I haven't seen much discussion of Norwegian Wood as compared to Jihad/Re-reconquista/Basileus, so I thought I'd start by sharing my experience. I'm in the mid-1600's in my game, and I don't quite know whether I'll be successful yet. The naval supply provinces are positioned such that you'll have to fight every great power (apart from Great Britain and Portugal, so long as they don't have any colonies with naval supplies), penetrate India/China/Southeast Asia, and be a major colonial power yourself. I've been playing with Hard AI and AI bonuses, just for reference.
The Starting Position
Norway looks like it has a fair amount of territory, but in practice its starting position is horrid. You need to get out of the PU with Denmark as soon as possible, then you need to deal with the more powerful Sweden. Declaring a war of independence before Sweden does is suicide, so you'll need to wait. Normally, Sweden gets some combination of Scotland, the Livonian Order, the Teutonic Order, and/or Pomerania to support its independence, and normally Denmark is allied to Lithuania. Sometimes Lithuania will attack Riga or the Livonian Order in the early game and call Denmark in to assist -- this is bad because it significantly delays your independence. The ideal outcome of the initial Swedish war is Sweden winning and gaining independence, but not taking territory from Denmark. At game start, I disband half of my army, including the cavalry unit, and send the rest to the Shetlands until Sweden is independent.
Now it should be a few years into the game, you've built light ships until you're slightly over your force limit, and you've hired a diplo advisor. If you want to go for exploration as soon as possible, which I think is the best approach, you'll need three ideas into the exploration group as well as diplo tech 7 before you can colonize. You should also be improving relations with Muscovy, the Hansa, Pomerania, the Teutonic Order, and the Livonian Order, and forging a claim on Kola (Novgorod).
To gain your own independence, you can either wait for the Danish king to die, because the war against Sweden should have destroyed his prestige, or declare war yourself. I think keeping Denmark as an ally is preferable, but you need to be free as soon as possible, so either restart until the king does die fairly early, or get the Hansa/Teutonic Order/Pomerania to support your independence.
Looking Outward
Conquering Sweden is a given, but where else should you look to expand? It's possible to acquire Scotland as a vassal in two wars, but you won't be able to defend it against England, so it's not worth doing until much later. You'll need to conquer most of the Baltic coastline at some point, but the countries there don't become more dangerous over time, so it's not a priority. Therefore, I think Russia is the most important area to focus on. You need the Novgorodian land, and you need a Muscovite province, and you need to become a superpower to be able to fight Spain, France, and the Ottomans, so destroying Muscovy and blocking its Siberian colonization fulfills your needs quite effectively.
The first step is turning Novgorod into a vassal. Apart from the outcome of the Swedish independence war, and the method of breaking your PU, this is the most luck-determined element of the early game. If Muscovy goes straight for Novgorod at the start, too much of it may be gone by the time you become free. The ideal situation is when its attention is devoted elsewhere. Sometimes Kazan goes to war with them early on. One game there was a succession war between Muscovy and Lithuania for the throne of Ryazan. Sometimes Muscovy is just more passive than others. Regardless of the specifics, you need to vassalize Novgorod, with as much of its land intact, as soon as possible. Again, you may want to restart if Muscovy takes most of Novgorod, or if it takes Kola (you'll lose your CB). The best option for you is declaring on Novgorod immediately after Muscovy does, and quickly placing a single regiment in each province so that you're the siege leader while Muscovy destroys Novgorod's army. Wait until Muscovy peaces out, then take as much land as you can handle, starting with the Finnish cores. Release Finland as a vassal. It will either take two or three wars to vassalize Novgorod, depending on whether Muscovy is able to take any provinces.
Simultaneous to your wars against Novgorod, you should fight Sweden as soon as you can get Muscovy as an ally. So long as you keep Muscovy engaged in your wars, or recovering from them, they won't expand much at all. Denmark should also be your ally at this point, so you'll have both naval and army superiority. Slowly eat Sweden, taking a province or two for yourself, and returning cores to Finland. If you do it early enough, the provinces of Aland and Finland (which are Swedish culture) will still have Finnish cores. Take care to improve relations with the rest of the Baltic nations to avoid coalitions.
Eventually, you'll have Finland and Novgorod as massive vassals, Sweden won't be much of a threat, and Muscovy will turn hostile. In my playthrough, Lithuania remained independent and allied to Denmark, so I allied them as well and used them against Muscovy. I also was very lucky to get a PU with Poland before 1500. Build up your power by conquering Muscovy and returning cores to Novgorod, ideally releasing Perm to block colonization.
Rebels/Reformation
In the early stages, your manpower pool will be terrible, and you'll have revolt risk issues in Russia if you ever have problems with legitimacy or war exhaustion. It'll also be impossible to convert Orthodox provinces for a while. On top of this, many of your provinces will flip to Protestant/Reformed, which will result in even more revolt risk due to religious unity. Use harsh treatment liberally, especially on the various base tax 1 provinces, and all of the islands. Apart from problems with rebels, revolt risk will destroy your tax and production income, making it very difficult to even field an army at your force limit. You can flip Protestant yourself if you like, but the Counter-Reformation is useful for converting all of the Orthodox provinces without the need for Religious ideas, and Curia Controller is a nice way of getting bonuses as well as denying them to Spain/France/Austria. So long as you don't integrate your vassals until you've converted most of your Scandinavian land back to Catholic, and you're conservative in wars, you'll emerge with a large amount of territory and a strong economy.
