A review of Lübeck missions

[Eddi]

... after about 130 years through the campaign

so far, what i've gathered, the missions fall into 4 categories:

1. Westward expansion
2. Eastward expansion
3. Trade
4. Empire

let's go through those backwards:
4. Empire:

1. Be friends with the emperor
   - Haven't done this. didn't fit into my opening moves, and i'm not usually one to switch alliances often.
   - This means i'll probably at some point have to ally with the empire and immediately break the alliance again. i'd much rather just ignore this mission, but...
2. Develop your capital
   - I want to do this mission. Why is this guarded behind the other one? there seems no logical reason for that.
3. Reform government
   - That's somewhat in the future, it's probably fine. if you're expanding through trade companies, government reforms come kinda slow due to the autonomy of territories.

3. Trade

1. Global Dominance
   - that comes way too early. for its name, it has too few requirements.
2. Fleet stuffs
   - this seems fine. first invest in trade ships, then in shipyards, then in large ships. quite logical progression
3. Bookkeeping
   - you need to get a bit lucky on a combination of advisors available. it's a bit meh, but probably eventually happens
4. Lübecker Krantor
   - this used to be a decision, but seems like the price changed? it wants me to save up 4000 gold. why?
5. Upgrade to level 3 trade center
   - probably a logical step, not quite see the need for that yet, plus it's guarded behind the previous one
6. Dominate Trade
   - this is guarded by the eastward expansion path, not sure why
7. Unite
   - i'm not convinced yet that this is a good idea. you get 10-20 vassals and then what? you won't have any diplo points left by the time you can annex them

2. Eastward expansion

1. Build up army to forcelimit
   - fine, this is an easy starter mission
2. Conquer Mecklenburg
   - wouldn't be my first choice of an opening move. i'd much rather get Stralsund and then claim Danzig before poland has a chance to snatch it. might be tricky to pry it out of their hands.
   - expansion within the empire is always a bit scary, with the aggressive expansion, emperor demanding you give back what you just conquered, or opinion penalty on annexing vassals. but i guess you need some economic base to be able to expand further outwards
3. Conquer/Rescue Gotland
   - that seems a bit tricky early on, as this would mean crossing swords with Denmark
   - it's also tricky later, because by that point you probably have a trade post in a different province (in my case Danzig), and you can't move that. so you can't fulfill this mission anymore by owning Gotland direcltly, it must be released as a trade city, or invited into trade league if you released it as part of a peace deal.
4. Conquer Nowgorod
   - this mission is probably fine, it likely requires going to war with Muskovy/Russia, which tends to eat Nowgorod quickly
   - the problem is that this is guarded by the Gotland quest, and as said, that isn't really a quick mission, so by the time you get the claim on Nowgorod, you probably have had other opportunities to conquer it.

1a. Westward expansion Part: Denmark

1. End Soundtoll
   - basically the same as before. you have either a war option or a diplomatic option. this is a good thing, more missions should have that.
2. Baltic Trade
   - should be easy enough. like mentioned, my opening move tends to involve getting Danzig, which should give you plenty of trade power.
3. Conquer Jütland
   - this seems to be somewhat of a non-sequitur.
   - i mean, i take the free claims, but it's the second independent path that requires going against denmark, next to the Gotland mission. why have these separate?
   - and why have this eastward trade mission guard the westward expansion path? the Nowgorod mission would be a better fit for this dependency.
   - i'm pretty sure this is the mission i like the least in this whole set, just for this dependency reason.
   - alternate suggestion:
   • Baltic Trade -> Conquer Nowgorod -> Dominate Trade
   • Conquer Mecklenburg -> Conquer Jütland -> { Conquer Norway | Free Gotland }
4. Conquer Norway
   - This mission seems a bit strong, after you basically already defeated Denmark by getting Jütland, you get so many free claims to basically eliminate it. (assuming Denmark annexed Norway by this point)

