Final map
I finished my TTM run a few days ago, and I thought I'd write a few things about it in the hope of inspiring others who don't think they can get the achievement. The interesting / boring thing about this run is that I just played it fairly straight: no reforming into horde, no daimyo swarm shenanigans, etc.
A lot of this applies to a casual WC with any tag that isn't super broken (*cough* Mughals *cough*).
Early game
I started out by expanding into SEA, and moving my capital to Australia to prevent CNs from forming later. After dev-pushing Renaissance and taking a few provinces in the Philippines, I quickly took control of the Malacca trade node. I opted not to sell the institutions to Ming; this meant that I lost out on a lot of ducats, but (as I was TCing everything) I stayed 3-4 techs ahead of my neighbors. I didn't bother allying anyone, but I did stay tributary to Ming for a while to avoid any bigger nations picking on me. I also expanded a bit in America.
By 1550 I was already one of the wealthiest nations in the world from all that sweet spice trade, combined with what I was pulling out of China / Polynesia / America. From there, I just had to draw the rest of the owl: wait for absolutism and blob like mad.
Ideas
Innovative → Exploration (abandoned) → Offensive → Influence → Administrative → Diplomatic → Humanist → Defensive → Quality
Why yes, I am an Arumba sub, how did you know‽
Innovative
Empiricism (+50% extra innovativeness gain) is possibly the least important idea in this group since the base gain buffs: does getting 100 inno 5 seconds into the game instead of 10 really matter?
The stars here are Scientific Revolution (−10% tech cost) and Optimism (−0.05 Monthly war exhaustion). Because tech cost stacks additively (like most modifiers in the game), −10% is a 60 monarch point reduction on every tech. Late game, it's hilarious to reduce your tech cost from 100 to 40, but also sort of irrelevant; early game, when you're scrabbling for points, I find those 60 points often make the difference between keeping up on tech and not keeping up. If you prefer a play style that avoids vassals and thus doesn't care about dip points as much, you can take Administrative first for a similar tech discount, but Scientific Revolution comes much earlier which is nice. Innovative also has quite a few pulse events that give tech discounts.
Optimism may not seem like much, but it basically means never having to care about war exhaustion, even when constantly at war.
Finally, the advisor costs finisher is another indirect source of monarch points, and there are some nice policies (more on those later).
Exploration
I took this just to get into the Philippines and America. After getting a foothold, I abandoned it for Influence, letting the Europeans do all the colonizing for me.
Offensive
This is generally the best source of military power in the early game (assuming no situational groups like Aristocratic). The guaranteed leader pips help you get decent generals while your army tradition is still low, but even more importantly, Engineer Corps (+20% Siege ability) and Modern Siege Weapons (Inn/Off policy: +10% Siege ability / +1 Leader siege) mean faster sieges. Faster sieges mean less attrition (especially with the awful attrition in this part of the world) as well as the option to avoid battles in favor of siege races, saving a lot of manpower.
Influence
The obvious choice if using vassals. Your vassals will be more loyal, give you better bonuses, and be cheaper to integrate. As a bonus, −50% unjustified demands makes those greedy peace deals cheaper. Foreign Advisors (Inn/Inf policy: −10% advisor costs / −10% AE impact) is a decent policy to run while not annexing.
Administrative
Time to get this WC started! Most of the ideas here are useless (Mercenary whatever? Didn't hire a merc all game. Interest? What even is a loan) but Adaptability (−25% Core-creation cost) is huge, especially with no other CCR sources. Finishing the group picks up Vassal Integration Act (Adm/Inf policy: −20% Diplomatic annexation cost) so it's time to annex some vassals.
Diplomatic
Extra diplomats for those integrations and peace deals; Flexible Negotiations (−20% Province warscore cost) to blob even harder.
Defensive
At this point, there's nothing left that will really make the WC faster, so my choices are about making my life easier. Improved Foraging (−25% Land attrition) and later The Preparation Act (Def/Hum policy: −25% Land attrition / −0.05 Monthly war exhaustion) mean I can stand on a tropical 20 supply province with a full 80k stack and still take less than 1% attrition, so I don't need to split my armies up. Supply Trains (+33% Reinforce speed) plus a Quartermaster (+33% advisor) mean I don't need to swap in backup armies while waiting for reinforcements after a battle. The fort defense stuff is actually irrelevant at this point of the game: my country is so large that an enemy can siege provinces down for a decade without getting a single point of war score.
Humanist
Taking an admin group is a bit costly since without much CCR/AE a lot of admin will be needed for coring, but Indirect Rule (−10 Years of separatism) plus The Liberation Act (Hum/Off policy: −1 National unrest / −5 Years of separatism) make pacifying newly conquered land much easier, and with all the unrest reduction I had no rebels at 200% OE, and even 400% OE was barely an inconvenience. I also had all of the idea cost reduction Great Projects at this point, so I was only paying something like 220 points per idea.
Quality
Well, why not?
Religion / Government
I decided to go Sunni: this meant that most of the world was already true faith or heathen (which the Dhimmi make a non-issue), so I didn't have to convert anything. This also let me flip into Iqta government type, for a tiny bit more CCR and oodles of manpower (from Land Acquisition).
In hindsight, I think it would have been better to go Confucian, take the Mandate of Heaven, and then maybe go Hindu. Flipping to Hindu is really awkward, but the extra CCR would have been very nice, and TCing provinces provides much of the same benefits as the Dhimmi.
Absolutism
With all of the Absolutism govt reforms and high crown land, I had enough for 105 max absolutism with the two Dhimmi privileges still granted, so I didn't bother with Court & Wreck Your Country.
Late game
I tried to avoid save scumming, but in the end I did it twice: once to roll back from 1750 to 1650 when I realised I wasn't blobbing nearly hard enough, and again to dodge a 12 year regency in 1780.
I also tried to avoid truce breaking, because I didn't want to pay the admin points, but also just because I don't like it. However, by 1800 Spain / Ottos / Russia were still 400% WS so I gave in.
The dev inflation in recent patches is terrifying. The last time I WCed, the world was about 20k dev. This time, despite liberal use of pillage and concentrate, I ended with 40k dev.
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