Game ruined - again- by the Ottomans

[TenshiN]

Please don't nerf the Ottomans, they already can't do anything unless i turn the lucky nations on.
Even playing someone close to them is relatively simple: If you are sunni, then just ally the Otto, use them to help you expand then just pummel em once you are strong enough. If you are not sunni - ally their rivals/Poland and Austria, so they won't attack.
I mean, knowing your enemy is only strategy, and keep on benging your head against the wall while knowing all-well how powerful the Otto is in the earlygame - then you are clearly doing something wrong. I can say that the Ottobeast used to be so MUCH more scary than now.

In my own 4 last EU4 games:
1st game - i am Hungary. Gurantee Albania, Otto attack Albania and fights against Albania, Venice, myself and Serbia, for whatever reason. Gets thoroughly stomped, because both Albania and myself get great generals to fight earlygame wars. Take all of Bulgaria off it in a peace deal, no threat after that.

2nd game - I am Bavaria, just doing my usual HRE business. Ottomants do their usual Byzantium + turkish minor-stomp then... Ally Dulkadir. Never fight mamluks, and don't expand in general, until the PLC imploded somewhere in the early 1600's, so they grabbed a few worthless provinces off it.

3rd game - I am Hisn Kayfa (that yellow 1-province minor near the Ottoblob). With improving relations and a dip reputation advisor i ally the Otto and use it to pwn both Qoyunlus and the Mamluk. Wreck the Ottoman in 1650, when i was a 2k+ dev monster myself

4th game - i am Austria. PU Hungary and Bohemia via the missions, eat Venice on the way to preventing the Shadow Kingdom, then after i successfuly prevent it, i attack and just wreck the ottoman by myself and my loyal PU partners. Not a cakewalk because of the Ottoman's disgusting 33% siege ability bonus, but definitely possible, if you keep up with military tech and if you take your time to roll a decent general who isn't a 1-shock dimwit

 

[macd21]

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.

France didn’t just spend money to support the League, they fought as well. And the Ottomans were going to intervene (and did, to some extent), but were tied up with a war with Persia. That non-Protestants couldn’t join the League was just a technicality, in reality Catholics did (unofficially) join and the Ottomans almost did.

 

[Mike1984]

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.

Strictly-speaking, both the Catholic and Protestant leagues were solely for imperial princes. No external nations were members of the league, regardless of religion.

However, plenty of outside nations did get involved in the league wars. And there certainly weren't any restrictions placed on that. The best way to implement such a situation given game mechanic limitations is to allow anyone to join either league, so that's what the game does.

 

[RobbieAB]

@Vince Whirlwind I think we need to separate the leagues in real life from the leagues in game. The leagues in game are an invention to provide a framework to attempt to model the Thirty Years War because the limitations of the game engine can’t do it directly. They copied the league names from real life because dressings from history makes for a better game than “artificial construct to work around limitations of the base engine”.

Now if you really want to argue the Thirty Years War, historically, was purely about religion, do feel free. You can probably safely assume that not many people here are going to agree with you though.

If you accept that the leagues are really analogies for the Habsburg and anti-Habsburg factions, allowing for the possibility that it won’t even be a Habsburg at all, than the is no reason that membership of the factions should be limited by religion.

 

[hitchens]

Please don't nerf the Ottomans, they already can't do anything unless i turn the lucky nations on.

Lucky nations are always on in Ironman. The game shouldn't be balanced around non Ironman settings.

 

[dmc99]

OP here is the basics for controlling the Ottomans early:
If you're a neighbor, find a powerful ally quickly. This makes them hesitate to attack and gets them to pick on someone weaker. Once they get into a war with someone like the Mamluks you attack them. Even if they attack you, they'll have to divide their forces giving you a chance to hide your forces and redeploy them to assist your more powerful ally. If your ally wins you survive and can hopefully pick something up in peace.

If you aren't a neighbor guarantee or ally with someone they will attack. If they don't hit a target you've successfully stopped them by just showing up so to speak and if they do as France or Austria you have everything needed to stomp them out quickly.

