extremely unhistorical ottomans ruins the game.

[Shahanshah Rober]

So, Ottomans, the historically large empire who had massive manpower and war focus, in eu4, unstoppable behemoth with invincible armies that takes too much effort to lose, (I have 2k hours in Eu4, so don't reply "oH iF yOu PlAy As AuStrIA Pu BoHemIa AnD hUngArY YoU cAn EasIlY DeFeAt OtToMaNs")

the problem is not with how to stop ottomans, it is historically inaccuracies. So here let me summarise it quickly:

in game, 20k ottoman army is enough to beat 30k, 40k any other army in the game, so here is what's wrong with it,

Let's start with 1444 start date,

Battle of Varna: where many European nations teamed up against Ottomans to stop them, it is 37k against 25k battle, so for this part we can say game is doing OK job.

so, let's continue with what we can do in 1444, not pre start date, according to EU4, ottomans should NEVER lose against army of smaller size in first few decades of the game. But here are some examples

FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

70k against 7k, with ottomans losing heavy losses, and Constantinople civilians getting enslaved, but according to game, if 70k ottomans go against 7k byzantines,they would just stackwipe and win, while in reality they lose heavily, this means 30k to 50k

So, you might say "this is siege, show me battles, just as eu4 depicts" so here you go:


BATTLE OF VASLUI

50k against roughly 85k, Moldovans lose 5k while ottomans lose 45k, without counting wounded, this is just impossible in game even if you had 6 6 6 6 general, let's continue with another:

battle of Targovişte, 30.000 Wallachians against 250.000 Ottomans, (This is ridiclous isn't it?) Ottomans lose 5 times more than wallachians does, can this be done in game? well if you even tried 30k against 30k against ottomans, you would lose 15k while ottomans lose 8k or so, not even close to reality. let's continue:

Siege of Belgrade, just 1-2 decade prior to game's start date, 4k soldiers against 50k ottomans, with 60k civlians helping Hungarians, and this battle is led by incredible 6 4 6 ruler of Ottomans!!! (I don't even know why he has such incredible stats, as we will see later, he was not that great) you would assume ottomans wiping out entire Hungarian army right? well, then you should stop believing in EU4, because 60k peasants destroy proffesional Sipahis and janisarries.

So, now continue with what I said about Mehmed the conqueror, the god tier ruler in EU4, you will see why he is not great now:

BATTLES OF SKANDERBEG

8k against 80k, 1 to 10, with %30 of Ottoman troops dying or getting captured, is this possible in game? well you would get stackwiped if you had tried this, so no, let's continue:

Skanderbeg again, 1 to 4, losing 2k, killing 15k this is not possible again. even with Skanderbeg, so let's continue:

Now this is epic, 8k against 100k, and god tier Mehmed and Murad leading battle themselves! But getting 20k casualities during siege, and many more during retreat phase, while Albanians getting 1k killed, in eu4, this means stackwipe, but in reality it was albanian victory.

so now, Mehmed II with his commander leads 2nd siege of Kruje, which they outnumber massively but loses again! even if we take lowest of assumption, 30k for ottomans, it is still impossible for 13k albanians win.

So you might say "but this was skanderbeg, and game made him really good commander, what we can do? you are wrong, because Ottomans tried to take Albania for 2 decades more after Skanderbeg died, let's look at those battles:

tens of thousands of Ottomans, led by Mehmed, 6 4 6 ruler, again loses to few thousand Albanians, that is not led by Skanderbeg, So, it is not with skanderbeg alone, but with ottoman forces, but let's continue:

Ottomans at Kruje again, for fourth time! This time Mehmed (that 6 4 6 ruler) Brilliantly uses mass human waves tactics again! But no worries, his usage of mass human waves works this time in 10x outnumbering army! good job Mehmed! I surely couldn't do it with 58k against 2k, you really deserve 6 4 6 stats!

