One Faith achievement run

[SPAMbuca]

hello guys,

I was considering to take a shot at the "one faith" achievement and was pondering how to do it. Right now, I considered this strategy:

- Be France
* Get your cores back from England. Leave Iberia alone and let them colonize.
* Get all of the Burgundian Inheritance for some easy money. Possibly get Provence too if they are excommunicated.
* Take religious ideas right away and start kicking Muslim ass somewhere right away.
* In Europe, only take out England/Great Brittain and possibly move into Scandinavia before it can turn protestant.
* Become emperor to halt the rise of protestantism.
* idea groups: Religious > exploration > administrative > influence > expansion > quantity > ? > ?

This should keep me large enough in Europe to not ever run into trouble with colonial nations. I hope I don't have to take too much land in Europe to prevent coalitions. Alternatively I could play as England, but I feel my grip on Europe would not be strong enough to enforce religious unity that way. Any additional ideas or comments?

 

[SPAMbuca]

Update 1:

Thought I might as well start and see where it takes me. Again, hints, comments and ideas are welcome.

Declared my first war on England and called in Castille and Burgundy in on promise of land. Burgundy got into a regency. I've given Castille a province of Portugal (I want Portugal to remain strong enough to colonize) and will feed Calais and Sundgau to Burgundy. I assume I'll get it back nice and cored once the inheritance fires. Above all, I'll make Austria spit out a nation to severely weaken him as emperor which should make it easier to become emperor myself later.

Update 2:

I've declared war on an excommunicated Provence. I've fed a province of Provence and Savoy to Burgundy. I went over the relationship limit to placate some electors and it paid off. I'll add my lands to the HRE and prepare for another war with England as the truce runs out in 2 years. I've increased my navy a bit, but plan on moving my troops to Scotland so I don't need naval superiority. England is allied to Aragon, but Castille will probably take care of them for me. I can also call in Burgundy and feed them an English province I suppose.

 

[Okcydent]

Well I see one big problem with leaving colonizers alone. They will conquer and colonize provinces in Trade Companies regions. That means they won't convert them (very high chance). I cannot say why some nations will convert everything and others will leave TC regions. Any of your western techgroup vassals cannot be reliably assigned task of converting shores of Africa, India, Indochina and China.

PU over Russia (vassalage also) would be great, they have reduced coring cost and if I remember correctly they take religious ideas. Any nation with both reduced coring cost and religious would be a great help (event better if not western - no Trade Companies).

 

[SPAMbuca]

I'll keep it in mind. If needed I guess I can always do a few wars on former allies if needed.

 

[Okcydent]

Ah, and one more very important thing. You should conquer world before 1790. Why? Because if someone converts a province after that it is a game over. -100% for 30 years. I've tried several times to do One Faith and failed miserably with Spain, France, Italy, Ottomans. That was one of the reasons.

 

[SPAMbuca]

Do I need to conquer the entire world then? I just thought the entire world had to be catholic in my case.


Update 3:

I've taken Ireland and most of Scotland and fed a bit of England and Savoy to Burgundy. Apparantly I overfed Burgundy a bit as they got a huge coalition after I gave them Savoy. My bad! I broke the alliance and figured it would be a nice way to get the inheritance. Burgundy was dumb enough to make their ruler a general. I've taken some provinces from Aragon to border muslim lands. Tunis is allied to the Ottomans though, so the first war will be a tough one.

The inheritance triggered and I got all of Burgundy's land for free. However, apparantly now the coalition war is still raging against poor Brittany. I can't help but feel sorry for Brittany now. Also, I now got the dynasty "Trastamara" on my throne. I guess that will be helpful in case I want to force Castille into a PU. Portugal has the same dynasty too, so perhaps all colonizers will have the same dynasty.

 

[Okcydent]

Theoretically you only need all provinces that are owned by countries to be catholic. That doesn't explicitly means conquer/subdue all, but ...
You cannot rely on AI that they will convert everything. Colonizers will make colonies in Trade Companies regions and that regions will stay unconverted.

Countries with high religious tolerance may choose to live with heretics (e.g Poland). AI will make protectorates which will won't convert and will make conquest harder. Not only will you fight Protectorate but also their overlord with his allies. Your Colonial Nation will easily convert provinces given enough time but there might be not enough of it (They can do about 1 province per year at most). Taking Mexico in one go proves to be disastrous. CN may stuck in endless Internal Conflict. Oh yeah Internal Conflicts, can make your vassal stop coring and they won't convert uncored land.

So yes, you don't have to conquer whole world

PS: PU over Spain is good thing. Just integrate them in time and convert what they left.
PS2: Screens are from my attempt to One faith with France. Forming Roman Empire is good as you are granted -20% coring cost (also time), maybe Italy would be better (-25% cc).

 

[SPAMbuca]

Update 4: I've taken more land in Britain and won the war against the Ottomans/Tunis/Morocco. All their alliances are broken so hopefully that will make things easier in the future. Man, this 50% extra coring cost sucks. Also, I guess I can count on 25% unrest when I conquer something from now on?

But thanks for the advice. I'll force the PU's the moment I can. My plans in Europe for now are just to get that 2nd reform passed, kick England off the map and continue on Norway as they have become independent and only have Pomerania as an ally. I've got quite the AE to deal with at the moment though. I'm afraid the Ottomans get to blob a bit easy with Poland/Lithuania failing along with Austria.

Hmm might miss it's target completely, but if we think out of the box; what would happen if I would grant independence to the colonial nations? It's very unlikely they would convert to something else after right?

 

[Okcydent]

Hmm might miss it's target completely, but if we think out of the box; what would happen if I would grant independence to the colonial nations? It's very unlikely they would convert to something else after right?

