Ottoman naples in 1458? Byz surviving? What in sweet hell is this
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Is it just me or are the Ottomans completely insane in 1.33?
- Thread starter durbal
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So invest in a bigger navy and take outposts first? Genoa wouldn't be able to stack wipe or effectively defend kaffa and lesbos. Mehmed's aborted conquest of naples only had him fight naples and pope.
Just an anecdote too but in my last Incan game (few interaction with European lands), Ottomans reached in 1821 as far as Egypt till horn of Africa and Tunisia, France (Montpellier was taken. Lyon at the border of Ottomans), and a big chunk of Germany (only three provinces to Baltic sea). And economic hegemony. Frightening
I'm not asking how to do it as a player but how AI can do it. How often do you see succesfull naval invasion by the AI?
it's 46% warscore, I don't think that without sieging Genoa you will get so much, maybe with ticking warscore from occupation but this again requires time. As a player I can start another war and wait but AI wouldn't do it
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People complain about that, too - especially Persia and Muscovy, because they're important counterbalances to the Ottomans. France and Britain more seldomly, because France is usually in the historical region of powerful anyway and Britain is crazy strong in the least fun part of military gameplay, but y'know. Another common complaint is Mughals hugboxing itself in in India and becoming a steppe empire instead, if they form at all.
The problem with the Ottomans is that their strength is more linked to the state of the world around them than anything inherent in the tag - except the culture group. Their military ideas aren't as OP as people seem to think, and the bulk of their strength comes from enormous manpower, which any quantity-focused country conquering the region will also achieve. That's why, at least in my case, arguments for nerfing the Ottomans fall a bit flat. They're strong more out of circumstance than anything more easily nerfable, and creating a situation where they're not a two-million manpower monster relies more on strengthening their neighbours by encouraging consolidation, but this is hard to do through AI improvements (from which the Ottomans will also benefit) AND strengthening tags, with for example PLC and RUS as that will affect other tags before the Ottomans.
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@Nostalgium This is the first fair counter-argument in the thread, so I'll endeavour to respond bit by bit.
The fact is that even if we had a united Persia they'd get steamrolled by the Ottomans on pure quantity. The Ottomans also have the benefit of having the entire Levantine culture group as their home culture, which is inaccurate, meaning they have insane benefits from the land they conquer. Relative to the Ottomans, Persian lands are poor.
In the case of Muscovy/Russia, they're only on Ottoman level after forming Russia, colonising Siberia and sorting out their economy. The Ottomans again are far richer than Russia ever will be. This may be a fair point of gameplay but I feel compelled to point this all out.
EU4 is largely a quantity based game for AI battles. The Ottomans reach an unstoppable level of forcelimit and manpower long before anyone else can contest. (and realistically who will contest them other than Russia?) Therefore the Ottomans are able to defeat some of their potential rivals very early on in the game. This is made worse by their siege ability age bonus. It's also why them taking Quantity ideas is just vile. It's a guaranteed game over for any AI they fight.
In the first 100 years they are ahead on pips, tech, manpower, forcelimit, siege bonus and income than any of their potential rivals and by some margin. It's not unfeasible for Austria-Hungary-Venice-PLC-Mamluks and even Muscovy to all be defeated by the Ottomans within the first 80-100 years of the game. At that point who is going to stop them? The game offers zero mechanic. You just don't see large empires crumble in this game (this isn't an Ottoman specific issue).
I and others have said they just need a disaster or two.
They're the only major tag I can think of that doesn't have to deal with a major disaster. The Janissary coup realistically never happens. Meanwhile the War of the Roses drains English manpower/finances for over a decade. The French Wars of Religion gives me Vietnam flashbacks just imagining dealing with it.
The Ottomans should get a malus to embracing Institutions Printing Press and beyond. And they should have events that give very high autonomy or unrest in the Balkans.
I also think the +33% siege ability should go and be replaced with a manpower related bonus.
They shouldn't be in the Levantine culture group either. Turkish should be in its own culture group.
