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This is an extremely important point. To use a relevant RL example. Iceland's entire active duty military is 210, and they're all Coast Guards. Denmark's population slightly less then 16.7 times Iceland's, so the entire Danish Active Military should be only 3,499 but the Danish Army alone includes 10,000 Active troops.

..How is that relevant at all? We in Scandinavia actively keep our troop numbers low as an unnecessary expense and Iceland doesn't maintain a standing army at all. It doesn't show a single point as to their potential troop capacity were they to actually create one. The population-ratio is also not the same as in Medieval times.

In CK's time period Iceland never invaded anyone. It was a rural, decentralized society. It was rich country in the sense that everyone had more then enough to eat, but without centralization there's no way to turn extra food into troops.

Note that the 3,5000 or so troops Iceland can raise after 1200 represent 5% of it's population. Which means something like one in five Icelandic men of military age are quite willing to get on boats and go raiding for their Jarl. This seems high to me,

It was decentralized and isolated as an independent Republic, yes. The situation in which it would be dragged off to fight abroad would most likely be as a subject of the King of Norway, though, hence the comparisons to them. That's a more centralized model of governance. Also I provided a link to a battle between two clans of Iceland that showed they had over 2000 troops for the conflict. I would not be surprised if the other clans could raise an additional 1500. I'd be interested to see how these numbers change if as a vassal to the Norwegian King, though, since he'd probably raise less than 3500 from them. As you can see in the chart Norway's levies increased by about 10000 where as Iceland only went from 3520 to 3670 between the dates where they got vassalized.

so I'd have to say you're proving that Iceland should lose holdings not gain them.

That's ridiculous. Then they'd have none at all.
 
I hate to go off topic, but this crap has been seriously irking me lately. This isn't directed at you per say, but I've seen far too often posts like this, and others looking down on others, making accusations of piracy, and even ostracizing users for not registering their games; on a forum where in almost all cases, is ENTIRELY optional. This community seems to have such an ego, that if a user hasn't registered his games to access certain forums, or to merely raise his e-peen, the rest are simply HOSTILE towards them. I, for one, own several Paradox games, and yet only one is registered. Why is that? Because only ONE of the games requires me to have it registered to access the mod forum. The concept of registering them all to be spared of this overzealous behavior has never once crossed my mind, and I honestly think this paranoia and elitism is shameful, and childish. I'd be thrilled to see comments centering around whether or not someone has a little cosmetic emblem, be made against forum rules.

Is it really so hard to register games ? It so easy , that's why it raises question as to why one wouldn't register his games.Most likely conclusion once too often is that that person doesn't own them.
 
Iceland is not underpowered, when the game starts it has only been inhabited for a few hundred years. The population is still very low compared to the rest of Europe by that time, and Iceland has never been "strong" historically.
 
Is it really so hard to register games ? It so easy , that's why it raises question as to why one wouldn't register his games.Most likely conclusion once too often is that that person doesn't own them.

Hard? Not at all, BUT whether or not it's worth it is debatable. For example, yes, registering CK2 is worth it because you get access to the mod and multiplayer forum, and the tech support forum which is only worth it as the game is still being updated. As for a game like Darkest Hour though, there really is 0 reason to register the game, as simple as it may be. All those older games that don't get patches anymore, and are completely open to a "basic" user are also not worth registering, lest you wanna show support by representing the game via emblem, or something; however I'm sure many could care less about SHOWING they own a game merely to show it. I mean no offense to you, but when I see no emblems, it DOESN'T raise questions to me, because it's none of my business, impacts me in no way, and I have no vested interest in whether or not this random user could potentially be a pirate.
 
I own a lot more Paradox games than I have registered. As if it is hard to register, not really, but also not terribly important. Also, I tried to register my Mount and Blade games that I bought from steam and they wouldn't take my code. Might be my error, steams, paradoxs, but in the end, I put as much effort into registering as I care to. Not registering doesn't make someone a pirate, I assume that is the point of this argument? I've never pirated a thing, not a song, game movie, nothing. But I also don't bother to register every game I purchase.
 
..How is that relevant at all? We in Scandinavia actively keep our troop numbers low as an unnecessary expense and Iceland doesn't maintain a standing army at all. It doesn't show a single point as to their potential troop capacity were they to actually create one. The population-ratio is also not the same as in Medieval times.

That's precisely the point.

A Holding (by definition) represents a significant economic unit that is intended to support a military force. Iceland has never made that kind of investment in it's military, therefore it's military strength is supposed to be less then simple population figures would suggest.

