Is the 3-Mountain-Achievement possible in 1.7.3?

[Tortugator]

YES, it is!!! A pure "non-cheating" 1.7.3 Ryukyu WC Ironman:

Unfortunately i did miss the moment the Achievement was shown in the corner. But it did fire and it's shown in the profile



A better guide will probably follow. The short version:
Idea Groups: Exploration, Expansion, Religious, Influence, Humanist, Diplomatic (optional), Administrative (optional)

Wait until the first wars between Vijayanagar, Gujarat or Bahmanis start, declare war vs the loser and "sneak" your first provinces/vassal. Repeat this cowards-tactic everytime possible and try to get as many coast provinces as possible (Naval Force Limit! You need light ships to boost your trade income in Hangzhou). Hope for a good Heir (At least 5/4/4) and try to kill your ruler asap. If you don't get a dream-ruler before 1470 or some war goes wrong (rebels are a much greater threat than the actual enemies -.-), restart. Yeah, that sucks, but a good start is essential!!!

As soon as you've finished exploration, declare war with the expansion CB on Benin/Oyo/Ashanti, conquer and release them, but forge a claim on Mali first. Move your army there, conquer and release Jolof. ASAP annex your african vassals (sell them a 1-BT-Provinces like Bastar first). Now should have a border to Portugal or Castille. Westernize, get Catholic and join the Counter Reformation (for fast converting/papal points)! This should be achieved until approximately 1520.

Colonize in Africa as much as possible (the good provinces like in South-Africa first) and try to keep all western nations outside of Africa (in my game they didn't get a single province south of Jolof). After westernization use your epic Expansion-CB to subjugate those nasty steppe nomads. Stop Russia (colonize from the east). Afterwards find a land connection to the HRE (im my game it was a "snake" through Crimea), move your capital to the middle east (i.e. Judea) and as soon as you're Curia Controller (took me until 1596, but it was very unlucky concerning my cardinals) start the RM-Game: RM every big wester nation with no heir...if you have no Diplomatic Relations left and they get an heir, just break the RM...you don't care as Curia Controller

Get HRE ASAP (I was so large i could have diplovassalized 6/7 electors (all except Bohemia)...well, 4 and a war vs Austria was enough Release as many HRE-Princes as possible and Revoke ASAP. I was quite lucky as Austria had enacted already 5 (!) Reforms for me...so I could do this whole HRE-Procedure in about 30 years...much faster as planned. Afterwards, with your vassal-swarm, it won't be a challenge anymore. Fully annex the Colonizers to get their CN (you've cut them off Africa and Asia, so they will be quite small)

Key factors in this strategy
- Many coastal provinces and trade centers for a huge trade fleet / privateer (up to 20 PP). Nearly 2/3 of my income was from trade before 1550.
- Very low tech costs: Westernized with Japanese Events and bordering a western nation, you may get techs for 150-300 Monarch Points. This is important as you wanna get Administrative Efficiency asap.
- huge AE-Reduction before you reach europe (You take only half AE thx to curia controller, 100 Prestige, influence ideas and your national idea)
- as HRE use vassal feeding. I.E. you conquer 1 Provinces from Ukraine, Pskov and Ryzan, add it to the HRE, release them and after every war vs russia/lithuania they get 3 high-BT-provinces This saves you tons of Monarch Points...combined with low AE, you may expand extremely fast as there is no real bottleneck anymore.
- extremely low revolt risk thx to the Japanese events and your ideas. In the end i had a base revolt risk of -15 (!!!). Together with 6 Tolerance of the True faith, this is -21 for catholic provinces => You don't need high legitimacy and may kill your heirless ruler on purpose to get a large european dynasty. If you're threatened by getting a Junior Partner in a PU, just declare war vs some tiny state and it won't happen...what about a crusade vs Makassar to get the crusade-boni as well? ;-)

 

[Ak1995]

DDR Jakes missing son is found :0

 

[Outrider]

Very impressive. How many PUs did you end up with either by war or inheritance?

 

[V1ribus]

Good for you mate, I myself have not the patience necessary to attempt such a feat..

 

[gnome109]

Good for you mate, I myself have not the patience necessary to attempt such a feat..

Nor the time

 

[Patrick Harte]

Congratulatiooons!

 

[oblio-]

Expansion CB: only works on Asians lower than Muslim tech and is not available for lower than Ottoman tech. You cannot use it to declare on Benin. Did you use no-CB instead?

 

[AurochsAway]

Expansion CB: only works on Asians lower than Muslim tech and is not available for lower than Ottoman tech. You cannot use it to declare on Benin. Did you use no-CB instead?

I think from context OP meant the Exploration CB, which will work so long as they haven't become Sunni.

 

[panda_Express12]

A little late to the party. DDR Jake already got it on this patch and on video too.

 

[oblio-]

I think from context OP meant the Exploration CB, which will work so long as they haven't become Sunni.

Do you get that when you're lower than Ottoman tech i.e. is it the same as Expansion? Also, he was a pagan himself at that stage of the game. If so, that's kind of wacky.

Oh, and for mortal players such as ourselves - his way of getting The Three Mountains is probably the safest method, i.e. not many things that will be patched out. That's not to say it's easy, it is probably the hardest WC start except for a North American OPM or Chimu

 

[Tortugator]

I think from context OP meant the Exploration CB, which will work so long as they haven't become Sunni.

Yes, I meant the exploration cb.Its funny that it works on pagans even if you're a pagan yourself

@PandaExpress Afaik DDRJake did it by using an infinite Adm/Diplo glitch, which was fixed in 1.7.3 So I don't think his way of doing it is still possible. Nevertheless he probably did it the more exhausting way (I can't imagine how it must have been to have so many rebels and being forced to calculate so much for this glitch), while my start is much more luck-based (without a good ruler it takes you too long to get exploration cb and to westernize)

@PUs I tried it with basically every European nation but Russia (my rival) and ended up with just France. There was a successionwar- event for Poland between England and me, but I was already at war vs England, so it didn't work

 

[Tortugator]

Oh, and for mortal players such as ourselves - his way of getting The Three Mountains is probably the safest method, i.e. not many things that will be patched out. That's not to say it's easy, it is probably the hardest WC start except for a North American OPM or Chimu

Yes, it's hard, but probably much less hard than most people would expect. Your national ideas are great! So much AE-Reduction combined with vassal feeding makes you the fastest possible conqueror in the game.

After 1670 (after I got my PU with France and controlled the HRE swarm) I played on speed 3 and let my subjects do the wars (except some islands). As you can see I still had much time left. So I think that 3M might be possible even without trying to get a perfect start like I did

 

[grisamentum]

Yes, it's hard, but probably much less hard than most people would expect.

100% this. If you understand the game and are willing to put in the time, it really is not THAT hard, just incredibly tedious.

OP really did it in the best fashion possible. People are probably still thinking it's tough because they watched Jake's Pagan/no HRE Ryukyu world domination. But if you westernize, convert, and take over the HRE, it really is an order of magnitude easier and faster.

 

[Rinsukaze]

- as HRE use vassal feeding. I.E. you conquer 1 Provinces from Ukraine, Pskov and Ryzan, add it to the HRE, release them and after every war vs russia/lithuania they get 3 high-BT-provinces This saves you tons of Monarch Points...combined with low AE, you may expand extremely fast as there is no real bottleneck anymore.

I've read several times the procedure, but I'm afraid I do not understand it completely :S When you release a single province after being added to the HRE, it is done as HRE-prince after Revoking? What do you mean with "they get 3 high-BT-provinces"?

I know this question may sound dumb for the more experienced, but I always had troubles in expanding and I had to choose between tech or coring, so my monarch points end pretty drained...

By the way, great guideline!!!
Thanks!

