Playing as the Ottoman Empire.

[Drunk Rambo {The Dirty Dozen}]

No one has declared war on me. I'm pretty far into the timeline, over half way into the tech tree. I'm bringing in at least 20k per turn. I'm watching my trade each turn to make sure no one im trading with has bad income.
So, what do I actually do now? My cities, town are fully upgraded. I've had zero rebellions due to building religious buildings etc. I was helped greatly by you all last time when I played Maratha and have learnt a lot from your help.

Do I go out and invade everyone? I like to play after the main objective so I generally ignore the defeat.

[OZFugazi]

hi.. i can offer a couple things.

won't go in depth.

1. change out and keep clean your cabinet. especially at the start of game.
2. focus to Nizam-I credit inf. asap. european doctrine.
3. IF russia gets crimea (and most likely will). park a ship in the straights to block them in. or if at war with them.. park a blockade on their ports that will spawn in the black sea (potential of 4 IIRC inc. georgia, have the boats there and ready) a strong naval presence in the med is recommended.
4. don't get dragged into war by your protectorates. not worth.
5. beware the orange menace that WILL at some point, try to back door your region through persia.

ottoman campaign is one of my favorites. and most fun to world dominate with. have fun.

all the best.

[Drunk Rambo {The Dirty Dozen}]

Originally posted by OZFugazi:

hi.. i can offer a couple things.

won't go in depth. :Honored:

1. change out and keep clean your cabinet. especially at the start of game.
2. focus to Nizam-I credit inf. asap. european doctrine.
3. IF russia gets crimea (and most likely will). park a ship in the straights to block them in. or if at war with them.. park a blockade on their ports that will spawn in the black sea (potential of 4 IIRC inc. georgia, have the boats there and ready) a strong naval presence in the med is recommended.
4. don't get dragged into war by your protectorates. not worth.
5. beware the orange menace that WILL at some point, try to back door your region through persia.

ottoman campaign is one of my favorites. and most fun to world dominate with. have fun.

all the best.

Thanks, I'll follow your advice. I'll also seal up the gaps in the mountain range in the North Persian Empire that are on my borders. There's a few mountainous areas that have passageways that I can cover with a good detachment of men in each fort.

[swmackin]

Originally posted by OZFugazi:

hi.. i can offer a couple things.

won't go in depth. :Honored:

1. change out and keep clean your cabinet. especially at the start of game.
2. focus to Nizam-I credit inf. asap. european doctrine.
3. IF russia gets crimea (and most likely will). park a ship in the straights to block them in. or if at war with them.. park a blockade on their ports that will spawn in the black sea (potential of 4 IIRC inc. georgia, have the boats there and ready) a strong naval presence in the med is recommended.
4. don't get dragged into war by your protectorates. not worth.
5. beware the orange menace that WILL at some point, try to back door your region through persia.

ottoman campaign is one of my favorites. and most fun to world dominate with. have fun.

all the best.

Key to avoiding the Orange Menace is to get an alliance with them and take Persia before they do. If you start trading with them early your relationship should be to the point where they will go for an alliance.

If Maratha gets to Persia it is already too late, their economy will already be a monster. Then your best option is to choke off their sea trade with a large navy. Which itself is expensive.

[swmackin]

Originally posted by Drunk Rambo HAC:

No one has declared war on me. I'm pretty far into the timeline, over half way into the tech tree. I'm bringing in at least 20k per turn. I'm watching my trade each turn to make sure no one im trading with has bad income.
So, what do I actually do now? My cities, town are fully upgraded. I've had zero rebellions due to building religious buildings etc. I was helped greatly by you all last time when I played Maratha and have learnt a lot from your help.

Do I go out and invade everyone? I like to play after the main objective so I generally ignore the defeat.

Get an alliance with Maratha and go after Persia. See comments above :)

Have fun, Ottomans are my favorite faction. Lots of cool units, like the Libyan dragoons.

[Drunk Rambo {The Dirty Dozen}]

Originally posted by swmackin:

Originally posted by Drunk Rambo HAC:

No one has declared war on me. I'm pretty far into the timeline, over half way into the tech tree. I'm bringing in at least 20k per turn. I'm watching my trade each turn to make sure no one im trading with has bad income.
So, what do I actually do now? My cities, town are fully upgraded. I've had zero rebellions due to building religious buildings etc. I was helped greatly by you all last time when I played Maratha and have learnt a lot from your help.

