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Having opened up the release version, I started with the Ottomans. I noticed that it appears none of their leaders have any special attributes, for good or ill. This seems strange and makes me think the Ottoman generals never got finished or had a pass on more than assigning them basic stats. If so, is there a timeline for addressing this? Or is it WAD? Thanks.

One other small issue, it seems strange French general Ornano, who starts in Firenze, is rated a Franco-German commander. Shouldn't that be Franco-Italian?

D'Ornano mostly served in Germany, hence the trait.
As for the Turks, there is a complete lack of information on the leaders. So it's both WAD and "could be improved". Feel free to make suggestions

PhilThib wrote:D'Ornano mostly served in Germany, hence the trait.
As for the Turks, there is a complete lack of information on the leaders. So it's both WAD and "could be improved". Feel free to make suggestions

The Turks are supposed to be one of the playable factions and I can't imagine they will be very attractive choices if their leaders are "blank slates." They did fight wars and battles during this time so there must be records of the background, training and performance of their leaders somewhere? Perhaps your Matrix colleagues who designed Empires in Arms, which has an Ottoman faction with generals that have ratings, might have info? And of course Paradox has Europa Universalis IV, which also has rated Turkish leaders for the Napoleonic wars. Perhaps these developers took the ratings they applied out of a hat. But maybe they could at least point to some sources? As well, End all Wars has rated Ottoman leaders - although this was for 1914-1918, I have to think the same sources might be able to point back to research applicable to 1805-1815?

elxaime wrote:The Turks are supposed to be one of the playable factions and I can't imagine they will be very attractive choices if their leaders are "blank slates." They did fight wars and battles during this time so there must be records of the background, training and performance of their leaders somewhere? Perhaps your Matrix colleagues who designed Empires in Arms, which has an Ottoman faction with generals that have ratings, might have info? And of course Paradox has Europa Universalis IV, which also has rated Turkish leaders for the Napoleonic wars. Perhaps these developers took the ratings they applied out of a hat. But maybe they could at least point to some sources? As well, End all Wars has rated Ottoman leaders - although this was for 1914-1918, I have to think the same sources might be able to point back to research applicable to 1805-1815?

I think it's a typical, and understandable, case of "lots of efforts needed to fix something that wasn't on top of the priority list", but I am convinced the devs would be more than happy if players helped fill in the blanks with their ideas or good reliable sources.

To be clear, most Turk officers have varied values (Strategic, Attack, Defense), and those are very similar to Paradox ones (for the simple reason I designed both games ). Now, what is a bit "lacking" are the special traits (called abilities here), for most of them, as this was a data that requires a knowledge and a research (and some personal opinion) that I don't have...

Hence my request for "suggestions" here

elxaime wrote:The Turks are supposed to be one of the playable factions and I can't imagine they will be very attractive choices if their leaders are "blank slates." They did fight wars and battles during this time so there must be records of the background, training and performance of their leaders somewhere? Perhaps your Matrix colleagues who designed Empires in Arms, which has an Ottoman faction with generals that have ratings, might have info? And of course Paradox has Europa Universalis IV, which also has rated Turkish leaders for the Napoleonic wars. Perhaps these developers took the ratings they applied out of a hat. But maybe they could at least point to some sources? As well, End all Wars has rated Ottoman leaders - although this was for 1914-1918, I have to think the same sources might be able to point back to research applicable to 1805-1815?

As an enthusiastic amateur dabbler in military history, who's spent countless hundreds of hours researching leaders from the Napoleonic era through WWII era, I think you'd be shocked at how little info there is on the Ottoman leaders from this era.

There's more on WWI era Turks, much of which was applied in PON iirc, but even then there's far less info for them then for any of the other major countries involved in the war.

It's actually quite a frustration for anyone interested in Turkish military history, the sparsity of information available on the internet.

