Why ottomans for new players?

[Coffer]

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. Arumb's "Prosperous Portugal" might be a good series for this, for example.

You're absolutely out of your mind if you think a player is going to learn better from a youtuber than by experimenting on their own, especially in a game like this and especially given what most known EU4 youtubers are like (hint: even those who do tutorial videos are not going to be a good help for new players at all, and they'll only teach cheap tricks or, worse, behaviors that the players later have to unlearn). It's like learning to drive in a competitive (sim)racing environment by watching Senna do heel&toe when you've never even driven a real car, can't even use the shifter and can't even brake without locking up.

For reference, I was in the exact situation you cited. The youtubers were worthless for learning, and I just got frustrated repeatedly for the first however many hours. Once I finally got my head down and did things my way by putting myself in different situations, that's when I actually started to learn the game, and that's how it's going to be for most new players.

 

[R.Graymarch]

I'm not sure that there is ONE way to start playing. Some want to "go directly into it" and some want to "read, watch, learn before playing". For the first ones, I think that Ottomans are a good pick. Of course, they could get "bad" habits (ie mistakes that you can afford when playing Ottomans) but when they play another country they could see some challenges. It seems less frustrating that starting upfront with difficult decisions. After all, the idea is to hook a customer^^

The game is tough and hard, there are so many stuff that seem "normal" for veterans (who took every addition patch after patch) that are very complicated to remember and assimilate. When I try to explain to a friend, it's overwhelming, with all the "Oh yes, there is also". And I remember some colleagues who told me "you played EU4?? Wow, you are so good. I never dared to try, it's too tough for me" (and I'm not even good at it )

And I like that there are some YT channels for beginners and some for more advanced players.

 

[HydroAC]

The first nation I played was Ottomans, and it hooked me on EU4.

As others have mentioned, I learned the intricate mechanics, made mistakes, and was able to keep on with my game. High income and MPs means I have options for development, armies and tech. Multiple areas for expansion mean that I can have the joy as a exquisitely green player of having some success, even if my armies are getting trashed (and I don't quite realize this yet).

And as unpleasant circumstances arise, such as a massive coalition against my glorious Ottoman Empire, I then learned additional techniques and strategies. I learned fear as I tallied up Austrian, Venician, Pol/Lit and Hungarian armies and realized they COULD beat me soundly. That introduced me to AE and how to manage it. The list goes on.

I also enjoyed a history lesson, cleverly provided by game mechanics, events and historical missives. This added flavor for role playing, which I enjoy. This whetted my appetite to try other nations for MORE role playing.

So the devs are wise to have a strong nation with multiple ways of learning the game, role playing, and winning/losing.

 

[Bibor]

Okay, so here's another example. Lets say you play Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition. It's a roleplaying game with board-game/tactical gameplay options.
One player plays a mage who has exactly 1 spell per day to cast and has a really hard time in battle.
The other player is a warrior that can perform a sword attack whenever.
To survive, the mage will have to learn how to roleplay. The warrior will learn to use and abuse game mechanics and doesn't need (not really) to learn how to roleplay.

So which one is a good starting class? In my opinion - neither.
A ranger or a rogue are much better as a strating class, because they are encouraged to learn both roleplaying and game mechanics if they want to thrive.

The Ottomans require no diplomacy, not really. It doesn't need income or monarch point management, not even in the slightest. The only true thing that can go wrong for the Ottomans is if they repeatedly try to bore into Europe. Wow that's educational.

Sure, many people will claim they don't play EU4 because it's complex. The hell it is. Compared to what? People just got lazy via Angry birds. Is the learning curve steep? Sure. As is for many other games. Microsoft Word or Windows are complex than EU4.

 

[R.Graymarch]

Thanks to "no requirement" for Ottomans, you can learn about "basic" stuff like CB, truce, idea groupes, states, AE, policies, institutions, trade...
All the basic concepts of the game that enable you to slightly understand what makes EU4 such a special game. And avoid being drown

 

[Bibor]

Thanks to "no requirement" for Ottomans, you can learn about "basic" stuff like CB, truce, idea groupes, states, AE, policies, institutions, trade...

