Janissaries have their "uniqueness" status because the way they were recruited and trained. EXACTLY(hiperbole, in fact it was just similar) equal to, surprise yourself, MAMLUKS!
Yes! This is a common thing in Muslim Middle East since XII century. By the way, for some time, the Mamluk Sultanate was ruled by Georgians and another time by Armenians Mamluks! Why Janissaries became more iconic in history than Mamluks? Simple. Mamluks never conquered parts of Europe, invaded Constantinople, etc. After all, who cares about Georgia/Armenia/Middle East, right?
Oh, the Janissaries also were the first troops to use firearms in Europe. And that is it. They were just a big standing army. Not much "standing", as most of time they were merchants in peace-time and, after some time, land-owners themselves. Basically a normal noble, that does his own thing at peace-time, answering the Call to Arms from his overlord, except their overlord is the Sultan himself. It is completely different of the concept of standing armies, as you can read below.
A
standing army, unlike a
reserve army, is a permanent, often professional,
army. It is composed of
full-time soldiers (who may be either career soldiers or
conscripts) and is not disbanded during times of peace. It differs from
army reserves, who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during
wars or
natural disasters, and temporary armies, which are raised from the civilian population only during a war or threat of war and disbanded once the war or threat is over.
About their performance, it is complicated. They were never used as sole entity, but the Ottoman Army, in general, was AWFUL at combat, losing uncountable times to much smaller armies and garrisons, namely in Armenia, Georgia, Albania, Greece, Hungary or any place they tried to invade. There is more merit to Portugal in the fall of the Mameluke Sultanate than to the Ottoman Army, that got rekt by the same Sultanate in the first war and just didn't lost land because the Mamluks had problems supplying a big army so far from home.
The Ottoman navy, however, was pretty good and had easy time in the first and second war against Mamluks and could keep Christians at bay. They had professional board teams, that had this sole purpose in the fleet. The size was like 30,000 at Lepanto, if I'm remembering correctly. ZERO bonuses to Ottoman navy in game.
Ottoman bureaucracy and logistics, however, is where the roots of the empire are. The empire could gather much more taxes, raise and supply a much larger army than the Christians it had to face. Even fighting some Crusades/Coalitions, the Ottoman Empire had a bigger army and navy than the whole enemy team. Doubt? Ottomans had more ships at Lepanto. Against the banks of Spain, Genoa, Venice and the Fugger Banks. After the loss the navy was never the same.
If this game tried to follow some historical approach, the Ottoman Empire should be like the old Russia:
++ Manpower
+ Force Limits
- Regiment Costs
New Janissaries
The Janissaries were the ONE of elites in the Ottoman army, but isn't hard to be the elite when the rest of the army is purely militia. It does make them be seen as better, but doesn't made them better.
I would end, but a question needs to be made: If most of European armies were like Generals + Nobles + Mercenaries + tons of militia, considering militia is militia anywhere and the Ottoman had much more, the Europeans needed to be much better in something else to compensate and win.
Were European mercenaries better? If, so, they should be used to a more advanced kind of warfare. If Janissaries were used to an outdated warfare, they weren't such a threat.
Were European noble/elite forces better? That is a directly confront, so I don't need to extend here.
Were European generals better? Check two lines above.
