Just finished what is probably my biggest game ever. Started as a custom manchu culture horde boarding Ming. United the manchu tribes, built up to 300 dev then waited for Unguarded Frontier disaster to strike Ming. They declared before it hit them, but not by much, two months in and the disaster struck. I fought Ming probably two times before he collapsed.
I had an image in my mind what I wanted to achieve in this play through.
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I went colonial but didn't focus on it, figured I could get what I wanted later once I had finished what I wanted to conquer. Almost went world conquest, I've never done one before, in the 1600s but I decided to stick to my goals. Largest empire I've ever built. All of North America is mine, as well as all of the Pacific and Indian ocean islands. Iraq and Armenia are both my vassals as well. I took Gibralter because I figured why not, only land I took in Europe. I also have Madagascar.
Europe isn't doing to bad, France went revolutionary, after our multiple wars, but they didn't do anything with it. Even with me sending them 15k gold and about 400 in subs every month. I spent the last 70 years of the game fighting the colonizers in Europe, luckily I found willing stooges to let me stage my armies in there territory.
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Africa is pretty well split between the Europeans and the Ottomans. I do own a little bit of the Gold Coast, but that is because my vassal Holland, who got ejected from Europe and had there capital in Indonesia had colonies there.
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And finally, South America is split in half by Portugal and Spain, I do own a little in the south, again because of Holland.
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This was an Ironman run and I got a few achievements, mostly little ones because I almost never play Ironman and if I do normally it is with a ton of mods. Was a very enjoyable game, but towards the end was a slog to just finish. Don't think I'll play such a blobby empire for a while, but was lots of fun.