Tips for a Newbie interested in playing as Norse in 769.

[Sushima-Carmine]

So I've played the game here and there with mods and whatnot, shamelessly usings cheats for the sake of it since it was fascinating for a time. However, it has gotten a bit boring, and I've begun to want the achievements.

But alas it seems that my over reliance on the cheats have dulled my capabilities in playing the game without them. So any tips on how to rectify that?

I'm not really interested in playing any other culture aside from Norse at the moment , as I find it a bit fun raiding the islamic provinces. Plus I have all the dlcs at the moment, so there are a lot of things I still don't understand, or completely ignored.

I've only learned about the retinues last week, and still don't understand it.

Plus it seems the 769 start daate is pretty hard, tried once in ironman but my relatively good ruler became incapable when my heir was only 4 years old.

[haidunia]

Norse at the 769 start are relatively "weak" as they are undeveloped tribals and the income is really low... you are able to raid by ship, just like in later starts, but since it's before the official start of the Viking age, no shipyards for free... so... try to start in an area bordering other religions so you can raid by land (only possible in counties bordering your own land if done without boats), put all your money into building up the market and walls. Keep some pocket change of course for bribes and stuff if possible :)
Use your prestige to build up your army. Later on I try to keep around 400-500 prestige "spare" to use for the tribal warriors, but in the beginning, as soon as an upgrade is available that gives more troops I use it.
Make friends and allies of your Norse neighbours. Catholic dukes often declare holy wars on some territory or other, with allies (and relatively happy vassals) you should be in a resonable position to fight them off... a decent chunk of gold for you if they fail a holy war, as well as a bunch of prestige and piety (I think), also adds to the religious authority for Norse (for future reformation if that's a possibility for you)
Oh and yea... you'll get a nice prestige bonus for concubines... but as you can't really get out of gavelkind anytime soon, plan your family wisely... It could be well worth it to just go seduction focus (if you have Way of Life) and avoid too many sons in an expansive stage of your game.
Even after reforming the religion (if you get that far) it takes time and effort (tech) to get to all the inheritance options. Expect to be stuck with gavelkind for x number of generations :)

[haidunia]

There are plenty of helpful ppl around if you have problems or questions, so just ask if you run into anything (and remember, screenshots always help :) )

[Klutch]

Its a tough game, I lose so many games its not funny and I have a few hours under my belt :)

My warm up game is usually as 18yo Martial mofo Krum in Bulgaria, 769. As a duke I just declare war on Avaria, crush it and now im a king. Since my cousin Telerig, the King of Bulgaria has no ill feelings towards me I back him up against either Magyars or Serbia (I really ignore this place myself, its a slog, I don't know the locale very well).

If all goes well I should be killed in battle by 790, every single place rises up against me and as my vastly inferior manpower fights unnoticebly in a region of war. Peasants, Vassals, and Neighbors just grind me into the dust. Byzantines I've only beat a couple times (year or two ago), and I can usually tell if I don't beat them with Krum in the first 40 years its not likely to happen at all.

Point being, sometimes you win sometimes you don't but its a different story everytime and that keeps you coming back and trying again.

CK2 is tough, and theres plenty of stuff to turn off to make it easy but what fun would that be, might as well be using ruler creator.

[Sushima-Carmine]

Well that's neat, thanks for the tip haidunia. 769 start is horrendously hard, but I chose to start as Omr of Nordland, and took that one county to the right that is part of Lappland. I've found it quite easy to solve the gavelkind problem by simply having one concubine, get her pregnant and ditch her. Leaving it quite easy to have an heir, and just let him have babies before assassinating the concubine he has.

As for making friends with my Norse neighbors, I sorta can't do that as I just raided them. However a King of Sjaelland somehow got strong, and took Nidaros, so I swore fealty to him after I helped him in his war. Then just went and remained loyal to the kingdom even when the ruler got replaced three times, first due to him dying of old age, ironically before me, second his son being killed, and third the young heir being deposed.

Though even when I got free ships, itseems the amount of troops I can put in it is small, and the other counties I can raid have much larger troops.

But it seems fun, albeit a bit boring without someone to help you in some situations.

I agree howeverto Katsuchiyo, the game is quite forgiving, but I find extremely fun. As it's frankly a great game to try and weave stories with, and with Norse the Great Blots is a great boon when one has many prisoners, as I keep forgetting about them.

Also, how does the Spymaster Tech thing work, where you send him to spy on other counties? It seems that depending on the spymaster, I can either reach Constinople for his spying or not, it's a bit confusing.

