Haestings Easy, Alfred Hard: What?

[TwoTonTuna]

Earl Alfred of Wessex inherits a large duchy from his brother (15 counties), who dies 80-90% of the time. You are bordered by numerous culturally and religiously homogeneous neighbors. You start off with a military large enough to invade most of not all your neighbors, save for the Norse.

You start with the Intelligent trait and have around 20 in all stats except for intrigue. Middle Seax is full of farmland and a slot for the Tower of London. You can simply revoke the title when you're ready to fight off a civil war. Doing so will give you a solid capital that will start pushing development once you build the Tower of London.

Jarl Haestin starts with a tiny county and 3k troops that do not replenish over time and cannot be inherited by your heir. The neighboring duchy only has a third of your troops, but immediately allies with Francia (who has 5k troops) around 40-50% of the time.

You are an adventurer, an infidel Astaru, and a foreigner in Breton/French soil. If you do not adopt the local culture/religion, all your courtiers/counselors will be at negative opinion--meaning you will be assassinated within the first two years of your game.

Even if you do adopt the local traditions, the nearby king of Francia is your rival. He will keep running murder schemes on you until you die--taking your 3k non-renewable, non-inheritable army with you to the grave. You will either submit to him as a vassal duke, spam alliances to counter his own alliances, or spend your limited gold to murder him so his sprawling kingdom fractures.

As a King of the Haesteining dynasty, I am at year 1005 and 30 counties away from forming the empire of France. However, the journey has been MUCH rougher than any of my Wessex dynasty playthroughs.

Long story short: please explain to me how in the hell Jarl Haestin is considered easy while Alfred is considered hard?

PS: I don't have the Nordic Lords DLC installed. I remember some threads saying that this DLC has a mechanic where the Norse will keep invading the British Isles with 10k armies. Is this true?

[Jackochainsaw]

Northern Lords adds the dimension of Adventure, and with it the mechanic that allows you to conquer land with your Northman army rather rapidly. You can, with some finesse, take a duchy of the Byzantines and take over there. The special troop types (Varangian Veteran, Huscarl, Bondi, Vigman) are overpowered early game. You will steam through enemy troops like butter. You get shield maidens (your female children with 12 or above prowess) if they accept (which is extra Knights), you get a cool trait called Berserker and if you do enough raiding you get the Viking trait, your knights are ferocious. You can send some kids away to become Varangian Veterans (as long as you remember not to marry them off) and they can come back with the Varangian Veteran perk. You get an amazing benefit with the two additional dynasty legacy paths (Adventure and Pillage) and it changes the balance, especially in Britannia.

Conversely, all of the untouched cultures by the Northern Lords DLC don't get any of these benefits. If you are playing Anglo-Saxon or Finnish/Estonia as an example, you won't be able to field such an easy counter against the expansion. You get hit with Northman Conquests every so often (where AI spawn big 10K armies), they can be defeated if you position yourself effectively but can be annoying. You start passing them later on, when you get to a certain cultural level. The Asatru find it difficult to progress beyond the tribal era, because they are never united enough to reform the faith. By that time, you have much bigger stacks to counter them with.

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by Jackochainsaw:

Northern Lords adds the dimension of Adventure, and with it the mechanic that allows you to conquer land with your Northman army rather rapidly. You can, with some finesse, take a duchy of the Byzantines and take over there. The special troop types (Varangian Veteran, Huscarl, Bondi, Vigman) are overpowered early game. You will steam through enemy troops like butter. You get shield maidens (your female children with 12 or above prowess) if they accept (which is extra Knights), you get a cool trait called Berserker and if you do enough raiding you get the Viking trait, your knights are ferocious. You can send some kids away to become Varangian Veterans (as long as you remember not to marry them off) and they can come back with the Varangian Veteran perk. You get an amazing benefit with the two additional dynasty legacy paths (Adventure and Pillage) and it changes the balance, especially in Britannia.

Conversely, all of the untouched cultures by the Northern Lords DLC don't get any of these benefits. If you are playing Anglo-Saxon or Finnish/Estonia as an example, you won't be able to field such an easy counter against the expansion. You get hit with Northman Conquests every so often (where AI spawn big 10K armies), they can be defeated if you position yourself effectively but can be annoying. You start passing them later on, when you get to a certain cultural level. The Asatru find it difficult to progress beyond the tribal era, because they are never united enough to reform the faith. By that time, you have much bigger stacks to counter them with.

