Why is the Ottoman Ghazi idea still in this game?

[RobRoy3]

As for the feature I mentioned in my previous post, it is a perfect one to integrate into the game. Which is also completely relevant to EU4. I don't think you got what I thought either. There's no need for micromanagament to add such a feature into the game. It doesn't have to be applied on every occasion, but sometimes, by the help of some factors,you can conquer a country after defeating their army on the battlefield. In conclusion, the Ottoman AI needs more features apart from having ghazi idea to conquer lands in a way similar to its historical counterpart.

It'd be nice to have some things that could aid the Ottoman early, particularly the AI, but I doubt it's going to happen. I suspect best case scenario is the devs resist these occasional threads crying to nerf the Turks based on people's MP experiences.

I wonder if they'd consider something specific to Event 746 for TUR in Muslim provinces. That could go part way toward what your suggesting. That event did some of what you want, but it got double nerfed such that it's completely useless now (one nerf was probably intentional but misguided, the second an unintended consequence of the changes to the war exhaustion system). Frankly, they should delete the event if they don't make it relevant, again. But it occurs to me that it could be specifically applicable to the TUR/MAM wars. Maybe phasing out Ghazi in the 1650 timeframe, in exchange? Both could be justified from historical perspectives (though, strangely, historical justifications seem to offend some people playing a history-based game).

 

[grand_Turk]

EU4 can still be improved. I don't know, perhaps the future expansion pack might focus on conquerors, rulers and conquests. Which is already the major part of the game.

 

[gaius valerius]

What are you talking about? :huh: Unlike you, I'm not ignoring any historical fact. Two memluk sultans were slain, and the Memluk army was laid to waste. This is what they call annihilation. You either conquer them by the sword or local rulers accept to come under your rule. Local memluk begs had no option but to obey and they eventually bow to Selim's might. Egypt's annual tax started to be sent to Istanbul after 1516-17 campaign. Which perfectly makes Selim's Egypt Campaign a conquest. You can't collect taxes from a province you don't own after all. It seems to me, you're just trying to trivialize Selim I's splendid victory over the Memluks and remarkably succesful Egypt campaign. Bah.
As for the feature I mentioned in my previous post, it is a perfect one to integrate into the game. Which is also completely relevant to EU4. I don't think you got what I thought either. There's no need for micromanagament to add such a feature into the game. It doesn't have to be applied on every occasion, but sometimes, by the help of some factors,you can conquer a country after defeating their army on the battlefield. In conclusion, the Ottoman AI needs more features apart from having ghazi idea to conquer lands like the way its historical counterpart did.

Very nice way of argumenting by going ad hominem "u rrr antiturk rabble rabble". Let's be clear, I've got nothing but admiration for the historical feats of that age, the Ottomans no less than any other and am well versed in them. My point which you splendidly dodge by saying I'm supposedly anti-Selim (lolwut?) is that the factors that guided such spectacular feats are quite peculiar to the historical events themselves. What Selim could manage with Egypt and Syria was simply unthinkable in say feudal Europe. There was no annihilation of the Mamluke Empire, they simply en masse switched sides after 2 devastating military defeats. By the same logic you would call the Arab conquests of Syria and Egypt in the 7th century an "annihilation of the Roman Empire" while in reality it was nothing of the sort and infinitely more interesting. What happened on these occassions can not be translated easily into game mechanics, even if ommiting internal mechanics.

So whatever it seems to you, you're pretty much wrong. Annihilation of the Mamlukes would entail the wholesale expropriation, execution, capture and/or banishment of their social class. But that didn't happen. The short version is the ruling elite discovered to be no match for Ottoman power and took the easy way out: if you can't capture them, marry them (sort of speaking). As such they allied themselves with the Ottomans and life just went on as usual. One head replacing another. If that's annihilation in your book I wonder what you call true annihilation.

A workable solution might be special events, scripted to simulate those events in history. Or a special casus belli or mission that reduces the overal cost for wholesale annexation (cause if I'm right the current missions don't really do that?). Again the problem would be that we'd be singling out specific cases in history, I can hear the sandbox ppl rioting allready but even I as a history buff am somewhat struggling with the idea.

 

[Juggernaught]

I can't feel Op at all. When you mouse over to Ghazi it gives an explanation. Justifiable or not, Ottoman military consisted of all sorts of muslim people from north africa to arabian peninsula and middle east.. of whom rallied to Otto standard in religious wars to protect against crusades. Also, Ottoman units are worse then Muslim units late game which is the biggest problem atm.

