Anyone got some good advice for Balthasar Gelt in IE?

[ℬℓα⊂₭ ℙℜ¡ℵ₠]

So right at the start I took the option to upgrade something to level 2. I think that's the one that has let me change goods to 3500 gold which was super helpful for upgrading my main settlement. After that I got a Gold wizard, I have one province and about to get another and I'm on turn 11.
Any advice on what wizards are best and best way to expand?

[ℬℓα⊂₭ ℙℜ¡ℵ₠]

I just chose the option to warp back the the Empire. I feel I wasted money on upgrading the settlements in China

[DarkFenix]

Personally I keep Gelt in Cathay and give him one of each other sort of wizard accompanying him, working towards a hero doomstack. With the landmark in your starting region you can dial all your spells up to 200% power very easily with a near bottomless pool of winds. Seems the obvious way to play him to me, outside of the lvl 5 Altdorf exploit I suppose.

[ℬℓα⊂₭ ℙℜ¡ℵ₠]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

Personally I keep Gelt in Cathay and give him one of each other sort of wizard accompanying him, working towards a hero doomstack. With the landmark in your starting region you can dial all your spells up to 200% power very easily with a near bottomless pool of winds. Seems the obvious way to play him to me, outside of the lvl 5 Altdorf exploit I suppose.

I might just reload back to Cathey. What is the lvl 5 Altdorf exploit?

[ℬℓα⊂₭ ℙℜ¡ℵ₠]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

Personally I keep Gelt in Cathay and give him one of each other sort of wizard accompanying him, working towards a hero doomstack. With the landmark in your starting region you can dial all your spells up to 200% power very easily with a near bottomless pool of winds. Seems the obvious way to play him to me, outside of the lvl 5 Altdorf exploit I suppose.

Yeah, I played an earlier save and am going to stay in Cathey thank you

[sleeper]

Is Gelt there meant to make Cathay stronger?And then go the empire and do his stuff?

[Ashley]

Originally posted by sleeper:

Is Gelt there meant to make Cathay stronger?And then go the empire and do his stuff?

It's your campaign. Play it how you want.

[CrUsHeR]

Probably there's a whole number of ways with Gelt. Just to explain some of the less obvious things:

1. The dilemma to leave or stay should only trigger from taking the last Burning Winds city to the northeast. So you can infinitely delay this and do other business first.

2. Nakai's vassal faction does generate a lot of money, with nothing to spend on. So you can actually sell them cities for really huge amounts of gold before moving on.

3. When choosing to go back to the Empire, note that you only lose settlements in the actual Cathay region. If you go west towards the Vampire / Nurgle area and the Dragon Isles, you keep everything over there.


If you want to combine all three:
Do not take that last city, sell the other settlements on the way to the lizards, take some pieces near or in the Dragon Isles. Then hit the switch and play on both fronts. Take back those special landmarks and everything else you sold before leaving.

The "Altdorf T5" thing:
Never done it myself, IIRC the "homecoming" buff gives +1 or 2 population whenever you settle a new city?
And the population surplus is always shared within a province.

So you immediately take Altdorf when you arrive. Then you occupy any minor settlement in this province, and you keep abandoning it and re-settling it every other turn. This always gives that extra population to push Altdorf real fast.

Wouldn't recommend that because it is so obviously NOT intended that you'd be better off using the console mod and simply cheat yourself directly to T5.
Or leave Franz alone and confederate him later.


None of this is really NEEDED when you just stay in Cathay and play BFF with Zhao Ming. Because once you ally him, you get vision over his caravans which lets you make contact with all Empire factions and then confederate them while comfortably chilling in Cathay (and rolling the map up from that side + taking sea lanes to Lustria).