1b. Westward expansion Part: England

1. Dominate English Channel Trade
   - Man, this mission is godly, as an opening move you get a free claim on London? in my previous Lübeck games i had to go through extreme hoops to get there, and now all you need is a few light ships sent to be pirates?
2. Conquer London
   - Hell yeah, you bet i'm doing that first thing in the morning. Also snatched Calais while here, gonna come in handy for sure. How England managed to not lose that to France yet is beyond me.
3. Conquer Scotland
   - Might as well do that, while i have troops deployed on this goddamn island, was tricky enough to get them here.
4. Secure North Sea trade
   - Well, that's basically a free mission if you managed to do both parts A and B of this questline.
   - But what's up with a 30-Tradition explorer if i could hire 60-Tradition ones myself? Maybe if you didn't get exploration ideas and went directly for expansion?
5. Settle Newfoundland
   - That's probably fine, i kinda skipped this so far, and went for other areas.
6. Settle Manhattan
   - Ok, i guess? a bit overly province-specific for my taste. And all you get is a fancy colony name and 3 development? Kinda anticlimactic this far down the tree

 

[Heaven Canceler]

- Haven't done this. didn't fit into my opening moves, and i'm not usually one to switch alliances often.
- This means i'll probably at some point have to ally with the empire and immediately break the alliance again. i'd much rather just ignore this mission, but...

You could try to damage the Emperor and get one of your allies on the throne?

 

[Eddi]

You could try to damage the Emperor and get one of your allies on the throne?

Ok, well, that seems less reliable. I mean, as long as you didn't collect enough aggressive expansion that the emperor outright hates you, i don't think it's that unlikely that he accepts an alliance.

but i'd much rather that be an "either get an alliance OR get high opinion (like 150 or so, similar to the sound toll one)"

 

[RobbieAB]

Are the 10-20 trade league vassals regular vassals, or are they special "free" ones?

 

[Eddi]

Are the 10-20 trade league vassals regular vassals, or are they special "free" ones?

i've been wondering that since the missions were announced. it never says they're free vassals anywhere. and i'm not in a position to test it yet

 

[Kimbole]

Small observation. In a few cases you seem to be arguing that the missions don’t represent the optimum strategy at that point. I am not sure to what extent missions are supposed to be, or should be, a tool to guide players towards the absolute best thing to do (rather than a combination of good idea, plausible alternate expansion path and historical thing that happened)? Otherwise I think a lot of pretty good points made here.

 

[EarlKonrad]

i've been wondering that since the missions were announced. it never says they're free vassals anywhere. and i'm not in a position to test it yet

I recall someone asking this and the person that made the missions saying that they aren't free, but that them not being free shouldn't be a problem because the mission also gives you more diplo slots.

This was discussed on the DD that showed the Lubeck missions.

 

[Eddi]

Small observation. In a few cases you seem to be arguing that the missions don’t represent the optimum strategy at that point.

i'm not sure that is even what i meant to say. what's the optimal move is often depending on what alliances you (or your enemies) managed to get.

I am not sure to what extent missions are supposed to be, or should be, a tool to guide players towards the absolute best thing to do (rather than a combination of good idea, plausible alternate expansion path and historical thing that happened)? Otherwise I think a lot of pretty good points made here.

probably a combination of all of these. although in the Lübeck expansion paths, we're deep into hypothetical alternate history territory.

Overall, i think compared to the very dynamic nature of a campaign, the mission trees are very static, they're not giving you many options, and they don't dynamically adapt to what happened previously. they are the exact same on every playthrough, which may actually decrease the replay value

I recall someone asking this and the person that made the missions saying that they aren't free, but that them not being free shouldn't be a problem because the mission also gives you more diplo slots.

This was discussed on the DD that showed the Lubeck missions.

yes. it gives you ONE diplo slot. i have my doubts that this balances out.

 

[Kanem Bornu]

i've been wondering that since the missions were announced. it never says they're free vassals anywhere. and i'm not in a position to test it yet

I just checked in console. They take a diplo slot.

It would maybe be reasonable if you could have estates to give you more diplo slots, but merchant republics don't get estates. Or if they had reworked Factions to give similar options and flexibility like estates.

But instead, it just feels like a bad idea to take this one unless you're about to flip out of merchant republic for some reason anyway. Like if you took on imperial ambitions and were going to flip for the absolutism later in the game.

 

[Eddi]

i've played a bit further, it's now about 180 years, and i have two additions to what i posted above:

1. the visby and novgorod missions: requiring a trade post in a specific province is annoying, because you cannot move it anymore if you put one. it should only require a trade post in that region, not a specific province
2. unite the hansa: i still haven't picked this mission, although i fulfil the requirements. i'm already over my diplo limits, and this would certainly ruin me. the only way i can think of that would make picking this a not-terrible idea would be to have it say "vassals with 1 province do not cost diplo slots" [possibly with a time limit].