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Tinto Flavour #25 - 6th of June 2025

Hello, and welcome one more Friday to Tinto Flavour, the happy days in which we take a look at the flavour content of Europa Universalis V!

Today, we will take a look at the flavour content for the Ottomans, one of our Tier 1 countries, the Turkish Beliks in general, and the Rise of the Turks situation, in which all of them are involved!

The Ottomans were founded by Osmanoglu Osman Bey, a chieftain of the Kayı tribe of the Oghuz Turks, around 1299. Residing around the Northwestern coast of Anatolia, they were initially one of the many Beyliks to occupy the border territory of Rûm, a once-powerful Sultanate. Under the leadership of Osmanoglu Gazi Orhan Bey, they have consolidated and greatly expanded their domain, securing vital land along the coast of the Bosphorus. Bountiful raids, victories, and diplomacy have secured them as one of the region's most powerful rising Beyliks...

Country Selection.png

As usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

Ottomans1.png

Ottomans2.png

A lovely day in 1337 on the coast of the Bosphorus…

The Ottomans, like the other Anatolian Beyliks, start with some Reforms and Privileges, of which some are unique:
Estates1.png

Estates2.png

Reform Anatolian Beylik.png

Privilege Ghazi Lords.png

They also start with a unique and troublesome succession law:
Fratricide.png

And this policy:
Royal Harem.png

These are some of the advances available, which you may notice are quite relevant:
Advance Ghazi.png

Advance Uc Bey.png

Subject Uc Bey1.png

Subject Uc Bey2.png

Advance Heirs of Rum.png

Advance Akincular.png

Unit Akincular.png

Advance Kanun.png

Policy Kanun.png

Advance Tulip Period.png

Advance Imperial School.png

Although the most important advances for the Ottomans are:
Advance Janissaries.png

Building Janissary Barracks.png

Advance Janissary Guards.png

Unit Janissay Guards.png

There’s a different Janissary unit available in each age; for example, this is the one available for Age of Reformation:
Janissary Musketeers.png

This is very relevant, as the key flavour content for the Ottomans, and the rest of the Anatolian Beyliks, is a situation that triggers a couple of months into the game; I'll let one of our Content Designers, @PDXBigBoss :
image (36).png

The situation focuses on the rise of the Ottomans, in most cases. However, this does not mean that another Beylik cannot take their place, with their own unique flavor, reforms, and outcomes!

image (40).png

This unique reform is granted to the strongest Beylik, if they are the Ottomans.

image (41).png

This reform is only available for the Strongest Beylik, if they are NOT the Ottomans!

This is the panel of the situation. Many countries, beyond the "Strongest Beylik" can play a part in it, the ever-shifting environment of politics, diplomacy, and eventual war. While the Strongest will gain access to a few unique actions, most actions are available to any Beylik.
image (42).png

The Ottomans are by far not domineering across the region, let alone beyond it, in 1337. Foreshadowing or…?

image (43).png

  • Press Claims - The ability of the Strongest to fabricate a claim against an enemy in Anatolia.
  • Raise a Bey Fortress - It's a unique building that increases the Fort Level of a location and produces an ample, steady supply of manpower, much earlier than many other countries can. It can only be built in cities across Anatolia. Upon its construction, you will be greeted by a positive event, whose historical information is tailored specifically to the location you build it. This means that it will be different if you build it in Bursa, Izmit, Konya, Smyrna, etc... While this is good and all, these fortresses are a symbol of authority, for better or worse. This means that if a location with a Bey Fortress gets sieged down, you will suffer a blow to the stability and legitimacy of your rule, and your people will lose faith in your ability to win the war. The maluses will be far worse should the enemy even annex that location, so be careful…
image (44).png

Location Importance is a composite metric, tailored specifically to the Situation. It depends on many factors such as development, market access, road connectivity, and more. This is used to determine the volume of certain bonuses and utilizes a nice little “game concept” tooltip to explain its application and usage.

