~80 years into an Oman game on Ironman at the moment (first real game in EUIV, only bought it last week). Really fun, but alot easier than I thought it would be - controlling Arabia was done in ten years and since then have rolled down the African coast to Mutapa, broken the Mamlukes, border the Ottomans(allied) and am begining to peacefully diplo-annex half the north-indian islamic states. Dominating the gulf of aden trade node and the two which feed it is insanely powerful, huge cash reserves and massive income let me take any advisor I want and buy mercs whenever needed. My mil tech is even ahead of time so looking forwards to the fight with the Europeans when they arrive. However, I think that taking this much money out of the trade system has hurt Europe badly and not sure what challenge they will be capable of, they don't seem to be able to afford to colonise at the moment.
Edit: Rereading that it sounds too arrogant, I'm not trying to boast or even playing that well, a monopoly on the Gulf of Aden is just that powerful - especially with the NIs that oman gets (taking trade and expansion as the next two).
