How do you play Iceland?

[Rikashey]

You lose prestige every month if you don't raid or go to war yet you only have 1 other neighboring faction near you.

You cannot raise any fleets because to raid anyone else because you do not have a port.

In order to make a port you need money.

In order to get money you needto build a market which only gives an increase of 0.50 per month.

Shipbuilder is 300 gold and 300 prestige yet you start out with -67.

This seems impossible because you can't really do anything. You're just.... stuck.

[Varainger]

Start in 867....or marryand try to get your dynasty on other thrones peacefully.
Great advice , i know. ;)

[Pope Urban II]

In 769 I think you get a free dock when the Viking Age fires.

[Mimir]

To prevent the prestige loss, just join in on other people's wars. Get good relations with Denmark or Svidjod and join their wars, they always have something going. Use councilour to build legend. Get a bigger army - no shipyard, you'll get it for free later. Just wait until you get the shipyard for free and then start looting Ireland.

[Tymefor]

business focus 100g100prestige event + the trade route event

Iceland is for dynasty play though imo. best place to launch a Christian dynasty takeover from.

you can manually change your gov type now aswell. starting as a changed feudal or MR in 769 is still a huge challenge as you still need to build everything up from scratch.

set_government merchant_republic_government

or

set_government feudal_government

or for even more lols

set_government nomadic_government (winter is coming game)

[Langkard]

Start in 769 and then it's a waiting game until 793 and you get free shipbuilding and ships.

Most of your council will be important at this point, except for your chancellor who is useless until you have vassals, money to fabricate claims or neighbors with vassals to upset. Set your military councillor to train troops. You'll need them to keep your neighbor on the island at bay and eventually to attack. Extra raiders is a poor choice for this councillor at the start because you have no one to raid except your neighbor. Set your steward to build legend for the extra prestige (0.1 point per month per councillor's stewardship) and eventual troops. Send your spymaster off to steal tech from any province he or she can reach which has better military tech, preferably organization. Set your court chaplain to build zeal even though you won't be able to use any religion troops which spawn, because you'll get 0.1 piety per month per the chaplain's learning stat.

Use some of your starting money and prestige to promote a commander from the intrigue options if you don't have one with 7+ martial skill. Never field a commander with less than 7 in martial.

If the extra troops fires from your steward's building your legend, call up your own troops too and go attack the other county in Iceland. You might not have enough troops to successfully siege, but you should have enough extra troops to beat any army he has. The goal here is to keep your prestige penalty for being at peace from firing. Winning a siege is just a bonus. If extra troops don't fire and you get the peace penalty notification, just call up your army and set it to raid, then go into the neighbor's county and then back out and disband the raid. You don't need to succeed at raiding or invading to keep the peace too long penalty from happening. Invading unsuccessfully or sending in a raiding party which isn't enough to siege satisfies the requirement to be at war and has the added benefit of keeping your neighbor from spawning his own troops. Just don't spend too much time doing either because calling your troops up costs money you'll need later.

Money is actually easy to get if you're patient. Take the Business focus. Don't bother if the foreign trade route event fires. You can't afford it yet. What you want is the minting your own coins to fire. It gives you the greedy trait and 100 gold. Now you can afford the trade route event if it fires. That gives you even more gold if you're careful to spend only money on the ship at first and then 5 gold for rare herbs for the foreign ruler. If all goes well, you should end up with 200+ gold and now you can afford to hire better generals, better councillors in general and by now there should be some small mercenary bands available for hire. Keep 150 gold in reserve to pay monthly merc and troop costs and invade your neighbor for real if you haven't already gotten lucky with event troops. Then switch to another useful focus, like Carousing for the prestige or Hunting. Intrigue and Seduction are mostly useless until you can get off the island and interact with the wider world. Learning is a good choice but too expensive at first to build and maintain that observatory.

Now you just have to wait for 793 and your free ships and you can start raiding Ireland and any Anglo-Saxon single county rulers who look weak. Kent is usually pretty rich by 793 and some of the single county rulers in Wales. Ireland is poor but you can usually field enough troops to take on single county rulers.

If you're really lucky, you can expand to the Faroes and maybe the Shetlands and even to mainland Norway. Avoid Orkney until you're strong enough to fight the Picts. If someone else forms the Kingdom of Noregr first, don't worryabout it. Just become a vassal and then work at conquering it from the inside.

[Ás Fífldjarfi]

I once managed to start as Iceland and end up as the emperor of Brittania, and the fylkir of the reformed norwegian faith. Raid and raid and raid and raid once you can begin to do so... it gives you a lot of prestige and money, which you will require. Once you have Orkney and the faorese, and established the petty kingdom of Iceland, you should either aim for Norway, or Ireland. Ireland is pretty tough to settle in because your neighbours will probably start declaring holy wars, which is what happened to me. Then one of the Irish lords started snowballing enough, for me to start preparing invasion.

With constant raiding you should try to keep some money left by so yo can recruit mercenaries. once you form the kingdom of Ireland, you should either try to reform, or, if that is impossible, convert. Then focus on Scotland. Once you bring Scotland down, the fractured england is a pretty easy target. I myself only conquered small parts of england, my vassals just went crazy. The good thing about gavilkind succession is that if you keep your kids down to a manageable number(2 at most) is that vassals stuck with gavelkind are usually unable to form megadukes.

