Question on what I should do..

[Kinkness]

I'm trying to do something I haven't before, well 2 things. I've owned the game since release of the original CK II, got over 1,500 hours in this game, but there are 2 things I've never done.

1) Play as the Muslims
2) Play as the jews.

So I decided to do both. Basically I started playing as the Egyptian Culture, my goal is to build up my empire, until I'm strong enough to slowly transition into Jewish religion by marrying into the jewish religion (which there are many options too currently in my game), and knock out those achievements while also playing as the Jews afterwords naturally.

This is my current state of the situation.

My question really is.. When should I consider to start transitioning over into the jewish religion? Again I've never played as a Muslim before, so I really have no clue how my surrounding muslims will react, or internally for that matter, and what backlashes there may be.

 

[Keizer Harm]

Your surrounding neighbours are not absurdly strong. If you can defeat the Abbasids in a 1v1, then you should be able to fend off individual Holy Wars.
One problem is that you are holding Jerusalem, meaning that once you convert, Jihads will trigger right away, and there's a good chance the first one will be on your head. So as soon as you do so, make an alliance with Christian nations (e.g. the Byzantines) to stand a chance. They will let you marry into their families, I think.
Be sure to stack up on piety and cash before converting, so you can restore the high priesthood (and form k_jerusalem) right away, meaning you will get the Jewish holy order on your side.

 

[Kinkness]

Your surrounding neighbours are not absurdly strong. If you can defeat the Abbasids in a 1v1, then you should be able to fend off individual Holy Wars.
One problem is that you are holding Jerusalem, meaning that once you convert, Jihads will trigger right away, and there's a good chance the first one will be on your head. So as soon as you do so, make an alliance with Christian nations (e.g. the Byzantines) to stand a chance. They will let you marry into their families, I think.
Be sure to stack up on piety and cash before converting, so you can restore the high priesthood (and form k_jerusalem) right away, meaning you will get the Jewish holy order on your side.

Which brings up a good point. I should be trying to covertly help the byzantines stay powerful shouldn't I? Or at least the Italians/French. ALl of which are pretty weak right now along with everyone else.

Edit: another thing I forgot to ask is, I have a special mercenary group the Mamluks. I honestly don't even know where/when/how I got them, but for awhile now I've been using them for all my military pushes. They are exceptionally cheap, and very powerful 6k merc group that costs me almost nothing to use.

Will I lose this special merc group?

 

[Keizer Harm]

Will I lose this special merc group?

Yep. They may stay your vassals, but you won't be able to hire them. Luckily, you'll get the Jewish holy order, the Zealots, who only cost piety to recruit. It will be at least four years before you may recruit them though, see https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Judaism#Build_the_Third_Temple

I would indeed try to help the Christians out, for now...

 

[Kinkness]

Yep. They may stay your vassals, but you won't be able to hire them. Luckily, you'll get the Jewish holy order, the Zealots, who only cost piety to recruit. It will be at least four years before you may recruit them though, see https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Judaism#Build_the_Third_Temple

I would indeed try to help the Christians out, for now...

Thanks for the help. It seems I have a bit more planning than I originally thought.

 

[Kinkness]

So another question that came up..

I currently have the Abbassids as Allies. If I do go jewish now, as it shows in the screenshots, will that alliance break? Or will it persist until death as it usually does? Because if it will persist, that'll give me a huge advantage and breathing room to build up.

 

[Lewa263]

So another question that came up..

I currently have the Abbassids as Allies. If I do go jewish now, as it shows in the screenshots, will that alliance break? Or will it persist until death as it usually does? Because if it will persist, that'll give me a huge advantage and breathing room to build up.

The alliance will only break down if whatever marriage was used to secure it also ends. If you convert, you break your marriage with all but one wife, so that could be a problem. I'm not sure which wife you get to keep, though it seems like it might always be the most recent marriage based on my own limited experiences converting away from Islam.

 

[Kinkness]

The alliance will only break down if whatever marriage was used to secure it also ends. If you convert, you break your marriage with all but one wife, so that could be a problem. I'm not sure which wife you get to keep, though it seems like it might always be the most recent marriage based on my own limited experiences converting away from Islam.

It's a marriage Alliance by my daughter to them, so that shouldn't be a problem right?