what is the best?

[Bernard95]

I did not know that.

I'm always running Tengri hordes, so I never bother with Islam in that situation (look, Tengri is +30% to light cavalry, so you can see why I stick with the old gods in this case).

Wait, if MRs don't have decadence, and hordes don't have decadence, then would it make sense to run a horde until it gets boring, then settle as a republic in, say, Constantinople and keep ignoring decadence?

Decadence is a feature of government, not religion since Horse Lords. The only government type that actually has decadence is Iqta so if you're not Iqta you're golden. Not that I'm an expert by any means but as far as I know, the idea of decadence comes from some Islamic philosopher who noticed that your conquering nomads were typically quite zealous Muslims, but after settling down a generation or two later they would become soft, corrupted, sinful, etc. If it was me I probably wouldn't settle down in the first place, but a Horde > Tribe > Merchant Republic is totally viable. Amusingly enough, you won't even see the decadence counter on the interface either if you're anything but Iqta.

 

[Secret Master]

Decadence is a feature of government, not religion since Horse Lords.

See, I "knew" that, but it didn't really click until you spell it out for me. Shows you how much I play Muslims outside of Iqta.

I do agree that settling a horde in the first place is generally a losing move. The only real limit to horde power is either running out of map to conquer, or your mouse breaks from burning every province to the ground. (Someone burned the entire map to the ground in thousands of clicks.)

 

[Bernard95]

See, I "knew" that, but it didn't really click until you spell it out for me. Shows you how much I play Muslims outside of Iqta.

I do agree that settling a horde in the first place is generally a losing move. The only real limit to horde power is either running out of map to conquer, or your mouse breaks from burning every province to the ground. (Someone burned the entire map to the ground in thousands of clicks.)

To be completely honest with you, I almost never play Muslims either. The only reason I knew that for fact was because on a Georgia game I did awhile back, the Khazars went Sunni. I happened to notice there wasn't a decadence counter on the Khagan's character sheet, so I checked the Wiki and realized decadence wasn't a thing at all for anything non-Iqta.

 

[tuareg109]

A powerful thing that's relatively easy to do is also to start as Byzantine empire, put a daughter on the throne, conquer a Shia duchy in holy war, move capital to that duchy, convert to Shia, move capital back to Constantinople, and marry a Sayyid. Keep your demesne christian so you collect extra taxes. Then conquer what you need to reform Roman Empire, convert Rome to Shia, convert to local religion of Constantinople (Orthodox), mend schism, restore Roman Empire, move capital to Rome (which is now Shia), convert back to Shia and create Shia Caliphate. Congratulations you are now Augustus, Sayyid, and Caliph. Your vassals love you and you have an amazing set of CBs to spread the empire to the far corners of the world. And because you mended the schism all of Europe is now Orthodox so you don't need to worry about crusades. Bonus points if you somehow manage to adopt Russian culture too (Russians have strongest levy and best HI retinue).

Genius, absolutely genius. As the brand spanking new Saoshyant I was busy conquering Armenia and Cilicia when the Maobadan-Maobad calls for a Great Holy War for Greece. What. The. Hell. Totally unconnected to my provinces, I don't even have Mediterranean Sea access yet, and he wants us to take Greece. Well, okay. I conquered Greece, his capital switched to Edessa, right in the path of my next holy war! Since the Great Holy War was called by the Maobadan-Maobad and not myself, I had no truce, and attacked almost right away so that his levies didn't have time to replenish too much. What followed was the worst curbstomp on a screen since American History X, and when I successfully besieged his capital, I left with his 15 year old daughter. Promptly lifted her out of the dungeon and into house arrest (I roleplay), waited until her birthday to end the war, took her as concubine before the war ended. Now the Byzantine emperor is celibate, so he'll sire no sons, and saddled with a Zoroastrian concubine as a daughter. I'm not sure if she'll stop being my concubine when she inherits, but I do hope she has a son that I'll raise right, and that'll succeed to both the Byzantine and Persian thrones when we're dead.

Then I'll do your plan, minus switching to Shia. Descendant of Saoshyant, Saoshyant reborn, Augustus. I've done too much work wrecking Sunnism and converting provinces to the one true belief in Ahura Mazda to contemplate becoming Caliph, and I don't believe in matrilineal marriage so Sayyid is out the window. I might get a Mirza some day though.

 

[Thrake]

Norse culture is best. You can raid no matter what and you have access to an extra set of powerful traits/events (some tied to religion too though I think): varanguian, viking and berserker; enjoy the absurd martial stat with all of those; on top you get extra same faith bonus for viking.

Otherwise horde cultures are nice for the extra OPed CB (as an extra I quite like the cultural sprites).

Other cultures are pretty bland unless you're the kind that likes cutting balls of all kinds.

 

[Dakilla TM]

Norse culture is best. You can raid no matter what and you have access to an extra set of powerful traits/events (some tied to religion too though I think): varanguian, viking and berserker; enjoy the absurd martial stat with all of those; on top you get extra same faith bonus for viking.

Otherwise horde cultures are nice for the extra OPed CB (as an extra I quite like the cultural sprites).

Other cultures are pretty bland unless you're the kind that likes cutting balls of all kinds.

Viking and berserker are only available if you're pagan.

Norse and Altaic cultures can raid infidels indefinitely, so it's a nice plus.

But honestly, Italian should be mention somewhere.

Start Lombard, flip to Italian, conquer and form Empire of Italia, make anti Pope to vassalize the Papacy, since you're Italian all of the Cardinals will be from your realm (plus some relatives), you get nice retinues with Italian pikes, you can expand in any direction as you're in the heart of the main area of the map.

Instead of Lombardy, you can also start as Venice and do the same thing, with the benefits of a Republic.

 

[DPS]

Start as a Romuva ruler, and take the "Become King of Lithuania" ambition. Since all of the starting Romuva realms are de jure parts of Lithuania, so you have a subjugation CB on all of them. After subjugating all of them, form the kingdom. Now you're the only Romuva ruler. In effect, you have a permanent CB on any neighboring realm, even if you have to nibble them one county at a time.

 

[Zsrai]

Start as a Romuva ruler, and take the "Become King of Lithuania" ambition. Since all of the starting Romuva realms are de jure parts of Lithuania, so you have a subjugation CB on all of them. After subjugating all of them, form the kingdom. Now you're the only Romuva ruler. In effect, you have a permanent CB on any neighboring realm, even if you have to nibble them one county at a time.

Also, 3 of the Romuva holy sites are in de jure K_Lithuania so you can reform pretty quickly too.