England?

[GooSquirrel]

Who has played as the Saxon king of englanad and actually done OK?

Because I just realized I have a positive war score against Duke William... I've occupied most of his territory and killed his army, but norway is still being a pain. so I think I've done pretty good so far in the ~10 years I've played. oh and scotland is allied and helping me with sieges

has anyone done better?

edit:norways king just died so now I can focus on duke william!

 

[Raventhefuhrer]

What I do is right as the game begins I rush my army to London, where William will be landing. This way you can fight the first half of his army and consequently won't be outnumbered. I was lucky because I captured William during the battle, so I could end the war immediately. Then it's just a matter of waiting for the old king of Norway to die. After the war ends you need to be really careful though, because your vassals all have low opinions of you and all it takes is Lancaster rebelling before you've suitably recovered and you're toast.

 

[GooSquirrel]

well that game ended badly, with my brother edmund becoming king of england then being killed in battle with no heir I did very well, and even got my line into Tuscany before kind Godwin was deposed.

 

[Robert Wyatt]

Sweet irony, I was just wondering when a Saxon-England thread might pop up!

I have found the best way to maintain Saxon sovereignty is to arrange a marriage between your eldest son and the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, then call him to arms. As long as he accepts you can rest assured that despite having to take early setbacks, he will arrive with the manpower to help chisel down the Vikings and the Normans enough for you to kick them out of England, force them to revoke their claims and then set about managing a Kingdom which seemingly despises you.

Biggest issue I had was the Duke of Lancaster was the heir to the Northumbrian titles, meaning the entire of Northern England falls into his hands unless you can address it. It is a very big challenge to firstly survive the invasions, but imo it is a much, much bigger challenge to avoid civil unrest as there are so many vassals out to see you removed from the throne without the added boost of holding Normandy.

It is a very interest scenario, had two fun games as Harold, it is such a shame the demo ends after 20 years and can't be saved to continue in the full version.

 

[Purplebleeder]

I actually fully survived my 20 years as Kingdom of England the second time I tried. First I set up all of my bethrothals and married into the Emperor's family and bethrothed my family down the line a bit to Scotland, and the many rulers from Spain.

I also got my barony limit down to the 6 that I could start with so that I would have better relations with vassals. I gave my sons the provinces in most of my Duchies and stuck with just 2. But I created no new Duchies because I knew I would need the cash. I was promptly assassinated within days before anyone had landed so I had to defend with my son.

The Emperor came to my aid me which was a big help, but since I had a smaller army my strategy was to get out of England and attack Normandy.
I did so and was capturing about the same number of provinces so I was about even with William and a little behind Harold. William and Harold moved toward and fought each other leaving me with the biggest army and by sieging William's personal provinces first I was able to bring him to a white peace. By that time I brought my army back to England and the Emperor also landed an army on England so I managed to win back some provinces and shrink Harold's forces to white peace. Sometime during that battle I was assassinated again so I had a 0 year-old child king for some of my reign.
William attacked me again later, but I had become an adult and stabilized the situation. I believe that is about when it ended, but I would have been able to make him lose the claim.

 

[KevUK]

The best idea is to make an alliance with your son early on, then hope you can call them to arms. Other than that, my last game lost with Norway but I managed to stop William. Next thing was ambition to kill Harald of Norway, managed to do that because he was in civil strife, but then having to deal with vassals that had low opinion leading to a very messy civil war that I lost.

So whatever happens, I find the several games I have played as Godwin is that even if you managed to retake the thrown, or manage to keep it, you are doomed to years of unrest which is more upsetting than if you loose the crown to William or Harald of Norway.

England is a hard country to play. I ended up with a Duchy and plotted in my last game to reclaim King of England, but you need to time your revolt right, i.e when the crown is at war with someone else; then declare war for the crown (or independence).

 

[KroganElite]

The best idea is to make an alliance with your son early on, then hope you can call them to arms. Other than that, my last game lost with Norway but I managed to stop William. Next thing was ambition to kill Harald of Norway, managed to do that because he was in civil strife, but then having to deal with vassals that had low opinion leading to a very messy civil war that I lost.

So whatever happens, I find the several games I have played as Godwin is that even if you managed to retake the thrown, or manage to keep it, you are doomed to years of unrest which is more upsetting than if you loose the crown to William or Harald of Norway.

England is a hard country to play. I ended up with a Duchy and plotted in my last game to reclaim King of England, but you need to time your revolt right, i.e when the crown is at war with someone else; then declare war for the crown (or independence).

You have an army of 7k troops with A LOT of gold. Hire 1 or 2 bands of mercenaries, destroy the Saxon's armies in 2-3 pitched battles and just siege their land. I won this war in less than 10 years. That isn't even the hardest part. The hardest part is dealing with the remaining Saxon nobles who hold dutchies. I spent a good hour or so imprisoning and banishing all remaining nobles. Those who got away rebelled and I fought them for almost another 10 years. If you do achieve this though, it's pretty much easy mode after that. The only future problem I see from that point on is a bad succession.

