Why is the Ottoman Ghazi idea still in this game?

[Colossal_Elk]

Whining about ottoman NIs is strange considering that Prussia and Muscovy has far stronger NIs.

Brandenburg/Prussia don't start in 1444 as the most powerful country in the world. They have a sea of very powerful neighbors surrounding them and it takes effort (esp for AI) to crush them and consolidate the starting position.

Muscovy has very strong NIs but they've got some strong enemies. Sweden will mop the floor with them and the hordes are usually allied to Ottos who will commit a bottomless well of manpower to doomstacks and carpet sieges. Also Poland/Lithuania will rival them if they push east and effectively contain them with Swedish ally.

Who do the Ottomans have to worry about? Mamluks are a joke, Qara Qoyunlu are a joke, Hungary's only saving grace is that they're a bitch to core, they usually step on the HRE with no problems. Granted they should be strong but the AI is too dumb to fight them like Europe fought them in real life (A Holy League that pretty much ganged up on Turkey whenever there was a chance), so they can go fight people piecemeal and everyone ignores them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Who do the Ottomans have to worry about? Mamluks are a joke, Qara Qoyunlu are a joke, Hungary's only saving grace is that they're a bitch to core, they usually step on the HRE with no problems. Granted they should be strong but the AI is too dumb to fight them like Europe fought them in real life (A Holy League that pretty much ganged up on Turkey whenever there was a chance), so they can go fight people piecemeal and everyone ignores them.

If those two gang up (they almost never do) they are strong enough to really hurt the Ottomans, especially if Ottos go up after golden horde or some such. Ottos really are just left alone too much. Any time they expand one direction, the other direction should be breaking out its dagger...

 

[raw]

I think it needs a pretty big nerf.

The problem is that in single player there's not much issue if the AI has it, as it makes the Ottomans a nice challenge. A player will easily abuse it, but if it's his own game who cares what he chooses to do? The difference is in MP, where it essentially gives the Ottomans unlimited manpower. In that arena it's just so much more powerful than anything anyone similar gets.

wut

this is not how ottomans work in mp

 

[Ame]

They *could* be a menace to Europe, especially when their infantry has 8 pips at tech 5, with their starting ruler getting them there quickly.

But the game provides many, many reasons they'd prefer to avoid it. Alliances, coalition trash, power structure all push the Ottos to expand away from Europe, where it's face-desk easy, rather than into it, which is actually tough sledding.

I wouldn't say they're underpowered though. There are only a few nations that have a better shot at WC, and that's largely because those few nations begin in a position to shut down colonial powers + are large themselves + already western.

But still an ai Ottoman Empire should at least sometimes menace Europe; I could see why the ai would avoid the challenges however.

 

[Tub]

For those comparing Ghazi to a 'similarly powerful' Western idea, that's just wrong to say. With full quantity, quality, Ottoman ideas, and Absolute Monarchy, Ottomans can get discipline on par with Prussia, almost, and above most other Western nations - bar Sweden. With full piety, Defense, and tech, their morale is, again, higher than most Western nations. Lastly, if they westernise, they have no units that 'tail off' - they literally become a highly disciplined, high morale, unlimited manpower, huge forcelimits, and enormous income powerhouse.

Granted, this rarely happens in singleplayer - but in Multiplayer, it can really imbalance the game in favour of the Ottomans, especially if they're inclined to expand into North Africa or Russia.

A really easy fix for this would be to have Ghazi expire after 1650, just like every other religion-related mechanic does - or, if some people's apparently huge hard-on for historical determinism would be too soft with that, make it expire once the Ottomans westernise. I'd say that the latter is the best.

 

[Novacat]

For those comparing Ghazi to a 'similarly powerful' Western idea, that's just wrong to say. With full quantity, quality, Ottoman ideas, and Absolute Monarchy, Ottomans can get discipline on par with Prussia, almost, and above most other Western nations - bar Sweden.

So your theorycraft hinges on the assumption that the Western players are incompetant idiots. Theres nothing stopping those other countries from also picking Quality, Offensive, and Absolute Monarchy, and thus Prussia and Sweden will still have a large quality gap between them and Ottomans.

