Ottoman Starting Stratagy

[gogis]

the fact that the ottomans have as their main enemies timurids and GH shows how wrong the horde system is... The both collapsed soon after 1399, while in the game they go on rampage for at least 1 century... Ottomans should be worried about Venice, Hungary and the Mameluks, not the hordes. I think i will start at a very later date my next game

They are not your main enemies, your main enemies still europeans, you just preoccupied with hordes all time, basically forced to haul 20-30k men from one place to another every 2.5 years (mean time). It's annoying, unrealistic, but very manageable.

The most annoying and unrealistic part is actually the fact, that you going to wage defensive wars with 5-15 european opponents at once, because they perceive you weak during horde wars.

Which is funny, because as result you will be taking several their provinces at once with meager 1 infamy/province

 

[lucaluca]

They are not your main enemies, your main enemies still europeans, you just preoccupied with hordes all time, basically forced to haul 20-30k men from one place to another every 2.5 years (mean time). It's annoying, unrealistic, but very manageable.

The most annoying and unrealistic part is actually the fact, that you going to wage defensive wars with 5-15 european opponents at once, because they perceive you weak during horde wars.

That is annoying but not unrealistic, the Ottomans had to fight holy leagues and crusades, but they managed to win thanks to: a. manpower 2. much more advance tech.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

the fact that the ottomans have as their main enemies timurids and GH shows how wrong the horde system is... The both collapsed soon after 1399, while in the game they go on rampage for at least 1 century... Ottomans should be worried about Venice, Hungary and the Mameluks, not the hordes. I think i will start at a very later date my next game

How true... in pre DW, timurid allways collapsed... or almost allways. And never gone into turkey. Timur was dead by 1407, and golden horde did not invaded lithuania - it was otherwise, lithuania helped golden horde in war against timur, and then when lithuanian allied forces, lost a battle, the war was over - and when i say over, i mean that lithuania got out of the war. At the start date, there should be sibir, with lands of equal size to golden horde, at truce with all neighbours, except being in war over golden horde throne - or revolution war, with nogai being ally of golden horde and fighting sibir. Golden horde should also be at truce with its neighbours. I meantioned that fact in other thread.

 

[Kyoumen]

Pay off the Timurids, because it will cost you practically nothing in 1399 when your income is still small; by the time you've conquered the Anatolian minors and Byzantium, it'll be a drop in a bucket. Yes, they have one of your cores but it's a crap province and not worth delaying your real conquests for. There's plenty of time to eat the Timurids later. Beating and colonising the Golden Horde is certainly profitable and will gain you nice land in the Crimea, as well as preventing any rise of Russia or a Russian-analogue, but it'll also take all of your attention for 150 years, so it depends on what you want your long-term strategy to be.

Just making a vassal will no longer prevent horde wars as of the beta and next patch, so you have to either pay them off or beat them every time.

 

[unmerged(264070)]

When the timurids attack you, their armies are often led by the faction leader himself. Identify the stack he is in (easy enough: the name of the general is the same as the name you see when you click on one of the Timur provinces) and devote all resources to kill him. This will launch a succession war, which will basically stop them being a pain in the ass

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Ottoman Starting Stratagy... what is stratagy?

Well, i would not advice paying tribute to timmurids, as it will increase their strength, and you want them weak - so you should destroy them.

 

[Kresaux]

the fact that the ottomans have as their main enemies timurids and GH shows how wrong the horde system is... The both collapsed soon after 1399, while in the game they go on rampage for at least 1 century... Ottomans should be worried about Venice, Hungary and the Mameluks, not the hordes. I think i will start at a very later date my next game

I've seen tons of screenshots on this forum where GH eats Poland (+ chunks of Lithuania, Russians etc.) and rampages through the Balkans. This usually happens during the 15th century, then Bohemia steps up to them and becomes Trollemia, sometimes accompanied by Austria. Meanwhile, the Timmies eat up half of Anatolia.
My question is: how come nothing of this EVER happens in any of my games, and I've played a lot (at least 15 times from the start in the last couple of months). In my games both of those hordes collapse in the first 50 years or so, GH never comes close to Bohemia, Poland always survives and starts colonising along with the Russians, Lithuania loses a province or two. In my current game Novgorod is close to forming Russia which people say AI never does.
I play DW 5.1 vanilla (if that's the term for no mods and no meddling in the game whatsoever), all normal settings, lucky nations sometimes off, sometimes historical.
I would greatly appreciate any possible explanations that any of you can provide, and sorry for the OT.

 

[brifbates]

Look in http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?572234-Kill.-Them.-All.

