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That's so WCable. You seem to not realize the power of the vassal swarm.

I've never played a HRE game as the HRE. So I don't know the power of the swarm.

I already have hegemony over the majority of Europe; it's Asia/Africa I'm not sure if I have the time.
 
The vassal swarm can WC in less than 50 years. You make coring cost, coring time and annexation cost irrelevant, and your vassals triple your army size. Feed all of Asia and Africa to HRE princes with snakes of land (their capital has to be in Europe, they don't have to own land in Europe only), just focus on the Americas.
 
Bordergore Khaganat:
Had a save still around from 1.23 when I got a Avaria run going and decided to finish it. Back then I got my independence supported by the Great Horde and Shirvan and fully annexed my overlord. Shirvan wanted land so they hated me, but the Great Horde accepted me as a tributary. I attacked Circassia (who was allied with 2 opms) and took 3 provinces from them + money. Then I stacked dip rep (iqta government, advisor, old mission) and improved with the Ottomans. Barely, by 1 point, I was able to ally them. But the 30 years penalty of "didn't give land" made me put that run on the shelf

This is where I continued. I allied Ajam but that alliance was short lived. Mazandaran was only allied to QQ who had debt and rebels so I attacked and vassalized. Ajam attacked them as well so I got in a defensive war with the Ottomans and GH doing the work for me and allowing me to expand into Persia. Once I could call in the Ottomans with land promise I refused tribute to the Great Horde and then attacked Circassia who was their tributary. The Ottomans did the work and allowed me to take 100 warscore of the Great Horde and peace Circassia out for money. From there it was basicly farming favors with the Ottomans, attacking weak neighbours and calling the Ottomans in vs PLC and Hungary

Ideas picked were Religious (since I got a huge amount of Shia land early), Quantity (for manpower, force limit and faster favors with the Ottomans) and Influence (AE and integration of my vassal nitra and transsylvania)

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Done with my commonwealth game.This is probably the biggest i've gotten with a country and reached 1821.As it progressed and i was out of capable enemies , play sessions were shorter and shorter ; didnt find much interesting stuff to do.
Stole a bunch of colonies in the last 50 years and generally relied on vassals during the whole thing.
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Thinking about moving up the difficulty soon, but decided why not play Austria on Normal, get a feel for the HRE. Was able to use those starting missions and had Hungry and Bohemia locked up by 1490, as well as reining in northern Italy, so I'm sitting pretty and have been able to use my Partners and allies to jump from one war to the next. Heretic princes are starting to become a problem, but with a few strategic claims I should be able keep enough princes Catholic to keep that Authority marching up. With 60 princes it's a fair bit of work, but the empire is pretty sound at the moment.

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Other fun stuff:

-Other than Kiev existing I'm really not responsible for the mess between myself and Muscovy. Poland didn't want a Jagellion, so seperatists, russian princes and the danish took advantage. The picture is taken after my war with Denmark, which I felt was getting a little too big (I also figured Sweden could lend a hand).

-Considering that I actually dogpiled Burgundy after they attacked a relatively complete France, I was not able to save my historical rival from a dismal fate. I'm salivating at the though of a French reconquest CB though, so not all is lost.

-More fun than I thought it would be. There's something about smacking down minors that dare grow a couple of provinces, then sending in the diplomat to smooth it over. I suppose I could send warnings more often and save some work, but what's the fun in that? I'm not a nag, I'm the emperor!
 
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Kazan achievement run, got Tatarstan, Gold Rush, I'll Graze My Horse Here... achievements. Started using @bly08 's guide. I regret I've spent too much time trying to break Ottomans as they have a few grain provinces; there's plenty of them in the rest of the world.

edit: I found out that Unduarded Nomadic Invasion disaster for emperor of china can restart (Ming has lost a province I bordered him with and I got a message that order was restored but I gained border with him again and it he got disaster again after a while).

Achievement count: 223/265
 
Three games to share - the first two were on v1.24, while the third was 1.25. Forgive me the long post.

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First off, Baltic Crusader. Vassals are four uncreatively-named client states in Germany. The only thing really worth saying about this game is that I had nothing to do with that Austria, which, in addition to conquering both France and the Ottomans, was also allied with Spain, Milan, and Great Britain. So that was neat.

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Next was Granada -> Andalusia. It's not much, but I'm proud of it. Aside from a couple colonies in South America that I made toward the end, I never took any land outside of the Iberian region. I also never allied France or the Ottomans, and Morocco was my game-long rival. It was just myself versus the Iberians/French, and it was quite fun.

