What should I build?

[firemagerps]

I'm playing as a norse pagan, and I'm swimming in gold so far from all the raiding I've been doing. I've also maxed out my demesene limit, with every county in my capital duchy, and a few outside of it.

I've heard it's better to build cities, but I don't really care that much about the gold. Is building additional castles in your capital county for the levies ever worth it, or should I hang on to the other counties I have?

[geekmasterflash]

Gold doesnt last long when you start fighting serious wars, or get raided. Build cities, invest that money you have now in getting enough money to be a serious contender in the late game. Otherwise watch it die in a puff of smoke and not be easily recovered once tech levels even out a bit and cities become more fortified.

[Boskov]

Levies are kind of useless after awhile. Usually after 100 years I almost never raise levies because retinues tend to be more than enough. So, for inland counties I'd build temples for piety and tech.

Cities in coastal counties, and you should really try to have purely coastal counties in your personal demense imo. Gold + tons of tech + ships. Building anything other than a city in a coastal county is a waste.

[Corrupted Sanity (Vex)]

I sometimes do build one extra castle in my capital, but it probably isn't the most efficient way to do things...Martial training troops in the county does affect it, so you have two with his increased levy size. And of course the +50% capital county bonus.
Cities are generally accepted to be the best.

I do agree that after a while, retinues really take over with levies often only arriving after the war is won :P. Sometimes you get a bit of local rebellion squashing, but...

[Surimi]

Castles have a few benefits. One often overlooked benefit is stability. Even if you never raise your levies (and I don't really see how you would get to that stage outside of ridiculous world conquest games) just having a big levy will deter factions from pressing demands. Given how unstable even reformed norse can be on a succession, this might actually be handy.

Another benefit is that baronies are hereditary and yet virtually immune to rebellion, so they make an ideal place to stick cadet branches who haven't yet lost claims on your titles, or just to preserve the family of any character who you want to keep around. They're also a great place to house claimants while you press their claims, as barons still count as vassals. I always have a few castles in my demense just for these reasons.

[Wraith_Magus]

Honestly, I don't worry about keeping my home duchy together that much. I just take the largest coastal counties I can, like Sjaelland, London, Lybeck, and Brugge. Make everything in them cities, and then make the mayors of those cities also rule over other cities from vassal's territories.

You generally don't need piety, either - a few holy wars and some churches given away to random nobodies gives you +25 a pop.

In general, what you are building up for are the retinues and the universities that can help bump your tech along. Also, you'll be swimming in cash now, but only for as long as you can keep raiding. Eventually, you either hit a point where you have to defend yourself, or you've already conquered all the best raiding spots. (Plus, Muslims have a really annoying tendency to build nothing but castles later on...)

You basically get no money and very few troops from baronies, anyway. Cities at least have taxes to help pay for their own development, and will usually rush to make shipyards full of ships you need to move your retinues around.