Superior supply systems

[Jomini]

The Ottomans being a poor example as their way of managing the biggest part of their empire was through the use of political influence, thus invoking entities that are not defined in the game (most of Ottoman's possessions could not even be considered client states as depicted in game).

Ehh, I always wonder about this line of thought. Exactly which states of the period had the central government exerting more control of territories than say Ottoman Serbia?

After all the writ of Parliament often did not run all that far. Dafoe, for instance, notes that smuggling was rampant from "The Mouth of the Thames to Land's End". Likewise, Parliament's ability to press gang sailors from even places like Bristol was quite limited. And certainly there have been all manner of locals who opted to take matters into their own hands when it came to things like committing acts of war, developing industry (even in defiance of of edicts to the contrary), or even negotiating with rebels.

I mean does anyone thing that the Russians on the Amur were more closely hewing to the Tsar's policies than the folks in Cairo were hewing to those of the Porte? Or that somehow Iceland was checking in with the central government before build a courthouse while Algiers was off following its own industrial policy?

But what about the rebellions and the like? Yeah, totally was not a thing where Venice was sending two independent leaders who could not communicate with each other, on pain of death, because they knew that one guy might do something crazy on his own.

Everyone had governments that were far more varied and diffuse than represented in game. Almost as though no one had invented teleporting ambassadors and magic buttons to spawn fields and population. At the end of the day the Ottomans held formal titles, appointed senior government officials (at least initially), and derived significant income from their far flung territories. Their military forces followed the dictates of the porte, often far more than things like Chinese governors, and they created an elite caste of Turks who ran things for generations.

I can see a strong case to be made that the Ottoman holdings in North Africa and the like were some form of vassal, but I can also see some metrics that would make them far more integrated with the central power than places like Iceland or Lapland. Exactly what counts as too much deviation from central control is ill defined and without nailing it down I would be very leery of gimping the Ottomans just because their weird government structures sound more exotic than the weird government structures of Christendom.

 

[Vlad123]

Ehh, I always wonder about this line of thought. Exactly which states of the period had the central government exerting more control of territories than say Ottoman Serbia?

After all the writ of Parliament often did not run all that far. Dafoe, for instance, notes that smuggling was rampant from "The Mouth of the Thames to Land's End". Likewise, Parliament's ability to press gang sailors from even places like Bristol was quite limited. And certainly there have been all manner of locals who opted to take matters into their own hands when it came to things like committing acts of war, developing industry (even in defiance of of edicts to the contrary), or even negotiating with rebels.

I mean does anyone thing that the Russians on the Amur were more closely hewing to the Tsar's policies than the folks in Cairo were hewing to those of the Porte? Or that somehow Iceland was checking in with the central government before build a courthouse while Algiers was off following its own industrial policy?

But what about the rebellions and the like? Yeah, totally was not a thing where Venice was sending two independent leaders who could not communicate with each other, on pain of death, because they knew that one guy might do something crazy on his own.

Everyone had governments that were far more varied and diffuse than represented in game. Almost as though no one had invented teleporting ambassadors and magic buttons to spawn fields and population. At the end of the day the Ottomans held formal titles, appointed senior government officials (at least initially), and derived significant income from their far flung territories. Their military forces followed the dictates of the porte, often far more than things like Chinese governors, and they created an elite caste of Turks who ran things for generations.

I can see a strong case to be made that the Ottoman holdings in North Africa and the like were some form of vassal, but I can also see some metrics that would make them far more integrated with the central power than places like Iceland or Lapland. Exactly what counts as too much deviation from central control is ill defined and without nailing it down I would be very leery of gimping the Ottomans just because their weird government structures sound more exotic than the weird government structures of Christendom.

