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The Maritime-Naval-Trade run (converted CK3 save) is done. The year is 1769, 52 years before end date, but I've maximized all the conditions for my goal that is trade income. 8 trade-focused ideas taken, all relevant policies on, and just went to 3 wars to sink all my competitors' ships. I've attached comparison of trade in 1444 vs 1769 and the country map too.

This will be the state of world I'll convert to Vic3. I'll release all colonies before conversion and maybe choose to play as one of them, but I believe the original country should still be a challenge as I've taken care to not take too much land and the world is full of other big empires. The trade income from EU4 wouldn't carry over I'd presume, it'll be a new mechanics entirely.

Now I'll just need to wait for the converter and finally purchase Vic3.

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The Maritime-Naval-Trade run (converted CK3 save) is done. The year is 1769, 52 years before end date, but I've maximized all the conditions for my goal that is trade income. 8 trade-focused ideas taken, all relevant policies on, and just went to 3 wars to sink all my competitors' ships. I've attached comparison of trade in 1444 vs 1769 and the country map too.

This will be the state of world I'll convert to Vic3. I'll release all colonies before conversion and maybe choose to play as one of them, but I believe the original country should still be a challenge as I've taken care to not take too much land and the world is full of other big empires. The trade income from EU4 wouldn't carry over I'd presume, it'll be a new mechanics entirely.

Now I'll just need to wait for the converter and finally purchase Vic3.

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Wait I don't even know who you started as are even playing as. Jerusalem?
 
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Wait I don't even know who you started as are even playing as. Jerusalem?
It's a converted CK3 save where I started in CK3 as Duchy of Thrace, but not in 867. I started in 867 to play a couple of other characters in different parts of the map, on my way I broke up the Byzantine Empire at some point. Duchy of Thrace was a small independent state by the time I started this country in CK3. Note that I played easy in CK3 but hard in EU4.
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Campaign #11: Songhai (vanilla)

I returned to vanilla to play my first run in Africa. I chose Songhai, one of the major countries updated in the Origins DLC in late 2021.

This campaign was very fun. It was a great change of pace compared to my other recent runs. While the mission tree is a bit lacking, it was still a good tree and a great guide for my early conquests.

I started with the consolidation of West Africa, of course. After that, I diverted my attention towards the rest of Africa. I had to fight the Europeans rather quickly, because Castile and Portugal started to colonize the West African coast very early. However, it was rewarding in the long run, because I could take most of Portuguese colonies, some Castilian colonies, and conquer a large chunk of Iberian Peninsula, which allowed me to move my trade capital to the Sevilla node and divert most of African trade there.

I also took colonial ideas and used my colonists to colonize inland African provinces, South America, Mexico, and even a few provinces in South-East Asia at the end.

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My 55th EUIV run: Gotland.

I chose Gotland as my 2nd Scandinavian run (first being Sweden), because of its unique gameplay. I had never played with pirates and it seemed like a perfect choice.

I decided to stay as small as possible, just taking the key Baltic provinces and all of Pomerania (My starting ruler was Eric of Pomerania after all) and Geataland (Gutnish = Geats = Goths?) and a colonial empire in the Caribbean and Colombia, something a bit different than an expected Scandinavian North America, I'll leave that for Denmark and Norway.

It was very hard in the beginning, because it was very hard to get mana, because of 1/4/1 rulers and Gotland being an OPM stuck in its island. At least I could raid everyone around me and I had a decent monument for my pirate playstyle. Eventually, I was able to fix the problem with mana by choosing the Pirate King reform. I was also able to get out of my island. My 1st war was with Livonia, they were only allied with Riga. I managed to ship my army to Ösel without being interrupted by the enemy. Since Riga was allied with Poland, I couldn't attack them, I made them break their treaties, so I could do so in the future. As for Livonia, I took from them Ösel and Reval.
Next war was with Riga, since they were part of the Hansaetic League, Lübeck and other small countries joined them, but it was part of the plan. I couldn't attack any HRE state directly without dragging in Austria, so it was a perfect opportunity to take both Riga and Lübeck.
In the meantime, I was waiting for Sweden to declare its independence, but it took so long. Eventually, Denmark just let them become independent without a fight. Now that they had been severely weakened, I declared war on Denmark. It was a very hard fight, but I managed to win and took their core islands.