  • Seek Relations with the Byzantines - as long as the Romans hold Constantinople, and they are "relevant" any Beylik that is strong enough will be able to leverage diplomacy to extract gifts from the Empire. These gifts may be the hand of a daughter in marriage, ample coin, the recognition of a Beylik as legitimate sovereign of Anatolia, or the demand of capable characters to prop up your administration in exchange for relations and good faith. They can - and often do - decline, but are they really in a position to barter ?
  • Offer Diplomatic Protection - through marriage, the exchange of territory and diplomacy, as any Beylik we can offer an alliance and guarantees of sovereignty to another lesser Beylik. Of course, history has shown such friendships are short-lived…
  • Create Uc Bey - A unique subject type for the duration of the situation. A powerful weapon when used appropriately, the Uc Bey guards the frontier of the Beylik against foreign threats. They will be an army-based country with a powerful Government Reform, making them the perfect guardians. However, you will need to integrate them and centralize later on, should you survive and come out on top after the situation ends…
A couple of locations in the Situation map mode previously shown, are marked in red and yellow. This is for two reasons:
  • Anatolia in 1337 is traversed by a Great Trunk Road, controlling important points across it (Konya, Sivas, etc) unlocks a scaling Estate Privilege for your Merchant Estate, let's take a look:
    image (45).png
The privilege will grant 1% Trade Efficiency for each of these locations that we control directly…

  • Konya and Sivas are also home to Seljuk Mints, which were used by the former Sultanate to produce coinage and project an aura of legitimacy and authority. Owning and developing these locations will be vital when it comes to spreading our Control across the region through a unique building…
image (46).png

image (47).png

As the Strongest Beylik consolidates holdings with a majority of Greek Culture, this event will appear, heralding the beginning of a great Turkic Migration. It enables a unique action for our country to call upon Turkic migration from the East, to populate the coasts of the Aegean Sea and Anatolia. Historically, this was very vital and it carries the same importance in-game, as having a majority of our culture in locations will allow us to fully core them, thus increasing our control!

The number of migrants that will travel is dynamically balanced. The pops will always come from a province with an ample population, and the amount of pops will always be "relevant" to the target province we are trying to populate:
image (31).png

And a nice little short-term modifier to ensure a swifter cultural integration​

Once the strongest Beylik consolidates themselves, and crosses the Dardanelles, the Press Claims action will evolve, allowing the Beylik to declare war through a good Casus Belli across the Balkans, as well, posing a direct threat to the Kingdoms that populate that region:
image (30).png

Once the player conquers 300 locations, including at least 30 urban locations, and we own Konstantiniyye, we will be greeted by this event, which heralds in the Classical Era of your (now) Empire. In most cases, this will be the Ottomans.:
new classical era screenshot.png

This event will also grant us the rank of Empire, which comes with significant bonuses and some double edges in the form of a unique disaster for Empires…

image (28).png


But what happens if the Karamanids or another rises, instead? They are greeted by a different outcome, a choice. They will be able to adopt the Ottoman tag, inheriting the Ottoman content, events, reforms, everything they have to offer, whilst still holding on to their flag, name, color on the map, dynasty, history, etc. However, should you choose not to do this, you will be able to reform the Sultanate of Rum....

Moreover, other Beyliks across Anatolia have dedicated flavor content to themselves. The Germiyanids, Aydinids, Eretnids will have a few events associated with their history in the middle of the 14th century, onwards.
image (29).png

Germiyanids Ruler perishes, who is 79 at game start. A nasty event, reminiscent of Shah Rukh

image (27).png

The Eretnids are displeased with Jalayrid rule, trouble steers!

image (48).png

On top of that, the Ottomans have around 200 DHEs, making it a proper Tier 1 country in terms of flavor…

… And much more, but that’s all for today, as it’s already very long! As today is Friday, this will be the schedule for next week, which will be completely on @Roger Corominas , as I’ll be off:
  • Monday -> Tinto Maps Feedback about Japan & Korea
  • Tuesday -> Tinto Flavour about Korea & Manchuria
  • Wednesday -> Tinto Talks about the Shinto religion & Shogunate IO
  • Thursday -> ‘Behind the Music of Europa Universalis V - Composing the Grandest Score’ video!
  • Friday -> Tinto Flavour about Japan & the Nanboku-chō Jidai & Sengoku Jidai situations

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 

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All AI is WIP, although the most common outcome is the Ottomans being the Top Beylik. We're also working currently towards making the Ottoman AI expand at a more or less historical pace when it succeeds, but it's not 100% granted yet; we're balancing the situation mostly around making a correct pace for a human player.

