I think I understand now why the Ottomans fail so often

[Taylor]

The funny thing is, the game isn't even able to simulate what historically happened (as in: the historical outcome is impossible in-game). Historically, the Timurids defeated the Ottomans made them release a bunch of Anatolian minors; this can't happen at the 1399 start because hordes can't make peace deals like that :wacko:.

In my D&T game, I never bordered the GH, and the Timurids are too weak to mean anything, but still I sometimes get armies thrown at me by the rest of my neighbors that make me gulp. E.g. Hungary plus Poland (which is quite a bit stronger in D&T) plus Mamluks can be problematic and when Portugal and Castile start landing big stacks too, I can understand the AI breaking, even without horde influence.

 

[safferli]

As I posted above, EVERY Paradox game gimps the Muslim powers. It's like they wanted the Crusades to succeed or something.

CK(1, we'll need to wait for 2) doesn't.

 

[unmerged(371738)]

The funny thing is, the game isn't even able to simulate what historically happened (as in: the historical outcome is impossible in-game). Historically, the Timurids defeated the Ottomans made them release a bunch of Anatolian minors; this can't happen at the 1399 start because hordes can't make peace deals like that.

Also, the Ottomans forced the Austrians to pay an annual tribute, something only the Hordes can demand! Ahistorical trolling abounds.

CK(1, we'll need to wait for 2) doesn't.

I played a game as Germany and took all of Syria and N. Africa in 60 years of the game start. That shouldn't even remotely be possible.

It really ought to be practically impossible to hold onto Muslim territories outside of fortresses. Even when the British Empire swallowed Arabia whole it was more or less just letting local Muslim strong men do everything, they were vassal states, not true provinces. The logistics, ethnicity, language, culture, history and geography are all against it. Unfortunately this is only very weakly, if at all, recognized in the game. There are no constant tribal rebels, just random 2-division rebels and income penalties that don't affect a great empire at all.

This all gets back to the fact that revolts are trivially easy to deal with and have no consequences except for the moron computer.

 

[Johnny X]

Any country of Muslim tech or higher with 5+ provinces could be turned into a super-power by a player without much difficulty.

Perfectly doable with 3-province Karaman as well, but only because it is absurdly easy under the circumstances to eviscerate the Ottomans.

 

[Creideki]

This is amusing... just finished reading about how underpowered the OE can be in Vic2 in a similar thread.

OE In Nomine was a lot more capable, that was without Holy War CBs or the Horde mechanic though. Of course with In Nomine, it was more common than not for France to own someone between 1/3 to 1/2 of the entirety of Europe.

 

[Helios Panoptes]

I have to wonder if part of the problem is the game was built to start in 1453.

EU2's Ottomans also had a lot of trouble getting started unless you began after they took Constantinople.

 

[6354201]

The real culprit for the lack of Ottoman success is the horde mechanic. Disable the horde mechanic and leave everything else the same and you'll see the Ottoman AI does much better (and also be more historically accurate as far as power and borders go more often than not).

Of course, it doesn't help that the entire Muslim world is severely underpowered. The fact that Paradox inexplicably reduced the tech rate of the Ottoman and Muslim tech groups by 5% in DW has only made things worse.

 

[Kyoumen]

CK(1, we'll need to wait for 2) doesn't.

It doesn't? I don't think I've ever seen the crusaders fail to take Jerusalem, and I've only seen Muslim Spain survive once, in all my times playing CK. Not to mention you can't play Muslims in any official expansion.

I'm actually really dreading the possibility that Muslims are pushovers in CK2, because Islamic powers in general and North Africa in (overwhelmingly!) particular are gimpy in pretty much every Paradox game I've played.

 

[Kyoumen]

There really is no a priori reason Europe should be richer or more powerful than the states of the Near East; that is just a historical accident more caused by the Muslim powers turning xenophobic and anti-modern than of any innate advantage the Europeans had (though the decentralization of Europe did help to prevent this from happening in Europe there is no reason it had to happen to the Muslims). And it's well known that until the early modern period they were on par, if not better, than Europeans at basically everything.

