Why are the Ottomans so overpowered?

[sekelsenmat]

The truth is that the Ottomans could have conquered Europe and this is kinda the whole deal with this time period. The game is Euro-centric enough.

If they run away by the 1700's that's kinda on you as the player.

The Ottomans did try to conquer Europe and failed:

Battle of Sisak - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of the Gulf of Oman - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ottoman–Habsburg wars - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of Zenta - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Long Turkish War - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Great Siege of Malta - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Russo-Turkish War (1568–1570) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of Lepanto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Sete]

"The caravel of Dom Jerónimo de Castelo Branco was the first to vigorously ram and grapple two galleys, hurling a large number of clay fire bombs before boarding them. "

Where my Naval Shock devs?

 

[sekelsenmat]

This is a very very good explanation of the problem with Ottomans/any huge blob. The game doesn’t stop snowballing, in fact even facilitates it.

That's probably the real problem. I've seen it happen with other countries, the most common Poland. I've seen it either die completely and take half of Germany.

It looks like that once a side loses a few provinces it gets weaker and this leads to it even more decisively losing the next war with the same foe, snowballing either to death or to a huge unstoppable blob.

Maybe this is on purpose because many gamers like WC .... I would prefer a more equilibrated state, more historical where if one side wins a war, this doesn't make it a sure win for the next war. In real history wins/loses were very often alternated and stuff like the Byzantines losing and disappearing from a huge area were rather an exception in the old world. Often the conquered people staged a come back and the invaders would be thrown away. The mongol Empire collapse also comes to mind. Also in the Italian wars there was a constant alternation of who had the upper hand.

 

[eoncommander]

In my current game, the Ottomans are the number 1 GP, having eaten the southern Balkans, the Levant/Mashriq, and most of AQ/QQ, as well as holding Crimea, in the late 16th century...

And they've been beaten by AI Poland with Lithuania as a PU twice in the last fifty years. Pretty historical outcome, actually, which is probably as rare as the situation where they reach France. In my earlier game on this patch, they barely expanded beyond Anatolia, and the Mamluks were a GP into the 18th century. I think it's okay that there are games where Ottomans go wild, just so long as it doesn't happen with regularity.

 

[Jomini]

That's probably the real problem. I've seen it happen with other countries, the most common Poland. I've seen it either die completely and take half of Germany.

It looks like that once a side loses a few provinces it gets weaker and this leads to it even more decisively losing the next war with the same foe, snowballing either to death or to a huge unstoppable blob.

Maybe this is on purpose because many gamers like WC .... I would prefer a more equilibrated state, more historical where if one side wins a war, this doesn't make it a sure win for the next war. In real history wins/loses were very often alternated and stuff like the Byzantines losing and disappearing from a huge area were rather an exception in the old world. Often the conquered people staged a come back and the invaders would be thrown away. The mongol Empire collapse also comes to mind. Also in the Italian wars there was a constant alternation of who had the upper hand.

Historically, when you lost a war you changed your foreign policy. When the French lost at Pavia they did not just hope to defeat the Austrians the next go round, they did the unthinkable and made an unholy alliance with the Ottoman Empire against the Austrians. Following Mohacs, the successful expansion of the Ottoman frontier to Habsburg domains lead to the Austrians trying to ally Persia.

And this was idiotically common. A sharp victory might allow to rivals to bury the hatchet (at least for a while) and become formal allies (e.g. the French and English in the Quadruple alliance) or it might even spur diplomatic changes by third parties (e.g. Austerlitz and Napoleon's gains almost certainly drove Prussia into Coalition).

As is the game does not do any real balance of power. Rivals who might be utterly unable to attack core interests (e.g. England and France with the latter bereft of colonies) will ignore a common threat (e.g. Austria inheriting Burgundy, Spain with colonies, and seizing mainland Denmark) and states do not care hardly at all if you approach their borders as long as you do so through wrong religion/wrong culture land.

If you want states to recover and throw off the conquerors, you need more balance of power dynamics. You need states to have a half decent algorithm for determining who is actually a threat and acting accordingly.

 

[Kanem Bornu]

no single nation should“win” though.

