Challenge game: (12)Fullfill the conditions of the "around the world in 80 years achievement

[pratik_maitra]

Yeah, East Africa is kind of a bad place for condottieri. You could conquer something in India to have connection to more nations though.


Fair enough. I don't even have motivation to do it with my own strategies. In my estimation the properly done game would require at least 15-20 hours of real time

Btw, what is the idea behind starting as Mahafaly in East Africa strategy? Do they have something special in MoH? Otherwise it seems like Ternate has a better ruler (probably making up for an extra noCB required), much better ideas (10% goods produced and 10% trade efficiency) and it's easy to switch religion (for 50 prestige) if one intends to take a chance with -1 interest rate event.

The Mahafaly game has easier access to gold mines. Also Fetishist Santana Dharma gives that 10% goods modifier. Mahafaly requires less micro and easier gameplay than Ternate. Also Mahafaly is probably quicker to achieve the peace required to bring down autonomy.


However a skilled player than me would definitely pick Ternate as it has the 10% goods modifier and it can convert to Hindu way easily thus removing the RNG element of having -1 interest reduction.

 

[pratik_maitra]

@alexti: I'm not ignoring them, personally - you're right, the subsidy strategy is quite clever, and I think this should be an easy way to improve the record by combining with the existing Mahafaly strategy, with slight adjustments. However, the deadline has passed, and the host said that it wouldn't be extended despite their absence, so I don't have any urge to try another attempt just for the sake of it, with somebody else's strategy to boot. My motivation was competition to come up with my own strategies for the best result.

@pratik_maitra: I see, that is much less debt than I expected. I am very surprised that you have over 90% inflation with only 200 loans at the end, but I suppose you must have taken hundreds of smaller loans earlier on and restructured them later. My attempt only had 16% inflation, which is why I estimated that with over 90% inflation and 37 interest expense monthly yours involved more loans at the end. I understood that the purpose of the debt was to increase trade income by going over naval force limit, but I had thought you took too much debt to accomplish that. Well done then.

@EmpressKaori
This is an offtopic post.
Can you write a detailed guide about your Bengal and Swiss run. I have read your tall games on reddit and I have been inspired to play a Swiss game now.

Also I would like to play a tall Bengal game(I am a Bengali actually.)

However I could not find the exact strategy of the games on reddit. I hope you bring out your book soon.

 

[alexti]

The Mahafaly game has easier access to gold mines. Also Fetishist Santana Dharma gives that 10% goods modifier. Mahafaly requires less micro and easier gameplay than Ternate. Also Mahafaly is probably quicker to achieve the peace required to bring down autonomy.


However a skilled player than me would definitely pick Ternate as it has the 10% goods modifier and it can convert to Hindu way easily thus removing the RNG element of having -1 interest reduction.

I meant playing Ternate the same way as Mahafaly (for blobbing strategy Ternate is preferable for obvious reasons). I think you would have to choose between Fetishist 10% goods modifier and -1 interest from Hindu. I don't think you can manage to keep both. Unless you switch to Hindu in Jan 1485 (maybe gold income is not recalculated until the end of the month?).

I wouldn't worry about autonomy - you can always bring it down to 0 in 16 years by cycling provinces through original owner. Considering the actual gold provinces and nations on the map it's less than 10 years since you can take those mines with <50%WS thus your truce will be less than 10 years.

 

[alexti]

Ternate is basically not even an option, because all of Africa is terra incognito. It would require a substantial time investment to discover it with spy networks. Even so, you have to ask yourself, what are you gaining, and what are you losing?

No reason to waste time with spying networks, just buy it with the prestige. Prestige isn't hard to come by.

What you gain: slightly better ruler, +10% goods produced from ideas, no RNG for -1 interest per annum.
What you lose: an enormous amount of monarch power from -8 stability (-4 religion change, -4 for two no-CB wars), -10% goods produced from religion, -25% goods produced from prosperity, and loss of easy powerbase that can be given up for revanchism later.

Religion change doesn't cost stability, just a bit of prestige (and converting to Fetishist is free - doesn't even cost prestige). Stability is pretty cheap for pagans, it will cost 280 ADM (less with advisor) to recover 4 stab and you don't need to take 4 stab hit for wars (DoW at 0 and -2 and it will cost you only 3 stab). Why are you saying you will lose -10% goods produced from religion? - If you are willing to gamble on lucky event you can still go Fetishist and get +10% goods produced. This is an identical choice for Mahafaly and Ternate. Either you gamble to get +10% goods produced or you take safe route and go Hindu. What is the probability of getting that event during the right time frame? Is it something reasonable? Or something that would cause the game to crash excessively?

