Ottoman Empire in EUIII

[th3freakie]

Suggestion for a leader, random of course - M. Kemal A. You know it feels right.

 

[Yakman]

Technically speaking, being the Caliph never had the same level of religious authority as being say, the Pope. The Caliphate was often a self-declared thing, and is a lot closer in how it actually worked to being the "defender of the faith" in EU2.

The only thing approaching the Papacy in the Islamic world was the Grand Ayatollah for the Shi'ites.

Sunni Islam is actually the most decentralized faith in the world, so much so that there are 5 or 6 accepted interpretations of the Koran which are all still considered equally valid, and even agreeing on that much was a huge feat of doctrinal organization.

I completely agree.

The need for a 'caliph' similar to the Pope in CK (although it appears the Pope has a seriously overpowered role in EU3... troubling....) is highly questionable, and I personally oppose it.

 

[Enravota]

it would be nice to be able to centralise Sunni dogma and get some extras as a Chaliph, should be hard to do though, as it did not hapen. I think you should get a relations hit with Sunni states if you attack the current Chaliphate, nothing too major though, we wouldn't want to see Marocco DoWing Austria or something simmilar.

I'm prety reluctant to see OE getting most Balkan Orthodox cultures. Neither Slavs nor Greeks nor Armenians felt as an integral part of the OE, but at best as a burden they are supposed to bear. In most of my EUII games OE converted most of the Balkans, which obviously didn't happen I think that OE cannot be represented correctly in EUII terms with a state culture, but rather with religion, the statute of Ottoman citizen depended not on his ethnos, but on his religion, the same thing should have happend with Byzantium, but considering it is out of the time frame it is irrelevant for EUIII. if the state culture system stays the same as in EUII my suggestion would be to give OE Turkish and Arab cultures, later on gaining Albanian. In EUII i usually modded OE in such fashon and it didn't really hamper them at all, due to the bonuses of from their cores, though they got more rebelions in Rumelia, though I'd argue that would be more or less historical.

 

[Tunch Khan]

Neither Slavs nor Greeks nor Armenians felt as an integral part of the OE, but at best as a burden they are supposed to bear. ...if the state culture system stays the same as in EUII my suggestion would be to give OE Turkish and Arab cultures, later on gaining Albanian.

It's good to see we have some volunteers who can emphatise with all of the Slavs, Greeks and Armenians of the 15th Century. For the record, Ottomans did not control a single Arab province until 1517. And on a side note, almost all of the revolts Ottomans had to deal with during EU III timeframe were caused by Turks in Anatolia. When the Ottoman ruling class was Greek and Slavic, I'd doubt the average Joe Balkan would be upset about their Ottoman overlords who had either Greek or Slavic as their first language. Lastly, Ottomans gave most Balkan nationalities a sense of religious freedom, while they were constantly being forced into Catholicism and served as unpaid serfs under Hungarians. Now as long as they paid their taxes, they could be free subjects.

 

[Mad King James]

While the Ottomans oppressed their Slavic and Armenian citizens, this was not unusual. The Byzantines, Serbs and Georgians oppressed them even more, and they're supposedly their coreligious bretheren. This isn't even mentioning the Catholics, who considered them schismatic scum worthy only for dirtying their weaponry.

Oppression is a relative concept in the middle ages.

 

[Enravota]

It's good to see we have some volunteers who can emphatise with all of the Slavs, Greeks and Armenians of the 15th Century. For the record, Ottomans did not control a single Arab province until 1517. And on a side note, almost all of the revolts Ottomans had to deal with during EU III timeframe were caused by Turks in Anatolia. When the Ottoman ruling class was Greek and Slavic, I'd doubt the average Joe Balkan would be upset about their Ottoman overlords who had either Greek or Slavic as their first language. Lastly, Ottomans gave most Balkan nationalities a sense of religious freedom, while they were constantly being forced into Catholicism and served as unpaid serfs under Hungarians. Now as long as they paid their taxes, they could be free subjects.

