Achievement Guide: Traditional Player

A challenging but fun way to get an uncommon achievement.

Intro

To get Traditional Player, you need to have Army Tradition (AT) and Naval Tradition (NT) each at least 90 out of 100. Prior to this play through, I never gave much thought to either of these. In all likelihood my AT was rarely ever higher than 30 and my NT was rarely higher than 10. But I wanted to get this achievement, so I did some homework and came up with a fun strategy.

There are many ways to boost both AT and NT. Each method is marginal, but if all are pursued together you should be able to get this achievement before the end of the game.

Army Tradition can be increased by:
* Fighting Battles
* National Traditions
* National Ideas
* Policies
* Sieging Enemy Forts
* Having Fully Maintained Forts

Naval Tradition can be increased by:
* Fighting Battles
* National Traditions
* National Ideas
* Policies
* Protecting Trade

AT and NT are on a scale of 0 - 100 and by default will decay by 5% of its current value per year. In order to increase it, the absolute increase each year must be greater than 5% of its current value. You can either buff up the amount it increases, or reduce the amount it decays.

Picking a Nation

You can fight battles, pick the right national ideas, pursue the right policies, and siege forts with just about any nation. But this achievement can be made easier depending on geography and national traditions. You probably already guessed not to pick a land-locked nation for an achievement that requires 90 navy tradition, but there are a few nations that can punch above their weight for this particular achievement.

I probably missed a few nations in my analysis, but from what I gathered the nations that get the biggest bonuses to AT and NT are:

* Cyprus: + 1 AT per year
* Albania: - 1 AT decay per year
* Quebec: - 1 AT decay per year
* Brittany: + 1 NT per year
* Champa: + 1 NT per year
* Galicia: + 1 NT per year
* Mogadishu: + 1 NT per year
* Naples: - 1 NT decay per year
* Candar: - 1 NT decay per year
* Catalonia: + 1 NT per year / - 10% fort cost

Ideally you want to be in an area that has a lot of trade, many conquest opportunities, and where you can easily get big allies. That eliminates Champa and Mogadishu. I don't really know how you'd start playing as Quebec early in the game, so that eliminates Quebec. You don't want 100% of your cores to be Ottoman cores, so that eliminates Candar and Albania. I've never played as the junior partner in a PU, so I wouldn't recommend Naples. If playing as Galicia you would be a vassalized OPM, so winning independence would be exceptionally difficult. Brittany doesn't have good expansion opportunities and you might get swallowed up by France.

That leaves Cyprus and Catalonia. Oh wait... Cyprus is between a rock (Mamluks) and a hard place (Ottomans). If they don't get you, Venice will. So that leaves Catalonia.

Overview of Catalonia

The only way to play as Catalonia is as a released vassal, and the fastest way to do that is to start the game as Aragon. I know I advised against playing as Naples because its overlord is Aragon, and you might be thinking that Catalonia is in the same position except weaker. But there are a few notable differences.

If you start the game as Naples, you could only win independence by fighting a full strength Aragon, and even then only once you got your liberty desire high enough. If you wait too long, you'll end up in a PU under Castile, and winning independence will be even more difficult.

But if you start the game as Aragon, you can deliberately self-sabotage yourself the entire time you are Aragon. Once you start the game as Catalonia, Aragon will be in the weakest possible position, making a war of independence easier.

Now let's do an overview of Catalonia's traditions:
Start: + 1 Merchant (this will help your trade income throughout the game)
Start: - 15% light ship cost (this will help you protect trade income, which increases NT)
Tradition 1: Consulate of the Sea / + 1 NT per year (obviously good for this achievement)
Tradition 2: Consell de Cent / - 10% advisor costs (marginally helpful for getting monarch points)
Tradition 3: Constitution of Catalonia / - 1 National Unrest (always nice to have)
Tradition 4: Fortifying Catalonia / - 10% fort maintenance (helps with AT)
Tradition 5: Miquelets / + 15% manpower recovery (helps to recover between wars)
Tradition 6: "Lliures o Morts" / + 10% morale of armies (marginally helpful)
Tradition 7: Forges of Catalonia / + 10% production efficiency (helps with production & trade)
Bonus: Ambitions / - 20% morale hit when losing a ship (this one is ok)

So Catalonia has 9 traditions that range for good to great, and one ok tradition. Plus they are tailored specifically to this achievement. Not bad.

