Is the 3-Mountain-Achievement possible in 1.7.3?

[Tortugator]

@ Tortugator:

I've gonna give it a go your way after yet another failed attempt. Ended up with really bad timing with high OE after a war, ruler die and low legitimacy heir take the crown. Rebels became uncontrollable.

Your method sounds a lot more versatile and shouldn't require anywhere near as many restarts.

One question I have is how much conquering do you think should be done before westernization? I finished a game as GH for the Great Khan achievement and thought I'd go ahead and do the westernization achievement after. It took several decades to complete because of my huge tax base. I am wary of expanding too fast before westernization but certainly don't want to wait so long that the other regions power consolidate and inhibit further expansion, Timurids I'm looking at you.

Try to westernize as soon as possible. The amounts of Monarch Points drained every month depend on your income. 15/month is probably the first and only threshold that matters in the case of 3M. As most of your income will be from trade (Hangzhou and Ceylon), you may recall your ships (or send them as privateers against your rivals) and merchants back to stay below 15. In my game, I came down to 14.5 Income/month...unfortunately during the westernization, my income increased over 15...so i sent all my marchants and my fleet back to get about 26 Gold again => 27 Points drained per month and it was still no big issue.

Use your Military Points for Harsh treatment on your colonized islands (you don't wanna fight Rebels there) and try to have at least one large Vassal who kills the Rebels for you. I'm not 100% sure, but from what I observed, Vassals tend to kill your Rebels only if they have a larger army. They will NOT coordinate, however, and only follow you into the battle if their army is smaller. So if you have 2 Vassals with 5k Troops each and you have an 8k Rebel stack, they will NOT kill it. If you have 1 Vassal, however, with 10k Troops, he will kill it (if he's near).

In my game I had a fully sized Bahmanis killing most of my Rebels on the Indian subcontinent.

 

[Wombat101]

Well looks like aow it's going to come out before I'm going to be able to complete this achievement. Hopefully 3M can still be done after the expansion. I think the same strategy will still work but going have to be careful about the sorties when carpet sieging especially in the early game. Also looking at the map changes in Africa I'm gonna have to find another method to westernize. I could had overlooked it but there don't appear to be any colonizable area next to Jolof. Hopefully the vassal tricks for coring will still work.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well looks like aow it's going to come out before I'm going to be able to complete this achievement. Hopefully 3M can still be done after the expansion. I think the same strategy still still work but going have to be careful about the sorties when carpet sieging especially in the early game. Also looking at the map changes in Africa I'm gonna have to find another method to westernize. I could had overlooked it but there don't appear to be any colonizable area next to Jolof. Hopefully the vassal tricks for coring will still work.

There are other ways to get a western border very early.

 

[atwix]

There are other ways to get a western border very early.

i can't wait until you decide in what stream you will reveal it!

umm..colonize panama region, get carabian port next and colonize Cuba or a province next to the first european colonies? Colony snatching and all that? Not quite sure how the mechanics work..

Or maybe some sort of trick with bankruptcy?

 

[DDRJake]

i can't wait until you decide in what stream you will reveal it!

umm..colonize panama region, get carabian port next and colonize Cuba or a province next to the first european colonies? Colony snatching and all that? Not quite sure how the mechanics work..

Or maybe some sort of trick with bankruptcy?

Just vassalise a western nation and sell them a non trade company core province of yours.

 

[Wombat101]

That is a great idea. Do colonial nations count as western for purposes of westernization? Seem doable to take Brazil or similar colonial nation and move forwards from there.

 

[Tortugator]

That is a great idea. Do colonial nations count as western for purposes of westernization? Seem doable to take Brazil or similar colonial nation and move forwards from there.

Sounds unnecessarily difficult for me. If you wanna westernize early, Colonial Nations do not even exist yet and even if they do, you would have to fight their mother nation.

