Game ruined - again- by the Ottomans
- Thread starter Oxenstierna13
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One game out of every two or three I see the Ottomans got wiped off the map, usually before 1600 too, without me getting involved at all.
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As many people have pointed out: the Ottomans are not unbeatable, nor are they OP. They are strong yes, but really: as France, Austria or Sweden no moderately experienced player should have much difficulty with them, especially late-game. And yes, if you are looking to do a long-term game, you should be looking to slow down their advance even in early and mid-game, no matter how far removed from you they are.
Obviously many players do not share your opinion. In fact, for many of us, myself included: playing smaller nations around the Ottomans is a nice challenge. Playing Athens, Moldova, Karaman and George have been some of my most entertaining and exhilarating runs. Alternatively, the Ottomans often pose a nice late game challenge in such runs as trying to conquer all of Africa as Kongo, moving into Asia as a colonial power or simply going for Mare Nostrum. A challenging Ottomans is the keystone to many an EU4 run.
We’ve all undoubtedly have had many frustrating experiences in this game fighting them, but it is key to turn this frustration into a desire to improve, learn and become better. Which is basically what it gets down to: become better to beat them.
But until then, an obvious solution seems to be: play as the Ottomans.
Obviously many players do not share your opinion. In fact, for many of us, myself included: playing smaller nations around the Ottomans is a nice challenge. Playing Athens, Moldova, Karaman and George have been some of my most entertaining and exhilarating runs. Alternatively, the Ottomans often pose a nice late game challenge in such runs as trying to conquer all of Africa as Kongo, moving into Asia as a colonial power or simply going for Mare Nostrum. A challenging Ottomans is the keystone to many an EU4 run.
We’ve all undoubtedly have had many frustrating experiences in this game fighting them, but it is key to turn this frustration into a desire to improve, learn and become better. Which is basically what it gets down to: become better to beat them.
But until then, an obvious solution seems to be: play as the Ottomans.
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Ottoman has always been a problem in EU4, they were much better balanced in EU3.
The main problem with the Ottomans are the combination of insane bonuses and generals and land that are easily conquered. Remove either of the two and it would be much more balanced. Another problem is that if you manage to get an alliance and defeat them in war, then sooner or later stacks of 20k+ Ottoman rebels will spawn in occupied provinces, helping the AI.
And almost every game plays out the same. Ottomans steamroll the Balkans and Egypt, and often make their way up to Russia and Poland/Lithuania. There clearly is an imbalance and I think the reason for it never getting fixed is perhaps due to Paradox not knowing how to fix it.
The main problem with the Ottomans are the combination of insane bonuses and generals and land that are easily conquered. Remove either of the two and it would be much more balanced. Another problem is that if you manage to get an alliance and defeat them in war, then sooner or later stacks of 20k+ Ottoman rebels will spawn in occupied provinces, helping the AI.
And almost every game plays out the same. Ottomans steamroll the Balkans and Egypt, and often make their way up to Russia and Poland/Lithuania. There clearly is an imbalance and I think the reason for it never getting fixed is perhaps due to Paradox not knowing how to fix it.
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That's not an imbalance, it's the game following history, which due to semi railroading in game mechanics is fine.
If you can't beat the rebel stacks you peace out, rebels being in a country gives a modifier to peace if you didn't notice.
Great generals are due to constant expansion = constant battles = high army tradition. But I do wish the harem buffs to heir generation would be less common after say 1600 to help them slow down.
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If you've never seen the AI beat Ottos, do you have all the latest dlc, are you running the latest patch, who do you tend to play as, do you ever ally the next target of ottoman expansion.
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The history argument is not a good argument, as there are so many historical inaccuracies already.
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I would agree that to a certain extent history has to stop taking the lead in favour of game-play; But I really don't see the problem here. Ottomans expanded ruthlessly in EU4's timeframe, it wouldn't be impossible to assume that they couldn't defeat Russia, afterall what you're playing after the first day is completely alternative history. There are a few railroadings here and there to give weight for some historialness.
This being said. Ottomans are a prime example of a players understanding of warfare, especially in the early-mid game. The player should be asking themselves all sorts of questions like;
- Who will join my war against The Ottomans? Will they be effective? Will they stick close to me? Can I actually get to my ally without sieging my enemies forts down? Is my ally just there to distract the enemy?
- What are my troop numbers? What is my composition? What is my military tech? What is my morale, discipline, what are my generals like?
- Is my country well defended? Do I need to scorch earth to buy time/divide forces? Is the enemy commanded by an amazing general? What can I do to counter that?
The only thing that is wrong here is whether the player can deal with them in the way that they want them to. To get to that goal, you must be aware.