so that was it with balkans, ottoman victories all had massive number advantages apart from Varna, which ottomans had 37k against 30k, still outnumbering thou, so let's continue with Ottoman Venetian wars:

Battle of Gallipoli! (not 1915 one 10 galley against 32 galley and galleots, but 12 killed against 4000 killed and 1100 enslaved, and most of ottoman fleet is captured! and this is in 1416! 499 years before actual Gallipoli.

oh my! 55 against 5000? this is clearly ottoman victory! oh wait it is not?? it can't be, eu4 didn't taught me this!

battle of Focchies, ottomans outnumber as usual, but loses most of their fleet! But this is impossible in eu4 right? it shouldn't be true!

Battle of Lepanto, the battle that halted Turks, but this is impossible, how 212 ship can destroy most of 278 ottoman fleet? and 9 to 1 outnumbering in galliot number! just impossible in eu4.

Battle of Candia, in Turkish books, it is just considered as "the battle that we won" but this is reality, and if you wonder why there is 80k turks and 120k turkish casualities, it is because ottoman empire constantly reinforced that army. But nevertheless, Turkish victory

Siege of Farmagusta, 8.5k against 100k, with 8k killed against 52k killed, oh no, what is this? how can ottomans lose this with massive national idea bonuses they have?!

So that was it with venetian wars, now let's check few Austrian and few Persian wars because I am tired now.

the brilliant Eugene of savoy, 100k against 210k, and wins the battle! But oh no, Ottomans attack Austria again after spanish war of Succession, and Austria is exhausted of constant wars, what are they going to do???

battle of Zenta B) Eugene of Savoy decides to ambush invading ottoman troops, and this is turns out to be end of Ottoman expansion to Europe. 429 killed against 30k. Maybe Ottomans shouldn've attacked Austria after seeing they were defeated by french.

Battle of Petrovaradin, I don't have to say anything, you see it.

So that was with Austria, but let's continue with Persia, specifically Nader Shah's campaigns.

Campaign of Caucasus.

Battle of Yeghevardi, where Ottomans attack against numerically inferior nader shah with 50k sipahi and 30k janissary, but Nader shah is encamped in high ground! [shouldn't have even tried it!]
and most proffesional army of the ottomans lay dead.

But for the Persians, I can say that this was not like this all the time due to Persians not having westernised and having little firepower. So Half of the Perso Ottoman wars, persians win and other half ottomans. But this is sign that it was not due to technologically advanced europe, even technologically behind Persia defeated Ottomans with lesser men, and results are clear. Anyways, that was all I can say now, it was exhaustive for me.

oh and lastly, I am from Türkey, you can see it in my profile, so you may ask: "why you do this to your own history?" and my reply is :

you might see those ottoman men are just as "numbers" but every one of them had their own personality, their own life, maybe different destiny, but Ottomans took them forcibly, made them soldier and used them in mass assault tactics that didn't cared for individuals, it was really tough to be soldier in ottoman empire, fortunately Atatürk ended all this warmonger empire and made us more modern and humanist. I am disgusted when seeing Ottoman government saw my ancestors as mere "numbers" in battles. And makes me angry, I am glad all that Ottoman empire ended.

last lastly: "oH nO yOu UsE WiKipEdIa, YoU aRe WrOnG AnD bIaSeD" guys, you can check those battles in archives if you want, pls don't write this 1000000x times over and over, if you are curious if they are real or not, just look at archives and or check sources in wikipedia yourself and point them, and correct them if you want. I used wikipedia because it is easier to show you stuff, and it is clear and neat, I don't want to bother you with extremely hard to read sources. ALSO you can check all battles of Ottomans youself, and you will see that I am not randomly picking battles,%90 battles are like this.

I am historian, not developer, and I hope you developers find a way to fix this issue, it is extremely unrealistic, not fun because ottomans are unstoppable and easy to fix I assume, just boost their manpower and maintainence and lower their quality or idk, you are developers here.