Oooh, that explains a lot. Haestein would probably be a lot easier if I had Northern Lords, what with all the viking mechanics you mentioned. Conversely, Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic starts would definitely be harder if they constantly had to deal with 10k armies in the tribal era.

[Yaldabaoth]

Haestein is a very easy start, dlc or not. The 3k men special army you have is enough to take land from almost anyone in the mediterranean. You might have to conquer a quick county from Sardinia (Sardinia is a very good location to conquer btw.) or in the Morocco area to reach egypt etc. but that's it. You would then either convert your religion for a standard game or stay asatru and raid the entire world for thousands and thousands of gold. He is the only norse/asatru character that starts as feudal, meaning you can build up castle holdings unlike your tribal brothers who can't. That makes it very easy to amass troops (especially since you have the necessary gold from raids) and since unreformed norse get a once-per-ruler invasion title that takes not only the target kingdom but ALL occupied provinces you can absolutely wreck empires like the Arabs or Byzantines.
Alfred can't raid, therefore has a meager income and might get consumed by norse invasion if unlucky. I wouldn't consider his start hard either but certainly harder than good ol' Haestein.

[blackhand_lost]

Had a nice run as Haesteining, I just started a new adventure right from the start, conquering the emirate of Fes(in north Africa, modern Marocco), formed a hybrid culture and adopted Islam. Formed multiple kingdoms with kings of my dynasty, including France and Aquitania(conquered through holy wars).
Can't say it was challenging, but it was fun. No one is forcing you to play as independent asatru and conquer France, you know

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by Yaldabaoth:

Haestein is a very easy start, dlc or not. The 3k men special army you have is enough to take land from almost anyone in the mediterranean. You might have to conquer a quick county from Sardinia (Sardinia is a very good location to conquer btw.) or in the Morocco area to reach egypt etc. but that's it. You would then either convert your religion for a standard game or stay asatru and raid the entire world for thousands and thousands of gold. He is the only norse/asatru character that starts as feudal, meaning you can build up castle holdings unlike your tribal brothers who can't. That makes it very easy to amass troops (especially since you have the necessary gold from raids) and since unreformed norse get a once-per-ruler invasion title that takes not only the target kingdom but ALL occupied provinces you can absolutely wreck empires like the Arabs or Byzantines.
Alfred can't raid, therefore has a meager income and might get consumed by norse invasion if unlucky. I wouldn't consider his start hard either but certainly harder than good ol' Haestein.

No Northern Lords DLC here, so no adventures for me.

How do you avoid getting murdered while maintaining your culture/religion? All my courtiers/counselors were non-norse, non-astaru, averaging -20 opinion. I keep getting murdered within a year or two as I can't find a spymaster with a positive opinion.

[Gorgeous_Joe]

PS: I don't have the Nordic Lords DLC installed. I remember some threads saying that this DLC has a mechanic where the Norse will keep invading the British Isles with 10k armies. Is this true?

--------

Very true, spawns every 5 years assuming your ruler doesnt die. The A.I gets a twenty year reprieve but you only get 5 years. At first its very annoying but later its just less annoying as it will always spawn as soon as you declare war upon someone else, same as rebels/factions etc.
The viking leader has many troops but they are generally speaking trash but because there are so many of them and you can wipe them out in a single battle it is a fame and piety party, usually around 1.5k fame and slightly less piety for winning that single battle. This is a HUGE boost every five years, so I'm fairly sure this was a mechanic intended to make the game harder but it actually gives you a HUGE fame and piety boost almost for free every five years, its great.

I'm in 1020 and the last spawn was 10k with their allies took the army total to 14k, By this time in my game the Knights Templar are upto 7k so they just wiped them out for me for free as I'm their patron.

All good fun

[Yaldabaoth]

Originally posted by Gorgeous_Joe:

Very true, spawns every 5 years assuming your ruler doesnt die. The A.I gets a twenty year reprieve but you only get 5 years. At first its very annoying but later its just less annoying as it will always spawn as soon as you declare war upon someone else, same as rebels/factions etc.

You can set it to 10 years in the game rules, that's even compatible with achievements. They knew how annoying it is.

[shiggies713]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2773390909
Because Alfred can't do this

How do you not get murdered? I murder my rivals first. I sway my spymaster first.

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by shiggies713:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2773390909
Because Alfred can't do this

how did you avoid early assassination as a norse astaru without converting to christianity or the local customs?

[Yaldabaoth]

Why would you even have non-asatru courtiers? Just dismiss them.

