North Sea Empire VS Scandinavia Empire, anglo-saxon vs norse

[dwarfpcfan]

So I'm doing a new run, started as Jylland with a custom ruler, formed Danemark painlessly thanks to high legitimacy allowing me to peacefully vassalize Sigurd and then went own to form Norway with the same ruler. Son just took over now, all going well, not exactly a very creative run but fun.

Anyway I was thinking about how I'm going to form an empire again and first I thought about doing the work and forming the North Sea empire for the coolness but then I just started taking a cost to benefit look and it occurs to me. The north sea empire is just for the cool factor, from a pure game perspective the benefits do not out weight the difficulties.

Setting aside the requirements to get the decision which can be onerous.

Scandinavia as an empire has more kingdoms (Danemark, Norway, Sweden, Sapmi/Lappland, Finland) North Sea (Danemark, Norway, England). While there's no doubt that individually England is a better kingdom since it has more special buildings, generally higher devellopment and stuff. Since those counties are Anglo-Saxon culture and feudal, you won't really get the full benefits unless you hybridize and feudalize (which for that one the decision gives for free true)

Plus if you start anywhere in Scandinavia, you'll have far less unhappy vassals because most of them will already be norse or at least pagans which are easier to get along. And you won't have to deal with crusades every 5-10 years because the pope's jimmies are rustled because of Canterbury.

Even the free feudalization from North Sea isn't really great, when you'll take it your income will drop significantly from the transition from tribal to feudal as will the size of your army. Sure eventually you'll get back up there and it shouldn't be too long if you manage to hold on. But because of the crusades above, it's very easy to get into a situation where if you form the empire, your being weakened from early feudalization will cause significant losse of land because you weren't strong enough to fight the crusade now that you're feudal.

Forming the Scandinavia title, then taking the long way to feudalize meanwhile because the empire is bigger and you're in your own cultural area means that while it will generally require waiting longer to feudalize successfully, will definitely end up with a stronger empire as a norse culture ruler.

And if you want England after, there really won't be any reason not to give it a go.

Meanwhile if you start in England as an Anglo-Saxon assuming your make good on the early game dealing with invading vikings, you can make england your primary title of your culture, hold the best duchies. You're already feudal so it's not a hit like a tribal norse ruler. And in terms of loss.

I guess all this rambling is just me thinking that overall, the North Sea is a much better deal as an england based Anglo-Saxon ruler then starting as a norse in Scandinavia and in that later case it's entirely bragging rights, not an actual better empire then Scandinavia.

[Kapika96]

Yeah, it's only really worth it for a bit of flavour. Do it once, then not much reason to do it again.

Just so much easier to go for Scandinavia or Brittania as an empire and then just de jure drift the other kingdoms into it. May even have one of the legacy drift thingies to do it instantly too!

If it wasn't for the 30 year requirement the North Sea would be a lot easier and therefore more worthwhile. But as it is it's a long wait, and a bit of bad RNG can screw you out of it too.

[dwarfpcfan]

[quote=Kapika96;597394134166157093
If it wasn't for the 30 year requirement the North Sea would be a lot easier and therefore more worthwhile. But as it is it's a long wait, and a bit of bad RNG can screw you out of it too. [/quote]

But here's the thing even without the 30 year requirement it wouldn't be worthwhile because Feudalization tanks your income and army size, so as a norse tribal ruler it's much better to just go scandinavia be patient to carefully feudalize then do the switch because the transition will be far less painful then doing it with the North Sea Decision since basically once you see it pop you have to do it now regardless of if you economy is ready for it because you actually only have a small window available to take the decision since you have to take it while being early medieval or tribal stage and with the 30 year requirement. Meaning when you're doing it you're at best early medieval feudal somewhere around late 900s, early 1000s.

[Cinemax]

There are strategy guides for this achievement. You basically want to play a Son of Ragnarr and focus lifestyle on health (so you live long enough to hit the 30yr requirement). It's annoying af.

[dwarfpcfan]

Originally posted by Cinemax:

There are strategy guides for this achievement. You basically want to play a Son of Ragnarr and focus lifestyle on health (so you live long enough to hit the 30yr requirement). It's annoying af.

Oh I definitely know how to do it, I've formed the North Sea empire multiple times without issue.

