Why are the Ottomans so overpowered?

[Vin55]

I would also add on that if they get crimea they go bonkers in Russia, if they get alliance with aqua they will notexapnd there and if mamleucks dont get attacked before 1530 they will normally make it and ottoman will stale. The real beast is the ottoman when they get qunatity they will have best troops until 1550 and most of them...

 

[Beagá]

They expand way too less into the middle east. Aq Qoyunlu has to die. Maybe balance in that direction.

 

[Vin55]

They were historic rivals wich makes it even more funny, Aqua needs to have at the start maybe cores or a big ass army to kill quara, as that did happen i real life just after game start, whith that region they would be somewhat a threat to the ottoman and should also guarantee Trezibond, as they had a mariagge alliance and so on.

 

[-DI- RivalET]

w/o modifiers to reduce unrest wrong culture, wrong religion lands will be a source of continuous unrest tho

 

[Travis_Bickle]

I'm playing a game now as Spain, in which the Ottomans got wrecked early on (seemingly they fought Austria-Hungary/Venice/Pope others and the Mamluks at once) but they still have over 200k men. I don't know how that is possible. They've started eating the Commonwealth now, but I've allied the Ottomans because I have a northern border with them (Austria/Hungary PU) and don't want to fight them whilst I'm colonising and eating land in Asia and Africa.

They actually attacked Austria-Hungary whilst I was PUing them (claim throne, they had a Trastámara) and I had to fight them after winning the war, taking leadership, and they mopped the floor with my armies, I was just lucky their war exhaustion was high from the previous war and I was able to white peace them by fully occupying their ally Bohemia. Again, not sure their armies should be THAT OP to easily beat me in defensive mountain forts.

I think my real problem is just the amount of men that they can field. Despite the Mamluks, Commonwealth, Russia being bigger, they still have more men and an army equal in size to me, a colonially rich Spain (Own most of the Americas with trade companies in Africa and soon in Asia) that's taking quantity ideas.

 

[Evie HJ]

Colonies aren't exacty a great source of manpower for your armies historically...

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Colonies aren't exacty a great source of manpower for your armies historically...

I don't have any problem with manpower. I used the colonies to fund wars so that I could easily conquer more land, build GC buildings everywhere so I could state loads of land and increase my manpower pool that way.

I've not got the game open right now but I believe I make 2-3x more income than the second country in my game. That quite clearly impacts the amount of men I can fund, and if there is any trouble (and there hasn't been so far) spamming mercs and going over the forcelimit isn't a problem because I'm so rich.

EDIT: To add, I can build forcelimit/manpower buildings everywhere in my country too with all this money.

 

[agonistes]

I'm playing a game now as Spain, in which the Ottomans got wrecked early on (seemingly they fought Austria-Hungary/Venice/Pope others and the Mamluks at once) but they still have over 200k men. I don't know how that is possible. They've started eating the Commonwealth now, but I've allied the Ottomans because I have a northern border with them (Austria/Hungary PU) and don't want to fight them whilst I'm colonising and eating land in Asia and Africa.

They actually attacked Austria-Hungary whilst I was PUing them (claim throne, they had a Trastámara) and I had to fight them after winning the war, taking leadership, and they mopped the floor with my armies, I was just lucky their war exhaustion was high from the previous war and I was able to white peace them by fully occupying their ally Bohemia. Again, not sure their armies should be THAT OP to easily beat me in defensive mountain forts.

I think my real problem is just the amount of men that they can field. Despite the Mamluks, Commonwealth, Russia being bigger, they still have more men and an army equal in size to me, a colonially rich Spain (Own most of the Americas with trade companies in Africa and soon in Asia) that's taking quantity ideas.

Oh god...

You are complaining about Otto being OP all the time... and you ally them? If you can't beat em, join em?

You should be punching into them from 1444 onward until you are better at war and diplomacy.

 

[Big Bad France]

Allying the Ottomans as Spain is just a good idea. If you don't have defender of the faith and a military idea, they are going to beat you on quantity and quality. Plus, with the alliance, they will be more reluctant to go to war with catholics, because you would be drawn in. Spain should always be defender of the faith.

And it's not ridiculous that they field larger armies than Russia and the Commonwealth. You are comparing Anatolia and the Balkans to a whole lot of low development land with low value trade goods.

 

[Hawkslime]

Oh hey it´s this again. "Ottomans are _______ powered" threads are an evergreen.

It´s easier to make peace between Israel and Palestine than to balance the Ottomans to the happiness of the playerbase.

Generally speaking, though, I dare say that all empires blob more than they did historically. The Ottomans are just an example of this.

 

[Xdevo]

Generally speaking, though, I dare say that all empires blob more than they did historically. The Ottomans are just an example of this.

Honestly, I don't see this as remotely true. France, Austria, Russia, England, Netherlands, Qing, Mughals, Persia, and Tuangu empires never reach their historical extent. While yes, some of these were cospatial but not cotemporeous, very few empires reach as close as their historical extent as the Ottomans do.

 

[mysticdueler]

Oh god...

You are complaining about Otto being OP all the time... and you ally them? If you can't beat em, join em?

You should be punching into them from 1444 onward until you are better at war and diplomacy.

