This is a simple guide to forming Persia and becoming the Mythic Messiah of zoroastrianism, be warned however this will take some time and effort, and may require several restarts, but if everything goes right, you should be able to form persia, and when you do, you will more than certainly become a world super power.









(this is earliest start, all dlc up to conclave enabled)
(as for needed dlc, conclave is a must have, and i would suggest having legacy of caesar)

Now before we being it is important to know how important starting position is, and from my experience, it is the zoroastrian faithful in Tarebistan, they are by far the strongest is persia, (at the time) and have good casus bellis in order to grow. the Abbassids can easily revoke all your titles, but this way you have more options to defend them.

As soon as starting, begin a de jure war land as soon as you can, rerolling your starting leader for high martial is benificial, for most of the game you will be at war, so opting for martial is neccessary. good leaders are vital for the infancy of the new Persian empire

now after this is done pause and look at your satrapy and stewardship, martial is far more valuable, but whatever land you can hold, take, and give land to your son as well, so he can amass wealth, also, sending your grandson away as a mercenary is benificial so you, grow his band of brothers to a point where he is making generous gold, eventually, when they have outlived their usefullness, you can disband them and collect the fortune they have accumulated by imprisoning and banishing the current leader (but this can fail so try not to rely on this method)

now the next step to surviving the Abbassids, is not to fight them directly (they'll get theirs later) but to use political loopholes and tomfoolary to weaken the empire, allowing you to grow, and stopping the Caliph from halting all your hard work.

you can do this in a number of ways, but the most prevolant is to increase the power of the council through factionalism, this is by far one of the most effective ways to distract the Caliph from the horde amassing in the Persian region (you) this will be a constant battle of court intrigue till you have sufficient power to sway the Caliph from risking civil war. a number of factors can increase the chance of empowering the council, and weakening the Caliph calling for favors, becoming a counciller, sheer and brute strength. whatever you use, it is alright.

the rebirth of persia will not be a flaming spectacle, but rather a long and drawn out duel of the minds, even when the Abbassids are weak, and you are strong enough to gain independence, think again, the Abbassids can always be weaker, and you can always be stronger, independence should only be a last resort until you are immensely rich, and powerful, if for some reason you are given independance, and are still to weak to take on the Abbassids, swear fealty to the Caliph, so that you can continue draining the empire from the inside (Empires are never born out of miraculous events)

now in the early stages of your political snafoo, it will be important to maintain, and even grow your own personal economy. it wont be till much later that any of your vassals pose any real threat, and most of any conquerable land is weak and divided. build your economy in your capital of mazandrian, but do not get to comfotable, mazandrian cannot be the capital of the new persian empire for too long. though it makes a good staging ground (and dont be afraid to build new castles in hopes of raising gold income) but the province of Rayy is the real goal.

Rayy, at first is a normal province just south of mazandrian, but its potential is far above any other province, that should be your first conquest and make sure to move fast, so no one else gobbles it up before you. i wouldnt say it is essential, when Rayy is fully functional it is a powerhouse, with all args under my control I made a wopping 40 gold a month, and could field 16000 soldiers from that province alone.

After you capture Rayy, (we're assuming you did because Rayy the heart and gem of my empire) build castle towns, and more castle to build MORE castle towns, after you have a steady supply of gold you can start building military building, remember not to forget to weaken the Caliph, a single moment and you can lose everything if the Caliph is not kept in check

these next steps are pretty self explanatory, begin capturing persian de jure territory in hopes of forming the kingdom of persia. try to avoid capturing zoroastrian held provinces as they will quickly join your cause after you become king.

as confident as you might get, make risk taking as minimal as possible, even at this point a single mistep could mean the end of all your progress.

but so long as everything goes according to plan, forming the kingdom of Persia should go pretty smoothly, there will be bumps here and there, but do not fret, time and patience will win any battle

but no matter how strong you get, DO NOT neglect the systematic weakening of the Caliph, the power of the council will be in constant flux, and if you do not maintain the steady flow of weakness the caliph may decide he's sick of your **** and shut down your entire operation after forming persia, go about capturing every province in the de jure territory, capturing it later will be aa hastle.

