So you want to play as the Najd?
Here is a basic summary of the Najd's strengths and weaknesses

Strengths:
- Best missionaries in game (+5 missionary strength from traditions)
- Bonus attrition ( +1 from ideas)
- Good cavalry ( +10 % combat from ideas)
- Bonus true faith tolerance ( +2 tolerance from ideas)
- Good location for expansion
- Major regional powers will fight each other

Weaknessess:
- Bad starting location, poor and empty land (base 1 taxes in most provinces)
- Most starting neighbors are rivals (Hedjaz and Oman)
- Almost all neighbors are stronger than you
- Money problems (Provinces give almost no income)
- Mamluks will want your land
- The Ottomans are coming.........
- Huge goal and lots of conquest to accomplish it

First moves before unpausing:
- Immediately send diplomats to Adal for an alliance and Mamluks for royal marriage (You need the allied troops to survive and you need the Mamluks allied with you or at least happy with you)
- Start building two more infantry in Al-Arid
- Get a general
- Set Oman and Hedjaz to rivals (Not Yemen!)
- Begin converting Qatar to Sunni from Shia (you have five Shia provinces, that need to be sunni for you to gain full use of them
- Set national focus to Admistrative (To get a lead on Adm Power since we will be expanding alot and we want the national ideas asap)

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Second moves:
- Unpause game
- Once diplomats return send one to Adal again for a royal marriage and other to Haasa to Fabricate Claim
- Continue converting provinces (remembering to Harsh Treat the rebels to prevent a rebellion if necessary)
- If Yemen stops being hostile to you, grab an alliance and royal marriage
- Send a diplomat to Mamluks to Improve Relations (If alliance become available grab it, you need the allies. If not keep them happy with you to prevent an invasion if they ally with Hedjaz or Oman, since you can not beat them at this point!)

First conquest:
- As soon as the fabricate claim on Haasa is done, attack with all five regiments (If they have an ally, restart game, If they are attacked, attack as well, even if you have no Casus Belli. You need the territory and can get there before their enemy does.
- Continue converting provinces to Sunni during war
- Once war is done raise autonomy and core it (You are so poor currently that the cost of reinforcing your army, after a rebellion hurts any savings you have and you also need the manpower)
- Convert provinces after their cored

Now is where situations change between games so all advice after this point is subjective and will have to be altered to your own game.

Next Moves:
- After all province are Sunni, wait until you get national ideas and choose either defensive or quantity for your idea (you get better defenses or more reserve troops, your choice really, economic ideas might be useful too. Anyway you need better troops in some way or more money.)
- Fabricate a claim on Shammar, and invade only if they have no ally. Vassalize them, do not conquer them (they can provide at least three units for your army, whereas conquering them does not givve you the space to create three more units)
- Wait, although its hard, you need an opportunity to expand without getting crushed. (If Yemen, Adal, and Mamluks are your allies you could maybe start a war but in my games the Mamluks were useless in helping win wars(except against the Hedjaz or Qara Qoyunlu)
- While waiting fabricate claims on the available Hedjaz and Oman provinces. (They already hate you as a rival so you can hardly make them hate you more (But avoid a coaltion if possible)
- Conquer land from Oman or Hedjaz but try to do it in a defensive war and take as much land as possible (the northern powers should be busy in wars or your ally so AE should not bother them too much and you with Adal and Yemen can handle the remaining enemy easily. I recommend attacking Oman since they are Ibadi and other Sunni powers will not like them as much.)
- If Yemen is not your ally try to attack them after both Hedjaz and Oman (they tend to be allies most games), take as much land as fast as possible to try and build up your military.



- Try to reach level 5 miltary tech first and get the better infantry units
-Try to conquer all the land from Hedjaz, Haasa, Shammar, Oman, and Yemen before trying to expand else where.
- When decisions that effect piety come up, try to lose piety so that you are as negative as possible (Your +5 missionary strength should handle the needed convertions without any bonus and you need the bonus money, manpower, and lower tech cost that you get from negative piety)
- A word of warning, the Mamluks like to conquer the Hedjaz's territories (Be careful taking those lands, that might make the Mamluks break an alliance with you in order to attack you and take them. So the best strategy is to wait until they start losing land to the Ottomans and then take the land.)
- You must make a choice either to wipeout Yemen if you have not already done so or begin expanding into the Mamluk lands (I recommend taking out Yemen giving you control of the whole area and allowing expansion into Africa. If you attack the Mamluks do it while the Ottomans are attacking them or better yet as a Ottoman ally if possible.)

