Let's talk about 867, British Isles. Who do you guys play on the non-Viking side and what results do you get?

[NewbieOne]

I'll give my own response later — want to hear from others first.

I'm especially keen on hearing from folks who play Northumbria.

Let's focus on the current situation, which is obviously different from what Britain was two or three patches ago (before the patches leading up to NL).

[Razorblade]

The Irish and Scottish are both pretty easy. They're tribal, so all you have to do is spam out prestige, buy Men-At-Arms, and rapidly conquer all of your surrounding territory.

The English and Cornish are a bit harder, since they are feudal, but they can both Negotiate the Danelaw, which keeps you safe for 30 years while the Danelaw runs out of event troops, and inevitably becomes too weak to resist your holy wars.

I'd say the Welsh are probably the hardest culture to play as in the British Isles, as they have the terrible-for-867 feudal government, little room for expansion, and are within range of viking conquest. You can probably make an alliance with England, though, which should protect you well enough.

So with the potential exception of the Welsh, any start in the 867 British Isles is pretty obscenely easy, if you understand CK3's mechanics.

[ste]

Playing as wessex atm, played as northumbria once before the norse patch. Wessex is pretty easy. Northumbria I think I let them take the duchy they were at war for, then I joined scotland, then took scotland from the inside then worked my way down england.

Wessex we had somekind of truce where I got england, they form the danelaw, when he died I took over the danelaw and united england, then I took norway, sweden some of france and the rest of Britannia, trying not to fabricate any claims.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

So with the potential exception of the Welsh, any start in the 867 British Isles is pretty obscenely easy, if you understand CK3's mechanics.

The only really tough starts are East Anglia, which still seems to survive WAY more than they did in CK2 but are then set up for easy viking conquests since they are small, and Northumbria and (especially) their vassals. You can definitely cheese it a bit but playing it "straight" is really hard.

When I start in 867 I usually just start as one of the OPM Vikings up in the Northern Isles, or Iceland, and raid a bunch before expanding some. If not them, sometimes a random Irish lord or very rarely one of the big Vikings (and then usually go invade somewhere far away instead).

[NewbieOne]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

The Irish and Scottish are both pretty easy. They're tribal, so all you have to do is spam out prestige, buy Men-At-Arms, and rapidly conquer all of your surrounding territory.

In my experience of like 20 restarts as Cornwall, Scotland is almost invariably impervious to conquest and while generally too busy defending against external aggression or fighting internally, it can pack a serious punch, easily outnumbering Wessex or England. After the patch, I've yet to see it lose a war as a defender other than for the Outer Hebrides.

The English and Cornish are a bit harder, since they are feudal, but they can both Negotiate the Danelaw, which keeps you safe for 30 years while the Danelaw runs out of event troops, and inevitably becomes too weak to resist your holy wars.

I've yet to see Wessex collapse, though I sometimes see it lose a county or two to county conquests from already established landed Viking neighbours. Mercia generally tends to fall, either to Jorvik/Danelaw or to Wessex. Sometimes Gwynedd is strong enough to take some land from them.

I'd say the Welsh are probably the hardest culture to play as in the British Isles, as they have the terrible-for-867 feudal government, little room for expansion, and are within range of viking conquest. You can probably make an alliance with England, though, which should protect you well enough.

In my experience a North-vs-South duopoly of Gwynedd and Deheubarth forms quickly and tends to remain untouched for decades, although it is capable of losing Gwent to Saxon neighbours or falling altogether to a very strong and successful Danelaw (just once).

So with the potential exception of the Welsh, any start in the 867 British Isles is pretty obscenely easy, if you understand CK3's mechanics.

Yeah. I don't think you can escape partitioning on succession easily, but you can pack a very serious punch within a single lifetime. Learning lifestyle is actually quite strong. You can farm piety, keep asking the pope for gold, keep investing in your domain, marrying various Karlings and using your allies to fight holy wars. With the right character you can work your way to a kingdom-level holy war somewhat quickly (Paragon of Virtue). Winning it is another matter — it's always going to be dicey, even if the game says their forces are inferior to yours. This is due to AI being unreliable and your very own stack not being too large, depending on who you play as, as well as the unpredictability of alliance changes during the war. You can also buy claims from the pope (Sanctioned Loopholes perk) and limit the defender to just the normal allies, without spending your kingdom-level holy-war slot. The problem: you are likely to end up with an elective kingdom if you go after a kingdom. So better at least buy claims on the ducal titles under that kingdom too and revoke them, so at least your heir is not gonna be Norse Asatru. Learning also used to be able to get you out of Confederate partition at least within the lifetime of the starting unmarried petty king's infant son, but that's no longer the case after the Fascination nerf.