I don't know about prosperity since I don't have MoH. Why can't you get as much prosperity as Ternate? The accurate analysis would require comparing how much fewer goods produced Ternate would get from prosperity and whether it's more or less than 10% it automatically gets from NI.

So we have "slightly" better ruler that yields 840 ADM + 420 DIP + 420 MIL over 35 years (given the rulers starting ages 35 seems like a reasonable expected period). In practice, you probably want to abdicate with Mahafaly, statistically it would reduce the gap but it can backfire too (and abdication is not so straightforward though - I assume that the first cult is for -10% development cost, so the late switch of cult is required via abdication and that may limit the options of earlier abdication for better stats).

At the same time we have "enormous" stability cost of 280 ADM (even if you didn't know that you can pay for religion change with prestige (or with nothing) instead of stability and that you need only 3 stab for 2 noCBs it would still be only 560)

The autonomy reduction strategy is poorly suited for this challenge because you only have 40 years, meaning that relying on it is picking between having low autonomy or having prosperity, instead of having both. Prosperity is too important to give up. It has nothing to do with being more skilled or not, there just isn't any incentive to pick Ternate. Or rather, the more skilled choice was identifying Mahafaly as the best option in the first place and picking it.

I would like to see someone with MoH make a proper prosperity analysis. From Wiki page it seems like having a ruler with higher stats would be very important for prosperity. So for Ternate average gain would be 0.55*12=6.6/year (~15 years required) and for Mahafaly 0.35*12=4.2 (~24 years required). So Ternate could start working on prosperity 9 years later and achieve equal or better result. Incidentally those 9 years are very close to the time needed to lower autonomy twice. Also, what happens if the state has prosperity and a newly conquered/re-conquered province is added to the state? Does devastation in provinces that nation doesn't own affect prosperity or not?

 

[alexti]

Ah, I genuinely forgot about purchasing maps. I've always preferred stealing them because it's free and prestige is generally better used for vassal loyalty or disinheritance these days. Of course, I'm not usually playing campaigns with a 40 year time limit, which is where the disadvantage of espionage becomes a factor.

I find that diplomats are always in a short supply regardless of the game length. Generally you have enough prestige for everything (at least maps are a very small cost in comparison to placating vassals - there are only so many maps you need/want). You can take ~20 prestige from every minor ally (that gets dragged into war against you by your main target), plus prestige you're getting for demands from the main target.

The stability cost -4 was for converting to Hindu, which @pratik_maitra was thinking about.

You can convert to Hindu for 50 prestige (even if you don't have 50 prestige), it doesn't cost stability.

I think it would be difficult to convert to Fetishist as Ternate, because you're going to need a powerbase in Asia before you can get into east Africa, and rebels won't convert your nation unless >50% of your provinces are the new religion. Intentionally letting rebels siege your nation also ruins all of your prosperity. Maybe not impossible, but I would be incredibly impressed if you could make this work within the constraints of 40 years.

Not really, Ternate isn't too weak, with some loans you can defeat the nations you need (I make my first vassal into a march and that's generally enough to fight minor nations). You only need 3 or 4 provinces to reach Fetishist provinces and you can take equal number of Fetishist provinces in the first war to convert easily (I would go after Madagascar in the first war, but there are other options)

On the subject of prosperity, you're right that it depends on your ruler, and it's why resetting for a 6/6/6 is the single best way you could improve this record. Not only because it would give you more development, but because you would have more time to conquer land. That being said, if you rely on a 6/6/6 for Ternate to accomplish what Mahafaly already can, Mahafaly could meanwhile conquer Ethiopia's two extra gold mines with the same luck. Comparing the starting rulers is kind of pointless, incidentally. You're obviously never going to keep your starting ruler as Mahafaly.

I don't view resetting for 6/6/6 as a serious strategy. You have a better chance of getting BI than that. So with 4/4/3 it's better to keep I believe, your chances to improve are not great. Unless there is some trick to change the ruler quickly (I thought you would have to wait at least for 20 years before you can abdicate) the initial ruler stats remain very important

If you are starting to talk about altering the strategy, Ternate is in a much better position to conquer Golconda, Mewar and Pagarayung and you can take Ethiopian mines almost on your way to East Africa and in a much better position to establish trade (and in the light of recent discussion we know about its other advantages). However, my question was if Ternate might be a better option for the same strategy you and Pratik have played

I just barely managed to get prosperity in all states in time with a 4/3/3 as Mahafaly, on a very strong attempt.

