Interesting Challenges in Ironman. Advice!

[ashalpha]

Ok just to give an idea of the sort of games I play in order from when I first got EU4:

1. Leinster>Ireland- colonial game, controlled all of NA and eventually half of British Isles will probably revisit to get achievement.
2. Navarra- colonial game, controlled all of NA.
3. Urbino>Italy- continental game controlled all of modern day Italy.
4. Luneberg>Hannover- continental game most powerful state in HRE. All of northern Germany plus Denmark.
5. Byzantium- continental game, controlled all of Eastern Empire. Had bad luck with a PU under Austria early but eventually won free.
6. Sultanate of Sulu>Malaya- Pacific Colonial game, controlled all of the Pacific islands, Australia, New Zealand, and SE Asia. Probably easiest game to date.
6. Cherokee- All of NA fully westernized for the No trail of tears achievement.
7. Mongol Khanate- Westernized horde for the achievement holding all of north eastern Asia and was about halfway into conquering Ming (China).
8. Kongo- current game. I westernized and became Catholic then Reformed very early with the Portugal event. Seems pretty easy as I will just backstab my ally Portugal when the time is right but I hold most of the other African lands.

What other countries should I play?

 

[unmerged(752433)]

Xara did something fun a while back: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?731958-Game-Goal-Master-of-the-Mediterranean

 

[Yenzen]

Trebizond: Bounce back and eventually recreate the Byzantine Empire from the ashes. The second Komnenian restoration.
The Knights - Become the number one Mediterranian power.

 

[lordelenath]

My two most fun games were Granada, finishing the Deconquista (or Rereconquista?) and controlling Africa and SA; and The Knights, creating a Mare Nostrum.

 

[Xara]

Playing as Castile and converted to Sunni, going to try to unify Islam

 

[Krilnik]

Form HRE as Albania
Never done this, but someone should try it

 

[Jaol]

Georgia. Just survive.

 

[unmerged(386658)]

My current game is a Poland run to get 'WInged Hussars' and 'Poland can into space', but to spice things up I've set myself a 'Poland can into Mariana Trench' goal as well:
wipe out everything that stands between Krakow and, well, the Mariana Trench.

 

[oblio-]

Form Romania as Wallachia (hard) or Moldavia (probably even harder) 1444.

 

[UnluckyKat]

you can try if sunset invasion is hard if you have CK2 alrdy, jihad, conquer africa as kongo, Norwegian wood, unite japan as a daymio, westernize as a step horde and try the WC achievement at least

 

[BBBD316]

Play as Austria and maintain all European borders from the start throughout the entire game.

 

[unmerged(184583)]

you can try if sunset invasion is hard if you have CK2 alrdy, jihad, conquer africa as kongo, Norwegian wood, unite japan as a daymio, westernize as a step horde and try the WC achievement at least

I think sunset invasion is impossible. The only thing that makes it so is because you are so far away from the european footholds, some of them *might have you as a rival or enemy before you even meet them, plus the defensive malus for being animist means they can siege all of proper mexico in 6 months. I tried sunset invasion, survived till the end date, even having expanded past traditional aztec/zapotec/mayan borders, but it is all but impossible unless you somehow convert religion with about 200 years to spare. In my particular play though, europeans didn't even get a border with me until about 1620, so it was difficult to say the least. Only reason I survived was exploiting the AI's sieging routine, and I had 1 tiny island out in the pacific so they could never get 100% WS on me lol.

 

[ashalpha]

Some great ideas . Moldavia sounds fun as I did this once in EU3. I think this is my next game. Though the Knights and Trebizond sounds interesting also for the history.

I already did Westernized Horde as Mongol Khanate (if you are going to be a horde then why not the original horde? ). It was actually pretty easy being protected in the beginning as a vassal and then overpowering them when I grew large enough through colonizing. Beating up on China and Portugal at the end when they caused me so much grief in the beginning was definitely satisfying. Not really interested in WC but I might try it with some of the easier achievements (France, Austria, Castile) if possible.

I am about halfway done with Kongo seems pretty straightforward now. I am only 2 techs below the most advanced European countries, fully Westernized, Reformed, and control more than 3/4 of Africa. The rest is owned by my "ally" Portugal, some remnants of the Mameluks, and a few provinces with Spain and Great Britain.

