This is a guide to quickly getting West Africa under your control, and westernizing as early as possible. I can’t take credit for this entire strategy as I have pieced it together from other posts, guides, and fine tuned it from my own attempts and restarts.
This encompasses the first couple of hours of play time as Kongo and is repeatable about 80% of the time. The idea is that if things don’t happen quite as they should you can restart without too much time invested to get to the ideal situation for getting the African Power achievement.
Before Unpausing:
Set Mali and Ashanti as rivals. Most of the time, this will give you options for ‘Insult’ and ‘Rival of Rival’ missions you can take for easy monarch points and prestige. Take these missions as they become available. Don’t rival anyone else in the immediate area (the reason for this will become obvious later on).
Hire a Diplomatic advisor. Diplomat or Statesman is best but not essential. The main reason is the boost to Diplomatic monarch point gain. Don’t hire any other advisers for now as you will need to save up money.
Disband the cavalry unit in your army and then hire infantry up to your force limit (8). Set the military maintenance slider to zero.
The first few years:
Your main objective now is to get to Diplomatic tech level 2 so you can build cogs. You have to wait a number of years for that. Complete whatever ‘Insult’, ‘Rival of Rival’, or ‘Accumulate Money’ missions you can do in the meantime. Once those missions are exhausted pick the ‘Improve our Prestige’ mission. You will be going to war soon enough and so getting a free stability bump is nice.
While you are waiting around you will likely have to ride out a number of negative (and some positive) events. The main thing is to keep your stability out of the negatives. If rebels appear set your military maintenance back up to full, take care of them, and set it back down again.
Your other objectives are to improve relations with everyone else in the area. Benin, Oyo, and Hausa, especially. Songhai, Kanem Bornu, and Mali as well. You will have a lot of time on your hands so you will be able to max ‘Improve Relations’ with everyone. Get military access from Benin and Oyo. Try to get Hausa to accept a loan when you are just about to have enough points to research diplo tech 2. You may or may not be able to this. If they do most of the time they will renege and you can get a casus belli against them.
At Diplomacy Tech 2:
You can fire your Diplomatic adviser now and hire an Administrative one. Inquisitor is good if available as you will soon be needed to convert your provinces to Catholic. Artist is also a good choice as you will soon be taking stability hits. If neither is available anything else will do. You should have a balance of at least 100-200 ducats at this point if things went well. You will also be able to send out your idle trader to wherever you want. Don’t spend any of your other admin or military monarch points on tech for now.
Hire a general if you have not done so already. Build a couple of cogs and hire 2 more infantry units. You should have a stack of 10. You will be a little over you force limit but you should have enough money to ride this out for a while. Set your fleet maintenance to zero (not totally necessary but it will save you a tiny bit of money). Also remember to set your military maintenance back up to full.
Ferry your troops to Benin and then declare war on Hausa (great if you have the casus belli, if not you have to take the stability hit). Siege their 2 southern provinces down and then take your stack back through Benin and Oyo to the north so you only have to walk through one native province. (At this tech level native provinces are brutal.) Take one southern province one northern province that borders on both Songhai and Kanem Borno in a peace deal. (You can`t vassalize Hausa in one war anyway but this works in your interest in order to get neighbouring provinces to forge claims). Use `harsh treatment` in both these provinces to nullify the revolt risk. Don`t core these provinces. Keep your stack in the northern province you took. Decline the ‘Muslim Influences’ event if you get it for a free stability bump. You should not get a coalition against you if Songhai and Kanem Borno like you enough (which is why you should not have rivaled them and have improved relations with them early on).
From here on keep a close watch that your manpower does not drop below 25%. Be very careful of this. Peasant Wars fired on many of my early attempts.
Now begin forging claims on Kanem Borno, Songhai, Hausa and then Benin. When you have the casus belli declare war on Kanem Borno first. When you have enough war score to vassalize them, declare war on Songhai just before making peace to avoid the chance of a coalition. Now vassalize Kanem Borno in a peace deal and siege down Songhai. In the peace deal take their province that borders Mali for yourself and vassalize the rest. Start fabricating a claim on Timbuktu and then immediately sell the province you took back to Songhai.
