NedimNapoleon
Weird Little Human
They were a world power at that time, had a large and technologically sophisticated navy, but why didn't they do it
Why didn't The Ottoman Empire colonize the Americas
- Thread starter NedimNapoleon
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The Ottomans had quite a lot of other things on their minds than go on dangerous, brutally expensive, and quite possibly futile trips to far-away lands just to acquire some land and possibly resources they could gain with much more productive methods.
EDIT: Ottoman ships weren't exactly designed for Trans-Atlantic voyages, either.
EDIT: Ottoman ships weren't exactly designed for Trans-Atlantic voyages, either.
Japanrocks12
tired of being a man
the Ottoman empire had already colonized the mind
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
I would say three reasons against it were need, resources, and geography. It's quite noteworthy that the powers that were not on the Atlantic coast struggled with their American colonies. Even if they wanted to (I could be completely wrong here), their ships weren't really designed for an Atlantic voyage. Finally, they were wealthy as it was and already had trade contacts with the more lucrative Asian trade market. American markets had to be essentially created before one could benefit from them. Trade with Asia was more profitable from the start.
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
in AoE III they went to the new world
The Ottoman Empire was never really a trading power. The land route to the east was blocked by Persia, the sea route was blocked by Portugal.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
The whole reason for the exploration by Euro kingdoms was due to the Ottomans cutting off Asian trade.
Lord of Elves
Suede-Denim Secret Police
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Clearly Age of Empires III is a reliable source of historical information and analysis, in much the same way that the Red Alert games are an exhaustively researched summary (in RTS form) of the Cold War.
Dreadnought
Deity
Plus, you know, they are far from the Atlantic Ocean.
Kind of. Of course, they didn't really "cut it off", and the Ottomans did do a fairly ridiculous amount of actual trade, but that's what the Euros thought was happening, and that's one of the reasons they wanted to do the exploration. Eventually they figured it out. Portugal - and later, the Netherlands, although the Dutch transcended this with the VOC - was less of a "trading" power in the Indian Ocean and more of a "provide 'protection' to Indian Ocean merchants and charge hefty markups" power.
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
It's more epic in TW:E where the Maratha Confederacy conquers the new world and colonizes Europe.
rotflol wut??????
ZeletDude
The Lion
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Clearly Age of Empires III is a reliable source of historical information and analysis, in much the same way that the Red Alert games are an exhaustively researched summary (in RTS form) of the Cold War.
This.
The Marathas were hilariously unbalanced in Empire: Total War due to a lack of natural predators (European imperialism in India was fundamentally broken due to the AI's inability to launch naval invasions) and so if the player did not actively intervene in India herself, the Marathas would annihilate the Mughals and Iran and end up swarming into the Middle East.
aelf
Ashen One
Because then they wouldn't be able to chant "Death to America".
NedimNapoleon
Weird Little Human
At one point they did have Algeria
Algeria was not so much an Ottoman possession as a loose collection of autonomous provinces that pledged nominal allegiance to the Sultan for prestige/legitimacy purposes and organized loosely on the Ottoman model, but otherwise didn't contribute much to the Imperial cause after the Suleiman years, preferring to operate autonomously for their own gains, and in any case the Ottomans did not have the means to enforce its authority in the country.
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