 

[Meglok]

Strategy games are not historical replays. Once you start adding rng anything can and will happen eventually.

As far as the Ottomans being overpowered, if you look at the current forum posts, there is a long chain of posts complaining the Ottomans don't do anything now.

RNG happens, you can't take one game, or a couple of games, as proof of your opinions.

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

Strategy games are not historical replays. Once you start adding rng anything can and will happen eventually.

As fast as the Ottomans being overpowered, if you look at the current forum posts, there is a long chain of posts complaining the Ottomans don't do anything now.

RNG happens, you can't take one game, or a couple of games, as proof of your opinions.

RNG?? Ottomans have one of best in game, this is not RNG and can easibly be fixed without breaking the game, just give them more men and make their army worse, simple as that. Not to mention they currently have more starting pips than Europeans in 1444 to rouglhy 1700, they can fix that easily, currently for some reason I don't understand, Europeans has the worst army pips, idk why, just some stupid choice I guess.

 

[JaxElite]

I think the 1.30 ottomams are doing fine in terms of strength but i agree that there is some bs here. Ottomans should win due to huge manpower and force limit and not due to actual mil modifiers. Sadly eu4 can't fix that until they remove their bs luck nation system

 

[redshirt4life]

I know the situation in Modern Turkey, but Turkey is not the Ottoman Empire. It's like comparing Greece to the Roman Empire. The similiarities basically die after geography.

As a Greek who's studied Byzantine history, I've learned that the Ottomans were both our oppressors...and our saviors.

To explain, during the 4th crusade the Catholics betrayed the Byzantines and sacked the capital. They sought to force convert all of the Orthodox and destroy all of their blasphemous history. Countless prized works of art were, sacked and demolished. The distrust and hatred towards the Europeans was so great many welcomed the Ottomans, preferring to be conquered by the muslims then risk being betrayed by the catholics a second time.

And guess what. I'm a Greek Orthdox person alive today. The Ottomans preserved the church and allowed us to live in the empire as christian Greeks. We were not granted the same rights as Muslims, but we could rise to significant power, espesially in the military where we were the elite fighting force of the Ottomans.

Should we compare this to the spanish inquisition?

Same goes with the "people being forced to fight." Look at this time period. Everyone was forced to fight. This is a time of the aristocracy and kings. The common man was not treated very well practically anywhere.

In this time period we are coming off the heels of a great Ottoman victory. 2 kings in Europe are dead, slain trying to repel the Ottomans. The ottomans are, by far, the dominant power of this time.

Eventually the Europeans even the gap and even surpass this great power in the east (though they remain a major power well after the game ends). But the waning of the Ottoman military superiority is already represented. When the game starts, however, the Ottomans have the most professional and elite fighting force in the region and can take on just about anyone.

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

I think the 1.30 ottomams are doing fine in terms of strength but i agree that there is some bs here. Ottomans should win due to huge manpower and force limit and not due to actual mil modifiers. Sadly eu4 can't fix that until they remove their bs luck nation system

No it can be. Just give them - %x amount of discipline and morale while boosting their manpower and reducing their maintaince so they can have more men.

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

I know the situation in Modern Turkey, but Turkey is not the Ottoman Empire. It's like comparing Greece to the Roman Empire. The similiarities basically die after geography.

As a Greek who's studied Byzantine history, I've learned that the Ottomans were both our oppressors...and our saviors.

To explain, during the 4th crusade the Catholics betrayed the Byzantines and sacked the capital. They sought to force convert all of the Orthodox and destroy all of their blasphemous history. Countless prized works of art were, sacked and demolished. The distrust and hatred towards the Europeans was so great many welcomed the Ottomans, preferring to be conquered by the muslims then risk being betrayed by the catholics a second time.

And guess what. I'm a Greek Orthdox person alive today. The Ottomans preserved the church and allowed us to live in the empire as christian Greeks. We were not granted the same rights as Muslims, but we could rise to significant power, espesially in the military where we were the elite fighting force of the Ottomans.

