Game of the Month 1

[unmerged(463662)]

Fantastic!

You have stormed into the lead!

Thanks for participating!

The new table:

name	1648	primary	secondary	bonus	1648 income	points
Y2Jonathan	1	3	2	2	10,953.1	10
homy_dog34	-	-	-	-	-	-
Terrantor	1	3	2	2	10,532.3	9
XRW	1	-	-	-	3，927.7	1
Iwanow	-	-	-	-	-	-
chgrogers	1	3	2	2	12,294.1	11
Elycion	-	-	-	-	-	-
Quaren	-	-	-	-	-	-
Jalex	-	-	-	-	-	-

Currently chgrogers has the 3 point bonus for 1st place, and Y2Jonathan the 2 point bonus for 2nd place and Terrantor the 1 point bonus for third place!

Anyone who wants to enter the competition are still more than welcome, the table could do with a few more rows!

I wonder if anyone can top these scores, or maybe they're just unbeatable...

Going through the old thread and this thread it seems that we might just see submissions from:
Gnorf, nephilim2k,homy_dog34, Hughrocks123, calvinhobbeslik,Icendoan, fulic1, Sciith, marshon,alphart, dibbern, verdantfang, merserm, and iwanow among others.

 

[homy_dog34]

Well, here goes. Unfortunately, i was only able to fully complete the first set of challenges due to my total lack of any skill in trading. I might redo the whole thing again, but I'm not sure.

First, I take off all of the provinces in the Netherlands Spain has in the first war that I don't have cores on, so I can conserve my infamy and still get all cored provinces.
I was minting fully almost the entire war, so I had amassed a generous amount of ducats by the end of it.

Spoiler

I then spent like the next 2 decades working on trade and taking colonies in the Americas. I took QFTNW right after the war with Spain.

I passed all of the decisions I could that would help my trade, and also took unum sanctum, and I sailed over to the East Indies.
I conquered a province off of Malacca bordering their namesake province that Portugal owned. I then proceeded to attack a few other nations in Indonesia.
I took the Oost-Indische Compagnie decision at this point.
At some point I also annexed Liege to gain full control of the Netherlands. I had a core on one of their provinces, so it didn't affect my infamy reduction too bad.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I pass the Bank of Amsterdam after putting extra emphasis on trade tech.
Also, I convert to Catholicism and take the Church Attendance Duty NI.
After taking Gilded Iconography and Iconoclasm in quick secession, I switch back to Reformed.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I then spend some more time trading, as well as fighting several wars.
I get several provinces in Indonesia from holy wars, and then take Malacca and 2 Caribbean provinces off of Portugal.
I also take the Baleares off of Aragon after forcing Spain to release them in a previous war.

Spoiler

I take Cuba off of Spain. This is pretty much the last thing I do besides trading before I attack the Knights in '44 for Malta.

Spoiler

Now I'll just show everything I managed to get.
-The Baleares and Malta, along with the home provinces you saw earlier.
-A trade income of about 260.

Spoiler

-3 Caribbean islands and Cuba
-5 South American provinces

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-Manhattan

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-Malacca and 15 other Indonesian provinces

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-My income is at the top of the world.

Spoiler

So yeah, basically if I if can somehow figure out how to trade correctly maybe I'll manage to get all of the requirements.
Would someone please explain to me how I can trade well in this game? I have a bunch of merchants everywhere, but they don't seem to be generating all that much money.
Maybe I don't have enough people out, or something.

The only requirement I missed was "Trade Income is more than 400 ducats/month.", which was a 2nd tier requirement, unfortunately.


Edit: While looking things over, just how important is it to convert your provinces?

 

[Icendoan]

I have exams at this point, so there's no time for a lengthy submission from me. I'll wait until the next one.

Will overall rankings be totals, or averages?

 

[unmerged(463662)]

homy_dog34

Great contribution! Looking at your ledger, it seems that the entire world has been credit crunched!

Regarding trade, I've a few thoughts:
You were a monarchy till at least 1630, you've lost 10% trade efficiency there for a fair amount of the game.
Did you build up lots of the trade level buildings in your provinces?
Your infamy is still quite high, till quite late, +15 infamy = -30% compete chance.
Although you've got lots of merchants trading, you don't have a great number of monopolies. The great thing about monopolies is that once achieved, you can send more merchants, and kick half of your competitors out of the CoT. That's what Poland does in this game in Danzig. If you keep losing merchants quickly, it's a sure sign a country is deliberately kicking you out. When you do it yourself, you claim more of the income.
Inflation affects your compete chance.


