Orient only on hardest difficulty

[Military Grade Bathsalts]

its possible?
with all settings for max difficulty points you will need too get lucky:
all 3 hard AI need too colonise a main island too small for them too build a second marketplace. second marketplace=particans=keep=invasion

you will also need islands with silk and indigo, you cant buy enough carpets too sustain envoys, even if your hoard them.

dates are everywhere, milk is easy. you can buy weapons from AI once and buy the rest from neutral harbors. clay can be bought though as mosaic is a building mat, will take long though

if you can keep the AI fighting eachother by reloading you should be ok. the corsairs are a real problem though, dont make trade routes untill you can pay them off for a long time.

the main question i have though is how too get enough honor at the start too get a diplomatic gift for al zahir? you can make some peasants but that ruins the challange, or you can sink one of the AI flagships but if an item drops it doesnt give enough honor, same with selling your starting mats