Screw the norse even more?
Yes please the norse were great seafarers and plunderers but not particularly good at empire building, even the "North sea empire" only lasted as long as the king who created it.
"Wah, my favourite overly powerful group with the most attention of all the religions got a slight nerf to prevent it from expanding into territories it took only in the Late Middle Ages, wah"
It got drawn in on the maps in the late middle ages early renaissance, it wasn't actually properly claimed until the 18th century, Sweden tried colonising the Americas before bothering with Lapland.
So, someone explain it to me. Why did the northern lands not get taken for the longest time?
I'm assuming it's merely a lack of interest, as a raider/trader society would have no incentive to take the effort to conquer someplace harsh in environment and poor in exploitable resources.
Is it any more unreasonable for an AI norseman to think "I need manpower, let's conscript those guys up North" than it is for him to think "You know what, I wanna absorb those Baltic peoples" or "England seems like a good place to set up a tax haven"?
Those guys up north were a handful nomads scattered over an area larger than those that any of the norse kings held. Why would they colonize northwards when they could colonize more fertile lands like england or russia? Generally before colonialism (or even imperialism) people preferred to take wealth that already existed rather than conquer land that may in time yield wealth. Even early colonialism were more due to exotic trade goods than any real desire for settling territory. Money is what concerned most monarchs not land. And the investment/yield on norrland simply wasn't good enough before early industrialism.
A lot of players like having goals, I too dislike the de jure empires affair, but given that you need 80% to form I don't see it as an issue, since by that time it's fairly obvious that you are in charge of the region.
There are custom empires from CM.
By the way, I believe it should be good optional rule. Especially with custom empires from Charlemagne.
I can support this whole heartedly
Unless I'm mistaken, this part of Sweden wasn't subjugated by the kings until like 14th century. And even then it was only controlled via trade. It would be equally fictional to call it a part of Sweden..
It was in Sweden on the map from the 15th century, it wasn't properly part of Sweden until much later. It should probably be a colonial province in eu4 in 1444, but then they'd have to give Sweden a free colonist.
Are you kidding me? Sure, if you play as a norse there is no problem at all. Elective gavelkind is indeed a nuissance, but can be dealt with with relative ease. But AI norse/germanic? They are almost literally non existant. They don't expand at all, they are never strong enough to do a county conquest (let alone invasions), i've seen them form sweden ONE time, and NEVER have i seen them form an empire. The few lucky times they get a ruler young enough to try and unify the local region, it's only up to the point of having enough land but not enough money/piety to create the title. And BAM. Elective gavelkind hits and makes them return to the beginning. In what way are they strong??
You do realise that smaller kingdoms increase the chances they'll form a kingdom before gavelkind tear them apart? In my mod where sweden is broken up in svithjod and gothia I usually see both form. I'm thinking about breaking apart norway since it is by far the largest kingdom in the nordic region now.
