Viking Age: Total War!

[CrackedAxe]

Ok, excuse me if I`m wrong on some stuff, haven`t bothered to read everything in this thread.
Is this going to be a mod where the Vikings are the focus?
Speaking from a norwegian standpoint. If you are to make a Viking era mod, it is time to put away the nationalistic image of the "glorious" vikings that the nationalromantic writers of the 1800s established, and the nazis continued.

- The state of Norway should not under any circumstances have any viking soldiers, Vikings were banned from Norway. And several of the Norwegian kings went through great trouble to root out Vikings, Harald Haarfagri(first king), followed vikings to both Denmark and the islands north of Scotland to slaughter as many as he could. His son was also raised at the English court.
Vikings were in short terms stateless warriors.

- If you are going to focus on the vikings, why are you including a map over all of Europe? The Areas the Vikings managed to establish themself for short periods were mainly the British isles, France, and down in East Europe. To include the south Europe and the middle East would be pointless, the conflicts with the vikings would be mere buzzing in northern Europe. And Norway would certainly not be very strong. First of, they did not have an imperialistic foreign policy, Norway was not involved in any wars with any foreign nations, and the population was low.

- Why does the game start in the year of 900? The Viking attacks started at full a 100 years earlier(even though attacks can be traced all the way back to 500), by the year 900, a city like Paris had been burned like 3 times. And by this time the Vikings had looted out most of the gold they could find on all of Ireland, including digging ut most of the graveyards when all the all the churchgold was taken. Where is the logic in starting the game at 900 if the Vikings are the focus? Most of the bloodbaths in England, Ireland and France was over at the year 900, and they had lost control over Ireland.

-Quick notes.. Vikings did not fight with axes.
Trells did not fight either.

I really do not understand this post AT ALL, where did you learn your history? First off, Harald did NOT ban vikings. When he became the first king of all Norway, many vikings simply refused to accept his rule. Remember, there had been no concept of a nation until this point and most vikings followed their own regional lord or king and no other. This rejection of Harald led to many vikings leaving Norway to set up elsewhere, many forming raiding bases in Scotland, so Haralds kingship actually led to an INCREASE in norwegain viking raider activity. The reason why Harald sought to attack them was because many of these vikings refused to pay him tribute, not because he had 'banned' them.

Secondly, why should'nt the map include all europe? why exclude Hasteins epic raids against the moors in southern Spain and North Africa, not to mention his sacking of what he thought was Rome. Or why exclude Olegs eastern viking nation (the Rus)? Or the viking attacks against Byzantium.

Also, viking raids in England, Ireland and France had NOT ended by the year 900, in fact, they intensified. The Battle of Maldon, 991 AD, was one of MANY such battles in the British Isles at the time. Viking attacks did not end until the Battle of Stamford Bridge 1066 AD.

Lastly, 'vikings did not fight with axes', lol, are you crazy? How much archeological avidence do you think you are ignoring here? The axe was second only to the sword in the vikings armoury, some vikings actually preferred it, for example, King Knut (a viking invader of England) would allow his elite Huscarl bodyguards to be armed with axes only. This became a tradition for all English Huscarls afterwards.

Hope this clears some things up for you.