[Rikashey]

Originally posted by Ás Fífldjarfi:

I once managed to start as Iceland and end up as the emperor of Brittania, and the fylkir of the reformed norwegian faith. Raid and raid and raid and raid once you can begin to do so... it gives you a lot of prestige and money, which you will require. Once you have Orkney and the faorese, and established the petty kingdom of Iceland, you should either aim for Norway, or Ireland. Ireland is pretty tough to settle in because your neighbours will probably start declaring holy wars, which is what happened to me. Then one of the Irish lords started snowballing enough, for me to start preparing invasion.

With constant raiding you should try to keep some money left by so yo can recruit mercenaries. once you form the kingdom of Ireland, you should either try to reform, or, if that is impossible, convert. Then focus on Scotland. Once you bring Scotland down, the fractured england is a pretty easy target. I myself only conquered small parts of england, my vassals just went crazy. The good thing about gavilkind succession is that if you keep your kids down to a manageable number(2 at most) is that vassals stuck with gavelkind are usually unable to form megadukes.

How do you deal with the random Norse who declare war on you for no reason?

Seems like as I'm trying to invade I'd have a Chief declare war on me and show up with 1k troops.

[Lightsong]

I started in 1066 once. Took over iceland and made the duchy. Swore fealty to the king of norway and joined the faction to have elective monarchy...this was a while ago so they may start with it. Anyway, my same character was elected king of norway. Bam.

[Langkard]

Originally posted by Rikashey:

How do you deal with the random Norse who declare war on you for no reason?

Seems like as I'm trying to invade I'd have a Chief declare war on me and show up with 1k troops.

It is usually because of the Become King ambition. One or more of the other de jure Kingdom of Noregr (Norway) chiefs has the ambition and gets a free casus belli to invade any other ruler within the de jure kingdom. Iceland is de jure part of Noregr; so as soon as the others get ships they will come looking to make you part of their conquests. Don't stress over it. If you have to do so, surrender and become a vassal. You're smarter than the AI and will be able to eventually make war for independence or even outright take over the kingdom for yourself.

[Rikashey]

Originally posted by Langkard:

Originally posted by Rikashey:

How do you deal with the random Norse who declare war on you for no reason?

Seems like as I'm trying to invade I'd have a Chief declare war on me and show up with 1k troops.

It is usually because of the Become King ambition. One or more of the other de jure Kingdom of Noregr (Norway) chiefs has the ambition and gets a free casus belli to invade any other ruler within the de jure kingdom. Iceland is de jure part of Noregr; so as soon as the others get ships they will come looking to make you part of their conquests. Don't stress over it. If you have to do so, surrender and become a vassal. You're smarter than the AI and will be able to eventually make war for independence or even outright take over the kingdom for yourself.

Yeah I've been playing and quickly got strong enough that no one wanted to mess with me at all.

Took over Ireland quite easy but it seems like in every playthrough my downfall is succession related.

One playthrough it was my legitimized bastard that inherited the best lands and rebelled and in another it was because I let some dude hand out titles for me.

[Weizen1988]

I mostly play on ck2+ so I dont know if this is true in vanilla, but there are a handful of mercenary fleets that cost an initial fee, but no per month, baltic transport fleet or something, just spend no money at all, wait for a while doing anything you can to get cash, hire those merc ships soon as you can, then you can sail around while no one else in scandinavia has any ships at all and raid anything you want, build up huge cash and prestige, get a head start taking over stuff.

[Rikashey]

Originally posted by Weizen1988:

I mostly play on ck2+ so I dont know if this is true in vanilla, but there are a handful of mercenary fleets that cost an initial fee, but no per month, baltic transport fleet or something, just spend no money at all, wait for a while doing anything you can to get cash, hire those merc ships soon as you can, then you can sail around while no one else in scandinavia has any ships at all and raid anything you want, build up huge cash and prestige, get a head start taking over stuff.

Does the AI hire these fleets also?

Do you have a link to the mod?

[Weizen1988]

Originally posted by Rikashey:

Originally posted by Weizen1988:

I mostly play on ck2+ so I dont know if this is true in vanilla, but there are a handful of mercenary fleets that cost an initial fee, but no per month, baltic transport fleet or something, just spend no money at all, wait for a while doing anything you can to get cash, hire those merc ships soon as you can, then you can sail around while no one else in scandinavia has any ships at all and raid anything you want, build up huge cash and prestige, get a head start taking over stuff.

Does the AI hire these fleets also?

Do you have a link to the mod?

I assume they do, its just a mercenary company. And ck2+ is on the workshop, or the paradox forums. I guess I can look for a link.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=499709705&searchtext=ck2%2B

It may be a standard merc company, I dont play the game without mods much anymore. Check for baltic transport fleet or something like that, its I think two merc companies with 25 ships each, and two merc companies with 50 each. And they dont count towards not being able to start wars and stuff, so you can just hire them and keep them around constantly with no upkeep.

[Rikashey]

Originally posted by Weizen1988:

Originally posted by Rikashey:

Does the AI hire these fleets also?

Do you have a link to the mod?

I assume they do, its just a mercenary company. And ck2+ is on the workshop, or the paradox forums. I guess I can look for a link.

I found it so I'll give it a try.

[Weizen1988]

it also changes a bunch of other stuff, like iceland is 4 counties now, and some other things.