This is from my current EUIV campaign, normal difficulty, no DLC, patch 1.35.1, ironman mode (with some save-scumming), in 1502. I am playing as Byzantium with Athens, Epirus, and Saruhan as vassals, and allied to Austria, Muscovy, and Wallachia.
My strategy was to first seek out allies so that the Ottomans would attack someone else first. I was able to get Wallachia immediately or almost immediately, and then Hungary fairly soon. Then I was able to ally Austria. The Ottomans seemed strangely passive in the early game, not declaring war until the early 1460's. However, once the Ottomans started to expand, they grabbed land rather quickly, often full-annexing allies in wars. Meanwhile, I was able to expand in the Balkans, first declaring war on Epirus, who was allied to Albania. Then I brought in Austria against Venice, then I attacked Bosnia.
The Ottomans attacked Hungary, before attacking Wallachia, Serbia, or myself. In fact, that, and the conquest of a one-province Albania were the only wars the Ottomans declared in Europe. The Ottomans basically stole Albania from me: I forced Venice to revoke their guarantee of Albania, and before I got around to declaring war on Albania myself, the Ottomans warned me.
My ally Austria was moderately lucky during the game. Austria did get the Burgundian inheritance, but Austria did not get Hungary as a junior partner, and it lost Bohemia as a PU subject almost immediately after subjugating that nation, and Austria is currently the subject of a massive coalition.
After Austria inherited Burgundy, I saw it had over 70k troops, so I decided to declare war on the Ottomans in the early 1480's. In that war, I got almost all my cores back, and created multiple Ottoman enclaves. The Ottoman AI did not stay and fight, but instead, walked through Polish territory and tried to siege down Austrian territory. The current map is after my second war against the Ottomans. They have been reduced to Anatolia and a few ugly exclaves in the Balkans.
I allied Muscovy rather late in the game, I think after the first Ottoman war, after they flipped friendly to me. They haven't made much southward expansion toward the black sea, and I have not called them into a war. (The Muscovy-colored provinces in the Pontic steppe is the Great Horde.)
In short, once the player can get a strong ally, it becomes unlikely that the Ottomans will even declare war on the player. Even with sub-optimal play, it is not that hard to defeat the Ottomans as Byzantium, at least on normal difficulty. Granted, Byzantium does have advantages that other tags in the region do not. Byzantium doesn't have other potential threats besides possibly Venice, which itself is probably going to come into conflict with the Ottomans over Albania. Likewise, Byzantium's existence implies that Constantinople isn't in Ottoman hands, which is a loss of a "free" province for the Ottomans, and prevents them from getting empire rank.
Also, one might object that a no-DLC game is different than the typical settings. However, a no-DLC is by definition no easier than with DLC, as the "pay to lose" DLCs can be disabled, and most of the DLCs make the game easier under most circumstances. (I.e. the player isn't generally paying to make the game harder.)
- 10
- 1
