Yet Another Rant About the Ottomans (and other game issues)

[hrimhari]

You just made me break out into hysterical giggles.

Those same defilers that propped up the decrepit corpse that was the Greek Orthodox Church? The Ottomans are the only reason you still have a large number of Orthodox Greeks to begin with; they propped up the Patriarchate with dhimmi taxes and used it to ensure the continued existence of a dhimmi class as well as to be the head of the Roman(Greek) Millet.

Defiled Constantinople? It takes a lot of screw up to take the Eastern Roman Empire from its heyday to 1453, from a city of several hundred thousands to a city outclassed by almost anything resembling a major town. The Venetians already sacked Constantinople and the Byzantine's decline brought it lower still. If anything the Ottomans are the reason Constantinople and later Istanbul became a major city once again. Better what happened to Constantinople than what happened to Ctesiphon. Destroyed the walls? A limited looting of the city which was then promptly rebuilt up to greater heights than before? And things you didn't mention, because they don't fit your narrative: Rather than kill the family of the conquered, Mehmed II made the heirs of the Palailogos family into the Governor General of the Balkans. The other son was made into Grand Vizier not once but twice, the second highest position in the entire Empire. And the fact that the Ottomans pretty much integrated the old Greek bureaucracy of the Byzantines wholesale. Or the rebuilding and amnesty towards the conquered issued by Mehmet II:



Please. Lol. The Ottomans did many wrongs, but this is bottom of the barrel. I wish the game started in 1453 so we wouldn't have to hear this anymore...

Yep. This.

The Ottoman Empire wasn't a place of modernist delights. But it didn't exist in the modern day, it existed at a time when, say, looting cities that resisted was the norm, on both sides of the Aegean. They were an expansionist power. So was Rome, Poland, Spain, Portugal, France, England, Aragon, Muscovy... they weren't any more bloodthirsty than other powers, just more successful.

And frankly, with their millets system I think I'd rather be a religious minority in Ottoman Greece than in Byzantine Greece.

That goes until the 16th century however, when they did start becoming more inward-looking and conservative, and cultural and religious differences less tolerated.

 

[Pellucid]

Not really.

Almost all of their major failures were caused by a complete collapse of military discipline. It's easy to appear disciplined when you outnumber your opponent 3:1 or more as the Ottomans often did, but time and time again, when a battle started to show the slightest hint of turning against the Ottomans, they ended up fleeing with tail between legs.

"Accuracy" would be better represented by a bonus to Infantry Combat Ability than to Discipline.

 

[Cthetheslayer]

I think that while they are OP, it is historic, for a long time pretty much nothing stopped them before there loss at the siege of vienna sent them on a downward spiral.

 

[hrimhari]

I think that while they are OP, it is historic, for a long time pretty much nothing stopped them before there loss at the siege of vienna sent them on a downward spiral.

And it's this kind of decline that is generally badly-represented in the game. Not just among the Ottomans, but pretty much everyone.

 

[Cthetheslayer]

And it's this kind of decline that is generally badly-represented in the game. Not just among the Ottomans, but pretty much everyone.

Another not very well represented bit is that ottomans rarely even expand into persia or arabia or tunis, basically just take mamelukes over. I think there should be some setting you can choose that adds a modifier that makes nations want to expand into historical land above all else.

 

[lolada]

If anyone needs nerf thats lategame commonwealth, which is taking Moscow, Constantinople and half of HRE every second game.
Ottos are well balanced - its kind of historical, lategame they lose all European holdings.

 

[hrimhari]

If anyone needs nerf thats lategame commonwealth, which is taking Moscow, Constantinople and half of HRE every second game.
Ottos are well balanced - its kind of historical, lategame they lose all European holdings.

I've come to the conclusion that every country in EU4 is overpowered. All of them. Nerf everyone! Especially Cyprus!

 

[Vaximillian]

Russia <..> should drown people in manpower, not win by superior discipline and leadership.

I'm speechless.

 

[oylat]

Guys its actually pointless to continue to argue in this thread, it is virtually impossible to convince ultra-nationalists to give up their bias opinions established by their parents. Nationalists exist for every country and they are pretty much irrational in every way so its no use to have a debate with them.

