Ottomans in the Protestant League

[Heradite]

So I'm playing as Castile in my current Ironman game and somehow became HRE Emperor. I'm not really interested in being HRE Emperor but well apparently the HRE was.

Which of course meant that when it came down to the religious wars (which I had zero interest in fighting seeing as how it's a distraction from my colonization), I had to join the Catholic side.

And then the Ottomans joined the Protestant side. Huh? I get the Ottomans can be considered a European nation. I was able to beat back their armies enough to stay in the fight: especially since the Pope had called the Crusades against them and I got a mighty nice morale boost. But they were Muslim!

Seeing as how this is supposed to be a RELIGIOUS war between CHRISTIANS, why are Muslims jumping or even allowed to jump in? Why would the Ottomans care about what religion the HRE is?

(I fought the war just enough so that I wouldn't lose any provinces but pretty much surrendered and allowed the Protestants to become the official faith for the HRE. I was winning for a bit but I knew once Poland/Lithuania fell to the Ottoman/Russian might, my own side would lose the war especially since France believed in keeping it's armies overseas.)

[By the way props to Mamluks for taking Ramazan and Dulkadir before the Ottoman Empire. Less props for then losing those lands and their own land later.]

 

[Sparticulous]

The ottomans did send a regiment of 20,000 troops to support the Protestants

 

[krieger11b]

Most likely due to Austria being leader of the Catholic League and Ottomans being their rival.

The 30 years war some some odd stuff. The highly "devote" catholic France helped the protestants because they were worried about a more powerful Austria resulting in a Catholic victory. I imagine the Pope was not amused.

 

[Heradite]

Most likely due to Austria being leader of the Catholic League and Ottomans being their rival.

The 30 years war some some odd stuff. The highly "devote" catholic France helped the protestants because they were worried about a more powerful Austria resulting in a Catholic victory. I imagine the Pope was not amused.

But I was the leader of the Catholic league since I was HRE Emperor and they didn't rival me! Austria was on my side though. Ironic since I only allied Austria at game start cause they were HRE Emperor.

It's funny cause if I was trying to RP as Castile (which would already be Spain even though the Iberian Wedding never happened grr), I don't know if I could have won that war. Sweden had eaten Denmark and they were on the Protestant side. Great Britain was on the Protestant side: I wasn't worried about them actually sending armies but invading their lands. Ottoman Empire was on the Protestant side. Russia was on the Protestant side.

I had Poland/Lithuania and France. Maybe the Papal States? There's only so much I can do and I don't think the AI would have let me invade most Swedish land or the British isles without great cost to my navy meaning I couldn't take them out of the war like the Russians/Ottomans were doing with Poland/Lithuania before I peaced out.

If it wasn't Iron Man, I might have save scummed just a little to see if the war was winnable.

The ottomans did send a regiment of 20,000 troops to support the Protestants

That should be an event rather than a full-on war by the Ottomans then Still, the morale boost was nice. lol.

 

[Dakka]

Seeing as how this is supposed to be a RELIGIOUS war between CHRISTIANS, why are Muslims jumping or even allowed to jump in?

It started out that way, but the Thirty Years War was one of the earliest examples of Real Politik: Political Power and Diplomacy overrode religious views. It may be worth your time reading a bit on the war, it is quite interesting

 

[Heradite]

It started out that way, but the Thirty Years War was one of the earliest examples of Real Politik: Political Power and Diplomacy overrode religious views. It may be worth your time reading a bit on the war, it is quite interesting

I know the broad strokes of Thirty Years War but yeah I'm not overtly familiar with it.

 

[Vetgirig]

Its less strange then the Ottoman in the Catholic league.

 

[Heiliges Thüringens Reich]

[By the way props to Mamluks for taking Ramazan and Dulkadir before the Ottoman Empire. Less props for then losing those lands and their own land later.]

Business as usual for the Mamluks

 

[ecrurudesby]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ans+league&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=731

 

[BumpyGlint]

This is an argument that pops up periodically. Even in the reality the Ottoman were in the protestant league, so it can happens even in the game! Obviously they didn't care about the religious part, but they wanted to weaken Austria.

 

[Wixelt]

You don't need to be a Christian to understand the Habsburgs are cancer.

 

[petertju]

A really good book I'm reading about the thirty year war atm is Peter Wilson - Thirty Years war (link below). Really interesting and good read about all aspects of the war.

https://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Years-War-Europes-Tragedy/dp/0674062310

 

[Dominion]

You don't need to be a Christian to understand the Habsburgs are cancer.

Say that to my beautiful face

 

[braunschweig1]

IRL the Ottomans had a relatively limited participation in the 30 Year's War. In game, their entire army is swarming over Central Europe, and millions of Russians, Turks, Poles and Frenchmen are dying compared to tens or hundreds of thousands of German troops. It's a bit topsy-turvy since most wars in EU are all-or-nothing.

