Haven't played in a while, and now the Ottomans are stomping me. Advice?

[adam_grif]

I have all the expansions, for reference.

First, I while and complain a bit because I apparently don't understand how the game works anymore, or at least how to play it well.

I haven't put in much time since they added Institutions. It's an interesting idea but it has led me to struggle greatly as Russia, since you no longer get convenient free westernization. Yes, I am aware of how humiliating it is playing a big blob nation and having trouble with the AI. Especially after 500 hours clocked in this game.

The Ottomans, even in the early 1700s now, seem to be at the cutting edge of institutions at all times, meaning it's a struggle for me to keep up in tech. I did not attack them early on because they were far too strong, I was secondarily involved in a war when I allied PLC, and they just wrecked me on every front. Instead I expanded east, took finland, and pumped out Sweden as a vassal then buffed it up to control all of it's non-finish core lands.

Even now, with Spain on my side, the Ottomans are unbelievably strong. It's about 1710 and I just had to release Perm to get out of a war I started with them. I ganked them when they had exhausted their manpower in a war with the commonwealth, and somehow they still consistently fielded something like ~400,000 soldiers. Holy shit. The fact that 250k were mercenaries seemed to phase nobody, as their mercs were still quite strong. I inflicted ~700,000 total casualties in the war, mostly on the Ottomans since their only notable ally was a small-mid sized Tunis. I had Spain on my side too, and it wasn't enough. They seemed to have infinite new mercenaries and my 180k manpower reserve went down to near zero and my money started to bleed out.

Then something else completely inexplicable happened - Ming got involved??? I don't know when this happened but they were NOT involved at the start of the war, but somehow joined in on the Ottoman side with not so much as a warning. I only noticed when half of Siberia had been occupied and I saw that Ming was committing 200k-300k to the faction totals. If I was soloing the Ottomans I could have white peaced or fought them to a standstill but this was just too much. The Ottoman AI kept getting stackwiped and having to rebuild, taking loans and loans, exhausting the manpower of their country, but because a few hundred thousand Chinese soldiers were freezing their testacles off in Siberia, they refused to give in. I'm not going to go into how absurd it is that there would still be 300,000 mercenaries just available for hire at this point, but whatever, they appear from some kind of mercenary dimension and it's always been that way.

Questions:

1. How can I deal with the Ottomans long term? They don't control much of Europe but they control most of Arabia and Egypt, which is apparently enough to field half a million men and have infinite money. There are NO large nations near them that could plausibly be a threat, nobody ever coallitions them, and they are the Sunni defender of the faith really boxing me in from just finishing the horde (which I've wanted to do for centuries).
   
2. How can Russia keep up with the joneses for instiutions? Developing to get them faster seems to just put me behind in tech and has caused me to have major early-mid game troubles. Those are now passed but I feel like it really slowed me down long term.
   
3. I'm doing Iron Man so lucky nations are on. This is not a reel question, but FUCK LUCKY NATIONS ARBITRARY BONUSES.
4. Does anybody have any ideas how the hell Ming got involved and why?
5. Why does Ming seem to also be at the cutting edge of global technology??

 

[Viktor Vaughn]

1. Find opportunistic wars. Chip away at them; blitz territory when their army is on the other side of their realm, and then peace out quickly taking only a few things. Also check out things like absolutism, which can increase your discipline and admin efficiency which can help a bunch. And there's always the option of using their own strategy against them. Merc up and keep mercing up, taking out loans if you need to, and just grind away at them.
2. Really the first three institutions are the only ones that will be a problem. Renaissance, colonialism, and printing press. Although really colonialism is the worst of those. Short of developing your provinces to force the institution growth (great to do in gold provinces or centres of trade), make sure you are trying to fill the institution requirements. Lots of trade buildings will make global trade easy. Lots of factories will make manufacturing easy. Lots of universities will make enlightenment easy.
3. Yeah
4. Ming was probably a great power, as were you, Spain, and Ottomans. If there's a war with an imbalance of great powers (ie you and spain v ottomans), another great power can choose to intervene in the side with fewer great powers. I'm going to bet Ming hated you, so they'd definitely take an opportunity to jump into a war against you. It's a pain for sure.
5. Again only the first few institutions will be hard for them to get.