Move On, Aragon

First, start the game in ironman mode in 1444 as Aragon. If you have a good understanding of how subjects and liberty desire work, you can skip the next section. If you're unfamiliar with it, then read on.

Catalonia's a great nation to play as, but it has a precarious start. You'll want Aragon to be as weak as possible, but if Aragon is a tempting target before you gain independence, as a vassal you'll be sucked into a losing war. Don't be discouraged if you have to restart several times.

Here's a run-down on the mechanics of subjects. A subject is either a vassal, protectorate, or junior partner in a personal union. Subjects have something called liberty desire. If it is higher than 50%, subjects stop paying tribute, may avoid engaging the enemy during wars, and will look to outside powers to support a war of independence. When you are Catalonia, that is exactly the type of subject you want to be.

One of the easiest ways to increase liberty desire is for the subjects' combined military strength to far outstrip that of the overlord. Our strategy will be to diminish Aragon's strength and increase the number of vassals. Aragon starts out with one subject: Naples. You can release 3 more: Sicily, Sardinia, and Catalonia.

If you've never released a vassal before, you can do it from the Diplomacy Panel. At the bottom right, there is a tan clump of dirt with a green flag. Click on that, and you'll see all the subjects you can release.


Once you see the subjects you can release, there is a summary of which provinces the subjects will receive.


Usually a subject will receive all provinces that it has cores on. The exception is if your capital is on a subjects' core. Aragon's capital in 1444 is Valencia (a Catalan core). Since you'd rather Valencia be Catalan than Aragonese, you'll want to save up 200 admin points to move your capital to one of your 3 cores that is not a Catalan core. I would strongly recommend you move Aragon's capital to Zaragoza instead of Teruel or Perenio since the other two provinces have mountain terrain. When Catalonia fights its war of indepedence, Aragon will get the defense bonus on its capital fort, so Zaragoza's terrain will give Aragon the smallest advantage.

It will take about a year to save up the required admin points to move Aragon's capital. While you're waiting, hire the most expensive advisors you can (taking loans is advised), and use all the extra monarch points to develop Barcelona. After a year or two, Catalonia's capital will be thriving and Aragon will have taken the first steps into the abiss of a debt spiral. Next, release Sardinia and Sicily. Quickly send them diplomatic insults. Then send all the big nations around you diplomatic insults. Especially France, Hungary, and Castile. Take everything you can from your Estates, then use what you got to develop Barcelona some more. Maybe for good measure revoke an Estate's claim in one of the 3 provinces that is an Aragonese core - sparking a rebellion. Then destroy your entire fleet and army. Btw if anyone else can think of more ways to screw over Aragon please leave suggestions in the comments section.

Last, release Catalonia. But make sure you check the box to play as the released subject.

Catalexit

As soon as you start playing as a released subject Catalonia, you will have a 5 year truce cool down before you can declare war against Aragon. This will be the most fragile stage of your entire game, and the time when you might need to restart. After all, your overlord is a 3-province debt-ridden Aragon that has literally hurled insults at everyone in Europe. If anyone attacks Aragon, you will probably get carpet sieged. However, if you can make it through this stage, the rest of the game will be much easier.

Technically you can break the truce to declare a war of independence, but when I tried it I got like 89 AE immediately, and half the countries in Europe joined a coalition against me within 2 weeks of me starting my war. I would not recommend breaking the truce.

Here's how Catalonia looked immediately after its creation in August 1445.

If you're really having trouble with countries attacking Aragon before your truce is up, an alternative approach is during the Aragon stage of the campaign ally Austria. Having the protection of the HRE should disuade anyone from attacking Aragon, but still be insufficient to save Aragon once the war of independence starts. As soon as an Austrian fort gets sieged up (preferably by one of your big allies), get a white peace with Austria, and then continue to wreck Aragon.

Fortunately your liberty desire should be high enough, since there is no way that Aragon can field a large army with 3 rebellious vassals (refusing to pay tribute and raising armies of their own). You can look around Europe for allies who will support your war for independence. You can preferably pick Aragon's rivals since they will support you just to undermine Aragon.

