About the Ottomans empire

[citizenofdoom]

There should be Janissaries uprising and the peak would be 1826 under Mahmud II.

 

[Leoreth]

Yes. It will happen in every game at exactly that date. Even if the Ottomans have never spawned, stayed small or have already collapsed.

 

[cmakk1012]

1826 under Mahmud I

Really? Well after the stagnation of the 18th century and during the midst of the Greek War of Independence?

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

Yes. It will happen in every game at exactly that date. Even if the Ottomans have never spawned, stayed small or have already collapsed.

Would you mind explaining how will it be? Will your janissaries disband? Will they spawn as a rebel army? Will it be an event?

 

[Lokki242]

Would you mind explaining how will it be? Will your janissaries disband? Will they spawn as a rebel army? Will it be an event?

He was, uh, being sarcastic, I assume. Can't blame him tbh, the fact that this mod will not take away its spontaneity by becoming chained to history has been explained too many times to count over the years IMO.

 

[Leoreth]

Would you mind explaining how will it be? Will your janissaries disband? Will they spawn as a rebel army? Will it be an event?

I thought about using the popular desertion mechanic.

 

[Logoncal]

You dont need to be on a exact date, Look at Europa Universalis. Every event is based on a RANDOM date in a set period.

Also, there the Janissary coup will only happen if you overrely on it. So this could happen in the mod when you overuse the Ottoman's UP (And by that i mean have like half of your army composed of draft)

 

[Leoreth]

No, but that wouldn't be historically accurate. It can only happen if the year is 1821 and the ruler is called Mahmud II.

 

[JHLee]

What's the point of a UP or a UU if you get punished for exploiting it?

 

[JHLee]

Irrelevant topic, but what is the spawn condition for the Ottomans?
How can you prevent their birth?

 

[merijn_v1]

Irrelevant topic, but what is the spawn condition for the Ottomans?
How can you prevent their birth?

The answer:

Only if no city in the Middle East has ever been held by the Turks will the Ottoman spawn be canceled.

 

[Publicola]

How are we defining the Middle East, again? Does it (for instance) include Persia? I'm wondering if there is any way for the Byzantines to ensure the Turkic civ is stopped short, or if it's inevitable.

 

[Leoreth]

It does include Persia. So just defending the traditional borders of the Byzantine Empire will not save it from the Ottomans.

 

[Orbii]

It does include Persia. So just defending the traditional borders of the Byzantine Empire will not save it from the Ottomans.

This isn't what's implemented in game. You only need to defend the Zagros and west of that. The Iranian Plateau (east of Zagros) can be conquered by the Seljuqs and the Ottomans will still not spawn.

 

[Leoreth]

Really? I am misremembering then.

 

[Autumn Leaf]

Really? I am misremembering then.

You may have planned it one way but implemented it another when the obvious issues presented themselves. The Seljuk spawn arbitrarily flips e.g. Aspadana or founds Esfahan, which is east of Zagros. If this region was included in the reckoning then there would be no avoiding an Ottoman spawn, unless the human player owns Aspadana and can deny the flip. (Not sure this flip is even deniable. I need to replay Byzantium in DoC to refresh my memory - it's been a while.)

From memory the trick is to first ensure that at the Seljuk spawn there are no independent cities that are both in their flipzone ((78,37),(85,46)) and west of Esfahan (location centred on 81,41), and then ensure that they subsequently capture no cities west of Esfahan and the Caspian, or south of Russia. Typically the only city within the western part of the flipzone is Shush, but defending everything from there to the Mediterranean is already a pretty hard ask for Byzantium; demanding that it also protect Persia beyond Shush and Babylon/Bahdad (i.e. Susa/Ctesiphon, the areas that Heraclius briefly controlled at the end of his Sasanian campaign and just prior to the Arab eruption) seems beyond reason and also rather ahistorical.

Spoiler Seljuk Flipzone :

Then again, this is the mod that demands that Rome control 2 cities in Egypt's puny core ((67,32),(69,36)) to fulfil its UHV2. That core includes Alexandria and Abu Simbel, but excludes Djanet, one square west of Suez, and Yebu and Kumma in the far south - locations where the AI is very likely to build cities. Djanet has a 700 Settler rating (equal to the capital), the southern squares are 500 each. It's annoying to have to raze Djanet and build an even crappier city one square west (at least Djanet is a canal city) just to satisfy a needlessly narrow UHV condition that should already have been covered by existing cities already captured from Egypt.

 

[Leoreth]

Oh, we're talking about 1.15 Seljuks, my mistake.

 

[JHLee]

So in the 600ad scenario, babylon is the easternmost city you have to defend in order to prevent the ottomans?

 

[Autumn Leaf]

So in the 600ad scenario, babylon is the easternmost city you have to defend in order to prevent the ottomans?

Your focus is incorrect. Specifically I believe any city west of Esfahan/Zagros needs to be razed or defended. The Zagros are those mountains bounding Mesopotamia on the east. In the 600 AD scenario, playing as Byzantium, there is no Babylon as such, and no Shush. Instead the city of Tisfun is on the stone one tile east of Babylon's site. The Seljuk flipzone includes Tisfun's wheat but not Tisfun itself. Although Tisfun is a key city to defend in 600 AD, you actually need to keep an eye on the whole area including, for example, Trebizond.