Probably not the best advice, I'm not the best player by a long shot, but I think it's mostly pretty good.

 

[sigeena]

You should have no issue keeping up with manpower. Streltsy and Cossacks are free 30k+ troops you can raise in a jiffy.
You should try to localise the war. I usually keep a narrow front and push, consolidate, then push.

Ming checked into the war due to GP intervention. Can't really avoid it. Unless Ottomans bring along another GP to equalize Russia - Spain.

I'm coming towards 1650s. I usually only have a army of around 100, whereas Ottomans are usually 200. No worries. Keep them tight and pick good terrain. With Combat Width of 32, I keep a front line of 20 streltsy and 12 cossacks. And several reserves of similar ratio to back the front up.

 

[Kergan]

Ming joined because of a Great Power intervention as already noted. It hates your guts or GP Spain's guts, and doesn't hate Ottoman's guts, so Ming joined in on the fun to balance the number of GPs involved. To avoid this, declare a solo war (or only bring in minors) next time.

Your troop quality might be low: by 1700 you should have completed at least 2 of offensive/defensive/quality, your military tradition should be in 60+ territory, as should your professionalism. Throw in the Icon of St.Michael, a discipline or morale advisor, good generals, and a bunch of Streltsy/Cossacks, and you should be shredding Ottoman mercenaries. Mind combat width and have as many canons in the back row as you can while keeping attrition at a reasonable level.

Make the terrain play to your advantage. See to it that you've a mountain fort on each side of the Caucasian, and stick to holding the line there with 3-4 stacks. Use a similar setup with desert or mountain forts that keep reinforcements safe in higher dev drylands in Transoxiana if Ottoman is pushing over there too. Don't forget to use the Defensive Edict if you need to buy more time. The point here is to make the AI understand that it's going to lose gazillions of troops to attrition and combat penalties if it tries to pierce in those two areas.

If you don't have enough forts to keep the Ottomans out of your territory, another option is to build a couple of high level forts in arctic eastern Siberian provinces. Mothball them at the start of the war. The AI will usually take the bait and send stacks to siege them down. It takes over a year to go from Anatolia to Kamchatka, giving you ample time to carpet siege the Ottomans.

If you can afford it, keep one doom stack near Moscow, in case the AI sends a stack or two to your European heartland. The same for Asia. Avoid going back and forth between Europe and Asia with your stacks - the trip is really long, and full of attrition. (While on this topic: if you release a vassal near Ming, you'll keep the latter happy enough that you can focus on dismantling the Ottomans for a few wars, after which you can ship the bulk of your army east and dismantle Ming.)

Focus the rest of your army in the Balkans until you reach Constantinople. Use artillery barrage on high level forts, and don't spread yourself too thin as you make progress: do one or two forts at the time with ample reinforcements nearby until you've taken Constantinople. Then hold the line there while you carpet siege the rest of Ottoman's European holdings. And then push into Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt (spam galleys to cross the straights).

During the peace deal, grab Ottoman forts in Europe; ensure you've an unobstructed, fort-free path to Constantinople; see to it that you can hold the line in Caucasia without taking too much attrition, and then grab provinces in the Ragusa node so trade money leaks out of Constantinople. Personally I usually let the Ottoman keep Constantinople until I'm done taking its European holdings, because if you sit a 40/0/40 stack in it (or whatever smaller stack is appropriate) the Ottomans will get a -2 crossing penalty when trying to siege it back from Anatolia.

In your next game try to neuter the Ottomans as early as you can - ideally in the early 1600s, when they start to get bad janissary events.

 

[darth254]

ahh yes, someone else frustrated with merc spam I see and how it completely dumpsters the concepts of manpower management and attrition. join the growing club.

 

[adam_grif]

Things got worse when I fired up the save again, because Ming allied up not only the Ottomans, but also the Commonwealth. I'm a rival of MIng so it seems they're now allies with the two strongest powers near me (although Commonwealth is a joke that I've beaten up a few times). I definitely cannot take Ming, Otto, and Commonwealth simultaneously.

