Were Ottomans unstoppable with Eastern tech?

[Surgünoglu]

Agreed, BritNavFan. Entirely agreed. Thank you for your thoughts. I had actually forgotten about my troubled but at least feasible interactions between Osmanlis and Cengisids in previous versions of EU3. At present, the hordes act like Martians. At least they vassalize, but the Golden Horde did not behave diplomatically as the Timurids.

 

[Blastaz]

The Ottoman tech group allows them to start with tech lvl 5 rather than 3 and still improve faster than the other Muslims. It also gives them better units than western countries until land 28. They will almost certainly tech faster than the rest of the other eastern tech countries so they wouldn't get a neigbour bonus anyway. Possibly a better way to do it would be to give them a much slower tech speed (say 70%) but not have it kick in till lvl 25 or so.

To help the AI they really need better missions that encourage them to outright annex the Turkish minors more quickly, which the player can do in a year or two, but the AI never seems to get around to.

 

[Judas the Rogue]

Blastaz, even if that would be better with 1399 as starting age, but the campaigns starting later does not take the slow_limit into account so the ottomans will be more behind.

 

[Trin Tragula]

While it's certainly true that EU favours Europe, I don't think that's the main issue here. I did an analysis and Anatolia is not particularly too poor compared to, say, France. (It's not perfect, but compared to the problems with India, China, Viet Nam, etc. etc., and allowing for the fact that ratios of population between countries could change significantly over 4 centuries but they don't in game, it's a decent approximation.)

There are four areas in Europe that are substantially overpowered even compared to the rest of Europe: Sweden, Austria, Super-Aquileia (I have no idea why Cortes went all the way to Mexico when Aquileia had just as much gold as the Aztecs), and Greece. Historically, the population of Anatolia outnumbered that of Greece by a factor of something on the order of 4:1 or 6:1 during this period. In EU3, before 1453 the Greek provinces have the same tax base as the Turkish ones. Even after Constantinople gets reclassified as Turkish the Turks only have a 4:3 margin. Again, this is because the Greeks are far too numerous, not because the Turks are especially badly represented. So yes, of course if the resources of the Greek peninsula had been 5x what they historically were, Byzantium would have stood a much better chance of surviving the early 1400's. And of course the Turks would have had more issues controlling Greece if there had been as many Greeks as Turks.

Well put and I mostly agree. I still think the comparative generosity towards the west is playing in here however as we're seeing a lot of Castillian and English naval invasions completely destroy the turks. I made a spreadsheet back when I started modding eu3 to check the manpower average of certain regions and compare that to approximations of historical populations (the latter I got from Angus Madissons data). I'll leave a few examples of these observations at the bottom of this post.
It is indeed obvious that Greece is overpowered compared to Turkey. I'd also agree that the situation isn't nearly as bad as in the far east or even Northern Africa. Still, other countries that perform well are given big boosts in general in EU3. Sweden for instance has a manpower far above what it deserves, probably due to the fact that it would otherwise never perform close to historical given how dependent EU3 is on manpower and taxbase.
Turkey on the other hand has not. The Ottomans supposedly just trounced a crusade of many of Europe's finest armies at Nicopolis. In the game however their starting resources hardly lets them compete with their historical enemies. Most of the time they'll be a victim of a crusade within the first 20 years or so from which they will emerge trounced, if alive at all.

Here's a few examples from the spreadsheet I made. As I collected this data with IN it's outdated now but I'd say the same tendencies remain. Also there's bound to be some errors due to rounding or the possibility of me using a definition of "France" that's different than that of the people who calculated the historical population.
One could also question if manpower should be tied to population. Population is after all not the same as potential soldiers. One could also argue that averages aren't that important when comparing countries as I presume to do (I do think they are though as that's the only way I've found to account for both the uneven distribution of provinces and the actual manpower values of the provinces).

