Hey Wiz, I'm currently enjoying a Zarids to Maghreb Empire game, but I think that some aspects of Muslim game-play are not that great at the moment.
The way you have Decadence at the moment is way to easy (at least for a player), it's very difficult to even get decadence (the only way I've seen is getting +5% by event, but then you also regularly get -5% events). There is currently no need to fight against decadence, since the yearly Ramadan chain more then takes care of the small amount you get via events. I have just gone through 300 years of game play at 0% to 5% Decadence (usually zero), it's a total non-issue now.
As is unlanded sons, I can now have as many sons as I like and I don't have to give them anything (I sometimes give them estates if I have lots of money), which of course means that there are now no succession wars when my ruler dies. Because when I get two pretenders all I have to do is have them arrested on day one of my rein (which is easy since they're usually just hanging around the capital) and then I can do whatever I want with them, and there will never be a civil war.
Surely there should be at least some kind of Decadence mechanic in the mod, I mean I certainly agree that the way it was before was stupid, but I do think that it should matter a bit. I mean how about gaining monthly decadence by how many "immoral" traits the head of the dynasty has? So if I have a Lustful, Greedy, Cruel ruler I should have a hard time dealing with the Decadence from that, but if I have a Charitable, Temperate guy, Decadence wouldn't be much of an issue. Also, you removed the Decadence reduction from fighting battle, etc, but surely that was a logical part of the system (at least if you're fighting against non-Muslims), no?
Also perhaps you should get Decadence from you Religious head, based on how pious you are, or on how much he likes you. So maybe he could send you a message saying he wants a large donation to "charity" or you get like +10% Decadence. It should be the same if you attack your Caliph, he should be able to brand you as Decadent as a punishment.
That's about all I can think of on the Decadence issue, but the other thing that I noticed in my current playthrough is that capturing and killing characters in battle seems to be very rare now. I don't know if you deliberately toned it down or something, but it seems to hardly ever happen now. I mean, in a big war you might capture maybe... two Mayors or a Duke, but it just seems disappointedly rare. To give an example, I was just fighting a big war with the Fatimids, they attacked me with a combined 20,000 man army (which presumably contained many important characters), I beat them with an even bigger army and totally destroyed their army, their were no survivors, every man killed. Yet there was not one character on either side captured or killed, I would have expected at least a few in such a situation. I must have fought 50 different wars over the course of the game and I have only captured like maybe 5 important characters (i.e. more important than a Mayor or lowborn, which often get captured), so in like 90% of wars it just doesn't happen.
Another thing that doesn't really seem to make much sense is commander traits. I think I only saw my character get a new commander trait once in my entire playthrough, and that was getting a Desert Commander trait from fighting a battle in Genoa! Surely they should be much more common, and related to how I actually won the battle. I mean, I would expect to get a Mountain fighting trait from doing battle in mountains, but it seems it doesn't work that way. There also seems to be no real way to improve my character's Martial abilities, no matter how many battle I win it never seems to go up (he never learns anything apparently). At the moment it seems you are either born a great general or not, and it doesn't matter how actually good you are, surely it should be the opposite way round, so that fresh characters who have never fought a war should have poor martial skill and veterans should be excellent. Of course I don't know if you can actually mod that.