Soon after that, I could start colonising, most of the Caribbean was already colonised by Portugal, but there were some empty spots, like Bahamas. But soon enough Portugal colonised the rest. Then I switched my attention to Colombia and managed to make my 1st colonial nation there. I was preparing for a war with Portugal and Spain to take their colonies, but I had 0 chance to do it on my own, so I made an alliance with France, who were friendly to me, because both of us were in the Protestant League, although France was Catholic and I had became Protestant. Suddenly, the League War triggered, while our armies were deep into Spain. Even though we managed to win and occupy Austria fully, we still had 40% warscore and I couldn't find a province anywhere that they were occupying that denied us 100% warscore, so Saxony made a peace of Westphalia instead of achieving a complete victory.

After that, I focused on doing my mission tree, taking Pomerania and waging more colonial wars with Portugal and Spain.


Also, while I usually become an economical hegemon, this time I chose to become a naval hegemon. I think that it's very fitting for a nation like Gotland that focuses mostly on its navy like Great Britain.

01. Gutnish Empire.png

02. World map.png

04. Home region.png

07. Colonies in South America.png

03. Score.png


My colonial nations: Nya Gotland (Caribbean), Ericland (Colombia).
My vassals: Hamburg, Norway, Finland, Latgalia.

I wanted to name my armies in Gutnish, but I couldn't find a single dictionary, so I had to go with Swedish instead.

The Ottomans are simply HUGE!
France is also very strong, we were allied for most of the became, until they suddenly became a junior partner of the Commonwealth and soon enough broke free again lol.
Even though Ning controls most of the China, Korea holds the Mandate.

EDIT: I forgot to add the score screenshot.
 
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Finally got around to doing 3 mountains after having played since release. Never had the guts to try and do it because I would hate to have failed in the home strech. Kinda happy i managed to do it with no truce-breaks and only 1 no cb war. Late game lag with so many vassals was almost the worst enemy.
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My 56th EUIV run: Friesland.

While I'm mostly preoccupied with remaking my regular maps in a much bigger resolution and details (I hope to release the 1st ones next month), I still find some spare time to play EUIV.

I have wanted to do a Friesland run since this Summer, but since the devs revealed that they're updating Republics by adding estates and a lot of new government reforms, I delayed that run up until now. It's very similar to my Holland -> Netherlands run, but with a smaller colonial empire. This time, to make it a bit different, I also took a piece of England, while getting rid of Great Britain completely by the end of the game.

Unlike Holland, I don't start under a Burgundian yoke, which actually would improve my situation, if I was, because it would be very easy to get some very strong allies, like Austria, England (that now knows how to do naval landings) and France. On the other hand, I could almost immediately begin my expansion now. I started with East Frisia, since they were the easiest target. I was also waiting for an opportunity for Burgundy to get dragged into a big war with either Austria or France to take Holland from them. It did happen eventually and I almost gave up, but I succeeded and managed to take Amesterdam and Den Haag.
While I only had 5 provinces now, it greatly improved my economy, since Amsterdam has a trading centre, while Den Haag and Ostfriesland have estuaries.

By keeping my relations above 100 with Austria, I managed to make an alliance with them. It meant that they wouldn't demand from me unlawful territory and would help me in future wars against other great powers. Even though they did drag me into some wars with the Ottomans, we managed to keep them at bay. Even though I became Calvinist, I still fought on the Catholic side in the League War and helped Austria to win. But nothing lasts forever and around late 17th century they decided to desire my land and broke the alliance. It didn't take long until the Ottomans decided to attack again and I wasn't there to help them out so by the end of the game they were reduced to just a few provinces in Southern Germany.

While I was slowly taking back my lost Frisian lands in the Lowlands and Northern Germany, I also began to make a colonial empire. I was lucky enough to even spawn Colonialism institution. To achieve what you see above wasn't just sending my colonists all over the world. I took most of those lands in fierce fights against other colonial powers.

01. Frisian Empire.png

02. World map.png
03. Score.png
05. Home region.png
07. Colonies in North America.png


My colonial nations:
Nij Rüstringen (Acadia)
Nij Fryslân (New York)
Frysk West-Ynje (the Caribbean)
Frysk Guiana (Guyana)
Nij Ommelannen (Australia)

The name are in West Frisian.

My vassals: Northumberland, Normandy, Brabant.
My allies: Italy (formed by Ferrara)

I was also allied with Morocco for a while, that's how they got Granada's lands, but I had to ditch our alliance to make a room for another vassal. Too bad that Peasant Republics, just like Pirates, can't get strong duchies privilege that I always take and use until the end of the game.
 
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Byzantium run thus far:

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Campaign #12: Li ->Xi Xia (Ante Bellum)

After a great Songhai run and conquest of entire Africa, I decided to stay outside of Europe by returning to Ante Bellum iteration of East Asia. This time, my choice was the Tangut country of Li, located on the Eastern end of Tibet!