If a Medieval Jarl of Iceland wanted the strength to besiege Oslo he'd have needed to make some pretty significant investments in his military.

In game that means building new holdings.

It was decentralized and isolated as an independent Republic, yes. The situation in which it would be dragged off to fight abroad would most likely be as a subject of the King of Norway, though, hence the comparisons to them. That's a more centralized model of governance. Also I provided a link to a battle between two clans of Iceland that showed they had over 2000 troops for the conflict. I would not be surprised if the other clans could raise an additional 1500. I'd be interested to see how these numbers change if as a vassal to the Norwegian King, though, since he'd probably raise less than 3500 from them. As you can see in the chart Norway's levies increased by about 10000 where as Iceland only went from 3520 to 3670 between the dates where they got vassalized.

And would those troops be available in the same way a levy is, as offensive troops that can actually invade Norway, or are they the Castle garrison?

I strongly suspect any Icelandic clan that tried to keep it's men at arms actually under arms for a couple years would have starved to death.

That's ridiculous. Then they'd have none at all.

The OP said they start with four holdings. Reducing it to two or three wouldn't wipe them off the map. It's possible that the OP was mistaken, or I misinterpreted him, and each Icelandic province only has one.

I'm not saying that should happen. A reduced Iceland would have more historical troop levels, but would be ahistorically united, and a gameplay disaster. The CK2 engine is simply not very good at simulating an extremely decentralized, fairly small, Republic.

What I am saying is that increasing Icelandic military power is ahistoric.

Nick
 
That's precisely the point.

A Holding (by definition) represents a significant economic unit that is intended to support a military force. Iceland has never made that kind of investment in it's military, therefore it's military strength is supposed to be less then simple population figures would suggest.

If a Medieval Jarl of Iceland wanted the strength to besiege Oslo he'd have needed to make some pretty significant investments in his military.

In game that means building new holdings.



And would those troops be available in the same way a levy is, as offensive troops that can actually invade Norway, or are they the Castle garrison?

I strongly suspect any Icelandic clan that tried to keep it's men at arms actually under arms for a couple years would have starved to death.



The OP said they start with four holdings. Reducing it to two or three wouldn't wipe them off the map. It's possible that the OP was mistaken, or I misinterpreted him, and each Icelandic province only has one.

I'm not saying that should happen. A reduced Iceland would have more historical troop levels, but would be ahistorically united, and a gameplay disaster. The CK2 engine is simply not very good at simulating an extremely decentralized, fairly small, Republic.

What I am saying is that increasing Icelandic military power is ahistoric.

Nick

4 holdings over 2 provinces, with 2 castels and 1 city initially build.
 
This is an extremely important point. To use a relevant RL example. Iceland's entire active duty military is 210, and they're all Coast Guards. Denmark's population slightly less then 16.7 times Iceland's, so the entire Danish Active Military should be only 3,499 but the Danish Army alone includes 10,000 Active troops.
About the Danish forces... We still have conscription duty in Denmark so the actual number of available soldiers is far higher if the need should arise. The standing army is not what would actually defend the nation, it's the one million able bodied conscripts.

Edit: I also wish to make the notes that castles != military strength in the medieval age. That is a game mechanic only. I would actually argue that the amount of castles drains military forces because you have to defend them and spend money on maintaining them.
 
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That's precisely the point.

A Holding (by definition) represents a significant economic unit that is intended to support a military force. Iceland has never made that kind of investment in it's military, therefore it's military strength is supposed to be less then simple population figures would suggest.

If a Medieval Jarl of Iceland wanted the strength to besiege Oslo he'd have needed to make some pretty significant investments in his military.

In game that means building new holdings.

You aren't making any sense. You are talking about a modern nation without a standing army and saying "That's exactly how it must've been a thousand years ago!". It isn't relevant at all and doesn't make a lick of sense. You might as well say that the Roman Empire didn't have any soldiers because Rome today doesn't have it's own standing army. It tells us nothing about the actual state of a Medieval nation. I guarantee that they had far more soldiers than the current Icelandic non-Army, yet they had less people.

And would those troops be available in the same way a levy is, as offensive troops that can actually invade Norway, or are they the Castle garrison?

I strongly suspect any Icelandic clan that tried to keep it's men at arms actually under arms for a couple years would have starved to death.

..As opposed to the King of Norway that wouldn't have any problems just sitting around with over ten thousand men in England for years? It'd necessitate living off the land no matter the point of origin. They fought in seasons for a reason.