When fighting them or anyone use the terrain. Look at the penalties if you get them to attack you in Greece in Kesriye, Avlonya, Yanya. Force them to cross rivers and engage your forces in bad terrain, make them attack you to take advantage of the terrain penalties. If you engage them make sure it is in the plains and you better have the better army and the better general or you're asking for trouble.

If you have a Navy, use it to control the Sea of Marma and pick a side to control the provinces to block hostile Armies, you cut them in half and can trap a huge chunk of force that has no way to get home unless it can get access from Moldavia, Lithuania, Crimea, Circassia, Imereti, and Trebizond. Even if they do they will suffer attrition and it will take a long time, plus you can get access to those same territories so move a force into Trebizond and enjoy the damage you'll cause if you control the Antolian side and on the European side use the river between Silistre and Basarabia. This can be overpoweringly effective especially if the bulk of their forces are in Europe attacking Venice or in the Middle East attacking the Mamluks.

If you let them grow they are still easy to take apart later but they will expand. If you're France and deal decisively with Austria or the Iberian don't be surprised if that has a positive effect of the Ottomans.

 

[Battlex]

OP here is the basics for controlling the Ottomans early:
If you're a neighbor, find a powerful ally quickly. This makes them hesitate to attack and gets them to pick on someone weaker. Once they get into a war with someone like the Mamluks you attack them. Even if they attack you, they'll have to divide their forces giving you a chance to hide your forces and redeploy them to assist your more powerful ally. If your ally wins you survive and can hopefully pick something up in peace.

If you aren't a neighbor guarantee or ally with someone they will attack. If they don't hit a target you've successfully stopped them by just showing up so to speak and if they do as France or Austria you have everything needed to stomp them out quickly.

When fighting them or anyone use the terrain. Look at the penalties if you get them to attack you in Greece in Kesriye, Avlonya, Yanya. Force them to cross rivers and engage your forces in bad terrain, make them attack you to take advantage of the terrain penalties. If you engage them make sure it is in the plains and you better have the better army and the better general or you're asking for trouble.

If you have a Navy, use it to control the Sea of Marma and pick a side to control the provinces to block hostile Armies, you cut them in half and can trap a huge chunk of force that has no way to get home unless it can get access from Moldavia, Lithuania, Crimea, Circassia, Imereti, and Trebizond. Even if they do they will suffer attrition and it will take a long time, plus you can get access to those same territories so move a force into Trebizond and enjoy the damage you'll cause if you control the Antolian side and on the European side use the river between Silistre and Basarabia. This can be overpoweringly effective especially if the bulk of their forces are in Europe attacking Venice or in the Middle East attacking the Mamluks.

If you let them grow they are still easy to take apart later but they will expand. If you're France and deal decisively with Austria or the Iberian don't be surprised if that has a positive effect of the Ottomans.

You need to own the province to block the strait, which can be hard early on, when both Edirne and Constantiniople have forts. Austria early on won't be able to compete with the navy of Ottos

 

[dmc99]

You need to own the province to block the strait, which can be hard early on, when both Edirne and Constantiniople have forts. Austria early on won't be able to compete with the navy of Ottos

Sure, but you can protect Byzantium combined with Athens and their fleet can do the bulk of the work, or wait until they are engaged with Venice.

 

[Nagassh]

If you let them grow they are still easy to take apart later but they will expand. If you're France and deal decisively with Austria or the Iberian don't be surprised if that has a positive effect of the Ottomans.

Which I certainly think is the best path unless you're a competent and confident player, which despite the OP's protests, doesn't seem to be the case.

Dismantling the Ottomans early is a useful strategy for a good player if they're confident of success, but hamstringing yourself early on if you're not confident you'll win is more crippling than doing so after snowballing for a while.

Which I'd argue is the easiest path forward. Snowball for a while and beat the Ottomans up later - as much as they love to blob they have nothing on what even a mediocre player can do, a human has a much easier time dismantling alliances and building alliances of their own if they want the AI help.

Unless you're starting near them, how well the Ottomans are doing should be more or less inconsequential and can be dealt with when you're strong enough. Failure to get to that point is entirely on the player.