 

[GooSquirrel]

I had mixed successes. in the end, england ended up fractured into three powerblocks, the northumbrians, because during the war between me and william, one of the counts started a civil war with one of the dukes and won, then once the norman invasion was over, he rebeled; next edmund's england after he disposed king Godwin, and his brother, duke of Oxford, who also wants to be the next king. I wasn't able to get rid of wiliams claim, so he could invade again, as a fractured england will be easy to take over.

but norway's king is dead and his death caused a civil war(two sons who both wanted to be king, and the HREmperor died, causing many of his vassals to revolt, france also controlled half of Iberia, but the end of the game... interesting end.... oh and the byzantine empire died to the seljuks and internal strife after Micheal's coronation

but Toscana now has a Godwinson as duke, after the duchess at game start was assasinated, and she was King Godwin's wife, so if anything, the english royalty will live on as italians!

 

[Hidden Legend]

The best idea is to make an alliance with your son early on, then hope you can call them to arms. Other than that, my last game lost with Norway but I managed to stop William. Next thing was ambition to kill Harald of Norway, managed to do that because he was in civil strife, but then having to deal with vassals that had low opinion leading to a very messy civil war that I lost.

So whatever happens, I find the several games I have played as Godwin is that even if you managed to retake the thrown, or manage to keep it, you are doomed to years of unrest which is more upsetting than if you loose the crown to William or Harald of Norway.

England is a hard country to play. I ended up with a Duchy and plotted in my last game to reclaim King of England, but you need to time your revolt right, i.e when the crown is at war with someone else; then declare war for the crown (or independence).

Try this surrender directly to William, let him and harold fight it out. assassinate william and plot to become King. Then become King and you get Normandy to boot. Much more fun and you can play with full troops and have a decent income.

 

[unmerged(241678)]

It might seem/be a bit gamey (even if it was not intended) but since the best defense is a good offense...

Just counter-invade Normandy and after that start to counter-invade norway

After I lost 1000 man in Middlessex when the Bastard landed my 2k stack couldnt do anything useful anyway (against the last 4k normandy orthe 6k norwegen stacks) so I thought I just set sail to grab some money and ensure there will be no reinforcements.
Since the war score is based on the size of your realm a fallen english city is worth less % than one in the normandy or norway, so as long as you take holdings as fast as your opponent you actually gain score. Todo that I hired 2x 1,5 k mercs when the siege-gold from normandy allowed me to (and before the bastard besieged my capital) and shiped them to norway. At that time I did 4 sieges simultaniosly vs their two. Even though the bastard conquered 6 counties once I had his 4 costal ones he excepted peace with -100% warscore. AT that time my nonmercsset sail to norway and took about 60% ofit when the rest started to rebel... At that point I had +12% warscore and had to sail home where I found his army down to 3,5k men (of 6 k+), smashed himandstarted to retake my counties until he finnaly accepted peace (quite stubborn considering that he had no more troops and no more homeland to raise some but a revolt )

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

You have an army of 7k troops with A LOT of gold. Hire 1 or 2 bands of mercenaries, destroy the Saxon's armies in 2-3 pitched battles and just siege their land. I won this war in less than 10 years. That isn't even the hardest part. The hardest part is dealing with the remaining Saxon nobles who hold dutchies. I spent a good hour or so imprisoning and banishing all remaining nobles. Those who got away rebelled and I fought them for almost another 10 years. If you do achieve this though, it's pretty much easy mode after that. The only future problem I see from that point on is a bad succession.

He's talking about playing as the Saxons, not the Normans.

 

[GooSquirrel]

now THIS is funny, I chose to play as the duke of Lancashire and look at how many people wish to kill the king of England!

 

[flame7926]

15 it looks like, wow. I got 13 once to kill my wife as a duke. Why do they want to kill him, sort of strange.

 

[unmerged(250188)]

I played as Harold, once I got all my stuff together I realised everyone hated me for holding too many duchies. After putting down the first initial rebellions it all calmed down after that, and I began invading Wales and reclaiming northern England from the scots.

 

[Swedish Steel!]

I haven't ever played CK but from the demo you can only pick from four rulers. How can you play countries like England? as far as I know, you didn't get early playtime by pre-ordering. Do you inherit the country, are you guys putting CK1 into perspective or what?

 

[flame7926]

click one of the playable characters, click play, then very quickly click another on the map.

 

[GooSquirrel]

I've killed the king and both the norman and norwegian invasion ended as both william and norways king died early! so england is at peace, I attempted for independence, but failed, and got a white peace. I've been through three dukes so far, gravelkind sucks, but I own half of england by my vassals and me.

 

[Robert Wyatt]

Seems a little strange, didn't the Witenagemot elect Harold as King? They were made up of the most powerful secular and eclesiastical lords in England, surely they wouldn't have soured against him so soon? That being said I am sure it can be modified to be a bit more representative of the real scenario, for example Harold's brother Tostig should be on Harald Hardrada's side not on Harold's council iirc.

 

[GooSquirrel]

but edward the confessor told everyone that king william would be his rightful heir, which most likely made many people mad. and I'm no longer duke of lancaster, but duke of hereford, lancaster, and some other title!

 

[Robert Wyatt]

The Witenagemot definately convened and named Harold King, one must assume that therefore the leading nobles were happy to have him as King, afterall he was Saxon at least, trying to win over nobles seems like a challenge for successful Norman or Norwegian invaders bringing outside cultures onto the throne of England, I don't recall reading much about nobles having it in for Harold but I am happy to be proven wrong.