Is wiki page correct regarding prosperity mechanics? If it is you must have been very unlucky. Btw, do the modifiers from prosperity scale? Or they are all or nothing? If they scale you would only need to get to 60% prosperity with Ternate to match Mahafaly goods produced.

You also have to factor in not just time for prosperity itself but also time to reduce devastation (30 months to build fort+tick down) and core (3 years), which adds ~6 years independent of your ruler.

3 year for coring overlaps with the time you are waiting for truce, so it's included in those 9 years of delay. You shouldn't have much devastation if you planned the war well. Don't occupy provinces without forts - just demand them in the peace deal. For the fort provinces you delete the fort before losing them. If I am not mistaken the devastation will be ticking down while AI is holding them, so when you reconquer them (and this time you won't need to occupy them) the devastation should be gone.

I already analysed prosperity and talked about this much earlier in the thread. There was a reason why I considered Mahafaly the best, but nobody has given me any credit

Sorry, I might have missed that post. Could you post the link to it? Speaking for myself I've given you credit for a neat strategy, but I have disagreed that the strategy can't be any better (knowing about variable loan size and condottieri it should be obvious why)

 

[pratik_maitra]

Ah, I genuinely forgot about purchasing maps. I've always preferred stealing them because it's free and prestige is generally better used for vassal loyalty or disinheritance these days. Of course, I'm not usually playing campaigns with a 40 year time limit, which is where the disadvantage of espionage becomes a factor.

The stability cost -4 was for converting to Hindu, which @pratik_maitra was thinking about. I think it would be difficult to convert to Fetishist as Ternate, because you're going to need a powerbase in Asia before you can get into east Africa, and rebels won't convert your nation unless >50% of your provinces are the new religion. Intentionally letting rebels siege your nation also ruins all of your prosperity. Maybe not impossible, but I would be incredibly impressed if you could make this work within the constraints of 40 years.

On the subject of prosperity, you're right that it depends on your ruler, and it's why resetting for a 6/6/6 is the single best way you could improve this record. Not only because it would give you more development, but because you would have more time to conquer land. That being said, if you rely on a 6/6/6 for Ternate to accomplish what Mahafaly already can, Mahafaly could meanwhile conquer Ethiopia's two extra gold mines with the same luck. Comparing the starting rulers is kind of pointless, incidentally. You're obviously never going to keep your starting ruler as Mahafaly. And with anything less than a god heir that you abdicate for, there isn't time for Ternate to accomplish prosperity. I just barely managed to get prosperity in all states in time with a 4/3/3 as Mahafaly, on a very strong attempt. You also have to factor in not just time for prosperity itself but also time to reduce devastation (30 months to build fort+tick down) and core (3 years), which adds ~6 years independent of your ruler.



I already analysed prosperity and talked about this much earlier in the thread. There was a reason why I considered Mahafaly the best, but nobody has given me any credit and just assumed that I took 5 gold mines and went AFK. Even someone who copied my strategy exactly, step by step, didn't understand any of the planning that went into it and thought it was only good because of easy micromanagement. I wanted to help people understand a more powerful approach to economy and the game in general, but at this point I deeply regret sharing my strategy or trying to discuss it in this thread, where almost everything I've said has been largely dismissed or ignored.

Actually to convert to Hindu you just spawn Hindu rebels(as I did in my Ternate attempt). It also resets stab from no-CB wars. You declare a bunch of no-CB wars and then reset stab. You can reliably do it twice, once by Peasant`s war and once by breaking to religious rebels.

Also I believe @alexti is speaking about Ternate because Mahafaly has the RNG factor of -1 interest. Any strat with RNG like Mahafaly is a little bit dicey.

Also you did do a nice job with Mahfaly and no one has denied it.

 

[pratik_maitra]

Ternate is basically not even an option, because all of Africa is terra incognito. It would require a substantial time investment to discover it with spy networks. Even so, you have to ask yourself, what are you gaining, and what are you losing?

What you gain: slightly better ruler, +10% goods produced from ideas, no RNG for -1 interest per annum.
What you lose: an enormous amount of monarch power from -8 stability (-4 religion change, -4 for two no-CB wars), -10% goods produced from religion, -25% goods produced from prosperity, and loss of easy powerbase that can be given up for revanchism later.