Finally, the awful, a historical Crimean event needs to go. It messes with the PLC and Muscovy far too much. The Ottomans don't need free land. Give them perma-claims on Crimea and the Black Sea whilst you're at it.
I am absolutely certain that these things above would create a more balanced game in which the Ottomans are still strong, the Ottomans still have the potential to be the world power, but there's enough variables for it to not happen every single game...
What does it say about the Ottomans eventual power that the main point in the development of other countries is if they can withstand the Ottomans or not?
The fact is that even if we had a united Persia they'd get steamrolled by the Ottomans on pure quantity. The Ottomans also have the benefit of having the entire Levantine culture group as their home culture, which is inaccurate, meaning they have insane benefits from the land they conquer. Relative to the Ottomans, Persian lands are poor.
In the case of Muscovy/Russia, they're only on Ottoman level after forming Russia, colonising Siberia and sorting out their economy. The Ottomans again are far richer than Russia ever will be. This may be a fair point of gameplay but I feel compelled to point this all out.
The development of France is very RNG. The strength of the HRE, the outcome of the Burgundian Inheritance, and whether England/Castile form an early alliance can have existential differences to France. I don't think the Ottomans have anywhere near the level of RNG to deal with, even in the case of the AI. British AI still doesn't know how to deal with naval landings either.
A couple of things to point out.
EU4 is largely a quantity based game for AI battles. The Ottomans reach an unstoppable level of forcelimit and manpower long before anyone else can contest. (and realistically who will contest them other than Russia?) Therefore the Ottomans are able to defeat some of their potential rivals very early on in the game. This is made worse by their siege ability age bonus. It's also why them taking Quantity ideas is just vile. It's a guaranteed game over for any AI they fight.
In the first 100 years they are ahead on pips, tech, manpower, forcelimit, siege bonus and income than any of their potential rivals and by some margin. It's not unfeasible for Austria-Hungary-Venice-PLC-Mamluks and even Muscovy to all be defeated by the Ottomans within the first 80-100 years of the game. At that point who is going to stop them? The game offers zero mechanic. You just don't see large empires crumble in this game (this isn't an Ottoman specific issue).
I and others have said they just need a disaster or two.
They're the only major tag I can think of that doesn't have to deal with a major disaster. The Janissary coup realistically never happens. Meanwhile the War of the Roses drains English manpower/finances for over a decade. The French Wars of Religion gives me Vietnam flashbacks just imagining dealing with it.
The Ottomans should get a malus to embracing Institutions Printing Press and beyond. And they should have events that give very high autonomy or unrest in the Balkans.
I also think the +33% siege ability should go and be replaced with a manpower related bonus.
They shouldn't be in the Levantine culture group either. Turkish should be in its own culture group.
Finally, the awful, a historical Crimean event needs to go. It messes with the PLC and Muscovy far too much. The Ottomans don't need free land. Give them perma-claims on Crimea and the Black Sea whilst you're at it.
I am absolutely certain that these things above would create a more balanced game in which the Ottomans are still strong, the Ottomans still have the potential to be the world power, but there's enough variables for it to not happen every single game...
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I'm in the "Ottomans are far too weak" camp, myself. I would like to see them get their cores on the beyliks back, and they should also have their original CCR percentage. Because of the nerfs they've suffered, the Ottomans pretty much never reach anything close to their historical borders in AI hands. They often stall out before even uniting Anatolia, they only occasionally destroy the Mamluks, and they rarely if ever make it to the Persian Gulf, conquer most of north Africa, or expand in Europe the way they should.
Eliminating the Ottomans as a player isn't challenging. I've done it dozens, maybe hundreds of times. You can wreck them as great powers or OPMs, as nations that start as their neighbor or nations that don't border them for centuries, and you can do it early, middle, or late game. They have no secret advantages, no cheats that aren't documented in the wiki, no abilities that you won't have if you decide to play them yourself. If you understand combat mechanics and alliance building, they're not a threat. They're a paper tiger, and that paper gets torn to shreds too easily.
