http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/Reezy619/ck22013-06-1801-47-06-94_zps9db24ca9.png
My pride and joy. In addition to what I have, I conquered Arabia, Abyssinia, Maurentania and half a Mali. I gave them to relatives and granted them independence. I even went as far as to ensure that the rulers of those territories and my relatives were raised in those respective cultures. I have a Beduin kinsman an Arabia, an Ethiopian cousin in Ethiopia, etc., all ruling over their appropriately cultured vassals. I also peacefully converted Cumania and Perm (which took a long, long time) and aggressively married into them so that now my dynasty rules there as well. I've basically left the Byzantines alone, only taking their Jerusalem and defending my Cumanian allies against their constant holy wars. They are my only threat militarily now, and my next goal will be to conquer them duchy by duchy (since I have no idea how to call a Great Holy War) and eventually set up a Greek Karen Empire to rule in autonomy. I might even choose to make that my main Empire and take over the rest of the world from there.
The very start is a little tricky, and can require a couple restarts when things don't go exactly the way you want. I chose to start with a holy war in Khorasan, followed by holy wars against Khiva and Persia. If the Persian kingdom forms, you'll just have to wait a bit longer for treaties to wear off, but so long as you save all your money for mercs, you'll be able to take on anything except the Abbasids. I used Esfahan and Hamadan as my personal demense. 8 is kind of a high number for a King, but good for an Empreror. It's manageable, but you can find yourself in a bad situation if you end up with a child or low stewardship ruler. I used Primogeniture, so I didn't always have the best ruler. Hamadan and Kermanshah can be a good alternative.
If the Shia rises in Egypt, then you're gonna have a GREAT time. The Abbasids and Shia will fight each other constantly. While they're busy with that you should have no major problems consolidating your lands in Persia and Turkestan. When the Abbasids do engage you, let them take the massive supply hits from assaulting your territory in the Kermanshah/Esfahan region. The territories here are really good for traps, since you can easily load up your units in the surrounding territories without taking a supply hit, wait for them to attack into one of your stacks, and then rush your neighboring stacks in to join the fray.
The hardest part for me, besides the luck-ish beginning, was grabbing the Azerbaijan area. It takes forever to get to, has low supply, and the Abbasids will try to help if they are preoccupied (and in my game, the area was held by three different Muslims, which complicated things) Don't attack this area unless the Abbasids are tied up because you'll have a very hard time defending this area of the map.
Eventually, it was time to take back Mesopotamia and form the Empire. Everyone's situation here will be different, but for me the situation was roughly this: There were three Sayyid Muslim rulers vying for supremacy, the Shia Egyptians (who also controlled Africa and Abyssinia), the Abbasid Empire, and the Arabian Sultanate. The Sunnies were both highly decadent and the Abbasids eventually switched to some other dynasty. The Arabian Sultan was actually a vassal of the Abbasids, but this sultan controlled literally ALL of Arabia. He was a nightmare supervassal that was at war with his liege far more often than he was at peace. I waited until the Abbasids were at war with one of those two rulers and struck. It actually wasn't too bad. Their decadent armies fell hard to my horse archer mercs and retinues while my levies sieged their territory quickly. Once I snagged Baghdad and Tigris, the Arabian Sultan won his independence.
After taking Baghdad and Tigris, I formed the Empire and it was all uphill from there. Except for one roadbump: the Seljuks. I was prepared for them and made sure not to declare any wars for a while. The Seljuks were a much bigger threat, since their doomstack horse archer armies were far superior to mine. Trap-stacking isn't nearly as effective here like it is with the Abbasids. I was able to lure them to Merv, the closest mountain province, but since the travel time is so much longer here, their army was still able to defeat a military more than double their size. I lost Turkestan, but I refilled my levies and attacked back, keeping my armies larger despite the supply attrition and ultimately crushed them. This whole process got rid of one of my more problematic vassals, so overall it was a good thing.
Once the Seljuks were dealt with, I didn't have any more problems. Wary of Crusades, I skipped Jerusalem and conquered Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, Africa, and Arabia instead. Eventually, the Byzantines ended up with Jerusalem. When I chose to take it from them, it was pathetically easy. Since the Greeks had to march through Syria to get to me, I sieged their provinces to 100% before they could even mount a defense.
This game is pretty much over for me, but it was loads of fun. I have a dynasty score of , house prestige of 1219, and only 57 living members of my dynasty despite ruling 6 different kingdoms. The low number of living members probably has a lot to do with the massive amount of wincest my cousin rulers are having with each other. :-O