A game rule that favors the historical outcome or a random other beylik via AI tweaks would be an interesting addition. ;)
 
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A game rule that favors the historical outcome or a random other beylik via AI tweaks would be an interesting addition. ;)
LLMs have a "temperature" variable that adjust how random their output is. I've been thinking for sometime that they can add somethink like that to tune the "historicality" of the events. So, the player could chose in a game rule how railroad or aleatory they'd prefer the game to be (relative to PDX balanced baseline)
 
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Can you put in a game rule or even an option when the "calssical era of the Ottoman Empire" event triggers that changes he name of the country to "Sublime Ottoman State/Empire" as that was their official name, the same could be done if other Beyliks become the dominant Turkish country with their dynasty in the name of course
 
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How much of the flavor is tied to Islam?
Am I completley locked out if I were to convert to orthodox as a Beylik?
Can Rum be formed by hypotetical Orthodox Beyliks?
Would and orthodox beylik be able to for byz or a byz replacement (Essentially orthodox Rum)?
Do the eretnids have some contet tied to their mongol origins?
 
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Barbaros Hayreddin should be a event chain, he and Oruç Reis should first start as a Navy based country and if they manage to conquer any location in Algerian coast, they should send their request to join the Ottoman Empire, if they fail to take any land they can still join Ottomans but without any territory of course

(they could remain independent to depending on Player choice, and be a op Pirate nation :) )
I believe he should first try to seize Djerba as a base, which as an island might be easier.
 
It is understandable. But that isn't what I mean. While Jannisary doesn't have a unqiue model make for it especially, it at least has a unit model composed of general art assets, isn't it? That's what I would like to take a look.
Middle East assets still aren't ready to show all of them yet as they still require polishing. There are 3 ages of Middle Eastern soldiers posted at the end of the unit model dev diary that should give you an idea of the direction
 
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Sounds like they're just drawing on one set of pops to add to the total of a different one, then, but they'd still be part of the soldier pool at the end.
Manpower and soldier pops are two different things. When you lose men in battle you lose soldier pops requiring you to promote more peasants. If you are using slaves to produce manpower you should lose slaves and to replace them you would need to import more rather than promote your own peasants.
 
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Some corrections of typos/awkward writing I noticed:

uiii10.png


To make the text a bit more flavourful, and since "victories" and "diplomacy" by themselves sound too vague, change "Bountiful raids, victories and diplomacy" to "Bountiful raids, military victories, and cunning diplomacy"

uii.png


"Comprising of" should be changed to "Comprised of"

uii 2.png


"focused on a harem" should be changed to "centered around a harem"

1749218960591.png


"these semi-autonomous leaders commanded" should be changed to "these semi-autonomous leaders command", to make it consistent with the present tense the rest of the text is written on

uiii4.png


"cavalry would often go raiding" should be changed to "cavalry would often go raid". Also replace "divisions", which is a much more modern military term (the divisional system would be first used systematically during the French Revolutionary Wars), with the term "regiments" or "units".

uiiii5.png


"the laws of Ottomans" should be changed to "the laws of the Ottomans" or "the laws of the Ottoman state", since by the time of Suleiman it was already a proper, settled imperial polity and no longer a Ghazi tribal principality. Also, change "focusing" to "focused" and remove the words that I crossed in red. Edit: oh, and I just noticed, remove the "of" in "numerous of ethnicities".

uiiii6.png

uiii12.png

As with the previous text, change "the vision and ambition of Ottomans" to "the vision and ambition of the Ottomans". Same with the title of the event itself: "The Rise of Ottomans" should be changed to "The Rise of the Ottomans".

uiiii7.png


Remove that comma and change "of an entire region" to "the entire region", since we already know the region in question is Anatolia.

uiiii9.png


This is not so much a correction but rather a suggestion to put the nicknames of rulers and characters between quotation marks (so in this case it should be Alaeddin "the Beardless Prophet" Eretna Bey), so that they can be more easily distinguished from the name and dynastic surname of the character.
 
