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btw. you didn't answer my question ;) How will the ranking for best be done in the end? How will finished goals be weighed with money accrued?

And just to clarify:

to finish the 3rd goal i need 7 caribbean islands, not 5. 2+5, right?
and 3rd goal also mentions "10 more prov in east asian trade port region/ indonesia region".
Is this 10 more from 1st or 2nd goal?
 
btw. you didn't answer my question ;) How will the ranking for best be done in the end? How will finished goals be weighed with money accrued?

And just to clarify:

to finish the 3rd goal i need 7 caribbean islands, not 5. 2+5, right?
and 3rd goal also mentions "10 more prov in east asian trade port region/ indonesia region".
Is this 10 more from 1st or 2nd goal?

Sorry that was badly worded.

7 total Carribean Islands
18 provinces in east asia trade port/indonesia, (any more and you start needed colonists)

There are 3 different sets of goals, if only one person passes all goals, he automatically wins. If more than that, then the winner is awarded based on cash in the bank.

If only one person passes the bonus goals, he wins, and then 2nd and 3rd place are allocated based on who has most cash in the bank of those who passed the secondary goals.

As this challenge has a set end date, money just felt more enjoyable than encouraging people to colonize madly etc.

Y2Jonathon.

Thanks for participating, great to see you conquered the Spanish Netherlands and enacted the decision. However I can't even give you a single point as you haven't satisfied all of the requirements of any of the goals. Could you tell us how the challenge went, and what your idea of EU3 fun is?
 
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Another thing that needs clarification:

1st goal requires Manhattan +2other NA provinces and 2 provinces in the caribbean.
Now region mapmode tells me that the caribbean is also north america.
So could it be done by colonizing manhattan +2 islands in the caribbean?
I think this is not intended, if so, you should clarify. I took 2 provinces in the caribbean and manhattan+2 provs in NA (that means today USA)

I guess i will post a first update on my journey later
 
Another thing that needs clarification:

1st goal requires Manhattan +2other NA provinces and 2 provinces in the caribbean.
Now region mapmode tells me that the caribbean is also north america.
So could it be done by colonizing manhattan +2 islands in the caribbean?
I think this is not intended, if so, you should clarify. I took 2 provinces in the caribbean and manhattan+2 provs in NA (that means today USA)

I guess i will post a first update on my journey later

It wasn't intended as the requirements were partly based on NED's historical conquests, but actually I think in the interests of streamlining I'll delete the need for the 2 North American Provinces.

Thanks.
 
Y2Jonathon.

Thanks for participating, great to see you conquered the Spanish Netherlands and enacted the decision. However I can't even give you a single point as you haven't satisfied all of the requirements of any of the goals. Could you tell us how the challenge went, and what your idea of EU3 fun is?

I know and I'm fine with that. Fun is something that presents a challenge and gives some sense of accomplishment when you succeed. Invading Spain to take back the Netherlands before 1615 was interesting; especially when you get a 15 year regency immediately after winning the 80 years war. Taking all the specified colonies just seems like busy work and not really worth the time. Anyway, I wasn't in it for the points; just wanted to take down Spain.

Also taking Malacca, while I understand the historical precedent, is just not a good in-game decision as a free trade nation. It's too valuable to destroy meaning it'll just nuke your compete chance. This is true of Venice and Genoa as well. Getting 16 monopolies while having -45% compete chance form non-core CoTs plus the infamy needed to take the land (including annexing Venice and Genoa) sounds unrealistic.

As to how things went:

I fought Spain and Austria off simply by letting them wander in with their stacks and crushing them one by one. Any time a stack looked too big to beat, I just build more troops. After occupying all of non-Iberian Spain, I just took out enough troops that warscore was finally high enough to stab hit Spain down to -3 by demanding Antwerpen. Then I got a 15 year regency which kept me from declaring any wars as well as prevented me from changing government.

I used this time to take QFTNW and explore the American coasts as well as all the Asian CoTs. I colonized Manhattan and a few Caribbean islands. Once the regency was up, I declared war on Ming and took Macau in order to pass the EITC decision as well as get trade range in Asia. Using the trade income I built up my army and navy and got my land tech to 28 before declaring war on Spain.

I used the naval tradition I got from exploring to get an awesome admiral that was able to beat the Spanish armada while my superior troops were able to outright devastate the Spanish ground forces. Eventually I walked across France and invaded Spain proper forcing a surrender. I demanded the entire Spanish Netherlands in the peace deal. I then took Unam Sanctum so I could annex Liege. Somewhere in there I converted to Catholic to take gilded iconography,converted back, and took iconoclasm.
 