Prussia will still maintain a 20% infantry power gap and a 10% discipline gap, and thats not even considering the 100% constant army tradition which results in the Prussians able to consistantly field god-king generals.

Prussia still has the best land warfare NIs in the game. If the Ottomans NIs are OP and need to be nerfed, than the Prussians are OP and need to be nerfed as well.

A really easy fix for this would be to have Ghazi expire after 1650, just like every other religion-related mechanic does - or, if some people's apparently huge hard-on for historical determinism would be too soft with that, make it expire once the Ottomans westernise. I'd say that the latter is the best.

Except religion-related mechanics, barring exception of Catholic crusades, no longer expire anymore.

As for it expiring once the Ottomans Westernize, no. Nobody else has NIs that vanish after a certain end date/goal. Why should the Ottomans?

 

[grand_Turk]

Pretty much any human-played nation will conquer much more land than their historical counterpart.
But really, why should the Ottomans be nerfed? The game is not meant to be balanced; Byzantium and the Ottomans should not have equal probabilities of success. Ottomans can be contained (and will have problems fighting western nations once their tech starts to lag/their units get worse unless they westernize, which is a serious moment of vulnerability right there). Do they have a strong idea set? Sure, but the same could be said about many other nations in the game.
And as you said, AI Ottomans are terrible, never coming close to achieving what they did historically.

Considering vast territories the Ottoman Empire acquired, they're arguably the hardest nation to play for those wanting to obtain the set of historical conquests of theirs. For example, Selim I conquered the whole Egypt and the Middle East, including Hedjaz, and the north of Yemen defeating the Mamluks in two battles. Besides, he needed only two years to do this. (1516-1517). To be able to complete his conquests in the game, I always have to start the Egypt Campaign during the reign of Mehmet the conqueror. Which is mostly before 1490s. Dear Paradox can integrate a world conqueror feature into the game, allowing the player to conquer a huge country by a single pitched battle. If your monarch is a "sahibkıran" (world conqueror, destroyer of sovereigns) then you can conquer much of a country after defeating their national army in a battle. Otherwise, one can never be like Alexander, Cenghis, Timurlenk, or Selim I. (Selim's monarch powers are awful though. You could have done better than 2-4-5 to be historically more accurate. :glare: Anyway.) Moreover, most of the nations having less than ten provinces are easy for players to surpass their historical counterparts. You don't need to conquer states, empires and principalities to span three continents whilst playing as them. I don't mean silly colonization either. As for the Ottomans, they shouldn't be nerfed but buffed. I'd like to see a much more challenging AI Ottoman Empire tending to conquer more lands instead of standing aimlessly.

 

[gaius valerius]

Considering vast territories the Ottoman Empire acquired, they're arguably the hardest nation to play for those wanting to obtain the set of historical conquests of theirs. For example, Selim I conquered the whole Egypt and the Middle East, including Hedjaz, and the north of Yemen defeating the Mamluks in two battles. Besides, he needed only two years to do this. (1516-1517). To be able to complete his conquests in the game, I always have to start the Egypt Campaign during the reign of Mehmet the conqueror. Which is mostly before 1490s. Dear Paradox can integrate a world conqueror feature into the game, allowing the player to conquer a huge country by a single pitched battle. If your monarch is a "sahibkıran" (world conqueror, destroyer of sovereigns) then you can conquer much of a country after defeating their national army in a battle. Otherwise, one can never be like Alexander, Cenghis, Timurlenk, or Selim I. (Selim's monarch powers are awful though. You could have done better than 2-4-5 to be historically more accurate. :glare: Anyway.) Moreover, most of the nations having less than ten provinces are easy for players to surpass their historical counterparts. You don't need to conquer states, empires and principalities to span three continents whilst playing as them. I don't mean silly colonization either. As for the Ottomans, they shouldn't be nerfed but buffed. I'd like to see a much more challenging AI Ottoman Empire tending to conquer more lands instead of standing aimlessly.

