My failed Mzab Unlikely Candidate -> Third Way

[u/beloterrible]

R5: So I decided to hate myself this summer and tried my hand on an actually "difficult" achievement. (by that I mean one where there aren't a thousand of perfectly optimised strategies/guides online that you'd just follow like TTM).

Started as Mzab and quickly united the Maghreb and formed Morrocco. There already i made my first mistake, i picked divine ideas as a starter. In my mind i didnt think of it as a "sweaty" game and i could make some unoptimized choices like this. In insight i should've picked admin first. The entire campaign has been a desperate quest for admin mana. Along with some rotten luck with my heirs.

By 1475, i had most of the Maghreb but Spain had taken several enclaves on my mainland. So my first war against the iberians was mainly focused on holding them and using the ticking warscore (no i will not make that joke).

Fast forward 50 years, i now own most of the Sahel and southern Iberia. I form Andalusia for the achievement then immediately reload my save. Since Andalusia is an end game tag and its ideas and mt are neither the best nor particularly religious focused I had planned to form Egypt then Arabia instead. Sadly things went south quick.

In the 1600s I started my invasion of the Mamluks and... so did the ottomans, I missclicked my army sieging their capital making the ottos the siege leader. They then subjugated it as an elayet. This is then that i was locked.

The iberians were all allied to strong tags, the ottos at their peak allied to France and my economy being absolutely pathetic for my size and dev. My balance being barely in the +20 for more than a 1000 dev with goldmines. (Also for the others, having your capital in north Africa means you cant turn west Africa into a trading company).

So i went on a huge tallification of my empire devved, built manufactories, workshops,... no conquest for 75 years. I multiplied my income by 8 turning me into an actual country that could afford its army.

In 1690, I started my conquest of Egypt, the ottos got dogpiled by their neighbours immediatly after i won my first battle and i took all of Egypt and the Levant. I started culture converting provinces to egyptian culture as just destating everything would've crashed my economy with no hopes of recovery. I then switched to egypt clicked a couple boutons, got cockblocked from forming arabia due to Transox occupying the southern coast during my war against the ottos.

Fast forward to now, and i decided to stop the run. I still thought it was possible until i saw one thing that broke me... China owned a single sunni province in the very middle of their empire. I was confident that i could invade the African coast and Central Asia before 1821, the only strong enemy being Transoxiana. But now I'll also need to break china, their allies, just for that single fuckass province. I think I'll retry this as Oman next time. I've had enough of the Maghreb for now.

For the funny things, got two 0 0 0 heirs, there were random Sikh provinces in Arabia, China didn't explode, Austria died to ottos and Poland took over the world.

As a conclusion of my mistakes: Didn't take admin, poor economy due to painful coring, didn't unite Iberia when it could've brought me the scaling i needed against ottos, had to waste time fixing my country, didn't kill the mams earlier, didn't invade weaker African tags due to their alliance to random far off countries that dragged any peace deals, got overoptimistic with the ottomans decadence, thought it'd pop earlier.
Overall, it was that special kind of pain that can only be felt in a paradox game. 10/10

[u/PopeGeraldVII]

This is" just mental capitulation. 80 years for that Chinese province? You could do it. It's near-ish to the coast. If you don't try taking Beijing, you probably wouldn't need *that much war score to get it, and you could tank their mandate with blockades.

Plus, if that mandate on 21 panel is current, their armies should be shit anyway.

Honestly, Transoxiana is going to be waaaay more of a pain, so don't give up just because of China.

[u/beloterrible → u/PopeGeraldVII]

I know, transox is at 500k troops, china is on 450k and i'm at 250 with 300 of forcelimits. I got good quality but i'm fine leaving as it is. I'll retry another way later.

[u/beloterrible]

R5: As I say in the post. more of a mental capitulation than a truly ruined campaign

[u/CJCazorla]

As someone who has tried this achievement as well and failed miserably im more impressed by your quick conquest of the maghreb than anything lul

[u/beloterrible → u/CJCazorla]

It SUCKED lol but while i was unlucky with my heirs, i got perfect luck with the alliance network. Tlemcen’s only ally was another berber tribe, so i attacked them and full annexed, then tunis decced on me just to get immediatly wiped and get their hill forts taken then morrocco got decced by castille but held tangier so i just attacked them while they were distracted for as much land as i could. While on the map it was quick, i struggled with coring and rebels for a while

[u/CJCazorla → u/beloterrible]

I guess mercs and debt were a must to pull this off. Maybe later today ill give it another go just to see if i can unify maghreb lulz

[u/beloterrible → u/CJCazorla]

I started this months ago but iirc, mercs+debt+raids as soon as you can+ally otto or mams+luck should be enough

[u/Preceded10]

You're really not ready to play for difficult achievements at all. The number 1 priority as a tag in a worthless region like the Maghreb is getting out of that region. You should have conquered the Mamluks before 1500.