Not so sad a state...
As Portugal, have a colony in Brazil and in Africa.

This achievement may look like one of the easier ones to get, but did you know that there's an even easier way to get it? This step by step guide will show you how to achieve it by the year 1462, some 30 years before Columbus!

The example pictures in the guide are of a patch 1.22.x game with all expansions enabled, but you must have El Dorado in order for this strategy to work. The Cossacks is also a useful DLC to have enabled.

Anyway... onto the guide!

There are several important things you need to take care of before unpausing.


1.) In order to explore you need 3 transports (cogs) OR 3 heavy ships (early carracks). However, you have 4 heavies at the start of the game.
Split one of the heavies off your main fleet and disband it - it costs roughly 0.5 ducats per month to maintain 1, which doesn’t sound like a lot but can impact your income quite a bit in the long run.



2.) You will also start with between 9 and 10 cogs. Split all but 3 of the cogs off to create a new fleet (these are the ones we don't need).
Then, merge the other 3 cogs with the 3 carracks to create your exploration fleet, and assign your explorer to it. Leave the rest of the cogs mothballed in port.


3.) Your trade fleet can then be used to hunt pirates if you own Mare Nostrum, to prevent Morocco from raiding your coastal provinces.
Otherwise, use them to protect trade in the Safi node (where they will profit most).

4.) Then, explore West African Sea first using your exploration fleet (NOT the coast - this is important).




1.) Lower army maintenance all the way to zero. You’ll want to do this as you don’t want to get involved in any wars while you build up Monarch points.



2.) Disable “Automatically raise maintenance while at war" in the Military tab. This is to make sure that if you do get called into a war you won’t be paying unnecessary amounts of money maintaining your army again.




1.) Most of the time Aragon, Granada and Morocco will prefer to rival you. You’ll only need to set 2 rivals to avoid incurring a penalty, so you can pick any of them.
Granada is a suggested rival as when Castile annexes them, you’ll get 10 Power Projection for eclipsing them.



2.) Getting the achievement in this way depends on forming a royal marriage with Castile (and then an alliance, once they offer it to you after unpausing). Not doing so practically spells death for your speedrun.
Castile are going to be your god protector for most of the early game, and they will always be friendly towards you at the start (due to Historical Friend).



3.) Next, break your alliance with England. There is no way you’ll ever need it, and they could bring you into a war with France if they feel like it (which you don’t want). Don’t bother trying to break the royal marriage since England will do it for you.




1.) Destroy the castle at Ceuta. You’ll pay 1 ducat less in maintenance, and the province is already useless to you anyway, being one that you can’t convert without accumulating loads of missionary strength. It also won't impact on the enemy's warscore as much as if it were a fort.



2.) Additionally, destroy the fort at Evora - you just don't need it.

2.) And mothball the one at Lisboa. You won’t need it unless you have both Mandate of Heaven and Mare Nostrum, but it could be useful if you do find yourself dragged into a war.




1.) Your national focus at the start of the game (if you have El Dorado) will be set to diplomatic. You want to keep it this way until you get the achievement, since you want that diplomatic power to get the first two ideas in Exploration set.
Get level 1 advisors in admin, dip, and mil (can be any bonus you want). You won't be getting enough income for level 2 advisors, so don't bother with those. An example is the picture below.



So, those are the important things taken care of, but there are a few more things to talk about once you start the run.

1.) Whenever you get an event which involves a loss/gain of stability, monarch points, etc., refer to this priority list. Ideally, you do not want to lose any monarch points as those are necessary for you to unlock techs/ideas.

The bonuses ranked highest to lowest priority:
Monarch points (Highest)
Stability
Prestige
Everything else (Lowest)

2.) Note that you don’t actually need to have made your colonies grow at all for you to get the achievement. You simply need to have sent a colonist to each of them.

3.) Once you explore the West African Sea, explore next the West African Coast so that you are able to colonise Cape Verde (the islands off the west coast of Africa). Cape Verde is a preferred place to colonise as they have no natives, while still considered to be in the Africa region, meaning no uprisings while you wait to get a colony in Brazil.



Once you’re done exploring, leave the exploration fleet mothballed in any port and unassign the explorer so that he has a lower chance of death. However if your explorer does die before you manage to reach the Americas you should reset your run.

4.) For those who don’t own the Cossacks DLC, Castile will almost always attempt to call you into their war with Granada once your truce is up with them.
If they do call you in, accept, but you do not need to raise maintenance or do anything with your troops since Castile can usually win the war themselves. You may want to keep all your navies including your trade fleet in port however, to stop it from being attacked.