Allying a country specifically to deny them a chance to expand in certain directions is a completely viable strategy, and even features commonly, ie on Brandenburg runs (ally Poland and make sure you are the leader on any wars with the TO).

 

[Big Bad France]

Allying a country specifically to deny them a chance to expand in certain directions is a completely viable strategy, and even features commonly, ie on Brandenburg runs (ally Poland and make sure you are the leader on any wars with the TO).

Yep. Particularly as Spain, an alliance with the Ottomans allows you to have a willing partner that turns the war against the Mamluks from a long, albeit safe, slog into a laughably easy affair that is over within a year or two. Plus, if you choose to honor your promise of land, you can dictate what they take while popping out Syria as a vassal, knowing that your truce with the Mamluks will be exactly as long as the Ottomans' truce, so you can even beat them to the punch with another war using reconquest, completely cutting them off from Egypt. Alliances are excellent ways to limit growth. Always try to ally your biggest potential foes.

 

[DanielPrates]

Imagine if in all playthroughs history repeated itself perfecty! We wouldn't need the game in the first place.

In my campaigns all major powers will underperform in a game then outperform in another. I've seen Portugal annexed by Marrocco, but also some other time they annexed spain and became this world-dominating blob. What is the point of the game if this doesn't happen?

To stay on topic, I find it often that the Mameluks are a "do or die" oponent for the ottomans in the early game, and frequently they get lucky and send the ottomans to an early dowhill decadence in the first century of game time.

 

[Beagá]

These threads never get old.

 

[Nominus]

Some people complain that the Ottomans are too powerful and others complain that they are too weak. It is impossible to satisfy both positions. I personally think that they are a good endboss and I wouldn't mind them being even stronger.
And historically they are too weak or did you ever see them with these borders in 1566?:

As long as eu4 doesn't have a mechanic that limits expansion for big empires which also hinders the player in the same way, I don't think that the late game Ottomans should be made weaker. But I don't think that many players would want a game where your empire breaks apart when it becomes too big.

There's something interesting that could be implemented, perhabs.
The Ottomans made sure that they could always reach their capital with their main army within a year for political reasons.
Representing this in-game would make a buff possible, while not letting Ottoman expansion get out of hand.
Just an idea, I'm not even sure if it's a good one.

 

[Battlex]

There's something interesting that could be implemented, perhabs.
The Ottomans made sure that they could always reach their capital with their main army within a year for political reasons.
Representing this in-game would make a buff possible, while not letting Ottoman expansion get out of hand.
Just an idea, I'm not even sure if it's a good one.

So implement MEIOU's mechanic where distance from capital affects autonomy?

 

[Nominus]

So implement MEIOU's mechanic where distance from capital affects autonomy?

That's an idea.
Here are more ideas: Increase base-unrest starting at a certain distance or (more immersive) make pretender rebels more likely. Just for the Ottoman goverment type, that is.
This would (further) soft-cap expansion for the Ottomans and make a buff for early expansion possible.
It's a solution for those who would prefer a more "historically-behaving" Ottoman Empire.

Imho though the current balance is just fine and doesn't really need these adjustments.

 

[Jomini]

So implement MEIOU's mechanic where distance from capital affects autonomy?

This is very silly and ahistorical.

The English crown had more direct influence in places like South Africa, the crown colonies on the Eastern Seaboard, Australia, Calais, Gibraltar, Malta, etc. than they ever managed in Northumbria. Nor was this uncommon.

States routinely retained much greater direct control over their borders than their interiors. Something about the fortifications and armies being there seemed to make it harder for the local nobility to defy central control. Certainly the effects autonomy, like sailor and manpower generation per unit of development, were, if anything greater the further from the Capital you went historically. France, for instance, had the overwhelming majority of its sailors coming from its most distant ports in wrong culture regions. The Russians recruited far higher percentages of available manpower out on the steppes than they ever managed near Moscow.

Even if we bought some distance : autonomy relationship, the game is extremely poorly setup to model it. After all, oceanic distances were wildly shorter in this time period than overland. Spain could more quickly get new orders to their North African holdings than up into Basque country. The Ottomans had better control over Crete and Cyprus than the main population centers in Anatolia. Sailing was quick and the government could show force easily with a simple naval visit. Overland distance is easily 10x worse.

The real limits to the Ottoman prowess were the speed it took to move armies off the Danube and its tributaries. Once they lost naval supremacy at Lepanto, the Turks were largely constrained by how quickly the could transit along interior lines. Had the maintained unfettered transit across the Aegean, Adriatic, Black, and Mediterranean Seas, they likely could have managed far more territorial conquests.

 

[Nominus]

The real limits to the Ottoman prowess were the speed it took to move armies off the Danube and its tributaries. Once they lost naval supremacy at Lepanto, the Turks were largely constrained by how quickly the could transit along interior lines. Had the maintained unfettered transit across the Aegean, Adriatic, Black, and Mediterranean Seas, they likely could have managed far more territorial conquests.

Exactly. They would've been in trouble if they expanded father than Bohemia or Rome, since their army would not have been effective anymore.
Ottomans constantly had pretenders rising in Anatolia or even their capital and were bad at waging war during winter in central europe. So what do you think of a small soft-capped unrest increase?