 

[klingonadmiral]

Unless you're starting near them, how well the Ottomans are doing should be more or less inconsequential and can be dealt with when you're strong enough.

There were some exceptions, like Pre-Manchu Korea. Though in that case you wanted a healthy Ottomans - a strong Turkish bey keeps the Russians away.

 

[noldorin]

Imagine that the Ottomans had ideas of prussia

 

[Morbus Bubbonicus]

Post patch Ottomans got buffed it seems as thye are. like, two-three times strongernow than they were before. Never less than 110 disc, top morale and superior pips with overwhelmingly more powerful economy. They could be stopped by coalition before - now they kill 7-8 member coalition with twice their army without any problem.
In other words, Ottomans were, is and will be broken as devs seem to be okay with this situation

 

[YeP1337]

Post patch Ottomans got buffed it seems as thye are. like, two-three times strongernow than they were before. Never less than 110 disc, top morale and superior pips with overwhelmingly more powerful economy. They could be stopped by coalition before - now they kill 7-8 member coalition with twice their army without any problem.
In other words, Ottomans were, is and will be broken as devs seem to be okay with this situation

I don't know if you're joking or not but in the current state of the game (1.30) Austria can steam roll the Ottomans. The European expansion route of the Ottomans for the time being has been blocked by the AI all joining the HRE. I watched an Austria with their allies bulldose the Ottomans. That and the Constantinople trade node got smaller due to the new Pest node (So they economically suffer more)

 

[Regaccio]

To me it seems like the Ottomans are a fluffy kitty this patch. Even an AI Austria expands the HRE into the Balkans and gets a Hungary PU with ease, halting their expansion in its tracks. After 1 lost war, they fall prey to this version's debt spiral problem, and become less aggressive. Only in extreme outlier games, like one where Protestantism spawned in Castile - and Muscovy lost early wars against the Great Horde - do I see them dominate like in previous patches. Needless to say if you're a player things will be much more consistent. (btw, even in that start Albania lives to 1821 since they joined the empire in the first few years, lol)

To put it in perspective, in 1444 the ottomans have a force limit in the 40s, while Austria's is in the 60s. Ottomans have no certain allies, Austria has 2-4 easy PUs right off the bat. Austria starts with 10% morale, Ottoman starts with 0. Discipline is not as important early on as morale. Of course the Ottomans' ideas and units are still strong but the HRE balance in this patch has weakened them significantly.

Also on a different note, their capital no longer has a level 3 fort so beating them at the very start is slightly easier, this matters a lot for Byzantium starts too.

 

[Battlex]

To me it seems like the Ottomans are a fluffy kitty this patch. Even an AI Austria expands the HRE into the Balkans and gets a Hungary PU with ease, halting their expansion in its tracks. After 1 lost war, they fall prey to this version's debt spiral problem, and become less aggressive. Only in extreme outlier games, like one where Protestantism spawned in Castile - and Muscovy lost early wars against the Great Horde - do I see them dominate like in previous patches. Needless to say if you're a player things will be much more consistent. (btw, even in that start Albania lives to 1821 since they joined the empire in the first few years, lol)

To put it in perspective, in 1444 the ottomans have a force limit in the 40s, while Austria's is in the 60s. Ottomans have no certain allies, Austria has 2-4 easy PUs right off the bat. Austria starts with 10% morale, Ottoman starts with 0. Discipline is not as important early on as morale. Of course the Ottomans' ideas and units are still strong but the HRE balance in this patch has weakened them significantly.

Also on a different note, their capital no longer has a level 3 fort so beating them at the very start is slightly easier, this matters a lot for Byzantium starts too.

Not just a lv1 Fort, but a non coastal capital so naval superiority isn't always needed if E. G. just Hungary gets allied and not Venice.