Well, your average Joe Balkan wouldn't care about the language of the ruling court in Constantinople, to which he most probably never went nor would go (not to mention to have a chat with a member of the Divan). I would imagine though that Joe would be aggrieved to pay all the extra taxes he has to due to being Orthodox, and I'm not sure he'll be hapy to pay, just due to that the early Divan was composed of kids forcfully taken from thair parents, converted to another religion, and made into fanatic supporters of the Sultan etc. (which the Janissaries were), but still spoke the same language. Btw Sweden was ruled by a German dinasty in EUII timeframe but I didn't remember it geting German culture due to that, though there was influx of German nobles in the royal court. The same goes for Hungary they were ruled by a French dynasty and had enough Frenchmen in their court but do not get French culture.

it is also untruth that there were no Balkan uprisings in the EUIII timeframe. i.e. There were a number of Bulgarian uprisings of various sizes first one in 1408 and a couple of more major ones in 1598, 1686, 1688 and 1689. I would imagine the situation was no different in other parts of Balkans. It was the Ottoman millitary might that kept the OE in the Balkans.

 

[Enravota]

While the Ottomans oppressed their Slavic and Armenian citizens, this was not unusual. The Byzantines, Serbs and Georgians oppressed them even more, and they're supposedly their coreligious bretheren. This isn't even mentioning the Catholics, who considered them schismatic scum worthy only for dirtying their weaponry.

Oppression is a relative concept in the middle ages.

well there were local supporters to Polish and Hungarian crusades, or the league that fought OE at Kosovo from already conquered territories, while OE got only Janissaries and forced troops from the lacals, so i can guess whom they preffered.

 

[lucaluca]

Well, your average Joe Balkan wouldn't care about the language of the ruling court in Constantinople, to which he most probably never went nor would go (not to mention to have a chat with a member of the Divan). I would imagine though that Joe would be aggrieved to pay all the extra taxes he has to due to being Orthodox, and I'm not sure he'll be hapy to pay, just due to that the early Divan was composed of kids forcfully taken from thair parents, converted to another religion, and made into fanatic supporters of the Sultan etc. (which the Janissaries were), but still spoke the same language.

this is a no point actually: Joe Balkan would have to pay taxes for being orthodox, but not the taxes for being muslim; also he would love to send his son to the court the get back money and prestige from him when he's eventually grown up and much more socially advanced then a farmer.

 

[Carewolf2]

I think it's a bad idea to give any nation more than one or at most two cultures. Instead a country like OE should have a slider that gives it a much smaller penalty to foreign cultures.

For the system of the OE empire I don't think it matters if the people they rule are armenian, georigian or even russian. They could all have been adapted and tolerated, but none of them would ever have felt 100% that it was their nation based on their nationality.

So OE could use the human resources 90% + by huge tolerance, but lost albanian or slavic provinces wouldn't rise up against invaders to defend _their_ empire. Turkish provinces on the other hand could rise up against foreign invaders.

 

[Jodien]

It's good to see we have some volunteers who can emphatise with all of the Slavs, Greeks and Armenians of the 15th Century. For the record, Ottomans did not control a single Arab province until 1517. And on a side note, almost all of the revolts Ottomans had to deal with during EU III timeframe were caused by Turks in Anatolia. When the Ottoman ruling class was Greek and Slavic, I'd doubt the average Joe Balkan would be upset about their Ottoman overlords who had either Greek or Slavic as their first language. Lastly, Ottomans gave most Balkan nationalities a sense of religious freedom, while they were constantly being forced into Catholicism and served as unpaid serfs under Hungarians. Now as long as they paid their taxes, they could be free subjects.

I totally agree. In the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire was still mostly a Balkan monarchy right on the spot where Byzantium ruled supreme before her. The first sultans of 1300s were of Turkish and Byzantian origin. The Serbians and Russians added later.

 

[Enravota]

this is a no point actually: Joe Balkan would have to pay taxes for being orthodox, but not the taxes for being muslim; also he would love to send his son to the court the get back money and prestige from him when he's eventually grown up and much more socially advanced then a farmer.

I guess you don't know but the only thing Muslims were supposed to do was doing military service. Members of other religions had to pay a lot of other taxes. So there were no Muslim specific taxes.

 

[Tunch Khan]

I guess you don't know but the only thing Muslims were supposed to do was doing military service. Members of other religions had to pay a lot of other taxes. So there were no Muslim specific taxes.