 

[oylat]

Just for the sake of it I will quote some real historical sources for the nationalists:

"The Janissary corps was supposed to maintain itself on a war basis at all times and be ready for instant action; therefore, its men were not allowed to marry and had to remain in their barracks and train regularly. Numbering no more than 30,000 men under Suleyman, they were not the largest group in the army, but because of their organization, training, and discipline, as well as their expert use of rifles, pikes, bows, and arrows, they formed the most important fighting force in the empire until well into the seventeenth century"

and

"In 1607 Ayn-i Ali Efendi reported that there were some 44,404 timars producing a mounted force of 105,339 men. It is clear, therefore, that Ottoman military supremacy was not achieved by superiority in numbers, as often was claimed by their defeated European enemies. Superiority in the quality of command, discipline, training, and tactics must, rather, have been the decisive factor"

-History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume 1 by Stanford J. Shaw

 

[Pellucid]

I'm speechless.

Do you...NOT feel Russia generally had superior manpower to other powers in their region?

 

[Vaximillian]

Do you...NOT feel Russia generally had superior manpower to other powers in their region?

She hadn't.

 

[Pellucid]

"In 1607 Ayn-i Ali Efendi reported that there were some 44,404 timars producing a mounted force of 105,339 men. It is clear, therefore, that Ottoman military supremacy was not achieved by superiority in numbers, as often was claimed by their defeated European enemies. Superiority in the quality of command, discipline, training, and tactics must, rather, have been the decisive factor"

Then how did they lose to Malta? Why did it take them 100 years to subjugate Croatia?

Even if I were to grant you that the Ottoman army was characterized by its discipline (which I still don't agree with), I still contend that their commanders were largely incompetent post-Mehmet and repeatedly led their men to disaster, and that even when they won they often did so at a high cost in terms of men and equipment. If Hungary had had even remotely the same quantity of troops that the Ottomans had, I imagine Constantinople would be Catholic today.

Oh, and I live in the US and none of my ancestors fought the Ottomans unless you go back to the Polish-Ottoman War, so this isn't nationalism speaking.

 

[Pellucid]

She hadn't.

Can you point me to some resources to confirm this? I know they didn't have the same extent of manpower advantage that they did in, for example, WW1 and WW2, but my understanding was that they still enjoyed numerical superiority in most of their conflicts.

 

[Isaios]

Can you point me to some resources to confirm this? I know they didn't have the same extent of manpower advantage that they did in, for example, WW1 and WW2, but my understanding was that they still enjoyed numerical superiority in most of their conflicts.

At the start of the 1800s the populations of France and Russia were about the same, maybe a few million more in Russia. Sourcing on this is easy btw, there are plenty of demographics for most areas of Europe through most periods of history, easiest is to look at the respective nations national census.

(Of entertaining note, if any nation in Europe during the period should be able to drown everyone else in Manpower, it would be France, as during the start of the period 1/5 people in Europe were French...)

EDIT: To compare, England at the same time was about 8 million, about a fourth or either of the other two.

 

[Anatur]

Then how did they lose to Malta? Why did it take them 100 years to subjugate Croatia?

Never FULLY subjugate....

The ottomans were winning fairly easily early on because they faced mostly medieval armies of armored knights and peasant levies.

When they started crashing head first into properly organised armies made out of expirienced and trained soldiers they started to fall apart.

Their Janissaries were excelent for seal clubbing the medieval armies but they refused to adapt to newer enemy tactics and formations.

It was also a question of terrain to.

The Ottomans expanded as far as they could facing medieval armies and accessible terrain but eventually they started to bog down in the HRE armies,Croatian hills and Persian mountains.

As for Russia's manpower,it was less about the total population and more about the men that could actually be fielded.

Unlike their western contemporaries the Russian Tsar's didnt have serious restrictions to how many serfs they could levy since they didnt have to be accountable to powerfull dukes and other nobles.

Combine that with them usually fighting on their home turf and you get a huge mobilized army under singular authority fighting smaller armies which are trying to advance through hostile land.

