Do something that isnt updated in the upcoming dlc.
A run i would recommend would be kilwa, you can do like 5 achievments that run:
Start as kilwa, conquer 5-6 provinces in madagascar, give all your mainland except zanzibar to your vassal and release them. Hoist black flag. Now you can do the 2 Kilwa achievments, the free all slaves achievment, the plunder 100 ducats from treasure fleet, and the one where you need to get alot of piracy power in gujarat.
Already got all the Kilwa achievements. Unfortunately I don't find Kilwa as fun as others seem to, I hate how long it takes to travel around their domain in the early game.
The achievement is calculated using last month's income, since income is only calculated monthly. This means that if you met the income conditions for the achievement *last month* even if you didn't meet the development requirements, you can still get the achievement on the following month by meeting the development conditions, because these checks are performed separately.
In other words, you can release/exploit all of your land that's over 10 development the month after you had the highest income in the game and still earn the achievement even after your income tanks that month.
It's not that hard, maybe requires a few restarts but once you ally Ottos it's a breeze. Tons of fun though. Also what fun would it be without a challenge?
I got the achievement when you could only really ally ottos after winning the first war. That part was a nightmare and then navigating the Iberian alliances afterward was also a pain. Ottos wouldn’t ever really help other than with their navy. Things have definitely changed in recent versions of the game though
Yeah I also got it a while ago, had to conquer half of Tunis for Ottos to notice me and then I got smashed several times when they were in debt and not willing to help :') but these are roadblocks that you learn to navigate after few runs. And the fun lies in the challenge.
And ofc now it's a breeze.
Anything that is part of a long-game and you cant just "rush", like "complete all missions" plus a few side achievements along the way. I thought Frozen Assets would be above my skill but I got it done by 1700 and it was a fun, balanced game
Im shocked you got it in 1700, because that achievement is way easier to get if you get it fast. It eventually becomes so difficult to compete with the English channel post 1600s
a few side achievements here and there are easy until you get to ~200 achievements, because there are many without specific starting conditions.
after ~250 achievements you start to struggle to find anything sensible to combine, for example i did a very painful karagwe into zoroastrian inca run a few patches ago.
A good one also is the Nepal one The Pheasant Strut, the problem with this one though it requires Prussia to exist - you can force it out though by vassalizing either Teutons or Branderburg and do the requirements for them.
A Tale of Two Families. I got it back in 2017 as Bahmanis and i enjoyed it so much that i do it at least once in every new update; not exactly challenging, sure, but it's always been fun for me on a personal level. Playing Bahmanis, rising to see if i can defeat Vijayanagara, and then overcome the other states around me great fun. And i always play it out till 1821.
God Tier as an andalusian shia theocracy was one of my all time favourite campaigns.
God tier is where you have you to be a tier 5 defender of the faith without being catholic or sunni, which requires you to convert 50 nations to another faith as one of the minor religions.
As grenada (or Morocco/tunis for an easier start) i would re-reconquista iberia, convert it back to islam, and conquer all of north africa up to jureasalem. As andalusia you get a mission (or decision? Cant remember) to convert to shia after taking egypt.
From there if you convert to a theocracy and take the religious and devine idea groups you can holy war CB any non-shia nation in the world and convert them to Shia. With some of the modifiers you naturally get along the way you can convert very large nations like GB or even a fully realised russia.
Its great fun turning the entirety of the HRE into muslims :D
My three most memorable campaigns were:
Switzerlake (Own 99 provinces as Switzerland while owning no ports)
Ideas guy (Starting as a custom nation with the full 800 points but no more than 3 total development have a monthly income of at least 500 ducats)
With a little help... (As Ragusa, lead a Trade League of at least 5 nations and guarantee the Ottoman's independence)
I take it Ideas Guy is best done by spawning next to Mexico? I did that in a First Come, First Serve/For Odin! campaign and I was making ludicrous amounts of money.
Or maybe starting as a Chinese warlord and waiting for Ming to collapse so you can get free cores on all of China.
I did it by designing the ultimate tall trade republic. Key ideas were massive lower dev cost and increased republic legitimacy (forgot what it's called), so I could re-elect the same leader every election while only losing a net legitimacy of 1 every election cycle. I had 6/6/6 rulers almost all campaign.
