Ottomania

[st360]

…said all the tags near the ottomans IRL.

Seriously though, it’s fine. Yes, playing a small nation near the ottomans is hard mode. It’s both historical and IMO good for the game to have hard starts.

Its historical for the Ottomans to win against 51k Mamluks, 48k Austria, 50k Poland+subjects and 30k smaller allies in a single war? Realy? Its historical for the Ottomans to beat almost 200 000 troops in year 1475 and take half of Egypt in the peace deal? Its historical for the Ottomans to be 2 military techs ahead of most western Europe, while having the largest army in the world and +5 shock generals?

 

[currylambchop]

Its historical for the Ottomans to win against 51k Mamluks, 48k Austria, 50k Poland+subjects and 30k smaller allies in a single war? Realy? Its historical for the Ottomans to beat almost 200 000 troops in year 1475 and take half of Egypt in the peace deal? Its historical for the Ottomans to be 2 military techs ahead of most western Europe, while having the largest army in the world and +5 shock generals?

Didn’t ottomans literally historically annex the whole mamluks in one peace deal?

 

[st360]

Didn’t ottomans literally historically annex the whole mamluks in one peace deal?

In 1470? No, they didn't.

 

[jonjowett]

Its historical for the Ottomans to win against 51k Mamluks, 48k Austria, 50k Poland+subjects and 30k smaller allies in a single war? Realy? Its historical for the Ottomans to beat almost 200 000 troops in year 1475 and take half of Egypt in the peace deal? Its historical for the Ottomans to be 2 military techs ahead of most western Europe, while having the largest army in the world and +5 shock generals?

Yep, probably. It's actually quite a challenge to expand the EU4 Ottomans as fast as the historical Ottomans did.

Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MatthewP]

Yep, probably. It's actually quite a challenge to expand the EU4 Ottomans as fast as the historical Ottomans did.

Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 814275

yeah, complaining about the Ottomans being ahistorically strong in the game’s first century is just barking up the wrong tree. I find the gameplay arguments a lot more compelling even though I don’t agree with them.

 

[st360]

Yep, probably. It's actually quite a challenge to expand the EU4 Ottomans as fast as the historical Ottomans did.

Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 814275

Nobody ever mentiones the Ottomans size as a problem, yet people still keep defending this broken nation by "its historical, did you know they annexed Mamluks in 1 go?!"

Load up the map you linked into EU4 and beat them with a historical borders Poland and 3 HRE princes.

 

[MatthewP]

Nobody ever mentiones the Ottomans size as a problem, yet people still keep defending this broken nation by "its historical, did you know they annexed Mamluks in 1 go?!"

Load up the map you linked into EU4 and beat them with a historical borders Poland and 3 HRE princes.

What are you on about? Why should a weak alliance be able to defeat a huge great power? The first major ottoman defeat after this point was against all the major powers of eastern and Central Europe combined: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Turkish_War

 

[jonjowett]

Nobody ever mentiones the Ottomans size as a problem, yet people still keep defending this broken nation by "its historical, did you know they annexed Mamluks in 1 go?!"

Load up the map you linked into EU4 and beat them with a historical borders Poland and 3 HRE princes.

This sounds like you're referring to a historical event, but I can't quite place it. Can you specify?

Also, FYI, you can play later start dates in EU4. They probably won't be the same experience as playing from 1444 to that date, but it's something you can do that doesn't require mods.

 

[Josar]

Eu4 is a game where you can start as Byzantium hire 3 Merc stacks, and regain all your cores from the Ottomans in one war.

Are the Ottomans too consistently strong? yes.

Are they impossible to beat? No.

 

[Susan1972]

The Ottomans need to be ahistoricaly broken because blobbers will whine about "not having a endboss by 1550 when the game stops being fun". So the rest of us have to suffer trough this crap.

Paradox has explicitly admitted a while ago they wont balance the Ottomans because they want a blobber endboss. So I guess if you plan on playing in the wrong half of the planet, you need to take quantity, learn cheat the AI nations, live in debt and mindlessly blob from year 0.

Incoming obligatory "Ottomans are not impossible to beat, therefore its all fine bro, just find some allies, merc up, and kill small stacks first " comments.

Exactly. I guess it is possible but you wind up in tedious combat micromanagement which makes the CIV4 endgame look downright pleasant in comparison.

 

[st360]

What are you on about? Why should a weak alliance be able to defeat a huge great power? The first major ottoman defeat after this point was against all the major powers of eastern and Central Europe combined: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Turkish_War

Stacks of 12k Venetians defeating the Ottomans, culminating in 3 cavalry units stackwiping the main Ottoman army xD

I wonder how that would happen in EU 4 with Ottomans parking 250 000 troops in Viena with a 5 shock general, full artillery backrow, +10 morale +10 discipline and 2 miltiary technologies ahead.

 

[jamal bakr]

The Ottomans have to be nerfed. What is the point of playing any tag near them if, sooner or later, they just squash you? Any strategy just becomes "blob up and min/max and hope for the best" and what's the point of playing?

