Any 'normal' way to play muslim?

[Brasem]

Hi,
I've been interested in playing a muslim character, but I've been put off by the implementation of decadence. In CK2 I like to spread my dynasty, which seems to be the point of the game. But when I read about tips and tricks for playing muslim dynasties it seems like the only suggestion I see is to keep your family very small. Just have one main duchy for yourself and control all counties inside. And then make sure your favorite son will be the one inheriting that, and make sure the others are preferably dead or have nothing (so they cannot rebel easily).

I hear that landing any non-heir family member is a very bad idea, as they will become decadent and you need to burn 100 piety to ask them to straighten up before you can throw them in jail. At some point they will start having kids who can also become decadent. You need to spend more piety than you can generate, or you can no longer imprison since you are no direct liege to some family members and everything spirals out of control. Simply by landing non-heir familymembers.

Is there any way to play the game CK2 style (somewhat spreading your dynasty) while still keeping decadence manageable in case you end up with a big empire? Or is that something impossible with muslim dynasties?

thanks!
Brasem

 

[Hector of Troy]

Is there any way to play the game CK2 style (somewhat spreading your dynasty) while still keeping decadence manageable in case you end up with a big empire? Or is that something impossible with muslim dynasties?

thanks!
Brasem

I haven't played as a Muslim ruler for a while, but as far as I can tell it will be likely risky landing and spreading your dynasty - even more so in a vanilla game. CK2+ and HIP mods, if I am not mistaken, make it more viable though, since decadence will be weighted according to title relevance. So a courtier from your dynasty, for example, will contribute very little to decadence compared to a king vassal bloodily related to you.

 

[Robert II]

I've played as a Muslim a few times and I always land my family. I don't care if the plebs and priests think I'm decadent. Just kill them when they rise up.

 

[Unready]

I playing Muslim now. It is quite easy.
Just never give any land to your dynasty and never marry anyone of them except your own character.
Keep decadence at 0%.
When dealing with decadents If you lack of piety, imprison any decadent member and banish or execute them. Outside your court they don't produce decadence to you.
If your heir doesn't good enough just give a small chunk of land to the best of your sons to make him your heir.
Free ducal revocation make you life with powerful vassals easier.
Muslim invasions and subjugation is the fastest way to conquer the world.
All my Muslim games ends with WC.
I think this one will be too:

 

[Robert II]

I playing Muslim now. It is quite easy.
Just never give any land to your dynasty and never marry anyone of them except your own character.
Keep decadence at 0%.
When dealing with decadents If you lack of piety, imprison any decadent member and banish or execute them. Outside your court they don't produce decadence to you.
If your heir doesn't good enough just give a small chunk of land to the best of your sons to make him your heir.
Free ducal revocation make you life with powerful vassals easier.
Muslim invasions and subjugation is the fastest way to conquer the world.
All my Muslim games ends with WC.
I think this one will be too:

Is that not incredibly boring?

 

[Barnham]

I play Muslim more than any other religion, and the regular way to play Muslim is to be very careful whom you land, make sure landed family members stay in your realm and remain your direct vassals so you can imprision them, and deal with the decadence revolts as they come.
Education is really important to Muslims because you get events based on your positive traits that remove decadence. Conversley, negative traits give events that increase decadence, and are used to calculate the likliness of becoming decadent.
When straightening up decadent relatives, you get an extra shot if your learning and diplomacy are high. As a mutazillah, you get extra learning to help get you over the extra-chance threshold. If you're ashari, you cant become decadent, and you can try spreading that belief to family members.
Intrigue also gives you another chance to straighten people up, and high intrigue makes it easier to imprison family members who refuse both requests.
Holy war often and with extreme prejudice. Successful Holy Waring and jihading massively reduce your decadence; if you single handedly win a jihad you lose 100 decadence.
Use your heir producing machine to churn out girls to marry off to all your vassals vessels to keep your mongo sized mega empire stable. Marriage ties will also help you squeeze levies out of them when the decadence revolt comes.
Educate brothers and sons as generals so that they always have a purpose if they're in your court, and hope that they die in glorious battle against the enemies of God. But be very careful of ambitious half brothers...
Mostly you should understand that decadence is going to happen. Period. And the revolts are working as designed. They're big, but manageable, and every time one triggers, you lose 50 decadence, meaning it's not an endless cycle. Playing Muslims in a super gamey way is in fun, boring, fourth wall demolishing, and not intended; huge Muslim AI realms functiom pretty well, and they do NOT prune their family trees, or refuse to land sons. You have one of thr nicest successions of any religion, so think of decadence revolts as your succession crises.

 

[CVDE]

I also don't play Muslim characters due to the decadence system, tho I do want to try one in the near future. But anyway @Unready Im a slight bit confused, you say don't land your sons and don't marry anyone of them only yourself, but then you say "If your heir doesn't good enough just give a small chunk of land to the best of your sons to make him your heir"

Could you explain?

 

[misterderp]

I also don't play Muslim characters due to the decadence system, tho I do want to try one in the near future. But anyway @Unready Im a slight bit confused, you say don't land your sons and don't marry anyone of them only yourself, but then you say "If your heir doesn't good enough just give a small chunk of land to the best of your sons to make him your heir"

Could you explain?