Edit: I'd also give the Ottomans a full mission tree, one as interesting as Spain, Austria, France, and so on. It's sad that one of the most important powers of the era has many generic missions.
Eliminating the Ottomans as a player isn't challenging. I've done it dozens, maybe hundreds of times. You can wreck them as great powers or OPMs, as nations that start as their neighbor or nations that don't border them for centuries, and you can do it early, middle, or late game. They have no secret advantages, no cheats that aren't documented in the wiki, no abilities that you won't have if you decide to play them yourself. If you understand combat mechanics and alliance building, they're not a threat. They're a paper tiger, and that paper gets torn to shreds too easily.
Edit: I'd also give the Ottomans a full mission tree, one as interesting as Spain, Austria, France, and so on. It's sad that one of the most important powers of the era has many generic missions.
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During the khan periods of sahib Giray, Safa Giray and Otemis Giray, the Kazan Khanate was dependent on the Ottoman Empire, just like the Crimea. ( 1521 - 1551 ) And imagine that the Kazan Khanate fell to the Ottomans with an event. This is something that should happen, but I didn't know if it would happen with such a simple event or in a task order
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Not really - Russian armies at the time on numerous occasions invaded Kazan during this time, and placed a pro-russian Khan on the throne.During the khan periods of sahib Giray, Safa Giray and Otemis Giray, the Kazan Khanate was dependent on the Ottoman Empire, just like the Crimea. ( 1521 - 1551 ) And imagine that the Kazan Khanate fell to the Ottomans with an event. This is something that should happen, but I didn't know if it would happen with such a simple event or in a task order
1487-1520 as the date when the things you say happened. After 1552 it was already annexed by the Russians.
man the last patch ottomans got buffed up alot , last game i annex western Europe (UK+Spain+whole Burgandy+North italy) as France
and still ottomans forcelimit and manpower is insane , they outmatch my Forcelimit and manpower by alot
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I think the Ottomans are simply more aggressive now. Still it feels unfair fighting Ottomans in the early game, when you can lose a fight with twice their number, and while there are reasons for this, it is not always clear to the player.
Eu4 is in a bad spot and, honestly, kind of boring. EVERY game, and I mean every game I was playing required a "Deal with Ottomans" strategy.
There are essentially two types of strategies -- early knee-capping and come back later strategy. The early knee-cappings are obvious. Certain nations have the ability at the start to disable or dismember the Ottomans at the get go. Byzantium, ironically, is in the best position to do this, but several other nations (primarily by no-CB'ing Byzantium) can take care of business. I've done this with Mamelukes, Hungary, Poland and Aragon as well as Byzantium.
The come back later strategy is one where you stay the hell out of their way and hope to conquer outside of their missions -- for example, Persia but not Iraq -- or colonize until you are massively bigger than them and can start to chip away at the monster. Once upon a time, you could reliably implement this strategy because the Ottoman army QUALITY would drop off, even if their quantity did not. You could also count on their economy becoming relatively weaker over time as the Venice end-node and streams are eclipsed by Genoa, English Channel and the Norther Route (Novgorod, Baltic or Lubeck).
Allying the Ottomans is not a good strategy long-term. They have no issue calling you into war all the time and even if you do nothing to help them, just defending your own lands simply lets them steam roll more.
It's easy to see how this happened. Because of the limits of the AI, the Ottomans were given baked-in advantages in unit pips, religion, idea, age bonus, and government type. While they have been nerfed and buffed from patch to patch, because of the AI not dealing with economies, development and forts very well, the Ottoman AI could not leverage these advantages to the extent that it now can.
Moreover, the game's "fail safe" of tech groups does not mean as much in the era of huge armies as it used to. Unit quality means much more when a 20k stack fights a 20k stack, not when an 80k stack fights an 80k stack because of the combat changes. So, the Ottoman unit strength matters when it matters and their weakness doesn't matter when it doesn't matter. Oh, also the Ottomans field multiple doomstacks in the mid-1500s now when Austria, Spain and France could field only one (or none) doomstack.