As of a couple years ago, even basic army lists with names and dates of rank for generals and admirals were available for every single major country in this time period, and most minor countries, with the exception of the Turks/Ottomans. I imagine more is available from Turkish libraries and universities, but that's not readily accessible unless you're in Turkey.

I have no idea where Empire in Arms got their data, but as for EU4, speaking from experience with Paradox games (not EU4 specifically so much), they mostly make stuff up and do very cursory research on leaders. The HOI series particularly is notoriously awful in the large amount of dead guys, low ranking junior officers etc that are included.

So they may've had correct names, though I even doubt that, but I'd almost guarantee any traits were simply fictional.

With the idea of capturing the flavor of the Ottoman way of war at this time, rather that attempting accuracy leader by leader, here are some suggestions to fill in the current blanks with the Ottomans:

Frontier warriors
The Ottomans, due to the heavy presence of feudal and irregular forces in their armies, were adept at raiding and small warfare. Some commanders should be given the Surpriser, Partisan, Irregular and Ambusher abilities. The guide should be to provide counters to the capabilities of their Austrian and Russian neighbors light forces (Croats and Cossacks) while ensuring invaders of Ottoman territories should be concerned about harassment of their lines of communication

Irregular Horsemen
While the Ottomans amassed huge numbers of cavalry, these were generally not disciplined or trained to operate effectively on the battlefield. So while they should not get the Cavalryman combat bonus attribute, it seems sensible to account for their masses of light cavalry by giving a few commanders the Screener and Patroller, Adept Raider, Very Fast Raider and Very Fast Cavalryman abilities

Defenders of Fixed Points
The Ottomans did very poorly in open field battle. However they were more formidable defending entrenchments and especially defending sieges. Hence, some leaders should get the Defensive Engineer and Entrencher abilities. To reflect the Ottoman inclination to defend when they could, this can be accompanied by a Dispirited ability (they would avoid field battle and defend forts instead)

Poor Administration
The bane of Ottoman military field operations was their poor administration. To reflect this, Dispersed Movement, Over-Cautious and Slow Mover abilities can be added to some leaders

Ruthless
The Ottomans often relied on their reputation for ruthlessness, especially when confronting rebels. The Pillager, Hated Occupier and Occupier abilities should be assigned to some leaders

Proud and Fearless
While the Ottomans may have lacked in organization and tactics, accounts suggest the individual warriors were brave. Ottomans commanders also held attitudes of pride and a religious conviction of superiority, sometimes giving battle against better judgment for political reasons or to save face. This had both an upside and downside. The Charismatic ability can be given to some leaders, but it can be accompanied by Quickly Angered, Reckless and Hothead

Taken together, a picture of Ottoman military approaches take shape that is distinct from their Western opponents. The Ottomans excel in small war and skirmishes and have large numbers of irregular troops. However the Ottomans do poorly in large set piece field battles. The Ottoman field armies instead favor fighting from entrenchments and are especially good at defending sieges.

As far as assigning the attributes, the lower ranks which would carry out the small wars and siege defenses would have those attributes. The main Ottoman field commanders should have attributes that tend to lead to disaster unless they are defending entrenchments. You might tinker with the ratings to give the Ottomans, on average, higher defense than attack ratings, but keeping them lower overall (e.g. attack ratings of 1-2 and defense ratings of 2-3)

I didn't mention the Ottoman Navy, but since they were apparently terrible at this time they can probably be left as is.

Thoughts?

With little actual history, adding special abilities should be done with extreme care. Assuming this game has been play tested enough, the Ottomans should be fairly balanced within the game (and a 10 year war) and roughly historical. Adding ability to units or leaders "just because there aren't any" might unbalance the game.

Elxaime's idea is not too bad. Adding a limited amount that reflects at least a certain national flavor.

vicberg wrote:With little actual history, adding special abilities should be done with extreme care. Assuming this game has been play tested enough, the Ottomans should be fairly balanced within the game (and a 10 year war) and roughly historical. Adding ability to units or leaders "just because there aren't any" might unbalance the game.