Great AAR with many good tips on the early game OE position.

 

[lucaluca]

I've seen tons of screenshots on this forum where GH eats Poland (+ chunks of Lithuania, Russians etc.) and rampages through the Balkans. This usually happens during the 15th century, then Bohemia steps up to them and becomes Trollemia, sometimes accompanied by Austria. Meanwhile, the Timmies eat up half of Anatolia.
My question is: how come nothing of this EVER happens in any of my games, and I've played a lot (at least 15 times from the start in the last couple of months). In my games both of those hordes collapse in the first 50 years or so, GH never comes close to Bohemia, Poland always survives and starts colonising along with the Russians, Lithuania loses a province or two. In my current game Novgorod is close to forming Russia which people say AI never does.
I play DW 5.1 vanilla (if that's the term for no mods and no meddling in the game whatsoever), all normal settings, lucky nations sometimes off, sometimes historical.
I would greatly appreciate any possible explanations that any of you can provide, and sorry for the OT.

did you use some house modifications? because, in vanilla, simply that outcome is not possible. Russia and Poland always fail, Austria and Bohemia always troll.

 

[Kyoumen]

did you use some house modifications? because, in vanilla, simply that outcome is not possible. Russia and Poland always fail, Austria and Bohemia always troll.

I've never seen the Golden Horde not collapse and get eaten, in probably 20-30 games. It's true Muscowy usually dies, but Novgorod doesn't and other Russian minors often revolt out as GH collapses. Poland and Lithuania have about a 50/50 chance of being the beneficiaries from my experience, with Hungary and Bohemia taking the lion's share of the rest, and once for giggles the Ottomans ate all the way to Siberia.

I'd LOVE to see the Golden Horde stomp Europe, so don't tell me it's not possible for them to fail as I'm usually cheering for them.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

I've seen tons of screenshots on this forum where GH eats Poland (+ chunks of Lithuania, Russians etc.) and rampages through the Balkans. This usually happens during the 15th century, then Bohemia steps up to them and becomes Trollemia, sometimes accompanied by Austria. Meanwhile, the Timmies eat up half of Anatolia.
My question is: how come nothing of this EVER happens in any of my games, and I've played a lot (at least 15 times from the start in the last couple of months). In my games both of those hordes collapse in the first 50 years or so, GH never comes close to Bohemia, Poland always survives and starts colonising along with the Russians, Lithuania loses a province or two. In my current game Novgorod is close to forming Russia which people say AI never does.
I play DW 5.1 vanilla (if that's the term for no mods and no meddling in the game whatsoever), all normal settings, lucky nations sometimes off, sometimes historical.
I would greatly appreciate any possible explanations that any of you can provide, and sorry for the OT.

Well if you play historical lucky nations then it might be understanable, but off... well i dunno.

 

[Kresaux]

did you use some house modifications? because, in vanilla, simply that outcome is not possible. Russia and Poland always fail, Austria and Bohemia always troll.

Nope, I never even bothered to learn how to make any modifications. Only thing I do from time to time is clean the map cache which probably has nothing to do with it.
Maybe I'll try a clean install just in case.
Anyways thanks for help, but I guess it'll stay a mystery.

 

[sasha0111]

Tips?

For all the strategy listed above I just cannot survive as Ottomans. This is from 5.2.
Game 1: Took almost all of Anatolia, Greece and Constantinople of course. Major war with Timurids every 5 years with massive (50+k inf, 40+k cav) armies on their side ending with me conceding defeat. Golden Horde ate their way toward me so wars with them and their huge armies every 5 years. Low war capacity meant every European nation would attack me, often without casus belli. Survived about 65 years of that before I started running out of man power, ran up war exhaustion and ran out of money. DIED.

Game 2: Paid tribute to timurids as soon as possible, took over Anatolia, Greece and Constantinople, conquered Egypt and the entire east coast of Africa (for the gold mines). Took about a dozen provinces from the golden horde AND westernized. In short doing great, right? Wrong! Got into a VERY minor war with a Russian minor and Emperor bohemia together with half the Europe flooded me with troops (Holy War). My army was at support limit and I was outnumbered at more than 5 to 1. DIED.

Game 3: Paid tribute to timurids and Golden Horde as soon as possible, took over anatolia, Greece and Constantinople, parts of Georgia, Syria. Almost destroyed Qara Koyunlu. Got Aquila and Naples as vassals after a pointless war with Austria. The two hordes went absolutely crazy, Golden Horde ate all of Hungary for one, and whole swatches of Poland, Lithuania, Transylvania. Was busy trying to consolidate territory when Austria attacked(Holy War). Half the Europe joined in as their allies. Huge armies flooded my land. DIED.