Do I go out and invade everyone? I like to play after the main objective so I generally ignore the defeat.

Get an alliance with Maratha and go after Persia. See comments above :)

Have fun, Ottomans are my favorite faction. Lots of cool units, like the Libyan dragoons.

Maratha just ate Persia…… so m building a heavy elite army on my right flank plus forts on my Persia border.
I’m also allied with Maratha.
I took over my protectorate Barbary.

Things will get pretty heated FAST!

[swmackin]

Originally posted by Drunk Rambo {HAC}:

Originally posted by swmackin:

Get an alliance with Maratha and go after Persia. See comments above :)

Have fun, Ottomans are my favorite faction. Lots of cool units, like the Libyan dragoons.

Maratha just ate Persia…… so m building a heavy elite army on my right flank plus forts on my Persia border.
I’m also allied with Maratha.
I took over my protectorate Barbary.

Things will get pretty heated FAST!

Before you go to war with Maratha build up a big navy to choke off their trade. They have will have the biggest economy by a longshot by now. That's what makes them so hard, they will just keep throwing armies at you.

Their economy is extremely trade based and all their trade goes by sea. You can raid sea trade just to the southwest off Morocco. With enough ships you can take all their trade money. And, if you haven't yet, capture Morocco. It's a great spot to build a navy.

If Ceylon (Sri Lanka) is run by rebels take it too. It is a great staging ground for a land invasion into India.

[Drunk Rambo {The Dirty Dozen}]

Originally posted by swmackin:

Originally posted by Drunk Rambo {HAC}:

Maratha just ate Persia…… so m building a heavy elite army on my right flank plus forts on my Persia border.
I’m also allied with Maratha.
I took over my protectorate Barbary.

Things will get pretty heated FAST!

Before you go to war with Maratha build up a big navy to choke off their trade. They have will have the biggest economy by a longshot by now. That's what makes them so hard, they will just keep throwing armies at you.

Their economy is extremely trade based and all their trade goes by sea. You can raid sea trade just to the southwest off Morocco. With enough ships you can take all their trade money. And, if you haven't yet, capture Morocco. It's a great spot to build a navy.

If Ceylon (Sri Lanka) is run by rebels take it too. It is a great staging ground for a land invasion into India.

How big of a navy do I need? Do I choke off the trade routes or blockade their ports?

[swmackin]

Originally posted by Drunk Rambo {HAC}:

Originally posted by swmackin:

Before you go to war with Maratha build up a big navy to choke off their trade. They have will have the biggest economy by a longshot by now. That's what makes them so hard, they will just keep throwing armies at you.

Their economy is extremely trade based and all their trade goes by sea. You can raid sea trade just to the southwest off Morocco. With enough ships you can take all their trade money. And, if you haven't yet, capture Morocco. It's a great spot to build a navy.

If Ceylon (Sri Lanka) is run by rebels take it too. It is a great staging ground for a land invasion into India.

How big of a navy do I need? Do I choke off the trade routes or blockade their ports?

I typically go with 3 naval fleets of 8-12 ships each.

To answer your second question -- blockading ports usually hurts the enemy more. However, when you raid their shipping you get the money they are losing. So the answer to the questions depends on how much you need that extra money.

[Big Moustache]

How can you not be at war as Ottomans? You start with war with Russia over Crimea. Georgia, fkn Venice (you sir will rue this day) and Persia are all scripted to attack you early game. Poland could jump in to help out Russia, depending game per game. Spain is stealing Afrika from your Barbary puppet

All my Ottoman games are about securing borders first. Take out all the minors i mentioned above and get Kiev from Russia and give it to Mongol vassal for easier managing and permanent cripple Russian expansion

[Drunk Rambo {The Dirty Dozen}]

Originally posted by Fragoos:

How can you not be at war as Ottomans? You start with war with Russia over Crimea. Georgia, fkn Venice (you sir will rue this day) and Persia are all scripted to attack you early game. Poland could jump in to help out Russia, depending game per game. Spain is stealing Afrika from your Barbary puppet

All my Ottoman games are about securing borders first. Take out all the minors i mentioned above and get Kiev from Russia and give it to Mongol vassal for easier managing and permanent cripple Russian expansion

I ended my play. It became too boring.

Only Russia at the start was at war with me but I sued for peace and from then onwards I had no more enemies.
I took Barbary just out of boredom and allied with Spain.
I wiped out the pirates.

