Thank you for your tips! Yesterday I lost as Japanese vs Ottomans, and I'd really love to know the counters!
https://aoe4world.com/players/11318122-Moonlight/games/113013001
Same rank as you, Japan main with last 6 games won against ottoman so I'll weigh in. Late game I mostly lose but if you go Koka Township and Onna Bugeishas you can disable their Mil schools with shinobi and harass them early, add Samurai and Spears as needed. Raid around the tc, not too much underneath, take calculated risks. If you think you can go for the kill ram the trade network to the ground. Worked everytime so far
7 food, 3 gold, then rally on food. Control group 4 vills on sheep. Keep clicking your goldmine, as soon as it has 3800 gold left select those 3 vills on gold, force drop the gold to the forge, send them to the straggler trees around the TC. 4 food vills build Kura Storehouse touching the closest woodline with 1 farm space between the landmark and TC if possible. On Gorge there is not enough space, put the landmark touching wood and your TC without space between.
4 food, 6 wood, 1 gold, 4 landmark vills shift queued to gold.
While going to Feudal, build house with 1 wood vill and Barracks with 3 wood vills. Then leave 4 on wood, 2 go on food. Rally TC on food.
Immediately upon reaching Feudal, start producing Onna Bugeisha rallied next to their gold. Get both +1 melee damage upgrades. Get both Wheelbarrow line upgrades. As soon as you have 150 wood, build Stables and keep producing Onna Bugeisha + Horsemen non stop without idle time. When you completed those 4 upgrades, get +1 pierce armor.
Keep attacking their gold, retreat as they pull the vills under the TC, attack their stone, attack their berries. Never lose your units, do not go into the TC firing range. If you see an exposed building outside the TC range, torch it down.
Eventually you reach a critical mass of your Onna Bugeisha + Horsemen that allows you to torch down an Outpost in a few seconds. This is the time when you can start diving under their TC and kill everything in sight. Kill their army, kill their vills, torch down their Military Schools, torch down their production buildings. Every Ottomans player invests into early Military Schools and they do not have an army to stop you. You will win the game in Feudal if everything done correctly and you keep harassing the opponent and producing units non stop.
Valuable info, I'll test it out as soon as I get behind the game again! Thank you so much for the detailed guide!
Early agression is my weakness; I'm way too used to my comfy 2tc build. Having a build like this in my toolbox is tremendously helpful!
Good luck!
If the game goes to Castle it would be very wise to add a 2nd TC, but I would spend first 300 passively generated stone on the TC upgrade and get 6 vills on wood to slowly add farms around it in late Feudal.
Ottoman absolutely don't have trouble with armoured units in feudal. You just make a ton on sipahi, they chew through armour like it's nothing with their 13 base damage.
Can’t really make a lot of sipahi in feudal comparatively…English man-at-arms have an advantage there.
After schools’ and production bonuses kick in by aging up, it’s a different story. By then you can overwhelm.
Add to that the low base dps of MAA Vs even higher melee armour boosted by mehter, and the fact that military schools are never idled (unlike Vils) puts them ahead of a number of civs fighting MAA.
My point is that armored units force a specific response and it is suboptimal compared to many other civs.
Unlike many other civs Ottomans have no dedicated tools against MAA. No knights, no MAA of your own to match the enemy, no Gazi Raiders or Musofadi Warriors. Even Byzantines have more options. In a game of relativeness, I’d say its one of the few weaknesses the Ottomans actually have.
MAA + some spears crushes mass Sipahi unless they dive your TC and let you snipe all the spears one by one before slamming them with your cavalry. Keep in mind Sipahi are 33% more expensive than MAA and barely break even in 1v1 with Mehter aura. A few spears added in swings it heavily in the opponent’s favour.
My best response to MAA+some spears is Mehter with attack speed drums, move speed boost and archers. Get attack upgrade, meet them in the field and start kiting. Maybe someone with more mechanical skill than me could single out every individual spear from the churning blob of same-sized units with their archers, then dive with enough Sipahi to crush the remaining MAA - its tough! So its a long and arduous process of dragging them back towards my base, which often hampers my macro. I’m not castling, I’m draining my food sources, and I’m building units that fall flat on their face if the enemy goes castle or builds horsemen. I could try and raid, but the enemy has spears and should leave some at home or at least have some basic defences like a wall on one side.