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Lastly, the one that I just did on v1.25 as Scotland. My intention was to play tall and only conquer Britain and France, but then I was bored, so I did the rest in the last 40 years. Navarra, Holstein, Sweden, and Bohemia were my vassals, while Russia was in an accidental personal union under me. Italy was my ally at the end. AI Brandenburg came quite close to forming Germany, but alas, I had to break them for the sake of pretty borders.

Bonus:

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I got this screenshot three years before her death in 1700 at the age of 73. Mary II Stuart, the daughter of a 6/4/4 king who himself lasted more than thirty years, ruled Scotland for 57 years. And because I was playing tall, pretty much all of that went into development. In over 4000 hours of playing this game I think I've only ever had a handful of 6/6/6 monarchs, and I doubt I'll ever have one last as long as she did.
 
Why don't you want to turn on wasteland colouring? It makes things look so much better.

Function over form! I hate clicking on colored wasteland and only then realizing it's wasteland. Without bothering to mod it to look more obvious, it's easiest to just turn it off and doesn't bother me.
 
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Pattani is one of the few nations I haven't played, so I gave them a go and here is what I did. Hard, and Dali is my march. I love it when Ming goes into their mountains to siege stuff. I also actually used Maritime, but I don't play to do crazy WC, just to have fun. Out of all my personal games, I think this one has the best borders.
 
Austria into HRE one tag and one faith with obv money cap.
Like every austria game just the first 150 years were crucial. Bohemia/Hungary <1470 PU and BI at 1455. No real reformation, just crushed everything heretic even with no cb. revoke at 1580 and released couple of minors around beylik/greece/russia/France regions.
Other PUs were Commonwealth, Oyodev, Spain, Portugal. England stayed catholic which was a belssing for the new world. :)

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Davmont's Own achievement. I have to say it's been a while since I played game as challenging as this. Usually after first 30-50 years I'm blobbing at my own pace but not this game. I haven't had strong alliances for most of the game and what allies I managed to get, I kept and supported them. I had to fight against Swedish independence 2-3 times, defend against AI's aggression (yes, AI declared war on me, not something you see very often) and just sit and patiently wait. Hammerfall fits this gameplay better than Sabaton (sorry guys).

First, it's necessary Lithuania stays independent and rival Moscovy, so I declared independence on day 1, get independence, allied Novgorod, attacked Livonians in their moment of weakness. I made a decision to get rid off my republican government and convert to Catholicism, otherwise no one would ally me. Alliances with Moscovy and Novgorod were not to be permanent obviously. After two great powers in the region attack the third, you jump on them. Except, there were no easy targets I could eat, I'd have to fight great power to expand. Having said all that, it turned into garden variety blobbing at one point, got achievement in 1666, rest was to clean up the boarders and Humiliate Ottomans.

Achievements: 226/265

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This was mostly a run for the Take that, von Habsburgs! achievement, plus a few small achievements along the way, including Krabater, which was honestly the only reason why I tag-switched to Croatia as the last action of the run. I flipped to Croatian culture very early, so it wasn't much of an ordeal to do so.

For added Karma, I got the achievement by enforcing an PU over Austria and then integrating them - unfortunately not as a Hunyadi, which is a bit sad. I even had Hunyadis on the Austrian and Bohemian thrones, but the religious leagues prevented me from acting on it before the Chin snuck back into both countries. Oh well. :/ At some point, I became Habsburg myself, which allowed me to take over the Palatinate, then Bohemia (immediately afterwards, which required a trucebreak since they were the Emporer), and finally Österreich.

Otherwise, I discovered to my horror that behind the Turkish menace, the Persian menace lurked. And behind them, the Sindi menace, the Gurarat menace and the Bahmani menace. Luckily, I managed to protect Europe from those vile fiends. :D I do apologize for the Indian borders (Orissa and Madurai are my vassals, as well as Pegu to the east), but lv.8 forts on a nation with Defensive ideas in a tropical environment are an even stronger argument than smooth borders.

Some stuff that happened elsewhere:
  • Strong Netherlands! Austria got the BI, the Netherlands revolted out of them, and while Austria re-annexed most of them in the ensuing war, the Netherlands then grabbed a stable alliance with France and became the strongest force in the HRE.
  • Speaking of the HRE - it ended up with about 15 princes, only 3 of which were catholic. :D I didn't even plan to become emporer, but when I annexed Lithuania, it seems that they ran out of other options. Funnily enough (although annoying for me), Austria flipped protestant and even led their religious league.
  • Colonizers strong! Well, except for Portugal, who got Berber'd fairly early, but still managed to form at least Portuguese Colombia. The Americas are completely in European hands, except for three very small native trimes (Salish, Caddo, and Aztecs). And as you can see on the screenshot, GB and Castille in particular have a strong presense in SE Asia.
  • Ming 'sploded a little bit early on, with 4 or 5 nations falling out of them, then recovered mostly (iirc, they got all the reforms except one), but then got wrecked by Russia, then Russia and Japan (who took the mandate, the fool), then Russia, Bengal, Yue, and Yan. They're still at almost 500 dev, but it's not looking particularly well.
  • Scotland got relocated to Massachusetts, from where they rule over a 169-dev empire that reaches over most of the globe. :D Meanwhile, Norway fled to South Georgia, from where they still manage to keep their Brazilian CN happy.
 
