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Great job!

What's your trade income per month?

OK, how about this, I want to reward everyone who has completed the challenge so far, but also make the difficulty levels more sensible.

Primary:
You survived your war against the Spanish and are a rising trade power!

You have:
Possession of your starting provinces
You have passed the following decisions:
Bank of Amsterdam
Oost-Indische Compagnie

Trade Income is more than
200 ducats/month


Secondary
You won your initial war against Spain, claiming at least one province.
You also have:
1 holding in Carribean.
Manhattan.
1 provinces in South America
5 provinces in Indonesia or East Asian Trade Ports Region
Trade Income is more than 400 ducats/month and you have at least 8 monopolies.


Bonus
You managed to annex the Spanish Netherlands before 1615 ...good going... but the strain of war has lead to thousands of Catholic refugees swarming from the south to the north, destabilizing your country and creating religious conflict. By the 1st Jan 1620 screenshot update, your country will be unique in being the only Reformed country in the world to have enacted the Church Attendance Duty Catholic iconoclasm decision, which must stay enacted for the rest of the game. This gives a tax boost and a good missionary bonus, but hits cultural tradition.

Further expand your overseas Empire so that you now have the following extra trade assets:
At least 15 provinces in the East Asian Trade Ports/Indonesia region including Malacca
Cuba and 3 other Carribean Islands,
the Balereas, Malta
at least 4 provinces in South America,
You have surpassed Spain in annual Income


Any objections?
 
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That's...more reasonable. I may load back up and complete those.

Although the trade income requirements are probably too high. As of my latest save I am at 225 trade income and am roughly 1200 total income behind Spain.
 
That's...more reasonable. I may load back up and complete those.

Although the trade income requirements are probably too high. As of my latest save I am at 225 trade income and am roughly 1200 total income behind Spain.

OK,

Thanks Y2J, and thanks everybody else for all your feedback.

Anybody who previously tried the challenge and was frustrated, please feel free to try again.
Anybody who has already completed the challenge and would like to make a new submission, you're all more than welcome.

Thanks.
 
Thats way to much. I have 163 per Month at the Moment.
For 400 you will need monopolies in almost all CoTs. And a high trade efficency.
5 monopolies for 1st goal and 8 for second i would say. maybe 200/300 trade income or 150/250. but 400 is way too much.

I still don't understand the 3rd Goal. For iconoclasm you have to be catholic. That means switching to catholic, get Church Attendance duty as NI, enact Gilded Iconography, enact iconoclasm, then switch back to reformed?

Anyway for goals:


Primary:
You survived your war against the Spanish and are a rising trade power!

You have:
Possession of your starting provinces
You have passed the following decisions:
Bank of Amsterdam
Oost-Indische Compagnie
Enlist Privateers

Trade Income is more than 150 ducats/month + 5 monopolies


Secondary
You won your initial war against Spain, claiming at least one province.
You also have:
2 holding in Carribean. (They had 5 in real life or even 6)
Manhattan.
3 provinces in South America (Guayana, Essequibo, Suriname in real life)
5 Provinces in Indonesia + Malacca (it still should be some sort of a challenge, still very much doable)
2 Provinces in India (Ceylon/Koromandelcoast/Madras in real history)
Trade Income is more than 250 ducats/month and you have at least 8 monopolies.


Bonus
You managed to annex the Spanish Netherlands before 1615 ...good going... but the strain of war has lead to thousands of Catholic refugees swarming from the south to the north, destabilizing your country and creating religious conflict. By the 1st Jan 1620 screenshot update, your country will be unique in being the only Reformed country in the world to have enacted the Church Attendance Duty Catholic iconoclasm decision, which must stay enacted for the rest of the game. This gives a tax boost and a good missionary bonus, but hits cultural tradition. I dont know about this one... i would say simply annex spanish netherlands and maybe convert them? If i understand this right, then it will cost you 10 stability, just for one (or two) decision(s)?

