Estonia achievement is either Axis invasion of USA or ~world conquest?

[TheMeInTeam]

So after the fascist run I did where i couldn't call Germany to war with USSR due to a bugged interaction with M-R, I looked at the rest of the tree. It seems this achievement requires a pseudo world conquest or at least Axis total victory with #1 score for Estonia, unless I'm missing something?

• If you go democratic, you lose the achievement on the spot. You cannot declare war on the Scandinavians, and you cannot annex them. So this is out. As usual, playing democracy as anything but a major that just fights in WW2 in scripted fashion sucks.
• If you go communist, you pick between two paths. One makes you a soviet puppet (even if you win the civil war with just the officers or w/e). The other does not, but makes USSR refuse to let you in the faction and instead declare war on you. In a test run, I won this war anyway...to the point that by the time Barbarossa started, I had more than half of Soviet Poland. But Germany holds Denmark and Norway is part of the allies. AT BEST, I could skip fighting Germany with this route, by joining Axis as communist (lol) and score farming enough to take Denmark and Norway 1st in peace deal. Germany has huge negatives if you ask to join, but they offered instead so I could still join.
  • It is virtually impossible to win this and beat allies before USA joins. It is possible to win WW2 outright, and this is the closest I can find to avoiding pseudo world conquest.
• If you go fascist, it is functionally identical to the above non-soviet communist in terms of strategic targets. You just switch focus bonuses and fight the same nations.
• Going non-aligned is a tremendous pain, because the game forces a lot of democracy on you fast. But I think you can get it below 20% and ban it. There is little benefit. You can get and later kick out Finland. The other Scandinavians will not join you, because you are non-aligned. You get to unify the nearby minors without a fight, but that fight is pretty trivial for the other paths. At best, you may once again join Axis by simply telling USSR to screw off and joining when offered...which makes this once again quite similar to the communist and fascist paths, except you get a strictly worse government type and different focuses. Hurray?

From what I can tell, being either communist or fascist and aligning with Axis makes the most sense, regardless of what choices you make with focus tree otherwise. This lets you take + get cores on Latvia and Lithuania, and unlike non-aligned doesn't restrict you from improving your conscription law in anticipation of the Soviet attack. Though non-aligned can maybe get enough manpower to hold also via some of the focuses. Because M-R has a bugged interaction with this situation, you are stuck defending for a while vs USSR no matter what you pick, though per above I found this possible (in fact it is possible to beat USSR solo if Germany didn't fight them).

The alternative might be to roll the dice with non-historical focuses? But it just seems odd to have 4 options, where 3 of them result in you joining the same side of the war for the achievement and the 4th is a false choice (for achievement purposes).

 

[pheonicia]

If you roll with non historical you can still set the other baltics (and poland) to historical routes so that they don't join the soviets or do anything crazy without invalidating the achievement. I haven't gotten the achievement myself though, since when I've tried I can't manage to take out sweden or Denmark and get a foothold to take out the other 2 targets.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Doesn't setting specific paths for nations block achievements?

I was able to use red rifle divisions + 12w to naval invade and beat Finland in one of my runs (same one where I later dumpstered USSR, though I had to sac Finland occupation for a while).

If I could actually attack the Scandinavians without dragging in the allies or getting declared on by USSR it would be a straightforward achievement. Denmark in particular puts you on a timer due to Germany if they go historical, not sure if their focus still works/attacks you if Denmark doesn't exist (if someone other than Cezchs own Sudetenland, Germany just declares w/o warning).

 

[GrandVezir]

I just completed it the other day. Here's how:

1. Flip fascist via the focus tree. You must avoid a civil war, otherwise you will generate too much world tension, and the Allies will guarantee Norway.
2. Take over Finland via the focus tree. Their civil war (or lack thereof) is not relevant, since the tension they create goes away when you absorb them.
3. Justify and declare war on Denmark. Once you win, take Sjaelland and Jutland for yourself*. You can puppet Iceland and the rest of Denmark (in Greenland and the Faeroes)
4. Take the focus for war with Norway and Sweden, but only declare war on Norway at first. Conquer and puppet.
5. Finally, declare war on Sweden. They will be guaranteed by the UK at this point, but might not join the Allies if they've taken the neutrality generic focus.

After that, just capitulate Sweden and you've won.

*If you puppet all of Denmark to use the neutral puppet shield trick, they will allow the Royal Navy into the Baltic. Bad times.

 

[pheonicia]

Doesn't setting specific paths for nations block achievements?

I was able to use red rifle divisions + 12w to naval invade and beat Finland in one of my runs (same one where I later dumpstered USSR, though I had to sac Finland occupation for a while).

