Questions about the 60% Minor Victory

[jsberry]

(1) How many provinces are there in the vanilla game (I count about 90)?

(2) What faction has the easiest time reaching the 60% mark? (I'm guessing Almohads in early)

(3) What year is a tough but achieavable goal for reaching 60% quickly, in the early game?

(4) What game mechanics automatically change after you exceed 60%?

Thanks.

[seireikhaan]

(1) How many provinces are there in the vanilla game (I count about 90)?

(2) What faction has the easiest time reaching the 60% mark? (I'm guessing Almohads in early)

(3) What year is a tough but achieavable goal for reaching 60% quickly, in the early game?

(4) What game mechanics automatically change after you exceed 60%?

Thanks.

1) You're about right, its somewhere in the 90's range.

2) I think that depends a bit. I personally find the danes to be the easiest in vanilla, because you have truckloads of cash once you get trade set up, and there's a ton of rebel provinces around you. You don't have to deal with the Mongols for the most part, you can keep your 'must defend' provinces to one or two for a long time whilst you build up funds, and to top it off, you've got vikings, and if you have VI, you get huscarles and thralls as well. Don't discount thralls, they make nice garrison substitutes for peasants.

3) I would say it again depends. What's your playing style? I prefer to turtle for long periods of time before I'm ready to blitz someone out really quick. However, I HAVE seen people who have gotten 60% BEFORE the Mongols appear. I'm not much for that, as I like to draw the campaign out longer to savor it. Once the Mongols appear, getting 60% could be delayed for awhile depending on where you started. I'd say, 1250 is tough but achievable.

4) No mechanics change, per say, but there is a nasty little thing called the bloat effect. Basically, once you get over 60%, you'll have a massive loyalty drop across ALL your provinces, even home ones. Its temporary, iirc, but it can be real nasty if you didn't see it coming, because you can lose a bunch of provinces to rebels, which then causes your king's influence to drop, and then can cause civil war, which causes more rebel provinces, each province of which offers the strong potential for a faction reemergence, which can cause you to lose further provinces, and then more factions reemerge... See where this is heading?

[Knight Templar]

1) I think 98 or something like that
2) as makaikhaan said, it depends, but I would say Byzantines in early period
3) It depends on your playing difficulty, but for (let's say) hard campaign, my guess would be around 1190. Although, I've seen extraordinary campaigns of fellow forum members who achieved 60 % victory around 1150-1160 ,IIRC
4) makaikhaan explained it all. Here's the campaign of my friend who wanted to achieve 100 % victory (and was extremely unlucky with rebellions): Losing 96 provinces in one year

[Martok]

1.) I believe it's 96 or 98 provinces, can't remember which.

2.) I'd go with either the Almos or Eggies (especially in the Early period), maybe the Byz. All three factions have pretty rich starting lands and a decent unit roster.

3.) I'd say reaching the 60% mark before the end of the Early period (1205) is challenging but doable.

4.) In addition to what makaikhaan has said, I would also add that even before you reach the 60% victory point, your governors and generals will be afflicted with all sorts of nasty vices that adversely affect their command and acumen. While you can't avoid this entirely, I've discovered it helps to keep your generals & governors moving around instead of sitting in one place. (Also, placing them in your faction leader's personal army stack can help as well.)

[seireikhaan]

Losing 96 provinces in one year

What confuses me is how that was possible. Shouldn't he have won? I don't see any province that belongs to anyone else.

[Matrim]

I was thinking the same thing, but he may have had one or more castles besieged, and had 90% of his forces dealing with those last holdouts when the proverbial poo hit the fan... and then things got really nasty.

I remember reaching 60% as the English in one particular campaign. I had moved across Europe, down into Iberia and Italy, and was thrusting to a finish in the East and was hit with the typical Civil War. Well, I decided to stick it out with the Loyalists... I was left with about 9 provinces and maybe 12 full stacks between them. Most of England stuck with me, but the other "islands" had to literally wade through the dead fighting their way back home. It was nasty, but extremely entertaining.

[zera133]

1) I think 98 or something like that
2) as makaikhaan said, it depends, but I would say Byzantines in early period
3) It depends on your playing difficulty, but for (let's say) hard campaign, my guess would be around 1190. Although, I've seen extraordinary campaigns of fellow forum members who achieved 60 % victory around 1150-1160 ,IIRC
4) makaikhaan explained it all. Here's the campaign of my friend who wanted to achieve 100 % victory (and was extremely unlucky with rebellions): Losing 96 provinces in one year

yes, when you control more than 60% lands, the loyalty of your provinces will drop heavily.
but in your friend's campaign, the problem was that his king was in a island without port.
the distance from the king to other province became very long
and the loyalty is influenced by the distance from the king to the province

[jsberry]

As Almohads in vanilla/hard/early, I got the 60% winner message in 1162. I could have done it 2-3 years faster but micromanaging the flow of peasant peacekeepers to newly conquered areas was too tedious. By 1130 we were at the "more money than we can spend" stage and by 1140 no enemy stack would even fight a battle. The only real challenge was peacekeeping, and that's not fun, so I'm not trying 100%.

I think Almohads are the easiest because they start with 6 provinces, can make good units, have easy chokepoints, and quick access to the two key areas (Iberia and the Eastern Med).

[Matrim]

I very much prefer running the games more slowly. It allows for more personality/drama to unfold. Makes things interesting, and also allows another superpower or two to emerge.

[Misfratz]

(1) It is 98.

(2) Byzantines in Early have to be in with a good shout, but I guess the Almohad Urban Militia is easier to get a hold of than Byzantine Infantry and this may make things easier for the Almohads. The combination of Desert Archers, Almohad Urban Militia, Nubian Spearmen and Saharan Cavalry is a compelling all-round package for them.

A factor in the Byzantine's favour is that they start with 12 provinces to the Almohad's 6. The Byzantines also start right next to all the open land in the Steppes, so I think they have more symmetrical expansion opportunities, given that the easiest way to 60% probably lies in leaving Western Europe as the 40%

(3) One province conquered every two years is challenging but achievable. For the Almohads starting with six provinces and 60% at 59 provinces, that works out as 1193. Arguably you might be able to manage two provinces every three years - ie 1167

(4) THis question looks like it has been well answered.

[predaturd]

It looks to me that the sultan was actually in sardinia (come on no garrison no revolt? king was obviously there) so he actually had a port.
the main killer there was probably the loss of so any battles in rapid succession