[shiggies713]

Basically game start... Plot to murder king of France, bribe anyone i can even though it causes me stress, worth it. Do a varangian adventure on Sardina. Once the king is dead, I then started a plot to murder the byzantine emperor. Same thing, bribe away, worth it.

Then once he died their war they joined with Bulgaria usually goes bad. It did. I then attack Byzantine Empire for duchy of Thrace. Take it easily. Then declare war on Bulgaria, take their entire Kingdom. Murdered another Byzantine emperor because he hated me. Then swear fealty to some 5 year old emperor. Plot to take liege titles. Boom. I actually took the entire Byzantine Empire + Bulgaria + Sardina in maybe 10 years.

[shiggies713]

Actually i kept all my courtiers, I just sway any that might have any power like a spymaster. I even married some of them so i got the intermingling bonus for cultural acceptance growth.

Once I went to Sardinia i had even more wrong religion/wrong culture courtiers, and after Thrace and Bulgaria, even more.... Doesn't matter. By then i had so many prisoners it was easy to keep dread at 100. Most npc's won't even attempt hostile schemes against someone with 100 dread.

I've had several attempts on my life, several on my wives as well. None of them have succeeded. Even a few times while i was holding court, vassals tried to assassinate me, but I have so much gear even my worst of rulers in their twilight has above average prowess, they were all killed in the throne room or dueled to death.

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by shiggies713:

Basically game start... Plot to murder king of France, bribe anyone i can even though it causes me stress, worth it. Do a varangian adventure on Sardina. Once the king is dead, I then started a plot to murder the byzantine emperor. Same thing, bribe away, worth it.

Then once he died their war they joined with Bulgaria usually goes bad. It did. I then attack Byzantine Empire for duchy of Thrace. Take it easily. Then declare war on Bulgaria, take their entire Kingdom. Murdered another Byzantine emperor because he hated me. Then swear fealty to some 5 year old emperor. Plot to take liege titles. Boom. I actually took the entire Byzantine Empire + Bulgaria + Sardina in maybe 10 years.

Originally posted by shiggies713:

Actually i kept all my courtiers, I just sway any that might have any power like a spymaster. I even married some of them so i got the intermingling bonus for cultural acceptance growth.

Once I went to Sardinia i had even more wrong religion/wrong culture courtiers, and after Thrace and Bulgaria, even more.... Doesn't matter. By then i had so many prisoners it was easy to keep dread at 100. Most npc's won't even attempt hostile schemes against someone with 100 dread.

I've had several attempts on my life, several on my wives as well. None of them have succeeded. Even a few times while i was holding court, vassals tried to assassinate me, but I have so much gear even my worst of rulers in their twilight has above average prowess, they were all killed in the throne room or dueled to death.

I don't have Northern Lords, so no adventures for me. I only start with 500 gold.

In 867, Byzantines are in a defensive war against Aghlabid, not Bulgaria. I also cannot invade for Kingdom level titles at this point; I need Exalted Among Men when I am only Illustrious at 867.

Other than being unable to invade a kingdom, your advice sounds pretty solid. Dread to cow vassals/courtiers into submission, followed by duchy-level invasions into the Mediterranean and then cutting up the Byzantine Empire from within. Definitely going to give it a try
Hmm... seems like Haesting got a pretty huge buff with Northern Lords. The core

[shiggies713]

They almost always ally Bulgaria and join their war. They also almost always ally France, and partly why I assassinate both of them to prevent alliances and keep both Byz and Bulgaria ally-less.

I think I raided or possibly just had enough prestige from winning battles to immediately declare war for Bulgaria kingdom title after Thrace.

[Mr.Android]

Originally posted by Yaldabaoth:

Haestein is a very easy start, dlc or not. The 3k men special army you have is enough to take land from almost anyone in the mediterranean. You might have to conquer a quick county from Sardinia (Sardinia is a very good location to conquer btw.) or in the Morocco area to reach egypt etc. but that's it. You would then either convert your religion for a standard game or stay asatru and raid the entire world for thousands and thousands of gold. He is the only norse/asatru character that starts as feudal, meaning you can build up castle holdings unlike your tribal brothers who can't. That makes it very easy to amass troops (especially since you have the necessary gold from raids) and since unreformed norse get a once-per-ruler invasion title that takes not only the target kingdom but ALL occupied provinces you can absolutely wreck empires like the Arabs or Byzantines.
Alfred can't raid, therefore has a meager income and might get consumed by norse invasion if unlucky. I wouldn't consider his start hard either but certainly harder than good ol' Haestein.

Halfdan also starts as a Feudal Asatru in 867 with the Jarldom of Jorvik in "England".