It had been a while since I last player a muslim. But if IRC the child/dynasty member with the best titles inherrits. So a Duke Son would would be your heir instead of your eldest Son Who is only a count. So this way you can pretty much choose Who your heir is.

 

[CVDE]

@misterderp Ah, gotcha

 

[Reezy]

It had been a while since I last player a muslim. But if IRC the child/dynasty member with the best titles inherrits. So a Duke Son would would be your heir instead of your eldest Son Who is only a count. So this way you can pretty much choose Who your heir is.

Or, to put it in maximum gameyness terms, the favored son you grant a single barony will inherit every single title as long as all of your other sons are given nothing.

 

[mrstevehazzard]

It's really no longer a danger to play as a Muslim anymore, since you only get decadence from family members for which you are the liege. The only thing you have to worry about is running out of piety asking family members to straighten up if you have an enormous family. And even if you get hit with a revolt, it's not game over, it just pushes you back down to duke-tier, I believe.

 

[Brasem]

Thank you all for your suggestions! Also @Barnham for good tips to manage decadence that will inevitably happen when you decide to actually land more characters than just your heir (for RP reasons)

 

[Surimi]

The idea that CK2 is all about "spreading your dynasty" is kind of restrictive, I think. Personally, I prefer to keep my dynasty itself small and manageable and rely on less dangerous vassals to actually govern land. Muslims suit this playstyle well for obvious reasons, as a single Muslim character can produce vast quantities of children. Thus, you don't actually need a huge sprawling dynasty.

You can say that's boring, but actually, trying to keep your dynasty small provides quite a lot to do. In particular, Muslims don't recieve the kinslayer trait for murdering family members other than their own children. Thus, getting rid of all the "spare" brothers to prevent them racking up decadence provides a minigame in and of itself (this isn't really "gamey" either, open succession was pretty Darwinian in history).

In the short term, landing characters is good for decadence (it both reduces current decadence, and the rate at which decadence builds up). The problem is that landed characters will marry and, as mentioned, Muslims can have a lot of children. If you keep trying to land them the population will spiral out of control and you will get swamped.. and I don't just mean with decadence, I mean you'll just have hundreds of inerchangable family members who you don't have any reason to care about because there are just too many of them and every one you land will produce another swarm of children.

If you're going to land family members, land a few whom you actually care about and take opportunities to prune the rest where possible. If you go in with the idea that the point is to have the biggest dynasty ever, it's just going to get out of control. If you're selective and actually spend time controlling the population, then landing a few family members isn't going to be a problem and, short term, will actually help.

The other thing about Muslims and dynasty spreading is that it's virtually impossible for Muslims to inherit titles from other dynasties. As mentioned, a Muslim dynasty just squirts out too many kids and agnatic succession means an eligible woman will never wind up inheriting. Thus, trying to get random members of your dynasty onto foreign thrones is pretty futile as a Muslim character and this, again, cuts down on the need for vast families.

 

[Unready]

Is that not incredibly boring?

Only last years when the game became quite slow due low performance. But I hope devs fix late game performance in last patch.

I also don't play Muslim characters due to the decadence system, tho I do want to try one in the near future. But anyway @Unready Im a slight bit confused, you say don't land your sons and don't marry anyone of them only yourself, but then you say "If your heir doesn't good enough just give a small chunk of land to the best of your sons to make him your heir"

Could you explain?

The one and only case when I give a title to my dynasty member it is when I have to choose a heir another then my default heir - the oldest son.
Usually I wait (if health of my character allows) before all my children became adult and when choose who will inherit, if my oldest son is very bad.
I give to the best option one county and he became my heir.
All other male dynasts never give anything and never married. This keeps my family and small quantity of members and sometimes risks to endgame. But Muslim with four young wives tends to quickly replenish numbers of heirs in new generations.
I deal immediately with any decadent members. If I have free piety I straighten up my sons and brothers if not or they resist I imprison them even with tyranny.
Then I either banish them out of my lands or even execute them. Banished member can returns as your heir (and you need to go Mecca to get rid of decadence mark for your own character) or with adventurer army - but overall it is better when decadence revolts.

 

[Robert II]

Only last years when the game became quite slow due low performance. But I hope devs fix late game performance in last patch.

But where is the challenge?

 

[LeSingeAffame]

You can play as a muslim merchant republic if you don't want to play with decadence I think

 

[Dragatus]

I believe Decadence is tied to the Iqta government. So tribals, merchant republics, and nomads shouldn't have it.

 

[Unready]

But where is the challenge?

Challenge?
Last campaign I started as count of Famagusta on Cyprus. Which is quite interesting place for start as Byzantium wants to swallow you at first open opportunity.

 

[Pagz]

I believe Decadence is tied to the Iqta government. So tribals, merchant republics, and nomads shouldn't have it.

Iqta and Tribal have decadence, while Merchant Republics and Nomads don't. Republic Muslim realms are very fun (and swimming in gold). Does make it hard to spread your dynasty, though.

 

[Topkekk]

Iqta and Tribal have decadence, while Merchant Republics and Nomads don't. Republic Muslim realms are very fun (and swimming in gold). Does make it hard to spread your dynasty, though.

Muslim republics back before the Horse Lords patch was pure imba fun. Back then you were allowed to hold every single type of holding, be it temple, city or castle.