techspeed) could get it around 1692 or 1693 at the latest. Thus we opted for an early strike. After some delays because I didn't have diplomats (apparently they're somehow consumed in the process of delivering treaties, I suspect Turk is a rare delicacy in Europe) we declared war in November of 1690, about eleven months later than we'd planned.
Fortunately, my estimates about Drake's land tech was wrong or he didn't invest in it, so we maintained parity throughout the first war. Naturally, Spain joined Drake, but the Austro-Prussian forces led by Eugen and von Dessau made quick inroads into Italy and the west bank of the Rhine. The Ottoman war effort was more limited. I sent my warship fleet from India through the Strait of Malacca on the way to Drake's Alaskan CoT, picking up some warscore killing his anti-pirate fleets along the way. The offensive in India went predictably, easily capturing his three provinces there, but unfortunately burning the FAA I wanted. In Europe, I didn't do much as I wasn't willing to contest their navies (which were about double my strength when combined) out of home waters. I marched an army towards Venice, but they blocked the strait before I could cross. By 1693 France was eating stabhits and agreed to peace, surrendering two Swiss, one Indian, one Rhine and two Italian provinces. Two of the manufactories in these provinces burned during the war, but those are the breaks.
Immediately following the war HAL was kind enough to DOW the Mughals for me, allowing me to maintain MA and greatly facilitating my war effort. Since I'd wiped out the French forces in Afghanistan Drake was in no position to block me from "vassalizing" them. He dowed them anyway, and ferried in more and more reinforcements for the next four years. In the end he peaced for most of Afghanistan. However, the long war left his war exhaustion very high and he was unprepared when we renewed the war in 1698.
Reign of Sultan Ah.med III Khan,
Emperor,
Sovereign of the House of Osman,
Sultan of Sultans,
Khan of Khans,
Commander of the Faithful and Successor (Caliph) of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe,
Custodian of the Holy Sanctuaries (the Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem),
Master of the Deccan,
Lord of India and all Africa,
Emperor of Rome,
Emperor of The Three Cities of Constantinople, Adrianople and Bursa, and of the Cities of Damascus and Cairo, of all Azerbaijan, of the Magreb, of Barka, of Kairouan, of Aleppo, of the Arabic and the Persian Iraq, of Basra, of Al-Hasa strip, of Ar Raqqah, of Mosul, of Diyarbakır, of Cilicia, of Ahmadabad, of Bombay and the Deccan of India, of the provinces of Erzurum, of Sivas, of Adana, of Karaman, Van, of Abyssinia, of Tripoli, of Damascus, of Cyprus, of Crete, of the province of Morea, of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea and also their coasts, of Anatolia, Rumelia, Baghdad, Kurdistan, Greece, Turkistan, Tartary, of the two regions of Kabarda, of the Steppe of Kypchaks, of the whole country of the Tatars, of the City and Fort of Belgrade, of the province of Serbia, with all the castles and cities, of all Albania, of all Eflak and Bogdania, as well as all the dependencies and borders, and many other countries and cities, of Benin and Songhai, of the Vaal and Transvaal, of the oases of the Sahara and protector of the faithful.
Second Verse, Same as the First
1698-1712
After his most recent war with the Mughals it was obvious Drake still had no intention of leaving me alone so another war was inevitable. More importantly, I wanted to help Austria/Brandenburg shore up their new territories. I saw a golden opportunity when I noticed France's Asian Squadron sailing past Kalicut to reinforce his Afghani lands. I set an ambush with my combined warship/galley fleet and declared war as we entered the same sea zone off Sri Lanka (180 warships and 400 galleys vs about 600 galleys). Drake got mauled pretty badly and then retreated east to the non-coastal sea zone, losing even more ships to attrition. I had LT35 and NT31 (galleys get more shock and better morale at NT31) so I felt confident challenging their navies in Europe. TC also had LT 35, but John and HAL didn't have it yet, Drake was close. I think he got it in 1699 or 1700. I moved to Venice (illegally boosted to a maximum fort) and unloaded 120k under my best general. It was lucky I succeeded with the assault because I'd mistakenly let my worst admiral take command of my fleet. Outnumbered by nearly 1000 ships and with an inferior leader I was forced to retreat, temporarily stranding my general.
As my army attritioned down to 70k, I rallied my reinforced fleet while Spain surrounded Venice with close to 200k men. The ensuing battle was a nail-biter with both sides almost breaking, but I held on with 30k left. An attempt to lift the blockade by my navy failed, but the Franco-Spanish navy also retreated around this time (I think because of John's naval shenanigans, he launched amphibious invasions of northern France and Iberia in this war) which allowed me to extricate my army (and leader) from Venice. As in the last war, French Afghanistan fell quickly allowing us to get a lot of warscore. Drake landed an army in Kalicut, but my Eastern navy was still bigger after that first battle and drove him off before he could capture it. Once Drake got LT35 John was having more trouble on the Rhine, but Venice and Afghanistan made up for it. I also captured Drake's COT in Alaska again. I spent the rest of the war defending Austrian Italy from Spanish incursions and making some offensives into French Italy, but these were pushed back fairly easily by TC. Drake accepted a stabhit for separate peace ceding Venice and an Afghan province to me, with Prussia getting Elsass. Spain and Sweden were still at war with us, so we leveraged that to get Drake to cede the rest of Afghanistan (which he'd mostly taken from the Mughals earlier this session). Venice was given to HAL as further compensation for his aid.
