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

[holyvigil]

Northern Portugal became a holiday resort for my vassals Leon and Galicia since it refused to embrace Renaissance in time (and because I needed to cut down number of catholic provinces to switch to Sunni without spawning rebels). Switching to a non-christian religion is also how you avoid the 2 PU condition so I'm a bit sad Austria got so quickly removed. Would've been fun to see if it can even compete with Portugal, which seems the much worse offender in terms of balancing (I'm closing in on mid 1450s times with only MP generation slowing me down, this leaves almost no wiggle room for other nations)



Can't deny a dying man his last wish, so I'll agree to this unusual constellation

Man? Picture looks like female to me.

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

4 October 1457, the MP limit is reached. Absent Sultan Alfonso dying early and getting replaced by a better ruler/regency consort or some lucky MP events there's not much more to do here.

Bonus picture showing Dominions real name

 

[knoddy]

all christian countries need 2 PUs. We just flip to sunni.

But having 6 of 7 does make a lot more countries doable. /looks at a yellow country

haha i think I possibly have the same thoughts as you XD

 

[Liutasiun]

View attachment 298844

1 August 1466




it is here
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\<steam id>\760\remote\236850\screenshots

Thanks, finally figured it out thanks to you

 

[alexti]

Never mind. I have read objective on wiki wrong

 

[alexti]

6. As I said earlier, I didn't want European nations out due to the requirement of having 2 PU's and RotW has more options for strategies now they can leave 1 requirement of choice out. But it seems not all European nations need 2 PU's? If so, I was mistaken. If so, I can change it back to all 7 since the challenge is going for more than a week.

So is it "any 6" for now? The thread title and the post with the rules seem to contradict each other.

If it is "any 6", has anyone tried Vijayanagar? I am going off the wiki's objectives, so there might be holes in my reasoning (well, there might be holes in my reasoning regardless ). We start with 2 CoT and a vassal. NoCB on Yemen, vassalize and seize Aden - that's 3 CoT and 2 vassals and an easy way to fabricate and conquer African province. Easy war vs Gujarat (even AI usually wins it) gives another 2 CoT and 2 vassals. 5th vassal is easy to get in South India (peacefully if desired). Ahmadabad will be our only province in the state and it has cheapest development. So that's going to be our capital, developed for 30+ and renaissance. There should be enough MP to do that around 1451-1452. Humiliating rival isn't really difficult - just hire enough mercs.

 

[knoddy]

heres my attempt with my yellow nation
https://imgur.com/a/i6jhz
unfortunately while i had good timing throughout, the end got really messy, including the game deciding it didnt want me to flip to sunni, and not counting marches as vassals and all my vassals being very disloyal. could easily get a better run, but i spent so long getting that run down im a bit over it, the biggest problem i have with these challenges is i do them a couple of times then dont want to try anymore cos I get bored.

 

[PhoenixG]

don't worry about disloyal cuz most of the time mines are also disloyal

So is it "any 6" for now? The thread title and the post with the rules seem to contradict each other.

If it is "any 6", has anyone tried Vijayanagar? I am going off the wiki's objectives, so there might be holes in my reasoning (well, there might be holes in my reasoning regardless ). We start with 2 CoT and a vassal. NoCB on Yemen, vassalize and seize Aden - that's 3 CoT and 2 vassals and an easy way to fabricate and conquer African province. Easy war vs Gujarat (even AI usually wins it) gives another 2 CoT and 2 vassals. 5th vassal is easy to get in South India (peacefully if desired). Ahmadabad will be our only province in the state and it has cheapest development. So that's going to be our capital, developed for 30+ and renaissance. There should be enough MP to do that around 1451-1452. Humiliating rival isn't really difficult - just hire enough mercs.

aww.. that was the yellow country I thought off. Altough with a bit different plan. Since you already start with 2 CoT, you only need 3 more. Ceylon, Madurai and Gujrat are the 3 closest and what is best are bordering you. You can bully the other small nation to be your vassal. After you force spawn renaissance, you no-cb the like of yemen or omam and take one province. That province doesn't even need to be cored.