This campaign was a bit similar to my earlier Qara Khitai -> Liao run I have done a few months ago. There were three main differences; the first was religion - as Liao I was Nestorian Christian; this time, I started as Vajrayana Buddhist, and my mission tree allowed me to convert to Maitreya Buddhist later on. Maitreya is a branch of Buddhism added by Ante Bellum, and it was very interesting! (Fun fact: it is the favorite religion of Nitrogue from the Ante Bellum discord server.)

The second main difference from Liao campaign was the expansion direction: I expanded less into Central Asia, but more into India and South-East Asia. The third and final main difference was my behaviour regarding the Mandate of Heaven - as Liao I took the Mandate, while this time, I decided to destroy it instead, partially because none of the Tangut missions from Ante Bellum are focused around taking the Mandate.

Regarding the Tangut mission tree, it was a fun mission tree, but I did not like the order of initial missions, as it felt a bit innatural to me. This run was also my first chance to try the recently released Ages Reformed mod, which is an excellent overhaul to the ages and splendor system introduced by the Mandate of Heaven DLC in 2017!

My subjects at the end were: Kazakh, Kroraina, Tirhut, Kachar and Champa (vassals), as well as Hsipaw (a tributary state I inherited after annexing Ava in one of the last wars in this run).

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Update on my France game
Its 1606 and things are going pretty well. I have 6 nations under PU: Castile, Burgundy, Savoy, Commonwealth, Mecklenburg and Saxe-Lauenburg. I just finished coring Branderburg and with Moscow under my belt for 50 years or so I manged achievement Better than Napoleon.
This PU thing is very powerfull and as I have 6 PUs already Ill try to get another 4 to get Atvix legacy Achievement as well.

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Mzab -> Tunis -> Andalusia -> The Caliphate achievement run.

Achievements unlocked:
  • An Unlikely Candidate
  • We bled for this
  • The Third Way
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So many annoying events which turn random provinces into Shia or Sunni. Took way longer because of these, but got there in the end.

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My full mission tree Byzantium run!

Allies are Great Britain, Shun and Scandinavia (formed by Denmark), Bohemia is my PU and Munich is my vassal. People rivaling me: France, Spain, Prussia, Portugal.

Most fun run that I ever had.

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I must admit that I restarted like 30 times before the game that finally worked out. Some restarts happened 30 days into the game, one happened 100 years into the game. In my opinion, contrary to popular belief, the most difficult part of a Byzantium run is not defeating the Ottomans, but what comes after that.

First: a small guide on how to survive to 1460 and thrive a bit:
After the initial war with Epirus, I defeated the Ottomans in two wars. I found out that if I allied Serbia, Theodoro and Trebizond, Ottos would not attack me first, and instead would attack one of the beyliks (or sometimes Trebizond). If they attack Trebizond, you should dishonor, but anyway, this is your golden chance. By this time you should have 3 heavies and 9 galleys, or at least be close to completing those ships. Barrage+assault Gallipoli (I've found you need something like 16k troops to do this, preferably throw some mercs in the mix) while Otto's troops are on Anatolia and you are good to go for this war. In this war you should get around 70WS, which will be enough to get a deal worth all of your cores and with a little luck some reps. During the war, be sure to rotate your stacks around Otto's european provinces (to loot and let the provinces recover their loot), and transfer occupations of Gallipoli and Thesalonika to Athens. Also, after the initial assault to Gallipoli, fire the mercenaries you hired till you are at force limit. With all of this measures, you should be getting around +2 ducats per month during the war, so you will be able to pay many of the loans you took to make this war possible.

After this first war, the hard part begins.

During the truce you can see if either Venice, Genoa, the Knights or Naples find themselves without strong allies, but it is difficult for this to happen. Not a big deal if you cannot attack them at this time. You should also pay your loans and save some money. You'll need it. Also, improve relations+ally Muscovy. You're now big enough to be a desirable ally for them.

As soon as the truce expires and the Ottos have their troops on Anatolia, declare on them for one of your claims in Europe. Fully occupy Ottoman Europe (if they have conquered Albania+some venetian provinces it's good news for you, more warscore). Unfortunately, this will only give you like 20 WS.

So you have to go big or go home.

By this time, you should be blockading the straits, and the Ottos should have placed some stacks ready for crossing. Hire mercs so that you have some 50% more troops than Ottos biggest stack on the straits, and get all the morale and disc bonuses that you are able to get (privileges, religious icon, advisor, etc.) Let Ottos stacks pass one by one, blockade their retreat and you will stackwipe them, even with the most pyrrhic of victories. After this, hurry and try to occupy all the provinces you have claims on, as the Mamluks are guaranteed to declare on the Ottos at this time.