Broader Thoughts
For colonization, I was able to get almost the entirely of North America, but Spain has about 90% of South America. Trade goods are random, but there are about six naval supply provinces in South America in my game, so I'll have to fight Spain's colonies at some point. Unfortunately, I doubt my North American colonies will send troops to South America, so I'll have to do it myself. If I were to do it again, I think having strong positions on both continents would be better than completely dominating just one. I would probably aim to cross to the Pacific via Mexico (conquering Maya), then conquer the Incas to rapidly create a wealthy colony to help me fight South American wars.
For ideas, I went Exploration, Offensive, Administrative, Expansion. Religious ideas could have been used instead of Administrative for the CB and relations over time, but I haven't had much issue. By focusing on Muscovy, and slowly taking land from TO/LO/Pomerania/Hansa if they join coalitions against you, your AE will be more limited than if you went straight for German HRE nations. And apart from conquering most of eastern Europe, you only need specific provinces from other areas, so while the wars will be difficult, they shouldn't generate that much AE.
In contrast to achievements like Jihad and Re-reconquista, which are very difficult and luck-based in terms of getting a solid start, I think this achievement is also difficult and luck-dependent later on. For example, in my playthrough the Ottomans managed to get PUs over Qara Qoyunla and a huge Crimea. Spain is worst-case scenario: the Iberian Wedding happened, Castile inherited Naples, and Spain got into a PU over almost full-size Burgundy. Great Britain reconquered Normandy and took Brittany (both areas with naval supplies). So, I suppose I won't have fight France itself (I did have to take some of its colonies), but I was really hoping to avoid war with Great Britain entirely, and I really wish that Spain and the Ottomans weren't so massive.
You'll notice in the following images that my army is far below the force limit. This is partially due to manpower and partially finances. I need a trade fleet to get a decent income from Lubeck due to competition with Denmark and the Hansa. And fighting Denmark/Hansa directly would mean fighting France/Austria, so I've avoided them until recently because my navy can't compete against the major powers. That is one nice thing about coalitions: I can take HRE land without directly attacking the HRE. As it happens, the Hansa just declared a coalition war against me, but I just fought the rest of the coalition, so it's just the Hansa, France, and Tuscany -- I own Hamburg and I really want Lubeck soon. I think there will inevitably be a Portugal/Spain/Great Britain/Ottomans coalition against me, so sequencing my attacks against them will be important.
The World in 1638
Relations Map of Europe
Armies
Navies
The Starting Position
Norway looks like it has a fair amount of territory, but in practice its starting position is horrid. You need to get out of the PU with Denmark as soon as possible, then you need to deal with the more powerful Sweden. Declaring a war of independence before Sweden does is suicide, so you'll need to wait. Normally, Sweden gets some combination of Scotland, the Livonian Order, the Teutonic Order, and/or Pomerania to support its independence, and normally Denmark is allied to Lithuania. Sometimes Lithuania will attack Riga or the Livonian Order in the early game and call Denmark in to assist -- this is bad because it significantly delays your independence. The ideal outcome of the initial Swedish war is Sweden winning and gaining independence, but not taking territory from Denmark. At game start, I disband half of my army, including the cavalry unit, and send the rest to the Shetlands until Sweden is independent.
Now it should be a few years into the game, you've built light ships until you're slightly over your force limit, and you've hired a diplo advisor. If you want to go for exploration as soon as possible, which I think is the best approach, you'll need three ideas into the exploration group as well as diplo tech 7 before you can colonize. You should also be improving relations with Muscovy, the Hansa, Pomerania, the Teutonic Order, and the Livonian Order, and forging a claim on Kola (Novgorod).
To gain your own independence, you can either wait for the Danish king to die, because the war against Sweden should have destroyed his prestige, or declare war yourself. I think keeping Denmark as an ally is preferable, but you need to be free as soon as possible, so either restart until the king does die fairly early, or get the Hansa/Teutonic Order/Pomerania to support your independence.
Looking Outward
Conquering Sweden is a given, but where else should you look to expand? It's possible to acquire Scotland as a vassal in two wars, but you won't be able to defend it against England, so it's not worth doing until much later. You'll need to conquer most of the Baltic coastline at some point, but the countries there don't become more dangerous over time, so it's not a priority. Therefore, I think Russia is the most important area to focus on. You need the Novgorodian land, and you need a Muscovite province, and you need to become a superpower to be able to fight Spain, France, and the Ottomans, so destroying Muscovy and blocking its Siberian colonization fulfills your needs quite effectively.