I pretty much just traded with everyone and traded tech.

This has happened to me before playing as the USA. No one wanted to go to war and I’m just bringing in income. It gets very boring and uninteresting.

[Bfloo]

Originally posted by Drunk Rambo {HAC}:

Originally posted by Fragoos:

How can you not be at war as Ottomans? You start with war with Russia over Crimea. Georgia, fkn Venice (you sir will rue this day) and Persia are all scripted to attack you early game. Poland could jump in to help out Russia, depending game per game. Spain is stealing Afrika from your Barbary puppet

All my Ottoman games are about securing borders first. Take out all the minors i mentioned above and get Kiev from Russia and give it to Mongol vassal for easier managing and permanent cripple Russian expansion

I ended my play. It became too boring.

Only Russia at the start was at war with me but I sued for peace and from then onwards I had no more enemies.
I took Barbary just out of boredom and allied with Spain.
I wiped out the pirates.

I pretty much just traded with everyone and traded tech.

This has happened to me before playing as the USA. No one wanted to go to war and I’m just bringing in income. It gets very boring and uninteresting.

There is an easy fix to that, just invade a neighbor for fun. Do this enough times and everyone will hate you.

[Big Moustache]

Originally posted by Bfloo:

There is an easy fix to that, just invade a neighbor for fun. Do this enough times and everyone will hate you.

He has that covered, by killing his vassal "for fun"
He did everything to turn Ottomans passive. Than quit because he got bored.
But no campaign is really finished without removing the orange plague from the map.
And as a direct neighbour it is even more valid to do so. Perhaps OP let the plague grow out of his control in his passive campaign?

[Drunk Rambo {The Dirty Dozen}]

Originally posted by Fragoos:

Originally posted by Bfloo:

There is an easy fix to that, just invade a neighbor for fun. Do this enough times and everyone will hate you.

He has that covered, by killing his vassal "for fun"
He did everything to turn Ottomans passive. Than quit because he got bored.
But no campaign is really finished without removing the orange plague from the map.
And as a direct neighbour it is even more valid to do so. Perhaps OP let the plague grow out of his control in his passive campaign?

"He" didn't let the orange plague do jack s##t. They were at peace with me and I with them. I was literally just collecting money each turn and it became extremely boring.

Also for your information, Maratha didn't even war against Persia nor the Mughal empire. They had a few battles and no more wars. The only people fighting was Spain France and GB.

It was the most BORING AF campaign I have ever played.


Unless I declared war on everyone (which would be a fool of a Took move) I just played it safe, as did everyone else.

Comprende?

[OZFugazi]

hmm.

i have to chime in. this game is an absolute fluke, if difficulty for campaign is anything over normal. not calling your experience a lie (to be clear on this) even normal (and especially hard, VH) would allow for a completely different outcome. i would take a guess that this games difficulty (for campaign) was set to easy. i could be wrong though. all good. i have seen some interesting and very rare outcomes through out the many hours i have played. but the differences between normal and VH (campaign) can be staggering. if the orange menace did not bother you, or force their way into your regions through persia.. and you are playing normal or higher difficulty. that is a pretty rare outcome.

maratha, no doubt would have either made landfall in the americas, iceland, portugal, or even sweden. it is extremely rare (normal diff or higher) to see a complacent or docile maratha but nothing surprises me completely with etw.

all the best.

[v1sy]

VH/VH becomes pretty easy even with small faction with some ground to blossom such as Portugal, Italian States, Denmark being favourites. Other than that, some nations (city-state guys) are just meant to die mainly due to being a part of campaign target such as Bavaria. I have spent many hours just to expand with it but at some point you become the hotpoint of conflict from each angle possible and the code in the depths of C:/..../Empire Total War not let you even move a muscle. It is almost quasi-deterministic among 10 different scenairos and you get a random one for each try.

If standart factions are boring to you, I strongly suggest having access to minor factions and try with them. Portugal and Denmark would be much smoother experience, Italian States and Persia is a bit tricky, Bavaria is a death sentence (I held 2 regions and survived without any significant development, just being a military resistance in the midst of EU powers) and the Georgia/Dagestan Campaign is the just right one for having the right amount of hardship for a seasoned player.

All of the comments are made for VH/VH, based on vanilla and Darthmod. Hit me up if you have Multiplayer Campaign access to try it out to see whether it is still unplayable or not.