Crusader Kings III

The guide mentioned above is great but here are a few things I learned after spending 10-15 hours trying to get this achievement in 3 separate games:

1. You need to obsessively manage the traits of your heirs, and even your heirs’ heirs if possible. Try to make sure they get as many beneficial traits as possible, and avoid sinful traits at all cost. One game I had was ruined when a distant heir took over after a sudden death and had two sinful traits which led to the entire kingdom hating them and waging constant independence wars.

2. In line with the above, prioritise learning and martial focus for your heirs as that is what you will be using the most. I found I didn’t touch intrigue or stewardship at all. Diplomacy is somewhat useful but, not as much as learning and martial.

3. If you are following the guide and choose Islamic Syncretism as one of your religious tenets, then make sure you prioritize converting the Muslim (Mulwalladi & Ibadi) regions in your empire as soon as possible. As the game goes on, they will get more and more difficult to convert, until near the end (1300+ AD) they will actually have a negative base conversion chance. In my winning play through it took me almost 100 years to convert just 5 or so counties and I finished in 1451, so it was very stressful! My cleric at the end of the game had a skill level of 40 and I had all the available bonuses I could and it was still taking 20 years to convert a single province.

4. When converting, get the first three perks on the left hand side of the theology track in learning. This will be good enough for 99% of counties. For the tough ones, you will also need to get the befriend perk from diplomacy, befriend your cleric which will give you a small boost. Also you can raise your clerics learning skill through events if you have the theology focus on your character. There are also some dynasty perks that will boost your conversion rate as well.

Otherwise just keep plugging away and you will get this. By about 1100 AD you should be feudalized, with a capital in Egypt and a large army. You will then just need to plug away at taking over the remaining territories which can take about 150 - 200 years depending on resistance. If you focus on only granting territories to vassals that have the content or trusting trait you should have minimal uprisings.

If anyone has questions let me know!

Something that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere really, is that there are 3 gold mines in Mali. At game start, I immediately declared on the Duchy of Manding, which owns 2 of the provinces that you can build them, and saved up cash to make them. Each one gives you 5 gold per month, and having all 3 can make your campaign really easy, since you'll have thousands of gold constantly. I found myself just mercing up every time there was even a slight chance of losing a war, and I won easily. I'm almost done with my campaign now. I only have the last couple of provinces in the Horn of Africa, and I'd have to say this achievement was probably easier than some others with those gold mines.