Ottomania

[Nuclear Elvis]

It's a weird one to me, because they definitely had cultural similarities to the others in the area which should be simulated, but a cultural union is too powerful to represent it properly. Making them a unique culture like Korean wouldn't work too well, grouping them with the other Turks would lead to weird gameplay (this was the case in the past and made the Ottomans prioritize meddling in Central Asia), so they're stuck in this non-position. Honestly, it's a problem caused by EU4's cultural mechanics not being granular enough to implement a proper solution. A solution could possibly be to carve up the Levantine group into two, which would give them cultural union with, say, Syria and Mashriqi, but not with Egyptian and Hejazi.

Add this to the long, growing list of To-Do items to fix in the future EU5 game...

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

If you think it's too hard to survive near the Ottomans can't you just play on easy mode? That's what the difficulty settings are for.

Have play tested Very Easy just for that purpose, to see what changes, even went a step further with Lucky Nations turned off.
One significant change - Ottomans finally has rebellions spawn in their territory (normal/Ironman game with Lucky Nations "On" - Ottomans rarely ever have rebellions spawn inside their territory due to various buffs to include Lucky and often AI takes Humanism Idea track - which is a party foul for Muslims but the AI doesn't know better than to give itself a numeric advantage).
While a Very Easy player gets 50% boost to total Manpower and Manpower Recovery, that still doesn't match Ottomans' refresh rate for new troops, plus the economic advantages of Ottomans stack-wiping opponents vice only small attrition on their own armies. Important to see how that math game plays out as disadvantageous to a Player, even in Very Easy mode, as - a smaller opponent with lots of allies, can still lose to Ottomans even when having DOUBLE the manpower (starting total army, or even double the army size going into a battle). Point is - stack wipes mean you must fork over cash for new units, even if your manpower pool is on steroids to regenerate (your CASH FLOW is not on 50% regen rate, if you see the point). So you get drained to nothing, must take loans to even eek out 25-30% low success victories even in Very Easy mode, can lose entire allies' kingdoms in the process also. I've seen this first hand - you the player get 1-2 provinces in the final peace deal accepting only a 30% victory, whereas Ottomans may have gained 4-6 new provinces from your small allies, perhaps even a total annexation of them, prior to the final peace deal. That's 2 steps forward, 6 steps back.
As for players who say they can "win" against Ottomans even in Normal/Iron Man, the odds are not with them, but it is possible. Any player of any skill level can beat Ottomans - lottery odds below 1% to maybe 25% chances if you go early, or really understand the game's Personal Union system (not an exploit but not as often exploited for its power-gain pace compared to normal conquering pace). As example, I could start as Byzantium, marry Poland and get a miraculous PU, maybe even control Lithuania also, and then - it's a totally different game. So all the comments about the "possibilities" still don't get to the heart of the matter, and that is - Ottomans were developed to be overpowered at game release, Lucky Nations buffs compensated for some design flaws and PDX wanted some aspects "on rails" so certain nations "always win out" more of the time (not always, but %s are with the Lucky ones), and when you add up all the DLCs and power shifts, Ottomans stands as much if not more overpowered than EU4 at Day 1 game release many years ago. The Dev's basically never solved the problem of an overpowered Ottomans, some gamers who can beat them in select/low-probability ways puff up their chest and some even resort to denigrating posts in this forum and at Steam, if you can't accomplish it, and also - there are complaints about any change to Ottomans from a very vocal bunch of gamers (not just those who live in Turkey).
Everybody wants their "favorite nation" to win - and I don't mean Kingdom, I mean nation. As in - where they live now, there is often a bias to want to play your hometown nation's area in EU4 and conquer the region, conquer the world. For the tiny kingdoms surrounding Ottomans - it just isn't probable, statistically, in this game, so we end up with multiple biases for/against an overpowered Ottomans at the default game start, and since PDX falls into the same trap as RPGs in that any buff tends to remain permanent -- the Dev's never sorted out a way to diminish Ottomans' power as the EU4 timeline moves into periods where Ottomans historically began to wane and lose control.

Short of building an entirely new game in EU5, what the Dev's could do - could turn "Off" Lucky Nation buffs for certain nations at certain dates in the total game's timeline. And could have "always On" events that force a whittling down of power for that kingdom (although a gamer playing that kingdom would not appreciate such an event, so there could be a selector switch On/Off in game setup for this). But these are wishful thinking. Frankly, I think we're stuck with the game-we-have until a totally new EU5 build brings more balance and dynamic buffs up AND down along the entire era's timeline, along with other necessary changes, too long to list in this already overly wordy response.