Assuming all has gone according it is time to begin final preperations for independence. be sure your economy is booming, your vassals like you, you have at least half the size of the Caliphs forces, and ALL OF PERSIA MINOR IS IN YOUR CONTROL, (holy wars for one county are bloody and rewards are few)

When you feel you are ready start a faction for independence, and try to get as many states to join as possible, call in favors, send gifts, sow discontent, you want this to be a huge blow to the Caliph, lest he reconquer persia three years after independence. if you end up in a vulnerable position, or feel the Caliph is still too powerful, rejoining the empire is a viable option (just more oppertunity to weaken the empire)

at this point you will most likely have another adversary to worry about, the Byzantines.

whence you are freed from Abbassid oppression you will have a new threat, the ficken greeks, seeing as though the ottomans haven't kicked the **** out of them yet, it's up to the persians to put the pretenders in their place, as for the caliph, though he is certainly much weaker, underestimating him can be fatal

though the byzantines are dangerous, they are not a priority, do whatever you can to please them and avoid conflict, hopefully they will like you enough, or be to busy with the muslims to reck all of your hard work

as for the Caliph, you have a bit more leeway, even with more than half of the empire fragmenting, the caliph will still hold immense power not to be trifled with, (unless you are a mega badass politician and fragment nearly the entire empire, but still listen to the rest) The best, and most likely only way to gain any land, is through holy wars, now any one who has faced any of muslim nations know, that when it comes to religion, the muslims become mega death machines and literally destroy everything, so unfortunatly, you will have to resort to more neferaious options to gain land.

the best way to pull land from the caliph is to cause civil wars, yep send you counciller to sow discontent in the caliphs most powerful vassals land, if and when a revolt occurs use this option to gobble up whatever land you can, just be sure to be quick, because a unified muslim force is basically the end of all things. do this until you can survive a direct assault on the caliph, but be sure to avoid captring muslim holy sites, jihads are the bane of my exsistance.

finally, while dealing with the muslims, make sure to use whatever you have at your disposal to weaken them, no matter how weak they get, they always find a way to **** **** up this can be in a number of ways, help fund a crusade, attack at their weakest point, encourage foreign hostility.just make sure to never stop weakening the Abbassids

if you have gotten this far, you have survived the infancy of persia, recollected all of the lost land, bested the caliph and his immense power, survived the many, many, MANY disasters that i cannot account for, it's time to finally form the persian empire.

doing this grant a handful of useful gadgets to use on your conquests, first and foremost, you finally get a religous head, and he will more than likely declare a great holy war soon after, this is your moment to consolidate power and spread zoroastrianism, things from here are pretty simple, and the tightrope you have walked is finally a clear road to victory, though things seem good, do not let your guard down, there are still plenty of things that can bring your empire down, the really fun thing about forming persia is that there is always a challange to be faced. unfortunatly, the biggest one will be defensive pacts.

after you can finally beat the Abbassids, you, like anyone who finally defeats an unyielding juggernaught, can go a bit overkill, and people notice this, defensive pacts are not really a danger, more like an obstacle that you just have to wait out, the byzantines will still be tough, and will most likely rival or surpass your power, but they are for the most part, docile if you keep an eye on them, now all that is left is to capture the provinces that you missed in the great rebirth, and believe me it can be a pain. (took me almost 100 years to capture two provinces and a city within my own borders) then, at long last you can proclaim yourself Messiah, and go bannanas, capturing anything and everything, the persians are back, and their back to stay

just in case the immense size of muslim armies didnt faze phase you, the muslims are also basically supersoldiers when it comes to combat, when it comes to to a one on one fight they almost always win in my experience, basically imagine spartans, but like, 10000. never assume a one one fight will succeed, because nine times out of ten, they don't. in addition to their massive numbers, and outlandish combat ability, the muslim armies recover insanely quickly, battles against them are near pointless because their army always returns, just as strong as before


honestly, the best, and fastest way to win against the Muslims, and eventually the byzantines, (and most other enemies) is to capture as many counties as fast as you can before the main force arrives, also using attrition against enemies is a viable strategy as well, never try to go one on one with an enemy army, it is not worth it. always rush to take the war goal, then the capital, than surrounding land, use you spymaster to set up spynetworks in enemy territory so you have more of a warning on incoming enemy armies

at the height of persian power, the numbers of the persian armies, and good use of strategy, the Persians are unstoppable

this is data collected from my various playthroughs and attempts at forming persia, i do not however own any of the pictures, i basically just plucked them from google images, so don't sue me