On the earlier point: Castles weren't as big of a thing. If anything the game shouldn't force every place to have the same split of stationary and mobile forces. Steppe Hordes should be more mobile but easier to take territory from (low Defence Garrisons), for example, but likewise they'd be hard to hold once their armies show up, since they maintain a bigger mobile one. Obviously these soldiers weren't sitting around in castles, since they're marching around and conducting a civil conflict within the republic and meeting for combat in the field. Again, those are the number of troops that met for a single battle between two of the clans. It was huge by Icelandic standards, but I sincerely doubt that it reflects a maximum of available troops. Both from other clans and those not in that specific battle between those clans. The percentage of adult men that could be levied during the Middle Ages was very high. Part of what made the Steppe Hordes such a danger was that they had an even more absurdly high number (since every adult man was a rider with weaponry due to their nomadic lifestyle).

"Raising so many men that the region became undefended against raids" is a pretty basic concern of warfare, so it'd be nice to be able to sweep in and plunder regions that are left too sparsely garrisoned. You'd also pretty much have to nerf the entire world to bring the number of soldiers in line if you're also counting the garrisons, no?

The OP said they start with four holdings. Reducing it to two or three wouldn't wipe them off the map. It's possible that the OP was mistaken, or I misinterpreted him, and each Icelandic province only has one.

They have two slots each, but Austurland only has one holding. The western coast was also more populated than the eastern one.
 
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Is it really so hard to register games ? It so easy , that's why it raises question as to why one wouldn't register his games.Most likely conclusion once too often is that that person doesn't own them.

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"?

Ahem.
 
Offtopic, about the registration.

The only games I've played from Paradox are the M&B Series(Which I own 'em all but this site isn't accepting my serials) and CK, and CK2. CK I used to play with my old Game Master(RPG thing) in his PC(So no, I never owned it), and when CK2 was released, I downloaded the demo and played the damn thing until Steam had it at 50%. Was worth it. I've mastered the basic without paying anything at all, and now I own it.

Also, if you own, why would you hide it? This forum is huge, but the members are very close to each other. There's no reason NOT to register.
 
Ah, I just came home and checked my first post and the two "tables" that I made are a little messed up online, they made sence in word, I will fix them soon.

...but i wanna know , does Norway's historical statistics match the In game de jures it holds? the other thing is , could people freely and readily trade with Iceland. Seems like it was isolated , which might cause (in theory) said population to be less effective in joining wars throughout Europe. Like who will or could send 10 galley's all the way up there for a few levies?

Iceland's medieval population is much better documented then many other medieval population so I guess less is known about the size of Norway's medieval population. Maybe paradox assumes Norway's population was larger than what I have heard. The Norwegians did trade with Iceland, once a war was about to break out between Norway and Iceland over trade. Trade was an important issue to Icelanders and f.e. when most of Iceland accepted the Norwegian king as their king there was a chapter about trade in the oath. It can take a ship sailing from Bergen to maybe southern Iceland a week to sail to Iceland with a good wind and from there it only takes you about a day to ride to Alþingi.

One of Iceland's problems was probably the low number of ships. Wood that you could make ship from was very rare since you could use little or no wood that grew here to build ships. But wood drifted to Iceland and some men brought wood from f.e. Norway.


It was decentralized and isolated as an independent Republic, yes. The situation in which it would be dragged off to fight abroad would most likely be as a subject of the King of Norway, though, hence the comparisons to them. That's a more centralized model of governance. Also I provided a link to a battle between two clans of Iceland that showed they had over 2000 troops for the conflict. I would not be surprised if the other clans could raise an additional 1500. I'd be interested to see how these numbers change if as a vassal to the Norwegian King, though, since he'd probably raise less than 3500 from them. As you can see in the chart Norway's levies increased by about 10000 where as Iceland only went from 3520 to 3670 between the dates where they got vassalized.

Maybe Iceland never went to war with another country because Iceland never had the chance. For maybe 270 years Iceland was a decentrialised state ruled by 39 chieftains, goðar, met and f.e. set laws and served as court. They had great difficulties gathering a large army and going to war with other chieftains because their "þingmenn", the farmers, were not very keen on going to war. So if Iceland would have declared war on another country at that time I think the goðar could not gather a large army. However when the 13th century began some goðar had become very powerful and Iceland was divided into a few but centrialised states who most of the time had natural rivals nerby or were in war with them. But in the 13th century Iceland was ruled by one chieftain one or two times but that lasted for a short time and war began again. Gissur was given a jarl title and ruled all or most of Iceland (not sure whether two chieftains were vassal to the jarl or the king) until he died with out an heir. The king took the jarl title back and the Icelanders would have had a hard time going to war with another since the king chose who would rule Iceland for him and that positions was not inherited by ones heirs.