One of the things I've also found is that once you get a monopoly, you tend to hang on to it, even when your compete chance tanks.

Tricky...

You still have 4 years and 1 month to play till the end of the scenario... so it might still be possible, concentrate on the higher value CoT's where you also have good compete chance, and destroy the competition.

I have exams at this point, so there's no time for a lengthy submission from me. I'll wait until the next one.

Will overall rankings be totals, or averages?

Sure, best of luck with the exams.

Scores will be cumulative each month.

Here's a little titbit from the beginning of my campaign:

 

[Gnorf]

That's a lot of dead Spaniards.

I'm not sure if I'll have enough time to finish this, I have a metric fuckton of shit to do before summer. That's also why I haven't updated my AARs in forever. Oh well.

 

[Delta388]

Would someone please explain to me how I can trade well in this game?

The problem is that in this game, it's essential for a trading power to keep infamy down, yours is really high, I know it's not really avoidable to a certain degree in this challenge but you have to try whatever you can to keep infamy as low as possible since it absolutely kills your compete chance.

 

[Terantor]

I had more then 20 infamy twice in the game and still managed to trade very well.

I don't know how much of it you have, but there are a lot of things you can do to increase your chances. (Although i guess you know the most)

I had the following:
Shrewd Commerce Practice
National Trade Policy
A Trader
A guy that increases your trade efficiency
all the decisions. Every damn one. Even agricultural cultivation (you need a alderman or a natural scientist or w/e for it)

Another thing:

In the last picture you are trading in Belize, Benin and Hormuz. Normally those CoTs dont have very much value. But for every placed merchant your compete chance is decreased. So maybe abandon some CoTs. I never traded in CoTs that had a value beyond 600.

In the netherlands you can build all the trade buildings. You will trade through antwerp and you should definitely have a monopoly there. Basically everywhere you trade you should have a monopoly. With that i mean 6 traders, not being the only trade guy. I only go for 6 guys, i never try to compete the rest out of the CoT because normally that won't work, especially as the Netherlands with their high Free Trade Slider. Plus every monopoly will give you +1 Merchant/Year.

I used every slider move towards Plutocracy because it will increase your yearly merchants and your compete chance. Plus there is a chance you will get a event that will give you a level 5 Trader.

Change to Administrative Republic and elect a high adm stadtholder, because adm also increases your merchant placement and compete chance.


Try to get access to the non-european CoTs like Nanjing or Bihar. Either through bribing (at 50 relations you can ask them to open markets and they will always do that. At least for me.) or through war. Even if you white peace out, after it you can trade in their CoTs. Nanjing and Bihar and Dadra are easily to dominate because the other europeans are normally not trading there (they don't even know where bihar is, you have to discover it first) and the natives have absymal compete chances in comparision to you.

and yeah...get rid of infamy via cabinet/diplomat/embassy. I switched my NIs very often. It was rather easy to get my stability back because i had such a huge income with relatively few provinces. I had Military Drill, Shrewd Commerce Practice, National Trade Policy and National Bank all the time. The other 2 (later 3) slots were switched between PotA, Cabinets, Seahawks, Viceroys, Bureaucracy, Smithian Economics, Church Attendance Duty, QFTNW and glorious arms)

Prestige also increases your national trade income modifier. It helps quite alot to be at 80 Prestige or higher. In the last 10 years i declared war on alot of the asian minors just for the prestige.

 

[unmerged(463662)]

The problem is that in this game, it's essential for a trading power to keep infamy down, yours is really high, I know it's not really avoidable to a certain degree in this challenge but you have to try whatever you can to keep infamy as low as possible since it absolutely kills your compete chance.

I think this scenario is now balanced just right!

It might be worth rereading my overly detailed infamy post here. I intended in the set up that infamy would be a major trading problem throughout the course of the game, though not an insurmountable one.

The iconoclasm decision is designed to make getting advisors harder, but the 100 year sea spread combined with expensive cultural decisions makes it still possible to get good trade advisors if you really want them.

 

[XRW]

Gimme my 1 point.

