Dismantling the Ottomans - need some pointers

[Chuwawa]

Hello,
I'm trying to complete African Power. It's about 1740 and I've got all of Africa except for Algiers and most of the Nile Delta, which is held by the Ottomans.

I'm running into issues cutting them down in size. See picture.

-I'm allied with Russia and Italy and Austria is Italy's vassal
-I've had 3 wars so far and I can only take 3-6 provinces from them so I'm running out of time
-My army is about 80-90% of the Ottomans. Allies add about 200k force limit so all together we're not quite 200% their size
However they use mercs heavily, have quick manpower regeneration so we are having issues burning through all of that quickly. I have no trouble winning fights 1:1 I just can't drain them fast enough
-Our last war we ran their war exhaustion to 13 at which point Italy white peaced and we had to settle at about 35% war victory. What ticks me off is that even the 13 war exhaustion didn't give them a single local revolt....
-What complicates things is that Ottoman allies GB so every 2nd war we have to fight them as well (I ask for them to annul treaties)

What can I do to turn this around in time?

- I have quantity and quality
- I'm getting naval and maritime. My hope next war is to overwhelm them with galleys. This has been difficult because of GBs involvement so far
-What else can I do? I'm ticked off that I can't starve them on 3 fronts.

As an aside, since I've been back to play this isn't isolated. About 80% of the time by 1700s Ottomans is knocking on Berlin and Vienna all the way from Somalia and Tunis which seems unrealistic. Am i just having bad luck?

 

[PhoenixG]

First thing, you don't beat Ottoman on the sea. Waste of money and resources. They just have too many boats. Money is better spend on units.

Second fix your army composition. I don't know what kind of comp you're using, but all the different army sizes isn't very efficient. My personally fav comp is 10 inf/2 cav/10 art. You can swap out the cav for inf. You can use this composition from tech 13 till the end of the game. In this late game when you at war, you'll need two stack into one (20/4/20) to prevent stackwhipes. And you want to attack enemy stack, bump it up to 40/8/40 (fills the combat width).

Third. If you struggling. Don't fight on multiple front. Focus on one front and push. Easier to handle the fights. With your alliances, let Russia and Austria focus on the north, while you just push from the south.

Also don't be scared to roll more generals.

 

[SPAMbuca]

At the start, you probably want to control the bottleneck into Egypt. In the meantime, you can carpet siege all of the African lands you need. I would indeed give up on the idea of beating the Ottomans on the sea and get some national ideas that complement your military ideas. Religious ideas works well with quantity and quality as they unlock military policies that increase morale. At the end, you probably don't want any cavalry anymore. Always have 40 cannons on the backrow and make sure there's a lot of infantry as fodder in front of it. You probably need some merc stacks for that. You definately want the splendor bonus which increased artillery damage by 20%. From there on, you need to take your time and slowly make your way to Constantinople if you can.

 

[AJ123]

Agree with everyone saying scrap the navy. There's just no way you, Russia and Italy/Austria will match GB and Otto.

Have you taken Diplomatic Ideas? The province war cost reduction would help you a great deal here.

Have you entered your Golden Era? Now is the time if not.

It would be ideal if you could get an alliance with Kazan or Taberestan, as long as it wouldn't cost you one of your current allies. Even Otto struggles to defend on multiple fronts.

Sometimes it costs less in a peace deal to make a nation release a country instead of taking the same lands for yourself. Check next war to see if releasing Tunis would be less war score than taking it. Same thing for Alodia, Makuria, Ethiopia and other African Minors he's already eaten.

Do you spend mil points to breach walls on forts? It's absolutely worth it in nasty wars like this. Do it early.

 

[Chuwawa]

Thank you for the thoughts but I don't think people are seeing my actual problem. I have no problem beating the army in a battle but a 60vs60k battle only gives a 5-10k manpower differential which he quickly refeeds with manpower and mercs

I'm looking for ideas on how to starve him and break him apart. Every 2nd war I fight him without GB bc the previous war I break his alliance. And I can match his navy alone. But even with full blockade I'm still not getting past 50% warscore and I can't cause any internal chaos. Every war I drop his manpower to zero but he just gets his mercs to 200k and we eventually have to peace out.

 

[Jman47]

Then don't peace out. Use mercs yourself if you need too. Seige down his entire country and let revolts happen naturally. Try to stab hit him with peace offers midway through the war if possible. If not just keep him fully occupied and sit there until rebels tear most of it apart, then take what you need and peace out. By the next war he will be crippled from the previous one and be easy to beat up again. Ottomans after 1700 aren't hard to permanently break in a couple of wars.

Also stay away from naval idea groups in general unless you are role-playing.

 

[Robert de Bruce]

You should give more information what exactly you do in the war. Is there any problem to siege down all forts up to Constantinople? If you form big enough stacks (40-80k, depends a bit) that can defend each other by staying in the same region (not province) the whole time you should be able to avoid most battles.
To get what you want, it should be enough to occupy all their African holdings, war goal and capital (if you use Imperialism CB, which might be the best, capital is the wargoal). Getting this should give you enough warscore and their war enthusiasm being low. This done 2-3 times should net you all provinces you need. Don't take anything else than the provinces you need, including no alliance breaking, money and stuff.

