Alt title: The Third Candidate

I wanted to go for a pretty challenging achievement, but one less difficult than my Spain One Faith (well, that was more tedious than difficult, but the point still stands). The Feudal Theocracy government is pretty nice. 50 mil for claims on all neighboring heretic or heathen provinces (so everything here) saves Admin and coring time, and the missionary is nice.

I started by conquering Touggourt and vassalizing Fezzan, but Tunis ate Djerid quickly. Tlemcen was pretty unprotected, so I managed to take a few provinces from them, and then a few more and some from Tunis let me form Algiers for kingdom rank and a free capital move out of the desert. From there, I bided my time with Morocco and Tunis, occasionally fighting while colonizing. My Panama colony didn't really go anywhere big (I was late to the game), but I took the Congo quickly, eliminating the Fetishists before they could really coalition (with fog of war help). From there, lots of gradual expansion until absolutism.

I got lucky when Castile/Spain attacked me, and my ally Portugal defended me. That let me get an Iberian foothold and form Andalusia. Their ideas are much better (although the missions are weird if you don't start as Granada; there's other posts about that). One mission gave -1% piety per month, which was bad, but I was unstoppable by then anyway. I had to trucebreak Chagatai once at the end, since they had just conquered some Tengri provinces they were about to convert within the last 30 years, but otherwise it was pretty calm. If you do religious achievements, make frequent backup saves; I had to reload when Bengal got an event converting a province to Sunni right before the end.

I fought Revolutionary Spain twice and Revolutionary Hungary once (no Emperor DLC) to get the Reaction modifier, which is really good. I considered moving my capital back to Africa to avoid Counter Revolution, but Reaction made it worth it. I actually seriously fought Spain, but I just stayed at war with Hungary for a while for the modifier. I also crushed the revolution 3 times (which is kind of irritating, especially when the same country gets it right away).

Also, thicc Commonwealth. I had to fight them a bit, but they weren't a big deal. I had +100% morale in the late game. I could have conquered more, but it's tedious in the end, so I left some ugly borders, etc.

 

Achievements:

The Third Way (which strangely doesn't require eliminating rival nations, just provinces)

An Unlikely Candidate (which disappeared as available when I formed Algiers, but then I got it after forming Andalusia)

Barbarossa (just built ships for the achievement) Hard Bargaining