Spoiler

I just bumrushed Liege from my latest save. Apparently france was busy at the time. Diplomat leader and cabinet NI got me just under the infamy limit.

Spoiler

It's not exactly what you wanted but it's proof I took the decision. I don't have the other decision nor do I have any overseas territory.

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Spoiler

I just want to say that Aachen is the bravest little guy ever. It was my best and most loyal ally. It isn't a vassal either. England is and was always useless.

PS. I look forward to half-assing next month's challenge.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

That poland... taking down russia, like allways. They even took novgorod...

EDIT: It seems like poland is just stronger than russia in that scenario.

 

[unmerged(463662)]

Gimme my 1 point.

Spoiler

I just bumrushed Liege from my latest save. Apparently france was busy at the time. Diplomat leader and cabinet NI got me just under the infamy limit.

Spoiler

It's not exactly what you wanted but it's proof I took the decision. I don't have the other decision nor do I have any overseas territory.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I just want to say that Aachen is the bravest little guy ever. It was my best and most loyal ally. It isn't a vassal either. England is and was always useless.

PS. I look forward to half-assing next month's challenge.

Hurray！

And really not too far off completing the primary objectives too!

name	1648	primary	secondary	bonus	1648 income	points
Y2Jonathan	1	3	2	2	10,953.1	10
homy_dog34	-	-	-	-	-	-
Terrantor	1	3	2	2	10,532.3	9
XRW	1	-	-	-	3，927.7	1
Iwanow	-	-	-	-	-	-
chgrogers	1	3	2	2	12,294.1	11
Deus G	-	-	-	-	-	-

Currently chgrogers has the 3 point bonus for 1st place, and Y2Jonathan the 2 point bonus for 2nd place and Terrantor the 1 point bonus for third place!

Anyone who wants to enter the competition are still more than welcome, the table could do with a few more rows!

I wonder if anyone can top these scores, or maybe they're just unbeatable...

 

[Elcyion]

for the lulz try...
Starting SS

Netherlands retaken trough rebels on cores the rest in the peace

Catholic for the curch attendance stuff

Income and stuff

Americas

The descions proof

Beating up on spain and Portugal for cuba and Malacca

Cuba plus my okayish income

Final income

Final MAP

 

[unmerged(80402)]

I assume you released friesland for easier infamy reduction?

 

[unmerged(463662)]

Thanks for the submission Elcyion! Could you post larger screenshots of your income pages please!

And...

I assume you released friesland for easier infamy reduction?

I think that there's a possibility that a weak player might lose control of a home province or two in the war, only to fight to regain them later, this is why on the first page the primary goal was specified as:

Possession of your starting provinces

I've also specified that:

No exploits, no magic money, no ship induced technology, no console, etcetera etcetera.

Now if you're a stronger player like Eclyion and chgrogers it's rare for a situation to arise where you would consider to concede a province rather than fight on.

In my infamy post it's quite clear that I didn't consider reliquishing control of Friesland as option for those aiming for the bonus goals.

I think there should be a certain amount of role-play here, and feel that any country in this time frame would be quite reluctant to cede control of any province, especially if it were same culture. So I think that this means that ceding Friesland counts under the 'etcetera' bit.

I'd like to see what other people think....

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Well, stiupid thing, but it is not a core, so it is likely that he could released it due imperial request. Also, as it is not a core, he just might have decided that it is a way of retaining controll over it, without angering the emperor. So i don't agree here.

 

[Elcyion]

dident release friesland i left the hre to avoid the hre penalties involved so i could keep removing all the provs from the hre and not get the 0.25 per prov dident rejoin the hre thought as that would be exploitive to just get that bonus... on the gold front the reason why i got 110k gold is i had the event giving me 24 month loans and took 5 the day before i took the SS its basicly an instant bancrupsy if i continued 5 years interest at 800monthly :d

 

[unmerged(463662)]

dident release friesland i left the hre to avoid the hre penalties involved so i could keep removing all the provs from the hre and not get the 0.25 per prov dident rejoin the hre thought as that would be exploitive to just get that bonus... on the gold front the reason why i got 110k gold is i had the event giving me 24 month loans and took 5 the day before i took the SS its basicly an instant bancrupsy if i continued 5 years interest at 800monthly :d

Hi Elcyion,

Thanks a lot for the explanation and I definitely don't have a problem with people choosing to leave the HRE!

