Ottomans need to be nerfed

[William the Merry]

Well the most obvious example is the mongols, They invaded keivan rus and china around the same time.

Another example actually is the Huns, not the huns themselves but the Rouran Kaghnate which pushed the huns west. According to the huns as they entered europe the Rouran Khaganate was hot on their heels, meanwhile there are Chinese sources thousands of miles away contemporaneously interacting with them.

The Turks likewise shattered into many different culturally related peoples from china to central asia and the near east. Whether the Turks are the same people of the Xiongnu is controversial but also speaks to this.

Depending on how much one puts stock into Herodotus and other ancient sources there is also something to be said about the scythians and the medes, the later supposedly ejecting the former out of asia before eventually finally settling in Iran.

Again what speaks to the geographic factor here is just how common a nomadic people group will be interacting with europeans and chinese on opposite sides of the worlds largest continent contemporaneously. Compare this to europe and china through india before the age of sail. I am a bit surprised how controversial this idea seems to be. It is a giant flat plain across the worlds largest continent, of course it is going to accelerate the movement of the people most suited to living there more than uncharted oceans, perilous mountains in iran, the deserts of Arabia and the dense civilization of india. The silk road was so valuable for a reason, it took time, labour and resources to maintain that one stable route from europe to china through india. Meanwhile a steppe tribe could make the trip unencumbered at the speed of a horse over flatlands.

i think the controversy comes from you saying its common for steppe people to be either side of steppe at same time, when in your example its only the mongols for the same people.
Aditionally whilst it is a vast flat land, its still hard to project force across the steppe due to its low rainfall

 

[csward53]

Nah they are underpowered if anything. Disasters that befall them hit them hard af as well.

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

I half-expected the OP to be from 2014. Could be from any year since launch, really.

 

[William the Merry]

Just a note, I watched Otto repeatedly lose to the knights (!) who were backed by naples and a couple of other coastal minors.

Every couple of decades I noticed Greece was getting suspiciously more and more grey.

Interesting, i only see starting ottos lose land when playing as venice

 

[agonistes]

Interesting, i only see starting ottos lose land when playing as venice

Yea, usually I need to be involved somehow. But it doesn't take much. If Otto attacks into a war that has Venice on the other side, and its early game, they are playing a dangerous game - Venice has cash and a decent force limit. Even lending one of the nations a stack can turn the tide.

 

[William the Merry]

Yea, usually I need to be involved somehow. But it doesn't take much. If Otto attacks into a war that has Venice on the other side, and its early game, they are playing a dangerous game - Venice has cash and a decent force limit. Even lending one of the nations a stack can turn the tide.

Ai venice does extremely poorly, even on vh

 

[agonistes]

Ai venice does extremely poorly, even on vh

I said with a little help. One stack of 22 should do. But if you want to be nasty, just ally Albania after the war starts.

 

[Sharkoman]

Interesting, i only see starting ottos lose land when playing as venice

I've seen the Ottoman lose to Hungary with a strong alliance. But besides them and Venice I haven't seen them lose to anyone else without my intervention. The Ottoman either quickly snowballs very strong, quickly implodes or sometimes both.

 

[CollinUchiha]

I agree, I just had a 22 stack of same military tech venetian troops with 12stack mercenaries attached to it get absolutely destroyed by a 9 stack of ottoman troops. I can understand ottomans having a little bit of an edge. but this is absurd. any Venice or Hungary game gets derailed by the Ottomans. I can be ahead of their military tech and outnumber them, but it is still un necessarily hard to win a single battle with them.

 

[Siegfriedfr]

The ottomans suffer From the same problem as other nations in eu4: big nations reach 18th century level of strenght in 1600, with massive armies and manpower. it makes every war annoying and makes me unwilling to engagewith the game.

I know eu4 development is over but the game could do with a massive pruning of various bonuses to morale and manpower, as well as the lucky nations modifier.

Oh and the papacy mechanics are busted too.

And devlopment should be more severly capped outside of capitals and trade centers.

 

[Blust]

Kinda agree, it's not fun nor realistic to be playing in your small side of the HRE and finding yourself fighting 300k ottomans troops getting involved in the league war. No suspense from who's side is winning.

 

[Pero Coveilha]

And yet, in my current game with Novgorod, the Ottomans got eaten up before I got anything to do about it

 

[Dunner]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, nerfing the ottomans is stupid. The game needs something akin to a challenge and the ottomans are just about all that remains to make a game interesting.

I do agree about the ludicrously large armies that we see in game beginning in the 1500s. Army-flation isn’t unique to the otttomans though, the game doesn’t do anything to scale army size over time something that EU5 is at least attempting to remedy.

