Finally got Mare Nostrum with Orthomans. It was way later than I think i could have got it, wasted a lot of time taking Aristocratic ideas as 4th group to convert to a republic - seeing if guaranteed never getting the Janissary Decadence disaster was worth the cost, but I don't think it is - 4 stab hit for converting to rep, it's expensive to bring back up because you start at 50 RT, and you have to either pay the Janissaries every new ruler or lose the discipline/manpower recovery bonuses they give you (but not the Infantry Combat ability). On balance I think I would have been better off going Diplomatic or Offensive for the fourth group, although the extra leader and diplomat from Aristocratic were super useful throughout the game.
Probably my most successful run ever, obviously it was the easiest nation in the game but there is still a little bit of challenge for nubs like me, especially in AE and OE management. Think I should have picked up Humanist earlier, it was insanely useful in taking 150% OE land late game.
Can probably finish off Ming before the game ends and if I truce break I could probably conquer the rest of India.
What you Byzantophiles and Romanophiles come here for every day I guess. End game was less boring than I thought, the time limit definitely makes things more interesting, although i really underestimated how much land you can grab late game - took the majority of France (stretching a little bit into Iberia but not much) in a single peace deal that was only ~60% WS because Liege was occupying a bunch of provinces in another war. They actually occupied Paris before I could, which meant I couldn't get the Imperialism ticking WS or the chunk from having their capital, but French Revolutionaries sprung up while we were occupying their whole nation, I let them siege paris then killed them and took it for myself. Later, they released a bunch of smaller nations out of France which I could gladly eat up before they got alliances.
Might actually try playing as Sunni or Shia Ottomans next time around. I am going to miss that extra missionary from the Pentarchy though, and I'll certainly miss being DotF without having to protect anyone, as well as deus vult targets everywhere and -3 unrest in orthodox provinces. On the plus side, morale, not having to convert Sunni provinces, and Unify Islam for more tolerance.
ALSO a fun little trick I found for expanding in Asia once you are western - take a nation as your protectorate, seize land next to their capital along with any forts they have, core them, cancel the protectorate and declare next month. There's no truce so it's a good way to isolate asian state to annex them easier. taking the forts means that you don't have to siege anything other than capital, and taking the province next to their capital usually means you can stack wipe day 1.
