Victoria 3 - Not Yet Lost (Cope) Achievement Guide

Forming Poland-Lithuania and expanding the commonwealth undefeated as Krakow by save scaming (cope).

How to Obtain Not Yet Lost Achievement

Сrеdit gоеs to color observation!

Requirements

Not Yet Lost

As Krakow, form Poland-Lithuania and complete the Expanding the Commonwealth Journal Entry

How-To

Remember to disable ironman (Difficulty Explanation)

In my view, not yet lost is on par of difficulty with american territory. And these two VH achievements are certainly harder than an empire under the pun and (I suppose) piratini, not pira-tiny.
The difficulty of American territory is winning independence war in time to make the texas expansion before US annexation. But after Texas, you have free infamy to expand, with the plan of containing and weakening US, a boomer’s line of play.
For not yet lost, winning independence is a fair walk in the park at the right time, but then the independent krakow has an infamy problem: being landlocked by Austria Prussia and Russia, krakow cannot use its infamy well until it fight its way through a coastal state . But when that happens, krakow is then strong enough to fight for the states hold by the three, and cannot spare infamy elsewhere.
Without further ado, let’s talk about some key conditions.

The birth of Poland asks for Schleswig-Holstein to be unanswered

Yet, that’s the critical condition for the run. To form Poland-Lithuania, you need to full control of all (why not?) 10 states required to form Poland-Lithuania:

For Russia: Brest, Volhynia, Lithuania, Mazovia, Greater Poland, Lesser Poland.
For Prussia: West Prussia, Posen.
For Austria: West Galicia, East Galicia.

In addition, you may form Poland before forming Poland-Lithuania, you need to control at least 5 oout of 9 states.

For Russia: Mazovia, Greater Poland, Lesser Poland
For Prussia: West Prussia, East Prussia, Silesia, Posen .
For Austria: West Galicia, East Galicia.

Certainly, none of these three are going to given up their states without a fight, but for Russia there is nothing much can do to weaken it (Russia is going to fall off due to backward system anyway). But formation of north or south German Federation (aka Austria annex South German states) will make the fight to Prussia/Austria harder.

However, the formation of north/south German Federation is locked behind solving Schleswig-Holstein question, such that Schleswig-Holstein to be under German control. That journal entry is fairly RNG dependent as Krakow have limited to none capacity to influence its outcome until it is irrelevant. So the first part of RNG factor in the achievement are:

Schleswig-Holstein question is unanswered The best candidate for this is Sweden major unification into Scandinavia and personal union Schleswig-Holstein. So if Prussia challenge Scandinavia for Schleswig-Holstein Scandianavia won’t back down easily as Denmark usuallly does.
Repel any civil war in Schleswig-Holstein Revolutionary winning the civil war means an independent German state in Schleswig-Holstein and answer the question, but Britain is usually happy to step in against the troublemakers, and Krakow better help if Denmark can’t win.
German Leadership ends in a draw, or Austria victory secondary Draw will keep both side of German states not annexed, Austrian victory is doable as Prussia is weaken.

RNG for the independence and expansion

In the early game, you are just playing the waiting game. But while waiting, stack unfinished construction by queuing a new building on top of construction with alt key, the micro can save 10k+ construction when you have the infrastructure and population after you get the whole of West Galicia… like 70-90 years later. But in this run going above 300 construction is not necessary so managing the construction queue isn’t that micro intensive.

However, there is one interesting to do while waiting: complete stamp out monarchism by first reverting to monarchism.

The reason being that although krakow start with a republic, the landowners IG still carry the paternalistic ideology. By triggering the stamp out monarchism JE (by first switch to monarchism), paternalistic ideology can be replaced with elitist. Which give extra approval and cause less legitimacy loss when we are running republic and laissez-faire. As for the revolutions? You have Austria to tackle anything.

And now you play the waiting game, the thing to wait:

Austria landowner have the Austrian hegemonists idealogy, meaning any attempt to leave national supremacy is nigh impossible without resolving the matter of Hungary. As a result, when the revolution break out, austria cannot send anything directly to you as west galicia will be on the side of civil war. As long as Prussia do not have a truce (restart the game coping), you can declare independence right before (save-scam coping) the revolution. And you can sneak in war reparation if Austria do not put much fight against Prussia.