The first step is turning Novgorod into a vassal. Apart from the outcome of the Swedish independence war, and the method of breaking your PU, this is the most luck-determined element of the early game. If Muscovy goes straight for Novgorod at the start, too much of it may be gone by the time you become free. The ideal situation is when its attention is devoted elsewhere. Sometimes Kazan goes to war with them early on. One game there was a succession war between Muscovy and Lithuania for the throne of Ryazan. Sometimes Muscovy is just more passive than others. Regardless of the specifics, you need to vassalize Novgorod, with as much of its land intact, as soon as possible. Again, you may want to restart if Muscovy takes most of Novgorod, or if it takes Kola (you'll lose your CB). The best option for you is declaring on Novgorod immediately after Muscovy does, and quickly placing a single regiment in each province so that you're the siege leader while Muscovy destroys Novgorod's army. Wait until Muscovy peaces out, then take as much land as you can handle, starting with the Finnish cores. Release Finland as a vassal. It will either take two or three wars to vassalize Novgorod, depending on whether Muscovy is able to take any provinces.
Simultaneous to your wars against Novgorod, you should fight Sweden as soon as you can get Muscovy as an ally. So long as you keep Muscovy engaged in your wars, or recovering from them, they won't expand much at all. Denmark should also be your ally at this point, so you'll have both naval and army superiority. Slowly eat Sweden, taking a province or two for yourself, and returning cores to Finland. If you do it early enough, the provinces of Aland and Finland (which are Swedish culture) will still have Finnish cores. Take care to improve relations with the rest of the Baltic nations to avoid coalitions.
Eventually, you'll have Finland and Novgorod as massive vassals, Sweden won't be much of a threat, and Muscovy will turn hostile. In my playthrough, Lithuania remained independent and allied to Denmark, so I allied them as well and used them against Muscovy. I also was very lucky to get a PU with Poland before 1500. Build up your power by conquering Muscovy and returning cores to Novgorod, ideally releasing Perm to block colonization.
Rebels/Reformation
In the early stages, your manpower pool will be terrible, and you'll have revolt risk issues in Russia if you ever have problems with legitimacy or war exhaustion. It'll also be impossible to convert Orthodox provinces for a while. On top of this, many of your provinces will flip to Protestant/Reformed, which will result in even more revolt risk due to religious unity. Use harsh treatment liberally, especially on the various base tax 1 provinces, and all of the islands. Apart from problems with rebels, revolt risk will destroy your tax and production income, making it very difficult to even field an army at your force limit. You can flip Protestant yourself if you like, but the Counter-Reformation is useful for converting all of the Orthodox provinces without the need for Religious ideas, and Curia Controller is a nice way of getting bonuses as well as denying them to Spain/France/Austria. So long as you don't integrate your vassals until you've converted most of your Scandinavian land back to Catholic, and you're conservative in wars, you'll emerge with a large amount of territory and a strong economy.
Broader Thoughts
For colonization, I was able to get almost the entirely of North America, but Spain has about 90% of South America. Trade goods are random, but there are about six naval supply provinces in South America in my game, so I'll have to fight Spain's colonies at some point. Unfortunately, I doubt my North American colonies will send troops to South America, so I'll have to do it myself. If I were to do it again, I think having strong positions on both continents would be better than completely dominating just one. I would probably aim to cross to the Pacific via Mexico (conquering Maya), then conquer the Incas to rapidly create a wealthy colony to help me fight South American wars.
For ideas, I went Exploration, Offensive, Administrative, Expansion. Religious ideas could have been used instead of Administrative for the CB and relations over time, but I haven't had much issue. By focusing on Muscovy, and slowly taking land from TO/LO/Pomerania/Hansa if they join coalitions against you, your AE will be more limited than if you went straight for German HRE nations. And apart from conquering most of eastern Europe, you only need specific provinces from other areas, so while the wars will be difficult, they shouldn't generate that much AE.
In contrast to achievements like Jihad and Re-reconquista, which are very difficult and luck-based in terms of getting a solid start, I think this achievement is also difficult and luck-dependent later on. For example, in my playthrough the Ottomans managed to get PUs over Qara Qoyunla and a huge Crimea. Spain is worst-case scenario: the Iberian Wedding happened, Castile inherited Naples, and Spain got into a PU over almost full-size Burgundy. Great Britain reconquered Normandy and took Brittany (both areas with naval supplies). So, I suppose I won't have fight France itself (I did have to take some of its colonies), but I was really hoping to avoid war with Great Britain entirely, and I really wish that Spain and the Ottomans weren't so massive.
You'll notice in the following images that my army is far below the force limit. This is partially due to manpower and partially finances. I need a trade fleet to get a decent income from Lubeck due to competition with Denmark and the Hansa. And fighting Denmark/Hansa directly would mean fighting France/Austria, so I've avoided them until recently because my navy can't compete against the major powers. That is one nice thing about coalitions: I can take HRE land without directly attacking the HRE. As it happens, the Hansa just declared a coalition war against me, but I just fought the rest of the coalition, so it's just the Hansa, France, and Tuscany -- I own Hamburg and I really want Lubeck soon. I think there will inevitably be a Portugal/Spain/Great Britain/Ottomans coalition against me, so sequencing my attacks against them will be important.
The World in 1638
Relations Map of Europe
Armies
Navies
Last edited:
). At that point, everything from Canada to Brazil would've been mine, but I briefly forgot that Bermuda existed. 