Gonna drop some more Austria. Over the last century I took advantage of the French/Burgundian/English fights to my west and decided to make a truly grand empire, so I present Voltaire's nightmare:
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Spoilered the HRE map and the prince rollcall

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Pretty much spent the 16th century fighting the reformation (Maybe I should've had religious ideas, but I was able to get pretty far just fabricating claims and imperial liberation claims to force that religion back) and breaking French lands back down into their CKII duchies. Pretty sure I was able to save all the ones that were in threat of the 1594 extinction, though sadly I did not have enough time to save the Anatolians nor the Byzants (Since Lithuania Exploded early I still have plenty of Ruthenian tags with a fair amount of time before they disappear).

Quick thoughts:
-Spain totally blows, not sure if it's because they are sending out armies to cruise around the new world or what, but they made the English look like a competent army.

-Was able to liberate an OPM France before the Landfriede, though sadly had to do it from the only country that ever added land to the HRE besides myself. I'm very sorry Auvergene, it had to be done.

-Kinda wish there was a generic HRE-lite type confederacy for all cultural groups, I tend to enjoy punching out OPMs and balkanizing areas. Perhaps it's time to play some CKII.

-Is there anyway to convince small countries bordering the HRE to join? With Krakow, the Duke of Berry and Mazovia I've tried improving relations but they don't seem interested and are slowly moving towards the food column.
 
So first real game since Rule Britannia. Wanted to try out the new Innovativness mechanic and naval doctrine, also colonization since I enjoy that. So here is my surprisingly powerful Denmark.
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A few interesting things happened this game so far. I allied Novgorod to keep Muscovy away from me for as long as possible. Novgorod didn't call me into a war against Muscovy? I assume they declared an offensive war against them and didn't feel like the needed my help? Anyway they lost four provinces, however then non-PLC Lithuania balkanized and Novgorod went on a conquering spreed with my help and grabbed a large part of ex-Lithuania, so now they are far more powerful than before.
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Now I was planing to do a chill colonization/innovate game, play with boats and such. I only allied Castile to keep Great Britain away from my stuff, so when I got a surprise PU over Castile (had to fight Great Britain over it, took the Highlands from them in the peace deal) I realized I might as well grab that Iron Price achievement I have never gotten around to get. Also jumped from like 6th world power to 3rd. Ottomans rivalled me so I allied the Baguettes so their Doom Legions can keep the Ottomans away. So with the power of Castile and French Doom Troopers, my current game plan is to colonize, build boats, murder Great Britain, rampage around northern Germany, rampage around Asia and finally save all of Europe by bringing a coalition of nations down upon the Ottomans and blockade all their ports for like a decade to spite them.
 
So first real game since Rule Britannia. Wanted to try out the new Innovativness mechanic and naval doctrine, also colonization since I enjoy that. So here is my surprisingly powerful Denmark.
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A few interesting things happened this game so far. I allied Novgorod to keep Muscovy away from me for as long as possible. Novgorod didn't call me into a war against Muscovy? I assume they declared an offensive war against them and didn't feel like the needed my help? Anyway they lost four provinces, however then non-PLC Lithuania balkanized and Novgorod went on a conquering spreed with my help and grabbed a large part of ex-Lithuania, so now they are far more powerful than before.
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Now I was planing to do a chill colonization/innovate game, play with boats and such. I only allied Castile to keep Great Britain away from my stuff, so when I got a surprise PU over Castile (had to fight Great Britain over it, took the Highlands from them in the peace deal) I realized I might as well grab that Iron Price achievement I have never gotten around to get. Also jumped from like 6th world power to 3rd. Ottomans rivalled me so I allied the Baguettes so their Doom Legions can keep the Ottomans away. So with the power of Castile and French Doom Troopers, my current game plan is to colonize, build boats, murder Great Britain, rampage around northern Germany, rampage around Asia and finally save all of Europe by bringing a coalition of nations down upon the Ottomans and blockade all their ports for like a decade to spite them.

Dat Novgorod though