Part 27: The Ottomans Part 4: 1510-1569

The Ottomans Part 4: 1510-1569



The Reformed faith makes its appearance in Salzburg. The more religiously fractured Europe becomes, the better for us.



Our clerics work to convert newly acquired provinces in the east from Shiite to Sunni. Everything we can do to keep stability costs down will help when we move to westernize.



When our next new idea becomes available, it is used on Church Attendance Duty. Again, this is to help with stability during westernization.



The two province minor power of Iraq is convinced to submit to vassalization through diplomacy.



Infamy directly impacts your stability cost in each province as well, so it would be beneficial to be low or at zero when westernizing.



Croatia declared independence from Bohemia recently. When we bordered Bohemia, we fulfilled the requirements to begin westernizing since they were far superior to us in technology. Croatia is severely behind the times, even behind us. They must have started at all 3s after claiming their independence. We need to acquire borders with a technologically advanced nation again in order to westernize, and the most simple way to do this is for us to conquer Croatia.



With Croatia in our hands, we now share a border with Austria.



We've prepared as well as we can for westernizing. The only thing left to do is click the button. Doing so will move us to a higher technology group, kill our stability, give us a permanent +1 tax in a random province, and increase our stability costs dramatically either until the end of the game OR until we modernize our military - more on that later. As the Ottoman or Oriental (Eastern Europe) tech groups, you move directly to the Western Tech group. The lowest tech groups will need to first westernize to the Muslim tech group, then again to the Oriental tech group, then finally to the Western tech group.



EU3: Fight the Backwardness



With the westernization process begun, our Technology group is now Western. This means that we suffer no penalty on our monthly investments into research.



We also get neighbor bonuses to tech investments if other western nations are ahead of us in technology. Basically every western nation is far ahead of us, so we are getting a huge bonus monthly investment in all of our technologies.



A talented artist is hired to aid with restoring stability.



Even with all of our investment going into stability for now, we are gaining new ranks of technology at a rapid rate from the neighbor bonuses.



Austria declares war on us, presumably to seize Croatia. We've caught up slightly in tech after westernizing, but not enough to match Austria's more modern unit types yet.



As the Holy Roman Emperor, Austria has built up a huge army that we can't match in numbers unless we bring in several of our rebel hunting armies from the east. We try to wear them down with attrition.



More Austrian armies keep coming through and we leave a trail of ashes for them to follow.



The Austrians ignore all of obstacles we've put in front of them by just assaulting the provinces and pushing on, meeting us in battle at Zeta where we barely squeeze out a victory with vastly superior numbers.



Attempting to face them with equivalent numbers simply doesn't work, however.



The Polish army isn't quite as powerful as the Austrians and we're able to make demands on them to end hostilities. We demand the provinces of Bessarabia and Budjak, which we'll be able to release as the state of Moldavia once the war is over.



Due to Morocco and Granada's attacks on Austria's overseas minor allies, we are able to get out of this terrible war with a white peace.



Moldavia is released as a vassal state to insulate our northern borders.



During westernization, several events can appear where you can either choose a really terrible option, or resist western influences. Giving in to more conservative ideals will prevent any further bad events like this from popping up for 10 years, but while you have the Resisting Influences tag, you'll be unable to go through military modernization.



We can't go through modernization anyway, since our ruler doesn't meed the prerequisite administrative skill. With that in mind, it's fine for us to resist influences.



We reach land tech level 18, gaining a bonus to military tactics and a new troop type.



Between our new infantry and the bonus to military tactics, we should be able to stand our ground against the west with more success.



Our tech levels are well on their way to catching up with the Europeans by 1540.



The Mamluks finally fall and we add the rich city of Cairo to our Empire.



The Ottomans can get missions to conquest Serbia and Bosnia and receive free cores on them in the process, but the missions won't trigger if you they are your vassal or if you are allied with them. I'm prepping Serbia for that mission by cancelling our treaties with them.



We're still not in a great position to take Kaffa, so I cancel that mission to try and get the Serbian conquest mission to trigger.



Instead, we receive a mission to take the city of Medina.



We seize the city and receive a core.




The mission to conquest Serbia comes up next, and we immediately take advantage of it.



Mecca is the target of our next mission. Unfortuntely, we're still under a truce with Hedjaz after taking Medina from them. We'll need to wait a short time before taking Mecca.



With the conquest of Georgia, we gain valuable gold and wine provinces.



Morocco begins suffering from a bizzare amount of internal strife. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but there must be at least a dozen rebels of various types spread across their domain.



War is declared on Hedjaz to seize Mecca. Morocco somehow sides with Hedjaz against us, somehow. Not only is this surprising because of the number of military agreements they had to break to do this, but also because nearly their entire country is occupied by rebels.


Hedjaz falls to our invasion and the entire country is Annexed along with Mecca.



The Mamluks make a resurgence in Morocco, taking advantage of their unstable situation.



Morocco is actually ruled by another member of the same dynasty as our ruler. An event occurs that gives us the opportunity to start patching our relations with Morocco. Morocco had been great allies to us in the past, so I chalk up their declaration of war to temporary insanity and patch our relationship.




Restoring our friendship means nothing if we're still technically at war. We make peace with Morocco and then begin forging new official treaties with them to strengthen the bond.



Austria declares war again with strong allies and half a dozen vassal states at their back.



Much the same as last time, Austrian troops come across our borders in numbers greater than the hordes did when they were still in their prime.



Their navy is just far too small to be any threat, though. They remain in port while we sink their allies, then we blockade their ports for the entirety of the war.



Our superior cavalry shows off during shock phases, inflicting serious damage to the invading Austrians. We have several talented generals on the field due to the large infusion of army tradition following the conquest of The Mamluks. Our tech levels are on par with the Austrians now, too. They no longer have the advantage of being an epoch ahead of us in land combat.




Serbia is a frequent battleground in the early stages of the war, but the enemy makes no progress against us here.



A large number of the fleeing Austrians are chased down and routed in Ragusa.



One of our armies makes a similar mistake in Bosnia, getting pinned down and destroyed before they can retreat.



A large force sent to Bosnia in retaliation is withdrawn early when the number of Austrian soldiers on the field passes 70,000.



Austria is suffering from weariness and weakened manpower, but we seem to be doing well.



Another Austrian army is surrounded and destroyed in Zeta.



A reformed main army makes its way up into Austria and begins to assault Austrian fortifications. Austria lost nearly all of its fighting capacity.



We make peace with Britain, Poland, and others in order to isolate Austria and increase the warscore impact of our advances on them.



After a complete turn-around from what appeared to be another nightmare invasion, sizable stretches of Austria come under our control.



A peace arrangement is signed with Austria, and they are forced to cede several border provinces.


Maps in 1569



Bayezid II still sits on our throne. He became old enough to take the throne in 1510, so he is over 74 years old now and has directly ruled over The Ottomans for over 59 years. He's a great ruler, but his administrative skill is just barely too low to modernize our military. His heir, however, will be able to take us through the modernization process.