The Arabian Empire is one of my favorite muslim factions, my favorite faction at all to watch.
They usually fail and deblob, but they often enough lose syria to shia. And funnily enough syria usually kicks the teeth out of byzantine.
whereas the europian situation is quite tame. Even the pagans v christians is usually stable until conversions.
The whole region of georgia/syria/armenia ... and then the khans come by and, if they do their jobs right and dont cut each other off, usually weaken arabia futher.
the spanish blob is boring by comparison, and even does the unthinkable and converts to christianity for whatever reason all of a sudden.
Ive modded the coregame to have increased aggression for all ai. To various degrees, and it works out well. mostly.
-Finland forms, if not vikinged first.
-Rus is a reliable formation.
-Khazaria usually remains until the golden horde, barring succession nonsense. They even give a good push into ruthenia.
-Byzantine usually take wallachia and bulgaria, and checks Lombardy from their african ambitions. while byzantine usually ignores the mia and mono heresies to their east until the mussies take them (or the khans).
-Spain properly unifies, albiet usually with one strong(er) christain nation competing with the mussies. Time tells whether france gets owned or owns the spanish caliphate.
-The AFRICANS usually compete with the african kingdom (or lombardy) for control over moorish land. Them tribals do a'ight with conquest until they convert (to mussie) and then get nomed by spain.
-In my most recent game a successful viking invasion of england happened (finally) and mercia has a viking overlord. Though, I dont expect that to last.
-when I dont lithuania the baltic unifies quickly while poland is nomed by the larger bohemia (and bohemia lasts until it eats pannonia and then succession and bavaria happens. The default ai is bad at creating empires) Bohemia is stronk as heck in Early Game. But lithunia usually maintains fair relations, noming up pommerania and fending off viking estonia.
-In england the scots usually stay peaceful and slowly work into ireland while the various petty kings of england create a network of tributaries.