When the truce is up with Hausa declare war and vassalize them as well. Hire a couple mercenary units out of the northern province you own. Your stack should now be at least 12. Increase it to 14 if you think you can afford it for now. You will likely need to split your stack up to avoid attrition. Now sell back both provinces back you took earlier from Hausa.
OPTIONAL STEP: Declare war on Benin and annex it. (You have to take your stack back down south through one of the native provinces). Begin forging a claim on Oyo. If Hausa has a claim on Benin, sell it to them. If not core it and then sell it them. Declare war on Oyo and annex them. Core and then sell these provinces to Hausa as well. (The reason why this step is optional is that it relies on Hausa buying cores from you. As far as I know in patch 1.5 this should work but I’m am not sure if they will do this 100% of the time. If you skip this part you can easily take out Benin and Oyo after you westernize.)
Mali, Portugal and Government Reformation:
Now you are ready to take on Mali. Make sure you stack is bordering Timbuktu. Declare war and them move your stack into Timbuktu and begin siegeing it. Your army on its own may be a little smaller than Mali’s but with your vassals it should overall be larger. Most of the time Mali will avoid directly assaulting your army and try manoeuvring behind you to assault Songhai’s provinces. This will mean they will walk through native provinces and take big loses. In any case you should be able to easily defeat Mali. In the peace deal, take Timbuktu and Cayor for yourself and have them release Jolof. Park your army and use ‘harsh treatment’ in Cayor.
Sell Timbuktu to Songhai if they have a claim on it. If not use ’harsh treatment‘ then core it and sell it to them. Begin forging a claim on another of Mali’s provinces for a future casus belli. Also forge a claim on one of Jolof’s provinces. When the truce is up declare war on Jolof and vassalize them. You will now be able to core Cayor. Do so.
By this point Portugal or Spain will almost always have a colony next to Cayor. In my experience they should not declare war on you as you are perceived as having a lot of military strength with all your vassals. You will soon be able to westernize. At any point now Portugal will ‘discover’ you. The ‘Portuguese Missionary’s’ event should soon fire. It is imperative to accept this. Soon after the ‘King of Kongo Converts’ event should fire. Accept this to. Boost your stability back up out of the negatives. You now have a reformed government. (If your new Catholic province from the first event ‘flips’ to Protestant before the second event fires you are screwed and will have to restart ). WARNING: FROM HERE ON DO NOT EVER LET PRETENDER REBEL ENFORCE THEIR DEMANDS! YOU WILL SWITCH BACK TO A TRIBAL GOVERNMENT!
Start another war with Mali. Take as many of their provinces as you can in the peace deal while keeping your over-extension just below 100%. Use harsh treatment in these provinces. Wait out the truce and declare war again. You should now be able to vassalize them and then sell back their provinces. Take out Ashanti as well and sell the province to Mali. You will be over your limit for diplomatic relations but its well worth it. If you were to wait to take out Mali (or any other tribal nations) until after you westernize then you will only be able to make protectorates of them and not vassals. Taking them all out before is much better for all the free cores.
Westernization:
In the meantime you should also be trying to improve relations with Spain and Portugal if possible. You should also have been improving relations with your vassals whenever you had a free diplomat. Convert all your provinces to Catholic if possible. Convert the culture in Anziku and Cayor. This will help make westernization as smooth as possible.
Ferry your stack back over to the Kongo homeland. In the ideal situation you own 5 provinces and they are all Kongolese culture and Catholic. (If you were not able to hire an Inquisitor it’s likely you were not able to convert your capital but that’s fine.)
At this point you may be way over 999 in certain monarch point categories. If so you will lose any amount over the cap once you hit the ‘westernize’ button. If you can research a tech and still have several hundred points left in that category then you may as well do so.