 

[jamal bakr]

don't take it personally, people like talking about kneecapping ottoman strategies because it's an interesting problem. People don't talk about "how to crush Novgorod as Muscovy" because it is not an interesting problem

 

[grommile]

As in - where they live now, there is often a bias to want to play your hometown nation's area in EU4 and conquer the region, conquer the world

I'm British (specifically English), and I hardly ever play the Westminster state in Paradox titles, because winning the HYW is only fun once, and the alternative routes aren't even fun once.

 

[jamal bakr]

going insano -diplo annex cost as a catholic britain might be fun. -15% from being britsh, -10% from the pope, -25% from influence, -20% from the policy, -5% with nobility integration rights =75% free, not even going into admin efficiency reduction. You could go higher with parliment, but imo nobility integration rights would be better.

out of curiosity, if you wanted to be completely silly, could you do provencal --> get king of kings -20% mission bonus --> tag switch to Britain for 95% free integration (before admin efficiency)?

 

[jonjowett]

out of curiosity, if you wanted to be completely silly, could you do provencal --> get king of kings -20% mission bonus --> tag switch to Britain for 95% free integration (before admin efficiency)?

I'm pretty sure I've seen screenshots with <-100% diplo annex cost. (IE: The diplo annex cost is floored at whatever minimum Pdx have set, eg. 1 diplo per dev.)

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Can we also agree that Turkish should not be in the Levantine culture group? It's unfair they get such a huge cultural union and no penalties for owning provinces which really aren't in their culture group?

Most in time frame ottoman rebellions were for autonomy not independence, so it works better, it also prioritises eastward expansion over west

 

[AvengedK1ng]

I'm British (specifically English), and I hardly ever play the Westminster state in Paradox titles, because winning the HYW is only fun once, and the alternative routes aren't even fun once.

Winning HYW as France who vassal reconquers Scotland and seizes all of ireland with the 3 pip General is fun

 

[grommile]

Winning HYW as France who vassal reconquers Scotland and seizes all of ireland with the 3 pip General is fun

I can remember the time when you could force England to release Cornwall without crossing the Channel, then diplovassalize Cornwall and use it as your beachhead for the next war

 

[AvengedK1ng]

I can remember the time when you could force England to release Cornwall without crossing the Channel, then diplovassalize Cornwall and use it as your beachhead for the next war

When i first started, just after the frederick the great loading screen, i swear there used to be a fort in the pale. Also i feel like there used to be a patch where England started with maine but the surrender of maine event didnt exist

 

[DarkSpiryt]

You dont need to be afraid ottomans! They dont have big army ...

They got to the point where attrition is killing whole manpower pool.

 

[damnt512]

It's any nation, large or small. The whole point of any campaign becomes "wait till the Ottomans grind you down with unkillable doomstacks".

I just bide my time to kill them with my space marine army late in the game. They always falter in late game. So stop complaining like a noob and start playing the game properly.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Have play tested Very Easy just for that purpose, to see what changes, even went a step further with Lucky Nations turned off.
One significant change - Ottomans finally has rebellions spawn in their territory (normal/Ironman game with Lucky Nations "On" - Ottomans rarely ever have rebellions spawn inside their territory due to various buffs to include Lucky and often AI takes Humanism Idea track - which is a party foul for Muslims but the AI doesn't know better than to give itself a numeric advantage).

Ottomans always get rebels late in war, you have to watch Bulgaria because of this, you might see particularists between wars too

While a Very Easy player gets 50% boost to total Manpower and Manpower Recovery, that still doesn't match Ottomans' refresh rate for new troops, plus the economic advantages of Ottomans stack-wiping opponents vice only small attrition on their own armies. Important to see how that math game plays out as disadvantageous to a Player, even in Very Easy mode, as - a smaller opponent with lots of allies, can still lose to Ottomans even when having DOUBLE the manpower (starting total army, or even double the army size going into a battle). Point is - stack wipes mean you must fork over cash for new units, even if your manpower pool is on steroids to regenerate (your CASH FLOW is not on 50% regen rate, if you see the point). So you get drained to nothing, must take loans to even eek out 25-30% low success victories even in Very Easy mode, can lose entire allies' kingdoms in the process also.

Have you tried not being stack wiped?

I've seen this first hand - you the player get 1-2 provinces in the final peace deal accepting only a 30% victory, whereas Ottomans may have gained 4-6 new provinces from your small allies, perhaps even a total annexation of them, prior to the final peace deal. That's 2 steps forward, 6 steps back.

