Hilariously OP Norse Strategy! (Space Normans in 867)

[=яενєηąŋŧ=]

So, little known fact, you can create Norman culture as a Norse character if you hold the Duchy of Neustria. That is literally it, the only requirement.

You can pull this off right after starting the game, as soon as you have enough Prestige to declare a Duchy war against France. They're weak, and probably fighting another war, so this should be easy. If not, call in Ivar and Halfdan and their event troop doomstacks.

Congratulations! You can now become Norman. Why is this important? Because it gives you all the techs that the French and the Norse have unlocked, which means everything except Mottes, Casus Belli, and City Planning. Also, all your new cultural land has 5x the dev compared to that crappy old Norse land, with only 7 counties to develop!

Make sure to move your capital to Normandy before you press the button so all your Courtiers, advisors and family members switch with you. Congrats, you are now the most technologically advanced culture in the world, with only 3 techs left to discover in the era! The only downside is your Norse vassals will dislike you by -15 for Foreign Culture since you're now in the Francia group, but that is completely manageable.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

You can still raid. You border France and can raise your raiders there. Your capital is now in Normandy, so when you raid and get the +40 development progress option, it goes there. So you can stack your development insanely high in your new 7-county culture through constant raiding.

This will make your research progress much faster for City Planning and Casus Belli, and some random Asatru Slavs in the middle of nowhere will give you Exposure to one of them.

Don't research Mottes. We'll cover why later.

So, we're stacking our development by raiding France, but how can we be even better at raiding? Once we've fully raided Northern France, we probably have to use boats. We're already really good at boats, and at raiding, but we could be even better!

How? By colonizing Africa, of course! So just grab some random chunk of Iberia for Naval range and head down to Jolof. Remember the part where we only have 7 counties as part of our culture? Take a look at the West African War Canoes special tech. It says that if 40% of your culture is in West Africa, you will unlock the tech. So conquer a measly 4 Counties, culture-convert them aaaand...

Congratulations, boats are now free. Yes, FREE. You have the -75% embark cost tech already, and just got another -25%. Free boats. And also 15% faster raiding for gold, glory, and sweet, sweet development. Normandy will be a bright, shining beacon to the world, fuelled by burned villages and slavery.

Pretty insane, huh? Well, there is one more slice of cheese to slap onto this cheese sandwich.

Remember when I said not to research Mottes? Here's why:. While you're waiting to culture-convert random bits of Africa for infinite boats, continue conquering England like a good Norseman. Ar some point, you'll be able to form the Kingdom of England (can't form the Danelaw if you're Norman, unfortunately, but that decision is 100% flavor text anyway).

You'll notice a new decision: Embrace English Culture. Huh? Right, we're Normans now. The people who conquered the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 and became English, just like 200 years later.

Don't do this until after you have free boats. Also make sure you're not converting any land you take in England to Norman or you'll need to convert more of Africa, so give your English land to vassals who stayed Norse because you don't care about Norse culture anymore. Once that's done, you can become English! As soon as your current ruler dies at least, because you need to move your capital to England for the decision to unlock.

Just like with the last culture swap, you'll get all of your techs (including free boats and probably City Planning or Casus Belli if not both at this point), in addition to all the Anglo-Saxon techs, including Mottes.

Congrats, you probably have all or at least all but one tech unlocked as a Tribe before Early Medieval even fires, and also free boats.

Did I mention FREE BOATS?