However, after independence, make sure to reconcile and join back into Austrian market. Having Prussia (fight on the same sight for independence) and Austria (market member) will pave the way to attack Russia. The only realistic target because the polish and the Baltic states of russia are unincorporated, meaning you can get away from aggro russia without it jump to the other side every time by a return state CB. Strike when the time is right (like Russia main force is helping France fighting its liberal rebells and Prussia Austria feel threaten by Russia) and make the first expansion.

Side note: you can earn obligation by helping Prussia and Austria with their liberal rebels. As for the declare interest required to do so, do reforms and scam renown playwright to prestige your way into a minor power, build army to avoid dropping back into insignificant power.

Once the first expansion is done, GDP would support the rank.

The German question… sorry just Prussia

You should at least three states from Russia from the first war. You will want lesser poland and mazovia for sure. But then the lines can varied.

Greater Poland route is easier to achieve because you do not need to push all the way that full cap mazovia will create the empty greater poland front for grab. However you will not have naval access so you cannot colonize, but not like colonization really matter if you can not afford the navy to support the convoy line. And you will want to stay in Austrian market for the Prussian campaign.
Lithuania route give naval access so you can colonize, it is not an incorporated state of russia so your first Prussian campaign is relative safe from russian inference. but you have to push to Lithuania to get the state. You will walk in greater poland for free later (uprising is unreliable because that JE is useless that I will only mentioned it once here) but you will only have 3 iron mine should you leave austrian market. Greater poland is also a state required for Poland formation so you are obligated to do the russian interlude in between the 2 prussian campaign.

Nonetheless, ideally start 2 wars against prussia, each taking two states away for a total of four : West Prussia, East Prussia, Silesia, Posen . The idea is that once you get two of these states from prussia, you can form Poland with lesser poland, mazovia and greater poland (do the russian interlude if you go for lithuania route)

Forming Poland is important for the run because not only you can return the remaining two prussian states without giving prussia claim back, you will also need the return states CB for the west and east galicia. All because you do not want to fight austria more than once, and leaving the claims give austria good reason to fight against you.

Since you will use conquer states CB for the first war, you will have to deal with the claims prussia will have on the two states. You want to deal with the claims so prussia do not jump against you on the war against Austria. Here are the possible option how to deal with the claims

Max Poland no concession Do a third war against prussia to revoke another claim because you can only revoke one per war. This also allow you to complete the christ of nation JE but you don’t need that JE at all.
Give back East Prussia West Prussia and Posen are must held to form Poland-Lithuania, so between Silesia and East Prussia, definitely return East Prussia to Prussia so you can call them against Austria, remember to revoke silesia claim in the second war.
Return Both Not recommended, Silesia is too valuable both population and resource wise. And you only need to return east prussia to fight against austria. Not much point for use against russia given you will have the tech advantage anyway.

If you’re doing well, you can be bold and not give prussia anything. But if you are not confident, return east prussia to get enough cannon fodder for the defensive phase against austria. With that in mind, if you plan to give back east prussia, make sure to include it in the first war. I did the max approach because I want to see the christ of nation JE done. But again you don’t need the JE done to get the achievement.

Russian Interlude and military buildup against Austria (cope)

The pace of the russian interlude, as the name suggested, happens between the first and the second war against prussia.

Goal: Conquer the two states of Brest and Volhynia, in additional to either Lithuania or Greater Poland that you do not conquer to get all 5 russian states require to form poland-lithuania.

The fight itself shouldn’t be difficult, you can even build a fleet of 10 frigate to naval land east karelia, (naval land ingria is more promising but require more navy investment which you shouldn’t do). Because east karelia have a low infrastructure, russia cannot use its material advantage and suffer from tech disadvantage much harder than poland plain. Actively use the strategic interest to route your army toward ingria state by state or watch russia distract 60 units of line infantry against 10 unit of trench infantry and breed to hell in east karelia because of combat width

Once the russian interlude is over, you will need to do the military buildup with all those peasant population in Brest and Volhynia.

First at all, set up to be ready to leave the austrian market once you do the second prussian war. You will have lead in lesser poland, potassium in west prussia and everything in silesia to have all the resource needed for the run.

