1.8 Ottoman ideas for massive conquest?

[Morik]

I want to start a new Ottoman game and expand in all directions.

I'm not super great at optimizing my loadout though... here are my thoughts so far:

General thoughts: Money doesn't seem to be much of an issue for Ottomans in 1.8 (or before that, but especially so in 1.8).

Manpower isn't that much of an issue aside from early game, I've found. If using mercs appropriately.
(Though I just had a game where I picked up quantity... got to 350k manpower and 425 forcelimits by 1600, didn't really need mercs except that one time I was fighting France, Austria, and a bunch of HRE nations and a few others at the same time, while also warring in Africa & Persia.)

I like snowballing my money into ridiculous income... though maybe that isn't optimal use of MP. If I have a string of good rulers, I do start hitting MP caps though. I tend to build buildings to get down from the cap. (And I tend to build manufacturing buildings if I only need to get down a few points.)
I guess I could use diplo points on culture conversions instead of buildings if near the cap, but... I think its fun to try to get all my trade into the venice node, which requires a good bit of trade power in Ragusa, so diplo buildings are helpful there... (though again, I know this isn't really optimal probably, but I find it fun).

- Influence ideas seem good for:
- Fab time down by 33%
- Diplo annex cost down
- Diplo reputation up (faster annexation)
- +1 diplo relation (and envoy time is nice)
- Fantastic -50% unjustified demands--full annexation is usually 200 diplo, vassalizing is 50. Taking non-claim provinces is 50... This will add up to a lot of saved points over time. (I try to fab claims on everything I want first, but its sometimes not feasible.)

- Religious ideas for the CB & the faster conversions & the stab cost down.

- Trade ideas? (I'd have to examine the trade map for 1.8 again... not sure but I think I'd need more than 2 merchants if I want to really push trade to Venice... need 1 in Ragusa, 1 in Alexandria, 1 in gulf of Aden... and after more expansion one in Crimea, and probably a few other places I'm forgetting.)

- Admin for the coring cost down, the merc benefits are nice, more advisor choices, and admin tech cost down.

- Diplo for the diplomat, relations slot, reputation, warscore costs...

- Aristocratic? Manpower, leader shock, a diplomat, mil tech cost down, and a leader without upkeep.

- Offensive for forced march & the other goodness


- Humanist seems pretty good... but that is a 4th admin idea... quantity would help with having massive forces available for warring on many fronts... quality may help a little in keeping up with the Euro power armies.... Innovative would give another leader without upkeep (nice when warring on many fronts) plus a bunch of other benefits (but again is a 4th admin idea, stretching points kinda tight maybe)

Also not sure on the order to take things...
Religious first for the CB? Admin first for the coring cost down? Influence first so I can get to a 2nd idea group faster & get diplo annex stuff rolling?

Maybe:
Influence, Admin, Religious, Offensive, Diplomatic, Trade, Aristocratic, Innovative?

Though having an extra diplomat earlier may be more helpful...
Influence, Admin, Diplomatic, Religious, Trade, Offensive, Aristotratic, Innovative?

Or ditch administrative?
Influence, Religious, Diplo, Humanist, Trade, Offensive, Aristocratic, Innovative?

(BTW, I know Otto is OP and I don't need to worry about it, but I want to anyway.)

 

[Ak1995]

First idea : Quantity.
Massive manpower and forcelimit boots, cheaper monarch points for constructing buildings as well, a must to field an enourmouse army.

Second idea : Administration.
we all dont like to spend admin power, but with the -25% core cost you can expand ridicoulously easy, -33% from tradition + -25% from admin idea and with claims even cheaper. a province at 10 base tax cost under 100 admin power to core as ottomans.

Third idea defensive for military or trade for economy or religious.
rest up to you

 

[Foxl]

You got most points right.

My last Ottoman setup was

Admin, Influence, [since you conquer more before diploannex so a reduction is more useful] after this the 3rd and following ideas are heavily depending on ruler stats and where to go. I went in my last game Offensive / Religious / Exploration and then humanist, expansion and diplomatic. You can ditch exploration for a military idea if you want to fight the major powers in Europe early on without colonizing yourself.

edit: I won't advise taking trade or manpower related ideas because you won't need them if you grow over a certain size, which will happen quite early. And now in 1.8 with the gold mine in Serbia you'll be able to field at max force limits for a long time and still making money.