Greece has a manpower average of 2,67 per province for a historical population of, on average 0,11 millions per game province.
Turkey has a manpower average of 2,94 per province for a historical population of, on average, 0,39 millions per game province.
Morroco has a manpower average of 1,45 for a population average of 0,14 per game province.
Portugal has a manpower average of 3,33 for a historical population average of 0,17 millions per game province.
The British isles has a manpower average of 2,35 per province for a historical population average of 0,17 per game province.
France has a manpower average of 4,73 per province for a historical population average of around 0,37 per game province.
Sweden has a manpower average of 2,35 for a historical population of 0,04 million per game province.

 

[Kiithis]

That or make it so that any fleet which does not belong to the strait owner(s) suffers attrition.

 

[Beamed]

The difficulty in representing the Ottoman Empire, Greece, and indeed most of the Middle East is the complete lack of representation of minorities; for every Greek, you would find two Turks in Anatolia, but you would find that many Greeks. It wasn't until the end of World War 1 that Anatolia and Greece become relatively homogenous.. there was too much intermeshing before then.

 

[Mr. Domino]

I've always thought modeling the Ottomans was very hard with EU's rules.

In general-EU3 hates multi-religious empires. The Ottomans had a substantial amount of Orthodox and even Catholic wrong culture/wrong religion provinces. They get a tolerance bonus but the AI (and player!) still tends to convert all of Greece and the Balkans to Sunni which is no fun but neither is sitting on massive stability cost. The cost/benefit to being tolerant vs. converting everyone is still incredibly screwed to "convert them all."

In general-EU3 punishes aggressive expansion. The Ottomans took the game equivalent of something like 50-70 provinces in a few decades IRL...in game you can't do that without massive BB wars.

You just can't really play a historic Ottomans with EU's dynamics. Don't get me wrong-I think players should not be able to get 40-50 provinces in one or two wars. But a lot of times it seems like a rule that is applicable to 90% of the nations in the game (don't triple in size in a few wars, don't be multi-religious, you should be afraid of losing your dynasty) doesn't apply to the Ottoman's historic situation. And I am not sure how to change that.

I've also always found how they balance nations in EU3 funny. Austria seems to me clearly overpowered. In 1399 they were a minor duchy yet they have massive MP and census tax because they are "supposed" to do well IMO. So we avoid giving them scripted events to eat Bohemia and Hungary...but we give them ahistoric resources to make that very possible.

 

[il_loco]

That or make it so that any fleet which does not belong to the strait owner(s) suffers attrition.

This can work. In WWI, Allies couldn't make through Dardenelles while it was defended by mix of modern German artillery and some outmoded cannons and in the beginning of 19th century United Kingdom couldn't make through it while it was defended by cannons that were used in conquest of Constantinople. It is not thoroughly comparable, but I don't think straits were more easily passable in 16th century. Attrition or local defensiveness for ships fighting there (it may be a trigger or decision after conquest of Constantinople like Bosphorus Sound Toll) can work in that manner.

The Ottomans took the game equivalent of something like 50-70 provinces in a few decades IRL...in game you can't do that without massive BB wars.

In my humble opinion, crusades can also be considered as BB wars.

 

[BritNavFan]

I still think the comparative generosity towards the west is playing in here however as we're seeing a lot of Castillian and English naval invasions completely destroy the turks. I made a spreadsheet back when I started modding eu3 to check the manpower average of certain regions and compare that to approximations of historical populations (the latter I got from Angus Madissons data).

Fair enough: looks like you've analyzed this thoroughly. One question: when you say "X [has] a historical population of, on average, Y millions per game province." is that average Y over the period 1399-1820 or in the year 1399 (or some other set year)? It makes a difference, as IIRC England and Germany (for example) grew faster than the French and the Ottomans.

However, the English and Castillians of the 1400's shouldn't be launching naval operations against the Turks at all. (For that matter, the 1400's English should get tribal succession crises from time to time.)

I've always thought modeling the Ottomans was very hard with EU's rules.

