And finished, though I may lose a point on a technicality, thanks to an extremely unintelligent vassal.
I started as Oman, intending from day one to switch over to Unam Sanctum and take advantage of most of my neighbors being heretics. I had some pretty hefty initial success taking the Najd coastline, then snatching up several of Yemen's provinces as both they and Hedjaz declared CB-less wars for Haasa. Hedjaz managed to occupy and win it, while Yemen was fighting me off, before I turned around and took it from them as well. I didn't annex Najd completely during my storm across the peninsula due to a Subjugate mission which helped me sink some infamy, and Yemen was left with only their capital thanks to me trying to keep my infamy somewhat under control.
As of 1430, I was turning my eyes north to the Jalayrids, when I realized the Timurids had collapsed hard, making my job a bit easier... hopefully. Persia accepted an alliance with me, and helped smash through the lost mongol tribe, before deciding they really didn't like me anymore and went to war with me alongside their new best buddies, the Mamluks. Somehow I managed a white peace with them, before going back to finish annexing the remaining lands of the Jalayrids.
In the early 1450s, the Timurids had recovered enough to become a real threat again, and the Mamluks managed to wipe out Qara Koyunlu, giving themselves a border with the Golden Horde just in time for a Succession Crisis to go off - which provided me with the opportunity to finally seize the Holy Land for myself. 1454 put me in a position where I just needed to fend off and occupy some horde lands while I let my infamy cool down yet again (and recover some lost stability, as I fell into habit and changed government type to Empire from Despotic Monarchy, not realizing just how slow my stability recovery was - the payoff was worth it, though, 3 stars of morale made fighting much easier against the superior horde cavalry).
After playing nice for a few years, I turned back to being aggressive against my neighbors to push for a solid landmass, alongside annexing Najd for a mission, and getting extremely lucky that after a subjugate Armenia mission, I finally got a CB to finish Persia off once and for all without taking the stability hit I was expecting to suffer. That's right about when I gained a border with the GH, right as the Timurids decided to come knocking, too. I am still not certain just how I held both of them off without losing lands, but the GH settled for accepting my concession of defeat, as I put nearly everything I had to fight off the Timurids, barely managing to occupy the last of the Persian provinces I wanted. Then I decided it was finally time to finish off taking what I needed from the Mamluks, with just a couple years til my time ran out.
I would have made it, too, if it wasn't for those pesky vassals from Adal. I had every single one of the Mamluk provinces occupied except Ibrim, with several stacks of my own men on it, and a single group of 900 African infantry leading the siege... refusing to assault. The new year cycled around, a breach formed in the wall, and still they refused to assault the damn fort, when all I needed was the last 6 points of warscore to be able to annex the four northwestern Syrian provinces to round out my map.
March 19, 1475, I finally got the siege completed and took the lands I was after. So I wasn't quite clear whether it was at the beginning of 1475, or during 1475 that the completion counted.
On a more amusing side note, notice Socotra, the little island Yemen starts with off the southern coast? I never sent a single regiment there, it collapsed to Orthodox rebels, defected to my vassal Ethiopia, then collapsed to Bedouin Arabic patriot rebels and defected to me, not long after.
Definitely had some intense fun with this, I don't usually play this aggressively, and it made for an entertaining change of pace. Looking forward to see what the next challenge will be.
Btw the nation in Estonia is...Kurland?