[Klutch]

Stealing tech will give you a chance to to advance by 50 tech points in one tech category. The province he is stealing from will be treated as a neighbor to your capital, so you benefit from tech drift also, which is just a neighbor tech bonus, can probably find it on the tooltip in the tech tab. As far as how far he can go, or where he can go - I believe any province that is more advanced in at least one category, and in diplomatic range is applicable.

[Sushima-Carmine]

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks, it befuddled me as at times I can reach Middle Francia, Lombardy and Byzantine Empire. Then at other times it's either Saxony, Britain or the Slav areas.

[gghadur77]

Originally posted by Sushima-Carmine The Sickly Trap:

So I've played the game here and there with mods and whatnot, shamelessly usings cheats for the sake of it since it was fascinating for a time. However, it has gotten a bit boring, and I've begun to want the achievements.

But alas it seems that my over reliance on the cheats have dulled my capabilities in playing the game without them. So any tips on how to rectify that?

I'm not really interested in playing any other culture aside from Norse at the moment , as I find it a bit fun raiding the islamic provinces. Plus I have all the dlcs at the moment, so there are a lot of things I still don't understand, or completely ignored.

I've only learned about the retinues last week, and still don't understand it.

Plus it seems the 769 start daate is pretty hard, tried once in ironman but my relatively good ruler became incapable when my heir was only 4 years old.

Playing as norse is easy. Raid, raid, raid. Raiding is free money. Early on raid weak people who have lots of money outside their walls. Use that money to make your own holdings stronger and to get more troops. Later on raid with large armies and sack holdings to get even more money. Norse is easiest in the 867 start because you have ships but nobody else does; in 769 you are probably restricted to raiding your equally poor neighbors until you can get some boats. On that note you may want to invest in shipbuilding...or just wait. I think an event gives you shipbuilding technology at some point if you are norse and start in 769.

Also never, EVER convert to a culture other than norse (this means don't convert to Swedish or Norwegian or Danish or whatever else), because you'll lose the guaranteed ability to raid. As long as you're norse you can raid, regardless of your religion. It's probably easiest if you convert to Christianity the moment someone sends a missionary to you because that makes you immune to crusades and holy wars. But if you want to reform the Germanic faith you can certainly try for that; reforming it makes you the equivalent of a Germanic Caliph, giving you the ability to declare holy wars for entire kingdoms once every 20 years or so. But beware; if you take provinces in Germany you will become the target of Crusades VERY quickly.

The easy way to rectify your reliance on cheats is to raid, which gives you a ♥♥♥♥-ton of money. Bear in mind that AI rulers will NOT raise the levy of a province with hostile troops in it. This means that an AI ruler with only one province CANNOT make you leave that province if you arrive to raid, even if he has a levy that is 100 times the size of your raiding party. It also means that if you send out a pair of raiding parties you can raid a two province ruler without fear of reprisal as long as your parties end up on his two territories at the same time. You CAN be kicked out by a hostile army that shows up in the province that is already raised or that belongs to someone else, and AI rulers can and will raise levies in any province you do not have troops on.

Abusing the AI behavior towards raiders can also help you in wars, especially if you have weak one-province neighbors that don't realize their territory belongs to you:
1. form a raiding army
2. move it onto your one province neighbor's single province
3. sack ALL his holdings by sieging them while raiding
4. return your raiding army home and lower all your levies ASAP
5. declare war on the poor sucker you just raided ASAP
He will have no levy he can raise and almost no garrison, because you just besieged all his holdings and depleted the garrison + levy to zero. This means he will be extremely easy to defeat. Remember that he can still hire mercenaries and (if he's a tribal pagan) raise prestige armies though, and can call in any allies if he has them.

To make a long story short, being Norse is super easy once you have ships and can raid overseas. The entire world is just one giant money bag waiting for you to steal it.

[Sushima-Carmine]

Originally posted by gghadur77:

The easy way to rectify your reliance on cheats is to raid, which gives you a ♥♥♥♥-ton of money. Bear in mind that AI rulers will NOT raise the levy of a province with hostile troops in it. This means that an AI ruler with only one province CANNOT make you leave that province if you arrive to raid, even if he has a levy that is 100 times the size of your raiding party. It also means that if you send out a pair of raiding parties you can raid a two province ruler without fear of reprisal as long as your parties end up on his two territories at the same time. You CAN be kicked out by a hostile army that shows up in the province that is already raised or that belongs to someone else, and AI rulers can and will raise levies in any province you do not have troops on.