Please don't comment on EU III time period with 19th Century nationalist ideas. Remember that EU III ends with the invention of nationalism with French Revolution and everything before that is pretty religious. Greeks and Slavs were being forcefully converted to Catholicism before the arrival of the Turks, who granted their subjects religious freedoms, from establishing an independent Orthodox Patriarchate (which was abolished by Papal pressures on Byzantium) to the acceptance of the Jews. 15th Century Ottoman Empire was a desirable place for the oppressed nations.

 

[unmerged(5822)]

Please don't comment on EU III time period with 19th Century nationalist ideas. Remember that EU III ends with the invention of nationalism with French Revolution and everything before that is pretty religious. Greeks and Slavs were being forcefully converted to Catholicism before the arrival of the Turks, who granted their subjects religious freedoms, from establishing an independent Orthodox Patriarchate (which was abolished by Papal pressures on Byzantium) to the acceptance of the Jews. 15th Century Ottoman Empire was a desirable place for the oppressed nations.

Yup. The taxation was discriminatory by modern standards, but one can't really say that the taxation systems were that much better elsewhere - and religious freedom was practically unheard of in western Europe, while it thrived in the Ottoman Empire and Poland (to use an overly broad generalisation).

 

[Tunch Khan]

JANISSARIES:

Ottoman power in its early days was a family affair, with sovereignity shared by brothers, uncles, cousins and even female relatives; and when Murad I in 1365 founded the janissaries, the yeni ceri, or "new troops", he extended his family in a remarkable way.

Osman and Orhan had taken their fifth of the war booty, as the Koran permits a leader to do, in the form of land and gold; Murad took up his fifth of the captives, too.

Turks appear to have favored the conscription of essentially Greeks, Albanians, Romanians, Serbs and Bulgarians. Usually they would select about one in five boys of ages seven to fourteen but the numbers could be changed to correspond with the need for soldiers. Later they would extend the system to Hungary.

Contrary to public belief, this mandatory recruitment practice soon became very popular among the Christian paesantry of the Balkans. If they wished to resist, the tribute gatherer gave plenty of warning for his coming, and the Balkans offered countless avenues for escape. The tribute was not collected blindly or with malice. The Turks left the widow with their boys, and did not trouble families with a single son. As the convoy wound its way across Muslim Bosnia or Albania it had to be heavily guarded to prevent parents from substituting their own offspring. For their own part, Turks avoided boys who already spoke Turkish, or had learned a trade, or had lived in the city.

The boys gave up little when they were enrolled as the Sultan's slaves. Priests were rare in their highland villages, and then as ignorant as their flock, or at least as poor, and prone to abuse their position. Churches were scarce. The villagers of the highlands had a bellyfull of sprites, elves, vampires, tree spirits and such, who could be propitiated, moved on or deflected by charms, amulets, magical cures, muttered innovations, scraps of paper with writing on them, ceremonies of renewal with water jugs, feasts marked by sacrifice and meat, to everyone's relish; and the tribute boys arrival in Anatolia probably marked their first contact with religion of a fromal sort. The Bektashi order, to which the janissaries were officially attached from 1453, was the most liberal and progressive form of the Islam at the time.

What could rival the experience of being drawn from a life of drudgery and obscurity into a world of exhilarating novelty, from a narrow parochial society into the cosmopolitan one of the empire, from poverty to all the possibilities of wealth, from the flock to the ranks of rulers, soldiers, wielders of power? If a boy had the qualities the selectors sought, he would be enrolled immediately in one of the palace schools called Enderun, where boys were trained as pages. These boys studied, they practised martial arts, and emerged strong as well as handsome, versed in a dozen of branches of learning, frequently displaying some special talent, such as astronomy or architecture and when their beards grew, they were sent out to fill positions of responsibility in the provinces. Others graduated at the same time into the Noble Guard or, in far greater numbers, joined the royal order of chivalry, the Spahi of the Porte, who formed the Sultan's regular cavalry.

The janissaries, who sprang from the same stock, were less cultivated. Out of this brawny second stream came the royal gardeners, the gate keepers, the shipwrights and marines and infantry. At one point a youth could be selected for the palace schools, if some aptitude had been overlooked. They too received a corporate training, ate and slept together, and had the traditions of the regiment dunned into them from the start, swearing loyalty to their fellows on a tray containing salt, the Koran and a sword.

