Challenge: Earliest Religious Victories

it's can only catholic Fatimids because orthodox Fatimids win in 1238AD :D
P.S. or Hindu Fatimids
 
Ghaznavids Hindu 1196AD score 22270
Razed Al-Uqsur and Al-Minya with pillage all farms and plantations in Egypt, razed Wasit in Iraq, Penjab beating Thrace with 16+14pop:)
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The development of the Middle East:
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Decided to have another crack at one of these records, very well pleased with the result!

The most interesting starts for the crusaders are when the Buyids managed to collapse the Abbasids. This doesn't happen all that often, but when it does it leaves the near east in a much more interesting state, with most of the wonders unbuilt and especially the Spiral Minaret. I eventually got one of these starts, and decided to attempt to make Tarsus my capital. It worked.

Here's an early screenshot after the flip of Edessa/Antioch:
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Also razed Sis. Start research on Assymetric Warfare for the free Great Spy. Tarsus built a Work Boat (with some chopping) followed by Spiral Minaret. Antioch built enough Catholic Missionaries to spread Catholicism to all of my cities, as well as a settler to found Coxon to the north of the ruins of Sis. Edessa (and later Tripoli too) built additional Trebuchets. Tarsus later built Narekevank also for the free Priest specialist and was my Great Saint factory for the game, in between building the occasional missionary.

Next target was Rebel Tripoli, followed by the razing of Hom and Damascus. While it wasn't my target, seeing Tyre controlled not by KoJ but by Yemen and defended by only a single Skirmisher was too hard to resist. The final city captured in the early stages was Rakka (that's the Zengid name, can't remember what it's original name was). Then time to heal all of my troops and send the siege units and Sword/Axeman units south to attack Jerusalem and the Norman Cavalry up to Edessa to repel the Zengids.

An important step was to declare war on the KoJ a few turns before the Zengid spawn. Whilst this annoys the Christian civs, it doesn't make them so upset as to close their borders. But what it does allow is the Islamic civs to open their borders to you! Instant UHV condition met, with Abbasids, Seljuks, Fatimids and Rum all signing OB agreements.

Did some one-sided trading for cash with Abbasids to get them as pleased as I could (Cautious I think it was) before the Zengid spawn. And this did the trick, with the Zengids starting at war with the Abbasids (as well as me). Crucially, this means that about half of the Zengid cavalry units get tied up fighting around Mosul against the Abbasids.

Quickly retook Rakka, then killed all of the Zengid units which were outside of city borders (quite a few actually). Brought up the newly built Trebuchets from Edessa and Tripoli towards the Zengid capital and softened up the defenders for a while. After killing most of the defenders in the capital (but not all of them), the Zengids were willing to capitulate - which I accepted

In the meantime, my southern troops took Jerusalem leaving the Kingdom of Acre with just Acre (Gaza had been captured by the Fatimids). Because Acre doesn't start with Catholicism, KoA switched to Orthodoxy. After chasing down all of the KoA units outside Acre's walls they capitulated too.

In order to stablise the KoA, I then declared war on the Fatimids and returned Gaza to my vassal. I wasn't planning on waging a big war against the Fatimids, but when I realised that their ongoing war with the former KoJ had weakened them to the extent of not having any attacking units left, I decided to try and capitulate them before the Ayyubid spawn.

I rushed the northern troops down as fast as possible and captured each of the coastal Fatimid cities in turn. Softening up Cairo for a while and eliminating most of the defenders was enough to get them to capitulate, just before they collapsed two turns later - in spite of my returning their cities to them. Anyway, the 3 vassal victory condition had been met.

Most of the remainder of the game was spent building Christian Missionaries as quickly as possible and generally increasing the number of Catholics in the world. Rum collapsed after losing all but their capital city, which I took from the Rebels just before the Byzantines got to it. I captured Medina and gave it to KoA and captured Mecca for myself ($$$). My Zengid ally captured some of the Rebel cities in Egypt just before the Ayyubids spawned and were duly crushed into submission by my troops.