How are you on so little a victory? You also need to be relieving allies earlier to prevent thm being peaced out

As for players who say they can "win" against Ottomans even in Normal/Iron Man, the odds are not with them, but it is possible. Any player of any skill level can beat Ottomans - lottery odds below 1% to maybe 25% chances if you go early, or really understand the game's Personal Union system (not an exploit but not as often exploited for its power-gain pace compared to normal conquering pace). As example, I could start as Byzantium, marry Poland and get a miraculous PU, maybe even control Lithuania also, and then - it's a totally different game. So all the comments about the "possibilities" still don't get to the heart of the matter, and that is - Ottomans were developed to be overpowered at game release, Lucky Nations buffs compensated for some design flaws and PDX wanted some aspects "on rails" so certain nations "always win out" more of the time (not always, but %s are with the Lucky ones), and when you add up all the DLCs and power shifts, Ottomans stands as much if not more overpowered than EU4 at Day 1 game release many years ago.

When the mamluck event was in and timmies would always implode into persia and they had free cores on anatolia?

The Dev's basically never solved the problem of an overpowered Ottomans, some gamers who can beat them in select/low-probability ways puff up their chest and some even resort to denigrating posts in this forum and at Steam, if you can't accomplish it, and also - there are complaints about any change to Ottomans from a very vocal bunch of gamers (not just those who live in Turkey).
Everybody wants their "favorite nation" to win - and I don't mean Kingdom, I mean nation. As in - where they live now, there is often a bias to want to play your hometown nation's area in EU4 and conquer the region, conquer the world.

Or history buffs who want a historically realistic Europe outside their bordering tags

For the tiny kingdoms surrounding Ottomans - it just isn't probable, statistically, in this game, so we end up with multiple biases for/against an overpowered Ottomans at the default game start, and since PDX falls into the same trap as RPGs in that any buff tends to remain permanent -- the Dev's never sorted out a way to diminish Ottomans' power as the EU4 timeline moves into periods where Ottomans historically began to wane and lose control.

Short of building an entirely new game in EU5, what the Dev's could do - could turn "Off" Lucky Nation buffs for certain nations at certain dates in the total game's timeline. And could have "always On" events that force a whittling down of power for that kingdom (although a gamer playing that kingdom would not appreciate such an event, so there could be a selector switch On/Off in game setup for this). But these are wishful thinking. Frankly, I think we're stuck with the game-we-have until a totally new EU5 build brings more balance and dynamic buffs up AND down along the entire era's timeline, along with other necessary changes, too long to list in this already overly wordy response.

Ck3 wasn't radically new so eu5 within 2 years is my bet

 

[necro84]

As for players who say they can "win" against Ottomans even in Normal/Iron Man, the odds are not with them, but it is possible. Any player of any skill level can beat Ottomans - lottery odds below 1% to maybe 25% chances if you go early, or really understand the game's Personal Union system (not an exploit but not as often exploited for its power-gain pace compared to normal conquering pace). As example, I could start as Byzantium, marry Poland and get a miraculous PU, maybe even control Lithuania also, and then - it's a totally different game.

This shows you don't understand PU system. If Poland has Lithuania as junior partner they went with elective monarchy and you cant get PU. There is small chance that you get an event giving restoration of union CB but you still need to win the war. It could be harder than beating the Ottomans because against the Ottomans you can use navy and trap their armies.


Only rng thing when fighting the Ottomans are their allies. If you have stronger navy than it doesn't matter how big and strong is their army because it wouldn't be able to cross straits and fight you. The optimal situation is when they have all of their armies in Anatolia and you block the Bosphorus. You just siege everything you can and win the war without fighting

 

[klingonadmiral]

There is a highly upvoted post on the subreddit currentlywhere OP played Ramazan and kicked the Ottomans out of Anatolia.

They decided to become Russia instead.

 

[jamal bakr]

pushing the stretsly button should drop your professionalism by -5%

 

[agonistes]

pushing the stretsly button should drop your professionalism by -5%

I couldn't find the angry face emoji or I would have used it.

 

[iClipse]

going insano -diplo annex cost as a catholic britain might be fun. -15% from being britsh, -10% from the pope, -25% from influence, -20% from the policy, -5% with nobility integration rights =75% free, not even going into admin efficiency reduction. You could go higher with parliment, but imo nobility integration rights would be better.

out of curiosity, if you wanted to be completely silly, could you do provencal --> get king of kings -20% mission bonus --> tag switch to Britain for 95% free integration (before admin efficiency)?

You can get to -100% integration cost without having annex cost in your national ideas if you start as Provence and form Sardinia Piedmond (+ missions)

 

[subzero12479]

You can get to -100% integration cost without having annex cost in your national ideas if you start as Provence and form Sardinia Piedmond (+ missions)

but its hard capped at -90% iirc.

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

The ahistorical Crimea event is even worse now since the AI is more aggressive the Ottomans just had a border with Muscovy in 1468 in my current campaign...

I get a bit exasperated trying to explain to people why this is an issue.