Hello everyone!! Why paradox recommends to play with ottomans if you are a beginner? I'd like to know tue reasons, please
Why ottomans for new players?
- Thread starter Paco LS
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Because Ottomans don't fear many countries in 1444. You can pretty much expand where you want with confidence so mistakes are not that lethal.
(not sure if it's less true with last DLC)
(not sure if it's less true with last DLC)
Sí, pero no tengo el último ... Many dlc, lot of money hehe... I have the followings Dlc: res publica, el dorado, wealth of nations, conquest of paradise, art of war and third rome...
The DLC didn't nerf the Ottomans, the patch did. But the Ottomans are the strongest nation in the game. Plain and simple.
The Ottomans are big, powerful and forgiving of rookie mistakes. But unlike say Ming they still have decent rivals like the Mamelukes and Hungary/Austria.
Pretty much this. Ming also have very unique mechanics which would make them unsuitable and certainly unrepresentative of gameplay as a whole.
Even assuming the AI is superior to the human player (true for new players, definitely not for veteran ones) the Ottomans overpower most of their neighbours enough to more than compensate for it, without having any natural predators breathing down their neck. They are also big enough that losing some provinces isn't that bad - you'll learn from it without getting crippled enough not to take land from weaker neighbours to make up for it and maybe win a rematch later on.
Also, maybe the biggest advantage of playing the Ottomans is that you won't have to worry about AI Ottomans ruining your game. If you can't beat them...
They also have a nice selection of weak targets for early expansion, allowing a new player to practice warfare without biting off more than he can chew.
Yes they're the easiest nation to play, and for good reasons (timeframe). As others have said as ottomans you can practice warfare being a major amidst a lot of minors that also happen to hate each other. If it's your very first game you can still lose against Mamluks or east europe because of not taking in account alliance strenght or terrain bonuses. Still, ottomans give you the powerbase to focus on these things, later on you'll be good enough to build yourself a great empire from a one province minor, till then playing with stronger nations will give you insight of the most important aspects of warfare in eu4 (as i said, strenght of alliances, terrain bonuses, military technology, etc.) while havin fun
Add in the fact that the Ottomans nearly always get god like rulers (they start with a 6/4/6 and had a 6/6/4 heir in my latest Austria game), excellent ideas, and being close enough to Europe that you will always be ahead in Technology and the ability to mess with Europe in the religious wars, but far enough that you can almost always continuously expand in the other direction once you finish one war in Arabia/Persia/Africa, and then flick to Europe and vice versa.
They also generate stupendous amounts of money due to being an Empire that accepts virtually every single culture they come into contact with during the early-mid game, and the Persian, Arabian and Constantinople trade nodes, and you get an extremely rich and populous country that can afford having constant wars.
In every single game I’ve played bar one (where Byzantium managed to ally both Hungary and Austria), the Ottomans just keep on expanding, managing to connect they’re Balkan holdings to their Ukrainian and Crimean Holdings to their Causcasian holdings, and everything in between. I’ve played the Ottomans myself, and apart from being coalitioned by Austria, France, Hungary and Muscovy, there’s not much people can do to you.
They also generate stupendous amounts of money due to being an Empire that accepts virtually every single culture they come into contact with during the early-mid game, and the Persian, Arabian and Constantinople trade nodes, and you get an extremely rich and populous country that can afford having constant wars.
In every single game I’ve played bar one (where Byzantium managed to ally both Hungary and Austria), the Ottomans just keep on expanding, managing to connect they’re Balkan holdings to their Ukrainian and Crimean Holdings to their Causcasian holdings, and everything in between. I’ve played the Ottomans myself, and apart from being coalitioned by Austria, France, Hungary and Muscovy, there’s not much people can do to you.
In my first campaign in EU4 as Ottomans I died to a coalition of rest of Europe. AE has gotten a bit more transparent since then in user interface, I think.
Friend of mine started the game with an unconditional surrender to Karaman and was still able to continue playing. Almost didn't feel the hit he took.
