How are you supposed to have any fun playing in Caucasus region?

[Spude]

When Ottoman is there to just ruin everything in 50 years or so.
Three games I've tried in the region and there's seemingly nothing I can do to stop them or beat them.
Georgian principalities: Ottoman gets claims there instantly and no amount of loans and mercs saved me. Ally situation is hopeless, at most you get Muscovy but its troops are trash compare to Otto ones early game.
Kharabakh was quite easy to conquer with and made for nice Coptic crusader game but no matter what I could not keep up with Otto and last war went on for ages only for me to go bankrupt while Ottoman has 120K troops in 1520 and no loans and manpower for years.
Mamluks won the most pointless ally award. Forts go instantly down because they can afford cannons while you can barely afford three.
Circassia was even more pointless, you are target almost right at the start for Otto and then it's over as soon as possible.

What the hell am I missing here? I enjoy challenge every now and then but this is was just pure ass thoroughly. Otto does not split it troops ever so you good luck trying to beat some 40K deathstack that is then reinforced by another 20K because you could not see it through FoW allowing you to see only one province further while AI can see two provinces.

[Pek]

Unfortunately there's not really anything you can do other than hope and pray when playing as a small country near the mighty Ottoblob. And with the Caucasus nations you can't really ally with any strong countries that might be their rivals like Poland or Austria. There might be some cheesy way to beat them, like how as Byzantium you used to be able to spam galleys and trap their armies in Anatolia while you took all their land in Europe, but where's the fun in that?

[Brady Gunner]

Keep resetting until Ottomans get attacked by Venice, their vassals and like 3 other Balkan minors at the same time, or strong Austria and Mamlukes simultaneously.

[Raider Deci]

Pray for a potato-ottoman.

The worst nightmare would be like in my current england-run where they sported 300k troops by 1540, blobbed everywhere

[priamossz]

Right, you can definately do stuff against ottoblob, especially as Georgia. First of of course prioritise mill points. you want the millitary tech advantage. Your nation is essentially one big mountain so if they attack you play deffensively on mountains. let them take the mountain penalty. first idea should be quality and should be tried to max out as quick as possible. if the ottomans are fighting a significant enemy like venice use condottieri to intervene. while they fight attack their backside. Often its good to stay on occupied provinces until they are fully looted. Increasing your profits while giving the enemy devasation. If you cannot win the war for your client thats okay. thats not necessarily the point. the point is to make the war more expensive and slower for ottomans, pushing them closer to bankrupcy as well as delaying their declaration against you. This hopefully will slow them down. while you doing this stuff I would look around my neighbours and see if I can take any extra provinces if possible, especially mountain provinces. You wont be able to fight on equal footing for a long time anyway. Chosing economic idea for second is a good choice as it not only increases your general income but the minus 20% dev cost makes tall play an attactive choice which is especially good if you need to dev for institutions. finally whenever you can drilling for proffesionalism really helps making you stronger. As long as you can pick and chose your battles 20k soldiers with a good general and mountain should be able to hold back the ottoblob until they trully grow into the dangerous opponent they can become with over 100k troops. if you can execute this you suddenly will find yourself absolutelly rolling in money where you built everything in every province which will be a great foundation for challenging the ottomans in the open field conquering everything from them.

[some moron]

Well, based on current political circumstances, I would say "No" it's not fun to play in the Caucuses.

Except maybe as Russia lol

[Brady Gunner]

Originally posted by priamossz:

As long as you can pick and chose your battles 20k soldiers with a good general and mountain should be able to hold back the ottoblob until they trully grow into the dangerous opponent they can become with over 100k troops.

No. In my game Ottomans already get 75k troops with like another spare 50k manpower by 1493. No way you can withstand that as a Caucasus minor. Either you fall harshly behind in tech or you don't get a military idea group at all + you most likely to have to fight at least 1 extra ally of theirs and potentially also Crimea as their vassal.

Once they get janissaries you are pretty much screwed.

Slowing down Ottomans is pretty much pure RNG. Especially if you don't have DLC for Condottieri.

[Marquoz]

The Ottomans are quite weak in the current patch. You can beat them as any nation by following the standard strategy of creating a good alliance web, growing strong, and fighting well.

To prove it, I've started a new campaign as Georgia, which I will chronicle here. This is the situation as of July of 1455:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2383421624

My first moves were to conquer Imreti and Samstke, whose provinces were Georgian cores. Samstke allied themselves with Circassia while I was beating Imreti, so I vassalized Circassia in that war as well.

Meanwhile, I allied with both Gazimukh and Muscowy. I've also maxed out relations with two Ottoman rivals, the Mamluks and Poland. Neither will ally me yet due to having too many diplomatic relations, but the moment that changes (when Poland annexes Mazovia, for example), I should be able to add Poland. The Mamluks are a longer-term goal. At that point, I'll probably be too strong for the Ottomans to dare attack and will be able to carefully expand in all directions while building up favors for an offensive war against them.

I also fabricated a claim on Trebizond and their ally, Theodoro, both of which were just conquered. Theodoro in particular is useful in that it gets me closer to Poland, eliminating the distance penalty for getting an alliance.

All standard stuff, really. Expand and ally. That's how you thrive as any minor power in this game.

[Brady Gunner]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

The Ottomans are quite weak in the current patch. You can beat them as any nation by following the standard strategy of creating a good alliance web, growing strong, and fighting well.

To prove it, I've started a new campaign as Georgia, which I will chronicle here. This is the situation as of July of 1455:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2383421624

My first moves were to conquer Imreti and Samstke, whose provinces were Georgian cores. Samstke allied themselves with Circassia while I was beating Imreti, so I vassalized Circassia in that war as well.