Further expand your overseas Empire so that you now have the following extra trade assets:
At least 15 provinces in the East Asian Trade Ports/Indonesia region including Malacca
6 carribean islands
Mauritius
cape colony
Taiwan
3 provinces NA(except Caribbean)
1 colony on the west african coast (gold coast, ivory coast, grain coast etc)
at least 5 provinces in South America,
You have surpassed Spain in annual Income

Maybe this is a bit to harsh. don't know. but the third goal should be hard to achieve. but it's far from impossible. I remember playing as Netherlands 1579 in In Nomine on hard and after the first war it was very easy to surpass the dutch possessions in real history.

edit: Now that i think about it, converting isn't a good goal either because if you have bad luck one or two provinces won't convert in time.

edit:
 
Thats way to much. I have 163 per Month at the Moment.
For 400 you will need monopolies in almost all CoTs. And a high trade efficency.
5 monopolies for 1st goal and 8 for second i would say. maybe 200/300 trade income or 150/250. but 400 is way too much.

I still don't understand the 3rd Goal. For iconoclasm you have to be catholic. That means switching to catholic, get Church Attendance duty as NI, enact Gilded Iconography, enact iconoclasm, then switch back to reformed?

OK, Is this your 1648 income or your 1620 income?

These are my figures from 1607:



The iconoclasm thing is a bit of flavour combined with a road bump for the more seasoned players. It's a way of making it slightly harder without say some players can start on normal, and some on hard. Apart from the stability it means they've got to work harder to get good advisors for the last 30 years of the game.
 
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As of now:

Currently sitting at 351 trade income with an infamy of 20 so 400 should be well within reach. (9 monopolies)
Passed all decisions including iconoclasm.
13 Indonesian provinces (no Malacca yet).
Manhattan owned, 4 in South America and 4 in the Caribbean (not Cuba yet).
Within 100 income of Spain.

Basically just need The Beleares, Malta, Cuba, Malacca and one other Indonesian province. So I should finish up within the next couple days depending on when I have time.
 
Yabba, requirement for monopolies is silly, because it does not worth to make monopoly, because you will be quickly competed out if you do so. I ussualy send 5 merchants to each COT, making monopoly only if i am mercantile(doing so in my own COT's).
 
Can't be bothered to do most of this since I no longer have the save and it's pretty trivial, but I did the most difficult (least easy?) part of this back in 2011 here.
 
Yabba, requirement for monopolies is silly, because it does not worth to make monopoly, because you will be quickly competed out if you do so. I ussualy send 5 merchants to each COT, making monopoly only if i am mercantile(doing so in my own COT's).

I think it's quite possible with the Netherlands to still get the merchants to stick even when running quite high infamy. I'm open to changing this requirement, as I don't really want people to be engaged in a frustrating click-fest.
 
The biggest challenge for me right now is getting the monopolies and trade income.
For some reason I just can't manage to hold my monopolies, and my trade income is still rather low, like less than 100, and it's 1613.

However, this is probably due to the fact that i did not concentrate on trading at all. I was way more concerned with conquering the provinces, and now that has backfired on me.
Is there any way to improve your trade income and make it so that you have a good compete chance everywhere? Right now my compete chance is like 50 or below in almost all areas.
In normal games I would spam trade buildings, but I don't know how viable that would be in a short time frame like this.
 
The biggest challenge for me right now is getting the monopolies and trade income.
For some reason I just can't manage to hold my monopolies, and my trade income is still rather low, like less than 100, and it's 1613.

However, this is probably due to the fact that i did not concentrate on trading at all. I was way more concerned with conquering the provinces, and now that has backfired on me.
Is there any way to improve your trade income and make it so that you have a good compete chance everywhere? Right now my compete chance is like 50 or below in almost all areas.
In normal games I would spam trade buildings, but I don't know how viable that would be in a short time frame like this.

Have you taken all the beneficial trade decisions?

