Here is our starting position as Vijayanagar (try saying
that 10 times fast!). We are playing as Harihara II Sangama, who has been on the throne for 22 years. We have two vassals, Mysore and Travanacore. We get our first mission to Conquer Raichur Doab, which is owned by Deccan and separates our mainland from the port of Goa, which we also own.
Our starting sliders. They're decent, but not awesome either (Centralization/Decentralization in particular is bad). Because of that, we centralize. 4 Pretenders (the equivalent of our starting army), rebels.
Religious mapmode in India. During this time period,
the Muslims were invading India. As a Hindu in Vijayanagar, I am trying to defend Hinduism against the Islamic invaders. Let's see how I do.
While readying to fight the rebels, I realize my Cavalry can be upgraded. I upgrade it.
Our starting economics.
We strategically offer alliances to Rajputana and Gondwana (we only had 2 diplomats). The former rejects, but the latter accepts (look at the Indian map to see where they are.)
Gondwana calls us to arms against Deccan.
The first test of my armies: Can they fight the rebels? Apparently, they can't.
I recruit some new units and have a new and improved army fight rebels. It takes many battles to destroy them, but it does the trick.
They come...
I try to attack them while they have lower morale. I epicly fail, at least in part because I was stupid enough not to get a general.
I get a good event which gives me some inflation, but a lot of Government Tech investment (the other option was to get no inflation, but get less than half of that).
I get my ruler (as a general) on my army.
I counter-attack the province I need for the mission.
What follows for a bit is just standard siege-racing. I also call my vassals in to the war, and my ally, Gondwana, after taking land of their own, got peace, leaving only me and my vassals in the war. Khandesh comes in, however, and declares a war of their own on Deccan. What I will show, however, is the turning point of the war. I retreated with an army of mine into a province that already had a friendly siege. In the ensuing battle, I win. They retreat, and then we annihilate their army.
We were mopping up, when this happens...
I leave you with the current world map.