Meanwhile, I allied with both Gazimukh and Muscowy. I've also maxed out relations with two Ottoman rivals, the Mamluks and Poland. Neither will ally me yet due to having too many diplomatic relations, but the moment that changes (when Poland annexes Mazovia, for example), I should be able to add them. At that point, I'll probably be too strong for the Ottomans to dare attack and will be able to careful expand in all directions while building up favors for an offensive war against them.

I also fabricated a claim on Trebizond and their ally, Theodoro, both of which were just conquered. Theodore in particular is useful in that it gets me closer to Poland, eliminating the distance penalty for getting an alliance.

All standard stuff, really. Expand and ally. That's how you thrive as any minor power in this game.

Try a Shia of Gothic start. Much harder. Also do it without DLCs (expect the one that enables Janissaries, don't remember which it was) Much harder.

[Marquoz]

Sure, Theodoro or the Shia would be harder, but the OP said "the Caucasus region" in their first post and mentioned the Georgian principalities specifically, so that's what I've done. As for DLC's, I don't play without them. I like them--why would I turn them off?

[Marquoz]

It's 1469, and the Georgia campaign rolls on:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2383532058

Circassia has been annexed, and I grabbed three provinces from Crimea in a war with Uzbek, Crimea, and Kazan that my ally Muscowy declared. Better still, Poland is now officially an ally. They have the PU with Lithuania, so I have a very solid defensive position that the Ottomans probably won't be willing to attack. I still can't add the Mamluks to my alliance web, though. I need a much bigger army and fleet than I can currently afford, and more diplo rep will help as well.

Maybe in a few decades, but not yet.

[priamossz]

Marquoz I think you already proven that Georgia can be played. looking at your place I can already see that in worst case cenario a good player could solo defend from that ottoblob. that Georgia should be able to push out quite a few mercenary armies should it become necessary and would have the mountains. the alliances are a bonus that means that you might not even need to loan up for the war.

[Marquoz]

Yeah, now that I have the Polish alliance, I'll probably stop. I'm not actually interested in playing another long campaign as Georgia. But I did want to show that it's doable using standard techniques. You need strong allies, and Ottoman rivals are the best candidates. However, Georgia is too small to be attractive to them when the game begins, and it suffers from distance penalties as well.

The solution to both problems is to grow as fast as you can in the first couple decades, decades in which the Ottomans (if they're having a decent run) will be focusing on Byzantium, the Beyliks, and Albania. While they're busy with that, you eat your small neighbors to qualify for the alliances you need to survive.

Finally, while it's pretty easy to snag Muscowy, the strong Catholic powers in the region are harder to bring into your web and probably won't accept your diplomatic overtures unless they're rivals with the Ottomans. If Poland, Hungary, and/or Austria don't rival them, you may need to restart--but restarts are sometimes necessary as any weak country with powerful neighbors.

[Brady Gunner]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Sure, Theodoro or the Shia would be harder, but the OP said "the Caucasus region" in their first post and mentioned the Georgian principalities specifically, so that's what I've done. As for DLC's, I don't play without them. I like them--why would I turn them off?

Turn them off because not everyone has DLCs and if you are unable to succeed as a Cacausus Shia or Gothic minor then DLCs are a must have which makes EU4 pay to win lel.

[Medicles]

Originally posted by Brady Gunner:

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Sure, Theodoro or the Shia would be harder, but the OP said "the Caucasus region" in their first post and mentioned the Georgian principalities specifically, so that's what I've done. As for DLC's, I don't play without them. I like them--why would I turn them off?

Turn them off because not everyone has DLCs and if you are unable to succeed as a Cacausus Shia or Gothic minor then DLCs are a must have which makes EU4 pay to win lel.

Europa Universalis 4 in its most basic form is about europe. The whole world becomes viable only because of the dlc's and i mean viable in the broadest terms, because experienced players would still be able to win with non-european countries in the base game. So, if you are not an experienced player and you want to play a non-european nation, you should pay for the respective dlc. This is nothing else than paying for a new race in like Total War: Warhammer.

Also, EU4 dlc's dont make the game easier. Not even close. They give you several positive and negative QoL options. For example, developing provinces is positive but favors are negative (arguably, i dont have anything against favors, but they slow down the game alot).

[Brady Gunner]

Originally posted by Medicles:

Originally posted by Brady Gunner:

Turn them off because not everyone has DLCs and if you are unable to succeed as a Cacausus Shia or Gothic minor then DLCs are a must have which makes EU4 pay to win lel.

Europa Universalis 4 in its most basic form is about europe. The whole world becomes viable only because of the dlc's and i mean viable in the broadest terms, because experienced players would still be able to win with non-european countries in the base game. So, if you are not an experienced player and you want to play a non-european nation, you should pay for the respective dlc. This is nothing else than paying for a new race in like Total War: Warhammer.

Also, EU4 dlc's dont make the game easier. Not even close. They give you several positive and negative QoL options. For example, developing provinces is positive but favors are negative (arguably, i dont have anything against favors, but they slow down the game alot).

The favours system is exactly why you don't use Cossacks. Many players disable it.

You only buy good DLCs like Art of War, El Dorado, Mare Nostrum,. Third Rome if you play as Muscovy, Wealth of Nations, Common Sense, Rights of Man, Cradle of Civilization, Rule Britannia, Dharma (especially as Indians but you can turn off otherwise), Golden Century. These DLCs have no drawbacks. The ones I didn't mention suck.

I also don't play Warhammer exactly because of the DLC system.