 

[Red John]

I can't feel Op at all. When you mouse over to Ghazi it gives an explanation. Justifiable or not, Ottoman military consisted of all sorts of muslim people from north africa to arabian peninsula and middle east.. of whom rallied to Otto standard in religious wars to protect against crusades. Also, Ottoman units are worse then Muslim units late game which is the biggest problem atm.

Ah yes, I remember how well trained and elite these conscripts were, well versed with Western Arms.

This is more of an MP change than anything, of which I'm torn.

On one hand, Ghazi IS OP when placed in a players hands. (And AI's if it gets big enough and westernizes) Once you westernize, you've got an amazing army with huge discipline modifiers and an army that never dies, as you'll easily reach 10k monthly regen late game.

On the other hand, the AI is generally too incompetent to ever reach such a size and successfully westernize, so the Ghazi is sort of justified, and it wouldn't be that fair to remove the idea to cater to the minority MP players.

So what about removing it on successfully westernizing, replacing it with something like +20% Monthly Manpower Regen? This is what we've done in the primi game using a mod. You either stay as an inferior tech group as the Ottomans but keep your mass of unwesternized troops, or you westernize the army, allowing you to field a more late game one that isn't blatantly OP.

 

[grand_Turk]

Very nice way of argumenting by going ad hominem "u rrr antiturk rabble rabble". Let's be clear, I've got nothing but admiration for the historical feats of that age, the Ottomans no less than any other and am well versed in them. My point which you splendidly dodge by saying I'm supposedly anti-Selim (lolwut?) is that the factors that guided such spectacular feats are quite peculiar to the historical events themselves. What Selim could manage with Egypt and Syria was simply unthinkable in say feudal Europe. There was no annihilation of the Mamluke Empire, they simply en masse switched sides after 2 devastating military defeats. By the same logic you would call the Arab conquests of Syria and Egypt in the 7th century an "annihilation of the Roman Empire" while in reality it was nothing of the sort and infinitely more interesting. What happened on these occassions can not be translated easily into game mechanics, even if ommiting internal mechanics.
So whatever it seems to you, you're pretty much wrong. Annihilation of the Mamlukes would entail the wholesale expropriation, execution, capture and/or banishment of their social class. But that didn't happen. The short version is the ruling elite discovered to be no match for Ottoman power and took the easy way out: if you can't capture them, marry them (sort of speaking). As such they allied themselves with the Ottomans and life just went on as usual. One head replacing another. If that's annihilation in your book I wonder what you call true annihilation.
A workable solution might be special events, scripted to simulate those events in history. Or a special casus belli or mission that reduces the overal cost for wholesale annexation (cause if I'm right the current missions don't really do that?). Again the problem would be that we'd be singling out specific cases in history, I can hear the sandbox ppl rioting allready but even I as a history buff am somewhat struggling with the idea.

Firstly, I didn't call you antiTurk or anything and I don't prefer the Ottomans to the Memluks either. The Memluks too were a Turkish state after all. Secondly, I too have admiration for the successful leaders in history, regardless of their nationalities. Thirdly, my point is that one can conquer a country by several means like conquest by the sword, or obedience of the local rulers. Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't you saying that Selim's campaign can't be described as conquest since the local Memluk begs and nobles simply changed the sides? In addition to this, During the Muslim conquests of 7th century, their conquests in Syria or Egypt didn't put an end to the Eastern Roman Empire. As a result of Selim's Egypt campaign, however, the Memluks got wiped out as an independent state and the locals started to live under the Ottoman rule. The memluks went out of existence diplomatically and politically. What I meant by annihilation was this. So, it's not by the same logic as seen. I have no desire to discuss about the rest of your arguments as I have no knowledge of codes or mechanics of Clausewitz Engine. We should probably ask the developers of the game if it's possible to change the gameplay mechanics in that direction.

 

[Rubidium]

On one hand, Ghazi IS OP when placed in a players hands. (And AI's if it gets big enough and westernizes) Once you westernize, you've got an amazing army with huge discipline modifiers and an army that never dies, as you'll easily reach 10k monthly regen late game.

Sorry, since I don't play multi-player, can you specify where these huge discipline modifiers are coming from? I recognize that they get some boost from their NIs, but it's hardly a huge amount (it's the same as most nations that get discipline bonuses). Yes, they can take Quality, Offensive, etc., but so can everyone else. Are you referring to the Janissary events? Because it seems like that would be the real problem; the Janissary events would be a much better target for nerfing than the Ghazi idea (which is unique, flavorful, and interesting, in that it encourages religious warfare). Not that I'm endorsing a nerf; I don't play multiplayer, and almost any country can be overpowered in single-player in human hands.

