The Mercians

[Cheetah]

summary

[matteus the inbred]

Not much here, is there...! Probably cos people think Mercia is easy. Which is fair enough...but just in case, as I'm bored at the end of a long day...

Mercians get dead rich dead quick but start surrounded by potential baddies. The strategy that worked for me is, make sure every province you have can build at least fyrd units, then send everything you can spare into West Seax and kick the Saxons out, taking their best military province and possibly capturing or killing their king. Keep the pressure on them and unify southern England. Unless you're very lucky, you will get Vikinged, probably in Lindissi. Don't bother fighting, your troops are too crap...let them pillage off into the rebel bits on the eastern coast while you consolidate, then finish off the Saxons, put some fleets out to counter more Viking raids, and prepare to attack Wales.

Move on to stuffing the Welsh, as quickly as possible, although taking their two westernmost provinces is optional at the moment, as they are rebellious and prone to Viking raids. By now you should be rolling in florins and producing top notch huscarles and cavalry. Make use of mercs too, inns promote happiness in the many recently conquered provinces you have and you can get good cavalry and crossbows like this.
Take advantage of Northumbrian weaknesses, invade them and move on northwards. The Picts will probably be quite powerful by now, so be prepared to face crossbows and Celts (use heavy cav and archers, be careful with huscarles). Bribery might be an option too. Always keep an army or two on the east coast in case of Vikings, and get sea cover as far as possible, as you will need this to invade Ireland as well, if you're going for 100%...

Once you have (relative) security from Vikings build abbeys, the more money the better, and use at least Mierce, West Seax (using the captured Saxon buildings) and any other iron provinces you have (Sumorseate, I think), to build military stuff. I found trade to be not really worth it, anyone you can trade with you're probably going to be fighting sooner or later, although if you can ally with the Vikings they tend to go and attack the northern factions and you can trade with them.
Now get out there and paint it sky blue.

[Ripken]

So basically what you're saying is that if rather than attacking the Saxons I attacked all the rebel provinces on the coast, and now find myself getting chopped up by Saxon huscarles on the one hand and Vikings on the other it is my own silly fault...

[Peasant Phill]

basically

[Jester75]

What kind of ships do I need to produce to conquer open sea, and what buildings do I need?
I did not find anything about that in the manual. I have conquered all land and only need to go to the Viking home countries, but cannot move my ships across open sea.

[macsen rufus]

Hi Jester, none of the "British" factions can build deep-sea ships, so to take the Viking lands you will need to use bribery and deviousness (not necessarily in that order ). Secure one, then you can reach the other with 'coastal' ships. If you've given the Vikings a good thrashing in Britain, they usually have a civil war, leaving one province rebel, and therefore cheaper to bribe. Good luck!

[Geezer57]

I have conquered all land and only need to go to the Viking home countries, but cannot move my ships across open sea.

You should have already won, if what you say is accurate - conquering the two Viking home provinces is NOT a victory condition. Once you've taken all the British Isles and Ireland (which should include everything except the two Viking provinces), the victory screen should come up at the end of that turn. Are you sure you haven't overlooked one of the small islands?

You can conquer the Viking homelands, but you have to use diplomatic methods - the more underhanded the better. Bribe low-loyalty Generals, assassinate heirs, send spies and religious agents to convert and lower loyalty, etc. It's difficult, but doable with enough effort.

[caravel]

You can't assassinate the vikings out of the game, so you will have to get your bishops in there early to start converting their main province of Hordaland(sp) to stop the annoying raidinng. Once Hordaland is converted to christian the Viking leader will convert his faction. This will turn pagan Jutland into a very rebellious province. Your spies can do the rest. Once they've been wiped out and become rebels, you can bribe the rebels and keep a token force there to maintain loyalty. Due to the region's isolation it will play no more part in your campaign.