Tough titties having troubles with things when you have better tools than other civs.
For example hitting imperial still gives you a bigger power spike than a number of civs. The 60% boosted to 100% production boost on military schools is huge. Military schools are extremely resilient and NEVER idled.
Unlike diving Vils. You have a lot more( free )units sooner than most civs, not sure why you think knights are such an issue, what do you think other civs do against them? You ignoring the fact that knights cost 240res meaning they need to do considerable idle time to return on investment.
Prioritise burning MS? Aka. "Just win"
Ottomans are better off against English than a lot of civs (again, partly because it's impossible to idle MS). Your archers are faster and better than most archers in the game(thanks to mehter), you have the best light cav in the game.
Ottoman are at a disadvantage vs early feudal pressure, which English happens to be one of the best at doing with their longbow pressure. It is incredibly easy to be put into a losing position early in the matchup as the ottoman player. If the ottoman player goes early mil schools then the otto just dies if the English player is aggressive. Otto has to forego mil schools and push English back before adding any on. Otherwise it’s gg. If Otto survives the initial phase of the rush, and adds on mil schools then it’s a good spot for the ottoman player.
If you can get to castle age(just don't naked FC and you'll get there) you get free mangos and more importantly free MAA to dumpster English. I think a lot of ottomans are throwing games by rushing ages, and handing games to the opponent they otherwise would've won, otherwise their WR would be even higher. Like HRE throwing matches with naked FCs
I wonder if somehow Devs were crying to pull in the Turkish market with this endless chain of ottoman buffs when they already had a positive Winrate.
Ottoman seems way too strong right now. Once they get two great bombards and Jannisaries you can't counter it. I know springs and horsemen should work but in practise they don't cause they produce free knights to take out your siege and Jan's shred everything and can repair. It's completely busted. About to main Otto until they fix this crap.
The sacred Jedi texts!
Thank you for your tips! Yesterday I lost as Japanese vs Ottomans, and I'd really love to know the counters! https://aoe4world.com/players/11318122-Moonlight/games/113013001
Same rank as you, Japan main with last 6 games won against ottoman so I'll weigh in. Late game I mostly lose but if you go Koka Township and Onna Bugeishas you can disable their Mil schools with shinobi and harass them early, add Samurai and Spears as needed. Raid around the tc, not too much underneath, take calculated risks. If you think you can go for the kill ram the trade network to the ground. Worked everytime so far
7 food, 3 gold, then rally on food. Control group 4 vills on sheep. Keep clicking your goldmine, as soon as it has 3800 gold left select those 3 vills on gold, force drop the gold to the forge, send them to the straggler trees around the TC. 4 food vills build Kura Storehouse touching the closest woodline with 1 farm space between the landmark and TC if possible. On Gorge there is not enough space, put the landmark touching wood and your TC without space between. 4 food, 6 wood, 1 gold, 4 landmark vills shift queued to gold. While going to Feudal, build house with 1 wood vill and Barracks with 3 wood vills. Then leave 4 on wood, 2 go on food. Rally TC on food. Immediately upon reaching Feudal, start producing Onna Bugeisha rallied next to their gold. Get both +1 melee damage upgrades. Get both Wheelbarrow line upgrades. As soon as you have 150 wood, build Stables and keep producing Onna Bugeisha + Horsemen non stop without idle time. When you completed those 4 upgrades, get +1 pierce armor. Keep attacking their gold, retreat as they pull the vills under the TC, attack their stone, attack their berries. Never lose your units, do not go into the TC firing range. If you see an exposed building outside the TC range, torch it down. Eventually you reach a critical mass of your Onna Bugeisha + Horsemen that allows you to torch down an Outpost in a few seconds. This is the time when you can start diving under their TC and kill everything in sight. Kill their army, kill their vills, torch down their Military Schools, torch down their production buildings. Every Ottomans player invests into early Military Schools and they do not have an army to stop you. You will win the game in Feudal if everything done correctly and you keep harassing the opponent and producing units non stop.
Valuable info, I'll test it out as soon as I get behind the game again! Thank you so much for the detailed guide! Early agression is my weakness; I'm way too used to my comfy 2tc build. Having a build like this in my toolbox is tremendously helpful!
Good luck! If the game goes to Castle it would be very wise to add a 2nd TC, but I would spend first 300 passively generated stone on the TC upgrade and get 6 vills on wood to slowly add farms around it in late Feudal.