Yeah... no... because your argument is kind of full of historical loopholes. You use history as a nice argument but somewhat ommit history altogether, since you carelessly gloss over the "how" of the aforementioned conquest. Ottomans didn't conquer the Mamluke holdings in 2 battles, at least not manu militari. The Mamluke elite simply decided to change sides and accepted the Ottoman rule in return for a return to the status quo ante bellum, with the only difference of them being under the nominal Ottoman leadership. When Napoleon arrived centuries later guess who he found??????

This isn't as much nitpicking as you are simply ommiting - the most horrible of all crimes of one arguing history - facts. The point though? It can't be done since no such features are simulated in-game. There is no elite that can cause entire chunks of an empire to switch sides to a new overlord, there is simply no internal micromanagement. The end. So though I get your point and also lament it not being possible, I don't see how . Since it would only make it arbitrary and unjust as a whole. We already have flavourable events in this genre, I'm not against them in se - on the contrary - but they'll need balance. The argument of 'theyz be glorious warleaders derp' isn't really cutting historical wood at all, certainly not to be bluntly translated into game features.

 

[Tub]

So your theorycraft hinges on the assumption that the Western players are incompetant idiots. Theres nothing stopping those other countries from also picking Quality, Offensive, and Absolute Monarchy, and thus Prussia and Sweden will still have a large quality gap between them and Ottomans.

Prussia will still maintain a 20% infantry power gap and a 10% discipline gap, and thats not even considering the 100% constant army tradition which results in the Prussians able to consistantly field god-king generals.

10% discipline gap with Prussia, as well as a 20% gap with the rest of Europe. For a supposed mass of unwashed Muslim peasants, that's an awfully high discipline (I suppose that could apply to anybody with a highly disciplined, large army, but even more so when that army is 300 thousand strong.)

And sure, Prussia can field two or three 40k armies, and have fantastic leaders on all of them, but does that really matter when they're up against armies three times their size?

As for it expiring once the Ottomans Westernize, no. Nobody else has NIs that vanish after a certain end date/goal. Why should the Ottomans?

Nobody else has national ideas that triple their manpower. People say that Russia have OP manpower ideas - Ottomans have the capability to triple their manpower almost all the time. As well as that, pretty much all of the other Ottoman ideas are really good.

I'm not complaining about Ottoman's power in Singleplayer, mind, just that in the hands of a player in a MP game, they can completely dominate, regardless of what other people do (short of stomping them right at the start).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

10% discipline gap with Prussia, as well as a 20% gap with the rest of Europe. For a supposed mass of unwashed Muslim peasants, that's an awfully high discipline (I suppose that could apply to anybody with a highly disciplined, large army, but even more so when that army is 300 thousand strong.)

Not just the discipline bonus. Also infantry bonuses. Ottoman forces take comically more damage against those kinds of units.

And in MP, nobody should be letting the Ottomans have free run into the Middle East and beyond, least of all before they even have access to Ghazi.

For all of their manpower, they're stuck with a 10% discipline bonus from NI's and nothing else. On top of that, if they don't want to get utterly facerolled later on they must westernize, which exposes them. Any combo of Austria + Middle Eastern player like Qara or Mamluks can and should pile on them if they expand in MP.

 

[lordelenath]

Well, they do have some potential discipline coming with the Janissaries. Sure, Prussia and Sweden both have more damage potential, but the Ottomans are definitely one of the most powerful military nations, especially since you've to consider the nice morale boost pious Muslims achieve. Still, I'm absolutely fine with powerful NIs for historically successful nations and actually didn't mind the even better ones of Russia, Sweden and Prussia before the nerfs (although I almost never play these).

 

[Ame]

10% discipline gap with Prussia, as well as a 20% gap with the rest of Europe. For a supposed mass of unwashed Muslim peasants, that's an awfully high discipline (I suppose that could apply to anybody with a highly disciplined, large army, but even more so when that army is 300 thousand strong.)

And sure, Prussia can field two or three 40k armies, and have fantastic leaders on all of them, but does that really matter when they're up against armies three times their size?



Nobody else has national ideas that triple their manpower. People say that Russia have OP manpower ideas - Ottomans have the capability to triple their manpower almost all the time. As well as that, pretty much all of the other Ottoman ideas are really good.

