HRE is the civ that has men at arms in feudal. But Ottomans doesn't allow that because they will cut off your gold especially with the golds being so far out. You're not going to get a safe one if they are active and present on the map. It snowballs pretty quickly and you're not going to be able to just produce the units that are so hard to kill.

I'm thinking whether Burgrave could be your get out of problem zone here because if you tech with Regnitz, you're very very exposed.

It's tricky because you're not just against normal horsemen; Meinwerk horsemen are no joke. I think they just sort of beat Spahi, especially if you have like one or two spearmen in the mix. I think you just beat Spahi outright, at least in small numbers.

This doesn't feel like the HRE we saw in previous seasons where you go for responsible Imperial, get extra villagers and overwhelm your opponent, because Ottomans doesn't allow that. If an Ottoman sees you going Imperial, they just go for Imperial and kind of match your economy with all the free units they keep getting.

You need siege a lot of the time to break Ottomans, but the Sipahi are the best unit against siege.