I agree on balancing. Not sure what the current balance is, so the ideas are not aimed at making the Ottomans weaker or stronger necessarily. But they should feel "different" to play.

Perhaps someone who has played Ottomans (or against them) in Empires in Arms can shed some light? I believe that game modeled the distinctive Ottoman characteristics.

elxaime wrote:Thoughts?

I like your suggestions, they sound logical and they'd certainly add some real flavor to the OE.

lukasberger wrote:I like your suggestions, they sound logical and they'd certainly add some real flavor to the OE.

Thanks. I forgot to mention this, but another game out there with playable Napoleonic Ottomans is Crown of Glory - Emperor's Edition. Not sure what they did with the Ottomans there.

elxaime wrote:Thanks. I forgot to mention this, but another game out there with playable Ottomans is Crown of Glory - Emperor's Edition. Not sure what they did with the Ottomans there.

I have that game, but it's been years since I've played it. I might take a look, but for any game I really think whatever they did with the Ottoman leaders had to be pretty random and piecemeal.

Believe me, I've spent more hours than I'd like to admit searching the internet, even looking through Turkish language archives to the best of my very limited ability and talking to Turkish/English speakers with an interest in military history to get good info on Ottoman leaders from 1800-1950 and it's been almost an impossible task, particularly for the pre-1900 guys.

That was a few years ago though, so it's possible there are better sources available now, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's still not the case.

Maybe it is worth seeing what these Turkish guys know. I found this posting on this 2014 link about a wargame fan who was moving to Turkey and wanted to know if there was a wargaming scene there. The links indicate they are into Napoleonics among other topics.

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=348089

***

Hello there. A friend of mine from our local gaming club notified me about this thread. We do have a wargaming club in İstanbul. It is called Karargah (HQ in Turkish). I can gladly answer any questions you might have. Our club is quite extensive as we have a good number of members that play many tabletop games. Flames of war, star wars, warhammer fantasy/40k, napelonic you name it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/karargahkulubu/

Most of our members know English and we have a couple of foreign members too so language barrier is more or less nonexistent.

grunteufel Inactive Member 03 Jun 2014 3:07 a.m. PST

https://www.facebook.com/TUSOT

Turkish war gaming community. You can see a couple of videos of our tourneys there.

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There is in game Muhammad Ali of Egypt, has seperate AI as he was the only derebey couldn't be defeated by central authorities. But Rumeli derebeys were also strong and have local autonomy (Which can be reflected with seperate AI but it would be too much for already big scale of the game). In order to surpress Serbian uprising but the main reason to establish Nizâm-ı Cedîd army among Rumeli derebeys III. Selim sent Abdurrahman Pasha but called back his army from Edirne not to risk civil war against those and jannisaries in Balkans while Russian troops in border. Ottoman authorities try to avoid direct military confrontation with them and sided with feodal lords not the peasants mostly.

I agree with Elxaime there could be hated occupier and pillager for some units and leaders while they stop patriots they were brutal at times caused other revolts.

Ottoman military reform were also problematic later for Sekbân-ı Cedîd as they saw the wrath of jannisaries.

Excellent exchanges...we may come up sooner or later with some suggestions then. The Ottoman leaders in the game right now are inside the enclosed Excel file...feel free to add suggestions. Most of them, except the later Sultans start on map already in 1805

PhilThib wrote:Excellent exchanges...we may come up sooner or later with some suggestions then. The Ottoman leaders in the game right now are inside the enclosed Excel file...feel free to add suggestions. Most of them, except the later Sultans start on map already in 1805

Here are further suggestions for the January 1805 starting Ottoman leaders. Note, these represent attempts not to model the actual personalities, but to try and model the general characteristics of the troops, areas and administrative practices. I have divided this region by region and add my rationale.