This entire system was called, kulluk with kul meaning slave. The kul were certainly the Sultan's slaves, but the translation is inexact. The Sultan's absolute authority over his kul, his power of life and death, and possession of all their wealth, never resembled plantation slavery in America. No shame or disgrace attached to their position. They could not be bought or sold. Absolutely obedient to the Sultan's will, without right of appeal, dependent on him for favour and maintenance, they were no more than Sultan's extended and adopted family, obedient to a patriarch - the son of a slave himself - who enjoyed few practical rights which a father of the time would not possess over his own children. Far from carrying a stigma, the proudest boast of an Ottoman was that he was the slave of the Sultan.

They gave up everything to reach the pinnacle of power; but like the janissary who fell the collegiate self-abnegation of his life still strutted through the streets of Istanbul, they knew they were the best. A miracle had pulled them, as it seemed, through an invisible door in the Balkan pasturelands. The training they received, and the rigourious selection procedure which they had surmounted to reach the top, must have left them with a grandeur of purpose and a breadth of view without parallel in any ruling group in history. Theirs was pride of the most splendid and forgivable sort; for they were fitted to rule.

*I gathered most of the above information from Jason Goodwin's Lords of the Horizons.

 

[unmerged(5822)]

Btw Sweden was ruled by a German dinasty in EUII timeframe but I didn't remember it geting German culture due to that, though there was influx of German nobles in the royal court.

It could've been motivated, though; the German influences on Swedish culture during the post-medieval time were much greater than presumed by most people - so great that Sweden's ruling class could be said to be German with rare exceptions rather than Scandinavian with German influences, that Sweden's EU2 representation would've been more accurate with German as ruling culture but not Scandinavian (as some people used the "Germanity" of the people in power as a rhetorical tool for their own purposes - though this perception may be influenced by later, nationalistic ideas).

 

[Enravota]

Please don't comment on EU III time period with 19th Century nationalist ideas. Remember that EU III ends with the invention of nationalism with French Revolution and everything before that is pretty religious. Greeks and Slavs were being forcefully converted to Catholicism before the arrival of the Turks, who granted their subjects religious freedoms, from establishing an independent Orthodox Patriarchate (which was abolished by Papal pressures on Byzantium) to the acceptance of the Jews. 15th Century Ottoman Empire was a desirable place for the oppressed nations.

Orthodox Patriarchate was not abolished by the Florentine union but put under the papacy i.e recognised the pope as the highest Christina cleric on Earth, if someone abolished Patriarchates it were the Ottomans who abolished other Balkan Patriarchates and put their dioceses under the Constantinople's Patrirarch, I guess I'm not the only one with 19th century nationalist ideas i guess.

Yup. The taxation was discriminatory by modern standards, but one can't really say that the taxation systems were that much better elsewhere - and religious freedom was practically unheard of in western Europe, while it thrived in the Ottoman Empire and Poland (to use an overly broad generalisation).

One can argue that though I wouldn't claim that the Tooth tax or the Blood tax were acceptable by any terms.

Contrary to public belief, this mandatory recruitment practice soon became very popular among the Christian paesantry of the Balkans. If they wished to resist, the tribute gatherer gave plenty of warning for his coming, and the Balkans offered countless avenues for escape. The tribute was not collected blindly or with malice. The Turks left the widow with their boys, and did not trouble families with a single son. As the convoy wound its way across Muslim Bosnia or Albania it had to be heavily guarded to prevent parents from substituting their own offspring. For their own part, Turks avoided boys who already spoke Turkish, or had learned a trade, or had lived in the city.

Dude, you're claiming that people were happy to give their children away to people that treat them like dirt, and try to say I'm subjective?

It could've been motivated, though; the German influences on Swedish culture during the post-medieval time were much greater than presumed by most people - so great that Sweden's ruling class could be said to be German with rare exceptions rather than Scandinavian with German influences, that Sweden's EU2 representation would've been more accurate with German as ruling culture but not Scandinavian (as some people used the "Germanity" of the people in power as a rhetorical tool for their own purposes - though this perception may be influenced by later, nationalistic ideas).

It could also spoil the game balance .

 

[Tunch Khan]

Royal Marriages between Sunni and Orthodox shall be permitted. There may even be some event to change state religion to Orthodox, since it was a debate in Mehmed II's reign.