In general-EU3 hates multi-religious empires... The cost/benefit to being tolerant vs. converting everyone is still incredibly screwed to "convert them all."

Yes. Religious conversion should really work more like cultural conversion than like building a "building". As long as it's like adding a building to a province, it'll be worth doing.

In general-EU3 punishes aggressive expansion. The Ottomans took the game equivalent of something like 50-70 provinces in a few decades IRL...in game you can't do that without massive BB wars.

You just can't really play a historic Ottomans with EU's dynamics. Don't get me wrong-I think players should not be able to get 40-50 provinces in one or two wars. But a lot of times it seems like a rule that is applicable to 90% of the nations in the game (don't triple in size in a few wars, don't be multi-religious, you should be afraid of losing your dynasty) doesn't apply to the Ottoman's historic situation. And I am not sure how to change that.

True. There were (at least) 5 big collapses in the EU3 period: the Mamluks, the Incas, the Ming, and Burgundy and Hungary. EU3 attempts to model one (the Incas), while the Ottomans benefited from two more: the Mamluks and Hungary. It's not obvious what to do about these situations. (Similarly, according to game mechanics the Timurids should start the game with massive badboy.)

While there's certainly lots of stuff about the Ottoman situation that the game engine isn't set up to handle well, as Trin Tragula and Mr. Domino have ably shown, there's also a lot of stuff that's just wrong and is relatively easily fixed by changes to the history database.

• Most notably, the Timurids didn't "behave like the Timurids". They weren't, in general, steppe nomads. They stopped the constant aggression as soon as Timur died. Timur's grandson put his effort into building an astronomical observatory of all things. Even when Timur was alive, he wasn't behaving like a steppe nomad: the last project he started in his life was an invasion of Ming, which would be impossible under the Horde rules since the Timurids don't border Ming. The Timurids were modelled reasonably well as a tribal despotism in HTTT, and if you roll them back to that the Ottomans will perform more historically too.
• More generally, although it's fairish to model the Muslim steppe nomads as constantly aggressive towards their Christian neighbours, they were certainly not constantly aggressive towards other Muslim states. This is a fatal flaw in the current Horde system if you want the game to go historically. So the Hordes should be modded out for a more historical game, unfortunately.
• Just before HTTT was released, one of the devs did an AAR as Byzantium, and as a result of that they added diplomatic ties to the eastern Mediterranean Christian minors to make it harder for the Byzantines to expand. But those ties are just traps for the Ottoman AI, which still gets a mission to conquer Rhodes even though Castille, Aragon, and France now start with guarantees on Rhodes. So backing out the last 3 spheres and guarantees of the Knights by the Spanish (in \history\diplomacy\Iberian_alliances.txt) and the 3 spheres and guarantees of the French on Rhodes and Cyprus (in French_alliances) will make the game more historical.
• On the other hand, the Ottomans shouldn't start with cores on all the Turkish minors. Those minors took decades and in one case centuries to assimilate: giving the Ottomans cores makes it far too easy.
• By the same token, Castille didn't restart the Reconquista until the 1480's, so there's no reason they should get the mission "finish_reconquista" at the start of every 1399 game. Either give finish_reconquista a start date (e.g. "year = 1480") or give it a base chance factor much less than 1000.
• And, by the way, the Mamluks are messed up. Unlike the Timurids, they didn't behave even approximately the way an EU3 "tribal despotism" does. I'd make them a "republic" with monarch-style names that has trade bonuses and gets "tribal succession crises" when the ruler dies.

 

[Trin Tragula]

Fair enough: looks like you've analyzed this thoroughly. One question: when you say "X [has] a historical population of, on average, Y millions per game province." is that average Y over the period 1399-1820 or in the year 1399 (or some other set year)? It makes a difference, as IIRC England and Germany (for example) grew faster than the French and the Ottomans.