Hard Times
1712-1718
I knew (or thought I knew) I'd have ten years of peace because Drake was going to cede the Mughal provinces (giving me a truce) in five years. In hindsight it's pretty obvious that he'd use the truce to attack John or HAL, but that happens later. I used the time to attack Vijayanagar and Hyderabad, with one Austrian DOW and another lucky CB from an event. I took two provinces, both with FAAs. Then I built three more, which should give me a decent number of leaders next session.
As foreshadowed earlier, France used my truce to attack Prussia in 1709, about two years into our truce. Russia and Sweden were also attacking Austria at this time, and I was trying to fund both of them. Unfortunately, my state gifts to Austria and Prussia were 117D and 83D respectively and I didn't get that many diplomats. Eventually, I decided to break the truce to help John. I landed 80k in Argentina and Mexico, but I only had one conquistador left. My leaderless force in Argentina failed to assault a medium fort and was then routed by TC's forces there. In Mexico my conquistador killed all of TC's defenders, then promptly died of old age. I split the army to assault more minimum forts and avoid attrition, but Drake showed up with 80k under a conquistador and that was the end of that. I won one battle and killed about half of Drake's men through combat and attrition, but without a leader I re-routed the reinforcements (and warships) back to Europe for the naval showdown there.
I had also landed about 300k in southern Italy at the same time my North and South American Expeditionary Forces attacked. The Italian campaign was a resounding success, I captured five provinces in short order and was only slowed by a misclick retreating about 170k from a panicking 30k. That misclick meant TC had time to reposition his fleet and block the strait to Sicily before my army could march across. So I marched north, to continue the offensive there. Despite the setback, I had about 60 warscore against Spain (again) and was stabhitting. I also realized that I had a golden opportunity to whittle down Spain's navy since I had my warships in Europe and Drake's navy was MIA. TC finally got reinforcements to Italy, and met my army as I attacked his navy, resulting in an exciting dual battle. I won the first naval battle, but lost the land one along with my last general (a pathetic 2-2-4 [after sliders] historical). I pursued his navy, but suffered a setback of my own, basically reversing the losses I'd inflicted on him in the first battle. We were both left with about 1000 ships.
The Dual Battles of Marche and Taranto
Unfortunately, all this fighting didn't help John at all because France just kept sending separate stabhits to him. He accepted a separate peace offer ceding two provinces (some of the action recounted above actually happened after he peaced). As with my attempt to help Russia, I should have focused more on stabilizing his situation on the Rhine instead of attacking Spain. In fact, I had enough men that I could have probably done both. John peacing out left me at war with England, Spain and France with Sweden joining a few months later. Now alone at war against half the countries in the game, I was potentially facing disaster, but it wasn't as bad as it seemed at first glance. Sweden wasn't fresh after fighting HAL for so long, and didn't have the manpower to make much headway in West Africa in any case. England didn't really do anything, and Spain's navy had been whittled down somewhat. Mine had been too, but I had a lot more shipyards than he did. I offered white peace, and probably would've accepted some reasonable province demands, but Drake opened negotiations by demanding Sinai (probably the most valuable province for any nation in the game, with the exception of Egypt), so I dug in and prepared for a long war. Drake sent his warship fleet with Villars to make a landing in Egypt, but turned around when he saw my fleet approaching. Unfortunately, his fleet was too fast for me to catch. He had a lot more warships than me at this point, so I didn't want to split off my warships to chase him either. All this maneuvering took time, but eventually he retreated and combined fleets with TC to set the stage for another naval battle between the Ottomans and the West.
I'd used the time well, with shipyard production in full swing I'd rebuilt nearly 500 galleys while Spain's navy had stayed nearly stagnant. I still had fewer warships, but hoped for home waters to make up the difference. Luckily, they messed up their coordination. Drake attacked early and I got several days of combat before TC's fleet arrived. They lost pretty convincingly, but I was afraid to pursue into the Ionian Sea where both TC and I have home waters.
After the retreat, Drake unloaded Villars with about 40k and 800 cannons into Epirus, stormed the fort and headed to Attica. I saw an opportunity to kill Villars (and 800 cannons) so I chose to contest the Ionian Sea to prevent reinforcements or retreat. I'd also sunk a large portion of their fleets and had superior rebuilding capacity so I thought it was a good gamble. I won this battle as well, inflicting heavy losses. After waiting for all his infantry to starve I cleaned up Villars as well. By now they'd had enough--Stats show Ottoman naval losses at about 250/1250 warships/galleys and combined Spanish/French losses at 350/4000 (though it should be noted that John sunk some of their ships too). Speaking of John, he had joined the war against Sweden and although I didn't have a leader in West Africa I could just overwhelm Ampo with bodies. We ended up agreeing to peace for 7000D (from Sweden to Prussia) and an agreement that TC and Drake not attack HAL during the truce. That brings our story up to 1718.
Edits: TBD
Bonuses: AAR/Ontime
Sliders: none
Treasury: None
Inflation: -1 (AAR)
kingstats +4 military (ontime)
Tech bonus/Stability bonus:
Fine art stab bonus: 10800
Core on nothing
Leaders:
base + FAA = 5/5
+1 leader forgotten from last session
Sliders: 0
Total leaders: 3 generals, 3 conqs, 3 admirals 2 explorers
Annex Mughals
Reset everyone's land sliders
Check warships
Luxury manu stab (country/#of manus/years/total--just look at the last number)
OE 12 30 10800
spain 1 30 900
france 3 30 2700
russia 2 30 1800
sweden 1 30 900
england 2 30 1800
prussia 2 30 1800
austria 1 30 900