It is true that Mehmed II styled himself as the "Roman Ceasar" and as a second Constantine as the legitimate successor to the Roman Empire. Constantine had changed Roman Empire's pagan religion to Christianity, but during Mehmed's reign, the story was quite different. Christian Europe was still in it's darkest period, Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment had not been started yet and Islam was the rising star and a younger religion. Ottomans had no interest in adopting the religion of a decadent and dead empire they had just conquered, thanks to the Islamic institutions like Ghazis and Janissaries. On the contrary, Mehmed had started to voice Ottoman claims on the Caliphate that was being held by the Mameluks. The debate you are mentioning was to empower the Orthodox Faith to challenge the authority of Rome further. Should the game mechanics allow though, Ottomans should have Orthodox as a second state religion as they were the official Defenders of all Orthodox Nations by 1453.

However, if a Catholic Crusade manages to seize important portions of the empire and perhaps even Constantinople, then there was a chance they installed a Catholic Ottoman Prince to the throne. The successors of Pretender Sultan Cem, under the influence of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem had been converted to Roman Catholicism.

 

[Tunch Khan]

Orthodox Patriarchate was not abolished by the Florentine union but put under the papacy i.e recognised the pope as the highest Christina cleric on Earth, if someone abolished Patriarchates it were the Ottomans who abolished other Balkan Patriarchates and put their dioceses under the Constantinople's Patrirarch, I guess I'm not the only one with 19th century nationalist ideas i guess..

Ok, we are confusing apples with oranges here. The Council of Florence ended the supremecy of the Orthodox Patriarchate and it's independence, thus automatically assumed all their subjects as Catholics who consider the Pope as the infallible supreme authority. This is the end of the Orthodox religion as we know all over the world, except for Moscowian Metropolitan, who did not recognise this verdict. When Constantinople was under siege, in it's final hours, the Roman Emperor Constantine was praying in St. Sophia (Agia Sophia) with Catholic Bishops. The people however did not feel comfortable with this shift and kept their Orthodox faith in secret. Mehmed II granted them their religious independence once more and united it's Orthodox subjects under the authority of the Orthodox Patriarch Gennadius. Bulgarians have never recovered from the fact that the Greeks had all the privilidges both in Ottoman State and in the Orthodox Church.

One can argue that though I wouldn't claim that the Tooth tax or the Blood tax were acceptable by any terms..

Both of those taxes you mention are extreme examples of the last days of a decadent Ottoman Empire which local governors and military garrisons became corrupt and malevolent. It's such a great myth which has settled down in the subconscious of the Balkan peoples though, that they take everything as facts. None of your examples are the standard Ottoman practices of EU III period.

Dude, you're claiming that people were happy to give their children away to people that treat them like dirt, and try to say I'm subjective? .

Your terms as "treatment like dirt" is a clear reflection of your strong emotional sentiments and prejudice against Turks. If you are refusing to approach the game in it's own historical approach (again, not 19th Century) for the appropriate EU III timeframe, then you don't have much to contribute to our debate here. Do you even have a point, or are you here for Ottoman bashing? Please keep those comments in a seperate thread, preferably in OT. On the other hand, I would welcome any significant statistics and records regarding Ottoman Bulgaria, as you seem to have a significant interest in the region.

 

[Alexandre]

Your terms as "treatment like dirt" is a clear reflection of your strong emotional sentiments and prejudice against Turks. If you are refusing to approach the game in it's own historical approach (again, not 19th Century) for the appropriate EU III timeframe, then you don't have much to contribute to our debate here. Do you even have a point, or are you here for Ottoman bashing? Please keep those comments in a seperate thread, preferably in OT. On the other hand, I would welcome any significant statistics and records regarding Ottoman Bulgaria, as you seem to have a significant interest in the region.

Tunch, you are wearing rose-tinted glasses. The Balkans are sprinkled with villages which helped some high Ottoman official in a time of trouble and, offered a reward for that help, asked to be freed of the boy tax. It was *not* popular. It was something horrendous that the Ottoman state, in violation of the very tenants of Islam, imposed upon her victims.

Alexandre

 

[Yakman]

Yup. The taxation was discriminatory by modern standards, but one can't really say that the taxation systems were that much better elsewhere - and religious freedom was practically unheard of in western Europe, while it thrived in the Ottoman Empire and Poland (to use an overly broad generalisation).

religious freedom if you weren't catholic, you mean