Just to illustrate, in my last game before I stopped playing EUIV, the Ottomans had nearly 300k with 100k artillery -- during peace -- and a Force limit of 546, 300k manpower in reserve and 50% professionalism. The force limit was more than twice the second largest, which was a very large Austrian Emperor that had eaten Hungary, Bohemia and most of Poland. There simply aren't enough troops in the Christian Majors to fight them -- even if Austria, France, Castile and GB joined together. Sure, they might out number them, but they will run out of men much sooner than the Ottomans will. Of course, because the Ottomans are so big, they are invalid rivals to many of the Christian Majors and so those majors will never band together. By the way, this is in 1636 where their decline should be in full swing, historically. I see no evidence of that.
This happens every game that I don't personally knee-cap them before Tech 5 or 6. The same-ness of this is boring and ruining what had been the most replayable game in this genre ever.
There are essentially two types of strategies -- early knee-capping and come back later strategy. The early knee-cappings are obvious. Certain nations have the ability at the start to disable or dismember the Ottomans at the get go. Byzantium, ironically, is in the best position to do this, but several other nations (primarily by no-CB'ing Byzantium) can take care of business. I've done this with Mamelukes, Hungary, Poland and Aragon as well as Byzantium.
The come back later strategy is one where you stay the hell out of their way and hope to conquer outside of their missions -- for example, Persia but not Iraq -- or colonize until you are massively bigger than them and can start to chip away at the monster. Once upon a time, you could reliably implement this strategy because the Ottoman army QUALITY would drop off, even if their quantity did not. You could also count on their economy becoming relatively weaker over time as the Venice end-node and streams are eclipsed by Genoa, English Channel and the Norther Route (Novgorod, Baltic or Lubeck).
Allying the Ottomans is not a good strategy long-term. They have no issue calling you into war all the time and even if you do nothing to help them, just defending your own lands simply lets them steam roll more.
It's easy to see how this happened. Because of the limits of the AI, the Ottomans were given baked-in advantages in unit pips, religion, idea, age bonus, and government type. While they have been nerfed and buffed from patch to patch, because of the AI not dealing with economies, development and forts very well, the Ottoman AI could not leverage these advantages to the extent that it now can.
Moreover, the game's "fail safe" of tech groups does not mean as much in the era of huge armies as it used to. Unit quality means much more when a 20k stack fights a 20k stack, not when an 80k stack fights an 80k stack because of the combat changes. So, the Ottoman unit strength matters when it matters and their weakness doesn't matter when it doesn't matter. Oh, also the Ottomans field multiple doomstacks in the mid-1500s now when Austria, Spain and France could field only one (or none) doomstack.
Just to illustrate, in my last game before I stopped playing EUIV, the Ottomans had nearly 300k with 100k artillery -- during peace -- and a Force limit of 546, 300k manpower in reserve and 50% professionalism. The force limit was more than twice the second largest, which was a very large Austrian Emperor that had eaten Hungary, Bohemia and most of Poland. There simply aren't enough troops in the Christian Majors to fight them -- even if Austria, France, Castile and GB joined together. Sure, they might out number them, but they will run out of men much sooner than the Ottomans will. Of course, because the Ottomans are so big, they are invalid rivals to many of the Christian Majors and so those majors will never band together. By the way, this is in 1636 where their decline should be in full swing, historically. I see no evidence of that.
This happens every game that I don't personally knee-cap them before Tech 5 or 6. The same-ness of this is boring and ruining what had been the most replayable game in this genre ever.
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It's true you can fight them early, and as you said, there are nations like Byzantium and Venice that are well suited for this. It's also true you can fight them late.
But there are other options, too. In my current 1.33 Austria game, I didn't attack the Ottomans until about 1493. Early on, I focused my expansion on Italy (to move my trade collection point to the Venetian node) and on getting personal unions over Hungary and Bohemia. I attacked Aragon and used the "Transfer Subject" age ability to eat Naples. Additionally, on Day 1 of the campaign I allied Poland and Burgundy, who I helped to expand against France and later inherited. Once I was ready, I called everyone in. The first war was easy, and the subsequent ones were of course easier. These screenshots summarize the action:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2789135734
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2789948330
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2792341896
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2796448032
By the time the first war started, my alliance outnumbered the Ottomans by more than 3 to 1. Were their troops better than mine on a 1 to 1 basis? Sure--they had the usual pip advantage. But I had generals equal to or better than theirs (my military tradition was high from all the wars I'd been fighting), an immense numbers advantage, and I made sure to fight in advantageous terrain. It wasn't hard.