ASIA - leaders and troops start in Adalia, Ankara, Smyrna, Sinope and Trapzon. All are one-star, except for the two-star in Ankara. They command small mixed forces of cavalry and militia, except for a foot gun each in Smyrna and Ankara. Ankara also has a supply wagon. The Asian central area of the Ottoman Empire was its longest-settled and most loyal. The lone two-star has the Patriot ability to enable him to stimulate partisan creation where needed.

Adalia
Aganli Pasha (3-1-1) - engineer, entrencher

Ankara
Ali Pasha (3-2-1 two star) - patriot, charismatic

Smyrna
Suleiman (3-1-1) - fort defender

Sinope
Ahmed Pasha (3-1-2) entrencher

Trapzon
Mustafa Pasha (3-2-1) entrencher

EUROPE - leaders start in seven cities, Sarajevo, Sofia, Belgrade, Athens, Varna, Salonika and Tirana. These varied widely, since some (Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece) were hotbeds of Christian unrest, whilst others (Bosnia and Albania) had strong Muslim loyalists as well. So this is a mix, with again an emphasis on leading militias, entrenching and defending forts, while also have leaders able to raid and skirmish. They are all one stars, except in Sarajevo and Varna and command small mixed cavalry and militia. This was an area historically of constant conflict, so the leaders would be skilled in frontier warfare, fort defense and entrenchment.

Belgrade
Mehmet Aga Fotcic (3-1-1) fort defender, hated occupier, pillager

Sarajevo
Hadzi Mustafa (two star 3-2-1) - militiaman, entrencher, pillager

Sofia
Mehmed-Beg Kulenovic (3-1-1) occupier, militiaman, entrencher, fort defender

Athens
Mula Yusuf (3-1-1) hated occupier, pillager, fort defender

Varna
Mehmet Pasha (two star 3-3-2) irregular fighting skill, fort defender, entrencher
Osman Pazvantoglu (3-1-1) very fast cavalryman, surpriser, skirmisher, patroller

Salonika
Kuchuk Ali Pasha (3-1-1) ambusher, irregular fighting skill, entrencher

Tirana
Murad Pasha (3-2-3) strong morale, ambusher, partisan, skirmisher, fast mover

NEAR EAST - the sole city of Kars with a three star and lots of tough terrain. It seems a need in this are would be to negotiate the terrain faster in order to maintain control. Although the area sees fighting, it is usually against Caucasus tribes and Persia

Kars
Hursid Pasha (three star 3-2-2) very fast mover
Turgut Bey (3-2-2) very fast cavalryman

MIDDLE EAST - some of the best cavalry come from here. Three forces start in Aleppo, Damascus and Baghdad, with the last two having two-star leaders. Besides the Akinji cavalry, the rest are militia, although Baghdad and Damascus both have artillery

Aleppo
Ibrahim Pasha (3-1-1) very fast cavalryman, irregular fighting skill, skirmisher, surpriser

Damascus
Taher Pasher (two star 3-2-2) fort defender

Baghdad
Veil Pasha (two star 3-1-1) entrencher
Ismael Pasha (3-1-1) charismatic, very fast cavalryman, adept raider

THE CAPITAL - Constantinople. This is the heart of the realm and hosts the elite forces. These are in four groups: the Sultan's Household, the Janissary Corps, the Grand Vizier and the "new troops." The Sultan is given poor traits not because he was personally bad, but to reflect the fact that by now it was uncommon for a Sultan to lead the army himself; also, Selim was enmired in internal struggles to reform his empire. His traits should encourage the Ottomans to keep him in the capital. However, the leaders in the capital also have some unique traits useful elsewhere

Sultan Selim III (four star 3-2-2) slow mover, recruiting officer, good administrator
Ibrahim Bushati (3-1-1) very fast cavalryman, screener, patroller, skirmisher (to reflect the elite household and tartar cavalry of the Sultan's guard)

Grand Vizir (three star 3-2-2) slow mover, siege expert, master spy
Zurnassan (3-1-1) hothead, dispirited (these are the Janissaries, who were rather unhappy these days)

