Genoa Tips

[Bright Lights]

Okay, so I just started a Genoa game, and I have Crimea and the knights as my vassals, I ate Milan, and have Castile (No PU over Aragon), Austria (No burgundian inheritance), Poland, and Muscovy as allies, and then the ottos attack me. At first I'm scared, but then i remember all my allies and think they don't stand a chance. I then witness the ottomans annhilate all of my allies, and even win a 16 v 34 battle when they had half morale vs full. Any tips on how to get out of this? I can support 17 troops, but they wrecked my manpower so i'm pretty much just sitting on my hands now.

[VeryMeowMeow]

Idk how ur naval power is comparing to them, but consider baiting them somewhere on the other side of Constantinopole and trap them there. Better: bait them to the new(1.9) little island near Naxos.

Give up if you can't see any way to help you win.

They often have a few superior rules in a row starting from 1444, so they can be ahead in tech and ideas.

[Bright Lights]

Unfortunately, they already squished my poor fleet and unless i build a bunch of heavies, i don't think it's gonna happen, and the fact that Castile isn't doing anything with all his heavies doesn't help.

[Surimi]

The Ottomans are ultimate badasses until the mid-16th century due to the extremely high pips of their early game units. As others have mentioned, naval power is almost certainly the way if you want to beat them. Genoa can't quite match Venice in terms of naval dominance, but you should be able to galley spam your way to victory if you seriously commit to it. Galleys are very cheap to maintain, so you should be able to support several times your forcelimit for less than the cost of maintaining a fleet of heavy ships.

[c00lizz]

The Ottomans are, next to Prussia, the strongest unit for unit nation in the game. They get a ton of free Morale, Discipline and combat ability just from being the Ottomans.

Some of their bonuses go away in the mid to late 1600's but until then, you really only want to engage them with every modifier stacked in your favour.

Also. you're in the mediterranian, if you build heavies you deserve to lose. :p
Galleys, Galleys and more Galleys.

[Surimi]

Originally posted by TsarAlexis:

The Ottoman navy early game can easily crush anything the venetians or Genoese can throw at them. Heavy ships will crush a fleet of galley and the ottomans will surely spam more of those than Genoa can afford even if they are buying the cheaper galleys.

The AI tends to attempt to abide by forcelimits even when it doesn't actually have to, and also has a habit of splitting up its fleets. If the Ottomans were genuinely gunning for naval superiority in the hands of an experienced player, they could certainly squish most other players in the mediterranean, especially since they take Maritime ideas early on. However, in the hands of the AI they are quite possible to beat even with a smaller nation if you genuinely commit to just spamming huge numbers of galleys, because the AI will not be willing to go several times over its force limits, even if it could theoretically afford to do so.

Venice in particular also has terrifyingly strong naval-focused ideas, something the Ottomans actually lack. Venetian galleys in the mid-late game remain hugely more cost effective than heavy ships and given superior numbers (which can generally be assumed when facing the AI) can even take on heavy ships in inland seas (although they will take heavy casualties). Of course, Genoa has no such luck (although it also has national ideas which boost its navies, they aren't quite in the same league) but then, I've never seen the Ottomans spam heavy ships.

[c00lizz]

TsarAlexis. That sounds like a huge waste. Dedicating 3 ideas to building hugely expensive ships spening a ton of MP's and gold for something that could be accomplish with relatively inexpensive galley spam.

Ohh, and it's 100% combat bonus, not 10. :)

[c00lizz]

The more important point however, is that you can support 12 and a half galleys for the same amount of money it takes to support a single heavy, and with Genoa's nation ideas the gap becomes even larger.