OFFICIAL THEME
The expansion of the Black Sheep continues in the North, South and West. Only the East is terrifying, with the contact finally being made with the Timurids. Things are going to be difficult.
I started off by clearing Ajam off the face of the Earth and gained a bunch more Shia provinces, including one from their ally Biapas. This proved to be a pretty easy war, we're in the clean up phase of our early expansion, though the appearance of pretender rebels didn't make it too easy. After Ajam and their vassal Luristan were annexed, we turned on Musasha, taking their one remaining province, and adding another vital Shia province to our nation. Our religious unity's looking pretty good now! A whole 57%
The west proved rather more exciting, with Austria, Hungary, Venice and the Mamluks all attacking the Ottomans. Sadly, I didn't have a direct claim against them, as opportunistically joining in was somewhat tempting. But at least I managed to jump on the White Sheep, Aq Qoyunlu, as they weren't going to be defended by the Ottoman menace. I took the one direct province I had a claim on, and fed their last two Armenian, Coptic provinces to my Armenian, Coptic vassal Bitlis. Take that history.
Moving north, I fed Georgia three of their cores in Imeriti. I'd have taken all of them but I really couldn't be bothered hunting down the Imeriti and Theodorian army. A quick war with Shirvan followed, directly taking their last province. This province is in the European continent, which unlocked the 'Present on Two Continents' Age Objective. Just needed one more to have access to a Golden Age.
In between all these wars, I dev pushed the province of Baghdad until I spawned the Renaissance there. Just need the money to embrace it now, and loaning up for it is pretty tempting. But, we might be able to get the money another way. The Timurids finally pushed their way to my border, smashing the poor defenceless nation of Mazandaran, which was truly a crime (getting to them before I did). War with the Timurids seems inevitable, and it'll be a hell of a clash.
Provinces Gained: Kirmanshah, Korra's Biceps, Shushtar, Malamir, Astara, Mardin, Dagestan.
Provinces Gained for Bitlis: Erzurum, Mush
Provinces Gained for Georgia: Guria, Imeriti, Odishi.