I've tried all of Stewardship, Martial and Learning lifestyles as Cornwall, and they're all pretty interesting with many different bonuses and drawbacks. Stewardship (Architect) is good for better levies and forts, better popular opinion and larger domain limits (controlling 10 counties is pretty powerful), as well as power investing if you have the cash. Martial is great for control with the Control tree, which is otherwise going to be a problem. You can also turn yourself into a great commander and get good marriages with Promising Prospects, as well as buffing your knight department. Diplomacy… well, after the recent patches independent counties almost no longer exist, but True Ruler coupled with tempting the future vassal with low obligations is a lot of help in king vs duke scenarios. Huge opinion bonuses vs both the various Karlings and the Norse and the Saxons turn this into almost a different game.

I would describe the situation as potentially very easy to expand — if you know the mechanics well — but also very risky, since no amount of knowledge can save you in some particular situations unless you're playing very focused and alert (not like 11 p.m. after 10 hours at work).

So, me, I play as Cornwall, and I can go through the motions of taking out Olaf and Haesteinn half-asleep (though after the patch you can no longer take Olaf out without an ally, while you can take out Haesteinn but if you fail, then he's likely to take over East Francia).

Before the patch, the game was may more interesting and nicer to play. And also much more historical. The various tiny Norse rulers would take just one county at a time from a Welsh or Irish dynast, which you could pick up and eventually form higher titles and/or get yourself a border with a fatter target.

Now I find the pace to be too mind-boggling, the Norse and much of the rest too focused on duchies, and the constant spamming of 6K or 9K heathen/northern armies out of nowhere to be boring and tedious more than anything else. They are just a nuisance, especially considering that they aren't even randomized into a number between 8500 and 9500 (ending up e.g. 8671 or 9327 warriors), it's a blatant round 9000 every three years. You have to call several karlings to defeat them, and at least half the time if not more the war score goes to 100% after the first battle. And you get no cash, no loot, no nothing. So it's like a rock-paper-scissors thing dumbed down to the level of a Java-style minigame. It was much better before.

Anyway, so far in my successful games I've managed to fairly quickly form Brittany (if one of those 6K/9K armies goes after the King of Brittany with his all of 800 men), Wales (if the Norse form it after subjugating Gwynedd and Deheubarth) and Danelaw (usually with a single kingdom-level holy war). If you avoid having enough land to form additional kingdoms, you can manage your stuff pretty well and remain strong. Otherwise you'll have to plan and speculate a lot and get lucky to be able to execute it (e.g. at peace when you need it, which is not easy to achieve if you have like 7 allies), but of course, offloading kingdoms on younger sons can be better than leaving them in Norse hands, as long as you don't lose too many counties.

I think destroying and recreating duchies in a different order as king can help some, though that would be both gamey and quite extreme on the cost side. If you exceed the domain limit you're going to give land to younger sons while you're still alive anyway. And that's the point where you'd better sit down and have a proper think.

[ROE]

In my current game I started in Thomond Ireland and quickly took Munster. Then it's just a waiting game while I nibbled here and there. Now I am King in 950ish and have Ulster left to take. Luckily for me a weakened England holds the county. Still going to be a ♥♥♥♥♥ of a fight.

So far, as always, Scotland is its impervious self. I've only ever seen them fall apart once in many games. Daneslaw crashed awhile ago, the vikings are "resting", and England is currently weakened from a vicious war, and Gwynedd/Pows/Cornwall area is still free and embroiled in fighting one another. They make a very tempting target.


A note on Brittany. I would recommend everyone give them a try if you like going tall. Starting as a count and working your way up to king is a great amount of fun. No one really messes with you there if you make a treaty with Francia, and once you get rolling that little peninsula turns into a serious powerhouse. By the time I was done I was so rich I didn't know what to do with all my money, I had a stupid powerful military, and my dynasty was off the charts. Easy place to play and uber powerful.

[NewbieOne]

Yeah, Brittany can be very powerful. You gotta love the combination of ports and agriculture, the proximity to everywhere and the relative safety overland. It's only a pity the CK3 map isn't as beautiful visually as the one in CK2, where you could fall in love with the coastline and the ships passing through — which I actually did.

After I formed k_Brittany as Cornwall, I should probably have moved the capital to Vannes and stayed there, from a pure efficiency point of view, but I simply wanted a Cornish game — not really Cornish as in Cornwall but a Brythonic game based on the belief of the House of Dumnonia as the pre-eminent house among the Brythons, as opposed to the Cunedda-Gwynedd narrative offered by the Aberffraws, or the various possible claims of the old houses of Powys and the South (Gwent to Macsen Wledig, Powys to Vortigern) and Stratchlyde (to Caratacus).

Incidentally, the beauty of Wales and other Brythons is that just about any of the rulers who isn't a very obvious cadet of a neighbouring house can argue some kind of claim to genealogical pre-eminence and thus can easily offer a nice restoration backstory, so you can just take the perspective of whoever you play us.

I remember my game in Ireland, carried over from the tutorial. Uniting Ireland without outright wars of aggression (only liberation from foreign invaders, restoration of exiled rightful rulers, etc., otherwise marriage and diplovassalization) wasn't an easy task. I eventually got to the Tuatha Dé Danann point, but that took centuries for the same reason. Britannia wasn't the first empire I formed. By the time I formed it, chances are it was de iure down to Scotland.