Do people who do Ironman achievements restart all the time ?

[Koba133]

I understand that people with skills can do amazing things in this game, but when watching videos of streamers they seem to be immune to RNG.

For example I followed his opening strategy for Portugal

I followed the exact same steps, but I had to restart two times because I was bogged down in the first war because the AI had some lucky dice rolls. It can completely derail your opening strategy or at least delay it a lot

 

[iClipse]

Depends on the achievement. Time gated achievements sometimes require a restart. Sometimes. Most achievements can be done first try.

What great players especially do is adapt to circumstances. Playing Granada is a perfect example of this, you really need to make your strategy depend on how everything opens up. Castile and Aragon allied take a different approach then Castile and Aragon rivalled. But both are possible to do.

 

[Terixis]

There are some achievements where you do really want to restart for good (or at least not horrible) RNG, usually a particularly bad set of rivals+first month alliances that block your expansion at the start. Most ironman cheese is in the form of backup saves and birds though, not restarting since that takes a while.

 

[pinhpanther123]

I understand that people with skills can do amazing things in this game, but when watching videos of streamers they seem to be immune to RNG.

For example I followed his opening strategy for Portugal

I followed the exact same steps, but I had to restart two times because I was bogged down in the first war because the AI had some lucky dice rolls. It can completely derail your opening strategy or at least delay it a lot

Not every campaign can happen with all the things in these kind of ytb walkthrough. So these walkthrough just for some little consultant, u can not follow it step by step

 

[elessar9]

No youtube video is going to show a restart, but if you watch twitch streamers you will be seeing restarts.

I play always Ironman and yeah restarts are a thing. I only restart when things go horribly wrong, not when things are just a bit below optimal. Rolling with the punches is part of what makes Ironman enjoyable.

As an example Radio Res made a byzantium guide that was presented as a "guaranteed success". The only way to fail was if the ottomans beat you to a siege race with them sieging down a level 3 fort before you could siege a level 1. Well guess what happened in my game...?

 

[LazySiege]

To be honest you dont loose a War against AI, even the worse coalition wars can normaly be won.
Thats what most youtuber do. Thy win their wars they need to win, no matter what.

Most normal player dont play like this, e.g. money is only a number....
A lost war is no RNG, not even wih bad rolls.

On topic, i dont normaly do restarts in ironman, but sometime you need them.
On my Hawaii --> USA run i did two restarts after around 70y, cause i realized it wasnt the best starting strategy

 

[Jespoke]

I can't help myself from restarting if things go badly in the opening months (an ally i really need rivaled me, the country i need to fight early for important missions allied Poland, etc) or something goes disastrous in my first war. After that i usually stick to my runs unless i mess up and get myself dismantled by a coalition.

Especially starting as a Free City in the empire i find myself restarting even up to 20-30 times because their starting rulers are 100% random, and it is going to bother me for ages if i settle for someone average or less.

 

[MrSnert]

Before taking off on a grand campaign, I usually restart a lot, because I like finding the optimal opening moves while accounting for the many possible RNG elements. Really getting to see how starting up a nation can go several different ways is actually a lot of fun. Particularly if you‘re writing or making a guide for a country you have to try several things and see how the various early game events can work out.
It often seems however that online/youtube guides haven’t restarted to find the many things that you have to account for and then offer ways to deal with these, but instead to get their optimal RNG start. I find Ludi’s guides to be particularly useless; they’re basically just him showing off his runs, and lucky ones at that. I’d be fine with it if that was it and he wouldn‘t be pretending they’re actually useful guides. IMO if you’re making a guide and you happen to get extremely lucky with something like a PU, which cannot be reproduced by any reliable method, you should restart and show us a more average, normal run instead.

 

[Romanix90]

When ever I'm going for specific achievement I do following steps :

1. Always back up save files on desktop or wherever. Like before making certain decisions, declaring war etc.

2. Watch YT on how others gained that achievement. What are their strategies and so on.

3. EU4Wiki is also reliable source on what to do to get certain achievements. So I don't mind reading advices.

4. Ask the community here for help. Like if you have any trouble or something. Players here will help you and offer you their opinions and advices.

 

[Victoria 3 finally]

I sure as hell am gonna restart if my first war against the Ottomans ends in disaster as the Balkans or Anatolia

 

[Frag adder]

I never make any backup, I try to aim for certain achievements and if they involve "achieve X before Y" then yes, I would restart if I see in advance I cannot make it. But if they are achievements you can just get sometime throught the 300+ years, then no, I just deal with setbacks. Honestly I think it makes games more fun than being the world superpower in the first 40 years and then having to continue being unopposed for the rest of the time. Then I usually abandon game because it becomes dull.

 

[holyvigil]

I understand that people with skills can do amazing things in this game, but when watching videos of streamers they seem to be immune to RNG.

For example I followed his opening strategy for Portugal

I followed the exact same steps, but I had to restart two times because I was bogged down in the first war because the AI had some lucky dice rolls. It can completely derail your opening strategy or at least delay it a lot

Depends. 80% of the time no.

 

[Vin55]

Sometimes, when there is bad rng, or a bad alliance network, especially as small nation, like Theodoro, or Madurai, where the ottomans or vijinagar, can kill u at any given moment in the first 20 Years. But as stated above also with time achievments, took me 3 starts for Dahomy, once because of a mali marocco alliance, the second time because of a bad rng event, where rebells killed me the third was the charme. I mean one tabs out if the 6 6 6 ruler dies too soon or one is attacked and all alliances break, because of some random bad luck, but thats it.

 

[MK1980]

there's usually some restarting and/or savescumming in the early parts of my ironman runs. like in my last run (spaghetti western - colonize and tag switch to texas or mexico as bologna), i had to restart a few times because i ran into crappy starting conditions over and over (direct neighors allied with way too strong powers to tackle). you usually don't see such stuff in youtube guides. best one in the bologna run was when my rival (and primary expansion goal) ferrara got the burgundian inheritance... totally messed up. once i get a half decent start, i usually pull through.

 

[Runite Drill]

Everyone seems to have different opinions on this. Tbh all are justified, as long as you enjoy the game.

For me: no save-scumming or backup saves, and no restarts unless the position is so clearly hopeless. Personally, I don't think you develop as strong skills if you cheat/scum your way to success in every game. Learning to adapt to the game is incredibly valuable for long-term success with achievements. I have some 300yr+ failed achievement runs that certainly could have gone better (hello Pol + RUS + TUR hugbox when I'm a modest THEO), but in their failure I have learnt many things.