Depending on your game you should begin to expand out of Arabia either into Mamluk-held lands or Africa, or both.

Into Mamluk lands:
- Invade Mamluks only if they are in another war or have just lost alot of land to the Ottomans.
- Take only the land in Egypt or leading to it, not the Levant area (aka Jerusalem and Damacus) or the Ottomans will attack you for it eventually.
- Try to leave a buffer between you and the Ottoman of Mamluk land.
- Take Egypt as fast as possible once you start taking land (honoring truces unless necessary)
- Ignore AE on the African countries (They cannot hurt you even if they attack since you should be far ahead in Military Tech and soldiers by now.
- Invade Ethiopia now to get land and money (You can easily convert their lands especially if you have a missionary advisor)
- Ignore the Ottomans at your peril (I kept a diplomat in their capitol at all times even at +100 Improved Relations
- Upgrade your buildings (you should have a good income but do not bother with a navy for now)
- Try to invade Tripoli or Tunisia depending on who is still alive.
- Economic, Expansion or Exploration ideas are useful at this point to fund your armies and colonize the areas near Ethiopia if Funj has not emerged yet (if they emerge attack and conquer them, how dare a backwards country have alot of land near you!)
- Attack Algiers to gain land bordering Spain or Portugal or Genoa.
- If necessary beat back the Ottomans if they try to expand into the Middle East more. (Ally yourself with any major northern power in the area such as the Timurids, Crimea, or the Qara Qoyunlu states to protect and yourself in a war.
- Westernize quickly (you need to have a tech advantage to beat the Ottomans completely)
- Attack Ottomans


Into Africa:
- Be aware of autonomy since the lands you conquer in Africa might be overseas and have 75% autonomy permanently.
- Attack and take over Adal, Adjuuraan or any of the smaller states in the area even if they are allied to you (break alliances first)
- Do not Protectorate them (you cannot take their lands that way and the trade bonus is not worth it at this point.
- Expand down the East African Coast.
- Ignore AE with Africa countries but watch out for any with the Ottomans or the Mamluks.
- Get exploration ideas so that you can colonize any empty land
- Attack Ethiopia or their allies when the Mamluks are almost dead and before the Ottomans arrive (to prevent any desire for your land from them and an invasion)
- Invade west Africa through the passage near Alodia (that you should have colonized already)
- Invade Morocco or Algiers to border a European country
- Westernize
- Tech up
- Attack Ottomans (take egypt first you need the money and manpower, try to cut Egypt off in the first war or get them to release it as a new state. You will need allies to beat Ottomans unless you are massive and the same tech level.

Depending on the powers in Europe in your game, follow the below tips (not a guide, just ideas, so do not blame me if you fail)

Use this strategy if the Austrian have dominated central Europe or Prussia/Brandenburg has and Spain exists:
- Invade Italy and the Islands around it (try to avoid a major war with Spain unless you have a massive fleet of galley in the inland sea [if not in Mali and that area] or a heavy ship fleet in the ocean
- Attack Portugal's islands and homelands (try to make them cancel any alliance with Spain, France or England)
- Take southern Spain (leave land to protect yourself from France (aka that big blue blob)
- Attack Austria through Italy (try to use the mountains to your advantage)
- Break Austria into seperate countries, at first then start taking land.
- Take over Hungary or Poland if possible
- Prepare for war with France or Muscovy/Russia (remember to break them up to make future wars easier.
-Continue to conquer land now that the major powers are broken
- Convert everything

Use this strategy if France has dominated central Europe:
- Invade Hungary and Poland
- Go east into Russia and North to Sweden
- Invade England
- Invade Spain/ Portugal
- Attack France from multiple fronts using mountains and sea landings to win battles
- Break up France giving land to other countries if necessary
- Finally take land and invade the HRE if it still exists

Thanks to comments, I am adding some more details on meeting the Jihad requirements without attacking Europe. (If any of these are not correct, please let me know so I can fix them)

- The requirement apparently only require 500 provinces owned and sunni (These provinces do not need to include all of Europe.So if you do not want to fight any major European powers, you can avoid fighting them.)

- A good alternative to invading in Europe (and always a good move in general) is to beat Muscovy/Russia in colonizing Siberia and gain lots of land and halt Russia's rise to power.

- Colonial nations do not count towards the 500 provinces required (So no colonizing the Americas to meet the goal, unless you want to colonize for fun)

- I still recomment taking over Europe to fufill the spirit of the Jihad requirements if not the actual coding requirements.