Not to mention the sheer scale of that hostile land.

One only needs to look at the fact that the distance between Riga and Moscow is equivalant to the distance between Paris and Berlin.

 

[hrimhari]

Then how did they lose to Malta? Why did it take them 100 years to subjugate Croatia?

Even if I were to grant you that the Ottoman army was characterized by its discipline (which I still don't agree with), I still contend that their commanders were largely incompetent post-Mehmet and repeatedly led their men to disaster, and that even when they won they often did so at a high cost in terms of men and equipment. If Hungary had had even remotely the same quantity of troops that the Ottomans had, I imagine Constantinople would be Catholic today.

Oh, and I live in the US and none of my ancestors fought the Ottomans unless you go back to the Polish-Ottoman War, so this isn't nationalism speaking.

Throw a rock from the moon and you'll hit a country that has suffered a dramatic defeat while outnumbering the enemy. Single instances aren't necessarily indicative of a trend, and there are often exceptions to any story. I'm not familiar with the battle in question, so I can't comment on it specifically. But there are many cases of numerically-superior armies losing for all sorts of reasons, including complacency. The particular units involved can matter, the commanders involved, the weather. Taking one battle and using it to prove that a whole narrative is wrong is... spurious.

I mean, Agincourt was a stunning victory, but it doesn't prove English superiority over French so much as it proves that cavalry charges over mud in close terrain is a losing proposition.

 

[Pellucid]

Throw a rock from the moon and you'll hit a country that has suffered a dramatic defeat while outnumbering the enemy. Single instances aren't necessarily indicative of a trend, and there are often exceptions to any story. I'm not familiar with the battle in question, so I can't comment on it specifically. But there are many cases of numerically-superior armies losing for all sorts of reasons, including complacency. The particular units involved can matter, the commanders involved, the weather. Taking one battle and using it to prove that a whole narrative is wrong is... spurious.

I mean, Agincourt was a stunning victory, but it doesn't prove English superiority over French so much as it proves that cavalry charges over mud in close terrain is a losing proposition.

The thing is that you can find dozens of similar incidents in Ottoman military history. At Vienna, the Ottoman forces outnumbered the Christians by at least 5:1 by most estimations. By some it was more than 10:1. The Ottomans also regularly lose against minor powers and things we would call OPMs, like Montenegro (admittedly slightly after EU4's timeframe 6:1), Moldova (Battle of Vaslui, 3:1), and Serbia (although there at a slight disadvantage; 2:3).

If France had suffered at least one Agincourt every single time it engaged in warfare, even against extremely minor powers, I think we could safely say that France's army was undisciplined and poorly lead. Why can't we say the same about the Ottomans?

 

[LS22]

Then how did they lose to Malta? Why did it take them 100 years to subjugate Croatia?

Even if I were to grant you that the Ottoman army was characterized by its discipline (which I still don't agree with), I still contend that their commanders were largely incompetent post-Mehmet and repeatedly led their men to disaster, and that even when they won they often did so at a high cost in terms of men and equipment. If Hungary had had even remotely the same quantity of troops that the Ottomans had, I imagine Constantinople would be Catholic today.

Oh, and I live in the US and none of my ancestors fought the Ottomans unless you go back to the Polish-Ottoman War, so this isn't nationalism speaking.

Because even the largest super power of the world can lose battles and wars.
Name one mediterranean empire larger than the Ottomans Empire.

 

[LS22]

The thing is that you can find dozens of similar incidents in Ottoman military history. At Vienna, the Ottoman forces outnumbered the Christians by at least 5:1 by most estimations. By some it was more than 10:1. The Ottomans also regularly lose against minor powers and things we would call OPMs, like Montenegro (admittedly slightly after EU4's timeframe 6:1), Moldova (Battle of Vaslui, 3:1), and Serbia (although there at a slight disadvantage; 2:3).

If France had suffered at least one Agincourt every single time it engaged in warfare, even against extremely minor powers, I think we could safely say that France's army was undisciplined and poorly lead. Why can't we say the same about the Ottomans?

Again sieges? Sieges aren't battles. Any nation suffered dozens of defeats when sieging with far superior numbers.