It seems like human players should be able to team up and contain the Ottomans to prevent them from blobbing enormously, as a natural balance effect, but as I said, I don't play multiplayer (and AI Ottomans are a joke), so I can't evaluate that in practice. I just worry that it's a few bad experiences (and an underestimation of historical Ottoman expansion) that is driving the call to nerf a fun and interesting country.

 

[Red John]

Sorry, since I don't play multi-player, can you specify where these huge discipline modifiers are coming from? I recognize that they get some boost from their NIs, but it's hardly a huge amount (it's the same as most nations that get discipline bonuses). Yes, they can take Quality, Offensive, etc., but so can everyone else. Are you referring to the Janissary events? Because it seems like that would be the real problem; the Janissary events would be a much better target for nerfing than the Ghazi idea (which is unique, flavorful, and interesting, in that it encourages religious warfare). Not that I'm endorsing a nerf; I don't play multiplayer, and almost any country can be overpowered in single-player in human hands.

It seems like human players should be able to team up and contain the Ottomans to prevent them from blobbing enormously, as a natural balance effect, but as I said, I don't play multiplayer (and AI Ottomans are a joke), so I can't evaluate that in practice. I just worry that it's a few bad experiences (and an underestimation of historical Ottoman expansion) that is driving the call to nerf a fun and interesting country.

Offensive + Janissary + Ottoman Modifiers = 165% Discipline. (Somewhere around that number, anyway.)

Now that's fine as say, France. You've got a fairly large, elite army, but your manpower regen can't hold out forever. Eventually, with enough losses, you'll be forced to surrender if your opponent has more manpower than you, as that's what decides wars, manpower.

Now here's a picture of me as the Ottomans, losing a battle. Notice how many nations & the 2-1 numerical superiority that was required to beat my armies. Even with all of Europe's armies pitted against mine in a huge battle, they still only won due to good dice rolls & Scandinavia's mistake of letting his general take over my awesome general.

It took me all of 6 months to fully recover from this loss, and I immediately pushed France back out of Northern Italy and force peaced the Germans, and the game stopped there.

This was possible due to Ghazi. Even removing the Janissary modifiers, my manpower regen was still far, FAR larger than any of the others could muster. I gained manpower while invading Russia with 150,000 troops.

Viking, in another MP game, reached around 20,000 men per month. I reached a far smaller 7,000, which is still far larger than anyone elses in that game.

And regarding Ottoman coalitions, it generally does happen, but the Ottomans are insanely strong early game, relatively strong mid game, and then back to insanely strong late game. Early game, they have better units, a godly king & equal mil tech.

Saying that players should contain it isn't the solution. It's the same as saying 'Play better'...

 

[Novacat]

So what about removing it on successfully westernizing, replacing it with something like +20% Monthly Manpower Regen? This is what we've done in the primi game using a mod. You either stay as an inferior tech group as the Ottomans but keep your mass of unwesternized troops, or you westernize the army, allowing you to field a more late game one that isn't blatantly OP.

I would go with +50% Global Manpower, since Ottomans already get a Manpower Recovery bonus at the end of their NIs, otherwise, I would be fine with this.

 

[amonraa]

i think ghazi is fair for the ottomans. in fact i think they should add a +33% reinforcement to the buff too.
i think that would help smooth things out a bit against the westernization handicap.
maybe add another +20% manpower and +10% reinforcements to non-religious wars too will help.

 

[Loha4]

This is an old thread they already changed ghazi from its 3x manpower regeneration during a religious war a while ago.

 

[RobRoy3]

This is an old thread they already changed ghazi from its 3x manpower regeneration during a religious war a while ago.

A nerf that might've helped balance Multi-player games, but I suspect the change is largely responsible for the deteriorating performance of the AI Ottomans.

 

[wolffrnd]

Why necro a thread this old?

 

[bpurkapi]

Completely agree. The starting position of the Ottos is a true advantage. Remember that they start with truces with their formidable Euro adversaries. This gives them time to consolidate. Also one must remember that the provinces they take outside of Europe have a lower tax density. Meaning that if the Ottos want to make money its better to expand into Austria than it is to expand towards Persia or even N. Africa. Trade wise, if they take Persia and the Gulf of Aden, they can hit 92 gold from trade via India easy. Basically with the Ottos its like real estate, location, location, location. They have few equally matched enemies and can capitalize on trade. They do suck compared to Spain or France though. Historically, it took a coalition of countries to stop their expansion. Think about Venice and their ships, Polish and Hungarian cavalry and Austrian infantry. Many times they faced grand coalitions and were just only stopped. Time killed the Ottomans, so basically I feel like they are balanced enough.

 

[Kirikano]

Man, I was so confused reading this thread, wondering why everyone was crying about 20% manpower recovery speed bonus then I saw the date.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

And this is why don't want to see thread necromancy.