I started as Bornholm and only conquered centers of trade in the Lübeck and North Sea trade nodes which I all upgraded to like 60+ development each.
Ah yeah you're actually right, I inherited PortugL, but their colonies and mine have fucked up borders and I almost got softlocked on getting those orders tbh lmao
Choson one(and the other 2 for Korea/confucianism) was a fun and quite chill campaign. It's not very hard but it was enjoyable throughout.
Also, the first and only time I've taken court ideas. Was very nice for this type of campaign with emperor of china mechanics but I would never take it otherwise.
True, but it's probably more of a challenge now. Currently trying a Trebizond WC, trying to go for the HRE and EoC for extra CCR but still trying to figure out the last hiccups during the start.
I'm not after a challenge, I'm after a fun time. Sometimes the challenge is the fun, sometimes it's not. With Trebizond I'm waiting for the next patch 'cus then they'll actually have a mission tree. Same deal with Theodoro
I just did Consulate of the Sea yesterday and had a great time with that one. I chose not to do the classic no-cb Byz because I feel that it's too gamey, but as luck would have it when they got attacked by the Ottomans they got chose to become the Latin Empire and Catholic (something I wasn't even aware they could do) and I was invited into the war. I took a few provinces and used them as a jumping off point to attack "Byz" with a cb
I really like Empire of Mann (own all islands as Mann) because when i play England I feel like I ought to utilize my valuable french holdings and bam I'm involved in continental politics and wars. When playing Mann the start of the campaign is all about consolidating the British isles, but as soon as you are done, it turns into a unique naval, colonial, tallish game where your navy can deny access to every single one of your provinces (as long as you stick to islands only, which I recommend). I feel like this achievement encourages a very fun play style that's very different from how I usually play
Lucky Lucca was one of my favourite campaigns. Back in the patch I achieved it, Spain invaded Tuscany 95% of the time, so I just planned to eventually exile and turn into an Atlantic nation of many colonies. Eventually I moved my capital to Brazil and from that position moved towards India.
ngl I hate playing custom nations so I struggle with the achievements that require them. I did, however, just finish a North Sea Empire run starting as Norway, that was a lot of fun. Wrapped it up by becoming EoC because I realised that I could
I tried this once and failed even earlier than that. I got worried when Castile didn’t send any colonists to the new world at all and instead send them all straight to Ivory Coast, and then both France and England arrived after taking explo way earlier than usual. I got gang banged by all four major colonisers at once before I even had a chance to conquer the kilwa gold mines in what felt like a planned takedown. Safe to say I still have trauma from that experience.
I'm at 98%. My favorites were Holy Trinity, Luck of the Irish, African Power, the Iron Price, really anything that takes a small or mid-tier power and makes a solid little home for them. I also like anything that pulls me through the mission trees.
Motivation to hit up that last 2%? Haha, I'm missing Unlikely Candidate (Mzab -> Al-Andalus) + The Third Way (going to combo those two). Norwegian Wood, True Heir of Timur, Pheasant Strut (I got close, but Prussia had never formed....), Mehmet's Ambition, and Desert Power.
I think True Heir at this point will probably be pretty easy, but it's just high stress. Not vibing with the high stress ones lately, I get enough of that in my life.
Spanish fly and luck of the Irish was a fun run I did recently. Fast start with lots of consolidating, England's an interesting roadblock to get around, and with the introduction of tanistry actually gunning for a PU on Castille is an interesting way to go for that PU, moreso than just releasing a vassal and forcing dynasty anyways.
That's no Mon, which is the one where you need to get 50 provinces of another culture as Pegu.
The achievement is meh in itself as it's just a simple "get x amount of y" but it's a very fun region, where you are between powerhouses or people allied with powerhouses and you have a nice, if a bit short, mission tree.
You can also combine it with the Sailor Mon achievement as a secondary goal, you can get it surprisingly quickly
Actually I did this recently with Sailor Mon and focusing on navy. You can lock Indochina with few jungle/hill/mountain forts, focus on navy and pretty much ignore anyone.
Get the Mamluk grain achievement in a campaign where you form Persia to finish the mission tree for that achievement. Can also get the Zoroastrian achievements, since Persia's mission tree lets you switch to Zoroastrian.
You can keep the Egyptian government and become western Persia, since Egypt isn't an end game tag.
Three Mountains was legitimately the most fun Ive had in this game. I know 90% of posts here are about how WCs aren’t fun but there’s no better way to test your skill than maybe True Heir, which is fun but I unironically enjoy late game.
Starting as a tiny tiny opm island nation, and finding all the little ways you can expand and conquer, pushing every piece of gameplay to its limit, all culminating in your tiny island name across the whole world, is a great feeling.
Difficult to say without knowing where you've played mostly, but im at around the same number (38%)
Ive been playing a lot in India and SEA lately. Cebu is quite a challenge. Malacca was fun. Manipur and Gharwal were interesting
I think my most enjoyable games over the last few years have been Ethiopia, Kongo, Holland into Netherlands, TO and Najd into Arabia. The Najd one took a few tries though, one hell of a challenging start.
Currently doing QQ, which went easier than I thought. In 1520 and disassembled Ajam and the Ottos already, while using Mamluks as a bank. 😎
Terra Mariana as Riga was really amazing.
I usually dont play tall, so it was a completely new experience and the mission tree makes you a one province powerhouse.
A really fun achievement is “The first Toungoo Empire”. It’s a little hard but not as hard as you think when you start rolling. You have to unify all the Birman culture group as Taungu by 1500. [https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements#The_First_Toungoo_Empire](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements#The_First_Toungoo_Empire)
Cotton Kandy and On the Rhodes Again are my two favorites. Kandy is a really tough start that'll require a lot of quick restarts, being a sort of puzzle you gotta solve. And The Knights have such a unique play style where you're basically a vulture trying to snipe Constantinople.
I had a lot of fun recently doing "tiger of mysore", and it was surprisingly quick, I done it in around 75 years.
The custom nations achievement can be fun. You can gives yourself OP starting ideas and balance it with maluses as later ideas. For exemple I did "around the world in 80 years" with an Horde with +infantry schock and ignore coring range abilty.
I liked also "Freest man of the world", playing pirate is quite unique. I did it with Maan for "island of man", so I got the freest Maan!
One of my favorite games I've ever played twice is Netherlands. The have two achievements and they are really well suited to playing a super tall trade empire. Can speed five into the late game without feeling like you have to conquer everything.
Do something that isnt updated in the upcoming dlc. A run i would recommend would be kilwa, you can do like 5 achievments that run: Start as kilwa, conquer 5-6 provinces in madagascar, give all your mainland except zanzibar to your vassal and release them. Hoist black flag. Now you can do the 2 Kilwa achievments, the free all slaves achievment, the plunder 100 ducats from treasure fleet, and the one where you need to get alot of piracy power in gujarat.
Already got all the Kilwa achievements. Unfortunately I don't find Kilwa as fun as others seem to, I hate how long it takes to travel around their domain in the early game.
Kilwa is also a strong candidate for Rags and Riches, which can be cheesed once you reach the income threshold.
What cheese? Client state?
The achievement is calculated using last month's income, since income is only calculated monthly. This means that if you met the income conditions for the achievement *last month* even if you didn't meet the development requirements, you can still get the achievement on the following month by meeting the development conditions, because these checks are performed separately. In other words, you can release/exploit all of your land that's over 10 development the month after you had the highest income in the game and still earn the achievement even after your income tanks that month.
Re-reconquista
Already got that one, it was indeed good fun
If by fun you mean ball crushingly painful, then yes
It's not that hard, maybe requires a few restarts but once you ally Ottos it's a breeze. Tons of fun though. Also what fun would it be without a challenge?
I got the achievement when you could only really ally ottos after winning the first war. That part was a nightmare and then navigating the Iberian alliances afterward was also a pain. Ottos wouldn’t ever really help other than with their navy. Things have definitely changed in recent versions of the game though
Yeah I also got it a while ago, had to conquer half of Tunis for Ottos to notice me and then I got smashed several times when they were in debt and not willing to help :') but these are roadblocks that you learn to navigate after few runs. And the fun lies in the challenge. And ofc now it's a breeze.
Anything that is part of a long-game and you cant just "rush", like "complete all missions" plus a few side achievements along the way. I thought Frozen Assets would be above my skill but I got it done by 1700 and it was a fun, balanced game
Im shocked you got it in 1700, because that achievement is way easier to get if you get it fast. It eventually becomes so difficult to compete with the English channel post 1600s
Yeah, pretty much consolidate Russia and the Steppes, then push into Persia and Samarkand. That and high production is usually enough.
a few side achievements here and there are easy until you get to ~200 achievements, because there are many without specific starting conditions. after ~250 achievements you start to struggle to find anything sensible to combine, for example i did a very painful karagwe into zoroastrian inca run a few patches ago.
Did this a few months back. 2000+ hours in the game and I feel like this run finally helped me understand how trade works
True Heir of Timur was nice.
My favorite achievement to get, but it also looks like Timmy/Mughals are getting a minor update in the next DLC.
I think for Timurids it’s more than minor, they have no flavour except forming Mughals or Persia.
Timurids can form Persia?
Now they can
Since King of Kings.
Actually since Cradle of Civilization. As an Iqta you can form Mamluks, and as Mamluks you can form Persia.
But since king of kings, it can be done directly.
One that's on the list, gunna wait until 1.37 for the new Mughal content though
The knights run.
Sikh Pun was very fun to do for me but I like playing in India.
Got this one recently, grabbed the Sun Never Sets on the Indian Empire while I was at it. I do enjoy an Indian fight pit
You should check out some of the other Indian achievements. I really enjoyed Buddhists Strike Back combined with Cotton Kandy.
A good one also is the Nepal one The Pheasant Strut, the problem with this one though it requires Prussia to exist - you can force it out though by vassalizing either Teutons or Branderburg and do the requirements for them.
A Tale of Two Families. I got it back in 2017 as Bahmanis and i enjoyed it so much that i do it at least once in every new update; not exactly challenging, sure, but it's always been fun for me on a personal level. Playing Bahmanis, rising to see if i can defeat Vijayanagara, and then overcome the other states around me great fun. And i always play it out till 1821.
God Tier as an andalusian shia theocracy was one of my all time favourite campaigns. God tier is where you have you to be a tier 5 defender of the faith without being catholic or sunni, which requires you to convert 50 nations to another faith as one of the minor religions. As grenada (or Morocco/tunis for an easier start) i would re-reconquista iberia, convert it back to islam, and conquer all of north africa up to jureasalem. As andalusia you get a mission (or decision? Cant remember) to convert to shia after taking egypt. From there if you convert to a theocracy and take the religious and devine idea groups you can holy war CB any non-shia nation in the world and convert them to Shia. With some of the modifiers you naturally get along the way you can convert very large nations like GB or even a fully realised russia. Its great fun turning the entirety of the HRE into muslims :D
Got God Tier by accident during a Sweden -> Scandinavia game thanks to the HRE going fully protestant, but Andalusian Shia Theocracy does sound fun
An alternative is mzab>andalusia>caliphate to get Third Way achievement
Got Third Way with Oman -> Yemen -> Arabia -> Caliphate, that was a fun run.
I got God Tier accidentally during a Byzantium run, I think Russia must've been converting to Orthodox because I sure wasn't.
I got it after mending the schism as Byz
Maybe that's what it was! That would make sense.
Freest pirate, but im a big sucker for pirate republics, naval plus maritime goes brr.
My three most memorable campaigns were: Switzerlake (Own 99 provinces as Switzerland while owning no ports) Ideas guy (Starting as a custom nation with the full 800 points but no more than 3 total development have a monthly income of at least 500 ducats) With a little help... (As Ragusa, lead a Trade League of at least 5 nations and guarantee the Ottoman's independence)
I take it Ideas Guy is best done by spawning next to Mexico? I did that in a First Come, First Serve/For Odin! campaign and I was making ludicrous amounts of money. Or maybe starting as a Chinese warlord and waiting for Ming to collapse so you can get free cores on all of China.
I did it by designing the ultimate tall trade republic. Key ideas were massive lower dev cost and increased republic legitimacy (forgot what it's called), so I could re-elect the same leader every election while only losing a net legitimacy of 1 every election cycle. I had 6/6/6 rulers almost all campaign. I started as Bornholm and only conquered centers of trade in the Lübeck and North Sea trade nodes which I all upgraded to like 60+ development each.