Should we compare this to the spanish inquisition?

Same goes with the "people being forced to fight." Look at this time period. Everyone was forced to fight. This is a time of the aristocracy and kings. The common man was not treated very well practically anywhere.

In this time period we are coming off the heels of a great Ottoman victory. 2 kings in Europe are dead, slain trying to repel the Ottomans. The ottomans are, by far, the dominant power of this time.

Eventually the Europeans even the gap and even surpass this great power in the east (though they remain a major power well after the game ends). But the waning of the Ottoman military superiority is already represented. When the game starts, however, the Ottomans have the most professional and elite fighting force in the region and can take on just about anyone.

Well. Not everyone was forced to fight, you can just clearly see this in scale of battles on Europe. Ottomans just had massive manpower, forcing everyone to fight, also Spanish inquisition was not even too bad, comparing to what ottomans done. And this is not a post about how they treat their subjects but how they do battles.


Also you said great Ottoman victory. I have kothong against that. I just told they had more manpower and this should be represented in the game. They should have weak army and more men because this is history.

 

[Froonk]

Almost none of the numbers in Wikipedia regarding battles, especially in case of hotly contested events in nationalist imagery, are accurate. I will focus on Mediterranean naval warfare in 16th century as that's what I know best but as a simple example, Battle of Lepanto wikipedia gives 40k losses to Ottoman side. While the definitive book on naval warfare in Mediterranean during this era, "Gunpowder and Galleys" by John Guilmartin gives Ottoman loses estimates as 25k as opposed to 10-15k loses on League side. Specifically, Battle of Lepanto was devastating loss for Ottomans because of these casualties. If 25k men lost in battle was one of the most significant blows to Ottoman manpower, we can't take the claims they regularly lost 50k men in mountains of Balkans taking small forts seriously.

Moreover, as for your first example, in being 80k men against 7k Byzantines. This is a siege battle, in siege battles the defenders have a vast advantage and a well-garrisoned fort is very hard to take. For example in this same era, in 1601, an Imperial force of upwards of 60k men failed to take an Ottoman fort garrisoned by 9k men. This shouldn't mean that Ottomans should win 9k men against 60k Austrians.

Lastly, Ottoman military ideas are on the weaker side in quality already, with their most significant bonuses being in quantity side. They only get 5% discipline and 15% cavalry combat ability, which is much lower than most of their adversaries in the game. Their early advantage is because of the fact they get the 5% discipline in traditions and their units have more pips than usual, which is an advantage they lose by mid-game.

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

Almost none of the numbers in Wikipedia regarding battles, especially in case of hotly contested events in nationalist imagery, are accurate. I will focus on Mediterranean naval warfare in 16th century as that's what I know best but as a simple example, Battle of Lepanto wikipedia gives 40k losses to Ottoman side. While the definitive book on naval warfare in Mediterranean during this era, "Gunpowder and Galleys" by John Guilmartin gives Ottoman loses estimates as 25k as opposed to 10-15k loses on League side. Specifically, Battle of Lepanto was devastating loss for Ottomans because of these casualties. If 25k men lost in battle was one of the most significant blows to Ottoman manpower, we can't take the claims they regularly lost 50k men in mountains of Balkans taking small forts seriously.

Moreover, as for your first example, in being 80k men against 7k Byzantines. This is a siege battle, in siege battles the defenders have a vast advantage and a well-garrisoned fort is very hard to take. For example in this same era, in 1601, an Imperial force of upwards of 60k men failed to take an Ottoman fort garrisoned by 9k men. This shouldn't mean that Ottomans should win 9k men against 60k Austrians.

Lastly, Ottoman military ideas are on the weaker side in quality already, with their most significant bonuses being in quantity side. They only get 5% discipline and 15% cavalry combat ability, which is much lower than most of their adversaries in the game. Their early advantage is because of the fact they get the 5% discipline in traditions and their units have more pips than usual, which is an advantage they lose by mid-game.

