Crap. It's 950 and my MA has been fluctuating between 31 and 41, even though I have 3 holy sites AND like +13 points of church looting. The problem is that England was allowed to form, and has been Holy warring Jylland (which took over Merica). Every time they lose a holy war, it's a -3 impact on MA. I have -21 for 'LOST HOLY WARS' all because of weak Jylland!!
I'm going to restart the game now that I know about temple looting. My strategy will be to destroy Wessex (after becoming King of Svitjod), and eventually Scotland. With no major Christian powers in Britannia to start holy wars, it should be easy to reform.
Another thing you may want to consider is (probs as Hæsteinn) Preparing an invasion for Frisia on France/Lotharingia. Whoever owns the Norse Holy site in 867. (can't remember). If you hire 1 or 2 merc bands, along with your invasion force, you can just walk there (or send your full boat load by sea and walk the rest) and siege enough of Frisia to win before they can muster their armies properly.
That way you start with the hardest holy site you can get without triggering Crusades. Then choose which Norse power to waste your once-in-a-lifetime subjugation on. Go for whoever is the biggest, that you can still beat. You should now have 2 holy sites, and some decent MA for winning the invasion.
Then do a county conquest (hopefully you can) for a county in one of the two Norse Kingdoms you didn't subjugate (my suggestion is to use the first subjugation on Sviþjod, then county conquest somewhere in de jure Norway). Now change your capital to the county you just conquested, and move over any event troops and retinues you have to there. (This assumes you resisted the urge to stick your capital in holland or something. Although I think Brugge is where you want your capital eventually, but it's owned by France, wheras the Holy site is owned by Lotharingia)
Take the "Become King of X" amibition for the Kingdom you just took one county in. Now you get your subjugation CB back for that whole de jure Kingdom. Use it. All of it.
Now you have 3 holy sites. You are probably just missing Denmark's at this point, unless a different order was more convenient for you. Now there are a few ways to proceed.
- Fabricate a claim for the last (not counting central Germany) Norse Holy site
- Cause succession while having only one county or one heir to avoid Gavelkind. (just turn raiding on with a tiny levy led by Hæsteinn and smash him into enemy stacks until he dies, wait, or fail a vassal imprisonment and surrender)
Once you get the 4th Norse holy site, you base MA is 40%. You should be able to go raiding and pick off some celtic minors to get the rest needed to reform.
Once you reform, I would highly suggest either giving away some of your Scandinavian land (until you have <40 holdings) and preparing an invasion for the other half of frisia (from france) or subjugating the third Norse kingdom, and conquesting for half of Finland to form Scandinavia