the mamluks tips and what ideas to take

[themaniac26]

so since the new update came out and my tuscany game broke due to it i decided to play as the mamluks so what ideas should i take and do you guys have any tips for playing as the mamluks

[Navarre]

Early game is centered around the Ottomans, who will probably take a mission to conquer all your land unless you're very lucky. So, a military idea like Defensive or Quantity if you're badly outnumbered can come in handy. They usually ally with Crimea and Qara Qonyulu or the Timurids, try to get an ally yourself among the powers who don't rival you northeast of you.

You can blob a bit towards the southeast at first, in the Arabic Peninsula. Ally Yemen or another, vassalize the little ones and coquer the rest. That will give you more survivability against the Ottomans. South is viable too but slower.

Trade ideas are pretty good for the Mamluks as well, you get good synergy with your position and your National ideas.

Once the threat of the Ottomans has been neutralized, you're free to do what you want. Personally I conquered India because I wanted the trade nodes, but you can go west or south instead.

[themaniac26]

Originally posted by Navarre:

Early game is centered around the Ottomans, who will probably take a mission to conquer all your land unless you're very lucky. So, a military idea like Defensive or Quantity if you're badly outnumbered can come in handy. They usually ally with Crimea and Qara Qonyulu or the Timurids, try to get an ally yourself among the powers who don't rival you northeast of you.

You can blob a bit towards the southeast at first, in the Arabic Peninsula. Ally Yemen or another, vassalize the little ones and coquer the rest. That will give you more survivability against the Ottomans. South is viable too but slower.

Trade ideas are pretty good for the Mamluks as well, you get good synergy with your position and your National ideas.

Once the threat of the Ottomans has been neutralized, you're free to do what you want. Personally I conquered India because I wanted the trade nodes, but you can go west or south instead.

ok thanks

[Kriegs]

Take Nubia and some Arabia, try to get alliances with most of the rivals of Ottomans until they will attack you, don't take those Turkish sultanats because you're just get Ottomans attacked on you faster, try to vassalize Fezzan before Tunis (it's 3 tax but always tax) and westernize asap otherwise Turks will kick your ass

[Surimi]

I agree with everything here.

Defensive ideas is probably my pick. It peaks relatively early with that +15% morale bonus. Because a lot of mameluke land is desert you can also play havoc with attrition a bit later on, although you need to be carefully about throwing too much into military ideas too early as it will hurt your tech, which is going to be behind the Ottomans anyway.

Westernizing is an interesting choice. I would say wait until the Ottoman situation is resolved, as the short-term disadvantage will be quite extreme and will actually slow your tech down for a while. To compensate, you might want to aim for full impiety (it helps that there are many Sunni Muslims whom you can attack and absorb) for the tech bonus.

Obviously, national focus military power.

[Navarre]

Originally posted by Ultrix Prime:

The Ottomans have 1 major disadvantage which you can use to destroy them. They send the majority of the entirety of their forces into the Balkans and can be cut off at the Bosphorus straight or they send all their forces into Anatolia and can be cut off at the Bosphorus straight.

Therefore, the simplest and most direct approach is to build up a lot of galleys, a whole lot, build out your army, use mercs if need be, send your navy to hunt theirs down and block the Bosphorus. From there, simply destroy what Otto armies are around in Anatolia, siege them down, take some provinces and/or force them to realease some stuff and wait for the next war where you do the same.

I've read on the Paradox forums that the Ottomans focus a lot more on their navy now, since the last patch, and that the blocus strategy to cut them in two doesn't work anymore.