I even have the Canute the Greater achievement to go with it.

The point of my posts here is, when you do the math it's really not optimal as a norse ruler. It's a purely cool factor decision but from a mechanics benefit stand point, forming Scandinavia as a Norse or Brittania as an Anglo-Saxon pays a lot more dividends in a long game. Especially if you start in 867 and take your time.

[heh]

The problem with north sea empire is that norse/tribal/scandinavia are OP. You can start as any province in scandinavia and form the empire within one lifetime, if your ruler is young (like 'Tanglehair'). If you start as the sweden-guy, you don't even really have to do anything. You easily conquer your neighbours, form the kingdom of sweden with all the money you make raiding, and then diplomatically vassalize all of norway and denmark while religiously conquering the non-norse to your north and east.

Then you just spend the rest of your time raiding to build a huge stockpile of gold, while impregnating as many women with great contenital traits as you can, disinheriting or murdering or otherwise getting rid of your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ kids to leave everything to the perfect heir - which isn't even necessary for the sake of inheriting your titles since you can just give everything scandinavian elective.

By comparison, conquering england takes a lot of effort, feudalizing destroys your economy so it isn't worth it until you've spent like 50 years stockpiled a huge amount of gold to quickly build up your realm after feudalizing (so the 'upside' of feudalizing early is more of a downside than anything), and dealing with catholics is way harder than stomping the pagans.

[Bishi]

What about the Kingdom of Mann into Baleo-Tyrrhenia into Italia? I keep meaning to do a play-through like this but fall short of the prestige or get too impatient to stay a High Chieftain. Haha

As for the question at hand. I like North Sea for being fun to manage vassals, did it once with the Dark Ages mod and it was one of the craziest play-throughs I've ever had. But Scandinavia or Danelaw into Britannia is much easier. I actually don't like Tribal much, so having England be my main domain and feudalizing isn't too much of a pain to deal with. Once you are empire size the only military threats you will have are from vassals and crusades if you stay pagan.

[dwarfpcfan]

Originally posted by Bishi:

What about the Kingdom of Mann into Baleo-Tyrrhenia into Italia? I keep meaning to do a play-through like this but fall short of the prestige or get too impatient to stay a High Chieftain. Haha

Kingdom of Mann and the Isles is the one decision based Kingdom I've done the most times. Since the last heavy nerf, it's lost a few feathers but it's still one of the stronger kingdom forming decision... as long as you get more then just the De Jure and prestige to form the title.

Of the 4 duchies that compose it, the only one that could be considered good is Straclyde which unfortunately starts of a different culture then you. But with 5 counties and decent devellopment for the portion of brittania you start with, it makes a good choice for one of your main duchies.

Honestly however to really take advantage of the decision, you basically also have to conquer Ireland in full and Iceland to have enough income once it switches to feudal to stay a float by combining your income from domains with non stop raiding until you've upgraded your lands enough.

In my own experience, it's best to take the opinion penalty, and hold 3 duchies intead of 2 and make Straclyde, Mann plus either Iceland or Ulster as your duchies so you have enough space to build a powerful economy quickly, then finish off Wales and Scotland to form Brittania and then you're pretty much set for your entire game.

Baleo-Tyranian kingdom is basically the best option for if you want to recreate the Roman Empire outside of starting as Byzantium since you get a free casus beli for every county with a coast on the meditteranean and this is a region with high devellopment.

I've only done it once but when I did I made insane amounts of gold for the year I did thanks to that starting as one of the duchies in Francia.

[Bishi]

Right on, thanks for the detailed reply!

[Mati_Lublin]

You don't have to be pagan to form North Sea Empire, so you can simply start (or convert) as catholic Norse. However, it just removes issue of crusades after you conquer England.

[dwarfpcfan]

Originally posted by Mati_Lublin:

You don't have to be pagan to form North Sea Empire, so you can simply start (or convert) as catholic Norse. However, it just removes issue of crusades after you conquer England.

Of course, hence why as I said in my original post I mentioned that forming the north sea is much more beneficial as an anglo-saxon ruler starting in England. Thought even then instead just forming Brittania in the long run pays better dividend because Brittannia has 4 De Jure kingdoms instead of the 3 from the North Sea