How to be a successful viking conqueror? Please help!

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Tiera

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Greetings fellow raiders and plunderers! I've been playing VC for couple of days now and I love it even more than the original Brytenwalda mod. Finally I can make my character a real viking!... Except that being a viking made my character's life so miserable that after almost 200 days of raping and pillaging I decided to quit and launch a new game.

The problem is that when I start raiding villages and monasteries everyone starts to hate me. It is quite obvious and not very surprising but trying to survive anywhere outside Norse lands is just impossible. The biggest problem is that I have no allies in Britain. I pledged allegiance to King Horik of Danmark but he does nothing but sits on his mighty army, pompously marches a few rounds around Ribe every now and then and starts wars but my character is the only one fighting them. I conquered a city to get a strong base on the isles, but now all my time and resources goes into sailing back and forth from Danmark to England to get new troops just so I can have them killed defending my city.

So I ask: How to be a successful viking conqueror in this game? Should I remain an independent renegade or join a kingdom? Gather a huge army or have a shipfull of elite warriors? Should I try some diplomacy or go all in and just raze every village I see? Does it matter if everyone hates me?

I have already started a new game and built good relations with Danmark and Northumbra (so that I can recruit on their lands). I have a small ship, about 25k of silver and 40 men from which about half are hired elite warriors and other half Norse recruits. Should I keep grinding those sorry bandits (and kick out some of the men?) or start building a more serious force so I could actually fight against nobles and their armies?

I really would appreciate any help.
 
Thank you for the link. I am aware of most of these tips and my problem on my viking career is not that i can't make enough money (by trading and killing bandits) or that I can't win battles.  It's my long term strategy that is failing. I get by very well as a thieving and murdering raider but when I try to actually get a foothold in Britain everything starts to go wrong. So if someone wants to share strategic tips on how to actually start conquering as a viking.

I tested VC playing as a nice guy with high positive reputation and good relations with christian kingdoms and the game was quite easy. But also lame. I've read often that it seems that this game encourages players to be "bad" and have negative reputation but I think it makes the game a lot harder.
 
Heya Tiera,

I'm also interested to hear other peoples opinions on this subject.

I just started playing VC after not playing M&B for some time and I'm roughly up to the stage you're at now.  I have the 8 companions in my party I was targeting, equipped pretty well now and just started building a core raiding party of tier 3 and up norse troops so I can start full on raiding and building some serious bank.  I'm aiming for around 30 - 40 core troops to start with, that should be sufficient for me personally.  Training troops in VC is a grind (not complaining though), so if I see a bandit/viking party holding elite norse prisoners I could use, I'll rescue them if I'm able.  Especially elite vikings.  I also plan to raise my healers Surgery skill ASAP to help keep them alive.  Once I have a good core of elites, I'll fill the rest of the ranks later with cannon fodder when I want to start taking fiefs.

I'm on good terms with most of the Norwegian region, so I can recruit cannon fodder when needed.  I'll also go assist down in Denmark/Netherlands to get my relations up down there as well at some stage.  I've bought one enterprise so far in Norway and plan to buy a further two in Denmark and Netherlands.  I want to own a few around the map eventually to help support my growing army.  I also just forked out on the top ship in the game too which holds up to 90 crew, this was more of a future purchase as I plan to have a few of these in my fleet for the later game.

Now I haven't played any further than where I am now in VC, but my plan is to NOT attack the monasteries as like you said, it cripples your relations with the christian factions.  Instead I think I'll become a vassal for Norway and pick a christian faction or two and focus my raiding on them until I'm ready to move onto the next stage, taking all their ****e!  This will allow me to still participate in other factions tournaments and still be able to sell all my glorious loot in their cities.  I also plan to build a refuge somewhere central in Britain to make raiding a lot easier, but I've not mucked around with refuges as yet.

I say screw your reputation!  A good viking should have a bad reputation, just don't take on too much ie. Piss off every christian faction.  Focus your attention on one or two.

Take my advice with a grain of salt though, I'm only as far into my campaign as you are.  I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to hear other more experienced players methods.
 
if you play as a viking you have to follow through on everything vikings did. Don't join Denmark or Norway. Instead pillage and burn villages/towns castles but don't take them for a while, you need to build a big warchest, then when you have good enough army, pounce on any weakly defended town and form your own kingdom. Alternatively, you can convert to Christianity and try to then join any Christian factions.
 
JuJu70 said:
if you play as a viking you have to follow through on everything vikings did. Don't join Denmark or Norway. Instead pillage and burn villages/towns castles but don't take them for a while, you need to build a big warchest, then when you have good enough army, pounce on any weakly defended town and form your own kingdom. Alternatively, you can convert to Christianity and try to then join any Christian factions.

That's a good suggestion.

I may skip vassalage altogether in this play through.  Was thinking it might be easier with another faction at your back giving you a hand, but then you have to share the rewards...  Screw that!
 
Stoned Crusader said:
That's a good suggestion.

I may skip vassalage altogether in this play through.  Was thinking it might be easier with another faction at your back giving you a hand, but then you have to share the rewards...  Screw that!