Culture also counts. Different states and cultures had governance structures appropriate to the culture / religion, or rather that mirror them. So every government was more or less efficient. China in the year 1000 had technologies that the UK will only develop in 1700 (such as cast iron production, explosives for mines etc) ... so there should be a mechanics like on civilization V / or 6 where there is mechanics of the "golden ages" and "dark ages" if we see different states during the timeline of the game have experienced golden periods and dark periods. the UK begins with a dark period (it lost the 100 years war with all territories in france) and then became a country that experienced a long golden period. Conversely, Spain immediately began with a golden period, and then stagnated and became a second-rate country. So there should be a mechanic where this happens that is that if you do good things you get the golden age (which should be feasible several times per game not just once) and dark ages where you have malus, but that you overcome "you get out more strong "because as the saying goes" what doesn't kill you strengthens you "

 

[Torredebelem]

Ehh, I always wonder about this line of thought. Exactly which states of the period had the central government exerting more control of territories than say Ottoman Serbia?

Certainly I was not thinking about a place as close to the center of Ottoman power as Serbia, other Balkan power or any Anatolian province for that matter. I was indeed thinking of all the North African "possessions" of the Ottomans - geographically the biggest part of their Empire - that cannot be properly defined by the current state of the engine. Anyway, in North Africa, Ottoman power was quite decentralized and much less determinant than elsewhere closer to its center of power, even if its parts are present in their missions as pure conquest missions.

 

[Vlad123]

Certainly I was not thinking about a place as close to the center of Ottoman power as Serbia, other Balkan power or any Anatolian province for that matter. I was indeed thinking of all the North African "possessions" of the Ottomans - geographically the biggest part of their Empire - that cannot be properly defined by the current state of the engine. Anyway, in North Africa, Ottoman power was quite decentralized and much less determinant than elsewhere closer to its center of power, even if its parts are present in their missions as pure conquest missions.

The problem is that the Ottomans often conquered a state WITH ONLY ONE WAR! The mamelukes were conquered in a single war with which they took everything.

 

[Torredebelem]

The problem is that the Ottomans often conquered a state WITH ONLY ONE WAR! The mamelukes were conquered in a single war with which they took everything.

Certainly that was true and is something not possible in game but I was more concerned about the true influence Ottoman power exerted over post Mamelukan domains across the centuries than how many wars they fought to attain this soft power, that is also not simulated by the engine...

 

[Vlad123]

Certainly that was true and is something not possible in game but I was more concerned about the true influence Ottoman power exerted over post Mamelukan domains across the centuries than how many wars they fought to attain this soft power, that is also not simulated by the engine...

I hope EUV is better from this point of view. From a graphic point of view, I don't care. It can also be the same as EU4, but I want a deeper game. If it turns out to be graphic crap I won't take it. I play paradoxes for the complexity of the game, not for the graphics. If I played for graphics I would play other games.

 

[Jomini]

Certainly I was not thinking about a place as close to the center of Ottoman power as Serbia, other Balkan power or any Anatolian province for that matter. I was indeed thinking of all the North African "possessions" of the Ottomans - geographically the biggest part of their Empire - that cannot be properly defined by the current state of the engine. Anyway, in North Africa, Ottoman power was quite decentralized and much less determinant than elsewhere closer to its center of power, even if its parts are present in their missions as pure conquest missions.

Again though, how is this different than things like Danish administration of Iceland? After all the Pashas were being assigned with three year terms from Constantinople while the local bishops in Iceland were locally acclaimed and held more power than the royal governor. Likewise, the Ottomans at least billeted their forces in Algiers and recruited significant manpower to Ottoman colors to defend the place. In contrast, Iceland had no Danish military presence (hence why they were slave raided) and all the forces raised were local.

And on it goes. The viovodeships, the hetmanates ... Europe was littered with outposts of empires that had unique and decentralized power structures. And worse, all of these changed over time with some becoming more heavily integrated and others eventually becoming independent. The writ of any central power in the EUIV era was very limited and I see no reason to treat the more divergent parts of the Ottoman Empire particularly different from those of the PLC, Russia, Denmark, Spain, etc.

Governance was not some mono-dimensional continuum or even a set of discrete objects, rather it was a continuous negotiation where every possible combination of local control or central dominance was tried somewhere. Control without taxation? Yeah plenty of folks managed to get out of central taxation for a generation or two. Heck, a place could owe one lord taxes and the other military service and deliver both while the two warred.