I think the one most beneficial thing you can do is to go through your trade screen and find out which CoT's are owned by countries which are really heavily mercantile, and then abandon them asap, as there's not much point trying to hold on, and only focus on the CoT's where your guys can 'stick' a bit better.

In my current game I've 30! infamy and currently have 5 monopolies and 5 trade centres with 5 guys.
 
I think it's quite possible with the Netherlands to still get the merchants to stick even when running quite high infamy. I'm open to changing this requirement, as I don't really want people to be engaged in a frustrating click-fest.

Well imo, you could instead give requirement, for number of merchants(IE 50-60).
 
The infamy problem

There are just under 70 years in the scenario. That's seventy years worth of infamy burn.

If you have a level 9 ruler a six star diplomat and an embassy and HRE bonus you've got:

0.9 + 0.3 + 0.4 + 0.25 = 1.85 infamy burn per year
1.85 x 70 = 130

Then there is Friesland at 0.25 infamy for 50 years needs 12.5 infamy

112 - 12.5 = 117 total infamy burn before you accumulate infamy that will never go away

117 infamy = 29 provinces at 4 infamy
= 39 provinces at 3 infamy
= 58 provinces at 2 infamy

If you have a level 3 ruler, no diplomat and no embassy but HRE bonus that's 0.55 infamy burn per year

0.55 x 70 = 38.5

38.5 - 12.5 = 26 total infamy burn

26 infamy = 6 provinces at 4 infamy
= 8 provinces at 3 infamy
= 13 provinces at 2 infamy.

Any infamy that is not burnt goes into your infamy overdraft, shown at the top of the screen between your prestiege and legitimacy.

Then the is the Problem of Liege, even if free to annex it is still 0.5 infamy per year for a potential 50 years

0.5 x 50 = 25 total infamy

Which if you have a DIP 3 leader for the duration leaves you with a surplus of 1 infamy burn before you accumulate infamy that will never go, compared to 90 infamy with the DIP 9 and bonuses.

Players not going for the bonus goals will probably be able to get between 60 and 100 infamy burn if they always pick DIP leaders and frequently have diplomats, and will get the occasional +6 infamy burn from events from having super advisors.

Players going for the bonus goals can not burn anywhere near as much infamy, because you can never guarantee anything higher than a 1* or 2* diplomat.

A 6* diplomat takes 13 years to burn the infamy of a 4 infamy province, 10 years to burn a 3 infamy province and just under 7 years to burn a 2 infamy province.

A 1* diplomat takes 80 years for a 4 infamy, 60 years for a 3 and 40 years for a 2 infamy province.

If you always choose DIP leaders, you should get an average of DIP 7 over the course of the game

0.7 + 0.05 + 0.4 + 0.25 = 1.4

1.4 - Friesland = 1.15
1.15 - Liege = 0.65

0.65 x 30 years = 19.5 total infamy burn

19.5 infamy = not many provinces at any cost.

And so... especially as infamy has a direct impact on compete chance, don't feel obliged to annex Liege unless you really want to.
 
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Well i restarted and now i am in year 1618.

I only need 12 more Provinces in Indonesia or EATP + Cuba/baleares/Malta. Not quite sure how to get the last ones, but i will somehow do it.

My trade income is 380 now, but only because of the smugglers event.

I still have a 6* Diplomat and also a 9Dip Ruler plus Embassy. Although i get 0,75 from unlawful territory, i am still able to burn 1 infamy per month. If you use your CBs correctly it should not be a problem.
 
Okay here we go. Final date September 1, 1641 with 25 years of regency. :sad: (warning giant image heavy spoiler):

Won the war and took Antwerpen:


This was where the first regency hit (15 years) so nothing happened for a while.

Took the rest of the Netherlands from Spain:


Iconoclasm passed in 1616:


Charles V anyone?:


Spain is taken down a peg:


Decisions:


15 provinces in Indonesia:


Malta and The Baleares:


Manhattan, Cuba, 4 other Caribbean islands:


4 provinces in South America:


400 trade income:


Spain's Income isn't so hot anymore:
 
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