Help Portugal burst!

[Underhand]

Minting to pay for infrastructure increases can be a profitable tactic, depending upon the item purchased, and the situation of the country. I do not deny that.

Minting simply to make sure you have an accumulated inflation score to for an exceptional year to decrease is simply poor economics. You might as well assert you should run at +2 stability all the time to make certain a positive stab event will not be wasted.

There are people who say that

Of course, that and minting just so that you can take advantage of an exceptional year are examples of missing the forest for the trees.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

One trick with Explorers is: take them to the limit of known sea, then go one sea zone further. Sometimes, as your tech progresses, you can go two zones further. Then turn tail and head home. Start again the same way.

I have a better trick:
My favorite way of using an explorer is to send him in a two ships expedition. If you remember how naval attrition works, you know that they get a small fleet attrition penalty, but on the other hand you won't lose the first ship until fleet attrition reaches about 30% and if you do it right, that means never. To avoid the fractional attrition to accumulate, every month I split the fleet and re-merge it (even if en-route) to repair the ships. When attrition gets over 10%, I let them get to the next TI sea square and order them back to port while continuing the monthly repair. Remember that attrition is reduced by 3% when near the cost, so a 9% shore attrition is equivalent to months at sea for 12% attrition. Finding a storm should not be a problem, it just shortens your trip if you find it in the way out, but you should have room for even a couple of storms in the way back. If something goes horribly wrong you lose one ship and replace it. The fractional attrition monthly repair is crucial, because it means the first ship cannot be lost until the displayed attrition goes over 26%, and you should be reaching national waters by then. With this technique I reach Brazil with the first Portuguese explorer (and is a bad one, with a movement rate of 1) by 1428 at the third trip and with naval level 2. At the second trip if I have MA in the canary Islands. I find that if I use 6 ships I only get one square further per trip at the cost of 4 or 5 ships lost per trip.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

Minting simply to make sure you have an accumulated inflation score to for an exceptional year to decrease is simply poor economics.

The motivation doesn't matter. What matters is what you do with the money. Minting so you have a zero monthly deduction is the worst case scenario. All the money producing inflation goes to army maintenance, generating zero income, yet quite a lot of people does just that. Minting to buy armies is slightly better only if you use those armies to generate more income. Minting at short bursts of full minting, and investing the money in manus and promotions is a very wise move as long as you keep within reasonable limits for the country you play. In all cases you might end up with 5% inflation and decide to stop, yet the effect is very different.

 

[DSYoungEsq]

Minting at short bursts of full minting, and investing the money in manus and promotions is a very wise move as long as you keep within reasonable limits for the country you play. In all cases you might end up with 5% inflation and decide to stop, yet the effect is very different.

Again, not completely accurate. Because the effect of inflation is linear, it is irrelevant whether you are minting to go from 1% to 2%, or from 21% to 22%. In each instance of deciding "To Mint, or Not to Mint" (that IS the question ), you shouldn't set arbitrary limits on how much inflation you have. The only thing that a high inflation rate should tell you is that perhaps you are being too liberal in deciding to mint, given the particular circumstances of your nation. Scotland, by way of example, cannot afford to be as profligate as England. But someone who arbitrarily insists on always having around 5%, but not much more, inflation is not making minting choices based upon economically sound principles.

 

[DSYoungEsq]

I have a better trick:
My favorite way of using an explorer is to send him in a two ships expedition. If you remember how naval attrition works, you know that they get a small fleet attrition penalty, but on the other hand you won't lose the first ship until fleet attrition reaches about 30% and if you do it right, that means never. To avoid the fractional attrition to accumulate, every month I split the fleet and re-merge it (even if en-route) to repair the ships. When attrition gets over 10%, I let them get to the next TI sea square and order them back to port while continuing the monthly repair. Remember that attrition is reduced by 3% when near the cost, so a 9% shore attrition is equivalent to months at sea for 12% attrition. Finding a storm should not be a problem, it just shortens your trip if you find it in the way out, but you should have room for even a couple of storms in the way back. If something goes horribly wrong you lose one ship and replace it. The fractional attrition monthly repair is crucial, because it means the first ship cannot be lost until the displayed attrition goes over 26%, and you should be reaching national waters by then. With this technique I reach Brazil with the first Portuguese explorer (and is a bad one, with a movement rate of 1) by 1428 at the third trip and with naval level 2. At the second trip if I have MA in the canary Islands. I find that if I use 6 ships I only get one square further per trip at the cost of 4 or 5 ships lost per trip.

I'll have to try this out. I know that there are ways to exploit the attrition rules; I usually try not to "take advantage" of the game because I like to stay within boundaries. But I've been doing MP recently; I get the sense with MP you take advantage of all you can.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

I'll have to try this out. I know that there are ways to exploit the attrition rules; I usually try not to "take advantage" of the game because I like to stay within boundaries. But I've been doing MP recently; I get the sense with MP you take advantage of all you can.

Who said cheating? The AI does not have naval attrition, and in vanilla, AI portugal has often discovered America by 1424, only they don't tell and let the world believe the Columbus tale. My trick is a hundred times less efficient than the AI way, and is equivalent to waiting for the first of the month to send your armies. I bet you do that when you are not in a hurry.

 

[DSYoungEsq]

Who said cheating? The AI does not have naval attrition, and in vanilla, AI portugal has often discovered America by 1424, only they don't tell and let the world believe the Columbus tale. My trick is a hundred times less efficient than the AI way, and is equivalent to waiting for the first of the month to send your armies. I bet you do that when you are not in a hurry.

Who said anything about "cheating"? Exploits aren't "cheating", because you aren't taking "unfair" advantage, i.e., working outside the rules. But face it, you aren't working within the spirit of the rules, because Columbus couldn't avoid "attrition" by having the Pinta sail a few miles behind and then rejoin.

 

[SnapperAEG]

Again, not completely accurate. Because the effect of inflation is linear, it is irrelevant whether you are minting to go from 1% to 2%, or from 21% to 22%. In each instance of deciding "To Mint, or Not to Mint" (that IS the question ), you shouldn't set arbitrary limits on how much inflation you have. The only thing that a high inflation rate should tell you is that perhaps you are being too liberal in deciding to mint, given the particular circumstances of your nation. Scotland, by way of example, cannot afford to be as profligate as England. But someone who arbitrarily insists on always having around 5%, but not much more, inflation is not making minting choices based upon economically sound principles.

I agree to the extent that I often have more than 5% inflation if I need the money, especially before I have governors. My point is that you should not have less than 5%, often you should have more. My logic is 1) money is generally in short supply (especially if you are a trading nation, ie low annual tax relative to monthly income), 2) most of us would mint more if not for inflation 3) there is a fairly good likelihood of an exceptional year or deflation event, at least every 100 years 4) if you do not have inflation when the event hits, you lose the benefit of five free years of minting

I've never understood inlation phobia, either in EU or real life

 

[unmerged(29041)]

Who said anything about "cheating"? Exploits aren't "cheating", because you aren't taking "unfair" advantage, i.e., working outside the rules. But face it, you aren't working within the spirit of the rules, because Columbus couldn't avoid "attrition" by having the Pinta sail a few miles behind and then rejoin.

Nah, what he did was to use the supplies from every ship to fix any of the others, and that is what I do. The Santa Maria has spare sails that the Pinta can use.

 

[DSYoungEsq]

Nah, what he did was to use the supplies from every ship to fix any of the others, and that is what I do. The Santa Maria has spare sails that the Pinta can use.

Yeah, but what about the Santa Lucia?




Oh, I forgot, it fell off....