 

[SPAMbuca]

So is it "any 6" for now? The thread title and the post with the rules seem to contradict each other.

If it is "any 6", has anyone tried Vijayanagar? I am going off the wiki's objectives, so there might be holes in my reasoning (well, there might be holes in my reasoning regardless ). We start with 2 CoT and a vassal. NoCB on Yemen, vassalize and seize Aden - that's 3 CoT and 2 vassals and an easy way to fabricate and conquer African province. Easy war vs Gujarat (even AI usually wins it) gives another 2 CoT and 2 vassals. 5th vassal is easy to get in South India (peacefully if desired). Ahmadabad will be our only province in the state and it has cheapest development. So that's going to be our capital, developed for 30+ and renaissance. There should be enough MP to do that around 1451-1452. Humiliating rival isn't really difficult - just hire enough mercs.

I indeed forgot to update the post

 

[alexti]

Ceylon, Madurai and Gujrat are the 3 closest and what is best are bordering you. You can bully the other small nation to be your vassal. After you force spawn renaissance, you no-cb the like of yemen or omam and take one province. That province doesn't even need to be cored.

You need a province in Africa and Yemen (or Oman) have none (and even if they did you wouldn't be able to seize them). So you have to take an Asian province from them, core it and that would give you range to take something in Africa. So if you want to finish in 1451, you need to start coring that province in 1448. Yemen is convenient because you can get that province and CoT at the same time. Otherwise, Oman is fine (in case Yemen allied Mamluks or something).

MP seems quite tight for renaissance, so you need the province with cheapest development cost (Ahmadabad), I think.

 

[PhoenixG]

ah.. forgot arabia belonngs to asia

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

meh, first Austria gets removed because of some theorycrafting, then the 2 PU objective gets taken out (why is Austria still not allowed then?) and now we're down to 6 out of 7 (which boils down to not dscovering Americas anyway). Sadly EmpressKaori deleted her post because she worded it far more eloquently, so I'll be blunt: I feel those subsequent changes are disrespectful to people coming up with strategies and actually submitting attempts just to see they wasted their time because challenge got changed

I'm still grateful for Spambuca to create this thread and I had a lot of fun so far, but I will only participate in further challenges if they have a clear ruleset from start and will not be changed afterwards. Good luck to everyone for this challenge, should now be easy to beat Portugal

 

[PhoenixG]

imo the challenge shouldn't changed after it has been post.Just to prevent the confusion it will make. IMO it's fine to have some imba countries in like austria. The way I think was the 2 pu's can be random (and a bit too random for my taste), but that objective will be replaced with 5 vassal if you're not a christian. So the shot was either be not a christian or you convert to a non-christian faith. Problem solved. And if you pick a nation were you can release lots of some nation from the start, that is even more imba than austria having easy access to 2 pu's.

example; Morroco from day 1 he can release 3 vassals making he only needs 2 vassals to complete one objective.

 

[blusarge27]

I know I haven't really participated much in these challenges other than that one attempt, but for what it's worth I have to agree with Hessian Mercenary and PhoenixG. It''s also the reason I haven't posted any further attempts, my Venice run felt a bit empty after the two previous guys attempts where they actually went through the trouble of getting the five vassals.

A suggestion, if I may? After the winner has nominated the new challenge, perhaps there should be a period of, let's say, 6 to 12 hours (or whatever) where all rules are firmly set and any nations are ruled out if deemed too easy, that at least the majority of players can agree on. Just an idea...

BTW, love the thread and really hope the challenges continue.

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

example; Morroco from day 1 he can release 3 vassals making he only needs 2 vassals to complete one objective.

Actually only Fez and Sus, if you release Tafilalt you lose the CoT there. Workarounds would be to move capital to Tafilalt province so it won't be released, return any other province to Tafilalt and force vassalize it after truce is up, or force Tlemcen to release it and force vassalze it. But you can easly get Mzab, Touggourt and Djerid for additional vassals. If Tunis doesn't rival you you can ally them, split Tlemcen between you and together wth Granada attack the Iberians (alternatively attack Granada or Tunis if they are allied with each other, take Tunis 2 CoT provinces and one from Granada for other continent)

I know I haven't really participated much in these challenges other than that one attempt, but for what it's worth I have to agree with Hessian Mercenary and PhoenixG. It''s also the reason I haven't posted any further attempts, my Venice run felt a bit empty after the two previous guys attempts where they actually went through the trouble of getting the five vassals.

