Norse Ruler lacking mercenaries to hire.

[Sushima-Carmine]

As the title says, I'm a Norse Ruler. I'm the same guy who asked questions about how to survive as Iceland. Surprisingly I survived again and its 960ishAD. Germanic Religion got reformed again at 800ish AD, with the Norse AI being surprisingly competent, until they begin fracturing. (They still are Tribal, even when I'm Feudal.)

Now I have Irland after aggressive conquests while they were still fractured, and Skotland after the Fylkyr declared a Holy War. Which luckily was during when I was preparing a raid. I also have Wales too and slowly picking apart England.

However there's one curious problem I've encountered.

There's no mercenaries for me to hire.

They pop up once in a while, but they die off. The only guarantee that there's one is that I make a Mercenary company of my own. But usually they betray me so I assassinate the head, causing it to dissolve.

I'm merely curious as to why there's no mercenaries for Norse Rulers.

While we're at the topic of such mercenaries, is there a sure way to vassalize the Jomsvikings? One of my sons allowed them to build a castle on a county on Wales. Not that I mind, but it feels so iffy for the Jomsviking leader to keep declaring defensive pacts each time I win a war against England.

Like every single time my threat level reaches 5%, he just panics!

[gghadur77]

My guess is that it isn't that there are no mercenaries for Nores rulers, but that there are no mercenaries for you because your capital is in Iceland. Even so, I'm surprised to hear you say that there are none at all.

If your capital isn't in Iceland, then I have no idea what the deal is.

Incidentally, vassals are more likely to want independence if they are farther from your capital, so once you have a solid power base outside Iceland you should consider moving your capital to somewhere that's closer to most of your vassals.

You can vassalize the Jomsvikings, but:
1. You must give the head of the Jomsvikings a duchy title that is your de jure vassal, and
2. You will probably have to be an emperor.
I've read online that you can vassalize someone with only one rank difference if they are your de jure vassal, same culture, and same religion. But while actually playing the game I've encountered situations where you can't, so to be safe don't give the Jomsvikings any duchy titles until you're an emperor.

If you have the charlemange DLC you can create a custom empire as long as you personally hold three kingdom titles. It's super expensive (1000 gold, and you need to have 8000 prestige) but since you're Norse and can raid that shouldn't be a problem.

I'm pretty sure you need WAY over 5% threat for a holy order of your religion to actually help the Christian defensive pact against you. Even if he forms a defensive pact, it'll be "norse defensive pact against [your country]" - England won't be a part of that pact unless they are norse, and that pact won't help England unless you have 75% threat or higher. According to what I've read you actually have to have 95% or higher threat for holy orders of your religion or your religious head to fight you if you attack someone who's part of a different religion's defensive pact.

[BatMart]

Thing is, you don't need mercenaries if you plan ahead...You just raid the place you wanna claim, and as soon as raiding is over, you drop your levies, declare, and raise again.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

there's 4 bands any pagan can hire. (but they're also hirable by some other groups as well).

However you need to be in range of their "capital" to hire them.

Which defaults to specific provinces unless they're landed.

[Sushima-Carmine]

Originally posted by gghadur77:

My guess is that it isn't that there are no mercenaries for Nores rulers, but that there are no mercenaries for you because your capital is in Iceland. Even so, I'm surprised to hear you say that there are none at all.

You can vassalize the Jomsvikings, but:
1. You must give the head of the Jomsvikings a duchy title that is your de jure vassal, and
2. You will probably have to be an emperor.
I've read online that you can vassalize someone with only one rank difference if they are your de jure vassal, same culture, and same religion. But while actually playing the game I've encountered situations where you can't, so to be safe don't give the Jomsvikings any duchy titles until you're an emperor.

Ah that makes sense. I never knew that the amount of mecenaries you can hire is relative to how near they are to you. Which explains why only the 'Varangian' Guard pop up in my mercenary tab, which is pretty confusing since they're vassalized to the Byzantine Empire.

But seeing as how Ireland, or well most of the De Jure part of the Empire of Britannia has a lot of duchies, this'll be a wee bit easy to vassalized the Jomsvikings when I do create the Empire. (I just want the cool dragon symbol.)

Any suggestions on which of the four Kingdoms I should place my new capital in? I pretty much hold the majority of Ireland for myself, so my vassals on Skotland and what little of Wales there is won't rebel. That and it's easier to raid the Moslem Spain and HRE (Lombardy) due to my ships not needing a longer route.

On a side note can the Jomsvikings ever be wiped out? That bit worries me as those of the slav pagan faith actually control the area they popped in a while back, and are constantly trying to get said land.

[Not an Orphan]

In case your merc captain betray you again, replace him without closeing the popup massage and it will be like he will be fired, with you keeping the mercs company with your new captain.

[BatMart]

at the beginning of the game if your stats are bad and you are norse ...depending on your location, the character finder and mercs list can be totally empty, for a couple of months. give it time.

it happened to me often.

