Yet another Ottoman rant

[YellowPress]

I will nag about ottomans blobbing through crimea every damn patch.

Its funny cuz eastward expansion of khanate is historical but westward was very limited

 

[CthulhuTactical]

Its funny cuz eastward expansion of khanate is historical but westward was very limited

Ottomans historically never crossed dnieper river, and in EU4 they do it quite often, blobbing up to mishar and russia.

 

[Sick Man of Europe]

To be honest, I am struggling to think of how even a reasonably strong Austria can "contain" Ottomans. Sure they can slow down conquest towards the west, (And realistically if they wait for the right moment the Ottos can still crush Austria.) but unless they get Hungary very early and start eating land fast, the Ottomans will still have quite a bit of land in the west. And most of that isn't even really "crucial" for them as they will have control of their rather strong tradenote already...

And they have the advantage of being able to expand in a bunch of directions with very little risk after all. West towards Europe, east towards Asia, North towards the Hordes and Orthodox Principalities, South-east towards the Arabian peninsula, southwest towards North africa, or take a turn further south to get eastern africa instead... (Unless of course AI stupidy gets them somehow...)


Personally I actually feel that Russia just up and never forming at times is part of the problem. That and Persia not forming... it leaves them with a lot of playground to mess with and no low dangers. So even if one expansion path is gone they can just go another direction unless they block themselves off early. Essentially what I am saying is that the Ottomans should blob and be a threat, but others should counter-balance them somewhat...


I mean for real beginners it would be less trade and more something like not knowing how the sliders work and keeping maintentance down. Or not knowing how generals work and not using them. Or walking into a mountain fort over a crossing...

It has been a long time since I saw the tutorial in-game so I have no clue how much of that is talked about. Also could be funny if someone decides to play in the non-old world and never gets institutions because they don't know they can dev them.

Maybe it's just in my games, I don't exactly know what makes the AI ticks. Otto is very hesitant to hit Austria in my games unless they're at some significance feels ahead in troop count, also depends on what alliance Austria has. Then again, I've seen smack Austria at roughly equal strength as well, esp if Austria is at war with another power. So what I mean by "contain" in this case is that they just don't dec, even though they would probably win if they did haha

Russia usually forms in my games, and the times they don't they have a lot of lands to be relevant and used. There are also games where they get scratched away by their neighbours, from my perspective I see enough variation to not criticize the current state of the rus. But I think it's also because of my influence as a player, when I feel like it's time to poke at the turban, the Musc/Rus is a useful ally to have and when you ally them, they are equally safer as are you.

As for Persia.. even when they form in my games, the otto just kills them off lol


Otto do love to expand in all directions, and I notice the tendency for them to over time expand slower over time, especially as they reach further into the steppes. I mean, when I see them in the steppes, I giggle... because they're losing a lot of manpower to attrition, the troop movement stutters more and the movement time is significantly higher. I feel a bit less of a pressure to catch up or contain them myself.

I hopped into the game in some origin patch, so it was quite recent. Maybe I just have a different expectation because I've experienced many better tutorials lol.. but I also am obsessive with studying game mechanics in the games I intend to play and getting adequately good at them to feel like I "get to consume the contents I paid for", so there's also that expectation of being able to learn it well and I found myself searching a lot on the net even outside wiki... But overall, the wiki is pretty good, it tends to redirect to relevant pages. But then again, I came from the time when wiki pages of various topics and communities were pretty bad at redirects lol.

But I get it, it's a community meme to say "Despite playing X h, you may still learn something new" (even stated in the loading screen)? It will take time for me to embrace that.. perhaps never, perhaps ever.

Ottomans historically never crossed dnieper river, and in EU4 they do it quite often, blobbing up to mishar and russia.

Only happened to me one time and one time only.. I allied the Ottos and they keep calling me to war.. was very exhausting, they're the greediest AI ever. Once I allied them, all the breaks are off and they go on constant war, calling me to all of them, the window to use them like they used me was quite narrow and I hate the prestige hit for declining "le magnificent".