Blobbing is so unchecked that By 1700 All (or at least most) areas of the world have been homogenized into regional blobs. Europe is gone.

Look at the bookmark for 1745 then play through a game and look at the state of the world/greater Europe in 1745.... Paradox fails utterly to simulate the cost of expansion or even indeed, that not every nation is always hell bent at every opportunity, on declaring war and taking land.

What are they supposed to do, put hard locks on provinces or prevent coring outside of culture group? Trying to force historical borders in a strategy game this long would make it incredibly boring. I would hate to play EU4 if I was locked into historical borders. You could accomplish most goals within 50 years then what, speed 5 and stare at an unchanging map for the next 300?

The divergence from historical borders is what makes the game replayable and fun. The changes that Paradox have implemented over the last several years that restrict player freedom (missionary changes, territorial corruption, etc) have been overwhelmingly viewed as negative for the game.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Hey guy, why did you change the title? That was funny.

I know it was. I posted it for a laugh but the mods seemingly censored me.

Seems like the mods don't have a sense of humour.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

The Ottomans did try to conquer Europe and failed:

Battle of Sisak - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of the Gulf of Oman - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ottoman–Habsburg wars - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of Zenta - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Long Turkish War - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Great Siege of Malta - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Russo-Turkish War (1568–1570) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of Lepanto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Thank you for this post. People keep missing the fact that yes the Ottomans were strong, but they did eventually fail. In EU4 they'd just win all of these wars.

 

[sekelsenmat]

What are they supposed to do, put hard locks on provinces or prevent coring outside of culture group? Trying to force historical borders in a strategy game this long would make it incredibly boring. I would hate to play EU4 if I was locked into historical borders. You could accomplish most goals within 50 years then what, speed 5 and stare at an unchanging map for the next 300?

The divergence from historical borders is what makes the game replayable and fun. The changes that Paradox have implemented over the last several years that restrict player freedom (missionary changes, territorial corruption, etc) have been overwhelmingly viewed as negative for the game.

Why can't they make it an option, like hoi4 has historical or ahistorical? Right now eu4 is actually worse then eu2 in historical feel! Yes, this bad.

Yes, I like your idea: No coring for cultures which are not accepted. Should be a great start. Ottomans could start with bulgar, Serbian, Greek, Albanian, as accepted as an exception to help expansion. I wonder if this would stop the AI from blobbing too much.

 

[grommile]

No coring for cultures which are not accepted.

If you were deliberately looking for a way to completely screw over a variety of tags, including Muscovy, you couldn't have done much better than that.

 

[Steel_atlas]

Part of the problem is that Muscovy and Poland destroy each other, usually Muscovy destroys poland.

So the two cant fight the Ottomans together like they historically did.

 

[Blust]

Isn't simply the problem the dev of these countries ?

AI Muscovy can't handle such terrible lands and manage its economy properly, making it a paper tiger. Poland's dev is a bit better and can benefit from its PU but is surrounded but big countries and often get crushed by all neighbors (just like historically, yay). But Ottomans have easy neighbors everywhere on top of a filthy rich Anatolia. You can kick Ottomans out of the Balkans and just let them a share of Anatolia and they'll stay a powerhouse.

Also governments types might play a part : Poland has troubles easily with its special government, Muscovy's government doesn't bring anything to the table while Ottomans... Well having to chose between 5/6/4, 4/5/6 and 6/4/5 for your heir isn't bad.

Oh and the culture group is making it broken for Ottomans, but that one's a joke to help them conquer faster because muh history.

 

[almoravid]

In my England playthrough, they got conquered by AI Naples, who later got kicked out of Anatolia by Mamelukes despite the fact that the latter lost Egypt to me. Seems that PU'ing France out of the picture had all kinds of shock effects on their enemies. I haven't attacked them once. Sometimes, they get smacked around by Venice + Skanderbeg. So nerfing them really isn't much of an option, unless we want Balkans and Anatolia to be as random as the situation in Persia or India ends up currently.

I think the whole imbalance started with Cradle of Civilization, which really beefed up the Mamelukes and really fleshed out the Middle East. So now the Ottomans have to conquer a huge empire to reach their historic proportions, and if they do that, they can swat Austria, Hungary and Poland like a bunch of bugs. Their lucky nations bonus, while indispensable to get even close to where they were around 1600, remains for the duration of the whole game and is therefore slapped on top of a humungeous empire.