You claim that the numbers of the battles are biased because of it is written with nationalistiv and religious ideas, but the point you miss is that, they are not European sources. Maybe you know Turkish historian Tursun bey, historian of the Mehmed II and our source on the numbers of the Ottoman army during Mehmed and murads later reign, so your point is wrong

Also, your another point. Claiming that they are written by nationalistic and religious ideas needs proof. You can't just say this and put no source for that.

Secondly, the book you claim about lepanto is written in 1970, did that guy lived 500 years and recorded it? I don't think so. Also what matters if ottomans lost 25k instead of 40, they had much more ships and still is more numerous than Christian league, also as I said. Those numbers are written by Ottoman historians too for example we know ottomans had 100k men in Vienna because Ottoman sources claim that 150k arrived in Belgrade and 50k died or escaped Ottoman army during march to Vienna.

Last point you made about 70k vs 7k in constantinople, the siege of Belgrade I shared above. Done by Prince Eugene of savoy. He had lesser man than ottomans but won with much lesser loses and even with his army struck in disease. So your this point is invalid as well.

 

[Kapitalisti]

TL;DR because real life numbers are not directly comparable to game numbers, obviously.

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

TL;DR because real life numbers are not directly comparable to game numbers, obviously.

yes, but in game everyone has same numbers, so we are doing game comparison, let's say 1k is 5k for ottomans, but that would mean venice had massive army too? no, just change Ottomans, not that hard, just play with national idea modifiers. Or change pips

 

[Froonk]

You claim that the numbers of the battles are biased because of it is written with nationalistiv and religious ideas, but the point you miss is that, they are not European sources. Maybe you know Turkish historian Tursun bey, historian of the Mehmed II and our source on the numbers of the Ottoman army during Mehmed and murads later reign, so your point is wrong

Also, your another point. Claiming that they are written by nationalistic and religious ideas needs proof. You can't just say this and put no source for that.

Secondly, the book you claim about lepanto is written in 1970, did that guy lived 500 years and recorded it? I don't think so. Also what matters if ottomans lost 25k instead of 40, they had much more ships and still is more numerous than Christian league, also as I said. Those numbers are written by Ottoman historians too for example we know ottomans had 100k men in Vienna because Ottoman sources claim that 150k arrived in Belgrade and 50k died or escaped Ottoman army during march to Vienna.

Last point you made about 70k vs 7k in constantinople, the siege of Belgrade I shared above. Done by Prince Eugene of savoy. He had lesser man than ottomans but won with much lesser loses and even with his army struck in disease. So your this point is invalid as well.

I don't know what to say here, I gave you a written source with both the name of the book and the writer, a book by the definitive expert on the field and you are asking me for proof? Concurrent sources of chroniclers often give extremely exaggerated numbers. Book written by a historian, which uses and compares both concurrent and modern estimates, as well as using sources from all sides involved in a battle are more reliable than what is on wikipedia yes. The book in question gives plenty of sources, including various concurrent chroniclers, one of which was a soldier involved in the battle and said Ottoman loses account to 20k.

Eugene of Savoy was one of the tactical geniuses of his era and indeed did inflict great casualties on Ottomans. These type of singular battles cannot represent a centuries long trend as battles are often circumstantial. Considering he also inflicted great casualties on French this shouldn't mean Austrian army should overall be much better than French one. In an opposite scenario, Ottomans also won against Russian in a 1711 campaign, just because Ottomans managed to defeat Russians in 1711, or Austrians in 1737 wouldn't mean Ottoman army was up to par with Austrian or Russian ones in 1770s. As already stated, Ottoman military ideas are weak on quality side and their unit pips are weaker than European ones starting roughly in 1650s. I don't know how far you could downgrade it, considering that their only two quality ideas are 5% discipline and 15% cavalry combat ability, considering cavalry combat ability is near useless, you could only remove 5% discipline at that point.

