why the 1444 start date is bad for genoa and venice

[El Jojo]

I've heard more people complain about the ottomans never fulfilling their potential than ottos being too strong.

As Venice, force vassalizing Byzantium and returning Cores is a very efficient strategy. Combined with Bosnia/Serbia/Wallachia as vassals, it's not that hard to crush the ottomans. Not in 1445 obivously but by 1500 you can hold Greece and Balkans.
From then it's just a question of taking an anatolian province, converting, releasing as one of the smaller turkish states, return cores again etc. Or culture-shift to Greek and restore Byzantium as a republic.

If you want to focus on trade, then it's possible to just focus on Syria / Alexandria / Aden and push everything to Venice.

 

[panionios]

I know the devs have stated that they won't change the start date, but an earlier start date would give much more possibilities for venice and genoa (two nations that could be very interesting if the east were more divided)

They never said they won't change the start date. They said they won't do it for the foreseeable future (probably next year). Of course they will. They have all the data necessary for a 1399 start!

 

[Checco]

How would you join the HRE?

As long as you have not yet expanded much (thus becoming "Too Large to Enter the HRE", and getting the same modifier preventing you from entering), use every single diplomat, alliance, whatever, to keep close ties with austria, even in the event they lose the imperial seat.

With last patch Venice and Austria gained the "historical friend" +25 relations modifier, which makes many things easier, but just keep relations at maximum with every possible way save giving money (better spent on galleys), and Oe's demise and dismembering becomes only a matter of time.

As soon as they are busy fighting Poland/Lithuania or someone else who is also a big guy, you dow, utterly destroy their fleet, carpet siege, allow their enemy to carpet siege as well, block Constantinople's straits, support rebels, release as much as you can of Byzantium (which you will guarantee/offer vassalization), etc.

One single war will make them collapse, no matter how many they won in the past, provided your timing is very accurate in my experience.

 

[RegulasFade]

Probably the only thing of note is that you will want an Embassy as soon as possible if you plan to take over Italy as you have to vassalize every single state to avoidAustria and the whole HRE waging war on you. Way wayyyyyy faster if you dont have to annex everything one at a time.

Just started a Geona game cause of this thread and even though it's still early already diplo-annexed 6 vassals with a 7th in the works.

 

[robby73]

Playing Byzantium and kicking Ottomans ass. Was lucky in getting alliance with Austria though

 

[durvas]

How would you join the HRE? Vassalise Milan as soon as possible and give it back Brescia + increasing relations with Austria will suffice?

For any country to join the HRE you need your capital to be adjacent to a piece of the empire (already done with Venice) and then have 100 + (2 x tax base) relations to ask Austria to join.

 

[Beanicus]

A bit of luck never hurts. In my current Venice game, Aq Qoyunlu/Mamluks and Serbia/Byzantines decided to attack Ottomans at the same time. Byzantines actually won and took back a couple of territories! And they were crippled in the east too. I took the advantage and snagged the Albanian core (and sunk their navy). Unfortunately Ottomans then beat up Byzantines/Serbia rolling back the gains, but mainly taking out Serbia. From there I vassalized the Byzantines and gradually took back Greece then the top of Asia minor whilst Mamluks took them on in the East as they'd usually DOW when the truce expired.

France is my ally but I didn't even need to use it (It didn't want to join anyway) but they've been very useful in saving me in coalition wars where Naples started to hate me and then declared punitive wars with Castille and Austria as its allies... (Austria PU'ed and integrated Hungary then turned into a republic for some reason so at least they aren't head of the HRE!) The game is a bit weird anyway as Cleves (OPM) is currently emperor and Genoa is doing the eastern expansion thing.

Naval is a must for the first idea group - it complements the NIs and means you can rip through any fleet (I even, with heavy losses, took out the British when they ventured into the Med once) and importantly means you'll have no problem protecting your capital from invasion/blockading the Bosphorus. It also helps to increase trade and the repair bonus proves v. useful.

 

[winsingtonIII]

There's a reason the bookmark is called "Rise of the Ottomans"

Yeah, seriously.

I don't understand why there have been multiple threads recently complaining about how the Ottomans are strong in 1444. Of course they are, for them to be anything other than strong in 1444 would be ridiculous.

 

[krelian]

In personal experience AI Ottoman tends to under perform, anecdotal etc. etc. I know, I know.

They never really go against Hungary, probably distracted by coring costs, they take their sweet time with Serbia and sometimes I've seen Serbia thrive, annex Bosnia, Walachia and a Croatia which invariably gets released when Hungary gets a spanking. Maybe adding Transylvanian cores to Eastern Hungary 1444 start would help a bit. Anyway, apart from not expanding much in Europe, they take their sweet time to kill the Mamelukes and rarely push into the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Arabia or the Maghreb. In my games they get dragged into a series of wars with Russia over Crimea and just stall there. I don't really know what to do about this though. In human hands in SP, Ottomans are incredibly powerful, I'm guessing in MP it's also a top country, but AI tends to be a bit of a pushover. It is slow to take advantage of the starting God sultan, the weakness of most of its neighbours and the bonuses to discipline and overall great troop quality and initial ideas. I'm ok with a non Westernised Ottoman Empire stalling from 1600-ish, but normally by then, they should be huge enough for the process to take a long time.

 

[illapa]

How to kill the Ottomans as Venice:

Step 1: before unpausing mark Ragusa as a rival. you take the mission to wipe them off the planet and kill them.
Step 2: fabricate 2 claims and vassalize Serbia and Bosnia in wars.
Step 3: realize that galleys even 3x above your naval forcelimits still cost less than heavy ships.
Step 4: Build a ridiculous number of galleys
Step 5: block the straights, and laugh as Bosnia and Serbia do everything for you and carpet siege Greece.
Step 6: replace all your soldiers for Ottoman units from the ottoman provinces.
Step 7: smash the entire world because you are western tech and have Ottoman units early game.

 

[hyeondrugs]

Cpt Obvious confirmed.