Probably it's much easier to acquire Fleet Basing rights & Military Access from an european nation, ship some troops there and vassalize a nation there, when it's losing a war. Just selling them a province + westernize before annexing them, seems like a good idea, though. Saves you some time and you don't have to deal with Revolts on a different Continent while westernizing!

 

[Kalderus]

Sounds unnecessarily difficult for me. If you wanna westernize early, Colonial Nations do not even exist yet and even if they do, you would have to fight their mother nation.

Probably it's much easier to acquire Fleet Basing rights & Military Access from an european nation, ship some troops there and vassalize a nation there, when it's losing a war. Just selling them a province + westernize before annexing them, seems like a good idea, though. Saves you some time and you don't have to deal with Revolts on a different Continent while westernizing!

I hate to semi-necro this thread, but I could possibly use some advice on the next steps to take in the early game while still expanding in India. Here's a synopsis:

I have claims on Bahamanis and Vijay at the moment, and the four vassals of Ahmednegar, Bijapur, Kandesh, and Gujarat, and am mostly waiting for the truce to end with Bahamnis to attack again and swallow up them + Malwa. Since the screenshot (only four years have passed with little change), Vijay and Orissa entered a war that has so far resulted in the destruction of Orissa's army. I considered immediately capitalizing on the affair, but I worried that the AE, Stab hits, and war exhaustion would be too much, and I wouldn't necessarily gain too much that I couldn't gain a few years later after establishing a border with Orissa via Malwa. My heir seems to be almost up to snuff (not a 5/5/4, but a 3/4/5), and despite the slight stat difference, I thought I'd continue this playthrough at least until I can get colonization going and see where I can reach before the Iberians make it to South Africa. Would anyone possibly be able to provide any thoughts/suggestions on the next steps to take while I wait to reach admin tech 4 and begin colonizing? Particularly, I could use any suggestions for preparing to fight Vijay, as vassals tend not to be too effective at coordinating, and despite our overall similar troop numbers, I'm sure we wouldn't do well against the 16-18k armies of Vijayanagar. Perhaps after annexing+releasing Bahamnis and Malwa, it might be more do-able?

 

[Tortugator]

I hate to semi-necro this thread, but I could possibly use some advice on the next steps to take in the early game while still expanding in India. Here's a synopsis:

I have claims on Bahamanis and Vijay at the moment, and the four vassals of Ahmednegar, Bijapur, Kandesh, and Gujarat, and am mostly waiting for the truce to end with Bahamnis to attack again and swallow up them + Malwa. Since the screenshot (only four years have passed with little change), Vijay and Orissa entered a war that has so far resulted in the destruction of Orissa's army. I considered immediately capitalizing on the affair, but I worried that the AE, Stab hits, and war exhaustion would be too much, and I wouldn't necessarily gain too much that I couldn't gain a few years later after establishing a border with Orissa via Malwa. My heir seems to be almost up to snuff (not a 5/5/4, but a 3/4/5), and despite the slight stat difference, I thought I'd continue this playthrough at least until I can get colonization going and see where I can reach before the Iberians make it to South Africa. Would anyone possibly be able to provide any thoughts/suggestions on the next steps to take while I wait to reach admin tech 4 and begin colonizing? Particularly, I could use any suggestions for preparing to fight Vijay, as vassals tend not to be too effective at coordinating, and despite our overall similar troop numbers, I'm sure we wouldn't do well against the 16-18k armies of Vijayanagar. Perhaps after annexing+releasing Bahamnis and Malwa, it might be more do-able?

Looks mediocre to me. On the one hand you control a solid amount of territory, on the other hand you lack of gold and provinces, Vijayanagar seems to be a problem and you've already reached your maximum amount of vassals. Try to integrate the sunni ones first, otherwise it could be difficult to get the 190 necessary Relation with them (annexed vassal malus).

For now you should try to get some provinces yourself, preferably at the coastline (then build light ships + protect trade in Hangzhou to get a solid source of income). The OPMs might help you to get some initial money.