Decided to start my annual CKII game a few weeks early this year, and with a slightly different focus. Instead of trying to conquer a large amount of land, my goal was to transform the Emirate of Cordoba into the center of leaning, culture, and trade that it historically became, but hopefully without the gradual decline and fall. Supremacy over the Asturians and Abbasids would be secondary goals, and thus far I have not launched a single external war.
So far, it has been fairly interesting, particularly exploring the Monks and Mystics features. I took Abd Al-Rahman I, who starts with fairly average statistics, and by the time of his demise had his learning up to 37, five more than the next-highest in the world, despite being neither quick nor a genius. And sure enough, the technology points started coming in pretty quickly those last few years. Granted, the sum of all his other attribute points was only 32, but if you're going to write your magnum opus on something, you might as well be highly specialized in it.
His heir, alas, joined Lucifer's Own. Interestingly, however, that allowed me to learn that the Pope was also worshipping Satan, and has been a member of the society since well before becoming Pope. I don't know how they missed that during the conclave! Thankfully, as Sunni, we are not sheep being lead to the underworld.