Portugal has all this + exploration and alliances.

 

[R.Graymarch]

That's why Portugal is also a recommended start for new players. However you may gain on exploration but won't be that comfortable with warfare. Compared to Ottomans, I mean.

 

[petertju]

The big problem with Portugal is that there is no room for mistakes. If you make one mistake as Portugal in alliances (for example allying the wrong nation), you will get attacked by the berbers, who will probably beat you. This will make you lose your African territories and maybe Algarve as well.

With Ottomans you will gain a basis on all game elements. For experienced players it is easy to beat everyone as Ottomans, but a beginner will struggle with Mamluks and Hungary. They will need to learn the basics of the military and political game for this. also stuff like AE, and truces will be learned by Ottoman Players.

More complicated areas as dynasty's, institutions, religion (this is surprisingly complicated for Catholics for beginners) and trade are not a problem at all for Ottomans, they can safely ignore these things and still have a good game. And if they make a mistake, they will be punished for it, but it will not be the end of the game. If you attack Mamluks and lose, you will have to give up some land, but you can recover from this. With Portugal this isn't the case, you need to pay attention to every single game element to not **** your entire country up.

 

[Lt. Condition]

Ottomans are a good start for all the reasons mentioned. I mean, assume someone's coming from 4x games and doesn't know what coring is. Or AE. Or combat width, etc etc. Ottos are a good way to play with how that works without just losing.

But that said, different majors are good ways to learn different elements of the game. Portugal's good for learning the colonization mechanics. England's good for learning trade and naval elements since they're basically the Ottomans of the sea, and you can more or less ignore Europe.

My first was one of the Irish minors (Munster, before the Ireland revamp). I learned a lot by losing repeatedly for a couple of weeks, but if you don't have the patience for losing that much it may not be the best place to start.

 

[Knut Skallagrim]

Yes england ottomans and portugal are all good beginner nations
Portugal itself was one of those i picked during the demo of eu4 in 2014, to say! You could play till 1500 and damn i wanted to see america before the full game was out ahah

 

[earlofbrigand]

France.

 

[Badesumofu]

I've ways thought France a better starter nation because while they are powerful and have room to make mistakes without dying, the game does still punish you more noticeably for those mistakes than with the Ottomans.

The Ottos are probably just as good sicne 1.23 since they no longer get free cores everywhere and actually do have to pay some attention to things like AE and diplomacy now.

 

[Viktor Vaughn]

Sure, many people will claim they don't play EU4 because it's complex. The hell it is. Compared to what? People just got lazy via Angry birds. Is the learning curve steep? Sure. As is for many other games. Microsoft Word or Windows are complex than EU4.

yeah honestly writing words on a keyboard is really hard for me. when i write essays for class i have to pay other people to type it as i speak, cause i just can't handle learning the challenge of fonts. hell, even zone of control is more intuitive than figuring out how to double space. windows just blew my mind with its complexity. so many programmes to navigate through when all i want to do is open steam and chrome! it's why i went with a mac in the end.

 

[bbqftw]

You're absolutely out of your mind if you think a player is going to learn better from a youtuber than by experimenting on their own, especially in a game like this and especially given what most known EU4 youtubers are like (hint: even those who do tutorial videos are not going to be a good help for new players at all, and they'll only teach cheap tricks or, worse, behaviors that the players later have to unlearn). It's like learning to drive in a competitive (sim)racing environment by watching Senna do heel&toe when you've never even driven a real car, can't even use the shifter and can't even brake without locking up.

For reference, I was in the exact situation you cited. The youtubers were worthless for learning, and I just got frustrated repeatedly for the first however many hours. Once I finally got my head down and did things my way by putting myself in different situations, that's when I actually started to learn the game, and that's how it's going to be for most new players.

Learning from people that are markedly better is always the fastest way to learn. It also handily applies to things beyond video games. Nothing inspires you faster than knowing what you have left to learn.