 

[Torredebelem]

Again though, how is this different than things like Danish administration of Iceland? After all the Pashas were being assigned with three year terms from Constantinople while the local bishops in Iceland were locally acclaimed and held more power than the royal governor. Likewise, the Ottomans at least billeted their forces in Algiers and recruited significant manpower to Ottoman colors to defend the place. In contrast, Iceland had no Danish military presence (hence why they were slave raided) and all the forces raised were local.

And on it goes. The viovodeships, the hetmanates ... Europe was littered with outposts of empires that had unique and decentralized power structures. And worse, all of these changed over time with some becoming more heavily integrated and others eventually becoming independent. The writ of any central power in the EUIV era was very limited and I see no reason to treat the more divergent parts of the Ottoman Empire particularly different from those of the PLC, Russia, Denmark, Spain, etc.

Governance was not some mono-dimensional continuum or even a set of discrete objects, rather it was a continuous negotiation where every possible combination of local control or central dominance was tried somewhere. Control without taxation? Yeah plenty of folks managed to get out of central taxation for a generation or two. Heck, a place could owe one lord taxes and the other military service and deliver both while the two warred.

Maybe a new way to implement vassals or client states with a progressive gradation of different effects/possibilities is in order for next DLC...

 

[cetvrtak]

Again though, how is this different than things like Danish administration of Iceland?

• Ottomans had many more "Icelands"
• Many of them were heathens
• In more than few instances, the conquered land was left to it's previous owner to administrate until his death, reducing the administrative burden significantly

To name few crucial differences.

 

[Jomini]

• Ottomans had many more "Icelands"
• Many of them were heathens
• In more than few instances, the conquered land was left to it's previous owner to administrate until his death, reducing the administrative burden significantly

To name few crucial differences.

Ahh So you mean like Russia?

I mean the vast hinterland of Russia included all manner of Tengric, Sunni, and even Buddhist subjects. Most of their "administration" consisted of building a few forts and collecting taxes in furs that the locals settled among themselves. They repeatedly left local power structures intact, a few times were actively petitioned to take the place over, and they loved Russifying local nobles to send them back to run the place. As far as the number of "Icelands", well the number of yasak administrations handily exceeds everything the Ottomans ever had.

Were the Ottoman dependencies different? Sure. Where they unique? Not by a long shot. The Mughals, the British, the Russians, the Swedes, the Poles, the Persians, the Qing, and most every other empire had some weird set of places that were not governed like the rest of the realm (if there was even one uniform way of running the realm). Most had religious differences for some of them. Most had several and largely scaled with empire size for the number of odds and ends they acquired over the years, and most made some arrangement with the locals to keep some degree of local power structures intact.

And then, of course, there is the alt-history aspect of things. If Persia conquers the Levant how exactly would they form similar "we own it, get some taxes, and they do some of our military bidding, but at are still a less free vassal" thing if they become the natural Muslim power to conquest Spain in North Africa? How should it work if Ethiopia heads north or if China colonizes to Russia?

Even if we could define some truly unique set of characteristics about Ottoman governance beyond the Pashas and Janissaries they already get, how exactly should the game know when to use the new subject type with empires running a similar approach?

Again, in spite of multiple stabs at it, I am still not hearing anything terribly unique about Ottoman governance compared to the similar holdings of other states.

 

[Delterius]

Algiers can already become a vassal republic under the Ottomans, right? If it is agreed that the balkans and Egypt are firmly under control of the central Ottoman state, then the area being discussed has already been dealt with in-game.

 

[Froonk]

Algiers can already become a vassal republic under the Ottomans, right? If it is agreed that the balkans and Egypt are firmly under control of the central Ottoman state, then the area being discussed has already been dealt with in-game.

No, there are no Ottoman mission trees or events that deal with shifting status of barbary coast states with Ottoman Empire at all. They should become vassal pirate republics after 1600s. Which is what happened in real life as Mediterranean wars came to an end.