Thanks for everyone on the board with their tips and advice. I'm a long time player but never been a big blobber type. Typically I'm a slow, cautious player who tends to go for an achievement or two but generally goes for an immersive game play. But after a while I get tired of seeing that WC achievement listed on the screen during every run. So started to pick up my play and see if I could get close. Attemped a run on the 1.18 patch with Russia and got over 1000 provinces achievement but was still pretty far from a world conquest. Mainly had trouble timing multiple wars and their conclusions in order to feed for coring and also have breaks to feed provinces to vassals. So I put this on back-burner until 1.22 patch, playing on normal difficulty with all DLCs.
Actually was aiming for Relentless Push East achievement and if things went well shoot for the WC. Little did I know that I would fail on the first point but score the one second plus manage to make it a One Tag and a One Faith. General plan was to push east, get into Asian trade, get colonies into the Americas to beat out some of the western powers.
The start was a bit different with the vassal changes to Muscovy and ended up with a PU over Tver in the first year so was over the dip limit for a while. Concentrated on feeding vassals Novogord/Kazan territory to save on Admin. Initial plan was to take Influence then Religious but due to low Dip points and vassals liberty desire I reversed the order. Didn't expand too fast into Muslim territory and focused on eating up Lithuania Orthodox land.
Once Religious was filled out then started pushing southeast to get to India. Also went east to cutoff Chagatai before it became a tributary of Ming. Plus was pushing out Siberian Frontier colonies as quickly as possible. Was doing pretty well but as soon as I neighbored Delhi they joined an alliance with Ottomans. Wasn't ready to take on that challenge and focused more on pushing through Baltic region as PLC was quickly becoming a punching bag.
Finally was able to splinter Delhi once league war formed and Ottos got enough WE to dishonor CTA. From that point on it was full on blitzkreig into India. Also was able to get a border with Ming using threaten war on Oirat for a couple of territories. Then caught my first big break as Ming was actually running into trouble with disloyal tributaries. They were slowly winning against Oirat and a massive Khmer but their manpower was running low and they still had Lvl 2 forts. DOWed on Ming, took as many forts as possible and started cycling wars with tributaries to eat up more Ming clay.
At this point I felt WC was on pace and also had an outside chance to get One Faith. Still, even though I was chewing through China I felt I was missing out on taking on the colonizers, or weakening the HRE, or cutting into the Ottos to stop their expansion and also pick up the extra missionaries. For me this was the strategically the most challenging part of the game, when to switch gears and focus on different enemies.
Triggered golden age right when Age of Absolutism started. Activated PA Icon of Eleusa which grants the -3 unrest and -25% cost for harsh treatment. Along with the ages bonus I was able to get harsh treatment down to 7 points to spam my absolutism to the max. Started the C&C disaster for the first time to get it above 100 and really pick up the conquest pace.
Here are some screensheets at 1700 mark:
From 1700 started targeting largest nations, especially big colonizers. Tore through ME and Italy to get extra missionaries. From 1732 on had all 7 ready and running.
From this point I felt confident about the WC but was really unsure about the One Faith part. Last big push was the 13 Colonies from England in 1775. There were about 40 provinces that the AI needed to core and convert. Spammed cathedrals, paid debts, sent gifts etc. Last big grab from Portugal was for the Caribbeans and for those I converted first before coring.
1786 dismantled the HRE and started mop up duty. Wiping out Revolutionary France and the Ottomans by 1790ish. Finally by 1808 it came down to the last two great powers:
Shortly after got the glorious WC achievement.
Then finally world peace as my missionaries finished harmonizing the final pockets of resistance. At this point I noticed that there was still a shot at getting One Faith. My east coast colony was on pace to finish but there were problems with my California colony. There were two Totemist former Apache colonies which they owned but had not converted even though they had them for 30+ years. It looks like they were separated and did not have a direct land connection to their colony's capital.
Found out how to release my colony, truce break and reconquer it but fed those two provinces to my Mexico colony which promptly cored and converted. Finally got One Faith in 1816.
And final screens:
Actually was aiming for Relentless Push East achievement and if things went well shoot for the WC. Little did I know that I would fail on the first point but score the one second plus manage to make it a One Tag and a One Faith. General plan was to push east, get into Asian trade, get colonies into the Americas to beat out some of the western powers.
The start was a bit different with the vassal changes to Muscovy and ended up with a PU over Tver in the first year so was over the dip limit for a while. Concentrated on feeding vassals Novogord/Kazan territory to save on Admin. Initial plan was to take Influence then Religious but due to low Dip points and vassals liberty desire I reversed the order. Didn't expand too fast into Muslim territory and focused on eating up Lithuania Orthodox land.
Once Religious was filled out then started pushing southeast to get to India. Also went east to cutoff Chagatai before it became a tributary of Ming. Plus was pushing out Siberian Frontier colonies as quickly as possible. Was doing pretty well but as soon as I neighbored Delhi they joined an alliance with Ottomans. Wasn't ready to take on that challenge and focused more on pushing through Baltic region as PLC was quickly becoming a punching bag.
Finally was able to splinter Delhi once league war formed and Ottos got enough WE to dishonor CTA. From that point on it was full on blitzkreig into India. Also was able to get a border with Ming using threaten war on Oirat for a couple of territories. Then caught my first big break as Ming was actually running into trouble with disloyal tributaries. They were slowly winning against Oirat and a massive Khmer but their manpower was running low and they still had Lvl 2 forts. DOWed on Ming, took as many forts as possible and started cycling wars with tributaries to eat up more Ming clay.
At this point I felt WC was on pace and also had an outside chance to get One Faith. Still, even though I was chewing through China I felt I was missing out on taking on the colonizers, or weakening the HRE, or cutting into the Ottos to stop their expansion and also pick up the extra missionaries. For me this was the strategically the most challenging part of the game, when to switch gears and focus on different enemies.
Triggered golden age right when Age of Absolutism started. Activated PA Icon of Eleusa which grants the -3 unrest and -25% cost for harsh treatment. Along with the ages bonus I was able to get harsh treatment down to 7 points to spam my absolutism to the max. Started the C&C disaster for the first time to get it above 100 and really pick up the conquest pace.
Here are some screensheets at 1700 mark:
From 1700 started targeting largest nations, especially big colonizers. Tore through ME and Italy to get extra missionaries. From 1732 on had all 7 ready and running.
From this point I felt confident about the WC but was really unsure about the One Faith part. Last big push was the 13 Colonies from England in 1775. There were about 40 provinces that the AI needed to core and convert. Spammed cathedrals, paid debts, sent gifts etc. Last big grab from Portugal was for the Caribbeans and for those I converted first before coring.
1786 dismantled the HRE and started mop up duty. Wiping out Revolutionary France and the Ottomans by 1790ish. Finally by 1808 it came down to the last two great powers:
Shortly after got the glorious WC achievement.
Then finally world peace as my missionaries finished harmonizing the final pockets of resistance. At this point I noticed that there was still a shot at getting One Faith. My east coast colony was on pace to finish but there were problems with my California colony. There were two Totemist former Apache colonies which they owned but had not converted even though they had them for 30+ years. It looks like they were separated and did not have a direct land connection to their colony's capital.
Found out how to release my colony, truce break and reconquer it but fed those two provinces to my Mexico colony which promptly cored and converted. Finally got One Faith in 1816.
And final screens:
