Making money fast?

[dbond1]

Posted this on the Paradox boards, but will here too as I'm looking for ideas and options to my situation.

It is a truism that when devising plans you should ensure that things have not changed to scupper them.

And yeah, this is entirely of my own making.

I decided to go for Navigator, and did well enough. Reached the island south of Maldives in 1480. My plan however hinged on getting Goa by event. Yeah, it no longer works this way, as you all knew already.

Conquer Zanzibar? Not gonna happen.

It's 1496, so unless I am missing something, my only option is to charter a province in India. The cheapest I can find is like 2800 ducats. I have 800, make 11 ducats a month profit with everything shut off, so I don't have enough time to get another 2000 this way.

Are there any options? I could sell my two North Africa provinces (Cueta and the one to the east, starts with T) but those aren't worth much.

How can I get 2000 ducats in less than four years?

Loans? Sell provinces? Disband? Sell heavies, mothball. Already got rid of my forts. I'm in no position to go to war, not that this is a way to quick cash. So yeah, I know of these, and looking for the ways I don't know. How would you go about it?

What's the loan limit? Is there one?

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by dbond1:

How can I get 2000 ducats in less than four years?

The best way to get money (relatively) fast in EU4 is to beat up a great power and take the maximum in cash from them in the peace treaty. However, four years may be too short a time frame for you to do this. Do you have an earlier save you can roll back to?

As for loans, the maximum number you can take is based on the interest paid--the total interest cannot exceed your monthly income. The size of each loan is based on the strength of your economy--your development and trade, in other words.

[bri]

The loan limit is determined by your gross income.

Have you checked the provinces in Indonesia? You also may want to check if a colony will satisfy the achievement requirement, (I did it so long ago I have no idea if a colony counts or not),

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by dbond1:

I decided to go for Navigator, and did well enough. Reached the island south of Maldives in 1480. My plan however hinged on getting Goa by event. Yeah, it no longer works this way, as you all knew already.

Also, I'm curious why this won't work. The wiki says that if you complete the "Push to India" mission by discovering Goa and any other province in the Coromandel region, the event "Vasco de Gama in India" should fire and give you Goa. Was this changed in a recent patch not reflected in the wiki? If so, you could revert your game to an earlier version, start a new campaign, and get the achievement there.

[dbond1]

Thanks for the replies.

It doesn't work by event now, but by missions. it used to be that just discovering the coast was the trigger I think to get Goa as Portugal by event. Now you have to own Zanzibar to go down the tree, and I'm in no position to attack them (Kilwa) and their alliance.

Loans will be limited, but maybe could get me over the line.

If I had known how it works now I would have been hording money (or geared up for conquest) along the way. No allies will join an offensive war on the east coast of Africa. I'm paying the price for not keeping up with the changes, but it doesn't take long to play the first 150 years of a campaign so maybe a restart will be in order, but if there's a way to get this one over the line I'm open to ideas.

Maybe there are ways to reduce the charter price. Charter is 'owned' right? And would satisfy the conditions?

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by dbond1:

Thanks for the replies.

It doesn't work by event now, but by missions. it used to be that just discovering the coast was the trigger I think to get Goa as Portugal by event. Now you have to own Zanzibar to go down the tree, and I'm in no position to attack them (Kilwa) and their alliance.

Well, it's both event and missions now. Moving through the mission tree triggers events.

The best long-term advice I can give you about achievements is this: always check the wiki and read their requirements before you ever unpause the game. If missions or events are involved, read those as well. Then you can plan your entire campaign around the steps that are necessary. Some achievements mandate very strange (or even self-destructive) styles of play. It's unsafe to assume that normal strategies will work.

[dbond1]

Originally posted by bri:

The loan limit is determined by your gross income.

Have you checked the provinces in Indonesia? You also may want to check if a colony will satisfy the achievement requirement, (I did it so long ago I have no idea if a colony counts or not),

Yes, a colony would satisfy the conditions, and I have everything I need aside from an India province. it is all owned, and nearly all by Vijayanagar, at least the southern half. I had hoped to no-CB a Ceylon minor if I didn't get handed Goa, but Vijayanagar beat me to it. They always take their sweet time, but not this time. Alliances in the India region mean I can't win a war here.

[dbond1]

Originally posted by Marquoz:

Well, it's both event and missions now. Moving through the mission tree triggers events.

The best long-term advice I can give you about achievements is this: always check the wiki and read their requirements before you ever unpause the game. If missions or events are involved, read those as well. Then you can plan your entire campaign around the steps that are necessary. Some achievements mandate very strange (or even self-destructive) styles of play. It's unsafe to assume that normal strategies will work.

Yeah, thanks. Sage advice. Of course I admitted to this in the OP, but I cannot say you are wrong.

[dbond1]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions, I manged to do it with six months to spare. Some of the things I did

-- Set the state order that raises tax by 25%. Did that in two states, the one with Lisbon and the one with Porto.
-- Took gubment reform that adds the age-specific state edict and did taxes again
-- Sold a few heavies to Castile. those went for 50-60 a pop.
-- Sale of Titles. Yeah, I hate hitting that button, but whatareyagonnado? That was good for about 450 ducats which was a big shot in the arm
-- Raised relations with Indian coastal nations, but only one had a 3-dev strip of desert, Gujurat, which, with relations maxed sold for about 1700 ducats.
-- Used papal points to get tax boost and dip rep. I could have nailed this earlier if anyone would have agreed to knowledge sharing. the Indian nations were at 0 after I raised dip rep. I kept hoping for a dip rep advisor, but couldn't afford to keep firing them as I needed every ducat
-- Zeroed land maintnenance

So yeah, in the end a lot of little things added up just in time, but raising relations dropped the charter price by about 1000 ducats and sale of titles was a big boost. The province is a worthless spit of sand, but The Navigator is done. Thanks to everyone for helping me evade a restart.

[Mr.M]

You could have also sacked your tax development all across the board - should have given a few hundred bucks total.

Selling a province or 2 to castille would have worked as well.

But i know im too late

[dbond1]

No worries mate thanks for the suggestion. No one would buy my north Africa provinces. Castile didn't want them (yet) and Morocco and Tlemecen rivalled me and you cannot sell to a rival. Offered them to France, England, Austria, Aragon and more. No one wanted these, even for free!

It turns out I narrowly escaped fooking it all up. I had planned to take loans to get this over the line, but found out afterwards that you cannot charter a province when you have loans.

This is a fun, quick achievement. Very specialized, but Portugal is perfect for getting it done. You can pop a golden age by like 1450 as Portugal since they start on two continents, discover the new world quickly and I pumped Lisbon to 30 dev.

I tend to avoid timed achievements, but this one's not bad.