Of course its hard to assess who is good as a newcomer, especially since there is no objective matchmaking / rating for this game (its like this for real world interactions too - the rating systems are very informal and can be misleading). This often ends up making the process of learning sandboxy games like this game and Eve Online very coinflippy - who you associate / watch after the first few hours has a large impact on your progression as a player.

This divergence at first selection is the difference between someone who struggles with basic starts after several hundred hours and someone who WCs in their 2nd-3rd campaign (of which I know certain people on this forum). The desire and ability to learn efficiently.

 

[Bibor]

yeah honestly writing words on a keyboard is really hard for me. when i write essays for class i have to pay other people to type it as i speak, cause i just can't handle learning the challenge of fonts. hell, even zone of control is more intuitive than figuring out how to double space. windows just blew my mind with its complexity. so many programmes to navigate through when all i want to do is open steam and chrome! it's why i went with a mac in the end.

It’s not my fault that you are using only 0.1 % of the software I mentioned. Microsoft word alone is one of the most complex pieces software there is, especially if you use visual basic.

 

[Chaingun]

I've ways thought France a better starter nation because while they are powerful and have room to make mistakes without dying, the game does still punish you more noticeably for those mistakes than with the Ottomans.

The Ottos are probably just as good sicne 1.23 since they no longer get free cores everywhere and actually do have to pay some attention to things like AE and diplomacy now.

France is in a different tier than Ottomans, who are almost in a "need not care"/lol tier of their own. A beginner will die to any combination of Burgundy, Castille, Aragon, Austria and maybe England. I'm not sure this makes them better start though. There's a fair amount of people who go "I lost, this game sucks" and never play it again. I've always argued we should have an even easier difficulty level that's selected by default, but the devs are sadists.

But yeah, there are entirely different players in terms of mentality and non-Otto picks can be appropriate for certain personalities. Some have tried to learn the game with Byzantium...

 

[ParagonSaber]

Learning from youtubers (in my case, Arumba and Shen mostly) was invaluable in learning the game. Now, in my case I had a potato that couldn't even dream of running EU4 for the first year or so I knew about the game, so I watched - and learned - a ton from those videos.

I learned enough that my first campaign was as Trebizond. Still took me at least 50 restarts, but...

I'd agree that watching someone better than you is better for learning the game than fumbling around on your own, even as a powerhouse like the Ottomans. Any undesired habits that you pick up can be phased out as you play.

 

[makaramus]

new player picks ottoman.
fabricates and attacks hungary soon as he can

 

[Dominion]

France is in a different tier than Ottomans, who are almost in a "need not care"/lol tier of their own. A beginner will die to any combination of Burgundy, Castille, Aragon, Austria and maybe England. I'm not sure this makes them better start though. There's a fair amount of people who go "I lost, this game sucks" and never play it again. I've always argued we should have an even easier difficulty level that's selected by default, but the devs are sadists.

I can kinda see the point though. If the appeal is the game's difficulty you will not get the players you want if you change your introduction like that.

Not to mention that easy mode already has a ton of drawbacks. Mindlessly slapping on modifiers creates a completely different meta. Someone who starts on easy and stays there will miss out on half the game.
I remember trying it once as Ottos, just to realize that I can't force-convert myself because unrest is too low, just to give an example.

Always thought EU4 could use some mix of a tutorial, campaign mode and mission setting.

Like "The year is 1480, every heir around you had an 'accident' (you murdered them you sick bastard). Get at least three personal Unions."
Or the US independence achievement which is only in the game to... honestly, I don't know. Appeal to Americans I guess? Would make for a great tutorial mission though. With the rest of the world removed and limited time.

Just a set of very basic and distorted settings of something that can happen in the game at some point including disasters, personal leaderboards (how fast were you?) and all of it accompanied by hints.

Yknow, so players can actually learn the game instead of - as you said - losing once and dropping it forever.

 

[Dracolithfiend]

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.

A true testament to the ease at which the ottomans expand. My first ottoman campaign was in the demo and I vaguely recall desperately trying to colonize rather then conquer Byzantium.... Because... You know.... Priorities