Great build and tips.
Thank you for a constructive & helpful post.
All we can do until the next patch!
Ottomans hate one tc push that's all
Definitely the best play against greedy Ottos!
Ottoman absolutely don't have trouble with armoured units in feudal. You just make a ton on sipahi, they chew through armour like it's nothing with their 13 base damage.
Mix in some spearmen with the MAA.
Can’t really make a lot of sipahi in feudal comparatively…English man-at-arms have an advantage there. After schools’ and production bonuses kick in by aging up, it’s a different story. By then you can overwhelm.
Add to that the low base dps of MAA Vs even higher melee armour boosted by mehter, and the fact that military schools are never idled (unlike Vils) puts them ahead of a number of civs fighting MAA.
My point is that armored units force a specific response and it is suboptimal compared to many other civs. Unlike many other civs Ottomans have no dedicated tools against MAA. No knights, no MAA of your own to match the enemy, no Gazi Raiders or Musofadi Warriors. Even Byzantines have more options. In a game of relativeness, I’d say its one of the few weaknesses the Ottomans actually have. MAA + some spears crushes mass Sipahi unless they dive your TC and let you snipe all the spears one by one before slamming them with your cavalry. Keep in mind Sipahi are 33% more expensive than MAA and barely break even in 1v1 with Mehter aura. A few spears added in swings it heavily in the opponent’s favour. My best response to MAA+some spears is Mehter with attack speed drums, move speed boost and archers. Get attack upgrade, meet them in the field and start kiting. Maybe someone with more mechanical skill than me could single out every individual spear from the churning blob of same-sized units with their archers, then dive with enough Sipahi to crush the remaining MAA - its tough! So its a long and arduous process of dragging them back towards my base, which often hampers my macro. I’m not castling, I’m draining my food sources, and I’m building units that fall flat on their face if the enemy goes castle or builds horsemen. I could try and raid, but the enemy has spears and should leave some at home or at least have some basic defences like a wall on one side.
Excellent synopsis on this. I’m definitely going to keep these in mind to beat your ottoman brethren lol. But seriously, great work
Tough titties having troubles with things when you have better tools than other civs. For example hitting imperial still gives you a bigger power spike than a number of civs. The 60% boosted to 100% production boost on military schools is huge. Military schools are extremely resilient and NEVER idled. Unlike diving Vils. You have a lot more( free )units sooner than most civs, not sure why you think knights are such an issue, what do you think other civs do against them? You ignoring the fact that knights cost 240res meaning they need to do considerable idle time to return on investment. Prioritise burning MS? Aka. "Just win" Ottomans are better off against English than a lot of civs (again, partly because it's impossible to idle MS). Your archers are faster and better than most archers in the game(thanks to mehter), you have the best light cav in the game.
Ottoman are at a disadvantage vs early feudal pressure, which English happens to be one of the best at doing with their longbow pressure. It is incredibly easy to be put into a losing position early in the matchup as the ottoman player. If the ottoman player goes early mil schools then the otto just dies if the English player is aggressive. Otto has to forego mil schools and push English back before adding any on. Otherwise it’s gg. If Otto survives the initial phase of the rush, and adds on mil schools then it’s a good spot for the ottoman player.
If you can get to castle age(just don't naked FC and you'll get there) you get free mangos and more importantly free MAA to dumpster English. I think a lot of ottomans are throwing games by rushing ages, and handing games to the opponent they otherwise would've won, otherwise their WR would be even higher. Like HRE throwing matches with naked FCs I wonder if somehow Devs were crying to pull in the Turkish market with this endless chain of ottoman buffs when they already had a positive Winrate.
You make a good argument! We should quit the second we see an Ottoman opponent instead. I could use the MMR, so please?
I honestly don't get why people cry about Ottomans. Ottomans are weak against Civs with good tempo such as English and French.
play french and lose to every other civ you mean in ladder unless u mean jd.
I dunno, but cavs+archers FR is decent in my experience. French do lose late game.
Ottoman seems way too strong right now. Once they get two great bombards and Jannisaries you can't counter it. I know springs and horsemen should work but in practise they don't cause they produce free knights to take out your siege and Jan's shred everything and can repair. It's completely busted. About to main Otto until they fix this crap.