The autonomy reduction strategy is poorly suited for this challenge because you only have 40 years, meaning that relying on it is picking between having low autonomy or having prosperity, instead of having both. Prosperity is too important to give up. It has nothing to do with being more skilled or not, there just isn't any incentive to pick Ternate. Or rather, the more skilled choice was identifying Mahafaly as the best option in the first place and picking it.



It seems you don't really understand the strategy, despite copying it. I didn't pick Mahafaly because of less skill nor was it chosen just because it was easy to micromanage. The choice to not pick a Hindu option such as Madurai was a deliberate strategic choice that improved the record. Hindu is ultimately unnecessary, and it was a specific innovation on my part to accept extra RNG for a reliable 10% goods produced, which increases final total by 40,000 or more. If you pick Ternate, if you even manage to get all of the gold mines in time you will lose out on 100,000 score from prosperity, and your +10% goods produced from ideas only evens out with the loss of religion. If you pick Madurai, you may be able to get the gold mines, but you will lose 100,000 plus 40,000 more from your bad religion. There is nothing more skilled about picking vastly inferior choices compared to Mahafaly.

I talked of a skilled player than me. I never talk of other player`s skill. Please reread my post before accusing me/anyone of belittling you.

Anyway Mahafaly requires a must -1 interest event ie without luck/savescumming/RNG one cannot set that record up. One can even savescum for a 6/6/6 industrious trait ruler(+10% goods modifier) to better the record. The point is that if someone attempts the record without birding/no exploits for the purpose of streaming then a Hindu nation(Madurai/Hindu Ternate) would be better. Personally in my 100 ducat Mahafaly run I forgot to back up my saves so when 1484 arrived I realized that my entire work was for nothing due to poor RNG. Fortunately in my successful run I did get the event.

 

[SPAMbuca]

Sorry for my absence guys. Seems my pc was riddled with virusses. I'll read through the topic, update the list and open a new challenge. Sorry for the inconvenience.

on the topic of what the challenges were intended to bring: I hoped to get a competitive setup, while having educational/co operational discussions going after the challenges were over. It seems, people were willing (me included) to actually discuss strategy while the challenges were still running, but I don't think it reduced the fun. I actually think that by sharing our strategies, we managed to squeeze out the best results in the past. So, I definately want to give the best submissions the accolades they deserve, but to me, about half of the fun is the discussions these challenges create.

I don't think anyone here has been unfriendly towards each other here yet and people have shown good sportsmanship. Let's say it might just come with the community.

 

[SPAMbuca]

After reading back, It seems @EmpressKaori's record on 6 september stands, as she broke the record and extended the deadline herself on 4 september. Any objections to it? If not, I'll award her the win.


Also, would you be willing to come on twitch to show how you managed to get to this amount of ducats?


If no one objects, I'll open a new challenge tomorrow morning.

 

[TheArchduke]

Fun thread, time for a new challenge, so people get distracted, maybe?

 

[Balinkay]

Great thread!

 

[pratik_maitra]

After reading back, It seems @EmpressKaori's record on 6 september stands, as she broke the record and extended the deadline herself on 4 september. Any objections to it? If not, I'll award her the win.


Also, would you be willing to come on twitch to show how you managed to get to this amount of ducats?


If no one objects, I'll open a new challenge tomorrow morning.

Is`nt the deadline reset for 3 days after a new record is established. However I agree that a new record set by the current record holder should not be counted. Otherwise many players who own the current record would not submit their newest best runs just to win the challenge.


Also I would like to point out that the challenge had a great problem/bug. Many players like Declamius/Schawrz/me/Alexti/Empress Kaori could easily claim to have hit the money cap(100 K) if they had a high trade income by using the loan size development bug.

As @alexti pointed out that loan size changes with dev but the number of loans one takes is based on the income which does not get affected too much if it is mostly trade income or you are giving away provinces that do not contribute to your monthly income too much.

Say a player can take 100 loans of 10 ducats each. After taking 99 loans he gives up useless dev(eg as in Ternate runs with heavy trade income) then he can take more loans ad infinitum till his dev(maybe his capital) is too negligible to take further loans. I realized this after seeing alexti`s post.

The challenge should have had a clause specifying that no loans/corruption to be allowed. Currently many previous players are also eligible for the record if they again go back to their saves. Also another clause on money in the inventory should have been specified as there is a bug with taking loans past a certain point.(908 according to some people)

Point is that monthly income is based on tax,prod,trade,condioterri etc. Tax and prod. changes from giving away dev is factored in instantaneously while calculating your monthly income. However trade and other incomes are not.