[Messsucher]

Good reading, However, the latest ♥♥♥♥ in "tech" is free Star Trek teleporters, obsoleting your grand daddy ships. Get a piece of land from Africa and press mouse button to make create rally point. Now you can teleport your troops to Africa from Siberia just like in Star Trek they would be teleported from space to planet. Seriously ships are old tech. Update ur tech :DDDDDDD


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt8U0ZL7fHQ

This is where space meets medieval. Crusader Kings is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nothing without Star Trek teleporters :DDDDDDDDDD

[alation13]

Originally posted by Messsucher:

Good reading, However, the latest ♥♥♥♥ in "tech" is free Star Trek teleporters, obsoleting your grand daddy ships. Get a piece of land from Africa and press mouse button to make create rally point. Now you can teleport your troops to Africa from Siberia just like in Star Trek they would be teleported from space to planet. Seriously ships are old tech. Update ur tech :DDDDDDD


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt8U0ZL7fHQ

Crusader Kings is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nothing without Star Trek teleporters :DDDDDDDDDD

Actually don't just create a new rally point, with multiple rally points your troops seem to get raised in multiple counties at once. What you need to do is just "Move" your rally point to where ever you need it. It is also great if you are being raided, just move your rally point next to the raiders and instantly you can spawn your entire army there. Same deal with attacking enemies, move it next to their border raise and kill. You can even take it a step further, you want to raid the nice rich byzantine empire. Take a county near by, move your rally point, raise as raiders, grab a few hundred gold and prestige, cross back your border and have fun.

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by alation13:

Originally posted by Messsucher:

Good reading, However, the latest ♥♥♥♥ in "tech" is free Star Trek teleporters, obsoleting your grand daddy ships. Get a piece of land from Africa and press mouse button to make create rally point. Now you can teleport your troops to Africa from Siberia just like in Star Trek they would be teleported from space to planet. Seriously ships are old tech. Update ur tech :DDDDDDD


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt8U0ZL7fHQ

Crusader Kings is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nothing without Star Trek teleporters :DDDDDDDDDD

Actually don't just create a new rally point, with multiple rally points your troops seem to get raised in multiple counties at once. What you need to do is just "Move" your rally point to where ever you need it. It is also great if you are being raided, just move your rally point next to the raiders and instantly you can spawn your entire army there. Same deal with attacking enemies, move it next to their border raise and kill. You can even take it a step further, you want to raid the nice rich byzantine empire. Take a county near by, move your rally point, raise as raiders, grab a few hundred gold and prestige, cross back your border and have fun.

Yes, thank you very much of that correction, I was aware of it myself but somehow wrote that wrong way to do it. Now people can know the right way to do it.

[=яενєηąŋŧ=]

I mean, I know about Rally Points, but you're still going to need boats to take those initial chunks of land.

Mostly though, the free boats aspect is just a cherry on top because it amuses the crap out of me. The main part of this strat is having all the Tribal techs unlocked before 900 and ditching all your crappy low-development Norse land that would drag down your tech progress for the rest of the game without serious effort to build it up.

You could also do this as Jorvik which would be even more powerful because they already start Feudal, but I just find the idea of Space-Age Tribal Normans sailing around the world on magic boats and pillaging everything with incredible speed hilarious.

Could even skip the Become England part and keep building up the dev in your 7 Norman counties through constant raiding until you become more developed than Rome so you clear all the Early Medieval techs insanely fast once they unlock. Becoming English is just funnier.

[Guy Montag]

my favourite is as Capua, conquer Napoli and then grant county of Capua to a local Lombard lord so the culture doesn't disappear. Create Lombardo-Norman culture with both martial admirations as well as chanson de geste.

[Duuvian]

I usually start with a West African culture in ruler designer for the eventual free boats once I do a culture merge with Norse or their branched off cultures.

Anyways though would a merged culture be able to do the thing with Normandy and England, such as by being in the appropriate culture group or does it have to be the specific existing culture? Maybe you could get the free boats without coastal invading Africa, if you used ruler creator to start with a culture that has the canoes and then merged cultures with Norse as soon as possible.

The tribal techs are pretty easy to gain from merging, I almost always have them all unlocked a long time before being ready to go feudal from tribal. Are you able to pick the culture perks of Norman and English cultures from the two merged cultures? If not I'd probably just stick to the free boats and use malleable invaders to merge cultures at only 20% acceptance (so not many counties convert) and use normal merges to accumulate technology. I'm not sure that works; last time when I thought of the idea I ran out of time to merge with the Norse before they split and lost Malleable Invaders.