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Spain is bribed out of the first war with a chunk of scotland my only ally. Scotland will later fall to crap. To be replaced with england, which is even more useless than scotland.
Damnit.
My navy is worthless might as well swap one of the naval ideas for national bank.
I got bored.
Carpet vassal begins.
England calls me to war with spain. I do not realize that england is worthless as an ally. There navy sucks compared to Spain and their army is nearly non existent (I have almost as many troops, spain has like 300k). Portugal, the slow child eventually rapes and pillages spains mainland until a white peace is declared.
The aftermath of more religious wars. I just vassal everybody. Massed vassals make great allies.
Spain became involved in a war with the ottoman empire. Austria their cheif ally was eventually bought off for 25 gold. Little to no resistance was met in the Iberian peninsula.
The deal.

In closing I think it's a really bad idea to go for colonies in this set up. My navy is crap. There is no way I can beat the spanish army in europe overseas and not get my navy sunk or my army insta pwned. Maybe the vassals are unnecessary but releasing them makes good bribes for peace deals.
 
My recommendation for the goals would have been:

Primary: Peace out the 80 years war without giving up any territory. Found the Dutch East India Company. Get a certain amount of trade income. Nothing too flashy here.

Secondary: Push Spain out of The Netherlands.

Bonus: What you had about iconoclasm and beating Spain by a certain date is interesting. Perhaps this is where you could require some sort of colonial requirements. Maybe the ultimate goal would be to pass Spain in income by a certain date establishing the Netherlands as the true economic powerhouse?

Fun Image:

 
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My recommendation for the goals would have been:

Primary: Peace out the 80 years war without giving up any territory. Found the Dutch East India Company. Get a certain amount of trade income. Nothing too flashy here.

Secondary: Push Spain out of The Netherlands.

Bonus: What you had about iconoclasm and beating Spain by a certain date is interesting. Perhaps this is where you could require some sort of colonial requirements. Maybe the ultimate goal would be to pass Spain in income by a certain date establishing the Netherlands as the true economic powerhouse?

You're quite right. The success requirements for each group are still all too hard...

How many people are in the middle of their campaigns? If you can all report in with updates and feedback...
 
Mostly the problem is that spanish army is for some reason stronger than yours. And england is useless - if it would propose alliance during first war, it could win you the game. Thou, in my opinion best ally would be france, if not the fact they are too scared to join up with you.
 
Did everyone remember to take Holland's provincial decisions?

I actually found the Spanish army to be quite a bit weaker, unless they got an uber general.

I am on 5.2 though, so it could be the quality difference between real troops and mercenaries.
 
Was going to start today but I got distracted with a Trojan on my Laptop. So tomorrow after depositing my laptop the computer place I will give it a go.

Sure, have a read through this thread to before you start.

I thought I'd do a run through just to check the goals, I've played until 1607 so far. The following pictures are a bit small, if you want to see higher resolutino, just click on them, or follow the links at the bottom of the post. I've got month by month notes for the first 6 years which I may post up at some point.

42 Spaniards sitting on Vlanderaan, after they finished seiging they moved to Antwerp and then split in two, and so I pounced.

Peace Treaty, claimed Antwerp and Brabant 1585. I was alone in the war, though managed to buy Austria out with a SoI and some beer money a year or two in when they got jumped by England and possibly Portugal.

1590

I declared war on Spain as after the truce ran out. I was very surprised to see Portugal join as war leader after they honoured the call to arms... they were leading a PU with Spain. I had England in an alliance by that point, and it bore the brunt of the attack, getting covered in green and yellow stripes fairly quickly. Once Spain had stopped sending troops north, I marched my entire army to Spain and sieged Toledo and lisboa. But easy war, considering. Portugal has the stamina of an angry flower.


In the peace deal, I force released Sri Lanka, sailed over there, and swapped NI to the anti-heathen one, then saw they'd been released as Catholic and so had to switch to the anti-heresy NI, so took -6 stab before I could declare on them.

My colonies in South America, France owns Manhattan:

I've had a fairly lucky run so far!

the pictures are bigger here:
http://i.imgur.com/7ibGmas.jpg
http://imgur.com/VEFip1u,KtXvrBT,bCuenb3,BtwDXK5#0
http://imgur.com/SK4eVux

I think the goals could be further simplified, especially the primary goals. and Y2J is right, it's a bit annoying having to take so many uncored CoT's.
 
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I think I'm gonna restart on mine. I spent too much time on the colonies and not enough on wars.
Also, I totally did not notice the end date, and as such I barely minted anything at all.
 
Great Job XRW! Congrats on completing the scenario!

Having finished it, what do you think the primary goals should have been?

Primary: Don't lose land in the first ware. Survive to end without losing land.
Secondary: Retake spanish netherlands.
Bonus: Gain as many or more colonies in the various areas that was historical.
Tiebreaking could be done on the basis of number of colonies over the required amount.
 
My recommendation for the goals would have been:

Primary: Peace out the 80 years war without giving up any territory. Found the Dutch East India Company. Get a certain amount of trade income. Nothing too flashy here.

