i'm more interested on how he did manage a BB-free WC
forcing unions with everyone?
with spies or royal marriages?
Yeah, lots and lots and lots of unions. I litterally inherited EVERY christian monarchy - all legit from royal marriges and claimed thrones too. I stuck with more traditional holy wars against the rest of the world until that cb gave out, though I never let my BB get out of control (it effects inheritence chances after all). Then I switched over and started fabricating claims - partially because I was now producing enough spys to make it practical, which I wasn't really in the begining. Unsually for me, I was playing on very easy, mind - I was trying to run down a record, not play for a challange. And let me tell you, it go really, really boring - there is a reason it took me so long to finish, I kept switching to other games and other EU3 campaigns for a while to recharge.
me being a nub: how the hell did you earn that much money?
in most of my games i've fully upgraded all my cities and control most of the CoTs...is it cuz you have so few CoTs, or is it your sliders (in that case, what are your settings)?
I really have no clue....help a nub out, here, dammit
Every possible income national idea, almost every possible income national/religious decision (including those from both venice AND neatherlands, including two trade companies), owning every province, having every non-manufactory/non-fort building built in every province, having manufactories built in all by 12 provinces, having almost every income triggered modifier (I decided against the East India Trade Route - the benefits of staying at +2 free trade were too great to make it worth it, as nice as it is), production and trade (maxed that too Teep, just didn't take a screenie of it) tech maxed, best income gonverment type, best income religious type, silders optimally positions to not only maximize direct income, but also indirect through trade goods prices, for as much of the game as I could manage, things setup to make every +base tax event as likely to fire as possible (near the end, I was getting a +base tax event to fire in a province somewhere about every 3 months), and finally alot (though not all possible - I got lazy on province decisions near the end) income province decisions. I consider myself a master of EU3 economics for a reason.
As for the pic - the a closely related one - the final autosave where I snagged the record got overwritten when I was going for the army/navy record, but here is the screen from that game, which is fairly close: