How to buy the British Empire in 3 easy steps

[Moquel]

To some of you, I'm sure this is not news at all, but I discovered something rather interesting today. I was playing VIP as Russia and after being forbidden to colonize Africa, I was trying to make up for lost time after 1870. I had rather rudely grabbed some claims from France during the Franco-Prussian war, which I somehow got involved in as a Prussian ally, including Dakar and New Hebreides. While it's not really important to understanding the exploit I discovered, a little backstory is always fun.

Anywho, turns out the British own the other claims in these provinces. I figured I could sell these claims to the British in exchange for other claims, or maybe even land, which would give me freer access into the interior of Africa.
As I offered the two claims to the British and was deciding what to ask from them in the deal, noticing they were willing to give up alot to have these two prized provinces, and then be able to claim their respective colonies in their entirety, as much as 3 claims and even Hong Kong (which I wanted for other tactical reasons).

Then it hit me, metaphorically speaking - I'm not in pain or anything.

How to buy the British Empire:

• Offer a claim sorely wanted by the AI to complete a colony.
• Ask for another claim in said colony, as well as something else you'd like.
• Repeat process untill the world is yours.

As the AI sees the claim to complete a colony as very valuable, it's willing to trade you alot for it, what it doesn't realize is that you're actually asking for another claim in the same colony, rendering the AI still unable to claim the colony when the deal is concluded, in this case I traded New Hebreides for New Caledonia and then some other stuff. This transaction will always leave you with enough on your side to ask for something else, be it tech, claims or even (non-core) provinces. Imagine then if you have a large number of these "swing" claims - you'll be able to purchase most of the British empire fairly quickly for free, and when the Brits run out of non-cores, hey, just go ahead and give away some of the former british claims and repeat the process for all other nations in the world.

It does make for a pretty boring game though, and I stopped doing it rather quickly, but hey, thought I'd share it with the rest out there.

Have fun kids

 

[Dark Knight]

If this works, it's a bug.

--> Bug forum

 

[Moquel]

Works fine and dandy for me. I'm generally left with about 70 "favor" for doing that with one claim for another, which gives plenty of room to act, especially if you have a couple of these trades to make simultaneously

 

[TC Pilot]

I discovered something a little like that while playing as Texas. Since I can colonize anywhere at the begining of the game, I just spend my time gathering up colonial buildings, claim them, then sell the land for another country's claims in other areas, claim those colonies, and sell the land for more claims.

You get all the presitge, and alot of money in the process. Of course, I didn't start colonizing until about 1860, and made sure to have at least one colony in a claim predominantly owned by another country.

 

[Quarto]

I once bought all of Russia's non-national territories using pretty much the same method - if you've got very good relations, you can give them two territories and take five in return. Then you trade again, giving them another two territories while recovering the two territories you gave them and taking another three new ones.

 

[Varyar]

Yup, I've done that too. At very good relations you don't even need to have a claim, a neighbouring province will do. A similar thing that works too is to acquire british claims in Canada/Australia, claim the colony and then trade the newly claimed provinces for more claims and so on. Easy prestige.

 

[Moquel]

I don't think you guys understand.. I'm never actually giving anything at all up doing this. For instance the two provinces New Hebreides and New Caledonia make up a province, I have claim on one of them, the British on the other. I offer them my province in exchange for theirs and something else, meaning I can easily, one week later, repeat the trade and gain yet another part of the British empire in the process

 

[Quarto]

I don't think you guys understand.. I'm never actually giving anything at all up doing this.

Yes, that's right - I never actually give anything up either - the only difference is that I was swapping ordinary provinces instead of claims.

 

[Moquel]

Yes, that's right - I never actually give anything up either - the only difference is that I was swapping ordinary provinces instead of claims.

Edit: I'm an idiot. I didn't see your post the first time and assumed stupid things about the other replies, ignore this