Ayo. Wanted to try muslims in the great campaign next time and am searching for a goo starting position for a muslim count.
Starting points for muslims
- Thread starter Trunting
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I don't know about Count, but Songhay (eastern bit of that block in the SW corner of map) is a kind of interesting start for a petty duke. It's off in the middle of nowhere, so you don't have to worry about all that many neighbors at once. It's also independent, and one of your first moves should be to eat your single vassal count, so you don't have any vassals or non-baron lieges to worry about for a good long while. You have the much larger Ghana to your west to worry about and scheme your way through (making eating your vassal both trickier and more important), and as you work your way through eating them, you get another neighbor to your north (who occasionally fragments, giving you opportunities to snap bits off), but that's pretty much it. Note that you will likely have to restart a few times before you get your legs under you on this one, as it takes a bit of doing to keep Ghana from eating you.
Aye, the de jure Mali region is considered by many to be the "easy" place to start as a Muslim, as there's literally no outside threats, and won't be for some time unless the Mali or the Almoravids turn heretic.
I had my first Muslim game with a single county Bey in the Seljuk Sultante (House Baduspanid of Mazandaran, if you're curious), as I wanted to be a Persian. Pretty fun experience there, as it'll take a while for you to ever become independent, and until then its all kinds of fun wars against your liege and fellow vassals.
Really though, almost any place is a solid starting point for Muslim rulers. The only areas I'd say to avoid as a Muslim newbie would be North Africa, Sicily, and maybe the Volga Bulgars. Sicilian Muslims get squished pretty easily as they're small and very close to the HRE (and even if the HRE doesn't personally crush you, they'll gladly help the Normans do so), the Volga Bulgars are absolutely isolated and can get piled up on by both Pagans and Orthodox if they're not careful, and North Africa is infamous for getting stormed by both the HRE and France. I'm currently playing a game with a one county North African start, and the only things keeping the HRE and France from destroying me are my silly amount of alliances and my conversion to Shia (literally would've been wiped out if I didn't have the Hashashin to call in).
But really, Mali, maybe Iberia. Either way, as the game progresses there becomes an increasing chance of someone ruining your day, and both those regions will likely find themselves in conflict with the French and/or Germans eventually. Just make sure when that time comes you've established a powerful enough state to stand up to them.
I had my first Muslim game with a single county Bey in the Seljuk Sultante (House Baduspanid of Mazandaran, if you're curious), as I wanted to be a Persian. Pretty fun experience there, as it'll take a while for you to ever become independent, and until then its all kinds of fun wars against your liege and fellow vassals.
Really though, almost any place is a solid starting point for Muslim rulers. The only areas I'd say to avoid as a Muslim newbie would be North Africa, Sicily, and maybe the Volga Bulgars. Sicilian Muslims get squished pretty easily as they're small and very close to the HRE (and even if the HRE doesn't personally crush you, they'll gladly help the Normans do so), the Volga Bulgars are absolutely isolated and can get piled up on by both Pagans and Orthodox if they're not careful, and North Africa is infamous for getting stormed by both the HRE and France. I'm currently playing a game with a one county North African start, and the only things keeping the HRE and France from destroying me are my silly amount of alliances and my conversion to Shia (literally would've been wiped out if I didn't have the Hashashin to call in).
But really, Mali, maybe Iberia. Either way, as the game progresses there becomes an increasing chance of someone ruining your day, and both those regions will likely find themselves in conflict with the French and/or Germans eventually. Just make sure when that time comes you've established a powerful enough state to stand up to them.