So what am I doing wrong? Oh and this is on Normal difficulty.

 

[Elector]

Ottomans has always been the easiest nation for me to play. Day 1- declare war on every Anatolian minor you have a core on. Doesn't matter you don't have the army to take them and the Timurids out, yet. Start minting a lot- you'll take care of that inflation later. Build army. Take out the minor nations ASAP. Ignore invading Timurid army until the minor wars are done. Take back any Timurid-conquered core territories, but no more (peace out with concede defeat (either way) once that's done).
Hopefully, by this time, Timur has died in battle, so then the Mamlukes will take out Timurid territories adjacent to you- Viola- no more Timurid worries. (despite what your missions would have you believe, the Mamlukes are your friends until the Timurids are good and dead--you can always take the Mamlukes out later as you tech faster then they do).

Cycle through missions (while everything else is going on) until you get 'city of the world's desire'. Take down any adjacent orthodox nations (Byzantium, Georgia, Trezibond, Albania, etc--unless they have a really good ally).
By this time you've either put yourself on the border of the Golden Horde, or they've come to you. If you're not ready the first time, I don't blame you, just peace out ASAP- even if it means giving up money. If you border Qara Koyonlu, Colonize their non-wool provinces (like Georgia's gold), but just occupy the rest for as long as possible- if a revolt starts to get out of hand over there, demand tribute- demanding tribute from Qara frequently leaves them without the ability to raise an army.

Second war with the Golden Horde will also be your last. Conquer and colonize as many territories as you can (that will not make you border another horde) occupy as many as you can beyond that. Did I mention the armies and the colonies require some major minting? Keep at it.

Build a center of trade as soon as you can- most of your acquisitions will trade through it, and you need the $ boost (for historical reasons I always build it in Thrace...).
If at any point in this process you get the mission 'conquer southern Greece', and the Catholic defender of the faith has a weak navy (eg. Burgundy, Bohemia) take them out. If you get in defensive Holy Wars against Poland or Hungary, all is going according to plan- take as many territories as you can from them that will not get you a common border with either Bohemia or Austria.

Colonize the rest of the GH and be prepared to occupy/colonize the other hordes. (I like keeping opm hordes around for the colonist boost)
Colonize Siberia (one of the richest places to colonize).

Build a fleet to match anything GB can throw at you, and now you're ready to stomp Europe.
By now you can stop minting, and probably will not have to mint for the rest of the game.
(By the 1650 disappearance of 'Holy War', I've owned/Vassalized everything but GB, Iberia, and Switzerland in Europe without ever crossing the infamy limit using this strategy <normal difficulty>. PS I never raise war taxes in any game I play, so I don't know how that may change outcomes)

 

[gogis]

For all the strategy listed above I just cannot survive as Ottomans. This is from 5.2.
Game 1: Took almost all of Anatolia, Greece and Constantinople of course. Major war with Timurids every 5 years with massive (50+k inf, 40+k cav) armies on their side ending with me conceding defeat. Golden Horde ate their way toward me so wars with them and their huge armies every 5 years. Low war capacity meant every European nation would attack me, often without casus belli. Survived about 65 years of that before I started running out of man power, ran up war exhaustion and ran out of money. DIED.

Game 2: Paid tribute to timurids as soon as possible, took over Anatolia, Greece and Constantinople, conquered Egypt and the entire east coast of Africa (for the gold mines). Took about a dozen provinces from the golden horde AND westernized. In short doing great, right? Wrong! Got into a VERY minor war with a Russian minor and Emperor bohemia together with half the Europe flooded me with troops (Holy War). My army was at support limit and I was outnumbered at more than 5 to 1. DIED.

Game 3: Paid tribute to timurids and Golden Horde as soon as possible, took over anatolia, Greece and Constantinople, parts of Georgia, Syria. Almost destroyed Qara Koyunlu. Got Aquila and Naples as vassals after a pointless war with Austria. The two hordes went absolutely crazy, Golden Horde ate all of Hungary for one, and whole swatches of Poland, Lithuania, Transylvania. Was busy trying to consolidate territory when Austria attacked(Holy War). Half the Europe joined in as their allies. Huge armies flooded my land. DIED.

So what am I doing wrong? Oh and this is on Normal difficulty.

