Indications of when it is good to attack?

[towerbooks3192]

I am playing for the first time on normal as Byz and I was wondering what are the indications of when are the best times to attack the ottomans? I want to know what are the things to look out for when is it best to strike and other than the obvious low stability or getting caught up in a big war. I don't know what the reason is but I suddenly lost core on Edirne and I didn't do anything and it would be too early for the cores to expire.

 

[unmerged(88716)]

The best time is when their troops are east fighting hordes. If you can build navy larger than theirs or find an ally with a good navy, you can occupy the whole Balkans plus Bosnia and Serbia with 5-10 troops. Just prevent them from crossing over the Sea of Marmara

 

[Richard-monagha]

Build a bigger navy than them to block them from crossing to you. In order to build the army/navy needed you might have to mint. You can either start by taking out the smaller Turkish nations that you have cores on (many of them are allied with each other + other nations) or you can attack the Ottomans when they are fighting the Timurids in the east, only takes 1 stack of troops on each of thier western provinces and block the straits with your larger navy. You will need the help of as many allies as you can get. Don't bother with allying yourself with landlocked nations. If the ottomans are allied with the Mumluks thier navy + Ottomans will be bigger than yours.

I find that both Aquileia and Naples tend to accept the alliance requests as long as you offer before you unpause at the start. If your realy lucky you can get Castille to accept your alliance request and i've had Aragon accept also. If you somehow get castille as a ally you'll be sorted for taking on the Ottomans as long as they accept your call to arms but 99% of the time they start a war with Granada/Morroco/Algiers and other North African nations as soon as they start the game and normaly call you in which ends up with them going for your provinces as your easier than Castille.

BTW be aware of the Golden Horde. They Normaly annex Moldova early and head towards the Ottomans.

 

[cywang86]

and if Ottoman and GH are at war, they can move their troops back to the west by circling north around the sea. Be careful =P

 

[towerbooks3192]

I did it like twice but I didn't know how I did it (just some luck I guess!) I have to reinstall the game now because I had to restore my system due to some problems.

I always DoW Karaman or something (the northern one) then the southern one would join and I usually annex both in one go. After that I just have to play the waiting game. I got unlocky this time and I don't know what to do. Its a bit depressing since EUIV is coming and I still suck at this game.

 

[cywang86]

Epirus is usually my first target as Naples almost always DoW him, but it requires some restarts as you'll only beat Naples by a couple of days.
War tax is turned on ofc, and while that's happening, I go for the Anatolia minors to grab some possible free ships.

Meanwhile, mint like crazy to beat the Ottoman on the amount of ships, so I can blockade the strait, which is possibly the only strategy to beat Ottoman at this point of time as your units are terrible.
Because I'm blockading the strait, I tend to not bother taking lands on the east side until Ottoman has been taken care of.

 

[towerbooks3192]

Epirus is usually my first target as Naples almost always DoW him, but it requires some restarts as you'll only beat Naples by a couple of days.
War tax is turned on ofc, and while that's happening, I go for the Anatolia minors to grab some possible free ships.

Meanwhile, mint like crazy to beat the Ottoman on the amount of ships, so I can blockade the strait, which is possibly the only strategy to beat Ottoman at this point of time as your units are terrible.
Because I'm blockading the strait, I tend to not bother taking lands on the east side until Ottoman has been taken care of.

I should try full minting and getting Janina or Epirus one of these days. I always dive straight for Karaman before they could call in big allies like the annoying Algiers!. Just a question though. What is a good naval composition that would be able to stand against the ottoman navy?

Just to get my mind off the incident, I started a Muscowy game and was able to annex a huge part of novgorod, Ryazan and Tver in one war. I had to use the Liberum Veto though and I am now waiting for my manpower to replenish and for the right time to finish off Novgorod's remnants.