Finally managed an economic victory
Let me start by asking. Has anyone else done it? Did I make it unnecessarily hard for myself?
I probably made it harder than it should have been by playing as Rome, which made the money making and general steamrolling of vast parts of the map really simple but the hardest, trickiest part of the game, which I suceeded in as quickly as I did because of sheer luck and some funny AI decisions was not the capturing provinces, nor was it the access to all trade resources (though it started there) or the 90000 gold per turn.
The hardest part about the economic victory was holding the regions you have to hold while trading with at least 15 factions.
I started the game off pretty normal (difficulty was VH but that doesn't really matter), having in mind this idea to try and go for an economic victory. I did think it might be better to go with something like Egypt or maybe Seleucids for the sake of starting off so close to the wealthier provinces of the map and in a position to trade with lots and lots and lots of people but at the same time, those factions really are not all the neutral. Rome has the amazing advantage of being very neutral (I picked the Cornelia, which I think gives me a diplomatic bonus with everything Hellenic and a public order penalty from Latin influence).
That way, Rome starts out, in Italy, undisturbed by anyone and everyone except for maybe the Etruscans, which everyone except for Epirus hates too, so nobody minds that. While chasing the Etruscans out of Italy, I had a thought that getting the 15 trade agreements in the end might actually be pretty hard, so I set out with the goal to subjugate (make factions into client states) anyone who was not sitting on a valuable resource of keeping me from completing money printing provinces like Africa, Magna Graecia or Mauretania.
With that in mind, I sailed to Corisca or Sardinia, I can't remember which one is North and which is South but whatever. I subjugated the Etruscans, they hated me and wouldn't trade with me for the next 20 turns but that was fine. After a while, they began to trade with me and they were left alone on their little island while I repeated a bit of history, going to war with Carthage, Nova Carthago and some Iberian tribes and ending up with Mauretania, Southern Gaul, Southern Spain and Cisalpina. After Carthage was dead (Syracuse actually killed them, capturing Carthage and part of Africa too), I managed to get into a trade rights/defensive/military alliance with Sparta and Athens and some of their clients, who controlled everything between the Alps and the Black Sea pretty firmly, while I tried to get more clients with trade rights by subjugating every Iberian tribe I came across. In the meantime, the Etruscans told me to screw myself and declared war on me again, so the next time I came there, I killed them off right away and just took their town.
The same happened with ever Iberian and every Celtic tribe I tried it on. They all would rebel sooner or later and start rampaging around, essentially making my strategy of keeping factions alive to trade with impossible. Only the Greek factions stayed allied with me for pretty much the entirety of the campaign, which I guess is because of the diplomatic bonus the Cornelia get.
Over the course of a war with the Arverni and Nervii, who controlled all of the rest of Gaul and most of Germania all the way to North and East Sea, I ended up in control of those provinces myself while I betrayed and brutally backstabbed Syracuse, taking away everything they owned in a single turn and romanising all of Africa and Magna Graecia, turning them into money provinces along with Mauretania and some industry provinces in Gaul and Germania while all of Spain was geared towards food production (not without rebellions). In the meantime, I got involved in a relationship between Egypt and Garama or whatever they're called (the African tribe that starts in Phanzania, South of Carthage) who had taken out Libya and the Cyrenaica (African tribes that start between Carthage and Egypt) together and so I did not have to go to war with Egypt, who was loved by everyone in my grand great Greco-Roman military alliance/NAP fest/UN/NATO sort of thing, I made Garama a client state (offered them some money, they were happy, took trade as well, great, success all around).
At this point in the game, Athens had gone on to murder everything on the Northern Coast of the Black Sea as well, except for the Horde of the Steppe faction (Scythian confederation I believe) who were all the way in the top right (North Eastern) corner of the map, between 'my lands' (those of my allies and me) and the Eastern factions and the map was literally split in half, with a massive military alliance and some client states on one side and everyone else in a military alliance on the other side. There were two remaining neutral factions, one south of Egypt and the Royal Scythians, who held out, at war with everyone in the known world, around Tur somewhere, before Athens got to them.
I give you some screenshots, though I did not document this, so these are some that I took near the end and I'll just use my amazing paint skills to try and explain a little.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
You can see from the screenshot roughly what happened from that point on but basically, first, I tried to get a trade route from the East to the West, so I could trade silk with Parthia to finally complete all trade resources. (It is by the way really really dumb, how allies and client states block trade routes or just generally how trade routes work since Shogun 2 or whenever they had that idea but it is a topic for another time) I tried this by capturing Scythia and then inciting revolts all the way to the black sea. It worked, it gave me silk but everyone hated me. If I had started an open war with the East, it would have been over. I would have had to race down there, create lots of satrapies and protect them from my own allies so I could trade with them, which probably would have broken up my own alliance and caused even more war (yes, I know the game is called Total War, not Total Retirement Fund or Total World Peace but those solutions are actually simpler than Total War, at least if you get tired of auto resolving and fighting steamrolly battles because of stupid auto resolve outcomes past turn 200, it is really really simple to just throw money at every problem when you get 100k per turn)
After giving it all a while to cool down and nothing much happening, Egypt made the first move and moved on Pontus, dragging everyone it and soon, the West came rolling into the East, while I was left wondering what to do now... Egypt was happily rampaging, until the luckiest thing of this entire campaign happened.
Remember Garama? Yes, me neither. They declared war on Egypt after coming out of the desert and standing in front of Alexandria and thinking wow! Nice town, we'll take it! Screw who they are allied with. This gave me the unique opportunity you get when someone who has no affiliation with anyone declares war against another faction that is someone else's client (Egypt was my client state at this point at this point and yes, it involved a lot of money). One time, during the AI's turn, the game presented me with a window that might as well have said something like:
Here's the solution to all your problems, your one and only chance to declare war on your ally and no one in the whole world will mind! This is your chance to backstab Egypt and end this campaign!
Please choose: "Yes" "No"
So I chose and end the campaign I did. 8 turns after joining another faction's war against my client state, I had cut a route through Arabia, connecting me with all those factions there, who now loved me because I just steamrolled Egypt, who had been looking at them in an evil manner for about a century, so they all happily accepted trade, I conquered Syria (campaign objective) and then made peace with Egypt and paid off Pergamon and Rhodos to become my client states too (that way I didn't have to go to capture Asia which is also a campaign objective but just bought it)
Here's the end, the campaign lasted for a bit longer because I decided to research all arts while I was at it and get that Steam achievement because yay Steam achievements ^^
Link, because I am bad at editing pictures into posts when they're in my Steam library
Some mad research going on here, after I finished the main objective, I turned all my temples into research temples and all my level 4 main city food buildings into libraries. It literally took me 15 turns to research that entire window you see there. I had not researched any art in that window/scroll/tab before:
Another link
There was also a cute little civil war somewhere. I managed to keep the majority of the senate on my side, so it spawned somewhere in Pannonia with 6 half stack armies and was dealt with in under 5 turns although they did catch one of my legions off guard and dogpile everything onto it, killing it.
Biggest not autoresolved battle of the campaign
Conclusion: They should rename the "Economic Victory" to "Achieve World Peace".
*disbands all armies and sets taxes to 100% to watch it all collapse*
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