Pre-calculate the supply and demand and even tone down production method if needed.

Once the major shortage are gone focus first on essential good , drive down the turmoil below 25% to avoid penalty. france can dump excess clothes and furniture to your market and likely give you a trade agreement for it

On the meanwhile, solely invest on military tech. Only the tier 4 trench warfare are worthy to rush otherwise stick with tier 3s first.

For production tech

Dynamite is a must because it unlocked explosive shell for munition plants, vacuum evaporation and dynamite are also important for explosive factories and mines.
Improved fertilizer will supply the pops with cheap food.
Rotary valve engine is good but wait for technology spread.

For society tech

Delay steel-framed building, at least not rushing so you can save the airship JE.
Corporatism can be nice but research it before military buildup.
- Once you are done with tier 3 mil tech and trench warfare, do steel-framed building and zeppelins (time it to save the airship JE right before the war) after that defense in depth.

Diplomatic maneuver (cope * 2)

It would be foolish to fight Austria alone, Russia will also gang on you since you are taking their incorporated states so they have claim you will take more so do not bother reconciliation The sheer quantity difference will make any idea of offensive impossible.

Italy would be your natural ally and it is important to have the second front open. Italy will also stay in the war longer due to its claim on Austrian-own Italian state. But they units suck as it was in history so you even have to reinforce them to avoid the Italian front collapse.

French help is easy to obtain as France can and will dump its clothes and furniture to your market. But you can only offer them favor, which mean once France suffered too much causalities it will withdraw. Letting you try to held off the gained states alone.

Great Britain is doable but tricky, since it would usually not accept your favor, you have to either receive a favor from them by helping GB on colony issue, or give a war goal toward Austria’s ally. (GB usually have nothing to do with Austria itself)

USA is way too uninterested in fighting in central Europe. Spain often do not accept favor but give favor over Cuba or Philippine. Prussia can be lobbied by returning them a state and nothing else.

Timing and Military Formation (cope * 3)

Overview: The war against Austria should be the second-to-last campaign because you can get the required Russian states for expanding the commonwealth JE in one single war. Since return CB does not incur much infamy, you can take one state from Russia in this war too while still able to call allies.

Latest time: Work in backward, you need to wait for the russian truce out to declare war on russia. You shouldn’t declear the last war later than 1934 because you need time to resolve the diplomatic crisis and actually winning the war. The truce is 5 year long. So at least declare war against Austria before 1926, counting the time needed to resolve diplomatic crisis and force Russia out.

Recommended time: Assume that Russia back down once (another five year truce) before you add all war goals as primary wargoals. Russia need to peace out before 1923 from the war against Austria. Putting the recommended time to declare war in year 1920 or before.

On my run I declare the war against Austria a little early in 1917, knowing that the GB can be swayed and my truce of Prussia end in 1918. Russia capitulated in 1918 leaving me two truces of time to finish the expanding the commonwealth JE. Which I do it in one war.

Come to the actual number of army you should have at these point:

Navy: 50 to 70 units of torpedo boats/destroyers and ironclads. Divide a fleet of 10 to 15 for Russia, the main fleet move into eastern Mediterranean sea waiting for russian and austrian fleet moving out fighting french and Italian. Once you naval land east Karelia then Ingria, join the second fleet to the main fleet in the Mediterranean.

For army, you should have 250 units of standing army (SA) at mass mobilization or 300 units of SA at professional army. Combined with Conscripts you will have at least of total of 420 units against Austria’s 850+ (600+ SA and 200+ Conscripts) units. But your allies of Italy and France (perhaps GB) is better than Austrian allies. Diplomatic maneuver or preemptive war to keep Prussia out on the Austrian side.

Do not ask how AI never bankrupt or even going into debt maintaining such large army at about the same GDP. I want to know too

The units should be without a doubt at Trench infantry/ shrapnel/ lancers. Do not bother with siege artillery because the whole tech and electrification for radio is too long.

Give All formations liquor and first aid. Liquor because it is easier to come across. First aid is to correctly inflict the extra morale loss from more causalities, which is more potent during defense to relieve defender’s morale pressure.

Transport is not needed as the line is pretty stagnate, deactivate most of them to save money.

