Zunist Strategy's

[Lochlan]

Title

[markdb92]

dont start as them as the area they start as is so small that they get eaten in first 5 years.

[Lightsong]

False, can start as them and do very well in ironman. Sent chancellor to improve relations with the caliph 24/7. Focus on creating kingdom of afghanistan and then push east for the holy sites and to grow your realm. That being said, pounce on ANY rebellious vassal of a muslim realm. It can be done. Anyone saying that you shouldn't start as something hasn't tried hard enough to make it happen imo. It's ck2!

[Sergent H]

i just start a game as zunist only duke
Get asap the double count above you and revoke your vassal to get all power (until limit)
Try to assassinate the Kaboulistan duke and his heir; then you are the heir. If not then war him by conquest CB.

By this time; caliphate will recover the county under you (independ count) in Balouchistan duchy (?) and hope a shia caliphite rise to weaken Abbasid. If not, improve your relation with caliphate and conquest to Khiva

[kaiyl_kariashi]

Pro-Strat: Don't Die.

[Kronk The Gluemuncher]

Start in Egypt, take control of the Kingdom, secretly convert to Zunist via Cairo and get the rest of the holysites.

[Velvet Waltz]

the most important parts have been said
I like strong centralized realms with few powerful vassals and a big demesne. that's just as a head start
1. revoke everything in your starting realm
2. Push your demesne limit up. if you can manage gavelkind, keep it. through the most important part of the game (before you reach critical mass) I had a demesne of 12-14.
3. eat up the buddhist realm early before the muslims do it.
4. don't hesitate to switch religion if someone holy wars your demesne and you're losing badly.
5. this is VERY important: the bonus attrition the enemy takes applies ONLY in counties with the Zunist religion. you have a few desert type zunist regions in your starting demesne. keep these at all costs, they are your ultimate weapon against the abbasids
6. don't go to war against the hindus. they have a 12k holy order right off the bat.
7. while you're expanding, establish another big duchy as new demesne. establish a new capital. I recomment either Ishafan or Nishapur (Chorasan)
8. get martial or economic education. pick war focus or rulership focus if you need it to adjust your demesne size.
9. Re managing gavelkind: take the oldest available wife with the stewardship stat. when she's past child bearing age, take concubines and release the others when they're pregnant. I've only screwed this up once in 400 years
10. beware of the shia califate. their doomstacks don't suffer from attrition. I've lost zero wars to the abbasids and their successors, but numerous times to the shia.
11. should you have a son too much; spy on them when they inevitably try to murder each other, imprison, let the sun judge them. when they die this way, it won't incur the kinslayer penalty.
12. the flavor event is great. it gave me "shrewd" once, so there's that
13. Reformation is fairly easy once you got over the starting humps.
14. Re martial education: get the speed bonus whenever possible. the area is a broken mess and the distances between the regions are hilariously high. teach it to every single of your generals
15. the honorary titles you may give out have a special boon: you can give them all to the same person, aside from Master of the bow/sword. utilize this by giving your heir every single title, commander and appointing him as steward/chancellor. he will gain ~12 prestige a month.
16. all of this leads to a fairly stable realm - your only threats come from the outside.
17. let's say you hold Chorasan and Ishafan completely + a few baronies (mid game). you probably have a lot of other land and you should organize it this way:
17a) give out de jure duchies without county overlap
17b) give powerful dukes a single county in a duchy that doesn't have the duke title created. this could be Tabaristan; split the 4 counties between the dukes of Samarkand, Khiva, Sistan, Baluchistan, Dihistan, Kabulistan etc. the reason is 14.): when going to war, you can raise these dukes levies in that county instead of the far away duchy. this saves a few months of gathering time for every war.

that's all I can think of atm

[Donathan Cheadledge]

My strategy for the Zunists is to not.

[Reverend Belial]

Also something you can do if you don't want to start as the Zunbils is to play as the Alans and convert to Zunism through marriage (since it counts as a Pagan religion) and then gradually build up power until you can start getting tributaries, then make the Byzantines a tributary, then launch a Subjugation of the Abbasids and boom you've got most of the middle east under your control as the Zunists. Dealing with all your new angry vassals is another story entirely, but hey.

[Beetle]

how I have tried it:
Start as Zunist (the only possible zunist start without character editor)
Send diplomat to Abbasid
Try to form afgahnistan asap.
Sweat fealty to abbasids (who at this point should be your new neighbour)
try to get the 3 nearby zunist holy sites

Now the next steps only work if you have to monk and mystics dlc.
start practicing Zunist in secret and start a cult (should do this before you go after the holy sites)
evoke sympathy for your faith by strong vassals and the Caliph
plant some zunist followers seed in as much countys as possible

after you have enough of the last two openly adopt the zunist faith

I got pretty far like this

[ancistrus]

I actually won the war against caliphate on my first try. 17k stack went to afganistan, in about a year they were reduced to 7k by attrition. I hired mercs and beat them.

Graveyard of empires etc.