Right. They won't convert. If they were in disaster they probably will stay in disaster. So attack them and take in peace deal whatever you need to convert. In late game you will have 5 missionaries, CN only 1. That might be the only way.

Apart from that there are some events that make random provinces convert to Protestant/Reformed but without 30 years timer (I think).

Funny thing are colonial nations of your subjects. They are and are not your subjects. They provide help in wars but you cannot recruit in their territories. They don't count towards WC achievement (sic!). If you inherit (or conquer) colonial overlord their CN becomes yours. But their culture and religion stays the same. So you may find yourself in situation when you must attack CN.

PS. That France looks good. How much development you had at the begining of 16c?

 

[SPAMbuca]

I don't need a WC anymore so I'm trying to skip corners wherever possible. I have a feeling I need to get lucky regarding some conversions and colonial nations in the first place. I honestly never tried anything remotely like this, so I'm fine failing this run, but I have a feeling I'm on schedule at least. I'll take a look how much development I have.

edit: exactly 1250 development and 86 provinces. I just got my hands on London so I expect I can build some extra troops again soon. I have a forcelimit of 69/85 at the moment.

update 5:

Expanded in the obvious directions. Made a few princes become catholic again, but I feel I'm going too slow. I just came out of a war with the Ottomans, which was really tough. Massive amount of forts I had to go through and my allies Bohemia and Venice did little more than distract the 90k the Ottomans had running around.

 

[alexti]

For this achievement it helps to properly set up colonization early on. You want to assign different continents to separate colonizers. Portugal can be easily set up to handle Africa - take some of their European provinces so that in the later war you can take the rest of their European land and vassalize them (thus relocating them to Africa). Then you can give them couple of provinces back, especially if they haven't converted their African holdings to Catholic yet. From there on their Africa colonization will be auto-catholicizing the new provinces. It's a bit trickier to do the same in Asia. The easiest to set up is probably Muscovy, though you will have to provide them with the access to the Indian ocean. Alternatively, you may choose to colonize/convert Asia yourself. For Americas, you can prepare usual colonizers by reducing them in size, so that when they get some provinces in Americas, you can take their remaining European holdings and vassalize them (since their capital will be in America you won't have to deal with their CNs)

 

[SPAMbuca]

I think I have a plan for the colonizers. England will be removed off the map as I fear they would turn protestant eventually. Spain and Portugal are doing a good job colonizing at the moment. I just got my 2nd colonist and after that, I will probably start attacking all natives I can. Depending whether I can get a PU over them or not, I might leave them be, or attack them once I'm even stronger and convert the stuff they missed. Halting the reformation is going decently well. I forced some princes back to the "true faith" and cleaned up a center of reformation in Sweden. Once the zeal is over and once the catholic faith has been established as the "faith of the empire" I'm sure Europe won't be a problem. I'm more worried about getting my hands on the rest of the world in time. At least I have the core reduction from administrative ideas by now. I'll indeed try to take all of Asia by myself and most of Africa. Portugal is doing a good job taking care of Morocco and Tlemcen, which saves me quite a bit of coring cost.

 

[alexti]

I am not sure from your post if you've recognized the problem with colonization - if European colonizers colonize in Africa/Asia, the religion of the colony won't change to Catholic and then they will often assign the province to the trade company and never convert. It's those provinces that can be a problem, not the ones that were originally settled. And to colonize everything on your own would mean dealing with colonization and conversion yourself (in addition to converting provinces that were originally settled). For those reasons one faith is harder than simple one tag WC

 

[SPAMbuca]

I do got the point. Either I get a PU over them in the coming 100 years, or I'll attack them and convert the provinces they didn't convert. However, I do think I need them to colonize the America's for me because there is no way I can colonize all of that myself in time.

 

[SPAMbuca]

Update 6:

The leagues have formed. Doesn't look like I'll have much trouble with that one. The Ottomans are forced back into their box and because I own the holy places I can now convert 7 provinces a time if I want to. I released Syria and made them catholic. They are almost loyal again. I'll have them convert some lands for me too. Having a vassal there also means I can take more than 100% of over extenstion in a war. Looks like Castille and Portugal stayed out of most of Africa for now, which is good. Castille is struggling against the natives in the America's though so I might have to help them out. Biggest challenge up ahead seems Russia.

Update 7:

Europe seems very managable. Hungary and Austria are doing a good job in taking back Ottoman territory. I've taken Constantinople to make sure it gets converted. I'm halfway done with influence and completed administrative, religious and exploration. Main concern will be whether I can core/conquer everything in time or not.

 

[Okcydent]

However, I do think I need them to colonize the America's for me because there is no way I can colonize all of that myself in time.

As far as I know you don't need to convert every province (I mean colonize). You just need to own and convert every settled province so one plan would be shut down colonization entirely...

But, maybe they patched that out.

 

[SPAMbuca]

Would someone know that for sure? In that case, I would not take exploration as the 2nd idea group next time.

 

[alexti]

I do got the point. Either I get a PU over them in the coming 100 years, or I'll attack them and convert the provinces they didn't convert. However, I do think I need them to colonize the America's for me because there is no way I can colonize all of that myself in time.

Letting them colonize America is fine. This conversion problem is only an issue in Africa/Asia.

 

[SPAMbuca]

Anyone got an answer on whether all uncolonized provinces need to colonized and converted or not? It will make a huge difference.

 

[Okcydent]

Anyone got an answer on whether all uncolonized provinces need to colonized and converted or not? It will make a huge difference.

I have found this video proof. Just look close on northern Canada.