Secondary: Push Spain out of The Netherlands.

Bonus: What you had about iconoclasm and beating Spain by a certain date is interesting. Perhaps this is where you could require some sort of colonial requirements. Maybe the ultimate goal would be to pass Spain in income by a certain date establishing the Netherlands as the true economic powerhouse?

Fun Image:



I think this is too easy. I mean: it should still pose a challenge. If you are a halfway skilled player, you can easily survive the first war. I consider myself at best an average player and i even managed to win it. Granted, it took me 8 years, but you have only one place of action, so your attention can't be somewhere else.

Question to 2nd Goal: I see you took all of the spanish Netherlands provinces. How do you do that? I mean it will give you a lot of infamy because those provinces are in the HRE.
I thought about leaving the HRE but then i would lose Friesland. I could release them as a vassal, but then i would need to annex them later again...
 
I think this is too easy. I mean: it should still pose a challenge. If you are a halfway skilled player, you can easily survive the first war. I consider myself at best an average player and i even managed to win it. Granted, it took me 8 years, but you have only one place of action, so your attention can't be somewhere else.

I actually want those who are not yet halfway skilled players to be able to complete the primary goals.

There's also a certain degree of luck in each person's game. If Spain were also able to bring Portugal, England and France into the alliance against you, it really would be game over in the first war.

I see you took all of the spanish Netherlands provinces. How do you do that? I mean it will give you a lot of infamy because those provinces are in the HRE.
I thought about leaving the HRE but then i would lose Friesland. I could release them as a vassal, but then i would need to annex them later again...

Look at my screenshots, some of them say Imperial Reconquest. Lots of free cores... yummy.

If a country outside the HRE owns HRE provinces, you get a core upon conquest.
 
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I actually want those who are not yet halfway skilled players to be able to complete the primary goals.

Well okay, i guess then the first goal is too hard. That's right. Especially to get Malacca is not easy, because normally portugal is guaranteed by spain and allied with england. Even surviving the first war is not sooo easy.
So basically: First goal -> Everyone can do it
Second Goal -> Good players can do it
Third Goal -> "Pros" can do it
?
Look at my screenshots, some of them say Imperial Reconquest. Lots of free cores... yummy.

If a country outside the HRE owns HRE provinces, you get a core upon conquest.

Ah yeah i totally forgot that. Seems like i may have to start over, because the spanish netherlands have turned into a mess of smaller states that are all members of the HRE.

Anyway, i completed the first goal.

I have conquered all of spanish netherlands:

I have won the war and have taken all my cores.
I build 20 more regiments, that was a huge strain to my economy, because my force limit was 20, but i got war subsidies by france and venice. I bribed Austria out, and took all non-iberian spanish provinces. France allied to spain and declared war on me. After i had beaten like 100 regiments, i could stab-hit spain and bribed france out. 1 year later spain finally accepted my peace offer.


1590. I discovered Manhattan and the surroundings. A year later i placed my first 3 colonies there.


1598. This is my closest screenie to 1600.

1608. my closest screenie to 1610. My colonies in the caribbean and north america were already towns. Because my king had crappy admin, i had only 56% chance to place my colonists in guayana/suriname/etc. that means i had to send like 20 colonists, only to have my colonies taken by spain when they declared war of reconquest on me later. Luckily Austria joined me as Emperor and France offered me an alliance 2 years into the war and joined on my side. Strangely i couldn't take provinces for 3 infamy, although i was defender. But i did not have a core on Spain, so the reconquest casus belli did not work for me. Or was it, because austria and france had a core on spain? But i could not give them this provinces for 0 or even 3 infamy...

1620. First goal is done. I took the provinces surrounding malacca and luckily i got a core on it due to my 8 dip ruler. I declared war on aceh twice, on bijapur, khandesh and mughals (although they had 100k troops while i only had 10k inf and 5k cav there i easily smashed them for one province.) to get my asian holdings.
One day before peacing with spain i declared war on portugal so they could not honor their guarantee. I took malacca and grao para giving me 5 provinces in SA (counting patos, which i took from spain as a colony) (later england declared on my ally france and venice joined, so i could take their colony in suriname, giving me 6 SA provinces)
After diploannexing friesland, which i had released as a vassal some years before, i was done with first goal. I guess i will go for second goal too, but third goal seems impossible for me. I guess i could take the required provinces, but that would wreck me infamy and inflation wise, meaning i would not be able to get 16 monopolies, especially when i have 3 uncored CoTs)



and a closer look at SA:


What i can recommend: Enlist Privateers, found EITC, found the amsterdam bank (or w/e)...
if you are going for colonies, colonize SA and caribbean first and maybe manhattan. There will be enough provinces in NA left you can colonize, while there are only 6 or 7 free provinces in SA left, that will be colonized by other rather fast.