Post patch Ottomans got buffed it seems as thye are. like, two-three times strongernow than they were before. Never less than 110 disc, top morale and superior pips with overwhelmingly more powerful economy. They could be stopped by coalition before - now they kill 7-8 member coalition with twice their army without any problem.
In other words, Ottomans were, is and will be broken as devs seem to be okay with this situation

I would have to respectfully disagree, they're not doing that well these days. Albania now has 2 provinces not one, both mountains, one lv2 one lv1 Fort. Albania being 2pm means they can't be in a trade league, but AI Venice rarely put them in one in previous patches. The AI not being hyper aware of how to use mercs means their manpower is often lost in sieges, and if AI Ottos chain their sieges too much they'll lose too much manpower so Hungary and mamlukes can fight to a white peace.
110 disc is not surprising, they get 5 from NI, and then easily another 5 from any other good MIL group. They have a better economy like everyone does for the lack of estates, but Hungary getting its own trade node has gimped it a bit. Ottos have been balanced since they lost their cores on Anatolian minors, any medium skilled player should be able to beat them if late game. I would reccomend playing more games in observer as well as nearby nations to prove your hypothesis

 

[JaxElite]

Post patch Ottomans got buffed it seems as thye are. like, two-three times strongernow than they were before. Never less than 110 disc, top morale and superior pips with overwhelmingly more powerful economy. They could be stopped by coalition before - now they kill 7-8 member coalition with twice their army without any problem.
In other words, Ottomans were, is and will be broken as devs seem to be okay with this situation

Quite the opposite, 1.30 heavily nerfed the ottomans. The simple fact that serbia and byzanzium together havd so many provinces now, that byzantium almost always survives the first war if they ally serbia combined with a much stronger hungary really hurt the ottomans.
The Balkan is MUCH stronger this patch due to new provinces alone. Also the addition of herzegowina, another orthodox tag ok the balkans makes ottoman AI think twice before they attack due to higher opposing troop count.
Not to mention that the ottomans themselves actually got hurt by losing their capital fort.

Tl;dr They could still steamroll most AI nations but are more reluctant to declare and have a harder tile defending their european provinces

 

[akngn]

It was easy to beat Ottomans in prevous patches, but on current one it is almost trivial.

This is from current patch on VH. Please stop complaining about Ottomans and search fault on yourselves. Ottomans are already pathetic.

 

[ramrom]

Honestly never got the complaints. They're very easy to beat with strong alliances in the mid game. Ottomans are fine as they are.

Use tactical combat nous. Stay close to AI armies, don't attack them in mountainous or hill terrain etc. It's not difficult.

 

[giovdb]

So I've been playing EU4 alot lately. In my three latest games, the Ottomans just steamrolled everything at will. In my first game as France, they controlled everything from Sudan to the Baltic. In my second game as Sweden, they controlled everything from Sudan to half of Finland. In my third game as Austria, the Ottoman empire joined the protestant league (!!!) and just wiped me out.

This just ruins every game. I really dont care how big or bad they were in real life. In real life they were stopped. In EU4 this cannot be done. And it just ruins the game.

Suggestions:
1. Stop AI Ottomans from being able to get cores outside of their historical boundries. OR stop them from getting 3-star generals and multiple 30k stack armies that combine to impossible 160k -stacks that just destroys everything everywhere.
2. Make it impossible for nations with other state religion than protestant to join the protestant league. In my game as Austria, both catholic France and Sunni Ottomans joined the protestant league. I mean come on.

I am really annoyed right now, because I have wasted something like 100 hours of gameplay in the past few weeks. I like this game alot, but I cant bring myself to playing it anymore until the game breaking ottomans are patched.

I find that this update has severely weakened the Ottomans, as the Balkan nations are all joining the HRE and preventing Ottoman expansion. I was stack wiping them all the time, so I recommend just be patient and keep playing. Or watch videos online on how to deal with the Ottomans (I'm sure there are some). Once you know their strengths and weakness, it's not difficult. I did it on this patch with Austria (I know, they are big), and in the last patch with Venice before 1500 (I did avoid fighting their troops and focused on carpet sieging to get quick warscore).

 

[DPS]

I just bought the game this week, and am basically on my first play-through. I'm playing Denmark, and my attitude toward the Ottomans has been to ignore them, because they're too far away from me to be either a threat or potentially useful ally. It's 1587 now (1444 start) and they haven't even taken any land from Hungary yet (tbh, I don't know if they've even attacked Hungary, 'cause I have no reason to bother keeping track of what they're doing.