Muktar Pasha (two star 3-2-1) cavalryman (the elite lancer troops are here)
Kushanz Ali (5-3-3) charismatic, pillager, skirmisher

Ibrahim Bey (three star 3-3-4) defensive engineer (these are the "new troops")
Mahmoud Pasha (3-2-2) charismatic

***

The concept here is to make the Balkan frontier regions strong in militia leaders (for the feudal levies), entrenchers and fort defenders. While this defensive theme is repeated elsewhere, the other regions have their own strengths and weaknesses. The troops from the capital have some unique traits in their leaders to reflect the centralized administration of the Ottomans. Overall, the Ottomans also have many fast cavalry leaders, although only one cavalry battle leader. Hopefully, this mix will reflect the Ottoman style of war at this time.

I didn't make any suggestions for the leaders that don't start on the map, as I didn't know enough about the context for how and where they enter. I also have nothing on the Ottoman naval leaders. These are just suggestions for traits, I don't have any ratings suggestions. However the traits above might inspire some developer tweaking of the ratings as well.

Hope this is useful.

Husrev Pasha should be a 2 or 3 star admiral; according to the internet he was ignorant of modern military methods so he assembled a staff of foreign experts and other personnel to assist him. Seems like 'HQ Command' or 'Good Subordinates' would be good abilities for him.

Good points and suggestions. Thanks All. Will implement that in RC02

Elxaime's suggestions are interesting although overall they tend to be a bit too positivie I think, there should be a few more "dispersed mover" / "dispirited leader" / "quickly angered" / "Hated by his troops (don't remember the exact trait name)" / etc. sprinkled around, but at least it does give the game more flavor, which is pretty good. one other thing is that leader promotion should when possible change the traits to reflect the very heavy orginisational inertia : when a great 1* becomes a 2* star or a 3* star, he might still be better than already existing ones, but he gets worse and starts getting those "dispersed mover" / "dispirited "/etc traits.

But this is pretty good.

One other thing : for many leaders without individual portrait (ie the case for ottomans) there could be a few more "generic" portraits to give variety even if they are not actual representation of the guy, at least it gives the player more immersion than seeing the same 3/4 faces over and over.

veji1 wrote:Elxaime's suggestions are interesting although overall they tend to be a bit too positivie I think, there should be a few more "dispersed mover" / "dispirited leader" / "quickly angered" / "Hated by his troops (don't remember the exact trait name)" / etc. sprinkled around...

I don't totally disagree, but I went easier on the Ottoman leader negative traits for two reasons. First, I didn't have a good feel for the ratings and traits of opposing armies. It is all relative. Although the Ottomans should be disadvantaged against the the more advanced "Western" powers that are likely foes (e.g. Austrians and Russians) that would not be the case with the Persians or other likely minor enemies from the "non-Western" world. You also wouldn't want the Ottomans getting steamrolled by lesser skilled/equipped "Western" troops like the Spanish. Second, you want to be careful not to make the Ottomans too hopeless. They are already rather challenging and if you go too far not many will want to play them just so they can be everyone's chew toys.

It is a tough balancing act. While the Ottomans did tend to lose badly in open field battles, in prepared trenches and defending sieges they were formidable, as the Russians found out in the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812. Ottoman forces, both foot and cavalry, were skilled in open order fighting and well able to operate in rough terrain. The Russian Jaegers honed their talents fighting the Ottomans, to the extent that in 1812, when Napoleon invaded, the French and their allies found the veteran Russian Jaegers of the Danube Army to be very tough opponents. The Austrian border Grenzers, the elite light infantry of the Hapsburgs, are another example of Western troops who benefited from fighting the Ottomans. Nearly all who fought the Ottomans remarked that while they were almost totally incapable of fighting in an organized fashion, their troops were brave and in certain aspects like petit guerre, actually superior. The common phenomena for a Western army invading Ottoman territory was that, while almost always they beat the Ottomans if they stood in a field battle, the invaders would get mired in sieges and with their supply lines under constant harassment by hordes of feudal cavalry, while disease and hunger whittled their ranks if they were in unhealthy or wild areas. Meanwhile, once the Ottomans managed to gather their huge numbers of feudal troops and entrench them, it made frontal attacks daunting.

