Ottomans are completely broken in 1.35

[sgh2000]

Title says it all. Year is 1520 and I am a very strong France (owns all of Burgundy and Catalonia as well as parts of Ireland, with Savoy, Venice, Milan as vassals with all their cores plus Naples as a PU with Sicily and Sardinia) with a very strong ally PLC (taken parts of Muscovy, Baltic, and Silesia) and i declared on the Ottomans who were on military tech 9 to my 11.

The Ottomans had an absolutely ridiculous 225k at the start of the war in 1520. The combined armies came to be about 250k vs 250k with a massive tech advantage on my end. I simply don't understand how you're going to give the Ottomans 225k in ground troops because of their ideas so early as well as somehow having the economy to field that army plus 50k mercs on top of that without going into debt and then sitting at 0 manpower for a solid 5 years of war without ever actually losing any of your army despite taking several major battles with major "losses". Also on top of all that, they had just declared war on Austria with Hungary just before I declared on them. So it was probably something approaching 400k vs 250k with a massive tech advantage at the start. Its as if they just have an infinite pool of manpower to magically draw from while having an of equal size to the number 2 and 4 great powers COMBINED and all to top it off, those troops are basically equivalent in combat ability to Prussian space marines. And all this in 1520. The war with Austria ended with them basically annexing like half of Hungary and the war with me led to about a 50% peace deal with them taking all of my Balkan possessions from Venice as well as half of Naples.

I thought I should go ahead and get a pretty quick start on the Ottomans to prevent them from getting too strong. Little did I know that the game is basically rigged for the Ottomans to win every single war they fight no matter what. Honestly if the AI just ignored AE, they might be able to do a world conquest by like 1700 as the Ottomans. They could probably take on all of the coalitions and not even break a sweat.

[RCMidas]

Publicado originalmente por Marquoz:

Publicado originalmente por Malvastor:

If you're playing Venice you've got an even better option- fabricate a claim and vassalize Byzantium, then reconquer their cores.

Right. I've formed Italy from Venice a dozen times or so, and that's always the best approach. If you build your spy network from Day 1, you'll always be able to attack Byzantium before the Ottomans.

That, joining the HRE, and ditching the republic ASAP so I can become Emperor are my standard (and very successful) opening moves as Venice.

That may be a bit more difficult now, given that the Ottomans can gain their permaclaims on Byzantium by December 1444. All they need to do is make Mehmet a general (or hire a new one) and they are good to go. Even the AI Turks seem able to manage that in most of the games I've seen, though they almost immediately fail to capitalise on the push thereafter.

[Marquoz]

Publicado originalmente por RCMidas:

Publicado originalmente por Marquoz:

Right. I've formed Italy from Venice a dozen times or so, and that's always the best approach. If you build your spy network from Day 1, you'll always be able to attack Byzantium before the Ottomans.

That, joining the HRE, and ditching the republic ASAP so I can become Emperor are my standard (and very successful) opening moves as Venice.

That may be a bit more difficult now, given that the Ottomans can gain their permaclaims on Byzantium by December 1444. All they need to do is make Mehmet a general (or hire a new one) and they are good to go. Even the AI Turks seem able to manage that in most of the games I've seen, though they almost immediately fail to capitalise on the push thereafter.

Ah, that's definitely a change. I may have to revise my Venice strategy. I haven't played anyone but new achievement nations so far in 1.35. And with Diablo IV about to come out, I will be taking a hiatus from EU4 for a while.

[RCMidas]

Mission requirements: 30K troops (they already start with that), two generals (they start with one) and the "Victory Over Varna Crusade" event occurs (MTTH 1 month and gives 25 Power Projection).

Yeah. Like 95% of the time for me, the AI Ottomans have eaten Byzantium and Athens by summer '46, depending on siege rolls.

And if they hired Urban or another +2 MilAdv, they also get several siege-only artillery pieces at around the same time for a separate mission. You have to hope the AI made the mistake of hiring a +1 Albanian MilAdvisor, if they had one available, because that culture is not accepted and therefore they cannot promote him to complete that mission.

Obviously you don't notice this sort of thing too much when PLAYING Ottomans, because you're already optimising your play in a way that the AI can never match...but those opening few months are now terrifyingly easy on the AI. Byzantium and Athens are in a really bad spot again relative to the last few years.

[sgh2000]

Publicado originalmente por Marquoz:

Publicado originalmente por samhiatt2000:

Imagine countering this post in the most arrogant snobby way possible as if someone with nearly 3k hours in the game doesn't understand the combat system. And then to top it all off, your example is 50 years later in game after mine was when their decadence is already in full force.

Look at the screenshot again. This is my FOURTH war against the Ottomans. The first happened right around 1500, and they were crushed. Which also happened in wars two, three, and four. When you say "prior to 1550, they are absolutely broken," you are absolutely wrong. They're just as crushable as ever--if you know what you're doing.