A suggestion, if I may? After the winner has nominated the new challenge, perhaps there should be a period of, let's say, 6 to 12 hours (or whatever) where all rules are firmly set and any nations are ruled out if deemed too easy, that at least the majority of players can agree on. Just an idea...

BTW, love the thread and really hope the challenges continue.

To be fair the vassals actually helped in my Portugal attempt. Since challenge got changed I might as well give a short rundown:
1. Delete all forts, build 4 regular infantry, set army maintenance to low. Start spy networks in Castile, Morocco and Granada. Hire level 2 advisors wth help from estates, also get 150 MP in every category from estates (might be worthwhile to go for 200 and deal with estates rebels during regency). Set Granada, Morocco as rivals and choose mission to conquer Tangiers
2. Regency ends mid January 1447, up army maintenance in time and build another 8 regular infantry (one in every province of mainland). Set Castile as rival
3. Attack Castile with claim on Sevilla, stackwipe their separated armies with your 25 regiments, siege them down. In peacedeal take Galicia, Leon, Sevilla and Humiliate
4. Release Galicia and Leon, make them marches and send officers. This means you have around 10 aditional regiments of high quality that can attach to your armies
5. Declare on Morocco. In all my tries they were allied to Granada and Tunis. Win sea battle in straits of Gibraltar, stackwipe Granada and occupy all their provinces (I actually gambled here and deleted fort in Ceuta so I don't have to siege it back). Around the time Granada fort falls you should be able to buy mil tech 4. Beat the Berbers and siege down Morocco. This gives enough war score to take Mellila, coastal provinces from Tangiers to Haha, Sus, Quarzazate and Tafilalt (need direct path to start coring immediately)
6. Destate Ceuta and core Tangiers and Tafilalt. During war against Morocco you should build spy network in Tlemcen. Attack them and take Tlemcen province and Ouarsenis. Core Tlemcen, send missionary to Ouarsenis (with low missionary maintenance)
7. Now you have 41 months till Tlemcen is cored, this is enough time to enact Golden Age, discover Americas and develop Renaissance in Lisboa (don't forget to make Burghers happy and enact Development edict)
8. Last step is to revoke march on Galicia and Leon (marches don't count for vassal objective and game needs monthly update to recognize change), accept Sunni rebels from Ouarsenis, release Sus, Fez and Algiers. Destate your islands and give all mainland provinces except Lisboa to Galicia and Leon
9. Enjoy having completely wrecked your country for all Age objectives

An additional idea has been to send a conquistador to Americas and hope for some MP events to speed things up. Might also be more efficient to take Tunis instead of all the provinces needed to get to Tafilalt, but my armies were busy sieging down Tangiers and Fez and going over to Tunis would've delayed attack on Tlemcen too long. Maybe taking Murcia from Castile so I can start war against Tlemcen without needing Mellila from Morocco for claim fabrication. If anyone has suggestions for further improvements I'd still be happy to hear them

 

[blusarge27]

What was the mistake you said you made that could have shaved two years off your time?

I took one run at Portugal (would've only got around 1460 at best). I took a slightly different approach in the beginning though; I allied Aragon and used him as a meatshield/distraction. I was actually hoping that he would attack Navarra early on, calling me in and bypassing the regency, and then separate peace for Seville and Galicia (forgot about Leon). But obviously he didn't in my run .