If I could actually attack the Scandinavians without dragging in the allies or getting declared on by USSR it would be a straightforward achievement. Denmark in particular puts you on a timer due to Germany if they go historical, not sure if their focus still works/attacks you if Denmark doesn't exist (if someone other than Cezchs own Sudetenland, Germany just declares w/o warning).

They changed it in la resistance(?) where selecting the historical path still keeps the game achievement valid. You can check yourself that the historical option won't have the little crossed out trophy symbol next to it.

 

[jacekgk]

I just completed it the other day. Here's how:

1. Flip fascist via the focus tree. You must avoid a civil war, otherwise you will generate too much world tension, and the Allies will guarantee Norway.
2. Take over Finland via the focus tree. Their civil war (or lack thereof) is not relevant, since the tension they create goes away when you absorb them.
3. Justify and declare war on Denmark. Once you win, take Sjaelland and Jutland for yourself*. You can puppet Iceland and the rest of Denmark (in Greenland and the Faeroes)
4. Take the focus for war with Norway and Sweden, but only declare war on Norway at first. Conquer and puppet.
5. Finally, declare war on Sweden. They will be guaranteed by the UK at this point, but might not join the Allies if they've taken the neutrality generic focus.

After that, just capitulate Sweden and you've won.

Very good advices, I have done it very similar

Few mentions:

- "Baltic fleet" focus gives You a few free dockyards - use it to build crappy submarines and defeat Denmark;
- You can declare war against Denmark, Latvia and Lithuania simultaniosly - this should avoid any guarantees;
- if You have some lucky and Norway does not get any guarantees, You can cut Sweden from ally help very easy.

Good luck - desciption about "Eesti is Scandi" achievement from Wiki is mostly mine, probably now I would do some things little different, but this strategy should work nicely

 

[Andrew0Red]

You can cheese guarantees a bit, should you be so inclined. If you justify on a number of random countries that you don't want, you often bait them into guaranteeing them. And since each new guarantee costs more PP, but each new justification - after cancelling the old - does not.


I don't know if it's been mentioned, but if you have problems with targets joining a big faction you can't beat, engineer it so you declare war on them while only fighting a faction you _can_ beat. Then they'll join that faction instead.

 

[Aeroclub]

ally impossible to win this and beat allies before USA joins. It is possible to win WW2 outright, and this is the closest I can find to avoiding pseudo world con

I just completed it the other day. Here's how:

1. Flip fascist via the focus tree. You must avoid a civil war, otherwise you will generate too much world tension, and the Allies will guarantee Norway.
2. Take over Finland via the focus tree. Their civil war (or lack thereof) is not relevant, since the tension they create goes away when you absorb them.
3. Justify and declare war on Denmark. Once you win, take Sjaelland and Jutland for yourself*. You can puppet Iceland and the rest of Denmark (in Greenland and the Faeroes)
4. Take the focus for war with Norway and Sweden, but only declare war on Norway at first. Conquer and puppet.
5. Finally, declare war on Sweden. They will be guaranteed by the UK at this point, but might not join the Allies if they've taken the neutrality generic focus.

After that, just capitulate Sweden and you've won.

*If you puppet all of Denmark to use the neutral puppet shield trick, they will allow the Royal Navy into the Baltic. Bad times.

I did the same way, except you can declare on both Norway and Sweden at the same time (to give yourself max time to prepare before the guarantees). Just pushing from the North is easy anyway if take advantage of the supply system. First, build one for your own forces in Finland, and second, notice the only supply depot they have for the whole region which is like two tiles away from the border. Spearhead into that tile, and once you take it, all of their forces will be as good as dead.

 

[Reman]

The title of this thread and the first post makes me think there's some confusion on what the achievement actually entails. From what I can see on the wiki, the achievement only requires *controlling* certain land, with no obligation to actually own it. For reference, "owning" land means its yours from a peace conference, whereas "controlling" it simply means you've occupied it. Many of the earlier achievements, like that terrible Hungarian one, required both owning and controlling. I guess someone at Paradox finally realized peace conferences are hot steaming garbage though, so most of the new achievements only require controlling, which is significantly easier. Capitulating the USA shouldn't be necessary to get the achievement, as merely controlling land does not necessitate a peace conference. Just evict the Allies from Scandinavia and you should be good to go.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Thanks all.

I wound up doing fascist, avoiding the ticking democracy trap by ASAP banning that crap. Banning communist too gets you to 40% requirement reasonably fast.

From there I fished out DEI for manpower and unified Baltics. I could have continued the achievement like a normal person, but I decided to take a detour and crush USSR first, since we only need occupation for the cheevo rather than annexing in peace deal.