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[Descan]

I was also considering dropping the Fatimid alliance, buddying up to the Seljuks, and taking Egypt, but upon further thought, I decided that by the time the Seljuk conquest train stops--if it stops--it'll be too late. They've got the force of like 3 Byzantine Emperors behind them at this point, and they'll have more when the "recently conquered" modifiers stop in Hungary. It'll be child's play for them to take out Bavaria, and their decadence seems to continually drop at all times because decadence management is so easy an oftentimes slightly brain-dead AI can handle it. Unfortunately, I can't swear fealty to them, because we're both kings. They don't have enough land in Iran or Arabia to form either empire, I don't know if the AI can make custom empires, and you have to be Christian to form the Byzantine Empire.

Getting 5000 grace from the Empire isn't that hard, actually. Use the character finder to find good Eunuchs (if you look for Genius male unmarried non-ruler characters, order it by Learning skill, and buy and use a favour to invite to court one of the Court Guru's that doesn't have any other job (which would preclude you from using a Favour to invite to court; also, them being a close relative plus some other odd situations are when you can't use a favour. but Court Guru's are generally relative-less and usually don't have any council job, so they're easy pickings) you can easily get a 600 favour eunuch for literally free; once they're shipped off, you get the cash back (plus any artifacts or cash they already had) because they "died" and you inherited anything they had. Just make sure they're not ill, and the Good Ones have 2 or more other skills above 16 or 20. PLUS if the Emperor likes your culture/religion, or perhaps also the eunuchs culture/religion, you get a bonus. So you could easily get up to 1200 or even more favour from one Eunuch.

You don't need to worry about "you're an infidel!" when using a favour to invite someone; Just get their relations with you up to 26 or higher, they'll accept a favour, and then you can invite someone of any religion as long as they're not a relative nor have a job.

Other easy ways include sending semi-worthless artifacts, especially when the Emperor adores wealth (the Emerald Tablet as a Hermetic character, while rare, can get you 5000 grace in and of itself, which is worth more than the tablet itself when you have a Rum like that to deal with. Persian-culture (I'm not sure about religion, I think just culture) can get a banner of some description or another that gives you 5000 grace too, if you get the Councilor search-for-artifact event and luck out.

And if you get a good daughter with good traits and skills (genius, attractice, shrewd, strong, good education, gregarious) you can send them off as concubines and get around 300. They're not as easy because you gotta luck into a good concubine when the emperor is accepting another one from you, but it's still a free bit of grace for someone who otherwise is useless, especially early game when all they're good for is getting an alliance or two.

[Ultimuh]

I hate it when the child heir I have been grooming to become the perfect leader, gets assassinated by their aunt/uncle the very moment they ascend the throne.

[StagnantSoul]

I just had a game where it ended the moment I unpaused. I said "Ruled for three days" and apparently I died of sickness.

[Ultimuh]

Alright, I have a couple of questions which have probably been answered thousands of times already.

What succession law would be best, for someone who like to start out small and expand at a slow pace?
And what measures would I have to take in order to prevent assassinations from family and relatives? (Other than counter-assassinating them. (Intrigue is not my strongest feat.))

edit:
Also.. What is the best course of action, in order to get a decently sized military, if I'm a tiny-small nation? I'm talking about very early game here.

[Teneb]

Alright, I have a couple of questions which have probably been answered thousands of times already.

What succession law would be best, for someone who like to start out small and expand at a slow pace?
And what measures would I have to take in order to prevent assassinations from family and relatives? (Other than counter-assassinating them. (Intrigue is not my strongest feat.))

edit:
Also.. What is the best course of action, in order to get a decently sized military, if I'm a tiny-small nation? I'm talking about very early game here.

In order:

If you want to expand slow, it doesn't really matter as long as it's not elective gavelkind, because that is absolute trash.

Family/Carousing focus helps keep family happy with you. Other than that, keep the rest of your court happy. It doesn't matter if they want to kill you as long as nobody else is in on the plot.

Either score yourself a marriage with a bigger power, or hoard wealth with the Business focus, or get diplo-vassalized for protection. Not a lot that can be done otherwise. Abuse river crossings, mountains and high attrition provinces in wars, too.

[Persus13]

Ninja'd by Teneb, but my own two cents

Succession law, doesn't matter too much when expanding.