Westernize. Boost your stability out of the negatives and ride out all the negative events. Your stack can deal with any rebels in the mainland. Mail and Jolof should deal with any rebels in Cayor. (Although to be absolute as safe as you could be you could sell Cayor to Jolof just after you hit the ‘westernize’ button).
Beyond:
You are now in the western tech group, have a reformed government, and have all of West Africa under your control. It should be around the year 1500 give or take. As it is still early the European powers should not have a lot of presence in Africa.
It is mandatory that the first idea you take is Exploration. Colonize along the coast around the cape as fast as possible to link up with the countries there. Colonize as many of the African Islands as you can before the Europeans do. Colonize up north of Songhai to meet up with the North African nations. You can fill in the all the inland gaps later on.
You should be able to have 3 colonies going at any one time. If you have a great economy you may be able to afford maintenance on 4. Keep a small stack on each colony to deal with the frequent native attacks.
Stay as friendly as possible with the European nations that have begun colonizing Africa (Usually only Spain and Portugal). You can turn on them later once you have caught up in military tech. Begin integrating your vassals when you see fit to do. You will need to start freeing up some diplomatic spots soon.
My second idea was Innovative which I highly recommend. It will help you catch up on tech faster among many other benefits. My third idea was Offensive but YMMV. Also, with all the gold provinces you will be getting you may consider taking the Economic idea at some point. I did not (never do in my games as money is usually a non issue). However my inflation was over 50 by the late 1700’s.
From here it’s up to you. Manage AE by alternating your conquests in different fronts. Vassal feed as you can. Form alliances with European powers who are rivals of those who are pushing into Africa. With this turbo start this achievement is easily doable and will even allow time for a few setbacks.
I got the achievement in the 1770’s and could have done so a century earlier if not for the Ottomans. In my final game they became a massive blob as big as I have ever seen them. I was allied with a powerful Russia and Great Britain. With our combined strength we could barely hold on for even a white peace. I ended up in a war with them no less than 5 times trying to get territory from Tunis, Algiers, and Hedjaz. (The Malmuk’s had been wiped out which was actually beneficial since I was able to release them as a vassal and feed back their cores). Taking Spain and Portugal’s African holdings was easy.
This encompasses the first couple of hours of play time as Kongo and is repeatable about 80% of the time. The idea is that if things don’t happen quite as they should you can restart without too much time invested to get to the ideal situation for getting the African Power achievement.
Before Unpausing:
Set Mali and Ashanti as rivals. Most of the time, this will give you options for ‘Insult’ and ‘Rival of Rival’ missions you can take for easy monarch points and prestige. Take these missions as they become available. Don’t rival anyone else in the immediate area (the reason for this will become obvious later on).
Hire a Diplomatic advisor. Diplomat or Statesman is best but not essential. The main reason is the boost to Diplomatic monarch point gain. Don’t hire any other advisers for now as you will need to save up money.
Disband the cavalry unit in your army and then hire infantry up to your force limit (8). Set the military maintenance slider to zero.
The first few years:
Your main objective now is to get to Diplomatic tech level 2 so you can build cogs. You have to wait a number of years for that. Complete whatever ‘Insult’, ‘Rival of Rival’, or ‘Accumulate Money’ missions you can do in the meantime. Once those missions are exhausted pick the ‘Improve our Prestige’ mission. You will be going to war soon enough and so getting a free stability bump is nice.
While you are waiting around you will likely have to ride out a number of negative (and some positive) events. The main thing is to keep your stability out of the negatives. If rebels appear set your military maintenance back up to full, take care of them, and set it back down again.
Your other objectives are to improve relations with everyone else in the area. Benin, Oyo, and Hausa, especially. Songhai, Kanem Bornu, and Mali as well. You will have a lot of time on your hands so you will be able to max ‘Improve Relations’ with everyone. Get military access from Benin and Oyo. Try to get Hausa to accept a loan when you are just about to have enough points to research diplo tech 2. You may or may not be able to this. If they do most of the time they will renege and you can get a casus belli against them.