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

In the previous attempt I waited for Renaissance to spread to other provinces in the capital area (and helped by putting all MP in developing them), then I realized I just had to develop Renaissance in Lisboa and give away the other provinces to vassals to fulfil the objective. That's what I did in my last attempt and improved time from early 1460 to late 1457

Allying Aragon is indeed helpful, but it seems they rival you quite often and I didn't want to restart all the time when you can beat Castile alone without too much trouble. You also don't gain too much by trying to bypass the regency, as I said you're more constraint by MP than by time if you want all Age objectives (need to take admin tech 5, get first 2 ideas of Exploration, core 4 additional CoT and develop Renaissance). At least Portugal can get 200 admin from Tangiers mission

I said I won't participate but can't help to think of new stuff: how about Genoa? Starts with 2 CoT, can get another from Candar, then Milan and Firenze -> buy off coalition. Can release Corsica, release Pisa and Parma after wars with Florence and Milan and depending on alliances take 2 secondary participants as vassals. Else you can get Theodoro and Trebizond easily. Then maybe attack Crimea to switch to Sunni. If you spawn Renaissance you're done. Biggest problem would be that basically everyone you want to attack has a level 3 fort, not sure if you can keep the amount of troops necessary to at least siege down 2 at a time without bankrupting yourself, especially since you have to bribe the coalition (both from FL and income you're much worse off than Portugal)

 

[blusarge27]

Ok, that makes more sense, I thought it was your '57 run that you could've got two years earlier, which would've been insane, with getting renaissance everywhere.

I actually thought about Genoa but as you said the FL and income is a bit of an issue. That run I did with Venice was my first and I know I could have done it quicker; I attacked Tlemcen and Morocco too late. Coring Tangiers was my hold up there. Getting the CoT's was easy though, sniped Constantinople right at the start, allied and improved relations with Austria to join the HRE, take Milan (which also gets you the +30 city right away, saving MP's for helping renaissance in your other provinces). Then no-cb Tlemcen for his CoT, claim Mellila, then DOW Morocco for Tangiers. I just took too long between Milan and Tlemcen. Though maybe going for the Berbers earlier to get the Sunni rebels going would be better. Venice also obviously starts with two vassals.

Although if the challenge now is just any 6 objectives, that really opens it up as you can pick and choose which objectives you get. If you ignore the renaissance, Tunis might also be a contender, starting with two CoT's, just kill/vassalize the other Berbers and wait for tech 5.

Edit: forgot about the 2 continents objective. Maybe Naples or Valencia when Castille is beating him down, which usually happens. Tunisia at least has enough ports that you could get 5 heavies from the guilds to smash Aragons navy.

 

[alexti]

A suggestion, if I may? After the winner has nominated the new challenge, perhaps there should be a period of, let's say, 6 to 12 hours (or whatever) where all rules are firmly set and any nations are ruled out if deemed too easy, that at least the majority of players can agree on. Just an idea...

I agree with this idea. Perhaps discussion of the next challenge should even start before the previous one is over to give few days to eliminate obvious problems. It is not easy to come up with an interesting challenge that isn't too RNG-dependent and doesn't have an obvious solution. This challenge in particular has serious issues. With 7 objectives, it's MP-generation bound with all associated randomness (with institution spawn randomness to add) due to need to get exploration and renaissance. 6 out of 7 would normally make things much more interesting, but discover America is bound by 1454 or so while renaissance is 1451 bound, so again there's little choice in 6. Perhaps it would be better to select different objectives, such that their timing is not dictated by the game mechanics.

 

[Hessian Mercenary]

Although if the challenge now is just any 6 objectives, that really opens it up as you can pick and choose which objectives you get. If you ignore the renaissance, Tunis might also be a contender, starting with two CoT's, just kill/vassalize the other Berbers and wait for tech 5.

Edit: forgot about the 2 continents objective. Maybe Naples or Valencia when Castille is beating him down, which usually happens. Tunisia at least has enough ports that you could get 5 heavies from the guilds to smash Aragons navy.

Just attack Granada as Tunis before Castile can, no need to mess with the catholics. That said I also forgot the 2 continents objective for Genoa. No CB on Tlemcen seems best way, but if you can collect other CoT you won't need to wait for ridiculous coring time. This also means I don't have to attack Crimea for Sunni provinces. In the end it's another RNG strategy with Renaissance spawn hugely affecting possible finishing times