In a matchup between a reasonably beefy Prussia and the Ottomans, who wins?
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By the time Prussia forms and gets beefy, discipline already would become the main combat atribute
The human is me, in this case. I'm in the 1600's with the best Prussia run I've had so far. In one scrape with the Ottos I noticed that may stacks did a phenomenal amount of damage to his. I've got full militarization and Reformed religion - and the "fine goosestep" cheeve - but I don't think I did as well as I could have in other areas.Are they both AI? Or are one or both of them human?
(Humans will almost always beat the AI. Between two humans, relative skill is probably more important than national ideas.)
If they are both AI, I would put my money on Prussia. It can only be formed in the mid- or late-game, and I believe Western military tends to outperform the Ottomans in this period. And Prussia is unusually high-quality for a Western nation. On the other hand, the AI can always do something derpy and lose as a result - if only one of the AI does this then the other will win.
EDIT: After thinking about this a bit further, I think the only way to make this a meaningful question is to set up a specific scenario, and run it in observer mode about 100 times. Then repeat the process for small variations of that scenario, to check you didn't accidentally give one side an advantage.
Ottomans, more manpower and provinces across strait the ai will never reach so can forever give manpower and taxIn a matchup between a reasonably beefy Prussia and the Ottomans, who wins?
So, as a human player in a real game, it's important to be clear about what you mean by "beating" the Ottomans as Prussia.The human is me, in this case. I'm in the 1600's with the best Prussia run I've had so far. In one scrape with the Ottos I noticed that may stacks did a phenomenal amount of damage to his. I've got full militarization and Reformed religion - and the "fine goosestep" cheeve - but I don't think I did as well as I could have in other areas.
I was interested to know if a properly planned and prepared Prussia could do the Ottos in.
When does the ai form Germany?On a pound for pound basis, Prussia wins hands down - I say this with experience. At tech levels beyond the 1700s, a Prussian army with the front and backrow completely filled, high discipline, infantry combat ability, professionalism, 3-star generals, you will crush an Ottoman army of equal size.
But...if we're assuming that the Ottomans have much higher development because of the massive head start they receive, and if we're going to make it a long war of attrition/manpower, then it becomes trickier.
But...if Prussia forms Germany and takes their unique power during the Age of Revolutions, then Germany wins decisively.
I was assuming human players against human players.When does the ai form Germany?
Beyond 1700s ai prussia mightve formed if brandenburg survived but doubt
Ottomans spam artillery but doubt ai prussia would have appropriate economy for that
But why would they have the same dev?Between two players? If they have the same development, Prussia wins every time. Not hard to see why.
Tech 32? TIL that discipline's meaningfulness is somehow strictly bound to techJust a reminder that 10% more morale beats 5% more discipline in combat at equal tech for the entire timeline. Discipline is only the "main combat attribute" if we assume a war between humans, where it's feasible to tap out manpower, and the belligerents are otherwise close in size/power. Morale and siege ability are THE stats for SP wars, for the entire game.
Even at tech 32, a 5% discipline advantage is ~ 3% difference in casualties taken, but will tend to lose a full combat width engagement to 10% morale advantage. Not a good trade in most cases, if you're routing from fights.
Of course, Prussia does not lack for morale either. So it's really a matter of how many more troops the Ottomans get to compensate in this hypothetical, and how well they're micromanaged vs Prussia's troops and vice versa.
I never said that though. Just that even at that high of a tech level the 10% morale still wins a particular fight at max width (controlling other factors best we can). It's true at all techs, while a *very* common player thing to parrot is that "morale falls off" and that "discipline is king". Both of those are false in a vacuum, and frequently still not true in practice.Tech 32? TIL that discipline's meaningfulness is somehow strictly bound to tech
True, you get a rough estimate at best. Morale is applied to less places but that too isn't counted in only one place.1. It's weird to count the 'advantage' in discipline. Disci isn't pips where advantage is the only thing counted in the formula.
In practice you get a bit less, I think it has to do with routing parts of losing side? Should also depend a lot on how the battle goes (much closer to 5% both ways in reinforcement-extended grind battle, less if morale is decisive relatively quickly). Excepting the case of on-the-spot stackwiping, where the casualty ratio swings wildly back.2. 3% difference in casualties taken? where did you get that from? 5% disci purely on paper increases your damage dealt by 5% and decreases damage taken by ~~5%
I will defer to you on MP, as it's been years since I did PvP. So long ago that western tech had > 10 pip advantage by late game if you didn't westernize. I had some bad experiences with it, mostly from a stability standpoint (patch broke compatibility and I couldn't play anymore) but also from a time commitment standpoint.If we're talking SP vs MP differences, funnily enough MP-wise
With that I agree. I mostly just wanted to push back on "discipline is THE stat" nonsense that gets stated a lot still. It's especially not true in SP, where a good % of wars are won while the AI won't even willingly engage you in most wars by the time you've filled out a MIL group. It's more interested in trying to counter siege or running around doing nothing unless it thinks it can take a fight somewhat decisively. So morale winds up way better in SP because:tl;dr: It's fun to talk about these things, but it's going to be hard to reach any meaningful conclusions this way
Ottomans will not always be bigger, same reason Prussia does not always exist.Quantity > Quality
We all like a good meme of stackwiping other forces with equal size armies. However, the Ottomans will always be bigger than Prussia. If we're talking about a multiplayer game of equal size nations, this comparison obviously doesn't go up, because quality tips the scale in evenly sized battles.
Still, quality means little once the manpower reserves run dry.
All in all, with no proper context it's hard to say who's best. Still, there is a reason why Russia is fantastic in MP.
I'm still fairly confident Prussia will "win" assuming both nations are built well. Manpower is irrelevant in MP: you can literally have manpower quantities that overflow the in game counter by the 1500s.
Short answer: yesI hear this often, but never understood how that works. Why is there so much more manpower in MP? You dev more, you take quantity ideas, you enact some edicts and government reforms and some policies. You are Orthodox. Is that enough to have literally overflowing manpower?
Honest question, really!