Again, being condescending and arrogant doesn't help your case at all. If many people who have thousands of hours in this game have trouble with the exact same thing, then you not having trouble with it doesn't mean that it isn't difficult in the vast majority of games. You're purposely playing dumb as if RNG doesn't exist in EU4 and the Ottomans can't be significantly stronger or weaker from game to game. All this just to showcase how much of a genius you are and how good at the game you are. It's pathetic. You not struggling with the Ottomans in one single game doesn't negate the fact that they're a very very very difficult fight until decadence starts to kick in. As I've said in other replies, you are correct that the Ottomans overall are weaker in this patch. I did not understand this at the time of posting because I had not fought the Ottomans again yet since that first war. This was largely meant as my decadence test game and I was unaware of just how weak it made the Ottomans in the mid-to-late game. Overall, they absolutely are weaker. But that weakness doesn't start until the decadence kicks in in the mid-game. Again, you not struggling with them in your Russia game doesn't negate the other many many people with many many hours still struggling with them in the early game. There's no need to be so condescending and arrogant all the time.

[Marquoz]

Publicado originalmente por samhiatt2000:

Again, being condescending and arrogant doesn't help your case at all.

My case is based entirely on fact, not attitude. I've had to fight the Ottomans in three of my 1.35 achievement runs. Those runs went as follows:

--Portugal: Ottomans wiped completely off the map
--England into Angevin Empire: Ottomans are in the process of being wiped completely off the map. I didn't have to do so for the achievement, but any time I become Emperor of the HRE, I turn all of Europe into imperial territory as a matter of course.
--Russia: Ottomans not totally exterminated because there was no need to do so, but I wrecked them and it would have been easy to finish the process.

In all three cases, the first war against the Ottomans took place in the 1500 to 1560 range.

You're purposely playing dumb

Not at all. I'm purposefully playing smart, every time. And that means the Ottomans got crushed, every time. Skilled play overcomes RNG. I literally don't care how well they do because I do better.

[salatrin]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2983303429

Ottomans dont seem that broken to me... (though i did BREAK them)

My current Byz game, attacked them within a couple years with just my 2 OPM vassals, and with NO allies, and completely annihilated them. +27 warscore from battles, Ottomans have NO troops left.

Was pretty easy to be honest. :D

[RCMidas]

You allied Epirus? I'm surprised. I prefer Wallachia if I can get it. Nothing quite like seeing Mehmet get impaled by Vlad.

[Marquoz]

I suspect he vassalized them in a war one month after game start. It's a common Byz strategy, one of many. You retake your core and leave them the island. That boosts your force limit, and their fleet and army help you fight the Ottomans.

[salatrin]

Publicado originalmente por Marquoz:

I suspect he vassalized them in a war one month after game start. It's a common Byz strategy, one of many. You retake your core and leave them the island. That boosts your force limit, and their fleet and army help you fight the Ottomans.

Thats exactly what i did. I never fight the Otto's with allies as they just get in my way and try to occupy land that i want.
Though Athens AI was annoying me in this game as they kept interrupting my "filtering" strategy to maximize my warscore.

[Marquoz]

Well fought, salatrin. It's a viable strategy, one that's worked for Byz for quite a while.

Really, the 1.35 Ottomans are easier to beat than at any point in EU4 history. The loss of most of their early unit pip edge means that it's far simpler to take them out in the first century of the game. Any approach that worked in the past works even better now. They can be crushed by anyone at any time with less effort than ever. 1450, 1500, 1600, 1700--doesn't matter. They're the weakest they've ever been.

[cwkam1]

The problem with Ottomans probably lies how to get out of the decadence events actually....
Once they got there it is no way out. I even tried to play Ottomans myself and cant never figure out how to rid myself of the disaster.

You need to at least 1) hundreds of thousands of ducas 2) an at least 5/5/5 monarch and 3) tremendous luck not to get the corruption -2.75 events and -30 prestigious events or you will find yourself in a pitch black abyss cuz you need 0 corruptions and 100 prestige to really stop the disaster (and hence impossible).

It is another stupid bug on the side of Paradox. Alas, they can't code ♥♥♥♥ and they don't test ♥♥♥♥ as usual.

[Betelgeuse]

In my 1.35 games they are always flourishing. The AI order of priorities might vary but they seem to push far more decisively into Persia and the Russian steps in the 1500s instead of being content with their conquests in the Balkans and Egypt. Gobbling up Eastern Africa and parts of Western India also seems to have become a standard late game approach. They are also the only AI nation that reliably builds up army professionalism early on.

Occupying their entire territory (3.8k development!) I can say that war exhaustion does not apply to them anymore. It just does not grow to more than 5, they seem to have an endless pool of diplo points even with a 2 diplo ruler - unexplainable for me. Growing their war exhaustion to more than 15 was rather easy in previous patches. No idea what changed here.

Early to mid game they are beastly and can still take hits that would bring any other nation to its knees. I fought them mostly late game both as the Calmar Union and Scotland and , yes they loose the edge but are by no means a paper tiger.

[bri]

Good to see that some things never change. Take a couple months off for various reasons and come back to the same tired "Ottomans OP" nonsense...

[Rialm]

Maybe it's me, but most of the time they are weaker and they can't even handle Mamluks.