In that battle 4 chieftens fought, two on each side. On one side was Sighvatur, brother to Snorri Sturluson and Sighvat's son, Sturla, who had taken recently taken over Snorri's realm. The other side had two chieftains from two clans, Kolbeinn ungi who ruled the land where the battle took place and the other was Gissur Þorvaldsson who later became jarl of Iceland. These 4 men ruled areas that had about 78 % of Iceland's population. But again, about 120 years before that a battle almost began between two sides and togather those armies had 2300 men. These men were commanded by goðar who ruled a area that had about 55 % of the population.

Iceland is not underpowered, when the game starts it has only been inhabited for a few hundred years. The population is still very low compared to the rest of Europe by that time, and Iceland has never been "strong" historically.

But it's population reached during the game's time frame. Iceland's population suffered from hunger in the 14th century and it seemed that the land could not feed more people and the population was stopped growing and later went down but at the same time the population of other countries was rising. As I have said, when Iceland was independent Iceland had less than 70 000 people, maybe 60 000 or 65 000 but in 1703 the population of Iceland was 50 358 (there was a full poll done).
 
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"?

Ahem.

Well that's a bit extreme isn't it ?

To be clear , i understand that some people just don't bother to register games and sometimes forums don't accept codes.
As for me and i believe i am not alone at this , i play a lot of games , but that doesn't mean i buy a lot of games.I buy only products that i deem worthy of my money , cuz i (as many of us) don't have a lot to spare.
Registering games is just showing off that you bought those games and you bought them because you like them and you like Paradox.It really hurts to see Paradox or indie game devs games on torrent trackers , hurts enough
to be reluctant to help anyone who might have pirated them , so i apologize if it may seem rude to question people who haven't registered any games.

Sorry for offtopic , ill cease it with this post.
 
I'll just directly quote Tobears signature:

A question by a forum user during the 200k event:
"With 200,000 accounts, you must have a fair amount of data to mine. What was the most surprising thing you learned about us, the forumites?"
Johan's answer:
"That if someone has not registered a game, he's extremely likely to not have bought it."

I find that hard to believe, I don't see how Johan could possibly know that. Personally, I've bought several Paradox games that I haven't bothered to register, since only CK2 has held my interest fiercely enough that I'd want to talk about it on forums.
 
It seems like there were three periods: the first was when it as a anarcho-capitalist society. That is clearly a republic in game terms. Then the church purchased all of the private defense forces and had a monopoly on force. It was still a republic but destined to lose that status. Then the Norwegian king usurped the duchy.

So Iceland should be a republic but at least one of the counties should be run by a feudal lord. It is possible that Iceland could have drifted towards theorcracy at that time. I think that two counties makes sense but that 3 or 4 would be fine. The number of holdings should be low.

So it should be a Republic, but half of the counties ( one if there are counties, two if there are four counties) should be run by feudal lords. The Norway player/AI could then attempt to get control of those counties through marriage/claims, and then it would be able to usurp the duchy and then grab the rest.
 
O_O the forgotten duchy.


Seriously lol Iceland?


seriously?




Ill be honest , i first thought this was a troll post. But i think you are legit in trying to get Iceland buffs. And you might be right , but i wanna know , does Norway's historical statistics match the In game de jures it holds? the other thing is , could people freely and readily trade with Iceland. Seems like it was isolated , which might cause (in theory) said population to be less effective in joining wars throughout Europe. Like who will or could send 10 galley's all the way up there for a few levies?


Anyway i don't really know much about Iceland. It was the first Duchy i tried to play as when i first started this game , and i found it was quite a snooze. So i guess history aside , maybe for gameplay it would make sense to have Iceland a little stronger , since i totally forget its even there most the time.

Just wondering if you could be anymore disrespectful?
 
I don't know so much about Iceland at this time, but I do know some about Norway. In 1066 Norway was at it's peak powerwise. It had several centuries of warrior culture behind it and it had a high amount of experienced warriors, who had fought all over Europe as mercenaries, plunderers and pirates. Economically Norway did great, profiting from plundering and large scale sea trading. Since this was before Novgorod, the Norwegians enjoyed a near monopoly on furtrade and they also traded walrus teeth and fish. Comparing Iceland and Norway may therefore not be so relevant as you suggest - Norway had much larger strength both financially and military than it's population size suggested at the time.

Iceland might still be underpowered, but they should not be 1/4 of Norway's power.
 
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I would say it's more like Norway being overpowered. 45k soldiers is RL HRE, France or England at the height of their power.
 
Norway is probably overpowered.

compare it to England instead...