I know it's a running gag to longtime players but this has just got to stop.

kneecapping ottomans as medium or small tier nation is one of the interesting problems of the game. If you want a more relaxed playthrough, there are less perilous starts (such as being the ottomans yourself )

 

[MatthewP]

Stacks of 12k Venetians defeating the Ottomans, culminating in 3 cavalry units stackwiping the main Ottoman army xD

I wonder how that would happen in EU 4 with Ottomans parking 250 000 troops in Viena with a 5 shock general, full artillery backrow, +10 morale +10 discipline and 2 miltiary technologies ahead.

I'm interested in what you're saying, but would you mind being a bit less cryptic? Maybe reference an event by name or better yet provide a source?

Regardless, any troop counts in EU4 should not be taken as literal. You are free to not like this but it's certainly not restricted to the Ottomans. And of course military access issues do hit Venice in particular rather hard, which is a fair criticism.

 

[jonjowett]

Exactly. I guess it is possible but you wind up in tedious combat micromanagement which makes the CIV4 endgame look downright pleasant in comparison.

That's only true if you choose to fight them before ~1650. If you're not right next to the Ottos, you can usually just ignore them and outgrow them. Then, once you're some flavour of hegemon (or, at least, close to it), they'll be a pushover.

 

[hermithill]

Thank you, I was worried because the topic "please disconnect achievements and ironman" was taking the lead over the topic "nerf ottoman empire", and I was ready to ask if someone didn't want to open a new "nerf ottoman empire" thread.

 

[jamal bakr]

the only thing that I guess would stink is if you are CLOSE enough to ottomans that they can make your life miserable, but you aren't able to revive the byzantines before their cores expires. So something like Kilwa or Teutonic Order? But even then you can either force vassalize or revive the Mamelukes and eat half of his mediterrian provences as free cores., they usually last till the 18th century.

edit:

ming used to be a hyper stable/rich beast till a few patches ago, even worse than the ottoblob. I think it was the Manchu update that made mingplosion the norm.

 

[Big Bad France]

To each their own. Wasting time on guaranteed failure does not amuse me one bit. I'm playing the Teutonic Order and it makes all the struggles gone through to get to 1530 pointless when the Ottos are not only waiting to attack me but guaranteeing everyone i need to conquer to expand further. So the game is essentially over. Especially since I made the foolish mistake of not min/maxing with the Eco/Trade/Quantity groups

Sorry, the Ottomans have to be drastically nerfed for this game to be a legitimate challenge rather than a one-sided curbstomp.

Are you going for the Baltic Crusader achievement? It's a lot harder if you are, since you can't form Prussia. Either way, don't attack them in 1530. If you have expanded enough to border them, they aren't going to attack you, and their armies are actually weaker than western tech sometime in the 1600s.

 

[st360]

I'm interested in what you're saying, but would you mind being a bit less cryptic? Maybe reference an event by name or better yet provide a source?

Regardless, any troop counts in EU4 should not be taken as literal. You are free to not like this but it's certainly not restricted to the Ottomans. And of course military access issues do hit Venice in particular rather hard, which is a fair criticism.

It is in the link I responded to

Great Turkish War - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Virtually no behavior of the Ottomans in EU 4 is historical, yet the people defending EU4 Ottomans always use history as an argument. The large territories the Ottomans took where a result of fighting tiny and micro nations, fighting backward nations, or catching large nations in a bad time. Yes, the Ottomans did have some legitimate victories, but in no way more than anyone else in the "recommended nations" starting tab.

Lets turn this around. Historically, Transoxiana (later reforming into Mughals) conquered almost all of India. Would you honestly be ok with Transoxiana getting a unique government form guaranteeing you get a 5/5/5 ruler, absolutely 100% all the time, at no cost? + 10 starting discipline, permanent 4/4/4 or better generals, unique mechanic buffs to province productivity, a starting 70 year 300% bonus to siege speed?

Because those are some of the buffs Ottomans have. Why? Why do you get 5/5/5 guarantees for the most precious resources in the game, when for other tags just +1 admin for ruler is considered a strong reward?

Should Poland get permanent level 5 advisors that cost 0 gold because it historically had good advisors? Should Sweden get +25% discipline because of the great northern war?

The Ottomans aren't historically balanced. They are broken due to a combination of paid DLCs and lucky game mechanic coincidences, and there is a refusal to balance them because a part of the playerbase wants a ahistorical "end boss". At which point it would be more honest for the game to just spawn a alien invasion when you get bored by blobbing.

And at the same time, this ahistoricity is making half the nations in the game toxic to play, because sooner or later you will border a 250 000k Ottoblob with military tech 8 years ahead of time, and if you didnt devote your gamestyle prepairing for it, you can mind as well press "unconditional surrender" on day 1 and spare yourself the war exaustion.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Get good. There is no guaranteed failure in this game. Ottomans are harder than other enemies, but every war in singleplayer is winnable just with loans and mercs.

That's not true.

Avoiding such wars that aren't is a major part of playing the game well, however.

 

[jamal bakr]

if we're being honest, prussia is far more ahistorical compared to its actual record. They were pretty mediocre slouches during this timeframe.