Not many other nations give you that option.
Not many other nations give you that option.
Because on the start date; and for a good 200 years afterwards; the Ottomans are the strongest nation in the game.
They have the strongest units until the late-midgame; teach most of the game's mechanics; and can basically steamroll anyone in their region as long as they don't get coalitioned or ram into a massive alliance bloc.
They also have 5 different expansion routes. [West; North-East; South; South-West and East]
They have the strongest units until the late-midgame; teach most of the game's mechanics; and can basically steamroll anyone in their region as long as they don't get coalitioned or ram into a massive alliance bloc.
They also have 5 different expansion routes. [West; North-East; South; South-West and East]
Ottomans are a terrible starting nation, because it teaches people the wrong attitude.
- They teach you that only a godly ruler is a valid ruler. I took the bait as well, took me well over 2000 hours to get over hating 4/1/1 republics.
- They spoil you with trade and trade goods. No fish and wheat provinces wil do if you have early access to copper and silk and 3 important centers of trade from the get-go.
- Their missions, although good for the AI, if you follow them to the letter, railroad you into coalitions and terrible diplomatic decision-making with utter disregard for vassalization techniques ("Vassalize Valachia" is a joke mission as it requires 16 units and that's it).
- Early military power makes the player believe they are invincible, being able to take on several large countries at once. Again, no new player will touch countries like Luba for a long time afterwards, just because the game doesn't "feel the same" as they did when they played Ottomans. It took me well over six months to learn not to ragequit when losing a war.
- they teach you that you are supposed to get instant IWIN events and missions like Wallachia, Crimea, Byzantium, Serbia etc.
- missions like "convert the infidel" along with the super-crappy dhimmi estate teaches you it's best to have a religiously pure nation at all times.
- their core creation time and empire level that grants accepted cultures in most of their conquests, gives the wrong impression on coring times, coring costs and revolts that result from taking so much land and is probably one of the main reasons why EU4 players want and need to blob as much instead of seeking out other avneues of interesting gameplay.
EDIT:
In my opinion, ENGLAND would be a much better choice for a starting nation (my first EU4 games were England and Castile).
- They have a strong opponent from the very start (France, Burgundy)
- they are taught from the very start the importance of strong alliances due to continental possesions that cost an arm and a leg to keep
- they are taught from the very start the importance of heirs, and managing disasters and rebellions
- they have expansion options that require diplomatic opportunities (France too busy to help Scotland, Burgundy too busy to help Brittany) and timing.
- they are taught to manage trade, develop land and balance between budgets for naval forces and land forces.
- they, too, can still lose a war and come out eventually victorious, due to their unique geographical position, teaching them the importance of geography (that can later be applied to when playing Spain, Ottomans, etc.)
- They teach you that only a godly ruler is a valid ruler. I took the bait as well, took me well over 2000 hours to get over hating 4/1/1 republics.
- They spoil you with trade and trade goods. No fish and wheat provinces wil do if you have early access to copper and silk and 3 important centers of trade from the get-go.
- Their missions, although good for the AI, if you follow them to the letter, railroad you into coalitions and terrible diplomatic decision-making with utter disregard for vassalization techniques ("Vassalize Valachia" is a joke mission as it requires 16 units and that's it).
- Early military power makes the player believe they are invincible, being able to take on several large countries at once. Again, no new player will touch countries like Luba for a long time afterwards, just because the game doesn't "feel the same" as they did when they played Ottomans. It took me well over six months to learn not to ragequit when losing a war.
- they teach you that you are supposed to get instant IWIN events and missions like Wallachia, Crimea, Byzantium, Serbia etc.
- missions like "convert the infidel" along with the super-crappy dhimmi estate teaches you it's best to have a religiously pure nation at all times.
- their core creation time and empire level that grants accepted cultures in most of their conquests, gives the wrong impression on coring times, coring costs and revolts that result from taking so much land and is probably one of the main reasons why EU4 players want and need to blob as much instead of seeking out other avneues of interesting gameplay.