1.) Go to Castile’s diplomacy tab once you get the alliance with them and, on the manage attitude tab untick Join offensive wars. Castile will most likely declare war on Granada and try to call you in otherwise if you don’t do this step.



2.) You can get additional monarch points from your estates to cut a small amount of in game time off your run, so do these as early as possible in order:
i) Grant Monopoly Charters to the Burghers to give them enough influence.

ii) Demand Diplomatic Support from the Burghers, giving you 50 free diplo points.

iii) Demand Administrative Support from the Clergy, giving you 50 free adm points.

iv) Seek Support of the Clergy to get their loyalty back up.


Now with all that said and done, a few months of in game time should now have passed, and you will have to do some waiting until your regency ends and tech 4 is in sight.

By this point, your regency should have come to an end, and your 15-year-old king is finally ruling Portugal. You may also get an heir as soon as he comes to power (but if you're unlucky and it has 0 in either administrative or diplomatic skill, like what happened to me below you may want to reset the run so that it isn't ruined if Afonso dies early).



Additionally, an event will happen at around this time, “The Duke of Coimbra”.



So, which one is the best option to take? I would suggest to take the 1 stability, to be on the safe side.
1 Stab will matter to you much more than a few bonuses to Afonso, especially considering that he tends to die quite early. (In one of my runs, he died at the age of 19.)
Having that 1 stab also means that institutions will spread faster, and you will still be well off if a bad event causes you to lose it.

Next, we'll take a look at what you should prioritise in tech and ideas.

Your goal, primarily, is to get to admin tech 5 and unlock the first National Idea, so that you can then get Exploration Ideas and set up colonies.
If you can get some extra admin points from an event, great - but watch out for ahead of time penalties. Also, be mindful of the Institution penalty to technology cost, as on 1 January of every year it increases by 1%.



However for diplomatic tech, you only need to be at tech 4 once you reach admin tech 5. This is so you have enough diplomatic points left to get the first two ideas in the Exploration set, which means not investing in diplo tech 5.

As for military tech, it’s not your #1 priority, although you can just get it whenever the time comes. You should have your first diplomatic tech unlocked by 1449.

Around the time that you gather enough Admin points to unlock tech 5, and the first Idea group, you should be on diplomatic tech 4 with over 800 diplo points, and possibly military tech 4 as well. We're almost there - here are the final steps toward getting the achievement in the quickest time.

1.) You want to unlock Exploration Ideas as quickly as possible, so around a year before you can take admin tech 5 unmothball your exploration fleet and reassign your explorer to it so that they will be fully recovered.

2.) It is suggested to stay on the Technology tab so that you are able to unlock it as soon as possible.



Once you do so, pause the game and unlock the Exploration Ideas group.



3.) Next use your 800+ diplo points to unlock the first 2 Exploration Ideas; the first gives you a Colonist and the second lets you explore Brazil.



However you will still need more diplo points to get the third Exploration Idea, and therefore your first National Idea, giving you enough Colonial Range to reach Brazil. So be sure to save on those diplo points.

4.) As soon as you unlock “Quest for the New World”, remember to choose a Native Policy if you own El Dorado - you have to do this before sending a colonist anywhere.



Then send your colonist to Cape Verde and at the same time send your exploration fleet to explore Atlantic South America (Sea).





5.) Once your colonist reaches Cape Verde and creates a colony, immediately recall him. As I have explained earlier, you do not need to have settlers in your colonies for the achievement to trigger.

6.) When your exploration fleet gets back to port send it again to explore Atlantic South America (Coast).



7.) And once the previous step is done, you will have to wait a bit more until you reach 400 diplo points again to get the 3rd Exploration Idea.
But once you do get 400, immediately take it and on the same day, send your colonist to any province you have discovered in the Brazil colonial region.





When the colonist arrives, there’s your achievement! Hopefully you should also be in around the year 1462 by the time you finish the run.

So, now that you have your achievement in record time and your colonial career has just begun, what is there to do next?

A similar yet slightly more challenging achievement to go for after this is "The Navigator" which not only requires you to own at least one colony in Africa, but also in Indonesia and India too, all before 1500.

And don't worry - it is easier than it looks, but that's a guide for another time.

Also, with your massive head start on colonising the Americas you have the potential to wall off any European powers looking to colonise. Using this strategy you can use your colonial wealth to grow extremely powerful.

Alternatively, you can also use your head start to aggressively expand into western Africa, where you incur next to no Aggressive Expansion with your European neighbours. Moreover you can deny other European powers the wealth from that region.

And on a final note, I hope this guide helped you not just with getting this achievement, but also with gaining the advantage as Portugal who in many players' eyes is a slightly more demanding country to play as compared to others like Castile and France.