I did manage to get the Ottomans "almost" alone by attacking the Great Horde, and the war went well after I went into a golden age, got the icon of st whoever, and finished quality. I already did have Defensive and Offensive prior to this, but Quality as well helps. Even though the war went in my favour, Level 8 forts are ridiculous to siege down even with all my buffs to siege ability and siege generals. Spain joined the war after I started it ("Distant war" until Ottomans joined, then they were all onboard), but they weren't useful. They just did some naval blockades which were ok but not game changing.

My economy was for a long time too weak to meaningfully support an army large enough. I'm now somewhere around 150-160k regulars and I already did have high professionalism and army tradition, it's just that the Ottomans can summon absurd numers of troops. In this war, I stackwiped probably 300 ottoman regiments over a few years and it just wasn't enough to keep them down and out. They bounced back and managed to stackwipe one of my armies because of fog-of-war and zone of control shennanigans once I took the offensive to their lands. I did siege down the capital but in the end, I had to separate peace them for like 2 shitty provinces. They're still at 99.9% strength, and despite me driving htier war exhaustion up and wrecking that many stacks, there are just no other countries around to threaten them at all. Nobody took advantage of hteir weakness.

I'll probably just have to do that again with the great horde, but I don't hink there's a way for me to dismantle them properly before 1821. I left it way too late



P.S. mercs are awful and should have been redesigned long before EU4 got to the "oh god we're running out of ideas for these expansions" phase.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Hello Adam, I am working now so I can´t provide much feedback anyway I very recently did a campaign as Russia (with a great mic and all ); maybe you want to at least see how I deal with the economy/institutions since it will help you out greatly (IIRC I explain everything as I go). If you drop by my stream I can also reply to any questions you may still have.
Here is the link to that series:

 

[DarthDanMan]

I had to separate peace them for like 2 shitty provinces.

You should have anulled their alliance with Ming instead.

 

[adam_grif]

Hello Adam, I am working now so I can´t provide much feedback anyway I very recently did a campaign as Russia (with a great mic and all ); maybe you want to at least see how I deal with the economy/institutions since it will help you out greatly (IIRC I explain everything as I go). If you drop by my stream I can also reply to any questions you may still have.
Here is the link to that series:

Ill definitely check it out thanks

You should have anulled their alliance with Ming instead.

this did not occur to me because I am not a clever man.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

I have a screenshot from my Italy achievement run showing the Turk close to 25,000 Ducats in debt. And they still were able to shrug it off and eat all of Eastern Europe clear to the Baltic.

On the main topic, good advice above. I can only add, play at low speed and be careful moving your troops and pick good terrain.

 

[Plantagent]

This is dealt with via early game setup. As Russia, after you conquer Novgorod, Ryazan and the rest, either kill Livonian Order and go after Teutonic Order and PLC - you should ally Bohemia - or conquer great Horde. Depends on what kind of alliances everyone has.

If you conquer west, the Baltic trade node solves your money problems and gets you easier institutions. Conquer south and east for money and Otto blob containment. If you own Persia, the Ottos will be something approaching poor.

When you conquer great Horde and Crimea early game to deny Ottos Horde land, release Astrakhan and feed the conquered land to them to core so you don't have to deal with rebels.

You're Russia, you should have more than 180k manpower in 1700.

 

[Aeon221]

I play on VH and Turks have 250k standing army on average in 1500. They can actually hit 1mil by 1700 if left alone which is seriously just fucking obscene. My policy is generally to keep a buffer state between me and them and focus on other stuff until I'm way bigger. I make heavy use of development and buildings (partly funded by gold) to boom before engaging in major wars with them. I enjoy playing MUS/NOV->RUS so will share my experiences.

Be very, very careful about who you rival. I will often run with just one or even zero rivals to keep the AI from forming blocs of like minded powers against me. Always have a dedicated diplomat in the capital of someone who is big, strong and rivaling you I'd you aren't ready to go toe to toe with them. If you keep them friendly long enough and don't fuck with their interests they'll eventually drop you as a rival in favor of someone else.TThey're also much less likely to declare opportunistic wars on you if you've got them pretty friendly even if they're rivals.