 

[SPAMbuca]

I honestly didn't think people would be able to hit the money cap that fast.

There is no rule people can't submit new records if they are in first place. Therefore, no deadline had passed the moment EmpressKaori submitted her record as she extended it personally twice. The clause of no loans/limited corruption had been noted before, but it was agreed to not change the challenge while it was ongoing.

Considering no one is objecting to EmpressKaori taking the victory for this challenge, expect a fresh challenge tomorrow morning.

 

[pratik_maitra]

I honestly didn't think people would be able to hit the money cap that fast.

There is no rule people can't submit new records if they are in first place. Therefore, no deadline had passed the moment EmpressKaori submitted her record as she extended it personally twice. The clause of no loans/limited corruption had been noted before, but it was agreed to not change the challenge while it was ongoing.

Considering no one is objecting to EmpressKaori taking the victory for this challenge, expect a fresh challenge tomorrow morning.

If she did extend the record by her last run then I had more income in my Mahafaly game.(478K and about 456k with debt)

Spoiler

 

[pratik_maitra]

My second run was posted on Sept. 6 21:31 JST and your improvement was posted Sept 10. 23:47 JST, a solid 100 hours later. It doesn't matter whether my improvement extended the deadline, although I think that concept is ridiculous since it punishes you for improving your own record.

I concur with the idea that a new record by the record holder should not extend the deadline. I had said the same in my initial post. Anyway it seems you live in Japan.

 

[sprites]

that's insane to get almost 500000 ducats from a OPM in 1500

 

[pratik_maitra]

that's insane to get almost 500000 ducats from a OPM in 1500

Actually it is more than 500K ducats we got 1000K ducats(money cap) with loan dev exploit. Anyway the game crashes past a certain number of loans.

 

[alexti]

Actually to convert to Hindu you just spawn Hindu rebels(as I did in my Ternate attempt). It also resets stab from no-CB wars. You declare a bunch of no-CB wars and then reset stab. You can reliably do it twice, once by Peasant`s war and once by breaking to religious rebels.

I didn't know that happens if you let rebels spawn - I was just immediately accepting their demand as soon as they become available (after sending missionary). I guess here there's a trade off: waiting for rebels vs spending ADM.

Also I believe @alexti is speaking about Ternate because Mahafaly has the RNG factor of -1 interest. Any strat with RNG like Mahafaly is a little bit dicey.

It wasn't a single reason - besides that better ruler and +10% goods produced modifier are quite attractive.

Is`nt the deadline reset for 3 days after a new record is established. However I agree that a new record set by the current record holder should not be counted. Otherwise many players who own the current record would not submit their newest best runs just to win the challenge.

They can always submit those run after the challenge is over. If the deadline is not extended it would encourage people to hold on to the better results right until the deadline (as long as they are in the lead).

Also I would like to point out that the challenge had a great problem/bug. Many players like Declamius/Schawrz/me/Alexti/Empress Kaori could easily claim to have hit the money cap(100 K) if they had a high trade income by using the loan size development bug.

The limit is 1000K, not 100K - none of submitted results would hit it (you would need more development to hit it without hitting 908 loans bug first). To get there you would need to use condottieri to the full extend and blob very heavily to benefit from the variable loan size.

that's insane to get almost 500000 ducats from a OPM in 1500

Almost all of it (in many cases all of it) is debt. The net balance was actually quite small. Not sure what was the largest net balance submitted (it wasn't the goal of the contest), it was probably only few K.

 

[SPAMbuca]

Hmm, got a bit confused here, but maybe because it's still early. EmpressKaori's first submission counts right? Which means she still holds top position. Unless I missed another submission. I'll take another look to make sure no mistakes are made. I am fine with her suggestion as the next challenge.

Although I think this will indeed make Poland the most powerful nation to do this with.

 

[SPAMbuca]

New Challenge: Complete 6 "Age of discovery" objectives as fast as possible.



Rules:

- Complete 6 "Age of discovery" objectives as fast as possible.
- These nations are not eligible:
* Nations that start as a great power.
* Nations that start with a PU.
- A screenshot must be included that shows the "age of discovery tab". Screenshot must include the achievement tab to be active.
- Deadline is 24 September 0.00 CET so the challenge will take about 10 days to finish. There will always be 72 hours to beat a new record.
- You must play on ironman, so at least on normal difficulty and historical lucky nations. 11 november 1444 start.
- You can have as many tries as you want until the deadline has passed.
- Current patch only.
- No custom nations.
- No tagswitching. No playing as a released nation.