 

[AJ123]

Thank you for the thoughts but I don't think people are seeing my actual problem. I have no problem beating the army in a battle but a 60vs60k battle only gives a 5-10k manpower differential which he quickly refeeds with manpower and mercs

I'm looking for ideas on how to starve him and break him apart. Every 2nd war I fight him without GB bc the previous war I break his alliance. And I can match his navy alone. But even with full blockade I'm still not getting past 50% warscore and I can't cause any internal chaos. Every war I drop his manpower to zero but he just gets his mercs to 200k and we eventually have to peace out.

OK, I think understand. It doesn't sound like you're able to push far into his country each war. So, don't use Imperialism CB. You're getting a negative 25 malus to war score by not occupying his capital. Use a claim war on something you can quickly siege and defend. That's a 50 point swing right there. Would still recommend trading naval ideas for diplomatic ideas for province war score cost reduction as this will allow you to take more provinces for the same amount of war score.

As for breaking him apart...you really would need to occupy him 100% and not peace out until rebels are all over his country. But, if you 100% him, you already have all the war score you need to take Africa away from him.

 

[kgmi]

First thing, you don't beat Ottoman on the sea. Waste of money and resources. They just have too many boats. Money is better spend on units.

Second fix your army composition. I don't know what kind of comp you're using, but all the different army sizes isn't very efficient. My personally fav comp is 10 inf/2 cav/10 art. You can swap out the cav for inf. You can use this composition from tech 13 till the end of the game. In this late game when you at war, you'll need two stack into one (20/4/20) to prevent stackwhipes. And you want to attack enemy stack, bump it up to 40/8/40 (fills the combat width).

Third. If you struggling. Don't fight on multiple front. Focus on one front and push. Easier to handle the fights. With your alliances, let Russia and Austria focus on the north, while you just push from the south.

Also don't be scared to roll more generals.

Why 40/8/40 though? At 40 CW wouldnt the perfect stack be 32/8/40? You know because 40 in front and 40in the back
Personally I always use 2x 16/4/20 and merge them together for battles because I hate taking attrition

 

[Aepdneds]

You also can subsidize your allies in the war so that they will less likely white peace out.

 

[PhoenixG]

Why 40/8/40 though? At 40 CW wouldnt the perfect stack be 32/8/40? You know because 40 in front and 40in the back
Personally I always use 2x 16/4/20 and merge them together for battles because I hate taking attrition

First buffer for when long fights, so the front like can hold a bit before reinforcement can arrive. I've seen too many times when I use 32/8/40 or 40/0/40 the frontline fails and cannon comes to frontline before I can reinforce it on time.

Having a little bigger frontline does give you a bit more time for reinforcement and gives you more the feeling attack and forget. Besides I like round numbers and don't want chance my army comp continiously through the game.

So when you have a combat width of 30. Yeah I'll be fighting inefficient. Since I'll be using 40/8/40. Too much micromanagement if keep changing the comp.

Thank you for the thoughts but I don't think people are seeing my actual problem. I have no problem beating the army in a battle but a 60vs60k battle only gives a 5-10k manpower differential which he quickly refeeds with manpower and mercs

I'm looking for ideas on how to starve him and break him apart. Every 2nd war I fight him without GB bc the previous war I break his alliance. And I can match his navy alone. But even with full blockade I'm still not getting past 50% warscore and I can't cause any internal chaos. Every war I drop his manpower to zero but he just gets his mercs to 200k and we eventually have to peace out.

You should do the same. After you won a battle consolidate your inf and reinforce it with mercs. To keep the momentum in the push. Take loans if needed, because the ottoman will take loans.
And starving out isn't a good strategy in this game, at least against that sized economy. So long he has unoccupied he will bite back.
Also having a nice big manpower pool is nice and fine, but what really counts is how many manpower you recover each month.

 

[Tweakee]

If you can lure him into battles in friendly terrain, do so. Otherwise, keep your armies together and siege. Roll a siege general, use cannon barrage and even assault if you can afford it. get his first forts down so you can fight battles where you want to, while using a few troops to carpet siege behind you where he can no longer reach.

Your warscore will push upwards as his war echaustion goes up and manpower goes down. Keep pushing the siege targets while keeping enough armies clustered to not lose a siege battle. Use mercs as needed but force his forts down and you'll win plenty of warscore to take Africa from him.

Btw, one tip: if you can't take all of Africa in one war, be sure to take provinces that cut him off from his African land. That'll turn it into colonies, and the warscore cost will go to near-zero in the next war.

 

[Bibor]

How to dismantle the Ottomans? It's easy. I've done it at least 50 times.

In the first war, you take the 5 provinces that border the Marmara Sea: Constantinople, Edirne, Biga, Hudavendigar and Kocaeli and pref. 1 province that has either a Syrian or Mameluke core if those are still a thing. Ottomans rarely invest into buildings (even less often into forts). And their main source of income is trade from the Constantinople node. Congratulations, you just halved their trade income.

