MTW:VI Florin Challenge

[Maloncanth]

We've all conquered the world and we've all won on GA points. But just how rich can you be when it happens?! I have no idea, so I propose we find out.

Here's how it works:

1) You play unmodded MTW: VI.

2) You may start at any era you like and any faction you wish on any difficulty. (choose carefully)

3) You may play GA or Conquest, but while your ultimate objective is to amass as much florin as possible, you must have a Victory on or before 1453 under normal rules.


Play your game and concentrate on getting really really rich. I have no idea how rich it is possible to become, but it is very very rich depending on your luck and how circumstances play out in game.

I'll set a baseline. This is Sicily, Early, Expert, GA. As you can see, my score is 6,651,044 florins.

https://img235.imageshack.us/img235/2972/baselineha1.th.jpg (https://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=baselineha1.jpg)

This particular game was quite unique in its own way. How does it compare to a game played specifically to get rich (which this wasn't)? I don't know. I'd believe it (and smile proud) if everyone said they'd never seen that much gold stacked in one place. I'd be equally unsurprised if everyone started posting screens with 8-digit figures.

[Martok]

Egad! 6 million?? I don't know that I've ever had a treasury *that* deep by game's end. ~:eek:

Really, though, there's any number of Mediterranean factions that could amass that kind of wealth if you dedicated yourself to it. Certainly the Byz, Eggies, and Italians (in addition to the Sicilians) are capable of generating enormous amounts of cash in fairly short order.

As for actually seeing how big of a monetary reserve you could get, though, I just don't I'd have the stamina for such an experiment. I get bored with managing my florins long before I've reached the 1-million mark, much less actually get to 10 million or more! :sweatdrop:

[King Kurt]

I must say my enjoyment is to carve out a victory for the minimum amount of money - until the later stages of the game if I have more than 20,000 florins I am not attacking enough and I have never played a game without going into debt - I like the challenge of getting out of that financial hole!!
The most satisfying state of affairs is to be told you have the biggest income.... and you are in debt and can't build all you want, now that is exciting and has happened to me at least once!!

[General Dazza]

I must say my enjoyment is to carve out a victory for the minimum amount of money - until the later stages of the game if I have more than 20,000 florins I am not attacking enough and I have never played a game without going into debt - I like the challenge of getting out of that financial hole!!
The most satisfying state of affairs is to be told you have the biggest income.... and you are in debt and can't build all you want, now that is exciting and has happened to me at least once!!

I'm the same King Kurt. I rarely get that much cash. I'm usually too busy churning out troops or buildings. It might be nice to have some money in the bank for a change though!

Hey - with 6 million florins, would you be in the position to bribe just about every army in the game? Is it possible to literally buy total domination by bribing everyone? :inquisitive:

[Maloncanth]

I'm the same King Kurt. I rarely get that much cash. I'm usually too busy churning out troops or buildings. It might be nice to have some money in the bank for a change though!

Hey - with 6 million florins, would you be in the position to bribe just about every army in the game? Is it possible to literally buy total domination by bribing everyone? :inquisitive:

Sadly no. The rate of success of bribery isn't that high. :p Many generals will simply prove "too loya" and then gain the Man of Principle line of virtues. However, it is possible to use bribery regularly as a tactic and if you assassinate the Khan after his horde's all spread out, it is possible to purchase a great deal of the horde. :p

[bamff]

I wound up with just over 3,000,000 fl in the treasury in my recent English campaign (admittedly the cash reserves started slipping backwards as I conquered more and more of the map and had progressively fewer trading partners....I tip my hat to you, Maloncanth, that is indeed a special effort. :bow:

Unlike Dazza and King Kurt, I prefer to get the florins flowing to add some flexibility...but I will concur with King Kurt, it would be immensely satisfying to get the "richest" message when you are in the hole - all of the AI factions must really be hurting.

[Maloncanth]

Yeah, I've had those too especially in some of my earlier games. Unlike the others, I resolved to never ever see those again if I could help it. :D

[General Dazza]

Unlike Dazza and King Kurt, I prefer to get the florins flowing to add some flexibility...but I will concur with King Kurt, it would be immensely satisfying to get the "richest" message when you are in the hole - all of the AI factions must really be hurting.

I thought that message was about income. Doesn't it say something like "You are the richest, not other faction has such a large income"?

I've often had the biggest income and got that message, but usually I don't have that much money (often none) in the bank. Having said that, I might try to get my finances in order in my next campaign (my current one is as the HRE, so it's a bit hard to sit back and brin in the cash).

[bamff]

Good point General Dazza, you are quite right, it is about income rather than your bank balance.

Question though - does it measure gross incomes or net incomes?

[General Dazza]

Question though - does it measure gross incomes or net incomes?

I thought it measured gross income. Any income measure is quite subjective though - to have the highest gross income you probably (not necessarily though) have the most number of provinces, which in turn means you need to have a larger army and therefore higher expenses.

It's still a good indication though of who has the financial capacity to build an empire...

[King Kurt]

It is gross income - if you get the message and you are in the red then you are spending that year's cash on troops and buildings!!
I am a big fan of bribing - don't give up if they refuse the first time - I often find they will accept a second offer. I see bribeing as a way of getting troops quickly and the infrastructure not being damaged, enabling you to quickly stock up on more troops for a garrison. As long as the cost is not too high, it is well worth doing - I have even bribed one stack so they could fight the other stack in a province so my army can sweep through when they have slugged it out. In particular, I like to get the cheque book out when my enemy falls into civil war, snapping up the odd rebel faction to ease my path.

