Frozen Assets Achievement: How-to

[bbasgen]

I just finished the Frozen Assets achievement, and it was a fun challenge. Here are some tips if you haven't had a go:

• Novograd has a tricky start because of Muscovy, but with the Great Horde as an Ally and a big mercenary army, cutting down Muscovy is achievable at the start. After the second war with them, there isn't really a major natural threat for the rest of the game if you manage well.
• I moved the trade node to the White Sea at the start of the game. It is a good place for your main node in any case.
• Poland/Lituania makes for an automatic and great ally for awhile. Eventually you'll want to eat Lithuania/Commonwealth, but there is no reason to rush since the Ukraine isn't that great. In fact, Europe generally is not important.
• I made Riga and march early and let it eat trade node provinces that I wouldn't need.
• I did not get the achievement early, and decided to form Russia. That meant having to play to the end, but that worked out.
• The expansion that matters is south and east. Crimea is the most south-west you need to go, while to the east Hangzhou is the furthest south east.
• It is ideal to colonize Alaska and the US West coast, but it is not a requirement. Beating Spain to it will require some early dedication, but Russia does get some nice events to help.
• Trade companies are the way to go for much of the territory grabbing you need to do, partly because you just need the trade power, but perhaps even more importantly to get extra merchants for steering. My most southern states were in Northern Persia and Samarkand. If I were doing it again, I would have made Siberia a trade company as well for the merchant.
• The game will go a bit easier if you avoid AE with the Ottomans. I ended up taking more than I needed from them, and they were in coalitions against me for the last 100 years or so. Survivable thanks to how awesomely defensible Russia is, but definitely slowed my expansion.
• I went religious with my first idea, trade second, and then military ideas. I never got to Administrative for reduced coring cost. I'm not sure if it is worth it or not in retrospect.
• I imagine it may be possible to eat most of India OR China as a way to get enough trade value in the White Sea. I ate China, and only took small bites out of India for the 5% trade efficiency bonus.
• When monitoring for the achievement, note that the outgoing value must be subtracted from the total value of the node, thus the total value of the White Sea has to be higher than the English Channel plus outgoing value (e.g. if the English Channel trade value is 300, and the White Sea is 310, but there is 20 outgoing, you are 10.1 short of the achievement).

All in all, a good achievement, and I think the Wiki has it fair with a very hard rating.