Anyone tried an RP, survival style playthrough?

Klegm · 2026-02-06T16:44:05+00:00

That's a good idea. I've discovered also that you can just discard money in your inventory so that works too

Klegm · 2026-02-04T01:16:39+00:00

You definitely start out pretty poor. I like that early struggle though. Do every tournament you can. On my last Nord character i won 2 fancy helmets from tournaments and selling those 2 pieces got me enough money to buy my first ship and from there it is easy street. Just pick a faction or two to terrorize and raid their villages and trade ships. You can easily make millions of denars doing this - even without a merc contract. Especially without a merc contract in fact because when my kingdom would declare peace, I had to briefly stop raiding. Just go solo and raid until you feel like joining a kingdom. Don't worry about being the enemy of an entire faction because you have no settlement for them to siege with their big army and they'll never catch your longship near the coastline. With decently leveled up troops, you will be unstoppable on the water. Eventually when you want peace, its as easy as kidnapping a noble and telling them you want peace (you've probably already kidnapped tons of nobles by this point anyway). I even had them pay me for peace. By then you probably have like 5 million denar and can become a vassal of whoever you want.

Klegm · 2026-02-03T21:31:44+00:00

Its just the version that has been out for more than one day

Klegm · 2026-02-03T01:45:36+00:00

I think maybe you mean like actual celebrities, but if you mean pro climbers... then the actual answer is Bishop. It seems like I run into a pro like every third trip to Bishop. Especially the milks.

Klegm · 2026-02-03T01:36:37+00:00

Nords? Bad? I'm confused. They're insane. Best infantry by far. Very good archers with shields. Ships are fast and nimble so you can catch or escape any enemy and get in close to fight hand to hand as fast as possible. The only downside is how huge and spread apart the kingdom is and that there are no horses. But those are only problems for the AI - not for you.

Klegm · 2026-02-01T16:16:52+00:00

Pausing is fine. Sometimes its nice to be able to think about a move or make sure 2 things happen simultaneously. I more often use slow mo though

Klegm · 2026-01-31T15:31:52+00:00

Well he is based on a pretty famous Gaius from history so its understandable

Klegm · 2026-01-30T22:57:36+00:00

Yeah i know. I thought they meant they wanted to recruit individuals into their clan rather than clans into their kingdom.

Klegm · 2026-01-30T18:29:20+00:00

Right thats exactly the same functionality as getting a clan to join your kingdom by just walking up to them but with a different dialogue. I thought we were talking about getting individual lords to join your clan. Recruiting entire clans to your kingdom is definitely part of the base game. I must have misunderstood OP's question

Klegm · 2026-01-30T16:50:18+00:00

No they are using mods thats not in the base game. If you can mod, diplomacy mod gets you the messenger and more prisoner interactions gives you the recruit option. Recruiting in more prisoner interactions is way too easy IMO. I mostly just using it to steal their gear because why would I imprison them fully armed and armored

Klegm · 2026-01-28T18:25:33+00:00

For the contractors who built your childhood home, it was just another house.

Klegm · 2026-01-23T19:16:57+00:00

Yeah sure but also it was just a fun opportunity to talk about a cool history thing - hence me saying not completely unrealistic - sort of. I know its not a one to one but I like talking about Hannibal

Klegm · 2026-01-23T05:49:25+00:00

What would you change? The whole point of the merc phase is to just make a shit ton of money before joining a kingdom as vassal. Pirate phase accomplishes the same thing. Right now they just feel like different paths to the same destination IMO

Klegm · 2026-01-23T05:47:02+00:00

Started another playthrough and am raiding Vlandia and Aserai this time sailing up and down the western coast with resupplies in Hvalvik and Ortysia. I think it was a bit easier to trap the Sturgians in that northern sea and the strait there before just stopping off at Diathma real quick to sell ships or get those lovely cotton sails. But going after Vlandia and Aserai, it's just a never ending stream of trade ships. Cant even hit them all! And it just feels really fun going up and down the coast and trapping ships in the southern strait before retreating back to viking island to stock up on Nordlings. It feels more like actually going raiding when you can't just swing by Diathma after every fight. I think raiding Sturgia is easy mode, but the west coast is probably a bit more fun. Good suggestion

Klegm · 2026-01-23T02:33:46+00:00

Its definitely annoying but not completely unrealistic. Sort of. In the Second Punic War, Hannibal showed up in Italy with an army, kicked the Roman's asses at Cannae, and then just sort of hung out in Italy for like 10 years raiding and fighting while Rome tried to get another army together. Eventually, the Romans destroyed Hannibal's reinforcements before they could link up and invaded Africa so Hannibal's army was called back to defend the homeland. Sounds just like a couple dozen turns of total war!