[caravel]

I think the most florins I've had would be in the region of 2,000,000 and that would have been rare. I usually have something in the region of 70,000 - 80,000 nowadays, playing the game modded. I tend not to tax my population to the hilt if I can avoid it and I avoid establishing a massively bloated trading network.

[Caerfanan]

Sadly no. The rate of success of bribery isn't that high. :p Many generals will simply prove "too loya" and then gain the Man of Principle line of virtues. However, it is possible to use bribery regularly as a tactic and if you assassinate the Khan after his horde's all spread out, it is possible to purchase a great deal of the horde. :p
Well, I wouldn't have said "sadly" no! :beam:
For two reasons: the "real-life" one is that I can still imagine people loyal to a cause, and not money. The gaming one is that it would be sad not to win through the battle! :smash:

EDIT: oh, as to the florins, being a Viking campaign player I don't know what it's worth, I don't usually have a lot of money. I had in my last Pictish campaign a stalling situation which made me stack money for a while, but I only climbed to 300K.

[The Unknown Guy]

the "real-life" one is that I can still imagine people loyal to a cause, and not money.

Loyalty is a relative concept. Relative to the ammount being offered

[The Unknown Guy]

the "real-life" one is that I can still imagine people loyal to a cause, and not money.

Loyalty is a relative concept. Relative to the ammount being offered

[Caerfanan]

Loyalty is a relative concept. Relative to the ammount being offered
An interesting point of view indeed.

[Deus ret.]

An interesting point of view indeed.

This might be good for a fruitful discussion when speaking about RL, but at least as far as MTW goes The Unknown Guy is right: Even if a general gets the 'unbribable' trait, it doesn't mean immunity to bribery - just a steep 200% increase in cost. With a war chest of over six million, this is not too much of a problem.

Actually I imagine winning by bribery will cost more nerves (and money, of course) than plain conquest exactly because of the mediocre chances of success, as Maloncarth pointed out. Interestingly, the 'Man of Principle' line of traits only increases the amount of money needed, not the resistance to bribery attempts. Someone posted a while ago that valour stars on an emissary wouls improve the likelihood of successfully seeking for alliances/bribes but as far as I can tell this is not the case....

It was only in RTW and sub-mods that leaders could get truly unbribable.

[Caerfanan]

This might be good for a fruitful discussion when speaking about RL, but at least as far as MTW goes The Unknown Guy is right: Even if a general gets the 'unbribable' trait, it doesn't mean immunity to bribery - just a steep 200% increase in cost. With a war chest of over six million, this is not too much of a problem.

It was only in RTW and sub-mods that leaders could get truly unbribable.
Well, my apologies for my little step off topic...

I was thinking that you couldn't choose the amount of the bribery. And that you only got a "proposition that may work", and then the general tests his loyalty (or something pretty similar). And that the "hard to bribe" traits were only raising the amount suggested: not the chances to bribe or not.

In clear words, I was expecting that you could not guarantee that a given corruption attempt will work.

EDIT: And THEN I read entirely your post... In that case, loyalty can always act as a "defence" agaisnt money. As I was thinking! :beam:

[The Unknown Guy]

(I paraphrased M:TW, for the record. That´s the description of a trait of the "weak principles" line)

[Maloncanth]

Well, believe me I have had some incredibly frustrating times with even rebel stacks who just can't seem to get bribed no matter how many times I try. :p While it's economically viable, i've found that as far as rebel stacks are concerned, I may as well build up a few of my own and just throw them around pressing autoresolve until everything dies. I don't know that it costs less but given you can only attempt to bribe a general once a turn, it certainly is faster, and seems to take fewer drags and drops.

Although, blowing a six digit figure on your enemy's stack commanded by their 6-star, 9-feather Chamberlain of the Council Major, Duke of Ile the France can be VERY satisfying. :D

[Kavhan Isbul]

Actually I believe you get two attempts to bribe a general a turn, provided you have two emissaries.

[Caerfanan]

(I paraphrased M:TW, for the record. That´s the description of a trait of the "weak principles" line)
Please forgive my reaction mate, we're in a president election period here in France, and this raises some debates and gets involved people more "cranky". I was too much Real-lifish when I reacted to your post...

:shame:

[caravel]

As far as know, bribing is based on the valour of the emissary and the loyalty of the target, though don't quote me on that one. You will often get a failed bribe attempt that states that the general was too loyal, this will often give him a virtue "man of principle" etc, that has no bearing on this, but instead increases the actual bribe cost (there are no +1 valour vs bribes/emissaries type vices and virtues). The amount of money offered is fixed and is based on this and on the value of the general and army (command stars definitely come into this valuation, I'm not sure about other stats but it is possible). So there are vices triggered by successful and failed bribes but those vices don't affect the chances of success, they instead affect the cost, which I believe is a different factor. So now matter how "unbribable" your man is, he is still available for a price. Rebel generals usually have 0 loyalty factor which appears to make them very easy to bribe when compared to faction generals that tend to have some loyalty.