Ah sorry about that, must've slipped out when I was editing the list. The average wasn't referring to the situation over time but rather just the average province population for the region. The year I've used is 1500 for all of the numbers given here. Ideally history files should account for changes in population and so on over the years but I don't know where I'd find enough data for that and I settled on using one point in time as a reference.
As you point out the point in time does make a difference and that probably accounts for at least some of the difference seen in the comparison. As I was using the numbers to calculate starting manpower values for new regions I reasoned that manpower increase during the game's timeframe should be regarded as the result of manpower increasing events and such gamewise.

 

[grommile]

However, the English and Castillians of the 1400's shouldn't be launching naval operations against the Turks at all. (For that matter, the 1400's English should get tribal succession crises from time to time.)

Event to spawn Pretender rebels in Feudal Monarchies if Legitimacy is low, with Stability raising MttH?

 

[BritNavFan]

Ah sorry about that, must've slipped out when I was editing the list. The average wasn't referring to the situation over time but rather just the average province population for the region. The year I've used is 1500 for all of the numbers given here. Ideally history files should account for changes in population and so on over the years but I don't know where I'd find enough data for that and I settled on using one point in time as a reference.
As you point out the point in time does make a difference and that probably accounts for at least some of the difference seen in the comparison. As I was using the numbers to calculate starting manpower values for new regions I reasoned that manpower increase during the game's timeframe should be regarded as the result of manpower increasing events and such gamewise.

That may be why we came to different conclusions on whether Anatolia was balanced, then. If you balance Anatolia against England for the average of 1400-1800, Anatolia will be too weak in 1400 and England too weak in 1800.

Angus Madisson's data covers different years.

EDIT:

Event to spawn Pretender rebels in Feudal Monarchies if Legitimacy is low, with Stability raising MttH?

That makes sense.

 

[Trin Tragula]

That may be why we came to different conclusions on whether Anatolia was balanced, then. If you balance Anatolia against England for the average of 1400-1800, Anatolia will be too weak in 1400 and England too weak in 1800.

Angus Madisson's data covers different years.

So it does And the change in population does account for some of the difference. But I'd still say not all of it.
By 1700 the population average of the UK is 0,37 millions per province and the Turkish 0,53 using Maddisons numbers.
By 1820 things have changed a lot with Turkey at 0,63 and the UK at 0,92 (again using IN provincenumbers).
I'd still argue that the Turks lose out when one compares historical population to manpower for the majority of the game's timeframe. Especially if one compares them to regions that did not experience a population boom in the way discussed (Sweden, Portugal and Greece for instance). This is especially true if we want them to grow stronger during the early game when manpower matters the most (atleast to the AI).

 

[merrick]

Some nice analysis here - but one thing I think people are overlooking. Since province base tax and manpower doesn't change through the game, the values for the Greek provinces have to reflect Ottoman Istanbul and Salonica as well as the post-Byzantine wreckage at the start of the Grand Campaign. Put another way, if Greece and Thrace are poor and underpopulated in 1400, they will still be poor and underpopulated in 1600 - which won't do the Ottomans any good.

The Ottomans have two long-standing problems. Firstly, as Mr Domino points out the game severely penalises multi-cultural multi-religious empires like the Ottomans historically were. Their advance into Europe loads them down with poor wrong-culture wrong-religion provinces that produce nothing but rebels and kill their tech speed. Secondly, they never expand historically in the Middle East. I've seen the Ottomans beat the Hungarians and the Poles and advance to the Baltic - and still not secure Damascus, much less Alexandria. The result is an undersized Ottoman empire with a weak economy and way too high a proportion of rebellious Christian subjects.

To this the latest versions of the game have added two more. Firstly the big western powers are too strong and far too aggressive in the early game. There's no way the Ottomans should be fighting off Castilian naval invasions in the 1400s, or having England sail up the Bosporus with 50-ship fleets. A range limit (like the colonial range limit) for naval transport would probably help. So would limiting the Holy War CB to neighbouring infidels.

Secondly, in the most recent patches, the Ottomans get absolutely monstered by the Hordes.