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Hello, and welcome one more Friday to Tinto Flavour, the happy days in which we take a look at the flavour content of Europa Universalis V!

Today, we will take a look at the flavour content for the Ottomans, one of our Tier 1 countries, the Turkish Beliks in general, and the Rise of the Turks situation, in which all of them are involved!



View attachment 1314014
As usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D art as WIP.

View attachment 1314022
View attachment 1314024
A lovely day in 1337 on the coast of the Bosphorus…

The Ottomans, like the other Anatolian Beyliks, start with some Reforms and Privileges, of which some are unique:

They also start with a unique and troublesome succession law:

And this policy:

These are some of the advances available, which you may notice are quite relevant:

Although the most important advances for the Ottomans are:

There’s a different Janissary unit available in each age; for example, this is the one available for Age of Reformation:

This is very relevant, as the key flavour content for the Ottomans, and the rest of the Anatolian Beyliks, is a situation that triggers a couple of months into the game; I'll let one of our Content Designers, @PDXBigBoss :
The situation focuses on the rise of the Ottomans, in most cases. However, this does not mean that another Beylik cannot take their place, with their own unique flavor, reforms, and outcomes!

View attachment 1314077
This unique reform is granted to the strongest Beylik, if they are the Ottomans.

View attachment 1314078
This reform is only available for the Strongest Beylik, if they are NOT the Ottomans!

This is the panel of the situation. Many countries, beyond the "Strongest Beylik" can play a part in it, the ever-shifting environment of politics, diplomacy, and eventual war. While the Strongest will gain access to a few unique actions, most actions are available to any Beylik.
View attachment 1314081
The Ottomans are by far not domineering across the region, let alone beyond it, in 1337. Foreshadowing or…?

  • Press Claims - The ability of the Strongest to fabricate a claim against an enemy in Anatolia.
  • Raise a Bey Fortress - It's a unique building that increases the Fort Level of a location and produces an ample, steady supply of manpower, much earlier than many other countries can. It can only be built in cities across Anatolia. Upon its construction, you will be greeted by a positive event, whose historical information is tailored specifically to the location you build it. This means that it will be different if you build it in Bursa, Izmit, Konya, Smyrna, etc... While this is good and all, these fortresses are a symbol of authority, for better or worse. This means that if a location with a Bey Fortress gets sieged down, you will suffer a blow to the stability and legitimacy of your rule, and your people will lose faith in your ability to win the war. The maluses will be far worse should the enemy even annex that location, so be careful…
View attachment 1314087
Location Importance is a composite metric, tailored specifically to the Situation. It depends on many factors such as development, market access, road connectivity, and more. This is used to determine the volume of certain bonuses and utilizes a nice little “game concept” tooltip to explain its application and usage.

  • Seek Relations with the Byzantines - as long as the Romans hold Constantinople, and they are "relevant" any Beylik that is strong enough will be able to leverage diplomacy to extract gifts from the Empire. These gifts may be the hand of a daughter in marriage, ample coin, the recognition of a Beylik as legitimate sovereign of Anatolia, or the demand of capable characters to prop up your administration in exchange for relations and good faith. They can - and often do - decline, but are they really in a position to barter ?
  • Offer Diplomatic Protection - through marriage, the exchange of territory and diplomacy, as any Beylik we can offer an alliance and guarantees of sovereignty to another lesser Beylik. Of course, history has shown such friendships are short-lived…
  • Create Uc Bey - A unique subject type for the duration of the situation. A powerful weapon when used appropriately, the Uc Bey guards the frontier of the Beylik against foreign threats. They will be an army-based country with a powerful Government Reform, making them the perfect guardians. However, you will need to integrate them and centralize later on, should you survive and come out on top after the situation ends…
A couple of locations in the Situation map mode previously shown, are marked in red and yellow. This is for two reasons:
  • Anatolia in 1337 is traversed by a Great Trunk Road, controlling important points across it (Konya, Sivas, etc) unlocks a scaling Estate Privilege for your Merchant Estate, let's take a look:View attachment 1314091
The privilege will grant 1% Trade Efficiency for each of these locations that we control directly…

