Ottoman Empire: Just how accurate are they portrayed in the game?

[VonKreuz]

The Ottomans are very much looked over during the 18th century, so that got me curious, how well has CA portrayed the Ottomans in ETW?

[Goutlard]

I would say very poorly. Indeed, the main infantry unit for the Ottomans, the Isarelys was one minor kind of regional infantry unit. It ressembles giving UK only one kind of line infantry ; Irish Mercenaries. In parallel, the army, rather than being strong enough to win victories over Safavid Persia, advancing toward Teheran, taking control of Morea and of a part of Kafkasia, as it did in the early 1700's with Baltaci Mehmet's and Dâmat Ali Pasa is instead very weak, poor and unnefficient.

The regions seem very poor, Istanbul is not the major link between the Indies and Europe, the main place to travel, a major port connecting the Mediteranean and the Black Sea but instead known for being wealthy. Quite the contrary. Anatolia is even worse, the "Capital" of Anatolia, Ankara was in the 1700s a village, yet they made it a major city, while Bursa was in fact the "second capital" of the Ottoman Empire.

The Empire is too stable, politically and not enough religiously. The Millet Policy was known for giving freedom of religion (as long as you were an abrahamic-monotheist believer) that historically was enough to get a rid of most the religious unrest. Whereas politically, the Janissaries never, ever revolt, which they did all the time, at all military reforms, murdering sultans, siezing control of Iraq and Egypt. There should be a severe political instability but nearly no religious one.

At the same times, the unit models are unnacurate to the point that the Beylik Janissaries have the historical marines model, nothing of Janissary ones. The units are based on Indian ones rather than Middle-Eastern ones, as for the artillerymen. The animations and intros show indian culture rather than Ottoman Culture, which was significantly closer to be a mix of Greek, Turkish, Armenian, Arab, Persian culture, with important European influences, the architecture of the mosques being historically based on Byzantine Churches for example.

[poa]

Poor regions still does not change the fact that no other ETW nation can reach the wealth of Ottoman through trade,
due to 1] the cheer amount of starting trade ports, and 2] Ottoman is treated as a minor faction with regards to expansion penalty,
in all likelihood a bug a modder can fix, tho i sort of like it

Agree entirely on religious unrest & janissary revolts & assassinations, Ottoman had an admirable flexibility on religion.
Ottoman had since long lost the technological advantage to the west, tho their military success in 1500 overshadowed that part

[VonKreuz]

At some point the government sought to become westernized, so, much like what Meiji did in china, the Janissaries were phased out of society, thus causing a revolution of sorts. Am I not correct?

[Batur Atilla]

very very very and very poor

[Doe3000]

At some point the government sought to become westernized, so, much like what Meiji did in china, the Janissaries were phased out of society, thus causing a revolution of sorts. Am I not correct?

I think you must be thinking about the 'Auspicious Incident' of 1826, which saw Sultan Mahmud II abandon the Janissary corps after they revolted against him.

[poa]

i've been playing Europa Universalis 4 that start 1444 lately,
and if anyone wishes to play the unstoppable Ottoman horde, this is it.
i'm giving away provinces that are at risk of border Krim so as to avoid getting
flooded by dozens of Ottoman armies, each of them larger than my army limit