To get the This is Persia achievement, you need to do the following:
1. Be Playing as Persia (not a released vassal)
2. Own the entire Egypt Region
3. Own the entire Anatolia Region
4. Own the Morea, Northern Greece, Macedonia, & Western Aegean Areas

Here are the Anatolian and Egyptian Regions

Here are the Greek Areas

Since Persian does not exist on November 11, 1444, the only way to get this achievement is to form Persia diplomatically. To do that, you need to own 7 specific Iranian cities and have a primary culture that is in the Iranian culture group. A few nations are not allowed to form Persia such as the Ottomans or the HRE. Specific details can be found on the EU4 wiki[www.eu4wiki.com].

While you can get an extra achievement by playing as Taberstan, I'm not going to recommend that nation for this guide since you'll probably need to fight your way through the Ottomans to get all the geographical areas for this achievement. Instead I'm going to recommend playing as the Mamluks. While their primary culture is Egyptian, which is not in the Iranian culture group, that can be changed with a culture shift. If you really want to do it with Taberstan (and it can be done), then go for it, but I'd personally recommend getting the This is Persia and Shahanshah achievements on two separate playthroughs.

Here's a quick video showing how it can be done. About a minute and 50 seconds into the video you can see a little bit of my sense of humor.

The Mamluks start out with most of the Egyptian Region and are in a position to deliver a knockout punch to the Ottomans within the first 5 years if the cards are played correctly. After losing an initial war, the Ottomans will still be dangerous but not invinsible. After losing a half dozen wars, they will be harmless. But first things first, let's focus on this first war.

This strategy takes advantage of a sea crossing game mechanic. As long as you have naval superiority in a sea tile and own one side of a sea crossing, enemy forces cannot cross the sea tile.

At some point early in the game the Ottomans will be preoccupied with a war in Europe (most likely against Albania). The AI will move nearly all their forces into Europe. If you have naval superiority in the Sea of Marmara and control Biga, the Ottomans' European armies will be trapped, and they'll watch helplessly as you carpet siege half their country.

The Sea of Marmara has two crossings (see the arrows in the image below). Initially the Ottomans can walk between Edirne and Biga no matter how much naval presence you have. It is extremely important that you make an amphibious assault on Biga as soon as you possibly can. The Ottomans and Byzantines nearly always rival each other, which means the Byzantines will not grant access to the Ottomans so they can't cross between Constantinople and Kocaeli.


To get prepared for this war, train up to your naval force limit (or a little over to be on the safe side). Make sure your naval consists entirely of galleys and transports. Sell any trade ships for some extra ducats. Hire an admiral just to be extra prepared. Load some troops onto your fleet, sail up to the Sea of Marmara, and wait for the Ottomans to get into a fight in Europe (I'm 95% sure it will be Albania). Form alliances with Candar, Karaman, Byzantium, and Fezzan. The alliances with Candar, Karaman, and Byzantium will make the Ottomans think twice before declaring wars against those countries (thus increasing the probability they fight Albania first). The alliance with Fezzan is just because eventually they'll voluntarily become vassals, and their provinces are in the Egypt Region. Don't call any of these allies into the war against the Ottomans. These alliances are for defensive purposes to make sure other countries don't get their land.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. Do not move your fleet out of the Sea of Marmara for the entire war. If you do, a 40k stack of Ottoman troops will descend on you before you have time to blink.
2. Do not ask the Byzantines for military access. Anyone you are at war with has the same access rights you do, so the Ottomans will simply make the Constantinople/Kocaeli crossing.
3. Stay out of Europe. No matter how well you are doing, the second you send any troops into Europe they will get stack wiped. Even if you have a 30k stack with a 3 star general, you see a lone 1k Ottoman stack in Edirne and you think it would be nice to squish it. It's a trap! Don't fall for it.

Here's a video showing the opening war:

In the video I took 3 provinces: Biga, Hudavendigar, and Kocaeli. My goal was to make sure that in all future wars with the Ottomans, they would not be able to use either crossing. The Byzantines might lose Constantinople, but if I already have Kocaeli and Biga at the start of any future wars all I need is naval superiority in the Sea of Marmara. Hudavendigar is nice because it is a trade node and it would be nicer that you have that income than the Ottomans.

As an added bonus, even if the Ottomans do control Constantinople they cannot take the decision to "move the capital" and get free development if they don't also own Edirne, Burgas, Hudavendigar, and Kocaeli. If you own two fo the provinces, that will permanently handicap the Ottomans.

In my actual achievement play through I did not take Hudavendigar but I wish I had. I foolishly pulled my fleet in for repairs and a second later a 30k stack of Ottomans was in Biga and about to go on a stack wiping rampage. I had to peace out immediately.

If you made it this far, stop and take a breather. You were probably outnumbered, certainly outgunned, and yet you just wrekt the Ottomans. You have a truce cool down. But don't get too comfortable - they can still pose a threat. But at least for the next few decades you won't need to worry about them.

The next phase of this campaign involves converting your state religion to Coptic Christianity. With religious ideas you get a nice Holy War CB against just about anyone, and the 5 blessings are easy to get and very useful. To get Erzincan, you should be able to threaten war with AQ or fight them depending on who they are allied to. That's your first Coptic province. Then if QQ is imploding, fight them for some provinces too. If they're not imploding, just wait until the moment is right and strike. Once things are nice and stable, grant your Coptic provinces to the Dhimmi Estate, wait a year, impose a religious tax to anger them, then revoke their provinces. You'll get a nice little Coptic rebellion started. I'd recommend destroying all your forts in the Levant region to make it easy for the rebels. Wait for the rebels to break your country, and there you have it, you're Coptic.

