14 DAY TRIAL // In the real world the Seljuk Turks were an upstart tribe coming from the East which managed to quickly, in historical term, overcome the resistance of other tribes, which united behind them and that of the mighty Byzantine Empire, considered the heir of the Romans.
The start date for Crusader Kings II and its Sword of Islam expansion is close to the moment when the Byzantines and the Seljuks were in virtual equilibrium and the game is set up to allow the Orthodox empire to recover from its earlier defeats and get the upper hand over the Muslim invaders.
There are many After Action Reports that show how that can be accomplished, but until now no one playing the core Crusader Kings II (mods are a different matter) was able to pick any Muslim ruler, including the Seljuks and discover how they would play the war out.
Sword of Islam makes Islamic rulers playable, so I decided to make this my first game with the expansion.
Unfortunately, things went very wrong and resulted in probably the shortest CK II game I ever played, where I was forced to admit defeat and resign in less than 20 minutes.
First I discovered that the Seljuks were very wealthy, but had a problem with vassal relations and revolt risk, which meant that I tried to offer some meaningless titles to limit the problem somewhat while also raising personal and realm levies in order to attack the Byzantines, who were also mustering troops.
This pushed a number of my vassals over the historical edge and they began a rolling declaration of war and independence which quickly resulted in my losing of about half my Empire while my own troops were caught on the wrong side of the divide and quickly destroyed piecemeal.
There was no way I could recover in a short period of time, caught between the revolters and the Byzantines, so I quit and resolved to choose another Muslim civilization.