Good Islamic country to start with?

[jaq855]

What is a good islamic ruler to start a game with. I did one in the east africa and yemen area and I was kind of in a bubble down there, I'd rather be in the middle of the action. Do the Byzantines crusade against muslims?

[Kanki]

Originally posted by jaq855:

What is a good islamic ruler to start a game with. I did one in the east africa and yemen area and I was kind of in a bubble down there, I'd rather be in the middle of the action. Do the Byzantines crusade against muslims?

Sometimes, but in my experience they get sooner or later destroeyd by muslims. They say Ash'arism (Arabian Empire) is interesting to play, havent tried it by myself yet

[CrUsHeR]

Byzantium cannot crusade. Well there are a lot of cool looking starts, but they are a total mess - like Tulunids or Idrisids in 867 come with an absolutely terrible setup. Fatimids 1066 and Abassids 867 have this "decadent caliph" setup which is probably not as fun as it looks. Also way too few troops against the inevitable crusades.

Generally the large muslim starts seem to be a total hell hole since the vassals are so powerful and hate your guts.



Aghlabids in 867 are extremely good if you pick the heir of the Sultan. A super-special character who is always intelligent, lunatic, shrewd, has high intrigue and the torturer perk. So you want to directly assassinate the Sultan and make tabula rasa with the other vassals. The stereotype "evil Vezir" usurping the kingdom. Probably one of the best dynasty founders in the game (Aghlabids have exactly 2 members, before you kill the Sultan/Brother).

Basically you start very weak with only half of the Africa Kingdom, and completely surrounded by Ibadi muslims. Instead you have Sicily which you probably can't hold (surrender if Byzantium attacks and focus on Maghreb instead), but you can get sweet revenge later.

Once you have the Maghreb empire, you can also become Caliph yourself of either the Muwalladis or Almohadis, depending on wether you like pluralist or militant fundamentalist Sunnism (staying Ashari is relatively pointless). Then move on to liberate Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina from whoever owns it.

Your culture is Maghrebi, which is a totally underdeveloped Arabic culture with about 2-3 counties, and you are approximately the only Ashari west of Egypt while everyone else is Ibadi or Zayidi.
Your starting area in Kairouan and Tunis (recommended) are far from the worst realm capitals, though you also could consider moving into Marrakesh + Fes once you get there.

Definitely something where you are fighting uphill right from the start, but also nothing where you could only succeed with luck.

Something that helps tremendously is to disable "generate families", because neither you nor your brother nor vassals have any family. So you don't have useless random heirs and don't have to murder 5-10 auto-generated children from the couple of rulers you need to dispose of.

[Zortex]

You could start as one of the Iberian Muslims and go for the "Al-Andalus" achievement at the same time.

Can go after the Jimena brothers, then need to move up into France as well for the achievement. Lots of Catholics to have wars with, as well as cleaning up your fellow Muslims ofc!

[HighFist]

I've been playing exclusively in North Africa as Ibadi Muslims with 867 starts. I've played Berkanid Emirate pre-patch and have now re-started as the Hawwara dynasty (Tripolitania).

It's packed full of action since I'm always defending against my strong Ash'ari neighbours of the Aghlabid and Tulunid sultanates while trying to play proxy war politics with the tribal nations of the south. Early Rustamid and Idrisid dynasties can be a pain as well, and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia seem to change to a Catholic, Orthodox, or Muslim nation every 20 years.

It's been a fun challenge so far.