Ottomans in the Protestant League

[Dingens]

I think there should be a differentiation between countries in the respective Leagues (full war participation, limited to christian nations that have the fitting state religion) and supporting countries from the outside. Historically Sweden, Austria, Spain and most of Germany would have made up the Leagues, and the Ottomans, Poland, Russia and France could be considered outsiders who took sides to strengthen their own position, but not due to religious reasons.

Now in EU4 obviously the composition of the leagues could change drastically from game to game, and that's great. But I don't want to see Ottoman or Russian armies running all over central Europe, with the historically important forces being sidelined to watch in awe. Add a "support League" button for nations that don't fulfill the religion requirement to join, and let them outline the support they offer ("20 Ducats a month and 50 regiments as condottieri for 5 years to the League leader"). The League leaders can consider this support in their decision to go to war and get control over the offered armies. If an outside country wants to actively participate, it has to declare on its own, opening a second war with all it's consequences.

 

[cristofolmc]

They shouldn't be allowed to intervene directly. Sending 20k men is not the same as having their 80k man constantly beating your armies. Its almost impossible to win the war or even get a white peace when the Ottos are on the other side. An event that gives you 20k troops free of charge or something like that? Sure. But nothing else.

 

[Heradite]

They shouldn't be allowed to intervene directly. Sending 20k men is not the same as having their 80k man constantly beating your armies. Its almost impossible to win the war or even get a white peace when the Ottos are on the other side. An event that gives you 20k troops free of charge or something like that? Sure. But nothing else.

It's doable if you can get the Papal States to declare a crusade against them, I'd say. If France kept it's troops in Europe, we would have been an evenly matched league war and with the morale boost the crusade gave us, I think I would have tried to win the war and maybe I could have done it? But with France's armies missing, well, I probably could have gone for a white peace if I had helped Poland/Lithuania rather than go after HRE minors and the war leader.

Sure the Ottomans had double the men I did. But they were more spread out and I defeated them whenever they engaged me. Like seriously, that morale boost...sooo good combined with the morale boost Castile gets with it's ideas. I had like over 6 morale and the Ottomans had 4 morale. They would have had to throw everything at me and if they had done that, would have allowed Poland/Lithuania to get back in the war I wager.

But all for moot if France doesn't keep it's troops home.

 

[Viktor Vaughn]

Didn't the Ottomans actually send something closer to 60k?

Regardless, the game doesn't simulate actual historical wars very well, so there's bound to be some weird things with army sizes. And if we're getting upset about Ottomans/Muslims fighting in the war, shouldn't we similarly get upset about the non-HRE members fighting in the war (Sweden, France, Spain, Netherlands)? For the countries within the HRE it could well be argued the war was for religious rights. But Spain wanted to crush their Dutch rebels, France just wanted to be France and kill the HRE and Spain and expand in the process. Point being, for many of the countries that in game join the war, they aren't there for religious reasons, which follows with history.

 

[Dingens]

Ottomans did throw a lot a Poland, because they were directly bordering them and were laying claims on the same land. That war would have probably happened even without the league war. Ottomans however never ran around central Europe with hundreds of thousands of soldiers. I am very sure neither side would have been comfortable having armies of that size with a heathen faith running around their lands.

 

[macd21]

I think there should be a differentiation between countries in the respective Leagues (full war participation, limited to christian nations that have the fitting state religion) and supporting countries from the outside. Historically Sweden, Austria, Spain and most of Germany would have made up the Leagues, and the Ottomans, Poland, Russia and France could be considered outsiders who took sides to strengthen their own position, but not due to religious reasons.

Now in EU4 obviously the composition of the leagues could change drastically from game to game, and that's great. But I don't want to see Ottoman or Russian armies running all over central Europe, with the historically important forces being sidelined to watch in awe. Add a "support League" button for nations that don't fulfill the religion requirement to join, and let them outline the support they offer ("20 Ducats a month and 50 regiments as condottieri for 5 years to the League leader"). The League leaders can consider this support in their decision to go to war and get control over the offered armies. If an outside country wants to actively participate, it has to declare on its own, opening a second war with all it's consequences.

I’ve suggested this before: league members of a ‘wrong’ religion (Catholics in the Protestant League, Ottomans, Russians etc) should be inclined to make peace if their side begins to win by (say) 40%. They’re in it to rough up their rivals, not to promote a particular faith in the HRE. So Ottomans and Russians will probably end up out of the war before they to overrun the HRE and lay siege to Paris.

 

[Stanleykubrick]

The solution can be quite simple with current mechanics. When the League wars were created we didn't have all the mechanics we currently have.

I am interested in Condottierri in particular.

My suggestion is that you split the participants in 2 groups:

- Direct involvement : These would be countries that are part of the HRE, the Emperor and the leader of the Protestant league.
- Indirect involvement: All the rest countries.

Now direct involvement would mean the typical total war mode. However indirect participant can choose to :
a. send subsidies that are divided along participants to help the war effort (France did a lot of this historicallly for example)
b. send armies in the form of free condottierri.

The ammount of these can be fixed around a calculation that would involve the war score and the balance of power of the league war, i.e. if France supports the protestants it will send more money or send a larger regiment if the protestants are losing, but only a small number if they are winning.

What will we gain from this approach?

a. No more silly staff like thousands of Otto soldiers dying while sieging down a fort somewhere in Russia during the winter. The focus of all the armies will be the HRE, since the direct participants will be in the HRE or the leader of the protestants (that could also be outside the empire like Sweden).

b. External powers will help the losing side balance the tide of war. Hence total victory from one of the 2 sides will be difficult - making a piece of Westphallia scenario the most likely outcome.

 

[Manic Eskimo]

You can always peace out the ottomans by giving them land they want in a separate peace deal.

To those complaining about Otto's only sending 20 k irl, England only sent 12k and they were protestant.