 

[Tortugator]

@Runsukze Thx. If you release a vassal, the capital province determines whether it's a hre vassal or not. So if you core and add to hre one province of this non-existing nation and release at a vassal, it will be a hre vassal and after revoking not cost any dipl rel. Scandinavia (formed b.s. Denmark) is a great example. I took 1 Norway, 1 Finnish, 1 Sweedish and 1 Danish province, cored them and release Finland, Sweden and Norway (the Danish province was needed to be able to add the Norway one to the hre). In subsequent wars I took 2 Danish provinces each and returned my vassal some (if they conquer it themselves you don't even spend any Diplo points) and sold Norway and Sweden 1 Danish province each (they accept Danish culture). So I got whole Scandinavia by coring just 4 provinces. Against Castille and Portugal I used Aragorn, Granada and Galicia to core up to 3 provinces after each war (the ones with the highest Basetax). Vassal accept only 1 non-core province until they have cored it => many small vassals are the key to save monarch points.

 

[Krajzen]

Congratulations :0 this is prety epic lol


Now I am awaiting on someone doing the same thing with CHIMU ^^

 

[Mamluke]

Impressive. its kind of funny. in EU III getting a "hard core" WC (full annexation) was kind of trivial. now in EUIV. getting vassals all over the place is the way to go.

do you prefer it this way? heaving AI minions? in EUIV with the more competent AI. it should be more awesome. or would you prefer heaving full annexation? (if game mechanics allowed this if course)

 

[Osman Pasha]

Wow, how can you still have positive diplo points?

 

[beckermt]

@Runsukze Thx. If you release a vassal, the capital province determines whether it's a hre vassal or not. So if you core and add to hre one province of this non-existing nation and release at a vassal, it will be a hre vassal and after revoking not cost any dipl rel. Scandinavia (formed b.s. Denmark) is a great example. I took 1 Norway, 1 Finnish, 1 Sweedish and 1 Danish province, cored them and release Finland, Sweden and Norway (the Danish province was needed to be able to add the Norway one to the hre). In subsequent wars I took 2 Danish provinces each and returned my vassal some (if they conquer it themselves you don't even spend any Diplo points) and sold Norway and Sweden 1 Danish province each (they accept Danish culture). So I got whole Scandinavia by coring just 4 provinces. Against Castille and Portugal I used Aragorn, Granada and Galicia to core up to 3 provinces after each war (the ones with the highest Basetax). Vassal accept only 1 non-core province until they have cored it => many small vassals are the key to save monarch points.

If I understand correctly, you're taking the capital of Sweden from a Denmark-Scandanavia so this "capital" isn't protect by the "can't annex capitals" thing. Then, you release the country and feed it.

Or are you taking many provinces, coring the capital and joining it to the HRE and then releasing a larger vassal?

 

[oblio-]

Wow, how can you still have positive diplo points?

Only HRE vassals after you Revoke.

By the way, what's the fastest way to convert yourself to Catholicism (or any other religion) these days?
Plain old religious rebels in your province from a 0-maintenance missionary and hope that your vassals/allies don't mop them up?
Would it be worth it to become an OPM in the HRE by selling all your provinces to vassals in Asia? This way if the rebels win you're instantly the religion you want.

If I understand correctly, you're taking the capital of Sweden from a Denmark-Scandanavia so this "capital" isn't protect by the "can't annex capitals" thing. Then, you release the country and feed it.

Or are you taking many provinces, coring the capital and joining it to the HRE and then releasing a larger vassal?

First war against Scandinavia: take 3 provinces, 1 with cores/cultures for each country: Norway, Sweden, Finland. Core them, add them to the HRE. Release the vassals, they will now be part of the HRE.

If you take multiple provinces for 1 vassals, you will have to look through the province info and figure out which will be the capital, then core only that and add it to the HRE (if you're lucky and the capital is adjacent to the HRE). The simplest way is to just release an OPM vassal in the first war, this way you're sure that their capital will be that province you just added to the HRE, for minimal cost.

Then in the second war you start returning cores (as many as possible), or if they don't have cores anymore, just give them provinces of accepted cultures (as many as they can core, 1 at a time, until the next war - keeping an eye on OE).