I'd also suggest allying the other subjects, since they will have found their own benefactors to support their wars for independence. Once you declare war and pull in the other subjects, you can call your allies and they can call all their allies. In my game, I allied England and Hungary. Sardinia and Sicily allied Castile and Portugal. Even though Castile and Portugal had a hostile attitude towards Catalonia, they answered my call to arms because their allies (Sardinia and Sicily) were allied to me. For some reason Naples remained loyal through it all, but Aragon still got stomped by the grand coalition arrayed against it.

Try to siege up all three of Aragon's provinces as soon as possible. In my game, Castile fought on my side but since they were hostile to me I think they would have tried to keep any provinces they sieged. After the war, I took two of Aragon's three remaining provinces, so by 1552 Aragon was a OPM.

Congratulations. If you made it this far, you're off to a good start. Last, I would recommend trying to ally France. England and Hungary supported my war for independence, so they were automatically my allies as soon as I became independent. However, England is a liability since they have a tendency to get pulled into unwinnable wars with France. Figure out who France's rivals are, rival any of them you can, improve relations, and ally their allies if possible (that way you don't end up in a situation where you are supporting one ally in a war against a former ally). Once allied to France, you should be pretty safe.

National Ideas

Now, play the game as you would any mid-sized country. The Mediterranean is an Ottoman shark tank but war galleys should be the bread and butter of your naval and they can punch above their weight in sea tiles (just don't go outside the Straights of Gibraltar). Areas for expansion would either be North Africa or Central Italy. It might be worthwhile to get a Neapolitan province in the peace deal with Aragon, but in my game they remained in the PU under Aragon so I fought subsequent wars with Aragon and got into Italy.

It's really not necessary to get big though. You just need to survive and keep the alliance with France. The dream would be if France and Castile were allies, and you could ally both of them.

Here's Catalonia in 1610:

And again in 1771:

It's not necessary to become huge. On the one hand the bigger you are the more hesitation the Ottomans will have with attacking you. On the other hand, being bigger makes it harder to get the active fort bonus for AT.

What you will absolutely need to focus on are National Ideas. You will want Aristocratic, Maritime, Administrative, Quality, Defensive, and Espionage ideas. The last two groups are up to you. I picked Economic since the forts and armies were expensive.

To summarize, Aristocratic ideas will give -1 AT decay and -1 NT decay, Maritime ideas will give you +1 NT, Quality ideas will give you +1 AT, and Defensive ideas will give you +1 AT. You can also enact national policies by fully unlocking certain national ideas. Espionage+Quality unlocks the Deserter Act (-1 AT decay). Administrative+Maritime unlocks the Naval School Act (+1 NT).

From there, you should be able to top up your NT by creating trade fleets to protect your trade (every 50% of your naval force limit protecting trade = +1 NT per year). Ships are very cheap to maintain and trade income is great so don't be afraid to go over force limit.

If you became very large, getting the max fort bonus will be expensive, so I would recommend increasing AT by winning sieges during wars. If you expand into West Africa, keep fighting wars where you carpet siege other countries, and only take provinces that don't have forts. Eventually, countries like Mali or Yao will only have fort provinces left. You can attack them, siege down forts, then white peace out for the minimal truce cool down. Just repeat over and over again, and your AT will eventually climb. If you stayed small or mid-sized, getting your max fort bonus should be enough. If you and France fight wars together, you might as well try to siege down forts to get AT faster.

I got the achievement around year 1775. And starting the game as a relatively small nation like Catalonia was a lot of fun.

[nicholasandrewdavies]

Yeah that would make the independence war easier. It's also nice to be able to take an Italian province in the independence war too though. Something to think about. Anyway here's a guide on Komnenoi Empire:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180863023

[Death Squad]

As Aragon you could of also released Naples from the PU!

[RedHunter]

Great guide, it is always important to screw your overlord when playing as a vassel.

[nicholasandrewdavies]

Thanks guys - I just finished a guide for the Consulate of the Sea achievement. I'm still proof reading it, seeing if there are more screenshots I can add.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=909182127

[Poxtean[TR]]

nice guide

[King Noob]

One of the best-written guides I've yet seen. Keep it up!