You can't be strong, empowering hordes with tribute, and making yourself wet noodle without income. Thats the point
I just rewatched different time save games from my last ottomans game, lucky off, very hard.
1431, got borders with both GH (Budjak) and Timurids(Mus), all my cores finally reclaimed. Standing army - 3x16 stacks.
1514, GH and Timurids still huge, GH, particulary ate Lithuania and part of poland, russia is gone. I smashed Austria into pulp, leaving them with 4 provinces. Forced to release Croatia, Tirol etc. Have pretty thick vassals pilow between me and Bohemia. Thats already like 50 years when fighting horde is not a problem at all. Standing army 6*16 stacks.
1574, hordes collapsed, persia etc stuff, only european powers is Bohemia, but I maintain 4 20k stacks at west border and 2 20k stacks near remnants of Tims and GH. My eastern border ends at astrakhan.
Right from that point I started to eat europe and stopped around 1650 because it's was too easy.

Important notes
- I've always was number one in land whole time. Exactly, I had gov tech and land tech advisors all time and my whole budget was into land 99% of time (1% - to regain stability)
- I've had 70+ army tradition genearls due horde banging, that helped immensely.
- Most of the time in western wars I forced opponents to release nations - thats a key point. I waited for hordes to die and it happened eventually, I dont want major hatred from west before I secured east.

Paying tribute to hordes and concentrate on west is suicidal. One mistake - and you are gone. You cant lose when your opponents is a wet noodle hungary and alike. Spreading forces to invade Italy early on - even more disastrous, pure gambling.

 

[brifbates]

If you get in defensive Holy Wars against Poland or Hungary, all is going according to plan- take as many territories as you can from them that will not get you a common border with either Bohemia or Austria.

This is a very key piece of advice. Whatever you do, as the OE, avoid a shared border with the Euro powerhouses until such time that you can just bury them in doomstacks. Castille and the other westerners that have to come by boat are no big deal as you can crush their landing parties repeatedly before they reinforce but taking on the full might of the HREmp is going to be problematic for quite a while. Expand south & eastward until you run into the Pacific all you like but don't go northwest until you can amass a 2 or 3-1 numbers advantage against the big boys.

 

[sasha0111]

You can't be strong, empowering hordes with tribute, and making yourself wet noodle without income. Thats the point
I just rewatched different time save games from my last ottomans game, lucky off, very hard.
1431, got borders with both GH (Budjak) and Timurids(Mus), all my cores finally reclaimed. Standing army - 3x16 stacks.
1514, GH and Timurids still huge, GH, particulary ate Lithuania and part of poland, russia is gone. I smashed Austria into pulp, leaving them with 4 provinces. Forced to release Croatia, Tirol etc. Have pretty thick vassals pilow between me and Bohemia. Thats already like 50 years when fighting horde is not a problem at all. Standing army 6*16 stacks.
1574, hordes collapsed, persia etc stuff, only european powers is Bohemia, but I maintain 4 20k stacks at west border and 2 20k stacks near remnants of Tims and GH. My eastern border ends at astrakhan.
Right from that point I started to eat europe and stopped around 1650 because it's was too easy.

Important notes
- I've always was number one in land whole time. Exactly, I had gov tech and land tech advisors all time and my whole budget was into land 99% of time (1% - to regain stability)
- I've had 70+ army tradition genearls due horde banging, that helped immensely.
- Most of the time in western wars I forced opponents to release nations - thats a key point. I waited for hordes to die and it happened eventually, I dont want major hatred from west before I secured east.

Paying tribute to hordes and concentrate on west is suicidal. One mistake - and you are gone. You cant lose when your opponents is a wet noodle hungary and alike. Spreading forces to invade Italy early on - even more disastrous, pure gambling.

I see what you're saying about tribute. The thing is the amount I was paying to Timurids was very small (1.9) due to my country being occupied at the time I offered it. And I absolutely would've stayed well away from Bohemia/Austria nightmare if I could but the Golden Horde ate their way there and Bohemia colonized their lands until they bordered me. At that point... Holy war!

My land tech was comparable to theirs but their and their allies armies were soo much larger than mine. I tried to fight defensively but a single mistake cost me a third of my forces and it snowballed from there. That was Game 2 by the way.

Playing game 4 now. Got the same area as game 2 minus african coast. Fought a major war against Bohemia who colonized to my border (took some provinces that caused border with Austria) and guess what, Austria attacked Survived the war with them too and took a few provinces just out of spite. Been left alone so far since. Now what to do? Can't really attack anything in Europe cause Burgundy is the defender of faith and they have HUGE armies. Oh and Timurids are gone... so had to get my cores from Mughals.