At Diplomacy Tech 2:
You can fire your Diplomatic adviser now and hire an Administrative one. Inquisitor is good if available as you will soon be needed to convert your provinces to Catholic. Artist is also a good choice as you will soon be taking stability hits. If neither is available anything else will do. You should have a balance of at least 100-200 ducats at this point if things went well. You will also be able to send out your idle trader to wherever you want. Don’t spend any of your other admin or military monarch points on tech for now.
Hire a general if you have not done so already. Build a couple of cogs and hire 2 more infantry units. You should have a stack of 10. You will be a little over you force limit but you should have enough money to ride this out for a while. Set your fleet maintenance to zero (not totally necessary but it will save you a tiny bit of money). Also remember to set your military maintenance back up to full.
Ferry your troops to Benin and then declare war on Hausa (great if you have the casus belli, if not you have to take the stability hit). Siege their 2 southern provinces down and then take your stack back through Benin and Oyo to the north so you only have to walk through one native province. (At this tech level native provinces are brutal.) Take one southern province one northern province that borders on both Songhai and Kanem Borno in a peace deal. (You can`t vassalize Hausa in one war anyway but this works in your interest in order to get neighbouring provinces to forge claims). Use `harsh treatment` in both these provinces to nullify the revolt risk. Don`t core these provinces. Keep your stack in the northern province you took. Decline the ‘Muslim Influences’ event if you get it for a free stability bump. You should not get a coalition against you if Songhai and Kanem Borno like you enough (which is why you should not have rivaled them and have improved relations with them early on).
From here on keep a close watch that your manpower does not drop below 25%. Be very careful of this. Peasant Wars fired on many of my early attempts.
Now begin forging claims on Kanem Borno, Songhai, Hausa and then Benin. When you have the casus belli declare war on Kanem Borno first. When you have enough war score to vassalize them, declare war on Songhai just before making peace to avoid the chance of a coalition. Now vassalize Kanem Borno in a peace deal and siege down Songhai. In the peace deal take their province that borders Mali for yourself and vassalize the rest. Start fabricating a claim on Timbuktu and then immediately sell the province you took back to Songhai.
When the truce is up with Hausa declare war and vassalize them as well. Hire a couple mercenary units out of the northern province you own. Your stack should now be at least 12. Increase it to 14 if you think you can afford it for now. You will likely need to split your stack up to avoid attrition. Now sell back both provinces back you took earlier from Hausa.
OPTIONAL STEP: Declare war on Benin and annex it. (You have to take your stack back down south through one of the native provinces). Begin forging a claim on Oyo. If Hausa has a claim on Benin, sell it to them. If not core it and then sell it them. Declare war on Oyo and annex them. Core and then sell these provinces to Hausa as well. (The reason why this step is optional is that it relies on Hausa buying cores from you. As far as I know in patch 1.5 this should work but I’m am not sure if they will do this 100% of the time. If you skip this part you can easily take out Benin and Oyo after you westernize.)
Mali, Portugal and Government Reformation:
Now you are ready to take on Mali. Make sure you stack is bordering Timbuktu. Declare war and them move your stack into Timbuktu and begin siegeing it. Your army on its own may be a little smaller than Mali’s but with your vassals it should overall be larger. Most of the time Mali will avoid directly assaulting your army and try manoeuvring behind you to assault Songhai’s provinces. This will mean they will walk through native provinces and take big loses. In any case you should be able to easily defeat Mali. In the peace deal, take Timbuktu and Cayor for yourself and have them release Jolof. Park your army and use ‘harsh treatment’ in Cayor.
Sell Timbuktu to Songhai if they have a claim on it. If not use ’harsh treatment‘ then core it and sell it to them. Begin forging a claim on another of Mali’s provinces for a future casus belli. Also forge a claim on one of Jolof’s provinces. When the truce is up declare war on Jolof and vassalize them. You will now be able to core Cayor. Do so.
