Warning, long post
My first finished game in the October 9 beta, as the Yemenite Republic. A mini AAR if you will, for the sake of beta testing.
1527
My initial targets were Ethiopia, Adal, Oman and Hedjaz, in that order. I also managed to grab a rebelling Funj off the Mamluks and took some Swahili provs. Exploiting animist zealots still works fine by the way, all of my African holdings are Bedouin Arabic.
In Europe, all major powers have been expanding very aggressively. France is all over the place, and their Balkan holdings eventually cause the destruction of the Ottomans and Hungary. England took Scandinavia and Castille simply obliterated the North African muslims. Milan has most of Italy. Poland and GH are as good as gone. All pretty fast too considering this is only ~130 years after game start.
As for the rest of the world, Ming and Timurids are strong but nothing too special.
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1661
I've become a major power myself, holding Arabia and East Africa. I recently established that border with Portugal here, but after five poor ADM kings in a row, I decide to go Republic. Gee, I want to Westernize! The first Stadtholder (doesn't that title sound very Arabic) is ADM 7 and lasts long enough for the required 2 rounds of westernization.
Europe has oddly stagnated. France made no further incursions in Iberia and few in Germany. And Britain doesn't feel like tidying up Scandinavia either. Why? The Russian situation seems similarly indecisive. Colonization seems fine. The Timurids are my allies and they are big and very stable.
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Old World 1785
The late 17th and 18th century see great Yemenite expansion. The Hindus are all subdued and vassalized, while Indonesia and Japan are conquered. I only needed 10k cavalry in India once to vassalize all the minors there. Vassal armiess ftw.
Fully westernized but still catching up, I also fought some tough wars against Portugal, Castille, Aragon and Britain for control of Africa. I also forced the release of Scotland, Brazil and Canada. USA, Haiti, Venezuela and Quebec managed to liberate themselves without direct help.
Europe saw the rise of Austria and Lithuania in this period, with them making Eastern Europe a maze of borders. There are not very many minor nations left in Germany, but one of them is a 5 province Hamburg. I've never seen that before, must be the result of the addition of Holstein. I think it's awesome. France has expanded slightly in Greece. Also, they are like 10 tech levels ahead of anybody else. The Ottomans own Iceland...
The Timurids are the real eyecatchers here. I've never seen them so big. For a while I expected them to actually reach the ocean. But they never got there, they are over their apex here already.
China is divided between the muslim Qin, Xia (my vassal) and the islamized Oirats.
Australia is still rather empty, but that's probably because I took southern Africa from the Europeans. At this time I'm recruiting Whitecoats and Redcoats from Portuguese and Aragonese cores.
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1821 End Game
The Timurids exploded after a long series of relatively small wars completely exhausted them. France, Qin and I benefit from this.
The last 20 years were spent fighting France. My whitecoats/redcoats are hardly a match for their Napoleonic Squares, but they have to suffice. They stationed 50k troops in their colony in Cameroon, and they were mighty hard to break down. But finally I succeed and on the last day of the game I sign a peace treaty for some colony provinces and the release of several nations.
with vassals:
I managed to catch up in Land (68), somewhat so in Naval (55), Other tech levels are in the 35-45 range.
AI behavior was a bit weird, with extreme expansion in the 15th century and very little afterwards. But it was a very fun and rewarding game all in all. I only crossed the BB limit once, accidentally, for a few months.