About two third of your total army are in the offensive formations in 1:1 infantry/artillery, or 1.05 :1 to avoid random organization loss. The offensive formations in Italy should be divided small enough for naval invasion. Give them extra supplies. Your convoy are tied to silk and sugar and no place for wine (to do luxurious supply).

Divide two special offensive formations of 10 to 15 units for east karelia then ingria, give them machine guns if you feel like so (and actually have the tech). Merge them back after russia capitulate.

The rest are in the defensive formations consisted of pure infantry for highest defense. (Austria can have a powerful armed force with patriotic fervor giving 20% offensive/defensive). Extra supplies is not needed because your groceries are tied to sugar. And mainland Poland has no sugar plantation so your convoy are tied to it instead.

Convoy are important because you will needed to support the extra fronts on convoy and import essential industrial goods (silk, sugar and rubber). Prussia can embrago you so do not give too much hope, and there is convoy raiding.

So the defensive formations have only liquor and first aid. First aid is used to offset the kill rate, and defense in depth (you should have this tech) will come in handy giving another 10% defense on top of field works, matching the stat check of Austrian army.

Save a lot, save often. (cope * 4)

Make a manual save before you declare the war on Austria. The war goal should consist at least returning both west galicia and east galicia.

The expected scenario is Russia goes to Austria for a return state, you sway Italy for a return state, sway France for a favor or else. GB is sway able, but Prussia is not in Austrian side.

Once Russia jump into Austria side, and once all the allies you need are swayed into the war, add another conquest state goal on a ukrainian/byelorussian homeland state.

The preferred candidate is crimea, it is a coastal state open for naval invasion, and has low infrastructure to hold defense onto, and help you open the second front against russia in the later wars. Avoid selecting bessarabia as you do not get a second front later and a very specific reason detailed later

Set up the bait by moving the one third of your formations to italian front in defend front, you would need both offensive formations and defensive formations on both side but the home front use more defensive formations.

Have one defensive formations in attack front on your home front. This should make Austria overreact by mobilizing units toward the home front. Which guide your allies to commit their units on the Poland front, which is easier to manipulate than Italian front. A weak italian front also open opportunity for a third front in Croatia.

Move navy into positions.

Make another save once tension go pass 80 and all bets are closed. Remember to change the bait formation into defend front.

If you still have the airship JE, research zeppelin to the point you can finish it in the last week. You can pop the airship JE at the start of the war (or later moment before it expired), which give you a broken 30 offensive. It is so broken that it only last for two year, which is all you need to decide this critical war.

You may want to do some toggling around like recalling some formations from Italy front to wait for allies arrival, or simply mislead the relative quantity so Austria will not reinforce Italy front and Italian AI is not foolish enough to mount an attack to waste their war exhaustion (For having a material advantage that would not be attacking).

Make a third save before the outbreak of the war. Pause unnecessary state construction, max military wage, promise a reform that would make armed force happy (it might be only a promise). Get ready for the confrontation.

Attrition Phase: Bleed them dry (cope * 5)

Unless you have a overwhelming material advantage (like your allies already doing +20 on the front without you putting anything in the front). Do not go head-to-head with Austrian-Russian at their full strength. Their war exhaustion is locked at 0 because they still have their war goals in place, while your allied will drop their exhaustion below 0 and eventually quit the war.

Thus, guide your allies not wasting people on the offensive and let austrian and russian do it instead. You can manipulate the battlefront advantage by withdrawing formations to HQ and back.

On the start of the war you may needed to commit all formations that are on the Poland front engaged in defend front because your allies are still on their way. Do the naval landings later to allow austrian and russian navy engaged to french and Italian instead

Do not touch anything in Italy yet, micro a bit more so Italy AI will not initiate an attack, do not allow Austria to capture any Italian province neither.

Warning: If the front is at below -20, the front is at the risk of collapse because formations will keep losing morale fighting with no time to regenerate.

Meanwhile having a +30 front barely move because your allies throwing? Start a third front consist of only your formation instead.

If the front approach 0 or so your allied will think they can take offensive. Check the morale of the allied formations. If below 80 hold off a few days until the morale goes back. Otherwise starting distraction operation by naval landing East Karelia.