However considering you are parroting and asking for proof and going on about how a historian is not reliable because he didn't live for 500 years after I gave you an academic source, I am going to assume that it is impossible to reason with you and end this conversation here.

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

I don't know what to say here, I gave you a written source with both the name of the book and the writer, a book by the definitive expert on the field and you are asking me for proof?

However considering you are parroting and asking for proof and going on about how a historian is not reliable because he didn't live for 500 years after I gave you an academic source, I am going to assume that it is impossible to reason with you and end this conversation here.

You definetely haven't read what I said, I told you that that book was published in 1974, how did he saw the numbers of the lepanto? is he 500 years old?

Read what I say before replying with some bs

 

[Delterius]

It is known throught wikipedia that 'roughly' 1 million turks (could be more, could be less) were genocided in every battle even though vaguely european forces only had around 20 people and a donkey on their side, every time.

 

[Laurent1944]

EU4 is not an historical simulator. Still I find that the expansion of the Ottoman empire was most of the time comparable to history (under AI control), and that it is less than history in my only 1.30 game so far. For me the biggest difference between EU4 and history now is colonization, as in the said game in 1680, there are less than 20 uncolonized provinces in the entire world, in deep inland Africa and deep inland North America.

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

It is known throught wikipedia that 'roughly' 1 million turks (could be more, could be less) were genocided in every battle even though vaguely european forces only had around 20 people and a donkey on their side, every time.

as I said, those numbers about Mehmed II are ALL recorded by Tursun bey, Turkish court historian of Mehmed II, you can look him up, instead of joking about it.

 

[Delterius]

as I said, those numbers about Mehmed II are ALL recorded by Tursun bey, Turkish court historian of Mehmed II, you can look him up, instead of joking about it.

Well, could you provide me these sources in their original language? While you're at it, you could also look up some counter sources and estimates made by serious researchers. I mean, I wouldn't want to base my opinion on screenshots from Quora/Wikipedia/Wikihow. Their contributors often butcher everything. Very often do I look up the original text being cited and there's nothing whatsoever on them to defend the article's claims. Until then I side with the guy who can probably cite academics down to page and paragraph, tyvm.

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

Well, could you provide me these sources in their original language? Wikipedia often butchers their sources. Until then I side with the guy who can probably cite academics down to page and paragraph, tyvm.

I swear you don't read what I said, that guy claimed a book written in late 20th century, he has no primary sources while I cite PRIMARY source from OTTOMANS and here you go I hope you read this and don't write reply right away

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tursun_Beg

now please, just please, who should we consider as more true:

primary source, written by a guy lived in same age and working in the court of ottoman sultan himself

or, a source written 400 years after the event and claims different numbers than our primary one and also is not Turkish nor worked in court or saw the battle.

 

[Delterius]

he has no primary sources while I cite PRIMARY source from OTTOMANS

Show me the source then. You've got it on you, right?

 

[Shahanshah Rober]

Show me the source then. You've got it on you, right?

you will never read, I posted a wiki page about TURSUN bey himself, and in it it contained his works sections, you could just look up from there, but here you go Mr. NPC my primary source which I posted at least 4 times before

Fatih'in Tarihi: Tarih-i Ebu'l Feth: Tarih-i Ebu'l Feth : Tursun Bey: Amazon.com.tr: Kitap

Fatih'in Tarihi: Tarih-i Ebu'l Feth: Tarih-i Ebu'l Feth : Tursun Bey: Amazon.com.tr: Kitap

www.amazon.com.tr

in case if you didn't read it (As always) name of the book is TARİH EBU'L FETH, "history of the conqueror" in case you didn't saw it, the name of Author is TURSUN BEY OTTOMAN HISTORIAN born in 1420, I HOPE YOU CAN SEE MY TEXTS NOW