In this war you should try to grab as much land as possible. From Anatolia, take the southernmost province you have a claim on (the mamluks consider it of critical importance, so they'll take it in their war. It will be harder to get it from Mamluks than it is to get it from the Ottos), all of Albania, Macedonia, and the rest take it as you wish. Ideally, take provinces so that no big empire can take the claims that you have on Ottos for themselves.

This is the end of the guide for a succesful start. From now on, this is what happened on my run, more dynamic strategies are needed and sincerely, at some moments I got really lucky.

After this, I had 3 giants at your frontiers: Poland/Commonwealth on the North, Austria-Hungary on the west, and Mamluks on the East.

I hurried to conquer the Balkans. Hungary didn't fall on the automatic PU under Austria, so Austria broke their alliance with them to pursue the PU. In the meantime, the Commonwealth destroyed them, and while they were busy, I also invaded, getting all their provinces in Serbia and Bosnia. After these wars, Austria PU'd them, but by this time, I had already allied Austria. I managed to get Dalmatian provinces that they had conquered from Venice by asking them to return cores to Dalmatia. After I finished the corresponding mission I stopped expanding in that direction for a bit.

I took some bulgarian provinces that the Commonwealth got from the Ottos in a war where Muscovy called me in, so I was able to unlock some claims on Naples. Those claims arrived just in time, as Naples had just become independient (thanks to pretender rebels), so they were ally-less. I took 90 WS worth of provinces, enough to form a small coalition of Italians+Ottos.

On the East, I allied Qara Qoyunlu, and together with Russia, we managed to destroy Mamluks, that had conquered/guaranteed most of Anatolia. Eventually, I stopped calling Russia and then QQ. QQ broke their alliance with me when I conquered Syria (that they critically desired) and eventually rivaled me. Then, I conquered Georgia from them.

I conquered the islands on the mission tree (most of which were Spain's) by having a superior navy and by allying France.

Eventually, Russia rivaled me, after the Commonwealth had been wiped out by me/Russia/Austria/Bohemia. The league war was triggered and Austria+me lost badly. I lost a couple of provinces in Crimea to Russia. After this war, I broke my alliance with Austria (they were no longer the emperor) and instead I allied Bohemia( the new emperor)+Denmark+France. I also allied Shun, which had been the victor in the Chinese civil war and that rivaled Russia.

Before I was able to re-ally France, Spain declared on me (and Portugal joined), for the reconquest of one of the Balearic Islands. Shun dishonored. As I said, I had the superior navy, so the ticking warscore went all way down, and even when they were much more powerful than me. Bohemia, Denmark and I kept them at bay on Europe, and in Africa the Iberians had occupied Egypt, but as Egypt was TC'd, it didn't amount to much warscore. The attrition, the battle casualties they suffered, their fully blockaded coast, all had their toll on Spain's war exhaustion and the warscore, so I managed to peace out for some money, when my manpower was about to hit 0.

I declared on Russia while they were only allied with Orthodox Cilli (whom I had force converted =) ) and recovered my lost Crimean provinces and more. After this, I declared war on the pope for the Rome state. An easy war, since the pope had no super strong allies.
Then, I was about to declare on Austria for my claims in Croatia/Carniola, fully conscious that I was about to break my alliance with Bohemia for this, but Bohemia's king died without heir, and I got the PU :) No one contested it. I went to war with Austria and a smallish emperor, so it was an easy war.

Unfortunately, a coalition formed, so I could not expand to Venice and unlock the mission chain for Northern Italy (and the Pentarchy chain!). I waited some years, I went conquering on the middle East (where Russia had just relinquished their guarantee over QQ), on Northern Africa and Granada, and just waited for my manpower pool to fill. After the coalition dissolved, I promptly conquered Venice and surroundings (which were held by Trent).

As I had already converted the five seats of the pentarchy to Orthodoxy, I was inmediately able to claim the Rome Restored! mission. It was simply perfect. I suddenly became tier 4 defender of the faith as most of the Spanish/Portuguese colonies became orthodox, as well as many of the remaining catholic statelets in the HRE. France and Portugal went Orthodox, and even the Pope (!) went Orthodox. There is nothing more beautiful than an orthodox pope.

