The Mother of our Failures: i came so close (despite all the bugs) [UPDATE] i made it with tips from this thread, check new post at the end of thr.

[Siri]

While you might not want to go as far as Absolute until you're down to Byzantium and anyone else that's too big for a single vassal to deal with, forcing those vassals who have no exterior targets to stop warring each other will have them eventually start using all that would-be levy wages to actually develop their fledgling realm instead.

On the note of Byzantium, I recommend expanding up to Africa's northern coast before they gain a foothold on it. It's really their vassals expanding in that direction and the player will have too large an army size for them to be interested in attacking, but it's still a pain to take it from them since you have to fight the entire empire for it. If you take the land before they go there you avoid the problem entirely. I managed to avoid Byzantium completely on my second go thanks to just heading straight up to the coast after forming my first empire and conquering enough so that anyone who wanted a piece would either have to fight me, whomever held the kingdom of Egypt, or the blob of allied Muslims in the north-western part of Africa.

 

[The Founder]

I am confused why you have those kind of issues.

My time is almost up, and i know i will not make the achievement, but it was quite a ride trying to get there.

I am half the way, with 400 years still to go.

My religious conversions is solid:

I just made sure the reform to Fundamentalism Religious Attitude and put young Bori/Hausa people with Zealous (never convert away) as rulers over heathen territory. I usually help them by converting their capitol county, but otherwise I am hands off.
Fervor has been at 100% the whole time.

My biggest issue is actually spreading my culture, because I want those War Camels unlocked.

Do not be fooled by those Troop numbers. I just made a Feudal Conversion and am still in the "-9 Short Reign" range. And had to grant some too powerfull vassals indipendance, to get them out of the rebellion.

 

[Shiny Dog]

I just got the achievement and here's a few things I did:

1. Levies are cool and all, but forget about them once you reach a certain size. Specialized Men-At-Arms can beat levies 3:1 (or MUCH higher once you build enough Feudal buildings) and will ultimately be kinder on your supply.
2. To develop past the technology of cavemen, make sure your Steward is developing your capital or one of your culture's provinces at all times. Sub-Saharan Africa has extremely low development so the development traits from Learning and the one for .3 in your capital from Stewardship are a godsend.
3. Likewise, convert the Nile Delta to your culture so you can enjoy the floodplains development.
4. Don't bother Feudalizing unless you have all the Tribal Era technology. The big advantage Feudal has is the fact you no longer need to finagle succession to prevent your realm from shattering, but you can't do that until you get Early Medieval.
5. Keep Adultery completely illegal, because you can send all your vassals to horny jail for free revocation and cultural spread fun once they inevitably get seduced by literally anyone.
6. Take Ecclesiarchy because it will stave off your religion fracturing and it is overall pretty nice.
7. Take Warmonger because you get to keep your Conquest CBs (invalidating the need for Holy War), your counties/vassals will not implode from your constant war, you get to recruit your clergy, and you get human can-openers berserkers.
8. Try to become a witch and form a coven. It allows you to live significantly longer and get free lifestyle perks.
9. IF your realm shatters into three empires (like mine did), you can use the "Claim Throne on your house" interaction to just take it back in one war.
10. Like everyone said, use demand-conversion to take most of the other faiths out, though your vassals should be able to convert most (not Muwalladi) faiths over time.

 

[Bodemdrift]

I am confused why you have those kind of issues.

Well: bugs and Confederate partition conspired to give me more heirs than i could get murdered or disinherit on multiple occasions.

Also a fun mother-daughter case of the bubonic plague, they both died a week apart, daughter had kids enought to fracture my holdings from a near-continent spanning multi-empire to a small empire consisting of exactly one kingdom and one duchy. It took me two generations to get all of that back again, and ofcourse the non-matrilinear bug meant that i couldn't just use/make a Dynastic claim on them, so i had to do it the hard war, and occasionally involve claimant nephews (because of the double-death thing)

Naturally the 2-year old kid i now was had a greedy uncle claimant.

Stories happened man, it wasn't a smooth ride.
Also the endless Muwalladi uprising cycle. [BLEEP] the Muwalladi's

 

[Bodemdrift]

I just got the achievement and here's a few things I did:

1. Take Ecclesiarchy because it will stave off your religion fracturing and it is overall pretty nice.
2. Take Warmonger because you get to keep your Conquest CBs (invalidating the need for Holy War), your counties/vassals will not implode from your constant war, you get to recruit your clergy, and you get human can-openers berserkers

I went with: Communion (money reasons), Warmonger, and Mendicant Priests for conversion speed in my recent/ongoing re-try. I never saw any berserkers, though, are they a MAA type for every culture ?

 

[The Founder]

I went with: Communion (money reasons), Warmonger, and Mendicant Priests for conversion speed in my recent/ongoing re-try. I never saw any berserkers, though, are they a MAA type for every culture ?

Berserker is a trait for Martial Lifestyle people. Similar to Blademaster.
-2 Diplo
+2 Martial
+5 Prowess
+10 same Trait Opinion

 

[Shiny Dog]

Oh, and something not mentioned a lot: How to distribute Titles for Religious Conversion.
Like you, the AI can only convert counties one at a time. Dividing vassals into many, many counts (just plop a duke or king over them if you're hitting the limit) will overall make conversion faster.

 

[Siri]

Levies are cool and all, but forget about them once you reach a certain size. Specialized Men-At-Arms can beat levies 3:1 (or MUCH higher once you build enough Feudal buildings) and will ultimately be kinder on your supply.

It's true the levies aren't very good at fighting, but they still serve a purpose in that having a large military score increases thresholds for both populists and other non-peasant factions. Empires with low levy counts are much more vulnerable to civil war breaking out for this reason.