 

[sasha0111]

Again that's the problem. In all of my OE games so far I didn't seek the shared border. Either Bohemia colonized to me or Austia ate Hungary to get to me. Either way I got a border with them that was not of my doing.

 

[Chronicler]

Ignore what people have said here.

A good mission to start with would be vassalize Wallachia (I'm just going to give you the general war strat here)

Day one you make peace with timurids (pay tribute), you declare on Wallachia, you can also declare on Byzan etc (but wait with annexing until someone else has taken their other province and you got the core mission)

You must also declare personal union war on the Mamluks asap.

You vassalize Wallachia with help of your vassals (will be fast), prestige will help when declaring on Mamluks

you occupy Thrace

You build up your fleet so you have 15 cogs, and you build up your army so you have at least 30-35k men (can't remember how many I used)

You start with taking one province from Mamluks, the one in which you can post ships in the sea-zone, place 10-15k men in that province, and 15k on the ships so you can quickly reinforce.

If you want to retake your cores before all this is your choice. (I would also recommend switching idea to morale one for an easier time with mamluks, later you want to keep that in multiplayer game or in SP perhaps switch..)
You should also become defender of the faith

Anyway, keep occupying Mamluk provs until you can PU them, get relations up, it would also be good if you could declare on Oman, Hedjaz, Algiers or whatever.

A lot of nations share your culture, your goal must be to PU them all early. In my last Ottoman-game I had inherited, Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, Mamluks, Hedjaz, Oman and Yemen before 1450.
I also defeated Jalayrids, released Iraq, and then PUed Iraq as well. Lots of cores.

After that you could go after the hordes or the christians, your choice.

 

[brifbates]

A good mission to start with would be vassalize Wallachia (I'm just going to give you the general war strat here)

It really doesn't matter that much which mission you start with except you don't really want to start with the Mameluk one

Day one you make peace with timurids (pay tribute), you declare on Wallachia, you can also declare on Byzan etc (but wait with annexing until someone else has taken their other province and you got the core mission)

You must also declare personal union war on the Mamluks asap.

Asking for big trouble with these. There's no reason to give Tims tribute from the start. They can easily focus in other directions allowing you to get a better peace deal or re-take your lands, particularly if Timur dies early on. You can always wait a bit and offer tribute later if things break completely wrong but that is pretty unlikely. Also, getting yourself into multiple wars (particularly if one is somewhat major-Mameluks) is asking for half of Europe to DoW you.

You build up your fleet so you have 15 cogs, and you build up your army so you have at least 30-35k men (can't remember how many I used)

You start with taking one province from Mamluks, the one in which you can post ships in the sea-zone, place 10-15k men in that province, and 15k on the ships so you can quickly reinforce.

Not sure exactly where you're going with this. If you're trying to give a steb-by-step guide on how to beat the Mameluks I suppose it'd be ok. Far better IMO to wait until they inevitably get embroiled with Castille or rebel problems and just march down through the levant assaulting as you go. Higher tech+morale will make it easy enough.

If you want to retake your cores before all this is your choice. (I would also recommend switching idea to morale one for an easier time with mamluks, later you want to keep that in multiplayer game or in SP perhaps switch..)
You should also become defender of the faith

The NI switch recommendation is good, the rest is idiocy IMO. Take the cores on day 1 before Byz or someone else does and use your money for something better. Claiming DoF is throwing away money as the OE because at some point, probably more than once, in the first 50 years you are going to be better off buying off some alliance that DoWed with a quick concede defeat or 25 ducat payout. Sinking a pile into DoF is flushing it down the drain (or enticing yourself into the foolish ai position of trying to keep it at all costs and getting yourself into huge trouble when wars come on too many fronts. You also have better uses for the money (paying for colonies, buying a CoT immediately come to mind).

Anyway, keep occupying Mamluk provs until you can PU them, get relations up, it would also be good if you could declare on Oman, Hedjaz, Algiers or whatever.

A lot of nations share your culture, your goal must be to PU them all early. In my last Ottoman-game I had inherited, Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, Mamluks, Hedjaz, Oman and Yemen before 1450.
I also defeated Jalayrids, released Iraq, and then PUed Iraq as well. Lots of cores.

After that you could go after the hordes or the christians, your choice.

I'm not going to say you're a liar but I find it extremely hard to believe that you you were at peace long enough to inherit all that within 50 years of game start based on what I've seen playing the OE. Particularly since you added extra wars to get the PUs in the first place. You also don't mention how you would address the other two hordes or managed to keep from losing the inevitable wars with the Euros while your armies were off in southern arabia or northern africa.