They move slower than every other infantry, something that isn’t so bad if they are escorting siege, but it is one of the main ways you can outplay them. If the ottoman player has moved their janissary to the front line they won’t be able to pull them back in time for horsemen/knight raids, and you can outmaneuver them even if they are there.
They counter cavalry and can be formidable in mass numbers, but have a very high resource cost of 160 per. If ottoman can mass 20 janissary then you should be able to counter that easily with the same resource investment, like 40 archers or 27 crossbows or 2-3 mangonels (a steal at 1200-1800 resources vs 3200). Their difference in resource density can give them the impression that they are more powerful than other units, because in some ways they should be. But they are vulnerable to MAA, micro can help but they will not be able to outrun them, and are especially vulnerable to any ranged attack. They always need some kind of melee screen to keep them from being overrun.
Because of their ability to attack with 3.5 range they are very effective in large numbers, but if you were to compare 5 janissaries to 10 spears the spears would have more value vs cavalry. It all depends on the total resources in an army composition, it also depends on resource availability and tempo.
They have a relatively small health pool, 90 in castle and 105 in imperial. If you reduced their bonus damage to cavalry then it might lead to them not being able to effectively counter what they are meant to counter. Horsemen still deal bonus damage to them, and knights have a high enough health pool as well as armor that you would need to invest more resources to counter them (unless you have a large mass). The main reason people bring up handcannon in comparison is because they lose access to that high dps ranged unit. Handcannon may cost 1.5x as much as a janissary, but they have 130 health, deal 42 (!!) damage per shot (vs 28 normal 48 cav of jan w/ max upgrades), and have slightly more range (with chinese hand cannon coming way out on top). They just don’t have the same resource investment, and it does feel like they designed the GB to balance around not having the same kind of anti-infantry option in imperial.
I do think that their siege is slightly over tuned and the the faction could use balance, but idk if the janissary unit needs such heavy nerfs. As of the last month of playing I have had success in countering ottoman in solo play by just moving around their army and forcing them to fight on my terms (as well as a lot of map control and early aggression), team games are where it can become very difficult to counter because they synergize so well as artillery. The GB could easily be nerfed by taking its health pool or armor down making it more vulnerable to counter play. Maybe the janissary shouldn’t be able to repair siege, or at the very least not while in active combat. It’s kind of hard to say, they clearly designed the civ around having their unique unit support a complement of siege units.
Ottomans has a very interesting ‘fantasy’ to their play, you MUST approach them with confidence and make decisive strikes. They are not a faction you can wear down slowly, and they will overwhelm you if they produce a deathball army comp.
", while this is happening:
)