IF your realm shatters into three empires (like mine did), you can use the "Claim Throne on your house" interaction to just take it back in one war.

If it shatters due to succession (and not handing out early and making independent prior to it), wouldn't you automatically have claims on all other titles anyway? I always did.

 

[The Founder]

Oh, and something not mentioned a lot: How to distribute Titles for Religious Conversion.
Like you, the AI can only convert counties one at a time. Dividing vassals into many, many counts (just plop a duke or king over them if you're hitting the limit) will overall make conversion faster.

Also take care that you only use Zealots of your Religion (and optionally Culture).
Non-Zealots might convert to their local religions. But Zealots would rather die then convert. Also, they are more likely to force their vasals to convert to match them, making it more likely that the local religion will match your goals.

Of course, the ultimative converter is a Crusader King/Queen. Since they ignore Culture and Religious relations, they are likely to change the Kingdom as you see fit.

 

[Shiny Dog]

If it shatters due to succession (and not handing out early and making independent prior to it), wouldn't you automatically have claims on all other titles anyway? I always did.

Oh, so mine was the fringe case and not the rule!
There is actually a fringe case then. If your succession is two (three?) or more generations removed from your ruler, they do not get claims from splintering. That's what I get for murdering my granddaughter for being ugly.

It's true the levies aren't very good at fighting, but they still serve a purpose in that having a large military score increases thresholds for both populists and other non-peasant factions. Empires with low levy counts are much more vulnerable to civil war breaking out for this reason.

Very true. All I mean is that you shouldn't be afraid to fight if your MAA are very powerful. You can lose most of your holdings, your vassals' payments, and even your limbs, but your Men-At-Arms will never leave you.

 

[Ordev]

That is completely your own interpretation.

Bugs aside, i'm pretty clear in the title that the failure is mine, and any insight i have should betaken with the grain of salt that i did in fact fail. Not that you aren't salty already

There's quite a strong basis for that interpretation from reading your actual post. "The only way to play" from your perspective is almost a direct quotation, for example:

indulgences are the ONLY way to fly, once you go Feudal, [...]

The rest of the 'tips' come across in the same strongly opinionated manner, and then there are all the listed bugs which aren't bugs... If calling confederate partition's existence a bug was supposed to be ironic, that intention gets lost in the volume of very questionable opinions preceding it. To continue with the salt metaphors, the main reason I took the post at face value rather than with a grain of salt was that it already looked like an overflowing mountain of salt.

Well, cool that i know this now, but the in-game description of the achievement says you have to reform an African religion and convert all of Africa to it. Not the first time in-game text was faulty, i guess.

While the mechanic didn't align with my initial expectations either, it makes absolutely perfect sense on reflection. In game terms, religion is the broader term, it is a game concept that represents the basic virtues/sins, god names, etc. That concept is represented by the more basic elements of 'faiths' that individual characters follow. This is well explained in dev diaries, on the wiki and in the in-game encyclopedia.

More specifically, Bori and Old Bori are faith variants of the Bori religion. Both reformed and unreformed faiths contribute to converting Africa to one religion - it is still Bori. This is similar to how you can follow any Christian denomination to mend the schism in ck3, instead of some specific Christian variant.

Seeing you immediately dismiss it as yet another 'bug' or 'faulty' because you don't understand it shouldn't be surprising, I suppose, but it is still a bit sad.

(edited for some additional faith terminology clarification)

 

[Bodemdrift]

[UPDATE] I finally made it, due to some tips in this thread and a large heap of persistence i FINALLY (three playthroughs later) unified Africa, went Feudal, AND reformed the Bori Faith.

I Crushed the Muwalladi's early, kepts the Byzantines in a constant shower of Asassinations so they would cripple themselves with infighting, Took the Kingdom of Sicily in a GHW, and prevented a GHW against me by vassalizing the Papal County (though not his special title) as soon as he declared it on me..

Bugs happened this playthough (AI pathing, marriage-type bug, levy-raising bug, and another one that escapes me at the moment of writing this) too, but i managed and DAMN am i relieved.

A BIG Thank You to everyone who had useful feedback to give in this thread, it is really appreciated. Mendicant Priests and selecting Zealous vassals to control heretic counties are chiefly among them.

i can still recommend Communion, it was a GREAT help during times of war, and shortly after switching to Feudalism. And "Warmonger" helps a HEAP when you still have a lot of conquering to do and you don't want everybody to be all upset about it.

 

[Karlington]

Congratulations!

a constant shower of Asassinations

Lovely metaphor.

vassalizing the Catholic Pope

How did you do this?

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Ceterum censeo message settings esse restituenda.

Furthermore, I propose that message settings must be restored.

-Cato the Elder

 

[Bodemdrift]

How did you do this?

I captured Sicily in a GHW, and sometime after that; the Pope declared a Crusade on me to regain ONE county that one of my vassals had managed to get hold of in Jeruzalem. (You can see that little orange corner of Jeruzalem in the screenshot)

To pre-empt this, i did a 'regular' Holy War For Kingdom on the Kingdom of Romagna, and since i was literally next door to the Papace, i spawned my 30K armies there, captured the vatican and ended the war in a single siege because i also CAPTURED the Pope himself. it was GLORIOUS. Instant 100% warscore, and the Crusade was cancelled instantly without a word or a pop-up.

Proud Bori Loyalists are now in charge and converting the population as we speak.

A minor correction is in order though, the Papal county is my vassal, the Pope himself is not, i will edit the text.

Lovely metaphor.

I actually did murder just about every Basileus that reached a dangerous level of adulthood, it really helps to keep them small, and out of Africa.