I agree with most of what you said, but this isn't quite true. The collapse of the Islamic technological edge was well underway and very hard to halt when EUIII begins, due to the Mongol invasions, and by extension the splintering of the Islamic world into smaller, poorer, mutually antagonistic statelets. It wasn't destined or anything, but it wasn't a fluke or due entirely to internal reasons. Similarly, the Ottoman Empire really was almost certain to lose ground against Europe as the game went along, because it's advantages in logistics, technology, organisation, and so forth could all be copied by Europeans, but its weaknesses (multiethnic, multireligious empire with a comparatively thin population spread over a huge area with no really safe borders, and badly positioned for eventual industrialisation) couldn't be rectified. Of course exactly how fast it happened, how much Europe could take advantage of it, and how they dealt with it weren't preordained, but it's hard to imagine the Ottoman Empire staying the nearly invincible force it was - the resources and population just weren't there, and the game SHOULD reflect that... in the 1700s. Not the 1400s.

The game does represent the Muslims being ahead of Christian Europeans - their early tech levels, province development and most of their troops are better. If Granada owned as many provinces as Castille they'd stomp all over them. But that doesn't amount to a hill of beans when with how provinces and taxes (and lack of logistics) shake out mean Castille can start the game by taking on Granada, Morocco and Algeria by itself.

 

[The Blood Eagle]

You guys really need to study history before accusing the developers of favoritism.

This game takes place after the decline of the Islamic enlightened period. A scholar named Al-Ghazali gained widespread notoriety in the 11th and 12th centuries and essentially reverted most of the Islamic world from technology-lovers to Sufis and Dervishes. Basically he used the last century of terrible losses to Crusaders and Mongols to convince people to abandon their open societies and shunned the Greeks, from which the Islamic world was drawing much of their philosophy and mathematics.

 

[Taylor]

Let's not get overly into the history of things here. Let's try to find out what makes the Ottomans fail so often in-game.

So we have, as possible reasons:
- Holy War Casus Belli / Crusade bonus
- Irrational DoWs by Christian nations (and Mamluks!) (even without CB)
- Nearby Hordes
- Ottomans are too poor
- Transporting troops overseas is too easy

Am I forgetting anything? It could be worthwhile to try to find out which of these possible influences are the most important.

 

[The Blood Eagle]

Let's not get overly into the history of things here. Let's try to find out what makes the Ottomans fail so often in-game.

So we have, as possible reasons:
- Holy War Casus Belli / Crusade bonus
- Irrational DoWs by Christian nations (and Mamluks!) (even without CB)
- Nearby Hordes
- Ottomans are too poor
- Transporting troops overseas is too easy

Am I forgetting anything? It could be worthwhile to try to find out which of these possible influences are the most important.

The hordes manpower is why. The larger the enemy you're fighting, the more chance the AI will jump on the dogpile. Since they DoW you every 5 years, they're using the same cooldown as the truces you sign with the nations that attacked you last time.

 

[StephenT]

You guys really need to study history before accusing the developers of favoritism. This game takes place after the decline of the Islamic enlightened period.

After their decline, huh?

That's quite a decline.

The fact is, the Ottomans were at the cutting edge of technology and knowledge in the early part of this period - at least, military technology. Maybe their poetry and literature weren't as advanced of those of the Muslim nations of the 12th century. They were one of the first nations to start using cannons, for example. The logistics, training and organisation of their armies was second to none. They didn't really start falling behind Western Europe until after the 1560s, and a large part of that is because they grew complacent and conservative; the military system that had served them so well for 150 years was no longer cutting-edge, but they had too much invested in it to want to change.

Let's not get overly into the history of things here. Let's try to find out what makes the Ottomans fail so often in-game.

So we have, as possible reasons:
- Holy War Casus Belli / Crusade bonus
- Irrational DoWs by Christian nations (and Mamluks!) (even without CB)
- Nearby Hordes
- Ottomans are too poor
- Transporting troops overseas is too easy

Am I forgetting anything? It could be worthwhile to try to find out which of these possible influences are the most important.