I only used one Great Saint to convert cities (used him in Mesopotamia) while using regular Missionaries to spread Catholicism to the most populous Byzantine/Armenian/Egyptian cities.

I forgot to use my Great Spy to trigger a Golden Age until right near the end actually - probably should have done this much sooner and I reckon would have managed a better time if I had. My second Great Saint was one turn away from spawning in my capital when the URV was triggered.

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Nice quick and quite easy game. The conditions triggered at almost the same time, although, I believe I had the most populous province few turns earlier than the others.

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I didn't get much help from other Shia states, but I did conquer few cities with settled Great Saints (mainly Iraq); last one being in Damascus, although Cairo would've spawned one on the next turn.

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Surprisingly this wasn't done yet, but it turned out to be quite simple. Just sent Sufis to Byzantium and turn everything in Africa and Mesopotamia to Sunni. The 50% Sunni was the last condition to trigger.

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Starting Archers headed south to conquer Soba while starting Settler moved north to found Aswan 1NE of the Camel. Had to be careful not to found Aswan too soon - it is important to wait for first health resource to be hooked up to avoid instant starvation. Built lots of workers in all cities initially to get economy going. Eventually squeezed out another Settler to found Meroe. Beelined Long-Distance Trade and hawked it to Abbasids and Yemeni for several early techs each. Set research to Crucible Forge in order to enable the all important Engineer specialists.

Next phase was to take down the Fatimids. A combination of a trio of Catapults, a triple promoted Spearman and some suped-up Archers slowly annihilated each Fatimid city. Stopped the attack twice to sue for peace and gain a technology (think I got Cash Cropping the first time and Water Management the second time). I kept the two coastal cities but razed the rest of Egypt.

Healed up my troops and began to work my way north through the Levant. After taking Jerusalem, I bypassed Acre and instead took Tyros which had 2x Christian relics. Settled these relics in Tyros, which quickly swamped Acre's culture and flipped the city (disband). Next stop was Antioch, which burned a few Catapults but nevertheless fell to my troops.

Alexandria built it's own Cathedral. Antioch just managed to build an Orthodox Church in the late 1070s also, at which point I used my first Great Engineer to rush a Catherdral. Two turns later Antioch flipped. Jerusalem had to chop-rush using 3x forests and only just managed to build its Cathedral one turn before the flip to independents (and then KoJ). I only just learned Crop Rotation to enable chopping in the late 1070s.

My first Great Person had been a non-Engineer (can't remember which type, it was used on a Golder Age at any rate). My 2nd and 3rd were both Engineers who were born in my capital (with +100% :gp: National Wonder). My fourth was a free Great Scientist from Algebra, but I never got to use this one on my 2nd Golden Age as it turned out. After building 3/4 Cathedrals, I slowly advanced my 6x Catapults and various Swordsmen/Archers/Spearmen all the way to the eastern coast of Bulgaria. My final Great Engineer was brought via sailing ship to the same location.

In order to get friendly relations with all of the Christian civs, I had to work overtime to get the Crusader states across the line. I conquer-liberated Homz and founded-liberated Rakka to PoA and founded-liberated Gaza and a city in Trans-Jordan to KoJ. Voila, 5x friendly relations. DoW against Byzantines immediately thereafter.

Unfortunatley the end was a little anti-climactic, because there was only a single Swordsman defending Constantinople. :crazyeye: Had to wait 9 turns for Constantinople to come out of anarchy, then the Cathedral was rush-built for the URV. If I had planned it better, it might be possible to use a Great Artist to eliminate this anarchy period and achieve a better time. Needs more thought/planning however.
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Again the hardest part was to find friends, but after getting all of them things get easier and with Safavids multipliers it is easy to cruise to victory. My friends were Georgia, Cilicia, Byzantine, Portugal and vassal Oman.

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Ghorids Hindu 1432AD, score 9059
Nothing new in the strategy and tactics, vassal - Sindh, capture Kerman with SM after mongols invasion.
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Fatimids Catholic 1181AD score 31489
Start for Domination Victory, but near 1100AD Makuria and Rum peaceful vassalizated, other simple:D
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