In the 3000 BC scenario you have time to build military units and blood them against the northern barbarians before Arabia emerges. Defeating Arabia then leaves you with a powerful veteran army that, properly disposed, should be cabable of withstanding the Seljuks. The 600 AD scenario is a tougher ask, as you have no time to build up before Arabia appears; so the Arabian war is tougher and longer and you don't have so many vets at the end of it. You may need to strip your western cities to the bone and put those units in your threatened cities in the east. Just before the Arabian spawn you need to withdraw your precious units from your cities that will flip (Damascus, Jerusalem, Memphis, Alexandria), preserving those units for use in your counterattack. Either way, quickly defeating Arabia with minimal loss is key as you need to own all the eastern cities and build up their defenses. Seljuk stacks will practically walk into most AI-controlled cities, so you don't want Arabian-controlled cities in the ME.

War Elephants (in the 600 AD scenario you may need to found Aegyptus in unstable territory in southern Egypt, preferably south of the Arabian flipzone in case the Arabs colapse and respawn; otherwise the closest Elephant are in India) and Cataphracts are your best friends against the Seljuks, to destroy their stacks outside your cities before they can attack. The Seljuk heavy cavalry get -25% against cities but +50% against Heavy Spearmen; your best defensive unit is the Pikeman (for which you'll need to research Companies) but otherwise you'll want lots of Crossbows, and you'll use your Heavy Spearmen to attack their stacks (+100% against heavy cavalry).

 

[Autumn Leaf]

Moved here from the Bugs thread - I felt it's more relevant here.

Spoiler 1051 AD: Arabia takes down Seljuk Esfahan :

Well, that was unexpected. I guess that explains why the Seljuks get extra units versus Arabia when the game is creating their stacks. On the other hand, last move Esfahan was full of units - the Seljuks must have made the classic AI blunder of moving them all out of the city just when an attack is imminent.

Spoiler 1069 AD: Russia captures Seljuk Shiraz :

Also, second Seljuk wave arrived one move earlier than expected - 6 heavy cavalry and 3 siege weapons outside each of Iconium, Trebizond, Ctesiphon, and Damascus Jerusalem. This is where the fun begins! I have massive garrisons in each city, however.

Aaaand ... all four stacks are dead. My stability is good (+33) so normally this would be my cue to take my overinflated army and go forth to conquer Persia and Bactria before the Mongols spawn, but I guess I'll wait. I need to hurry through the next 200 years to see if the Ottomans spawn in 1280.

1195: Mongol stacks outside Ctesiphon, Cairo and Axum.

1198: Aztecs destroyed. Reloaded from 1195 and killed the dog soldier that was lurking right beside them at spawn. This is such a common event due to AI stupidity!

I note that there is already code in RideAndFall that protects some civs at spawn:

#kill the remaining barbs in the region: it's necessary to do this more than once to protect those civs
for iPlayer in [iVikings, iSpain, iFrance, iHolyRome, iRussia]:
    if iGameTurn >= getTurnForYear(tBirth[iPlayer])+2 and iGameTurn <= getTurnForYear(tBirth[iVikings])+utils.getTurns(10):
        utils.killUnitsInArea(iBarbarian, Areas.getBirthArea(iPlayer))

Might adding Aztecs to this list (or giving them similar protection) get them over the hump? I note that "getTurnForYear(tBirth[iVikings])" should be "getTurnForYear(tBirth[iPlayer])" as Spain, France, HolyRome and Russia all spawn more than 10 turns later than Vikings.


Edited to add: "RideAndFall" above should be "RiseAndFall". I'll leave the typo in situ.

1204: Mongol stacks cleaned up. I make peace with Mongols. As part of the peace deal they give me Vjatka, which is so deep in Russia that I immediately gift it back to the Russians. My 2/3 Golden Age begins.

1231: Arabia loses Esfahan to Russia and collapses. I think I'm OK - they were well past their 900 AD use-by date and shouldn't respawn till 1900, unless I go unstable myself.

1249: Conquerors on Aztec and Inca. They both declare war and refuse to talk so I guess I'll have to capitulate them. Except Aztecs only have one city. Oops.

1279: Turkey spawns and all of the above history from about 1000 AD on is consigned to the dustbin! The Zagros theory is busted. It is in fact necessary to control at least some of Iran beyond Esfahan, at least in the 600 AD scenario.

Just for the lolz I used my concentrated armies to annihilate the Turkish stack. Success! Except that after I ended my turn the game froze while processing the AI moves.

Edited to add: I'm pausing the 600 AD game here to resume my 3000 BC game. I will eventually play the 600 AD game on from 1000 AD, but instead of stopping at Mesopotamia I will follow my usual pattern of conquering Persia and Bactria up to Samarkand, and I will make sure the Seljuks get no cities. That will be a major challenge as the army that squelched the Seljuk second-wave stacks here was about as big as I could make it in the time available, and was in fact designed to do exactly what it did, but it is inadequate and not balanced to defend so much extra territory against two waves of stacks. I'll need more Pikemen, so that the cities can hold till a flying squad of Cataphracts can relieve them. Fortunately the AI loves to bombard, which gives me time.