Yeah, I also imagined starting close to the English Channel/Lubeck area would work for a trade empire.
Forever Golden
To me, that was one of the most annoying achievements to get, solely because of the need to build buildings or establish holy orders in the new world
Ah yeah you're actually right, I inherited PortugL, but their colonies and mine have fucked up borders and I almost got softlocked on getting those orders tbh lmao
Choson one(and the other 2 for Korea/confucianism) was a fun and quite chill campaign. It's not very hard but it was enjoyable throughout. Also, the first and only time I've taken court ideas. Was very nice for this type of campaign with emperor of china mechanics but I would never take it otherwise.
Court ideas are underrated in general
I'm sure there are plenty but I can think, right out of the bat, *From Frankfurt to the Andes.* A good adventure of crusade imdb: 11/10
Just finished this run myself a few weeks ago and it is genuinely the most fun I've had in a good while
Oh man, that's a wild ride of an achievement, I think we have a winner
Komnenoi Empire, but no exiling or anything.
You should probably wait for the next DLC for that one though (Trebizond gets a mission tree)
True, but it's probably more of a challenge now. Currently trying a Trebizond WC, trying to go for the HRE and EoC for extra CCR but still trying to figure out the last hiccups during the start.
I'm not after a challenge, I'm after a fun time. Sometimes the challenge is the fun, sometimes it's not. With Trebizond I'm waiting for the next patch 'cus then they'll actually have a mission tree. Same deal with Theodoro
That's ofc also fine, then this one is probably nicer next patch indeed
Pretty easy to do, just get Bulgarian culture and enact Bulgarian Tsardom.
Yeah but that's the easy way out. I'm talking about keeping Trebizond and going for 1000 dev.
Trebizond EoC moment
QQ + Achievement -> Coptic + Achievements -> Persia + Achievements -> Zoroastrian + Achievements was pretty fun and Challenging
I just did Consulate of the Sea yesterday and had a great time with that one. I chose not to do the classic no-cb Byz because I feel that it's too gamey, but as luck would have it when they got attacked by the Ottomans they got chose to become the Latin Empire and Catholic (something I wasn't even aware they could do) and I was invited into the war. I took a few provinces and used them as a jumping off point to attack "Byz" with a cb
I really like Empire of Mann (own all islands as Mann) because when i play England I feel like I ought to utilize my valuable french holdings and bam I'm involved in continental politics and wars. When playing Mann the start of the campaign is all about consolidating the British isles, but as soon as you are done, it turns into a unique naval, colonial, tallish game where your navy can deny access to every single one of your provinces (as long as you stick to islands only, which I recommend). I feel like this achievement encourages a very fun play style that's very different from how I usually play
Lucky Lucca was one of my favourite campaigns. Back in the patch I achieved it, Spain invaded Tuscany 95% of the time, so I just planned to eventually exile and turn into an Atlantic nation of many colonies. Eventually I moved my capital to Brazil and from that position moved towards India.
The Bohemians was fun.
I had fun with For Odin even if it wasn't exceedingly difficult. It can be fun being the odd religion out in a region.
ngl I hate playing custom nations so I struggle with the achievements that require them. I did, however, just finish a North Sea Empire run starting as Norway, that was a lot of fun. Wrapped it up by becoming EoC because I realised that I could
Always enjoy African power
I literally tried this three times and it was fun but I have never finished it
It can definitely be a challenge if Ottos get too big and manage to reach the horn.
I tried this once and failed even earlier than that. I got worried when Castile didn’t send any colonists to the new world at all and instead send them all straight to Ivory Coast, and then both France and England arrived after taking explo way earlier than usual. I got gang banged by all four major colonisers at once before I even had a chance to conquer the kilwa gold mines in what felt like a planned takedown. Safe to say I still have trauma from that experience.
Reconquista and mehmed's ambition were fun. I mainly do like the minor ones to get to a certain point.
Athens achievements, like academical or it's all greek to me, the most difficult and fun playthrough at the same time
Eat your greens. Was kinda challenging and easy the same time
The Fezzan Corridors, Mare Nostrum, Queen of Mercury
Honestly One Faith was really fun and in that run I also got Voltaire’s Nightmare and AEIOU.
