Surprisingly strong Muscovy in that campaign. If practicable, I’d look for alliance opportunities with any of Poland/Lithuania/Muscovy. Ottoman expansion into the Crimea region is a strategic liability, in my opinion. They’ve exposed themselves to the manpower reserves of northeastern Europe.
Really need an alliance with one of the three from what I can see. The Ottoman manpower is now at such an extent that the Italian powers will be of limited use. Their navies may be useful, but probably only marginally. The obvious operation is a blockade of the Bosporus: do ya really trust the AI not to botch that?
Once an alliance is secured with at least one(preferably two) of the major NE European powers, I’d probably go at the Ottomans. Initially, they’re going to overrun positions in Greece. Can’t be helped. I’d preserve military capability in Africa, because once the Ottomans capture Greece, they’re going to march all the way to the Crimea en masse, provoked by the NE allies, who could be reliably counted on to invade there.
That’s the counter-attack moment. Blockade the Bosporus. Rout any stragglers in Greece with a core force while breaking off several detachments for besieging captured territories and Ottoman Greece.
Kinda a grim situation, though. They’ve got substantial manpower advantages over surrounding states. They’re probably going to get stronger in time. Might wanna look at a pivot to Italy for expansion.
Muscovy had militaristic rulers for the first 75 years or so. They kept on expanding at a blistering rate. They were never willing to invade the Ottomans due to debts that reached over 3000 ducats, funding their expansion. Poland never warmed up to our diplomats, and Lithuania loved to rival us whenever our power levels were close enough for them to do so (still not sure why, maybe because we were allied with Muscovy).
So, in January of 1522, the Ottomans declared war with the goal of conquering Constantinople. By this time we'd taken more land from Tunis, but Muscovy was in deep against Poland and Lithuania trying to expand to the west, and didn't honor the defensive call to arms. Thus it was the Ottomans against Byzantium, Morea, Marrakesh, and Milan (Crete was scutaged). Three M's and a B against the Ottomans.
That was obviously not a promising formula. Our troops were all in Africa so they wouldn't get defeated on day 1. We defeated their navy once in the Gulf of Gabes, which gave us some hope. I hadn't expected my navy to be ready until around 1535-1540, but with that victory, we had some confidence to send our troops out across the sea.
Morea's fort provided an option, and we landed some troops behind that to engage the Ottomans, but not before they'd taken the province northwest of Sparta, preventing out navy from blockading reinforcements (although the fort still prevented them from wiping us out at Sparta). That provided an honorable, if losing, battle, but not a path to victory.
Next, we took our Marines, and used their quick-disembark ability to land them on the Anatolian side of the straits of Bosporus, Constantinople having fallen. This allowed us to occupy two provinces quickly, and block the straits with our navy, while the vast majority of the Ottoman army was in Europe. Thus a plan was devised to occupy as much of Anatolia as possible, while counting on the Poles to not allow reinforcements. A plan that might work, as long as Morea didn't request military access from Poland as they had from the Mamluks (thankfully the Ottomans never sent troops that way, but it's really annoying when your vassal ruins your plans by giving your enemy access to your lands!).
But we knew we needed more than 5000 Marines to occupy Anatolia, both because the forts required 6000 men, and because there were still 5000-10000 Ottoman troops unaccounted for, and between that and new recruits, our Marines risked being overwhelmed. So the Navy sent half its ships back to fetch reinforcements, the other continuing to blockade. Unfortunately, two separate Ottoman detachments engaged both halves of our navies, and managed to defeat both of them, despite our earlier victory (I don't think the Ottomans had engaged 100% of their navy in the first battle). That was the end of any hope to be able to defeat them.
Thus, after just over a year, Constantinople and mainland Greece (save Athens, which was independent) became Ottoman. We were able to keep Naxos and Rhodes, as well as scutaged Crete. Athens would be quickly conquered the next year, independent Trebizond soon after that, and in the early-mid 1530s, we would sell Naxos to the Turks for a decent price, avoiding another war. Why didn't they take it in the first place? Presumably because our Marines were ruining their prosperity in Anatolia. That got us +1 warscore, which was just enough to keep it and sell it later for 220 ducats or so. The Marines earned their paychecks.
Unfortunately, Constantinople was responsible for a major chunk of our income (and nearly all our trade income), so its loss would reduce the ability to produce more paychecks. 95% of our income was based on taxes, production, and vassals afterwards, only 5% from trade. The Army would have to be downsized, although the Marines were not among those downsized.
So the reign of Thomas I ended. He lived to be 80 years old, seeing the fall of the capital that so many had thought would happen 70 years earlier. But, despite being hopeless in the day-to-day administration, he had established a new base for the Empire in Africa. One of his last acts was setting up the new capital at Carthage, the "third Rome" as he proclaimed it.
----
Now it's 1550, and we have re-allied Muscovy (still perpetually in debt) and are allied with Castile, whom we helped gain independence from Aragon almost immediately after we lost Constantinople. The Ottomans and Mamluks finally fought a war, which the Mamluks won in a split decision, taking two provinces despite the Ottoman army being larger. All of North Africa is ours except for the area just across from Iberia (Castilian), and Tafilalt, which also took part of Marrakesh and then allied the Ottomans. Another trader at Sus means we now get about 8% of our income from trade - still a fraction of what we once earned, but an improvement.
We've been starting to expand to the Mediterranean islands. Caralis, in southern Sardinia, was first, in a surprisingly tough war due to most of Castile's troops adventuring in the New World. But in the second post-independence Aragonese war, we'd take the rest of Sardinia, the Balaeres, and Malta. Combined with continued Maritime and Naval ideas (possibly the first time I've chosen Naval, and among the few for Maritime, but it actually made sense for both given the situation), our Navy is well on its way to being the best in the Mediterranean, or at least competitive with everyone else. A +40% galley combat bonus certainly does not hurt.
Italy is on our radar, and the Pope has rivalled us, but the timeline is in question. We're looking for opportunities; Austria is allied with Savoy and the Papal State (who has a considerable army of their own that we cannot defeat by ourselves), Naples was allied with Castile until the latter dishonored an alliance when the Pope invaded Reformed Naples (so we're considering invading Naples), and Tuscany has perhaps the weakest alliance system with Aragon and Lucca, but can afford nearly infinite mercenaries. It's going to have to be a "find a moment when Austria or whoever else is busy" opportunity, maybe the Ottomans can help us with that, or maybe Austria's current two wars will divide its attention sufficiently.
We're also considering attacking Tafilalt and their Ottoman allies. Not because we think we can retake Greece, but because we suspect our Navy can render the Ottomans moot, and we can take Tafilalt. A risky strategy, but one that would allow us to keep our claims on our old homeland current.