War exhaustion, as I mentioned in my last post. Because they're so often at war with everyone and his dog, it never has time to drop down to a reasonable level before the next war starts. It doesn't help that a lot of their provinces have really low supply limits so they get attrition.

They also control lots of wrong-culture, wrong-religion provinces. There is the 'Ottoman Tolerance' decision, true, but from a 1399 start they might never meet the preconditions needed for that.

There's also an argument that the Ottomans should get some kind of special bonus to their armies similar to the Prussian Military Reform, to reflect their discipline and morale which were both much higher than typical armies of the 1400-1550 period. In real life people feared the Turks; in EUIII they really don't. Though perhaps the bonus should go away again after 1550.

 

[The Blood Eagle]

After their decline, huh?

Yeah, so what I said went completely over your head. I understand.

 

[Kyoumen]

You guys really need to study history before accusing the developers of favoritism.

I disagree with your post, but this isn't really the place to argue the point with you. The important point is: without player intervention, the Muslim world in general and the Ottomans in particular almost always fare far worse than they did in reality. Once in awhile this would be fine; 90% or more of the time indicates a balance problem. This has been an ongoing problem with EUIII basically since it came out.

 

[The Blood Eagle]

I disagree with your post, but this isn't really the place to argue the point with you. The important point it: without player intervention, the Muslim world in general and the Ottomans in particular almost always fare far worse than they did in reality. Once in awhile this would be fine; 90% or more of the time indicates a balance problem. This has been an ongoing problem with EUIII basically since it came out.

And this is why the Ottomans were given their own tech group. They are the exception to the rule.

 

[Kyoumen]

And this is why the Ottomans were given their own tech group. They are the exception to the rule.

They were previously in the Eastern/Oriental tech group, like Poland and Russia, not the Muslim tech group (i.e., they had a higher tech speed than they currently do, though they now have better units). Whether that was an overall buff or not, they still routinely underperform in the vast majority of games. And so does the rest of the Muslim world, especially North Africa.

 

[The Blood Eagle]

They were previously in the Eastern/Oriental tech group, like Poland and Russia, not the Muslim tech group (i.e., they had a higher tech speed than they currently do, though they now have better units). Whether that was an overall buff or not, they still routinely underperform in the vast majority of games. And so does the rest of the Muslim world, especially North Africa.

They aren't in the Muslim tech group, they're in the Ottoman tech group by themselves.

If you aren't playing with lucky nations, however, the OE will crumble just like France, GB, Austria, Spain, etc. If you are playing with lucky nations and they're still failing? That would be the horde explanation. But you could make the same argument for why Russia never forms. Because Muscovy is getting a much larger dose of adversity than it had in the past.

You also have to consider that the Venetian navy is larger than the OE's at game start, so they have a good shot at having their strait defense wiped out early with no easy way to recover.

 

[StephenT]

Yeah, so what I said went completely over your head. I understand.

You were arguing that because of one single philosopher 300 years earlier, the entire Muslim world completely abandoned technology and science and mathematics, and sank into a pit of mysticism and religious fanaticism. Yes? And therefore the weak, easily-conquered nature of Muslim countries in EUIII is not a flaw in the game as most people in this thread are claiming, but entirely historical - as we would realise if only we had "studied history".

So the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the EUIII period, founded as it was on possessing the most modern, technologically-advanced army in the world at that time, must be quite a mystery to you?

 

[StephenT]

They were previously in the Eastern/Oriental tech group, like Poland and Russia, not the Muslim tech group (i.e., they had a higher tech speed than they currently do, though they now have better units). Whether that was an overall buff or not, they still routinely underperform in the vast majority of games. And so does the rest of the Muslim world, especially North Africa.

The problem with their own tech group is that they don't get any neighbour bonus from it; I'm not sure having better units compensates for that in the long-term, although it's a big benefit in the first few years.

However, it's not really relevant to the problem. Their slow tech speed will only affect them later in the game, which is when they should be suffering. The big problem for the Ottomans is that they generally collapse long before they can ever start falling behind in tech.