The Dhimmi will also have a Lebanese province - Sayda. Don't revoke that province. You don't want the Maronite Catholics going around converting provinces.

For a summary on how to do this easily, please reference my guide on getting A Blessed Nation.

For a while you can do basic expanding. Diplo-annex Fezzan. Fight Makuria, Beja, Georgia, Hejaz, or anyone else who looks weak. Just keep getting bigger wherever it's easy to do so.

This whole time the Ottomans will be plotting their revenge. They can no longer cross the Sea of Marmara, so they'll come up with backup plans. The AI's strategy will be three-fold.
1. Make sure there's military access around the Black Sea coast from Bulgaria to Georgia
2. Build up a massive fleet of transports and galleys for amphibious assaults
3. Ally France.

We'll start with the first strategy. They will try to get military access to render the Sea of Marmara a moot point. It's easier for them to achieve this than you might think. If Crimea becomes their Marche (and they probably will) that's most of the coastline right there. If the Ottomans win a war against the PLC, and if one of you expands into Circassia and Georgia, then a land bridge has been built.

The second strategy will be a pain because your fleet can't be everywhere at once - and most likely can't go far from the Sea of Marmara. The next war you fight with the Ottomans you'll see their armies landing in northern Anatolia and crossing the Aegean with impunity.

The third strategy is the scariest. Once the Ottomans have enough favors, France will answer an offensive call to arms. Facing an unholy Franco-Turkish alliance is terrifying, especially since in the 1500s / 1600s they were basically the two strongest nations on Earth.

In the mid-1500s the Ottomans did attack me and pulled in France. My advice to you is have as many allies as possible to answer a defensive call to arms. I was allied to the Byzantines, Fezzan, Candar, Karaman, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, Hungary, Castile, and by extension Moldavia, Aragon, and Naples. I was over my diplo limit. It was all of us against France and the Ottomans. I barely won. That was not an easy war. I'd recommend separate peacing out France as soon as possible. Once that happens the Ottomans will get carpet sieged, and then take whatever provinces will hurt them the most and force them to annul treaties with France.

After each war, the Ottomans should get weaker and weaker. They might get another big ally like Russia. Just start offensive wars when you can get most of your allies to back you up. Force them to annual treaties and take land. The weaker they get, the less likely the Frances and Russias of the world will ally them.

The final straw that broke Ottomans was the Holy League Wars. My ally, Austria, was leader of the Catholic League. The Ottomans were allied to Bohemia, leader of the Protestant League. The Ottomans got beyond wrekt. Their Bohemian allies sold them out. It was great. By 1600 the Ottomans were a shell of their former selves. At that point, I didn't need to go over my force limit anymore. I didn't even need help beating the Ottomans.

To form Persia, you need your primary culture to be in the Iranian culture group. I would recommend Kurdish since it's the easiest to get to so you can get a head start. It is also adjacent to Turkish culture provinces. If you systematically stomp out Turkish culture to replace it with Kurdish, that will really anger the Ottomans, but oh well, you don't get an achievement for being friends with the Ottomans. Once their cores are no longer their primary culture, you can force the Ottomans to revoke their own cores in subsequent wars.

Doing this will anger Karaman and Candar since Turkish is their primary culture. They will eventually break their alliances with you. If that happens, they probably won't have any other allies. Wait for the truce cooldown timer to expire and quickly conquer them too. You needed to get all of Anatolia at some point.

I mentioned Religious Ideas earlier for the Holy War CB - another advantage to Religious Ideas is unlocking the whole line of ideas gives you 25% cheaper culture conversion costs.

Once 51% of your development is Kurdish, shift your primary culture to Kurdish. Now in your National Decisions you should see the option to form Persia diplomatically. You need to own 7 specific cities and make sure no other nation is calling itself Persia.

Now for the final phase of this achievement. If you expand into Iran you will certainly get the 7 cities you need, but a specific list can be found at the EU4 wiki. More likely than not the Timurids would have imploded from instability and Persia already exists. If so, your task is only marginally more difficult. You'll need to destroy Persia in addition to having the 7 specific cities.

In my game Persia got some powerful allies in India. But they also had two weak allies (Oman and Shirvan) who were each only allied to Persia. I found that by continuously attacking Oman and Shirvan, separate peacing out Persia for land, then white peacing Omana and Shirvan I would get the minimum 5 year truce coolodwn timer. I was fighting back to back wars against Persia only taking breaks to core the land then rinse and repeat.

In the final war, Persia finally realized what I was doing. I was going to attack Oman, but Persia refused to answer the call to arms. Their official reason was being 1200 ducats in debt. So I payed off Persia's debt, in effect bribed them to come out and play war. The idea that a nation was too terrified to fight me, so I bribed them to come to the fight, only to completely destroy them was mildly amusing.

Here's a video showing that diplomatic trickery.

So there you have it. Start as the Mamluks, hit the Ottomans before they know what's happening, don't underestimate the Ottomans, keep expanding, destroy the real Persia, then declare yourself Persia. And then you'll have the achievement.