 

[SaucyBaron]

IRL the Ottomans had a relatively limited participation in the 30 Year's War. In game, their entire army is swarming over Central Europe, and millions of Russians, Turks, Poles and Frenchmen are dying compared to tens or hundreds of thousands of German troops. It's a bit topsy-turvy since most wars in EU are all-or-nothing.

This is actually a good point, but alas this is the consequence of the totalwar approach EU4 takes where there is no point in contributing to a war unless you put everything you've got into it so limited aid like the 20k Ottoman troops in the 30 years war doesn't make sense in the game.

I suppose it could be modeled with condottieri, but that would only break the religious wars even more in the Catholics favor (where the wars never fire unless the player is on the protestant side because the protestant league leader never thinks they can beat the Emperor, removing the Ottomans from the protestant league would make this even worse)

 

[chegitz guevara]

It's possible the Ottomans joined in as part of a Great Power war, keeping the balance.

 

[Vincentst]

I know the broad strokes of Thirty Years War but yeah I'm not overtly familiar with it.

Best current book is by Peter Wilson: Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy

 

[ForschungsFüchse]

The only time I saw the Ottomans not join the Protestants was the game when I was the protestant league leader as Prussia... vs. Austria-Hungary, Russia, Ottomans, Spain... my buddy France just sitting on the sidelines... only allies a Commonwealth I had spent 100 years beating up on ... yeah, I never fired that war (albeit this is in my whole 4 game experience).

The League war in my current game seems interesting, though not as big as in many other games. I think it will actually have implications other than minor border shifts. Pics - just since I have never posted pics and want to see how this forum works...not to hijack the thread.

Just so you can see how the occupations are going:

 

[Dingens]

I just had the weirdest League War I was ever called into.

I was playing Tuscany, about to form Italy (catholic), allied to France (catholic, owned half of England), Austria (Emperor, Hungary PU, catholic but every province reformed or protestant ) and Castile (badly beaten up by Aragon, Iberian Wedding never fired). I was planning to finish the other Italian minors and then start going on Aragon after forming Italy.

Catholic league had Austria, Aragon, Sweden. Protestant league was led by Provence and had most of the HRE minors. Then Ottomans (blobbed) joined on Protestant side, Muscovy on catholic in return. I thought I could stay out of it, maybe use the time to expand while the large allies of my victims were busy and wouldn't help. I was terribly wrong. Provence declared and managed to drag in their ally France on Protestant side. I had to join the defensive war on Austria's side if I didn't want Ottomans and France (my previously strongest ally...) to blob even further. 10 years later manpower all over Europe was zero, and a white peace was signed.

Essentially a reformed Austria led the catholic league together with an orthodox Muscovy against a Protestant league where the only relevant protestant country was Provence, but all the fighting was done by muslim Ottomans and catholic France. All this "religious war" happened although there were like 4 catholic provinces left in the entire HRE when the war fired.

 

[DanubianCossak]

So I'm playing as Castile in my current Ironman game and somehow became HRE Emperor. I'm not really interested in being HRE Emperor but well apparently the HRE was.

Which of course meant that when it came down to the religious wars (which I had zero interest in fighting seeing as how it's a distraction from my colonization), I had to join the Catholic side.

And then the Ottomans joined the Protestant side. Huh? I get the Ottomans can be considered a European nation. I was able to beat back their armies enough to stay in the fight: especially since the Pope had called the Crusades against them and I got a mighty nice morale boost. But they were Muslim!

Seeing as how this is supposed to be a RELIGIOUS war between CHRISTIANS, why are Muslims jumping or even allowed to jump in? Why would the Ottomans care about what religion the HRE is?

(I fought the war just enough so that I wouldn't lose any provinces but pretty much surrendered and allowed the Protestants to become the official faith for the HRE. I was winning for a bit but I knew once Poland/Lithuania fell to the Ottoman/Russian might, my own side would lose the war especially since France believed in keeping it's armies overseas.)

[By the way props to Mamluks for taking Ramazan and Dulkadir before the Ottoman Empire. Less props for then losing those lands and their own land later.]

European history in EU is roughly split between 2 major halves; one where religion was the main meta narrative, and when people would do things that are measured against norms set by religion - and second where what would become modern states started to form and the guiding principle shifted from religion based morality and norms to what is called "raison d'etat" (state reason), where the countries and their leaders started behaving more and more according to their national interests and policies instead.

So when a religious war between Christians starts, Ottoman empire sees a war that has one of their main rivals (Austria) pitted against a bunch of other people, and see this as an opportunity to weaken them (for when they go up against them directly). Therefor Ottomans help the other Christians against their rival, because weakening their rival brings a far greater benefit to their state and outweighs the obvious inconsistency with religious norms.