I'm not complaining about Ottoman's power in Singleplayer, mind, just that in the hands of a player in a MP game, they can completely dominate, regardless of what other people do (short of stomping them right at the start).

You understand that when a player picks OE you could just combine with others to stop them from expansion? The Ottomans shouldn't be nerfed because of lazy people who want to allow other players to expand? Should France be nerfed if you get lazy and allow it to achieve the Hexagon? How about Castille and Portugal if you allow them the entire new world and Africa?

If another player picks a major power and you don't you will need to work on containment; much more so then with ai powers; but if you don't it isn't the fault of NIs that you allowed the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If another player picks a major power and you don't you will need to work on containment; much more so then with ai powers; but if you don't it isn't the fault of NIs that you allowed the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East.

Containment of other powers is necessary even if you *do* pick one . It's that or work with one to race ahead of other competition, such as diplomacy allows.

The point that a 300 force limit nation with *any* good set of NIs is devastating and nigh-unbeatable in good hands is a valid one. I'm not even sure Ghazi is more threatening than if you were to hand those kinds of #'s to someone else. Runaways are a serious problem, so the only way you should allow one is if them doing so is letting you also run away...then hopefully the resulting dogpile is on them and not you .

 

[Colossal_Elk]

So I went in and changed Otto idea to +25% manpower recovery. They're not looking gimpy in any way, shape or form, but I'm in a war with them right now and destroying their armies is actually giving them a little bit of war exhaustion. I think it makes more sense. Ghazi warriors shouldn't triple Otto manpower but allowing them to quickly bring in warm bodies during war or peace does seem like a fitting fix, I think.

 

[Novacat]

10% discipline gap with Prussia, as well as a 20% gap with the rest of Europe. For a supposed mass of unwashed Muslim peasants, that's an awfully high discipline (I suppose that could apply to anybody with a highly disciplined, large army, but even more so when that army is 300 thousand strong.)

The Ottomans were hardly unwashed muslim peasants. Have you read of the Janissaries at all?

And sure, Prussia can field two or three 40k armies, and have fantastic leaders on all of them, but does that really matter when they're up against armies three times their size?

Yes, it does matter. Or did you completely forget about the bitching and moaning about Prussia a few months back?

Nobody else has national ideas that triple their manpower. People say that Russia have OP manpower ideas - Ottomans have the capability to triple their manpower almost all the time. As well as that, pretty much all of the other Ottoman ideas are really good.

Almost? Ghazi only triples manpower in war against heathens, it does not work (IIRC) against Heretics, and it does absolutly nothing in peacetime. Russia, meanwhile, gets NIs that double its manpower 24/7, on top of having better overall NIs.

Infact, take away Ghazi and Russia's manpower, and what do both sides get?

Russia: -10% Tech cost, -50% Infantry cost, +50% Land Force Limits, +0.5 Army Tradition, +1 Colonist, +10% Production Efficiency, -15% Core Creation Cost
Ottomans: +10% Discipline, -33% Core Creation Cost, +33% Religious Unity, +3 Heathen Tolerance, +15% Cavalry Combat Ability, -10% War Exhaustion Cost Reduction, +10% Tax Modifier, +10% Trade Income modifier, -10% Ship costs

The Core Creation Cost, Religious Unity, and Ghazi literally have to carry the Ottoman NI set, while Muscovy gets all-round amazing bonuses.

I'm not complaining about Ottoman's power in Singleplayer, mind, just that in the hands of a player in a MP game, they can completely dominate, regardless of what other people do (short of stomping them right at the start).

If Ottomans are dominating, theres probably a reason for it. Austria for example dominating the HRE is a really bad thing for Europe because Austria has abysmal land armies. Of course, the only real problem is that the Janissaries decadence events may not be triggering properly/reliably, and its the Janissaries that give the Ottomans a huge amount of its early game strength.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If Ottomans are dominating, theres probably a reason for it. Austria for example dominating the HRE is a really bad thing for Europe because Austria has abysmal land armies. Of course, the only real problem is that the Janissaries decadence events may not be triggering properly/reliably, and its the Janissaries that give the Ottomans a huge amount of its early game strength.

