bringing this back because the EU4 expansion for the middle east and persia came out. they added a fuck ton of new provinces to the region, so while my empire might not seem impressive at first glance, just remember that in the 1600 screenshot it has 2000 development
they made the mamluks super OP so I figured I'd see what I can do. I was able to form arabia within 85 years
and here it is, 70 years later. it now spans from sochi in the north and continuously down to mogadishu. benghazi to muscat (or, dhaka not continuously)
my goal is to get all of the institutions I can (all of them after printing press don't have a specific region they must spawn in) and I just got probably the hardest one, global trade. it only spawns in the node with the highest trade value (ie, ducats that stay and you collect). usually, this is easily just one of the three end nodes, genoa, venice or english channel because they get stuck and have to get collected there. after utter domination of india (I own 9/13 of the centres of trade) I was able to get a trade income of 85 ducats a month in Constantinople.
the mediterranean trade I control, 32.5 ducats of value a month from egypt, middle east and india. 18.6 from syria and persia.
I'm working towards sending the indian/indonesian trade through aleppo because genoa/spain is taking a large chunk of it from alexandria. they have no trade power at all in aleppo so I figure I can hit 200+ ducats a month from trade that way.