Beta Balance

[Porcius]

Another problem with the Ottomans and Russians is that they can't just mint cash to build TCs. They start at Infrastructure 0 so they need to push their investments there. They can take loans, but until the conquest of Byzantium, they will never pay them off. Add in an AI that chooses to forego the CoT in Thrace and you have a recipe for bankruptcies and chaos.

Anything that takes away the fun from playing as many countries as possible hurts the game. If I want a challenge, I'll play Lenape or Magdeburg. The Ottomans should be fun and full of choices - not a rail-locked chore that forces me to fail if I don't conquer everything in the "right" order.

The no taxation without TC is too much lost revenue for too many states.

 

[Porcius]

Originally posted by JohnMK
I honestly wonder where people find this logic. I start off as the Ottomans and build tax collectors just fine, at some negligible inflation expense.

In 1419 with 0 infrastructure? Would you care to say how you do this? IIRC, TCs require infra 1, which takes at least one year to get - usually closer to two.

 

[Porcius]

Originally posted by JohnMK
2 years out of 400. Cry me a river.

I'm with you that it's not a long time to wait - two years is nothing in the grand scheme of things - but those first few years are crucial for the Turks. 60k men, no census tax, lousy trade goods and dozens of loans. I wouldn't mind a 7 or eight per cent inflation rate by 1424 - even ten. It's the cycles of bankruptcies that come and push inflation to 40 or 50. Making maintenance more expensive, TCs costing 70 bucks apiece. The AI gets brakes on its inflation rate, and a good thing too, or they'd never break out of Anatolia.

With no census taxes for the AI sans TC either, you're not exactly raking in cash from sacking capitals, either, unless you can get to Venice unaccosted.

Census taxes are the major source of income for states until trade gets going - a major problem for the Turks until Constantinople fails. Issues of too much money to spend may exist in the late game - it is not an issue at the start.

And anything that forces player controlled Turks to follow a "winning path" instead of one the player decides on is a bad thing gamewise.