Abusing the AI behavior towards raiders can also help you in wars, especially if you have weak one-province neighbors that don't realize their territory belongs to you:
1. form a raiding army
2. move it onto your one province neighbor's single province
3. sack ALL his holdings by sieging them while raiding
4. return your raiding army home and lower all your levies ASAP
5. declare war on the poor sucker you just raided ASAP
He will have no levy he can raise and almost no garrison, because you just besieged all his holdings and depleted the garrison + levy to zero. This means he will be extremely easy to defeat. Remember that he can still hire mercenaries and (if he's a tribal pagan) raise prestige armies though, and can call in any allies if he has them.

To make a long story short, being Norse is super easy once you have ships and can raid overseas. The entire world is just one giant money bag waiting for you to steal it.

That's a great tip, thank you! Though any tips on keeping a Norse realm intact? Really finding it hard to imagine a means to keep a large realm, without resorting to just getting four territories and become a vassal to any norse king that rises way before me. Not only that, leader traits and such is hard for me to decide on or try and find a means to correct, as I'm really much of a warmonger than anything else.

Edit:

Also what are the recommended counties a Norse ruler should start in, if it's Ironman?

[BatMart]

as a Norse, you can build a massive amount of money and prestige by raiding, so focus on building anything that gives you +levy % asap and raid and raid and raiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid.

[Sushima-Carmine]

Doing just that, unfortunately my idiotic leige keeps waging war with everyone, so I have to stop my raiding just to support him. Now he is losing three wars, and I blew out my prestige on a tribal army that he didn't even support.

[HavardM]

If you have a tough time starting as a count, try starting as one of the dukes/petty kings. I've had great fun starting as the Ynglings of Østlandet (south-eastern Norway), forming first Norway, then uniting the Scandinavian kingdoms into an empire (and then conquering "the world", it was fun raiding India...).

One problem you have to start with is that your only succession law is gavelkind, so it's bound to be tough to hold a large realm together. One way to solve this is to reform the Norse germanic faith, which gives you access to other laws. I can't remember if you also can change succession laws if you form an empire while unreformed, but you used to be able to.

[bri]

Originally posted by Sushima-Carmine The Sickly Trap:

Doing just that, unfortunately my idiotic leige keeps waging war with everyone, so I have to stop my raiding just to support him. Now he is losing three wars, and I blew out my prestige on a tribal army that he didn't even support.

If your liege starts a war let him get his arse handed to him, they can't take anything from him...

[Questionable]

Yeah, you can't stop Gavelkind succession until you reform the German faith, and it's tricky to conquer all those faith center. So, either don't have more than one legitimate son (bastards can be legitimized later, thus used as backups), OR become a king by the time your first ruler dies. If you get two kingdom titles though, you have to become emperor or gavelkind will mean you lose one of those kingdoms.

Once you reform the faith, converting characters becomes much easier, and you'll start to see Germanic become as powerful as other faiths in time if you do well.

[Wokelander]

As soon as you hit king tier keeping a Norse realm intact usually isn't too difficult, as your elective gavelkind succession won't cause your realm to fracture generally speaking, and even if it does your new ruler will have claims on anything that became independent. Just don't create any second king-tier titles unlesd you can also create an empire.
For a 769 start I'd probably go for Sjælland (Holy site) as my starting county so I can go for conquering Mecklenburg (Holy Site and potential Jomsvikings down the line) when I get ships, or go for Uppsala (Holy site) and ravage the Suomi peoples and go east by foot until I get ships

[Sushima-Carmine]

Thanks for the information! Really frustrated with my last Ironman run, I even got the Gjalhorn! Assuming I spelled that right, only for it to mean nothing as my coffers ran lower and lower, while my areas on Nordland and Lapland was raided by the damn army that my leige-lord invited.

Though my whole goal is to reform the Germanic Faith, become the Fylkyrite and do some woop ass on the Islamic hordes, as I sorta wanna see a Norse Spain. Assuming I can hold such a thing by the time renewed Jihads begin.

I'll try out starting on different areas if I do well. I started on Vestiland once, I did well and just raided my neighbor over and over till the Viking Age began. When it did, some rebellion took much of my force away, but I reclaimed Vestiland and went on to raiding. Which unfortunately resulted in a ♥♥♥♥ from Nidaros on conquering me too for he was a little cretin.

However, is it recommended to strive to make your rulers get the Viking trait? I'm pretty warlike and its boost on martial is pretty neat, though I don't understand the means on getting it to Ravager, as the opinion boost it gives it pretty strong and I want it so I can stop other norse dudes from raiding me, or at the very least wage war on my ass.