After some trial and error, we get one that is good for us.
Off we go.
You know the drill for the Timurids. Lenient taxation because otherwise our vassals will be unhappy.
Advisors! Luckily we start with two scripted ones, so everything is going well. Not only that, we're filthy rich. We earn a LOT of money at game start.
Angry vassals? What angry vassals?
Generals are ok, but 3 siege? That's better than expected.
Diets get called. Important centralising early game for a good mid and late game.
Strong duchies gets picked. At our diplo limit (we get +2 slots) and -10% liberty desire. Absolute must-have for the Timurids if they want to survive.
Everything is in check. Now Uzbek won't get a chance to interfere with us.
New Timurids players beware! Your starting ruler is 67, so he's going to die soon. For the lucky people that made it without him dying before 1455...
What's your secret?
Everything is in order, units have generals and are moving in position... almost time for a war. Speaking of wars: We have cores on Transoxiana, Khorasan, Fars, parts of Afghanistan and all of Ajami lands and vassals. Tasty...
No incident so far, prepare and...
GO! And we're off.
We raise some extra men and encourage our vassals to fight.
Fars makes a beeline for Qom, we sit back and continue raising manpower. No point in sending units that haven't yet gotten their morale ticks.
The first year passes, with no incidence. We enable scutage, embargo rivals and divert trade.
We achieve a breakthrough and push quickly.
Better than expected. Time to shake up the house.
We kick Sistan out (Three province minor. No cores, so no loss. We can eat them when their allies look the other way) and eat a huge chunk of Ajam. QQ got the scraps.
Power projection! Lots of it. We get up to 90 power projection, netting us some big bonuses.
Baluchistan? Maybe later. We'll see what they do. Could be an ally.
Wait, what? Form Yuan? Hm...
That seems... interesting. Potential Timurids > Yuan > Mongol Empire, anyone? Definitely not. We lack the skill, sadly.
We pick an ally for extra stability. Nogai will do, but we'll drop them later.
Finances have stabilised, all loans paid off. 6 years have passed.
Uh... Thanks? They rival us immediately afterwards, since we're the only power big enough to compete with them.
Troops get raised, and we prepare to kick their teeth in.
Renaissance drops. No time to develop for it, points need to go into tech.
We get ready for war.
That's more like it. Mil 4, extra LD reduction.
Uzbek becomes invalid, we rival QQ.
Cool. Ready everyone?
Wait, we're missing something.
Did we turn scutage off? We did? We ready? Alright, let's get some cores.
Have at it!
We punch through their south, we move to cover our north.
We move north and west, they try to stop us by moving south. Our 3 siege general gets put on Tabriz.
Great. We have a fallback plan. If something doesn't go right, we send them this.
Players never lose. Ever. If you did, no allies were sold out or you didn't fight hard enough. We take the rest of our cores back, plus a little more.
See what I mean by Sistan will drop easily? We go in to reclaim our clay.
Bengal has Peasant's War already? That was quick. They won't survive the first 50 years.
Oh boy, I like unrest! </sarcasm>
We kill off Sistan and move to kill their separatist stack.
We can integrate our vassals! We start with Transoxiana.
We grow stronger. Everybody else falls into line.
Why would you get that trait? Just... Nevermind. We don't need it. We can insta-annex Fars and Khorasan, because we have cores on them.
Separatists, again. Begone.
We get rid of Fars and Khorasan at the same time. The empire has been united!
The question is this: Where do the Great Sultan's armies turn first?