  • Konya and Sivas are also home to Seljuk Mints, which were used by the former Sultanate to produce coinage and project an aura of legitimacy and authority. Owning and developing these locations will be vital when it comes to spreading our Control across the region through a unique building…

As the Strongest Beylik consolidates holdings with a majority of Greek Culture, this event will appear, heralding the beginning of a great Turkic Migration. It enables a unique action for our country to call upon Turkic migration from the East, to populate the coasts of the Aegean Sea and Anatolia. Historically, this was very vital and it carries the same importance in-game, as having a majority of our culture in locations will allow us to fully core them, thus increasing our control!

The number of migrants that will travel is dynamically balanced. The pops will always come from a province with an ample population, and the amount of pops will always be "relevant" to the target province we are trying to populate:
View attachment 1314065
And a nice little short-term modifier to ensure a swifter cultural integration​

Once the strongest Beylik consolidates themselves, and crosses the Dardanelles, the Press Claims action will evolve, allowing the Beylik to declare war through a good Casus Belli across the Balkans, as well, posing a direct threat to the Kingdoms that populate that region:

Once the player conquers 300 locations, including at least 30 urban locations, and we own Konstantiniyye, we will be greeted by this event, which heralds in the Classical Era of your (now) Empire. In most cases, this will be the Ottomans.:
View attachment 1314055
This event will also grant us the rank of Empire, which comes with significant bonuses and some double edges in the form of a unique disaster for Empires…

View attachment 1314052

But what happens if the Karamanids or another rises, instead? They are greeted by a different outcome, a choice. They will be able to adopt the Ottoman tag, inheriting the Ottoman content, events, reforms, everything they have to offer, whilst still holding on to their flag, name, color on the map, dynasty, history, etc. However, should you choose not to do this, you will be able to reform the Sultanate of Rum....

Moreover, other Beyliks across Anatolia have dedicated flavor content to themselves. The Germiyanids, Aydinids, Eretnids will have a few events associated with their history in the middle of the 14th century, onwards.
View attachment 1314050
Germiyanids Ruler perishes, who is 79 at game start. A nasty event, reminiscent of Shah Rukh

View attachment 1314049
The Eretnids are displeased with Jalayrid rule, trouble steers!

View attachment 1314098
On top of that, the Ottomans have around 200 DHEs, making it a proper Tier 1 country in terms of flavor…

… And much more, but that’s all for today, as it’s already very long! As today is Friday, this will be the schedule for next week, which will be completely on @Roger Corominas , as I’ll be off:
  • Monday -> Tinto Maps Feedback about Japan & Korea
  • Tuesday -> Tinto Flavour about Korea & Manchuria
  • Wednesday -> Tinto Talks about the Shinto religion & Shogunate IO
  • Thursday -> ‘Behind the Music of Europa Universalis V - Composing the Grandest Score’ video!
  • Friday -> Tinto Flavour about Japan & the Nanboku-chō Jidai & Sengoku Jidai situations

And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
Are there any structural differences or changes in decentralization/centralization as the game progresses or as you progress through certain tech?

It seems like countries should largely be incentivized to be decentralized at the start and then want to undergo large centralization efforts later in the game rather than trying to create a 19th century kingdom in 1337.
 
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For most of the game, probably:
View attachment 1314162
...then wait for them to get unstable.
eventually try to grow bigger, and MOSTLY, ask for everyone else to realise it's crusade time. (and if they don't, well, too bad for you friend.)
 
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Is it because Nikomedeia/Izmit should start in Ottoman hands, and the fact that you did not want the ERE to start at war, the specific reason why the game starts on the 1st of April 1337? Or is there another reason why it doesn't start on the 1st of January?
 
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Manpower and soldier pops are two different things. When you lose men in battle you lose soldier pops requiring you to promote more peasants. If you are using slaves to produce manpower you should lose slaves and to replace them you would need to import more rather than promote your own peasants.
Hmm, fair, hence the Ottoman raiding option I suppose.
 
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