This will move their capital either to Karaman, Bigla or Ankara.

What you take in the second war depends where your empire is.
If you are in Western Europe, Northern Africa or Arabia, you take the Nile delta + Palestine next, reducing their trade income even more and boosting your own.
If you are in Central Eastern Europe, you take provinces connecting to you via land, plus any southern Anatolian coastal provinces you can get, with the aim of reaching Gulf of Cyprus.
If you are Far Eastern Europe (Commonwealth, Russia), you take all the Black Sea coastal provinces in Anatolia and Balkans first.
If you are in Central Asia, you snake your way to Gulf of Cyprus, taking at least one Iraq and Syrian core province in the process.

Subsequent wars should have one of the above aims not yet accomplished.

After this, it's basically cleaning up the remains.

Also, the Ottoman navy is overrated. After the first war, if it ended like I suggested, they will cut back their naval financing significantly.

Tactics:
Yes, the Ottoman army is dangerous. So is the attrition on most of their forts. Fighting the ottomans is somewhat like fighting Ming - they just can't run out of manpower, because they just replace it with mercenaries. This makes sieges that are easily in reach of the Ottoman army extremely dangerous and can cost you the war. They can, however, lose battles. That's why the first war is so darn important. As long as you can throw enough manpower into the siege of Constantinople, you'll be fine. Don't spread out your forces too much. Concentrate them in Northern Greece/Bulgaria - even if you have 300k troops. After the first war it becomes much easier, but you'll still need to siege 1-2 forts at a time for several wars.

Also, I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but if you are stronger than your allies, do try and siege provinces on the opposite side of the map from your allies. If your allies are in Greece, go to Egypt and vice versa. Even if they are taking losses, you'll be making progress. Once you reach Anatolia From the south, it's basically over, even if they still field 150k mercenaries.

 

[mag_zbc]

If you block gulf of Aden with your navy and defend in the Suez bottleneck, you can easily carpet siege all of their African lands. You said you can beat their navy in Mediterrenian, so that will add additional warscore from blocade, as well as war exhaustion for them. It's very weird that you get only about 35% warscore, war goal alone gives 25%. Occupy their land, sit back and enjoy their war exhaustion tick to 20 - that gives them +20 unrest, rebellions are bound to happen at some point. Perhaps build spy network and support rebels?

They have loads of cash, so they can rely on mercs, but so can you. Also, each point of war exhaustion gives -2% goods produced modifier - if you manage to tick it to 20 for them, they will get a huge -40% goods produced, which also affect their trade income, which will eventually lead to them not being able to support their huge merc army and make them to go deeply into debt.

So, in short, I would advise to not push agressively, but block Suez and Gulf of Aden, carpet siege and wait. Or, if you are able to, push to Dimashq and Basra and defend those two points - you will be able to carpet siege entire Arabian peninsula.

If you're patient, war exhaustion will destroy them for you.

 

[Bibor]

If you block gulf of Aden with your navy and defend in the Suez bottleneck, you can easily carpet siege all of their African lands.

Yes, in this specific scenario, the trick is to make the wargoal probably in Tunis, while concentrating all forces in the Nile Delta and blocking off Aden. Holding the line at the Delta should provide allies ample opportunities to siege down Greece, hopefully also Constantinople. This does seem like a two or even three-war warscore province count. I'd still advise taking the 5 provinces around Marmara for the first war if you want to make the subsequent ones easier.

 

[mag_zbc]

He'd have to get much more than 35% warscore and he wrote he has a hard time doing that. Waiting for war exhaustion to tick to 20 (-40% goods produced) and blocading ports (-75% tax and -50% goods produced for blocked province) will make Ottos go hugely into debt and trigger massive rebellions without wasting manpower and money.

 

[mag_zbc]

You can also try to weaken their economy before you start the war, so they won't be able to field such huge mercenary armies - try to dominate Gulf of Aden and Indus trade nodes and steer trade away from them.

 

[Foefaller]

I would think with all the gold mines in Africa you would be able to out-merc the Ottomans, especially if you picked up Administration.

But yeah, as been said above if you are fighting GB *and* Ottomans in a land war, don't bother with a navy, stick to just a land army. use claim CBs so the wargoal can be something close, and take advantage of Diplomacy and Influence to take way more territory than you have actual claims for.

As for the final line, about the Ottomans getting to that size by 1700, you right, it isn't acurate... Historically they got to that size (including the stone's throw to Vienna part) about two hundred years earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire#/media/File:OttomanEmpire1566.png

 

[Chuwawa]

Alright I managed to get it thanks all!
On the 3rd war, I closed off Africa at Gaza and closed in the nile delta. Managed to Support Funj rebels which shaved off about 10 provinces from Ottomans. It took about 6 wars total to get all the provinces.
Spamming galleys was the right move as bleeding him with blockade really helped
I am not sure that I could have gotten it if Italy wasn't so blobby. Russia was tiny and France rivaled me as they really really wanted my Kilwa and Malindi provinces, even they had nothing in the spice isles or West South America....

 

[PhoenixG]

Congrats, and that is one big Kazan