By this point Portugal or Spain will almost always have a colony next to Cayor. In my experience they should not declare war on you as you are perceived as having a lot of military strength with all your vassals. You will soon be able to westernize. At any point now Portugal will ‘discover’ you. The ‘Portuguese Missionary’s’ event should soon fire. It is imperative to accept this. Soon after the ‘King of Kongo Converts’ event should fire. Accept this to. Boost your stability back up out of the negatives. You now have a reformed government. (If your new Catholic province from the first event ‘flips’ to Protestant before the second event fires you are screwed and will have to restart ). WARNING: FROM HERE ON DO NOT EVER LET PRETENDER REBEL ENFORCE THEIR DEMANDS! YOU WILL SWITCH BACK TO A TRIBAL GOVERNMENT!
Start another war with Mali. Take as many of their provinces as you can in the peace deal while keeping your over-extension just below 100%. Use harsh treatment in these provinces. Wait out the truce and declare war again. You should now be able to vassalize them and then sell back their provinces. Take out Ashanti as well and sell the province to Mali. You will be over your limit for diplomatic relations but its well worth it. If you were to wait to take out Mali (or any other tribal nations) until after you westernize then you will only be able to make protectorates of them and not vassals. Taking them all out before is much better for all the free cores.
Westernization:
In the meantime you should also be trying to improve relations with Spain and Portugal if possible. You should also have been improving relations with your vassals whenever you had a free diplomat. Convert all your provinces to Catholic if possible. Convert the culture in Anziku and Cayor. This will help make westernization as smooth as possible.
Ferry your stack back over to the Kongo homeland. In the ideal situation you own 5 provinces and they are all Kongolese culture and Catholic. (If you were not able to hire an Inquisitor it’s likely you were not able to convert your capital but that’s fine.)
At this point you may be way over 999 in certain monarch point categories. If so you will lose any amount over the cap once you hit the ‘westernize’ button. If you can research a tech and still have several hundred points left in that category then you may as well do so.
Westernize. Boost your stability out of the negatives and ride out all the negative events. Your stack can deal with any rebels in the mainland. Mail and Jolof should deal with any rebels in Cayor. (Although to be absolute as safe as you could be you could sell Cayor to Jolof just after you hit the ‘westernize’ button).
Beyond:
You are now in the western tech group, have a reformed government, and have all of West Africa under your control. It should be around the year 1500 give or take. As it is still early the European powers should not have a lot of presence in Africa.
It is mandatory that the first idea you take is Exploration. Colonize along the coast around the cape as fast as possible to link up with the countries there. Colonize as many of the African Islands as you can before the Europeans do. Colonize up north of Songhai to meet up with the North African nations. You can fill in the all the inland gaps later on.
You should be able to have 3 colonies going at any one time. If you have a great economy you may be able to afford maintenance on 4. Keep a small stack on each colony to deal with the frequent native attacks.
Stay as friendly as possible with the European nations that have begun colonizing Africa (Usually only Spain and Portugal). You can turn on them later once you have caught up in military tech. Begin integrating your vassals when you see fit to do. You will need to start freeing up some diplomatic spots soon.
My second idea was Innovative which I highly recommend. It will help you catch up on tech faster among many other benefits. My third idea was Offensive but YMMV. Also, with all the gold provinces you will be getting you may consider taking the Economic idea at some point. I did not (never do in my games as money is usually a non issue). However my inflation was over 50 by the late 1700’s.
From here it’s up to you. Manage AE by alternating your conquests in different fronts. Vassal feed as you can. Form alliances with European powers who are rivals of those who are pushing into Africa. With this turbo start this achievement is easily doable and will even allow time for a few setbacks.
I got the achievement in the 1770’s and could have done so a century earlier if not for the Ottomans. In my final game they became a massive blob as big as I have ever seen them. I was allied with a powerful Russia and Great Britain. With our combined strength we could barely hold on for even a white peace. I ended up in a war with them no less than 5 times trying to get territory from Tunis, Algiers, and Hedjaz. (The Malmuk’s had been wiped out which was actually beneficial since I was able to release them as a vassal and feed back their cores). Taking Spain and Portugal’s African holdings was easy.