 

[Morik]

In my first 1.8 game as Otto I constantly found myself near the admin cap (even after nat focusing diplo), and constantly short on diplo power. Full annexation is so expensive... and I was expanding way too fast to be able to diplo vassalize very often (especially since full annexation on a nation with vassals gives you those vassals). I'd end up with full relations slots and massive waiting times to diplo annex (10 year wait between subjects) unless I happened to be able to get a statesman advisor.

So for saving MP while expanding, I want both Admin & Influence (the unjustified demands bonus looks really good... the diplo rep lets me continually annex subjects). Diplomatic seems good too for the extra diplomat, dip rep, and tech cost down.

Though maybe Religious would save me enough given that it makes all the diplo costs 0 for taking stuff from heathens and heretics. (Though it seems there are a lot of sunni nations around me too...)

Why defensive ideas? I rarely have enemies in my territory for long.

 

[Incompetent]

Humanism is awesome for any expansionist power, and it stacks nicely with the Ottomans' culture threshold modifier. Take it early, because it also gives -10% idea cost, and because you will need those unrest-killing bonuses early on. With Humanism + Ottoman tolerance, you don't even need to convert the heathens.

 

[Morik]

I didn't have any unrest issues in my first 1.8 game... I think I went admin, trade, offensive, quantity
I mean yeah a few rebel stacks early on, but upon conquering just up autonomy. Hold defender of the faith and full piety and just constantly be converting provinces.

 

[durvas]

You really need to invest into Influence and Diplomatic to be able to integrate in any reasonable amount of time by mid-game. But if you do, you can be back at 1.7 style vassal integration speed by the 1530s. You don't need religious ideas if do some religion switching instead of going to Orthodox right away. Expansion is probably not worth it now due to the combination of a lot of reasons. I would go:

Humanist
Influence
Diplomatic
Administrative
Exploration
Aristocratic
Quantity
Nothing for last group, points are better spent elsewhere by this point

Humanist and Administrative are switchable depending on what route you take

 

[Novacat]

You really need to invest into Influence and Diplomatic to be able to integrate in any reasonable amount of time by mid-game. But if you do, you can be back at 1.7 style vassal integration speed by the 1530s. You don't need religious ideas if do some religion switching instead of going to Orthodox right away. Expansion is probably not worth it now due to the combination of a lot of reasons.

Expansion is worth it if you plan on conquering India and China. Combined with Diplomatic and Influence you can conquer huge amounts of land in few wars without generating much AE at all. The Steppes you can probably grab by vassalizing a horde and using its Tribal Feud CB to gobble up all the other hordes.

 

[durvas]

Expansion is worth it if you plan on conquering India and China. Combined with Diplomatic and Influence you can conquer huge amounts of land in few wars without generating much AE at all. The Steppes you can probably grab by vassalizing a horde and using its Tribal Feud CB to gobble up all the other hordes.

Yeah, I didn't realize the Dip idea actually stacks with the CB unlike Admin Efficiency (at least last patch). I thought the Dip idea would apply like Admin Efficiency on CB WS calculation but it just globally lowers all WS before CBs. Should definitely put it in and take quantity out, then. As to where it would go, probably first or fourth (Dip and Influence are just so good AND needed this patch). Did the CB get buffed, too? I hadn't seen the Core Return portion of it, but I played mostly unwesternized countries last patch and couldn't use expansion.

 

[Novacat]

The strongest thing about Expansion CB is not the 50% warscore, but rather the 50% warscore costs which means you can take double the land for the same amount of warscore, which means more land conquered in fewer wars.

Did the CB get buffed, too?

No, it was always redicuously powerful.

 

[Drakken]

I love Espionage as the Ottomans; with it's first idea I can wreck havoc in the Venice trade node with 25 light ships privateering. financing themselves with the Spoils of war.

In my current game, my privateers own 40% of the trade node. I could even fund more until I completely own it.

 

[Morik]

How does espionage affect privateers? Does embargo efficiency apply to privateers?

 

[Drakken]

How does espionage affect privateers? Does embargo efficiency apply to privateers?

Espionage's first idea give +33% Privateer Efficiency and +25% Embargo Efficiency.

 

[Morik]

Espionage's first idea give +33% Privateer Efficiency and +25% Embargo Efficiency.

Ah I was looking at an outdated wiki page (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Espionage)