EDIT:
In my opinion, ENGLAND would be a much better choice for a starting nation (my first EU4 games were England and Castile).
- They have a strong opponent from the very start (France, Burgundy)
- they are taught from the very start the importance of strong alliances due to continental possesions that cost an arm and a leg to keep
- they are taught from the very start the importance of heirs, and managing disasters and rebellions
- they have expansion options that require diplomatic opportunities (France too busy to help Scotland, Burgundy too busy to help Brittany) and timing.
- they are taught to manage trade, develop land and balance between budgets for naval forces and land forces.
- they, too, can still lose a war and come out eventually victorious, due to their unique geographical position, teaching them the importance of geography (that can later be applied to when playing Spain, Ottomans, etc.)
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There's a lot of room for error when you're playing Ottomans, which is something new players need in this game which can be sometimes quite unforgiving.
Another excellent starting nation is Portugal. Drop the alliance with England if you don't want to get trashed over and over by France. Stay buddies with Castile. Eat Tangiers Garb, and Melilla. And then go colonizing. You won't power project much, but your key opponents will be natives, African tribes, and Asian nations - nearly all of which won't be able to reach you. By the time you're done with African and SE Asian TCs, you'll have a bigger army than the Ottomans.
Only a godly ruler is a valid ruler. I have fought wars just to farm prestige so I can disinherit some more.
Republics aren't 4/1/1 rulers. There is still an ongoing discussion with the majority being convinced their rulers are even stronger than normal monarchies.
And England is a horrible choice for tons of reasons. Mainly that you don't learn anything when starting with them.
And all those monarch points and money doesn’t just makes the game easier for a new player, it also gives them tools to play around with. They don’t need to agonise as much about whether or not to make a building or a new fleet - they just spend the cash and see what happens. Likewise they have plenty of spare MPs to blow on boosting stability, suppressing rebels, reducing inflation etc, so they get to learn what impact these decisions have in the game, instead of holding back in order to afford the next tech.
So you would just throw people in the deep? You know that this can be even more frustrating? Imagine if you just start playing the game and you lose and you lose again and again and again and again? This would be unbelievable frustrating and many players would at a certain point just quit and not come back. By starting with easier nations they have a more forgiving game and can actually learn it.
wat
No, they're just an easy one. Lack of difficulty is exactly what a lot of new players need when starting out in a game like this. They need the confidence that no matter what they do, they have a safety net, something to fall back on, instead of just dying a slow death while getting frustrated. One simple look at the other nations shows any new player that many of the things they take for granted as the Ottomans will not be there to save them once they pick someone else (such as good rulers - Castile has to either deal with or disinherit Enrique, and his very existence in a nation that's meant to be one of the tutorial ones will serve as a lesson for new players).
A lot of those issues you encountered are mostly on you, not the nature of the Ottomans, and you make the terrible assumption that most new players are unintelligent and will not pick up on various things. For some new players (like I was not long ago) it's easy to let mindless pride swallow you and make you avoid stronger nations, especially the Ottoman-Castile-Portugal trio, but no, they're recommended for a very good reason and avoiding them is a huge mistake.
England teaches you far less in comparison.
Really?
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Intelligence has nothing to do with knowing how to play EU4 when you first fire it up. If you want to learn something properly, you might as well learn from a master. The arguments would be valid if youtube wouldn't exist. As things are in 2018., unlike 15 years ago, you can now afford not to be forced unlearn things to learn things properly. We didn't have that luxury when playing say CIV4, so we had to learn things the wrong way, then unlearn them, then learn again.
Ottomans bring guns to a sword fight. That calls for too much un-learning later in the game when you play other nations.
Buy EU4 vanilla, fire up youtube, find good tutorials from people that make newbie-friendly videos and you'll have far more confidence in playing any nation. Arumba's "Prosperous Portugal" might be a good series for this, for example.
It's thanks to people playing NOT Ottomans on YT and Twitch that we actually learn more about the game.
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