You can try to reach Ingria from East Karelia, but more often russian reinforcement arrive and you will naval landing on Ingria instead. Again, keep austrian and russian on the offensive and your allies on the defensive) by withdrawing your formations to the HQ and then redeploy them into Italy. Do not allow the front to collapse, do not send all formations to Italian front.

Once reinforcement reach italian front consider the naval landing on Crimea, it is another distracting operation to keep austrian and russian forces loose between several front. But unlike east karelia you should hold Crimea because it is the war goal.

Ready to go on the offensive once the austrian war exhaustion is below 50 and their formations are about or less than half of strength on paper. Save before you go on the offensive

Opening the fronts: The Grand Bessaria divide

If you somehow come across the opportunity where the Austrian navy is absent in central Mediterranean sea with no way to get back in time. Attempt to land on Crotia at all cost!

First you pin the austrian army on the italian front by an all out attack except the formation you’re doing naval invasion. And then Austria should not be able to respond until the landing is made.

Immediately make a save once you create the Crotia front. Reinforce it because you won’t lose the Crotia front once italy white out. If you do have the Crotia front do the offensives on Crotia front and stay defensive on italian front instead. The goal of the Crotia front is beeline all the way to Austria, cap and holding the capital to break the lock on war exhaustion.

After making progress in Crimea and Italy (or the Croatia front). Russia should not have its war exhaustion locks at 0 (by naval landing Ingria if you have other war goal) and will capitulate soon . Before Russia give up, exploit it a little more using the Bessaria divide.

The Russin state of Bessaria connect the Austrian front of Poland and Russian front of Poland together with a single state that is perfectly suit for naval landing given all the austrian and russian formations all spread thin across the different fronts.

Once Bessaria is naval landed, the single Austria-Russia front of Poland suddenly disappear and all formations on the fronts are sent into the newly created Austria front Poland and Russia front Poland instead.

Because AI do not aware of this change in advance, that’s a sudden power vacuum that can be exploited, nonetheless the Austrian front is still guarded with formations and it is unlikely you get both West Galicia and East Galicia simply because of this.

Moreover, the distance of travel on the Poland side between two front is small, while for Austria their formation have to go all the way through sea to get to Russian front. This creates a short window in which you do not have to actually commit formations to the russian front. Think about this as German spring offensive of 1918 that you have to beat Austria before their formation actually deployed onto the front.

That’s not all, you might still do not have to commit formations to the russian front because once russia capitulate, the russian front disappear. All austrian formations on the russian front have to go the same long route to get back to austria. On the same time the freed up formations from the russian front are immediately for action to the Austrian front. Which is another temporary advantage you got to break the austrian army.

Final push: getting the wargoals out

Russia being out of the war will give a swift momentum in terms of army size. However, that do not last long, your allies do not have their war exhaustion locked and will quit the war once they have enough. So eventually you will have to get and hold all the war goals alone… or force Austria to the peace treaty before your allies drop out.

Add conscripts artillery so your defensive formation can be used in offensive as well, remove some conscript infantry to free up space if must.Rotate low morale formation into defend front to make actual progress toward capturing states.

If the Austrian is beaten hard enough, you can break the war exhaustion lock either by reaching the capital state, or capturing both West Galicia and East Galicia.

Check the capitulation desire of your allies, you may want to hold defense in anticipation of them dropping out of war, allowing Austria to counterattack. Holding all war goals prevent the war exhaustion lock, so as long as the war goals are not fully taken back by Austria, Austria can be force surrendered with -100 war exhaustion. Which dropped quickly from the 0 lock given all the causalities it took.

If you cannot push to capture the war goals, there is no much else to do other than load the saves and try again. AI casually not even taking loans with -580k on military upkeep alone while having only 53M GDP

Forming the commonwealth and expanding the common wealth

After defeating Austria for West Galicia and East Galicia. Form the Poland-Lithuania commonwealth. Wait until the Russian truce out, declare war for the states required for the common wealth JE.

That is much uneventful to the Austrian war, as you can return all required states in one war, stall out all other participants and Russia is dealt fairly easily after that.

The Journal entry for the effect. Year 1924 is ample time to complete this very hard achievement.