My 50th EUIV run: Teutonic Order.
I wanted to do something special for my 50th run. What could have been a better choice than the Teutonic Order - the 1st country showcased for Lions of the North immersion pack.
As you can see, I chose to remain as the Teutonic Order and didn't secularise. Of course I didn't expend too much into the steppes, either. I kept it kind of realistic, while launching a crusade against the Hordes, I only took Crimea and the surrounding regions.
I actually had to restart this run. I had already played to 1450, but I had made a fatal mistake, I had given out my +1 mana privileges and I only had just 10 crownland, so the disaster became active. I don't think I could have defeated Danzig, that revolts with half of my provinces, and Poland that automatically gets called in. In my 2nd try, I only gave these privileges after I had finished the mission that disables the disaster.
I was also worried about a war with Poland, it's much stronger, has Lithuania as a junior partner and is allied to Hungary and Brandenburg. To counter them I made an alliance with Bohemia and through my mission tree I vassalised the Livonian Order. My 1st war wasn't actually with Poland, but with Gotland, they didn't have any allies and they didn't join the Hanseatic League. They were an easy and valuable target, because they were raiding my coasts and another trade center would always come handy.
So yeah, after I had disabled the disaster and was ahead in military tech, I risked and attacked Poland. First, I rushed to Berlin, to get Brandenburg out of the war. I managed to capture it pretty fast, they hadn't engaged with their 9k army in any battles, so it was a great success to tip the balance in my favour. While I was relieving sieges from my lands, Bohemia also occupied Poznan. Soon enough a huge Polish-Hungarian stack besieged it, it couldn't have been a better time to get Hungary out of the war. So I invaded their country, occupied Pest and as many other non-fort provinces as possible, they agreed to peace out. The rest is just history, I took all of Kuyawia region and Poznan, thus gaining a connection to Neumark.
After my 2nd war with Poland, where I took Samogitia area from Lithuania, Bohemia broke the alliance and rivaled me. But it wasn't a big problem, I got much stronger Austria as my new ally that had Hungary under a PU. It came very handy in my future wars against Poland, Muscovy and eventually, the Ottomans. We also won the League war, even with the Ottomans being on the enemy side. The funny thing is that Austria lost its emperorship to Bayreuth. And since my mission tree demanded that all continental countries must be Catholic, it would have been impossible to achieve that with a braindead emperor on the throne. So just after the League war, I decided to dismantle the HRE. There were only 3 electors, I was able to ally 2 of them, while the 3rd one was allied to Bayreuth. In like 50 years, I could see the Catholic faith resurrecting, France holding its ground good and expansionist Cologne and Salzburg that are eating up the neighbouring Protestants. They eventually formed Westphalia and Bavaria. The only downside was that my ally Austria became Reformed. After I had made sure that they're no longer needed for my wars against the Ottomans, I dissolved the alliance and attacked them. After my 1st war, France, Cologne and the Ottomans declared 3 simultaneous wars. They never recovered from that and by the end of the campaign completely disappeared from the map. Even though it wasn't required, I also enforced religion on Great Britain.
While I was fighting the heretics in Europe, I also launched a crusade in the Steppes, against the Ottomans, Nogai and Timurids, while eventually adopting to the steppe lives myself and becoming a holy horde.
My vassals: Novgorod, Polotsk, Chernihiv, Galicia-Volynia, Walachia, Astrakhan, Bashkiria, Kazakh.
My allies: Papal States, Georgia (I guess I fed them very well!)
A successful AI emperor of China with positive mandate? That's a rarity.
Huge Westphalia formed by Cologne.
No independent colonial nations.
Expansionist Pope in the Balkans, thanks to its other ally France.
And something special I made for my 50th run, a map with all the countries I have played so far (the base map is not mine, I just coloured the countries):
View attachment Campaigns.png
50 campaigns, but no Brandenburg -> Prussia -> Germany, no England -> Great Britain, no Ottomans, but yet, I have Luristan and Sarig Yogir!
I will play them in due time. Brandenburg is too close to Poland and Teutonic Order, 2 of my recent campaigns, while for the Ottomans, I'm waiting for a ME immersion pack.
I'm wondering if someone else is doing something similar to me and keeping a full track of all his campaigns.