Avoid assassinations by being well liked, having a good spymaster to uncover and stop plots, and grooming non-heirs to have low intrigue.

Early Game if you're a very small nation, the main way to get a good army is buying a mercenary company or two after you declare war. They cost a lot of upkeep and will quit if you run out of money to pay them, so make sure you save up more money than the initial 100-300 to pay them. Once you have some territory, you should start building stuff that increases your troop numbers. I think having a high martial ability also increases the number of troops you can raise.

Or you can do as Teneb says and get a marriage alliance with a larger power.

[Tawa]

Succ laws:

The ideal succession law is almost always Primogeniture (if you play the "correct" way) or Ultimogeniture (if you game it and divorce/kill your wife after you have an heir you like.) If you're playing without Conclave, then you can get Ultimogeniture pretty easily as long as the local crown authority is at least "Low", and if you're independent and there's no de jure king (e.g. Ireland,) you can get any law you like. If you have Conclave, you need Legalism 3 and "Late Feudal Administration" for either -geniture law, in which case your best bet is Seniority.

Seniority is the ideal succession law for "marriage game" playthroughs where you try to get family members onto foreign thrones rather than conquering them yourself. Without Conclave, it requires Medium crown authority; with Conclave, it's available from the start.

Gavelkind is the most frustrating law, because it divides your titles between your kids when you die. Elective gavelkind is even worse because it creates titles out of thin air if you could hypothetically form them.

Elective is bad unless all your vassals are family members.

Tanistry is available to Celtic characters (Irish, Scottish, Welsh, or Breton.) It's like elective, but you never lose titles because the nominees are your family members, not your vassals. It's great if you have one top-tier title, but trash if you have multiple (e.g. King of England and Wales) because different people will get elected for both titles, especially if you have a large family.

tl;dr Primo, Ultimo, or Seniority
Assassin's Family:

Get a good spymaster who loves you. Check "auto-stop plots" on the intrigue screen. Bribe people who refuse.
Army:

Upgrade the castles you own. Get more land and vassals. Paradox games are not built for playing tall.
Ninja'd by Teneb; alliances are amazing (and my primary strategy when expanding early on,) but make sure you can actually call them into your wars. There's weird rules about that; you can't call foreign powers into wars against other vassals, for example.

[lordcooper]

I'd recommend against ever checking 'auto-stop plots'.  Plots are good, they give you just cause to imprison uppity vassals.

[scriver]

Yeah. I just have so annual or bi-annual "stop every unimportant plot I can" sessions.

[Kanil]

Manually stopping plots sounds like a lot more work than just beating the crap out of your vassals when they revolt.

[Ultimuh]

just beating the crap out of your vassals when they revolt.

Not so easy when your vassals seem to have a bigger armies than your own for some reason.

[Kanil]

just beating the crap out of your vassals when they revolt.

Not so easy when your vassals seem to have a bigger armies than your own for some reason.

Which can be conveniently solved by beating the crap out of them and revoking their titles.

Being able to just imprison them is pretty convenient, but it's some micromanagement and forgetting can be fatal. Useful in some situations, though.

[Ultimuh]

just beating the crap out of your vassals when they revolt.

Not so easy when your vassals seem to have a bigger armies than your own for some reason.

beating the crap out of them and revoking their titles.

That will only make the other vassals like me less, and more likely to revolt against me.

[Teneb]

If you got a beefy enough capital province, you can just let the rebels wear themselves out sieging provinces you don't care about while you sit at your capital, sallying forth to crush smaller armies before going back and letting reinforcements refill your stack. It's what allowed me to have a viable "The Caliphate Strikes Back" run pre-Monks & Mystics, because holy shit it was like one rebellion per ruler, including a guaranteed one at game start.

If you are christian or muslim, you may want to consider loaning from the jews. Don't expel them unless you run out loan money though, since events and other factors may drain that cash before you can properly use it.

Also: if you can raid, go and do so. Aim for good hostages that you can ransom when things get tough (keep them in house arrest to increase their longevity).

[Cipactli]

Is there any reason to do a Tribal playthrough at all? Elective gavelkind makes me went to gouge my brain out. Gavelkind I can handle, but Elective gavelkind is killer. Even when your vassals like you, they never choose who your truly want, EVER.