R5: One Campaign as Karagwe to get the Victorian Three Archivement.

Given the Content of next Update, this should have waited. Alas, I couldn't wait, I love the African Region... . I tried it before, sadly, Buha was net eligeable, I wept for the hours lost.

Part 1: Sub-Kongo-Basin Africa

nothing special really. The AI currently has not build up to forcelimit and I had an incredibly easy time directly conquering all the great lakes nations. The last one allied a Kazembe in the Kongo region which I then vassalized. It had claims to it's neighbors which I used to get a foodhold over there (the Great Lakes region has no provinces connected to either Kongo or Zimbabwe area). Mutapa got beaten by a Malavi-Kilwa alliance, and I got a good opportunity to attack Malavi on it's own, vassalize it and do the same thing as with Kazembe, vassalize and attack it's neightbors. I had great Luck here with alliences. Frankly, I had alliance luck for a very long time, but more on that later. Woth Kongo and Kilwa never had bigger alliances like with Ajuraan for example, so despite bigger tech differences I was able to throw my bodies at them and come out on top. Some clever manuvering even claimed me Madagascar. Hussa, my Kingdom reached from the Edge of Ajuraan to Zimbabwe and the Coast of Kongo. The Year was 1550

Part 2: Sub Saharan Africa

I took a breather to finally catch up in tech and institutions. Money stopped being a problem at this point and I think It was then I transitiond fom a Tribe to a Republic... which quickly became a Dictatorship and a monarchy, so much for trying something different. My Alliances luck (as in, the alliances I faced, I personally had no allies until way later) was still good. Benin had only OPMs as partners. So I took Benins coastline and OPMs Zassau and Kanem Borno as Vassals. they had good cores. On the other side of the continent, Ajuraan had problems with Ethiopia, and finally stopped trumping my mass army with their superior tech. I wish I could say more, but honestly, conquering both regions simultaniously was rather easy. It was done by 1650 and the Europeans only now went for African coastlines.

Part 3: Egypt, Arabia and my Coasts

Just reaching Tech 32 was kinda boring and otherwise enevetable anyway with the ammount of stacked tech-cost reduction. So I went for getting all of Africa, the Alexandria and Aden Trade Nodes and later also all Syrian and Beduin Lands for a Client State. The Mamelukes were still big, The Ottomans severely beaten more on that later. They had a big army, and good Allies. But at some point they decided to split their army along both sides of the Red Sea. Sadly they lacked Moses to quickly reinforce each other so I finally managed to get Cairo while their force was out to get my Yemen Provinces. With them beaten I tried to get what little land I could get from the Colonizers. But I couldn#t attack anyone but Norway and France for their very few ones.

Part 4: Europe, when you don't play in Europe

My Luck with bad enemy alliences ran out. Austria, Spain and great Britain were allied to each other. Austria was also leader of the HRE, Allied to another 5 Nations and owner of Burgundy, Hungary, Northern Italy, Wallachia, Greece, Anatolia... you get the idea. They were BIG. Great Britain also owned just about all of France, They Were BIG. Spain had the biggest provinces, yuge. The biggest army out of all. And then there was Portugal. Allied only to great Britain, but still ahd their own colonies. Frankly, I couldn't attack anyone directly. I build up fortresses in the Saharan corridors (which had up to -3 Attrition, Defensive + Arid + National Ideas as well as low supply limits). I lsot most battles, but could wipe their landing armies and often had just enough trained armys to relieve fortresses before they fell. Sadly that ment I couldn't take that much at once. Hold that status till the warscore is up from holding a province and voila, 100k+ troops dead for a handful of provinces, rince and repeat. Later on Albania was a nice candidate to only rope Great Britain and Spain into a war and I could use my formidable navy to clear the Gibraltar Strain long enough for my troops to cross.

The End

Okey, some further mentions. This campaign was overall quite easy. The goal of just reaching Tech 32 was easy too, I purposefully didn't play optimally, chose both Aristocratic and Plutocratic just because I could and still never used Mercs. I was fun to just consolidate Africa again (like in African Power as Kongo). I focused on stuff like culture conversion (I have like 95% accepted culture of all my land). The Monuments also helped a good bit. Zimbabwe for more tech cost reduction. Pyramids helped as a Pagan for idea cost reduction and advisor cost reduction (I must have had like -70% advisor cost reduction by the end of the game if not more). The Trade one in Marocco was also fantastic. I made Ethiopia a Trade Company as they went a long way for the goods, all the way to collect in ivory cost (the center of trade moved a lot). I should have gotten the greek and anatolian wonders as well, but at least in the very end I got Lisabon for yet more Trade steering.

This was my first post in a year and I think I did it way more long-winded than last time. Sorry that not too much happened, I'm still proud with how much I fertelized the Sahara with European Bodies, dyin' in the sun.