Mamluk

[Rino88]

Are mamluks really as strong as the forum really seems to complain about when compared to the Ottomans? I mean, I have a good amount of hours played but after 2 or 3 restarts I am still having problems with dealing with the Ottomans (a couple of wars lost, one of them I was allied with Poland), while I had no problems while playing other nations as Austria, Poland, Castille, Muscovy (I have only played them after Third Rome) or France ( and from what I have seems people seem to think the Mamluks are OP, that is why I compared to them).

 

[deathbypie]

Fighting them earlier is easiest. ESPECIALLY if they declare against Albania, and get dragged into a war against Venice and hopefully others. If Hungary isn't in that war, you should be able to ally them and bring them in against the Ottomans by promising land.

Build a navy at the beginning of the game so you can easily trap Ottoman armies.

 

[Xaster]

Still never played the Mamluks after the new changes, but in the (admittedly few) games I've played after 1.23 went out I never seen them survive the late '500

 

[Rino88]

Thanks for the tip. Ottoman actually won the war against Albania and Venice quite handily in one of my games while I was busy in another war. But yeah, I was mostly surprised that after all the Ottoman Nerfed and Mamluks OP thread I was actually finding it a bit of a challenge, I was more expecting a France- or Castille-like game experience.

 

[Ironside121]

Mamluks have hit the stage of pathetically easy for a player, which considering Ottomans are supposed to be the strongest nation at the game start is just.. annoying to me. But then again, any nations of equal strength, the one controlled by the player will usually win.

I just felt my campaign was bland- kind of like an Ottoman except the Ottomans actually have some power checks, like the HRE and Commonwealth. Mamluks don't have much need to go into Europe like the Ottomans do early on- and when they do.. you just stomp the AI because you're so strong.

 

[Psychian]

in my games it seemed like mamluks had a better turn in 1.23 than in current patch.
in the current patch i haven't seen hungary ally/guarantee albania and that seems like the wests only option (for ai) to check the ottomans until mamaluks can do some work.

 

[Azsouth]

bought all the updates, played as Byzantium, Mamluks and Candar came in and destroyed what was left of the Ottomans after I was done and now I have no room to expand as Autria/Hungray (though not PUed) are allies to my north Wallachia even got Muscovy as an ally, and whenever I declare on the Mams I get 40k doom stack that just wiped me out. My allies are Poland (they had the union over Lithuania but rebels broke it), Muscovy, and France, none of whom will join the war because of bad dip rep and distant war, (Mams are rivaled to France, Denmark and Austria).

 

[Bibor]

Constantinople, Anatolian minors and military techs 4-9 are key to Ottoman power.

Negate one or all of these advantages without draining your manpower and economy.

 

[Rino88]

Ok. Maybe I am just bad with them. I usually get the two anatolian minors next to me as vassals and expand a bit south and east before getting slowly thrown back by the Ottomans. For example, now I lost the whole Anatolia to them (around 1500) and the Eastern Sheep (Can/t remember the name, Q something). I will probably bite my time, rebuild a bit and finish the conquest of the Arabian Horn and try take that land back later. My Polish allied where wholly useless, btw.
Maybe in 1.23, like Psychian said, they were better and even easier. Especially the nobility now is a giant pain.

 

[Dominion]

Ok. Maybe I am just bad with them. I usually get the two anatolian minors next to me as vassals and expand a bit south and east before getting slowly thrown back by the Ottomans. For example, now I lost the whole Anatolia to them (around 1500) and the Eastern Sheep (Can/t remember the name, Q something). I will probably bite my time, rebuild a bit and finish the conquest of the Arabian Horn and try take that land back later. My Polish allied where wholly useless, btw.
Maybe in 1.23, like Psychian said, they were better and even easier. Especially the nobility now is a giant pain.

You don't attack them while they're weak, give them provinces when they are trying to build up and just decided to attack them right when they're the strongest.

Of course you lose.