Even Austria can stick them while they're westernizing, and their geographical position is great for it.

 

[Shadowless]

You understand that when a player picks OE you could just combine with others to stop them from expansion? The Ottomans shouldn't be nerfed because of lazy people who want to allow other players to expand? Should France be nerfed if you get lazy and allow it to achieve the Hexagon? How about Castille and Portugal if you allow them the entire new world and Africa?

If another player picks a major power and you don't you will need to work on containment; much more so then with ai powers; but if you don't it isn't the fault of NIs that you allowed the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East.

I am curious how much MP you actually play? If the Ottoman is competent there is little an early coalition can do against them. With a god king allowing for quick access to superior miltech and units, the ability to get extra morale from Sunni I have seen two different coalitions fail in the current games I am playing. Both of them had a session 1 coalition form, the first ones coalition was Timurids, Mamluks and Hungary which resulted in the Ottomans being forced to give up his 1 province Byzantine vassal. Success right? Except for the fact he then has miltech 5 and such a coalition can do very little. The second one resulted in a coalition of Mamluks, Hungary, Poland, Austria (I feel like I'm missing someone from that list for some reason) and involved them being slapped around like they were kids, allowing for an Ottoman victory and gaining a few provinces. The second coalition was larger if I remember correctly and resulted in the Ottomans having land tech 5 and the dismemberment of the Mamluks.

Now if I remember correctly that all happened before Ghazi was even available to him, and he has since gotten Ghazi, and is currently fighting the ENTIRE HRE, Italy, Hungary, Poland and has drained almost all of their of manpower while he has quite a bit left over. This is with 2/3 of their army having land tech 12 compared to his 11 (vastly better troops) This is an Ottomans who has survived coalitions against him in nearly every session and his 1000 manpower a month normal regen gets boosted to 3000, allowing him to have the same manpower regeneration as that current coalition. Tell me how that was avoidable? Surely you don't mean that a coalition of 4 VERY strong early powers shouldn't be enough? Tell me how they were lazy and "allowed" him to expand.

 

[Novacat]

WAD. Ottomans are supposed to be OP as hell in the early game.

 

[Beagá]

Meh, call me when Hungary is annexed and they reach the borders of Áustria. Something that doesn´t happen in 90% of all games.

Not that they don´t spank people a lot, but the AI´s ineptitude at actually gaining ground is a bit annoying.

 

[Conch]

I am curious how much MP you actually play? If the Ottoman is competent there is little an early coalition can do against them. With a god king allowing for quick access to superior miltech and units, the ability to get extra morale from Sunni I have seen two different coalitions fail in the current games I am playing. Both of them had a session 1 coalition form, the first ones coalition was Timurids, Mamluks and Hungary which resulted in the Ottomans being forced to give up his 1 province Byzantine vassal. Success right? Except for the fact he then has miltech 5 and such a coalition can do very little. The second one resulted in a coalition of Mamluks, Hungary, Poland, Austria (I feel like I'm missing someone from that list for some reason) and involved them being slapped around like they were kids, allowing for an Ottoman victory and gaining a few provinces. The second coalition was larger if I remember correctly and resulted in the Ottomans having land tech 5 and the dismemberment of the Mamluks.

Now if I remember correctly that all happened before Ghazi was even available to him, and he has since gotten Ghazi, and is currently fighting the ENTIRE HRE, Italy, Hungary, Poland and has drained almost all of their of manpower while he has quite a bit left over. This is with 2/3 of their army having land tech 12 compared to his 11 (vastly better troops) This is an Ottomans who has survived coalitions against him in nearly every session and his 1000 manpower a month normal regen gets boosted to 3000, allowing him to have the same manpower regeneration as that current coalition. Tell me how that was avoidable? Surely you don't mean that a coalition of 4 VERY strong early powers shouldn't be enough? Tell me how they were lazy and "allowed" him to expand.

Who cares. The game isnt designed to be a balanced MP game.