Finally, there were those occasions where the Ottomans did win field fights. The Battle of Grocka (1739) is an example. They should retain the capacity to punish reckless or overconfident Western foes, or submerge them with numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grocka

elxaime wrote:I don't totally disagree, but I went easier on the Ottoman leader negative traits for two reasons. First, I didn't have a good feel for the ratings and traits of opposing armies. It is all relative. Although the Ottomans should be disadvantaged against the the more advanced "Western" powers that are likely foes (e.g. Austrians and Russians) that would not be the case with the Persians or other likely minor enemies from the "non-Western" world. You would want to adjust so that the Ottomans aren't also getting steamrolled not just by Caucasus tribes or the Persians, but also by lesser skilled/equipped "Western" armies like the Spaniards. I didn't know what the opponent leaders were like, so I didn't want to go too far. Second, you want to be careful not to make the Ottomans too hopeless. They are already rather challenging and if you go too far not many will want to play them just so they are everyone's chew toys.

It is a tough balancing act. While the Ottomans did tend to lose open field battles, in prepared trenches and defending sieges they were formidable, as the Russians found out. The Ottoman skirmishers, both foot and cavalry, were skilled in open order fighting and well able to operate in rough terrain. The Russian Jaegers had their skills honed while fighting the Ottomans, to the extent that in 1812, when Napoleon invaded, the French and their allies found the veteran Russian Jaegers of the Danube Army to be tough opponents.

True, I suppose playtesting is the key, and things can than get balanced out later on. Thank you very much for your work and suggestions anyway !

There were many Kapıkulu (or Household) of Sultan. Mainly divided as janissary Kapıkulu and other Kapıkulu such as artillery Kapıkulu and etc. Reformed army (Sekban) formed under harbour guards(Bostancı as a support force not to alert janissaries.

Corruption of janissary were written as they get different profession of craft& jobs after a while and were very reluctant to die in some foreign land, weren't been able to muster enough. But no desertion from battles I've read. During internal conflict in Constantinople it is written as they were able to fight in equal skill versus II. Mahmud's reformed army (Sekban-ı Cedid) when in dire conditions. With the duel nature of military structure it cost population further more taxes (Nizam-ı Cedid troops expensive in game terms; maybe also decrease some loyalty and morale such as in AJE under certain treasury budget.) and open for quarrel between these two military class if not disbanding other. III. Selim were brave enough to put military reform in practice but he wasn't strong enough to defend it. He can have lower offensive rating, although grand vizier didn't wan't him command troops. Rumeli Derebey such as Alemdar Mustafa Pasha were against reformed army but they change their opinion, he can have good ratings.

Ali Pasha of Tepelena is an interesting character maybe there can be some flavour events for him. I think about it.

Baris wrote:Ali Pasha of Tepelena is an interesting character maybe there can be some flavour events for him. I think about it.

Just a quick wiki search found that to be true indeed. Lord Byron visited him and described him in his book Child Harold as the "Mohammedan Bonaparte." An Albanian, he established his own power base. There seems plenty of room for more events about him and other Ottomans.

I took a look at Otoman's leaders in the latest patch. They have too many abilities in the first place, and their abilities tend to be too good. Average Russian or Austrian leader rarely has an ability, and only the best ones have one good ability.

I think Ottoman leaders have been overbuffed without any historic evidence for it!

Ottoman was an empire past its peak, and it was proven by an easy conquest of Egypt. Battle of pytramids was a cake walk for the French side....

Feel free to make suggestions for change...usually with players requests we go too far in one way with first suggestion, then too far the other way with the second, until some middle ground is found much later after more internal 'fighting'...so I expect quite a few extra 'rounds' of remarks and complaints here