The Spice Must Flow- Success!
R5: Just finished The Spice Must Flow achievement in year 659.
I recently made a post about not being able to complete this achievement when I had formed Erythraen League. I don't know what went wrong, because apparently you can still get this achievement as EL, so maybe I just missed a spice territory somewhere. In fact, in this game, I thought I had all of the spice territories, but the achievement wasn't unlocking, so I decided to just keep playing and conquer more territory, and it worked! Somehow I had missed a spice in Arachosia province, and as soon as I conquered it, the achievement unlocked.
If anyone wants a mini guide on how to get this achievement:
Reroll the start until you get a ruler with a good martial skill. Yeah, maybe cheesy, but this makes the early part of the game much easier.
Hire mercs and conquer all nearby macrobian cultures, which will quickly give you a good sized levy early in the game. I then went after Arabia Felix and eastern Arabia, integrating Sabean and Hadhrami cultures. I choose to adopt Arabic religion because I wanted a deity with the free province investment apotheosis, which Waaq does not have. This isn't necessary though, you can just keep your starting religion.
I then went after Aksum and then Kush, integrating Meroitic culture. I then used the Land of God mission tree to get a claim on the Maldives, made them my client state, and integrated them, giving me access to attack southern India. I then abandoned the Land of God mission, because it requires you to form Punt, which changes your color from neon blue to orange. I like orange, but I like the neon blue better, so I stayed with it.
Also, if you continue with the unique mission trees, in order to get an empire government, you need to go through a civil war, which I wanted to avoid. By abandoning the mission tree, you are able to get an empire government though a decision which does not require a civil war.
This is the hard part, because now your only real targets are Ptolemies, Seleukids, or Maurya, all of which will be much bigger than you. If any of them go into a civil war, use that opportunity to attack them. I had to wait for the Maurya event where they fall apart, and then I attacked them, starting from northern Arabia, into Gedrosia, and heading east from there.
Eventually I was able to fight and beat the Ptolemies, and then went west taking all the spice in north Africa. I saved the Seleukids for last, as they were by far the strongest and they never had a civil war.
All in all a very fun game. If you don't have the achievement yet, I highly recommend it!