Could you please post high resolution screenshots for June 1648 of:
1. your economy tab.
2. page 1 of your ledger.
3. pages 21 and 23 of your ledger.

and also:

4. screenie of you not in the HRE!

Thanks

 

[unmerged(634208)]

I loved these games when I was addicted to Civ4 so I started this game yesterday. I have made a few noob mistakes so far but I think its going well.

Built up my army until it was as large as the Spanish one and stack wiped them. Allied France and Switzerland(stupid since this gave Austria a way to get to us) and pulled them into the war.

Luxembourg defected to me during the war and I stupidly accepted so now I have an extra non-core province. Switzerland peaced out after getting steamrolled by Austria. Luckily only 20 Austrian brigades ended up in France with the rest going back to Austria with no land access. Shortly after that I was able to peace out with them for 25 gold. I took a chance with my fleet early and was able to defeat the Spanish main fleet (very close call) and won a few ships. After going home to repair the fleet I won 2 more engagements and just blockaded the Spanish fleet in port the rest of the war.

Here is my 1 year screen shot (a little late but forgot to take it earlier.)


France white peaced just when we were about to push into Spain in force and Spain brought in The Papal States shortly afterwards. I was never able to stability hit Spain since as soon as I got 25 WS they started accepting anything 25 WC below what I had. After vassaling The Papal States (why didn't I grab The Papacy Act first?!) and capturing spanish Italy I moved my army to start sieging Northern Spain(used my navy to keep an eye on their 50+ doomstack they had fighting rebels further south). As soon as I entered mainland Spain they were finally ready to talk real peace and I managed to get a 50 WC deal with around 45 WC.


Hopefully I will have time to finish it before the time runs out. Just before going to bed yesterday I almost lost my entire army to Bavaria but saved it with a quick military access deal and was able to escape when they couldn't follow me.

 

[unmerged(463662)]

I loved these games when I was addicted to Civ4 so I started this game yesterday. I have made a few noob mistakes so far but I think its going well.

Built up my army until it was as large as the Spanish one and stack wiped them. Allied France and Switzerland(stupid since this gave Austria a way to get to us) and pulled them into the war.

Luxembourg defected to me during the war and I stupidly accepted so now I have an extra non-core province. Switzerland peaced out after getting steamrolled by Austria. Luckily only 20 Austrian brigades ended up in France with the rest going back to Austria with no land access. Shortly after that I was able to peace out with them for 25 gold. I took a chance with my fleet early and was able to defeat the Spanish main fleet (very close call) and won a few ships. After going home to repair the fleet I won 2 more engagements and just blockaded the Spanish fleet in port the rest of the war.

Here is my 1 year screen shot (a little late but forgot to take it earlier.)
View attachment 80189

France white peaced just when we were about to push into Spain in force and Spain brought in The Papal States shortly afterwards. I was never able to stability hit Spain since as soon as I got 25 WS they started accepting anything 25 WC below what I had. After vassaling The Papal States (why didn't I grab The Papacy Act first?!) and capturing spanish Italy I moved my army to start sieging Northern Spain(used my navy to keep an eye on their 50+ doomstack they had fighting rebels further south). As soon as I entered mainland Spain they were finally ready to talk real peace and I managed to get a 50 WC deal with around 45 WC.
View attachment 80190

Hopefully I will have time to finish it before the time runs out. Just before going to bed yesterday I almost lost my entire army to Bavaria but saved it with a quick military access deal and was able to escape when they couldn't follow me.

Great effort so far!

I'd better add you and Elycion to the table...

name	1648	primary	secondary	bonus	1648 income	points
Y2Jonathan	1	3	2	2	10,953.1	10
homy_dog34	-	-	-	-	-	-
Terrantor	1	3	2	2	10,532.3	9
XRW	1	-	-	-	3，927.7	1
Iwanow	-	-	-	-	-	-
chgrogers	1	3	2	2	12,294.1	11
Elycion	-	-	-	-	-	-
Quaren	-	-	-	-	-	-
Jalex	-	-	-	-	-	-

 

[jecjackal]

Hi Guys,

How long did it take you to do this Gotm? I know there are only 7 days left but I'd like to give it a shot. When I play PI games, I normally run on speed 3 and on 2 when at war. I was gonna give it a go this weekend and through next week.