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Beating the Ottomans isn't some great mystery or secret reserved for the clever. I have 2600 hours in this game and know it inside and out. When Ottomans win effortlessly against Austria-Hungary, Poland-Lithuania, the Papal States and Venice all at the same time then thats just gross imbalance. It has nothing to do with understanding warfare.
edit:
Because of European rivalries, not because they beat up everyone at once. The Ottoman representation in EU4 is extremely inaccurate.
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European rivalries cause them to not all form a grand allaince coalition and fight, or enforce peace on the Ottos. Papal states is weak and Venice deploys piecemeal due to bad naval AI, but please show me where an Austria, with all of Hungary in PU, and alkied with PLCW lost to Ottos, because without all of Egypt I don't see it happening
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Answering OP
- why Ottomans only? Why anyone should be allowed to core ahistorical provinces - why Austriashould be allowed to core e.g. any swiss nor bavarian province?
Playing as Austria you can get powerfull allies very early it is too easy to crush Ottomans in mid 15th century. And knowing possible Ottoman targets you can get defensive war against them allowing you to call in e.g. POL-LIT, HUN, VEN, ...
And if you do not want to play against Ottomans play in Eastern Asia, or Central Africa - but do not core ahistorical provinces.
- why Ottomans only? Why anyone should be allowed to core ahistorical provinces - why Austriashould be allowed to core e.g. any swiss nor bavarian province?
Playing as Austria you can get powerfull allies very early it is too easy to crush Ottomans in mid 15th century. And knowing possible Ottoman targets you can get defensive war against them allowing you to call in e.g. POL-LIT, HUN, VEN, ...
And if you do not want to play against Ottomans play in Eastern Asia, or Central Africa - but do not core ahistorical provinces.
Just in the last few weeks I watched Mamluks attack early and release all of the byz cores. And France was in an alliance with Venice and Genoa. And then one game Hungary thumbed its nose at Austria, which had me worried, but then Hungary allied France.
Its actually been awhile since I've seen Otto go crazy. Although one game they allied France very early. That was a morocco run where I was focused on blocking euro colonization, though, and since it turns out its pretty easy to do, I didn't stick around long enough to see how that alliance played out.
Its actually been awhile since I've seen Otto go crazy. Although one game they allied France very early. That was a morocco run where I was focused on blocking euro colonization, though, and since it turns out its pretty easy to do, I didn't stick around long enough to see how that alliance played out.
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That's some nicely overfed troll, who posted three times here and we are seriously discussing on 5 pages the ingame state of Ottos at 1444 
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Anyone wanna notice what doesn't exist in this game? The Ottomans.
This was my first attempt at playing the Mamluks. I just used diplomacy to my advantage by pulling an early alliance with Hungary/Austria while consolidating Arabia. Tunis was a mutual alliance until the Ottomans declared war on me. They had alliances with Russia and Spain.
It's doable I just made them make difficult choices with their actions. Push into Europe and get attacked by me from the South, or attack into me and face the Europeans attacking them.
The Ottomans is not a end all, be all. Yes, it can be annoying watching them spam troops from thin air it seems, but if you play it smart you can beat them.
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I've seen plenty of bad suggestions in these forums, but none as bad as this.
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So we have one guy saying the Ottomans need OP magic buffs because, "history", and another who says that preventing muslim nations from joining the protestant league is a "bad idea"?
On what planet should a "Protestant League" not be a league of protestant kings and princes?
We already have mechanisms for France to support the Protestant League - it's called "subsidies" or for France and the Ottomans to help smash the Catholic HRE opponents of said league, that comes under the concept of "alliance".
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Historically some catholic monarchs fought on the Protestant league side (glancing around Wikipedia, France, Savoy) and IIRC some Protestant monarchs fought for the Catholic league side (again Wikipedia, Denmark–Norway).
Viewing the Thirty Years War as purely about religion misunderstands the real purpose and underlying causes of the conflict: It was about Habsburg dominance and ended attempts to reform and unify the empire historically.
Sadly the game completely looses the bigger picture of European geopolitics that underlay the conflict and focuses on the pop view that it was a war over religion.
Viewing the Thirty Years War as purely about religion misunderstands the real purpose and underlying causes of the conflict: It was about Habsburg dominance and ended attempts to reform and unify the empire historically.
Sadly the game completely looses the bigger picture of European geopolitics that underlay the conflict and focuses on the pop view that it was a war over religion.
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France spent money supporting the Protestants in order to weaken the HRE - they didn't join the Leagues, in fact, they couldn't: you had to be protestant.
Again, I don't know what Savoy did except that they were definitely not a member of the Protestant League.
Protestants fighting on the side of their boss, the HRE has *nothing* to do with non-Protestants never joining the Protestant League.
In fact, the Protestant League wasn't just exclusively Christian, and not just exclusively Protestant, it was pretty much mainly Lutheran Protestant initially.
Having Sunni moslems joining it is just an obvious programming error.
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