Obviously, Austria is strong. But in the process of getting all of the Steam achievements I've also eaten the Ottomans with weak nations like Athens, the Knights, Hisn Kayfa, QQ, AQ, Wallachia, Serbia, and Georgia. The formula is always the same: put together a strong alliance and swarm them. It helps if they're busy with another war but, depending on the game situation, that's not necessary. The alliance is.
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The French Wars of Religion is disaster that is one of the easiest to avoid. You start with -2 tollerance of heretics, french ideas gives +2, legitimacy +1, burghers another +2 and you are at +3 to you have 100% religious unity without humanist ideas. It's hard to go below 75% unity as France.
If you want disaster for the Ottomans to make an impact it must be much harder to avoid, something like The Struggle for Royal Power that almost always fires at the start of Age of Absolutism or something like Unguarded Nomadic Frontier that player can force even when AI doesn't do it regularly.
Disaster for the Ottomans may be triggered by development, age or even by the government like PLC - Ottomans may be forced to reform their government in age of absolutism or deal with the disaster it they wan't to keep bonuses
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Two brothers, who are Kazan and Crimean Khans, have a Moscow expedition in 1532. The dates you mentioned are not suitable. They even defeat the Tsar of Moscow, Vasili III, in front of Moscow. There is only Shahghali Khan who was pro-Russian at the time you mentioned. fled after reigning too short. The dates you mentioned are between 1519-21. A few months in 1546.
Too short means nothing. My point is - Kazan was a regular mess, with outside powers installing their candidates, namely Grand Duchy of Muscovy and Crimea, but I have never heard of Ottoman influence.
Came back to the game after a little while off today, started a Sebria game - joined the Empire, allied to Austria as you should be, eating up Balkan states. Ottomans declare war on me - tech between all participants is equal, all told my alliance (Austria, Bohemia, the Electors, etc etc) can pull in 120k to start. Ottomans start with 50k. I thought I was safe
After two years of war, I'd lost my forts, the Austrian army had been destroyed / no more manpower as the Ottoman stacks replenished manpower on the march over the mountains and picked off everyone involved - and that was that for my game. I closed out of it as the Ottomans laid siege to Prague and Vienna, with their army now at 90k and climbing, after two years of fairly bloody war.
Ottomans don't need much changed - just nerf the bottomless manpower. Them having good generals / siege ability would then be a challenge - currently it's just boring, as you have to jump through the same hoops to play near them every game - a circle of allies (or just savescum to make sure you get it), grab Constaintinople, and before you know it the date is 1690 and you've none nothing but cheese the Ottomans for six hours, again. If you don't, and survive that long, it's 1690 and they can field half a million men with three times that in reserve over the period of any given war. Boring.
After two years of war, I'd lost my forts, the Austrian army had been destroyed / no more manpower as the Ottoman stacks replenished manpower on the march over the mountains and picked off everyone involved - and that was that for my game. I closed out of it as the Ottomans laid siege to Prague and Vienna, with their army now at 90k and climbing, after two years of fairly bloody war.
Ottomans don't need much changed - just nerf the bottomless manpower. Them having good generals / siege ability would then be a challenge - currently it's just boring, as you have to jump through the same hoops to play near them every game - a circle of allies (or just savescum to make sure you get it), grab Constaintinople, and before you know it the date is 1690 and you've none nothing but cheese the Ottomans for six hours, again. If you don't, and survive that long, it's 1690 and they can field half a million men with three times that in reserve over the period of any given war. Boring.
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I can agree with jannies using manpower and gutting the idea of them shitting man for free
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