Severe Military Problem in Europa Universalis 4

[loyka32]

I am mostly playing as the Ottomans with no Problem at all really, and i wanted to declare War on Mamluks simply because they were weak, only 17000 Troops in total against my 65000 Troops. But when i do, they suddenly have 54000 Troops and they win every battle after that (Even 1000 - 9000 Battles!), it makes it impossible to conquer them like that and that is very unfair...

 

[the cool guy]

Wrong forum.

 

[loyka32]

I'm new to this forum, I am sorry for that, but there was standing help at the front page of the forum

 

[Had a dad]

Moved to the correct forum

 

[loyka32]

Thanks for putting it onto the right forum

 

[tobias.mb]

The sudden increase in soldiers could be mercenaries.
As for losing battles; check the following:

• Is your mil-tech up-to-date? Or at least the same level as your enemies.
• Ideas. Do you have mil ideas? Does your opponent have some? It can make a huge difference. For example defensive ideas give morale, which is most often the reason for losing battles in my experience. As a Muslim country also check your piety. positive piety gives 10% morale. It is quite likely that the Mamluks have these.
• Terrain. Try to avoid attacking across rivers or into hills / mountains. The attacker has a disadvantage there and will lose otherwise even battles.

Edit: I forgot to mention mil funding. There is an alert warning you if you are in a war with low mil maintenance, but still check in the economics tab, if you have set the mil-maintenance slider to max during wars.

 

[tngen toppa]

so you are basically asking,what king of sorcery is this?!

it's called loans and mercenaries and is a common spell you should learn to use yourself^^^

 

[Dnote]

Do you have a general?
Are you making sure you're fighting with high morale?
Is your military maintenance at maximum?

 

[brtzknf]

If the Mamluks beat you with 1:9 odds then I guess your military tech is a couple of levels below theirs - are you teching up regulary?

And their troop increase is probably some ally stacks, also they tend to build up and hire mercenaries up to their forcelimit when they are at war

 

[TimurLank]

You must be doing something wrong. But, without proper screenshots I can't tell you exactly where, but I will try to guess:

-17kTroops are their troops while 54k is the number that includes their allies as well.
- If you lose 1k vs 9k that means the troop that lost the battle already had 0 morale (retreated from previous lost battle).
- Your troops (in standard conditons) are much more stronger than Mameluks and standard 25k vs 25k usually resulting in absolute victory for Ottomans and I almost always stackwipe Mamluks if they have 20-30% less troops than I do.
- Are you the same military level as them ? If yes, you are still stronger, but as Ottos early you should be ahead.
- Do you have military leader in armies that attacks them ? If you do, check his shock stats, because that one is all that matters early?
- What about terrain where you are doing fights ? If it is mountains, than it could be one of the reason you are losing constantly.

So, to sum up: Don't fight in situations where they can easily replenish their troops with additional stack, it is not good. What you need to do is to wait for them to isolate part of their army while siegeing (standing) in desert/grassland province and than strike them with more army than they have (also, more cavalry). Let your general have 3 or more shock (Ottos start with general that has 3 shock). After you win/finish the battle, consolidate regiments, otherwise they fight poorly.

 

[Khan of Italy]

What was your army maintenance? What was your mil tech? What was their mil tech? What military ideas did you have? What military ideas did they have? Were you using a general, if so how good was he? How good was their general?

 

[loyka32]

I can answer that as following here:

1: Mamluks had 7/6/7 on Tech, I had 9/8/9, so I was far ahead.
2: They had no mercenaries because they had no money and had many loans, they couldn't even hire new troops.
3: He had two very weak generals and I had 2 good generals and one admiral.
4: It was just immediately after I started the war they had somehow 54000 troops out of nowhere, and their allies couldn't even get to us, they bordered rival territory, so they couldn't get access anyway.
5: there were no mountains at all, just plain desert, but there was no - modificator at all.
6: My army maintenence is before I go to a war, always full and their morale was very high, higher than Mamluks maximum morale.
7: Piety was at 95%, mostly through Piety events.

I played eu4 and hearts of iron in total about 330 hours, and as a very good strategy Gamer, I know this is wrong

 

[loyka32]

And they had no military ideas, I had quantity ideas

 

[loyka32]

And it only appears when I play as the ottomans, I played as ramazan once, and I finished them off very easily, no problems at all

 

[DukeWilleo1630]

That sounds very bizarre. That 30k troops would just appear.

 

[loyka32]

Yes indeed it is, they just appear at the map in their territory for no reason, but the biggest problem is, they get undefeatable then, as they win every easy battle out of nowhere!

 

[DukeWilleo1630]

Also bizarre. I suppose you could make a bug report and include a download of your save file in it. So that they can check.

 

[Incompetent]

It sounds like they got a bunch of troops by event or by decision (something like the Liberum Veto decision that Eastern countries with Aristocratic ideas get), although I don't know why that would happen.

Also, very early in the game you have to be a little careful around Muslim-tech armies. They can field a lot of cavalry (up to 80%), and cavalry can really hurt early on, especially if led by a good shock general. By contrast, you as Anatolian tech are not allowed to field more than 50% cavalry without penalty (historically inaccurate as the Ottomans made very heavy use of cavalry, but never mind...)

 

[loyka32]

Oddly enough, if it's neighbor Qara Qoyunlu (my ally) declares War on him and calls me into the war, he is were weak loosing every fight and calling for peace almost every month

 

[loyka32]

It sounds like they got a bunch of troops by event or by decision (something like the Liberum Veto decision that Eastern countries with Aristocratic ideas get), although I don't know why that would happen.

Also, very early in the game you have to be a little careful around Muslim-tech armies. They can field a lot of cavalry (up to 80%), and cavalry can really hurt early on, especially if led by a good shock general. By contrast, you as Anatolian tech are not allowed to field more than 50% cavalry without penalty (historically inaccurate as the Ottomans made very heavy use of cavalry, but never mind...)

I had no problem with the cavalry, i got no penaltys at all, and my force limit was higher than any country on the world (I have my strategies, i played it over 260 hours in total after buying it and only 3 months passed after buying it)