[kazaddum]

Originally posted by Sushima-Carmine The Sickly Trap:

As the title says, I'm a Norse Ruler. I'm the same guy who asked questions about how to survive as Iceland. Surprisingly I survived again and its 960ishAD. Germanic Religion got reformed again at 800ish AD, with the Norse AI being surprisingly competent, until they begin fracturing. (They still are Tribal, even when I'm Feudal.)

Now I have Irland after aggressive conquests while they were still fractured, and Skotland after the Fylkyr declared a Holy War. Which luckily was during when I was preparing a raid. I also have Wales too and slowly picking apart England.

However there's one curious problem I've encountered.

There's no mercenaries for me to hire.

They pop up once in a while, but they die off. The only guarantee that there's one is that I make a Mercenary company of my own. But usually they betray me so I assassinate the head, causing it to dissolve.

I'm merely curious as to why there's no mercenaries for Norse Rulers.

While we're at the topic of such mercenaries, is there a sure way to vassalize the Jomsvikings? One of my sons allowed them to build a castle on a county on Wales. Not that I mind, but it feels so iffy for the Jomsviking leader to keep declaring defensive pacts each time I win a war against England.

Like every single time my threat level reaches 5%, he just panics!

You are just on a far too outlying location. Aside from holy orders there are no religious restrictions on mercs. They fight for money, not for their imainary best friend. Ger some land off Iceland and move your capital there and you'll have mercs available.

[gghadur77]

Originally posted by Sushima-Carmine The Sickly Trap:

Originally posted by gghadur77:

My guess is that it isn't that there are no mercenaries for Nores rulers, but that there are no mercenaries for you because your capital is in Iceland. Even so, I'm surprised to hear you say that there are none at all.

You can vassalize the Jomsvikings, but:
1. You must give the head of the Jomsvikings a duchy title that is your de jure vassal, and
2. You will probably have to be an emperor.
I've read online that you can vassalize someone with only one rank difference if they are your de jure vassal, same culture, and same religion. But while actually playing the game I've encountered situations where you can't, so to be safe don't give the Jomsvikings any duchy titles until you're an emperor.

Ah that makes sense. I never knew that the amount of mecenaries you can hire is relative to how near they are to you. Which explains why only the 'Varangian' Guard pop up in my mercenary tab, which is pretty confusing since they're vassalized to the Byzantine Empire.

But seeing as how Ireland, or well most of the De Jure part of the Empire of Britannia has a lot of duchies, this'll be a wee bit easy to vassalized the Jomsvikings when I do create the Empire. (I just want the cool dragon symbol.)

Any suggestions on which of the four Kingdoms I should place my new capital in? I pretty much hold the majority of Ireland for myself, so my vassals on Skotland and what little of Wales there is won't rebel. That and it's easier to raid the Moslem Spain and HRE (Lombardy) due to my ships not needing a longer route.

On a side note can the Jomsvikings ever be wiped out? That bit worries me as those of the slav pagan faith actually control the area they popped in a while back, and are constantly trying to get said land.

I'm pretty sure holy orders continue to exist even if they have no holdings, the same way mercenary companies do. So even if they lose their territory they won't get wiped out.

You get more vassal levies from vassals in your de jure empire than from those outside it, and likewise you get even more vassal levies from vassals in your de jure primary kingdom title. Since England is by far the biggest kingdom in the British Isles, it's the best one to put your capital in. It also will probably have the most developed holdings when you conquer it since Ireland and parts or all of Scotland start as tribal the early start dates.

Basically, the more closely controlled something is, the more troops you get out of it. For your own holdings, you get a bonus to levies in your capital's duchy and a stronger bonus to levies in your capital's county. This means you want to move your capital (ultimately) to a county in England that either has a lot of empty holding slots or a lot of baronies for you to take over. All the baronies in your capital county will get the highest possible levy size bonus, and they will all be affected by any councilor job successes in your capital county.

In England, I think Middlesex (the county with London in it) has the most holding slots by default. Unless someone already built 4 temples there, you probably want to make it your capital and fill it with baronies.

[Sushima-Carmine]

Ah great. I never actually paid attention to where my capital is, in fact I always place my capital on the first county I would ever control! Nice to know the benefits of actually moving your captial somewhere else. Plus the added benefit of actually getting mercenaries to hire on the fly. I really just need them for future wars, as I'm noticing a trend in which many of the European realms just keep getting bigger and bigger, unless they and another bigger territory start killing one another.

Though due to my aggressive taking of Ireland, Iceland which I since renamed to something else, is now a dejure part of the Kingdom of Irland (Is this a good thing?). At the time being since I have not gotten all of England yet, would it be fine if I just keep my capital on Vestiland? Or should I move it to one of the counties in Irland?

I already converted half of the damn place, and luckily all of it is Feudal as I had the foresight to acquire everything before moving up to Feudal. So now for the most part, everything is relatively developed enough. At least enough that I can quickly assemble raiding troops.

[BatMart]

you can only move your capital once per 50 years though.