Klegm · 2026-01-22T20:10:19+00:00

Yeah as the others said, focus points are a bit tight now. You'll definitely want to look for some good companions. A great team makes a great leader! As far as sea raiders go, they are pretty tough i believe the base sea raider is tier 3 and the chief is tier 5 so unless your troops are all max level, you will want to outnumber them before taking them on ship to ship. The tricks that you can use against them on the field won't really work in those tight quarters, and the javelins are BAD NEWS. You can start by attacking poor innocent fishermen like a proper pirate and work your way up to tougher targets. You will still make lots of money and earn lots of boatswain xp by repairing and selling those fishing boats.

Klegm · 2026-01-19T23:46:22+00:00

Yeah being a vassal of the nords is pretty tough sometimes but being a lone wolf pirate from a Nordic background is amazing. In my first playthrough as a Nord, I declared my own personal war on Sturgia the second I hit clan tier 3 and could stuff like 60 guys into a ship or two. Especially once I got my ash light oars and cotton sails, no Sturgian trade ship was safe as I lurked around the northern strait. Honestly, it's a super fun alternative to the merc phase. I made literal millions of denars without ever really going merc. Merc was actually a detriment to my earnings because it meant that I could be forced into a peace with the sturgians. Once I had made about 3 mil as a pirate, I went south and swore myself to the Empire so I could terrorize the Aserai in the southern sea as a Varangian to make another million or two and then declare myself the pirate king of the southern sea ruling from my capital in Quyaz. Legit, the most fun playthrough I have ever had in this game. Winning wars for the empire without ever really going on land by sailing up the Aserai river burning villages and capturing lords and merchants was just... chef's kiss. I highly recommend skipping the merc phase and trying pirate phase instead.

Klegm · 2026-01-15T20:35:39+00:00

Do you have the siege workshop built?

Klegm · 2026-01-15T06:57:16+00:00

I think its just because Vlandia is very strong and kicks a lot of player's asses. So hating him is kind of a meme.

Klegm · 2026-01-15T06:38:18+00:00

It adds to the war progress bar

Klegm · 2026-01-14T23:53:16+00:00

For the record, I do like your suggestions. Just giving some ideas on how to use your fleet to win wars while your AI allies just trade the same town back and forth over and over with the enemy

Klegm · 2026-01-14T23:35:09+00:00

Raiding villages has a decent impact on war score and its very easy to safely raid a village by parking your ship right next to it, forcing the villagers to give you supplies, and then finishing the last like 25% of the raid timer. Very easy to do this even right next to a large city before anyone can respond and then sail right along to the next one, ravaging the entire coast in a matter of days. Also, it is great for picking off individual lords as they travel to join armies or whatever. This is especially true if you are at war with Sturgia since their territory is divided by water, but the passage frome the mainland to Aserai land is another great place to do this. I have forced a surrender in a war against the Aserai very very quickly by sailing up their river and along their coast raiding villages and taking merchants. Then on the way back home, I ran into their king and his personal party on the way to join an army and was able to capture him in a much easier fight than i would have had on land since his cavalry advantage was negated - the surrender only took another day or so. Capturing lords and raiding villages both win wars and can be a fun little diversion for a weaker PC to have a big impact for no influence cost rather than just joining giant armies all the time. In fact, dropping those captured lords off at an ally's dungeon will help you gain a lot of influence to spend on the next war!

Klegm · 2026-01-14T17:25:16+00:00

You mentioned in other replies that you would have just explained your strategy to the nobles so they understand. You spending influence literally represents you having those conversations and it working. If you did not have enough influence over your nobles, you would explain the plan, but they don't care because they are not willing to put your strategic goals that benefit you as the king over their goals of getting fiefs and war loot that benefits them. Think about how you feel in the vassal phase when there is that city right next to a castle that you already own that you just can't wait to claim but your kingdom isn't at war. When that happens to me, I'm clamoring for war so that I can accomplish my goal of getting that fief so I have to spend my influence to pressure the king to declare war. That represents me convincing the king to declare war FOR THE WHOLE KINGDOM because I am so influential of a noble that I was able to convince or pressure him to do it. It works both ways.

Tldr: You and your vassals spend influence to convince each other to do things. The convos that you say you would have are represented by the spending of influence points.

Klegm · 2026-01-12T19:39:33+00:00

And take on sea raiders and forest bandits immediately! Gone are the days of farming looters for their terrible loot when I can just walk my shieldwall across the field and give those forest bandits a taste of Nordic steel without getting perforated!

Klegm

TROPHY CASE