The Rassids are in an interesting situation: Really good NIs, Feudal Theocracy and they are Shia
Downsides: Everyone hates you, Rebels are tering the country apart and Yemen dows you for cores quickly after a short while.
So.... any strategies?
I'm doing pretty well in my rassid game. 1575ish, have formed arabia but kept my own NI's and one war away from eradicating the mamluks and have won two wars with the ottos.
Rassids are a powerhouse, but you will need to go into debt in the beginning. 10 force limit will see you crushing most of your neighbors. Ally anybody who will take you at first.
Make use of the land claim government action, focus on mil to stay ahead.
Basically, your goal is to go quantity first and just overwhelm people. Manpower will be your biggest hindrance to blobbing and manpower will fix that.
Gun for Kaffa and Kilwa gold mines and your money issues will be solved. You should be accruing lots of legalism from warring your neighbors, so on cooldown debase currency and get rid of corruption...so much free money. Stockpile it for the bigger wars so you have the freedom to go over force limit.
Make friends with the biggest people you can. By the time your powerful enough to rival mamluks, ottos should become friendly (at least they did in my game). I was able to beat them to jerusalem and the nile delta. Once you state that land, you'll be swimming in manpower and ducats.
I went religious second, even if it doesn't synergize well with legalism just for role play purposes. The CB is very useful, though, but humanism would be a great second pick. If you're conquering in africa you're going to have a lot of rebels.
Admin third. With gold mines and the free money every five years from debase currency, you'll be able to support +5 estate admin advisor to power through the admin ideas. My forcelimit is nearing 150, i made cyprus my capital, and I plan on trade companying india and feeding persia to my vassal, Fars. So long as you can overcome your neighbors, the game becomes quite simple. The African allies your neighbors will have won't matter once you have a coastline and galleys.
Also, it helped to feed my initial conquests to the nobility...force limit is king early game.