At the same time, Persia hardly ever forms and if it does, it is in no way equipped to last more than a couple of years against the Turks. Mughals don't show up often, either, and if they do, they usually own all the Persia and barely move past Delhi in India.

 

[hayseed]

I have never had a problem with the Ottomans. I look for their rivals and ally them, if I am playing in Europe. Right now I’m playing Vijayanagar and totally uninvolved with the Mediterranean world. Even then, the Ottomans have struggled to dominate. In my experience, the Ottomans only explode when the human player destabilizes the Ottomans neighbors. If you are having trouble as France, ally with Spain or the Mameluks, build a galley fleet, take the galley naval doctrine and help the Mamelukes push them back. Or help Spain take part of the eastern Med. or ally with one of the Mesopotamian empires and establish a strong limit on the Ottomans ability to expand eastward. You have lots of choices, but you have to take an active interest in the stronger Ottoman border states.

 

[sekelsenmat]

What are they supposed to do, put hard locks on provinces or prevent coring outside of culture group? Trying to force historical borders in a strategy game this long would make it incredibly boring. I would hate to play EU4 if I was locked into historical borders. You could accomplish most goals within 50 years then what, speed 5 and stare at an unchanging map for the next 300?

The divergence from historical borders is what makes the game replayable and fun. The changes that Paradox have implemented over the last several years that restrict player freedom (missionary changes, territorial corruption, etc) have been overwhelmingly viewed as negative for the game.

At least for me forming Italy, Germany or Russia takes way more than 50 years, andbafter that you can colonize. but why not make it an option?

Ahistorical like now for people that want to do world contests and a realistic option which could for example double aggressive expansion outside accepted cultures, prevent coring, etc

 

[Nwaij]

No coring for cultures which are not accepted.

Accept, core, convert away, unaccept, repeat. New culture meta.

 

[sekelsenmat]

Accept, core, convert away, unaccept, repeat. New culture meta.

I explicitly stated that it would be an option for people that want more realist games.

It could be further enforced with a long timer to change accepted cultures list like 1 change every 50 years.

 

[petertju]

IMO beating the Ottomans is atm easier than ever before in EU4, they regularly don't even manage to conquer Egypt since Emperor. Back in the days they used to have cores on all of Anatolia and also a big part of Byz. Also Poland never managed to annex Moldovia, so that was a buffer keeping the commonwealth away. Albania also was an easy target, especially becuase they didn't have the Venice guarantee.

 

[Atomcreator]

I agree with the OP. My idea of a good game of EU4 is when you have enemies and rivalries throughout the game. Not when one empire becomes totally unchallengable.
However, many players just want to blob and WC. That's their idea of a good game. I even saw a post that was asking people if they quit the game when they lose a war. Wow.
I guess this is why so many people quit the game in 1650, because they become a giant that has no equal by that time and there is then little to play for.
WC just isn't my idea of a fun game and I'd like to see more complex mechanics introduced on the internal struggles and successes of running an actual country. As for the Ottomans, I despise them. lol. Even more so when I see them in Sweden and France.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Look, I just started a game with the specific intention of doing the Ottomans in early. The only way to stop them super blobbing is to DoW them on 11th December 1444.

Went with Venice, no CB'd and vassalised Byzantium, got alliances with Austria, Poland/Lithuania, Qara Qoyunlu, hired loads of mercs and kicked them out of Europe after 2 wars. They were still strong, but I made sure to stack wipe them causing the Mamluks to war with them three times more, and I went to war with them again.

The power vacuum allowed a super Castile/Spain to emerge. They've gotten rid of Portugal, eaten into Southern France, NW Africa and have Naples under a PU. But guess what the main difference is? They've been under a coalition twice. Their forcelimit is still 3x lower than what the Ottomans would be. They aren't making insane amounts of money and the combination of coalitions/alliances has slowed them down. They're also struggling to find alliances themselves, meaning they are tameable.

That's all I'm asking for the Ottomans. They need to be treated in the same way. More coalitions, more penalties for overreaching.