After this, there were some run-of-the-mill conquests in Northern Italy, the most difficult of whose was against Spain for their Florentine lands. France had a couple of Italian provinces (including Saluzzo, which had no other core but the French), so I had to break my alliance with them. During the truce, they went revolutionary, and by the time the truce ended, they had no allies at all. And also they never played the colonization game, so my war against France was the easiest war I've ever had against France, in all my games. I dismantled the revolution and got my two Italian provinces.

I wanted to clean my borders, specially with Russia, but I'm thinking it is much of a Hassle. Prussia formed a hugbox by allying with Russia and Spain, and every one of these countries had bigger armies than me. Actually, when I saw that on the ledger, I noticed that I was in quite a precarious situation. But oh, well. I got everything I wanted from this run. Time for the next challenge.
 
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My final EU4 run of 2022: Mamluks into Rum

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A fun campaign without doubt, but once I started to think just how further I could've pushed already as the Ottomans I just couldn't bring myself to play any further.

I also should've pushed for more aggressively into Africa and Arabia, but my earlygame was tunnel visioned on destroying the Ottomans =/
 
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My 57th EUIV run: Ajuuraan.

It's been a few weeks since my last run, so I decided it's time to take a pause from the other stuff I'm doing and have a relaxing EUIV run. Since my Kilwa and Adal runs were so successful and one of my favourites, I decided that a follow up run with Ajuuraan would be a perfect choice. I can't wait for the Middle Eastern immersion pack to get released, so I can get my hands on Oman (Although it wouldn't be my 1st country to try). Also, while I had an option to form Somalia, I decided that I'll do it with Mogadishu instead, so I remained as Ajuuraan here.

While I was intending to attack Marehan first, I got really lucky with the estate privilege that asked me to conquer Pate. They didn't have any allies, so it was very easy to conquer them. After that, I had to wait a few years until I could attack Marehan, they were allied with Adal and Aden. But once I noticed that Marehan's army had disappeared and they were rebuilding it, possibly due to rebels or financial problems, I decided that it's the time to strike. I stackwiped their newly built army and quickly occupied their provinces before their ally armies showed up. Then I started besieging Adal, while the enemy armies went to reconquer Marehan. I managed to occupy Harar and managed to peace out Adal without engaging their army. After that I dealt with Aden and annexed Marehan.
The next target was Warsangali, but they also had strong allies in Arabia. After a while, Adal decided to attack them, while their allies were busy in other wars, I couldn't let Adal get too much of Warsangali, otherwise they would grow too strong. So I decided that it's the time to attack, the only ally that honoured their alliance was Ogaadeen. While Adal took a few provinces, I took the rest and annexed Ogaadeen as a bonus.
In the meantime, in the South, Kilwa was rising and conquering its neighbhours. It didn't even hesitate to attack my ally Mombasa, while I was still besieging Ogaadeen. Luckily, with huge war exhaustion and almost 0 manpower, we dealt with the threat for good, Mombasa took most of their core territory and Sofala broke free. That is, until I later on conquered it together with my former ally Mombasa. It had served its role.

After these few wars, I was finally getting some money from the trade, it allowed me to build up my country, expand my navy and army to deal with Adal, Ethiopia and get footholds in India and even further. I also allied with the Ottomans, as my mission tree required, but it was obvious that they would eventually break the alliance and betray me, when they got close enough to me in Arabia and Nubia. I didn't want to become a sitting target, so I allied with the Commonwealth and Persia and by the end of the game we had reduced them greatly in size. Both of my allies broke the alliance with me after 1800, Persia desired my land, but the Commonwealth by becoming a military hegemon.

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03. Score.png
04. Ajuuraan Empire.png


My vassals: Makua, Harar, Hadramut, Madurai, Malacca, Kelantan (I made them as my vassals in 1820, because PLC became a military hegemon in 1818 and broke the alliance).
 
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I present to you my Illyria run, converted from CK3 (don't have Vic but I figured I might as well) longest I've ever had a campaign go, my poor laptop is really laggy so I had to end it here.
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Finally managed to form the Roman Empire somewhere in 1760s. From Trent to Italy. From Italy to the Roman Empire.

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I'm a beginner in this game, so I still play on Very Easy, because I used to find this game very difficult even on the easiest difficulty.
 
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Finally managed to form the Roman Empire somewhere in 1760s. From Trent to Italy. From Italy to the Roman Empire.

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I'm a beginner in this game, so I still play on Very Easy, because I used to find this game very difficult even on the easiest difficulty.
Congrats on your achievement. Now try adding some DLC's (too bad the steam winter sale has already ended, but 1 - there is a subscription and 2 - there will certainly be more sales in the future!)
 
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