I agree, I just had a 22 stack of same military tech venetian troops with 12stack mercenaries attached to it get absolutely destroyed by a 9 stack of ottoman troops. I can understand ottomans having a little bit of an edge. but this is absurd. any Venice or Hungary game gets derailed by the Ottomans. I can be ahead of their military tech and outnumber them, but it is still un necessarily hard to win a single battle with them.

Something is amiss here. Yes, the Otto armies are bad asses in the early game. But something else caused you to lose (generals, terrain, etc.). The Otto’s are tough but I’ve routinely beat them 2 on 1 with 1445 Byz mercs and the trainwreck that are Byz early game army stats. You were either way out-generaled, attacking in unfavorable terrain, or had some horrible RNG to lose a 3.5 to 1 with Venice’s much more competent troops.

 

[Pero Coveilha]

But I'd rather a big otto than a big austria, poland, or mughals.

Yeah, to expand on my previous post, I was less pleased when I realized that it was Austria that had benefitted the most from the Ottomans' collapse...

 

[overthetop_G]

After 40k hours, I modded Hungary's missions so they get Serbia, Bosnia, and Wallachia as marches, pretty much at game start. Then I gave them +1 cav fire.

Which was great balance, until I buffed Austria.

So I ended up giving Otto +1 infantry fire from taking Constantinople. Now its balanced pretty well.

I modded in some barbary war events (which almost always happen early regardless of mtth), that put a Euro nation vs the pirates in an offensive trade war, but they call allies.

So I put auto ally the Barbary coast nations in the Otto tree. Which drains Otto manpower as multiple wars will fire.

So, Otto advance is slowed in Europe, but Otto won't get pushed back until Austria pu's Hungary.

do you have a link for this mod?

 

[wthree]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, nerfing the ottomans is stupid. The game needs something akin to a challenge and the ottomans are just about all that remains to make a game interesting.

I couldn't disagree more. The fact that the Ottomans are singled out as the only nation to be given such grand treatment as part of the problem. It would be engaging to see many different nations become a challenge, not just the Ottomans.

Something is amiss here. Yes, the Otto armies are bad asses in the early game. But something else caused you to lose (generals, terrain, etc.). The Otto’s are tough but I’ve routinely beat them 2 on 1 with 1445 Byz mercs and the trainwreck that are Byz early game army stats. You were either way out-generaled, attacking in unfavorable terrain, or had some horrible RNG to lose a 3.5 to 1 with Venice’s much more competent troops.

I see the same kind of thing. The Ottoman military is just so far beyond anything else in the game its ridiculous. At least up until the 1600s they absolutely wipe the floor with anything they touch. I routinely see them stack wipe european armies while having lower tech and deep in enemy territory. And I'm not even talking about player combat.

 

[Dunner]

The fact that the Ottomans are singled out as the only nation to be given such grand treatment as part of the problem. It would be engaging to see many different nations become a challenge, not just the Ottomans.

Here we agree. But the solution isn't to nerf the Ottomans, it's to buff other major powers in a way that the AI can take advantage of. Players get stupid levels of buffs through mission trees but because the AI doesn't execute mission trees well it misses the boat. Teaching the AI to follow mission trees would be a game-changer.

This game is stupid-easy for players, we need more challenges, not fewer.

 

[wthree]

Here we agree. But the solution isn't to nerf the Ottomans, it's to buff other major powers in a way that the AI can take advantage of. Players get stupid levels of buffs through mission trees but because the AI doesn't execute mission trees well it misses the boat. Teaching the AI to follow mission trees would be a game-changer.

This game is stupid-easy for players, we need more challenges, not fewer.

Part of the problem though, is that the Ottoman's absurd strength and stability also diminish the challenge of other nations as well. So an overall increase in challenge would be good, in lieu of that a nerf to the Ottomans would give other nations a chance to shine as well.

 

[Vin55]

The ai in general is way too stable and strong since two years, France can get to 300k before 1700. For measures the ottomans had around 50-80k before vienna (it always depends on which source you count) that was the biggest army before the coalition wars. Also the spanish and portugese only scale up when in reality they all slowed down and then crashed out. Poland the same, you never see prussia or russia really emerging. The small nations would need lucky nation modifier not the ottomans, I mean they do get the mamelucks for free. The ottomans where loosing after 1650s and shure it was a slow downfall but by the end of the game they where more or less stuck in a deathspiral. I would have licked if they would have made the mamelucks a little better maybe a 3 out of 10 chance for them being the winners, as it would give the game a new flavour. I mean that is the only good thing with france, spain, that it depends who wins between the two.