 

[jadolphson]

I'm working on the Sunset Invasion achievement. I think it's possible, but it requires a bit of luck (restarts) in the early game to get the exploration, westernization and converting going early. The key is then to chose the right colonial power to neighbour and westernize by. In my game I chose Great Britain, since they did not have either Exploration 7 or Religious 1, meaning the need to fabricate a claim to get a CB. You can also chose to jump on a colonial power with a regency council, meaning the cannot declare war for so many years (heir needs to turn 15).

After westernizing and converting to catholicism (done about 1575), it's a matter of cathing up, getting a foothold in europe and starting to isolate the problematic capitals (London, Paris, Madrid, and Lisabon). GB and France are my current allies, so my plan is to start with Madrid, feeding Aragon the provinces around. After that, Aragon should be able to help me with Lisabon as well as France when the time comes. I may need to force France to release a small country closer to Paris to release that, and then when it's time for GB the best candidate to get coring help from should be Wales.

We'll see if there is enough time. It's now 1630 and I'm at war with Spain, Portugal, and Aragon. Having crushed their fleets, I'm about to separately peace out Spain, which should allow me to conquer Aragon and take The Baleares and Sardinia from them, giving me a fleet and troop base in Europe, and meaning next war they should be vassalizable.

We'll see how it goes...

 

[unmerged(804580)]

My suggestions aren't exactly insane difficulties, but a few wacky and/or unusual play ideas that a mediocre guy like me could try. I love threads like this, it gives me ideas of what to play next. Even though I don't bother with ironman.

1. Candar. It's Sunni, so it's not surrounded by heathens like Georgia is but... but the Ottomans, Crimea AND the Mamluks have "historical rivalry" modifier against Candar. All three major blocs are historical rivals, and pretty much everyone is hostile. I played Candar about 50 years, and I'd say it's somewhere in the middle: not as difficult as Trebizond, but challenging nonetheless. I have played it for about 50 years, and thankfully the Ottomans are now rivaling me instead of being downright hostile. I guess that's an improvement.

2. Perm. I turned myself Sunni while I was still a Muscovite vassal. Muscovy vassal-fed me(!) a Sunni/Uralic Kazan province that it couldn't core and I felt like.. why not go Sunni. You know, "make Russia release Perm so they can't get to Siberia" thing.. well, you can BE Perm instead. I reached the Pacific before declaring war, and even then it wasn't exactly easy thanks to the Russian ideas and the allies. Doable, but not impossibly hard. Probably impossibly hard if you try it without colonizing Siberia.

3. Armagnac. It has a core in Labourd, and even a vassal can occupy a province if it has a core there... I tried the HYW as Armagnac like 5 times but every single time France didn't give it to me. I wonder if it'd be necessary to launch an invasion to England proper if I'm supposed to generate enough WS for France to consider giving it to me... I don't think I can do it, but for those who want a more extreme HYW experience might give it a shot. After getting Labourd back it'd be just a usual colonization game, I suppose...

4. Sukhothai. Just wait and the PU will eventually dissolve. But Ayutthaya has a core in your capital, so try survive and escape but you're kind of landlocked to be playing a colonization game. I somehow did it and set my capital to Hawaii, except I forgot I shouldn't have colonized too much in the Pacific without Westernizing... it's just very annoying to ferry troops all over the Pacific. If I try another Oceanian empire, I'll settle in Australia or New Zealand and find a way to Westernize before spreading all over the tiny islands.

Something I haven't tried but just pondering about: The Elephant Dispute. Choose one of Ayutthaya, Lan Xang, Lan Na, Malabar, Venad, Sukhothai, Kanem Bornu or Benin (presumed order of difficulty) and vassalize the rest. All Elephant banners united under one true lord, and all Elephants need to be either directly vassalized or released as vassals.

But don't sweat on the game goals. I somehow got to steal and expand the HRE as Ethiopia, and I kind of did the Mediterranean challenge and HRE dismantling as Tuscany, and these were the games I started without specific goals in mind... the game somehow led me to those things. I tried another campaign with a specific goal to steal the HRE, but I got there a bit too late as Austria was already close to Erbkaisertum by the time I secured myself around the Mediterranean as Orthodox Khmer. I kind of lost interest in that game, it's kind of childish of me but neh, the mission objective failed. It's just more fun when the goal sort of emerges from the game itself.