Make heavy use of humiliate against Kazan and Golden Horde. Humiliate + Show Strength will give you PP and mana to keep you competitive. You don't need most of their provinces (wrong culture and religion + low dev) in the early game so use the resources to build up Novgorod and Moscow and keep up to date on tech. Abuse as long as you can, and when they stop being viable rivals gobble the fuckers up while leaving something for Poles or Crimea to eat. Whatever you do avoid a land border with the turk until you're ready for some cataclysmic wars.

The other big focus has to be the Commonwealth. In VH they have 100k+ troops with good bonuses by 1500. You should decide early on whether you want to befriend them and try to take down the Turk together or to take a chunk off of them every time they're attacked by the Turk. Both can be good options, but be careful that you don't beat them up so bad that they befriend the ottomans and gangbang you to death.

Look for friends in the HRE, especially Austria. Be willing to get involved in the League Wars on their side if you're struggling to get them as an ally prior b/c it resets a lot of relationships and can open a slot up for you.

Keep in mind that taking provinces from someone gives them revanchism. Revanchism is super strong and very dangerous, so beware of grabbing a lot of turf off a big foe. Especially the turks. Much more important to strip them of allies and generally harm their diplomatic situation than to do stuff like taking a few crappy provinces.

I try to keep good relations with the Scandis. They're western, have good troops and are mostly uninteresting for expansion because who wants to live in the only place that is even more of a frigid hell hole than Siberia. So they're a great place to get institutions from if you get unlucky with spawns.

If you are fighting the Turks and don't have an advantage in tech and/or troop count you've already lost. You might get a couple provinces, but you will have wasted a fortune that could have been spent on advisors and factories.

I always try to rush that gold mine in Kazan. I'll convert and culture convert (or accept the culture, whatever is cheaper), then develop it to at least 10 production with stacked development cost modifiers. The cash it pumps out can immensely improve your economy and give you a much stronger grip on the region.

Siberia can be colonized with either expansion or your diplo points. The fewer diplo points you use on things other than tech or development the better. Production income is top dog, and diplo points pay for more production income which pays for better advisors which gives you an awesome virtuous boom cycle. Given that the AI is now actually pretty good at booming you do need to be able to either out grow or out boom them.

Prior to wars be sure to drill armies and get professionalism up. It gives you some decent combat stats and a massive reserve manpower supply. Tap cossacks, nobles and strelets before hitting the slacken button. If you slacken to zero and are still fighting merc the fuck up. I recommend having one stack perma train and rotate troops from other stacks into and out of it so that you've got a decent level of drill on all your units.

I'm a big fan of defensive with Russia. The attrition, army tradition and morale boosts are handy as hell for a country that is already a big motherfucker. While attrition won't completely wipe out enemy stacks it can prevent them from reinforcing. And good forts in shitty terrain with stacked defensive boosts far from the border are a nightmare for the AI.

Use forts to create a safe zone where your armies can recuperate if you have a battle go to shit. It's also a good idea to have a couple forts to block off the Scandis in case relations go to shit and Sweden starts sending space marines to attack you while you're involved in another war. Much better for them to be stuck in a multi year siege before you swarm them than for them to show up out of nowhere and swing a major battle.

If you're planning to conquer heavily in Asia you need to do it before discoveries spread to Turks + they get DotF. I highly recommend using a diplomat in a Siberia state to steal maps so that you're not wasting travel time on exploration.

When actually fighting be extremely aware of both attrition and terrain. Russia has tons of woods and attacking into woods against the Turks is a bad idea. I've lost wars because I got a little too frisky and got blown the fuck out by doing exactly that before I could even retreat. Hulked out turks with a 6 shock leader with river crossing + woods is a great way to get a shit load of Russians killed extremely fast lol.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

I would add to fort placement, make sure you have a safe lane to your forts that you don’t have any rivers to cross. That way if there is s stack sieging you you can snipe you don’t get that river crossing penalty.

And granted I don’t play on VH, but I don’t want to see the words “Ottoman Pontic Steppe” on the map. I always gut Crimea ASAP. By the time I’m done violating Novgorod, I have a claim on GH, take their border with Lithuania, and I have the spy points to claim on Crimea. Take Crimea’s border with Lithuania plus Crimea itself, and some conbo of GH, Genoa, Circassia & Theodoro will put them down. No Turk unless the go through the Caucasus or Moldavia.