Remember you can be a merc, pick a factions that seems to always being going to war (generally the ones in Britain) then when you raid and pillage you wont get a red wall of hate(text) If your thinking long term remember every Lord you piss off will want his revenge on your fiefs, so piss off as few as possible.
 
Thanks again for good answers. The thread linked by Kalarhan about where to build your kingdom was really good.

So i'm thinking now that my goal is to take Dunwic from East Engla. The main reason for this is rp, but I also want to be able quickly get more pagan warriors from Norse lands. It will not be the easiest pick but taking it in coastal assault shouldn't be hard. I'm a bit worried about how to hold the city, though. Perhaps I could provoke other factions on waging war on them so they wouldn't be too powerful.

One more question: Is the chance of capturing a lord after battle purely random or can I somehow affect it? I find it very frustrating that when I'm trying to capture a noble he often escapes after the battle even if I personally knock him out. I am referring to one of those guides which suggests that I should try to capture the enemy's king and marshal to make the faction weaker.

OT:
I found a hilarious way to exploit the way AI handles formations in VC. I was attacking 220 men with 40 men just to see how things would go. My character has a horse so I ordered my troops to hold position and rushed ahead to pick some of their soldiers and also to knock out their leader. I got too carried away and they killed my horse but since I don't use realistic saving I thought I'd see how many I could kill on my own. The answer was 180.

I saw that most of the enemy troops were poor, mostly tier 1 and tier 2 without shields, and about 40 better armed soldiers who were all in the front line. For some reason the left flank in enemy formations have poor troops so I started attacking the last guy in the row with a big axe. Now the enemy formation started turning, trying to face my character but I kept pushing the left flank and killing every time some poor farmer stepped in to take the last place in the line. The scene was absurd: the enemy formation kept rotating counter clockwise and kept killing the left flank untill only the 40 elite troops were left and then let my men take care of them. It took a lot of time and I consider it cheating but it was kinda fun. High athletics is necessary so that you can keep up with the rotation of the formation and i also had berserker skill which helped a lot.
 
Dunwic is a good choice I think. Plenty of enemy trade caravans should pass through, so lots of loot and food to be had. There should be danish viking spawning a short walk to the North, you can try to recruit with the caravan money. You could always move your refuge here until you've built up enough guys to hold the city. Plus the bandit camp there can be used to sell loot if you have -20 reputation. And you can still easily sail up and down the coast raiding villages/monasteries for more cash.
 
Keep your party small(ish) but elite for the early-to-mid game, to avoid angry lords coming after you for burning down their villages and taking their prized butter.

I find Svear Warriors to be an excellent force of mercenaries.
 
ThorsHammer said:
Remember you can be a merc, pick a factions that seems to always being going to war (generally the ones in Britain) then when you raid and pillage you wont get a red wall of hate(text) If your thinking long term remember every Lord you piss off will want his revenge on your fiefs, so piss off as few as possible.

Thanks for that tip! I will definitely try that
 
ThorsHammer said:
Remember you can be a merc, pick a factions that seems to always being going to war (generally the ones in Britain) then when you raid and pillage you wont get a red wall of hate(text) If your thinking long term remember every Lord you piss off will want his revenge on your fiefs, so piss off as few as possible.

I've also noticed that raiding caravans of enemy faction as a merc is really profitable when you're fighting for a faction that has many enemies (quite often Northubria it seems). The caravans always use more or less the same routes so I just need to park my raiders on a good spot and wait.

I think you can call this learning since I'm practically answering my own question also :grin:
 
Yeah I noticed that too, raiding caravans is more profitable than plundering villages.  More fun too since they have better troops defending them.
 
Stoned Crusader said:
Yeah I noticed that too, raiding caravans is more profitable than plundering villages.  More fun too since they have better troops defending them.

You can make them pay a toll first, usually 800-1000 gold, then attack them again to plunder  :twisted:
 
kaiser said:
You can make them pay a toll first, usually 800-1000 gold, then attack them again to plunder  :twisted:
Strange, I get 4000-5000 gold per toll. It's usually way more profitable than attacking them.  ^^
 
Kjertesvein said:
kaiser said:
You can make them pay a toll first, usually 800-1000 gold, then attack them again to plunder  :twisted:
Strange, I get 4000-5000 gold per toll. It's usually way more profitable than attacking them.  ^^

I wonder if the toll is leveled somehow, because i've never got anything more than 600 from a 60+ member caravan.
 
Kjertesvein said:
kaiser said:
You can make them pay a toll first, usually 800-1000 gold, then attack them again to plunder  :twisted:
Strange, I get 4000-5000 gold per toll. It's usually way more profitable than attacking them.  ^^

4000-5000 :shock: what kind of devil work is this  :fruity:
 
Tiera said:
Kjertesvein said:
kaiser said:
You can make them pay a toll first, usually 800-1000 gold, then attack them again to plunder  :twisted:
Strange, I get 4000-5000 gold per toll. It's usually way more profitable than attacking them.  ^^

I wonder if the toll is leveled somehow, because i've never got anything more than 600 from a 60+ member caravan.

Yep I'm getting about the same.

I think it has something to do with your renown and persuasion skill level, maybe some other factors.
 
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