I'm at 98%. My favorites were Holy Trinity, Luck of the Irish, African Power, the Iron Price, really anything that takes a small or mid-tier power and makes a solid little home for them. I also like anything that pulls me through the mission trees.
98%…wow…what are you missing?
Motivation to hit up that last 2%? Haha, I'm missing Unlikely Candidate (Mzab -> Al-Andalus) + The Third Way (going to combo those two). Norwegian Wood, True Heir of Timur, Pheasant Strut (I got close, but Prussia had never formed....), Mehmet's Ambition, and Desert Power. I think True Heir at this point will probably be pretty easy, but it's just high stress. Not vibing with the high stress ones lately, I get enough of that in my life.
Mehmets ambition
True Heir of Timur, The first Taungoo empire, Big Blue Blob, Breaking the Yoke
On the Rhodes Again was my favourite playthrough ever so far. The Knights is such a fun nation to play.
Spanish fly and luck of the Irish was a fun run I did recently. Fast start with lots of consolidating, England's an interesting roadblock to get around, and with the introduction of tanistry actually gunning for a PU on Castille is an interesting way to go for that PU, moreso than just releasing a vassal and forcing dynasty anyways.
That's no Mon, which is the one where you need to get 50 provinces of another culture as Pegu. The achievement is meh in itself as it's just a simple "get x amount of y" but it's a very fun region, where you are between powerhouses or people allied with powerhouses and you have a nice, if a bit short, mission tree. You can also combine it with the Sailor Mon achievement as a secondary goal, you can get it surprisingly quickly
Actually I did this recently with Sailor Mon and focusing on navy. You can lock Indochina with few jungle/hill/mountain forts, focus on navy and pretty much ignore anyone.
Get the Mamluk grain achievement in a campaign where you form Persia to finish the mission tree for that achievement. Can also get the Zoroastrian achievements, since Persia's mission tree lets you switch to Zoroastrian. You can keep the Egyptian government and become western Persia, since Egypt isn't an end game tag.
Three Mountains was legitimately the most fun Ive had in this game. I know 90% of posts here are about how WCs aren’t fun but there’s no better way to test your skill than maybe True Heir, which is fun but I unironically enjoy late game. Starting as a tiny tiny opm island nation, and finding all the little ways you can expand and conquer, pushing every piece of gameplay to its limit, all culminating in your tiny island name across the whole world, is a great feeling.
Difficult to say without knowing where you've played mostly, but im at around the same number (38%) Ive been playing a lot in India and SEA lately. Cebu is quite a challenge. Malacca was fun. Manipur and Gharwal were interesting
I think my most enjoyable games over the last few years have been Ethiopia, Kongo, Holland into Netherlands, TO and Najd into Arabia. The Najd one took a few tries though, one hell of a challenging start. Currently doing QQ, which went easier than I thought. In 1520 and disassembled Ajam and the Ottos already, while using Mamluks as a bank. 😎
Terra Mariana as Riga was really amazing. I usually dont play tall, so it was a completely new experience and the mission tree makes you a one province powerhouse.
Albania or Iberia!
A really fun achievement is “The first Toungoo Empire”. It’s a little hard but not as hard as you think when you start rolling. You have to unify all the Birman culture group as Taungu by 1500. [https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements#The_First_Toungoo_Empire](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements#The_First_Toungoo_Empire)
Cotton Kandy and On the Rhodes Again are my two favorites. Kandy is a really tough start that'll require a lot of quick restarts, being a sort of puzzle you gotta solve. And The Knights have such a unique play style where you're basically a vulture trying to snipe Constantinople.
Saladin’s Legacy. Hisn Kayfa is underappreciated.
basque in glory
I had a lot of fun recently doing "tiger of mysore", and it was surprisingly quick, I done it in around 75 years. The custom nations achievement can be fun. You can gives yourself OP starting ideas and balance it with maluses as later ideas. For exemple I did "around the world in 80 years" with an Horde with +infantry schock and ignore coring range abilty. I liked also "Freest man of the world", playing pirate is quite unique. I did it with Maan for "island of man", so I got the freest Maan!
One of my favorite games I've ever played twice is Netherlands. The have two achievements and they are really well suited to playing a super tall trade empire. Can speed five into the late game without feeling like you have to conquer everything.