Alfred the Great against the Vikings: How realistic is England in CK3?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ย. 2024
- In this video, we will look at Crusader Kings' depiction of England in 867. We'll explore Alfred the Great and his fight against the Great Heathen Army, as well as other leaders on the island in the early Middle Ages.
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Sources:
A History of the Vikings - Gwyn Jones - 2001
Downham, Clare - Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014 - 2007
Ashley, Mike - The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens
#crusaderkings3 #paradoxinteractive #crusaderkings
Ragnar’s sons are fan favorites, so Paradox includes them over more historical characters. The end of Ragnar, though most likely fictional, is such a cool story from the Norse sagas.
Snake pit op
Well we defo know they all existed its just whether they were the sons of ragnar, we have records of ivar, halfdan and ubbe existing
@@mrblackandwhite5104bjorn also. They say “semi-hostoric”, but no, false. As both Frankish and Andalusian chronicles speak of him and Hasteinn
You relise chronicles are also legends same as sagas
The term chrinicles means a semi historical text that is exagerated with myths and legends
Apparently, in the game’s code, Aethelred is given low fertility in order that it is likely that Alfred inherits. Maybe a Britian DLC will fix Anglo Saxon succession law.
The Tip Vol 2 mod fixes that with Saxon elective. It works like tanistry and Scandinavian elective.
in game code as well he usually is scripted to die in a hunting event a couple of years into his reign before having the chance to have children
i must of had terrible luck bc the only time i tried him my brother had multiple kids. felt bad, i don't wanna murder as alfred. ive never gone back since restarting over and over again in hopes my brother dies is not exactly what i would call fun.
Very interesting!
I remember in one game he never died and Alfred never got to ascend to the throne and Wessex got and England got destroyed 😭😭
The genius of Alfred is fully on display with how he dealt with Guthrum. Alfred won the battle sure, but he didn't eradicate his enemy, he converted them to Christianity and became Guthrum's Godfather. I think Alfred knew he couldn't completely destroy the vikings, but he could get them closer to the Anglo Saxon culture, and make see themselves as distinct people aligned with the Saxons. With continued settlement I think Alfred might have noticed a distinct Anglo-Nose culture forming and rather than try to suppress it he used it to his advantage.
Very true!
it should be remembered that the whole of guthrum's army was essentially at alfred's mercy, and he very easily could have killed all of them should he have so wished. it seems that his decision was not purely one of political machinations, but also one based in alfred doing what he thought was the moral thing to do
The people of Northumbria felt distinct from the rest of Anglo Saxons, so much so that they twice kicked out the house of Wessex in favor of Norse invaders.
@@Apollo1989VStill do feel pretty distinct. IMO Northerners culturally more similar to Scots and Irish then Southerners. It must have been much more dramatically distinct back then.
Mercia essentially created the Anglo-Saxons through dominating the Saxons around the Thames valley/Estuary and the Angles south of the Humber. Northumbria was pretty much Angle dominated.
The arrival of the Norse pretty much accented this divide and created a Saxon dominated south that then formed _Angle_ Land.
It's notable that the English language formed after the Normans broke the Saxon vs Danish to-and-froing kingship is Midlands Angle derived rather than West Saxon.
One other minor point that wasn't raised, the Brythonic kingdom of Strathclyde at that time contained significant parts of modern day north-west England, but is shown in game as being rather nerfed compared to its historical extent, with borders entirely within modern day Scotland. Some accounts put its southern frontier as far south as Lancashire, and certainly it included Cumbria at this time. Ironically in the game, the borders of the in-game Cumbrian culture match the borders of Strathclyde more or less correctly. No idea why they nerfed it, especially since in the 1066 start date Strathclyde (as a vassal of the Kingdom of Scotland) includes Cumbria.
This actually really annoys me. It'd make forming a Yr Hen Ogledd easier if only by 1 county if they did give it to Strathclyde.
Fun fact though, the Kingdom was actually know as Alt Clud (rock of the Clyde) until 870, where the Vikings sieged Alt Clut and sacked it, the nobility of the realm fleeing to Govan (a parish of modern Glasgow) and renamed the kingdom Strathclyde (valley of the Clyde) to reflect that they no longer lived on the rock of the Clyde
Wessex, Northumbria and Mercia should be portrayed in game as kingdom level titles, not duchy level titles that fragment upon succession. Then have a decision to unite the titles and create England. In game England always gets formed and more or less always destroys the Danelaw, but in reality the formation of England was less traightforward than that. Also, in real life Northumbria clung on in the area around Lothian after the invasion, so the in-game invasion of Lothian by the Sudreyjar should be cut.
In most of my games, they randomly still survive in some rump northern county. Is there an invasion condition for Ivar to gain every county he conquers?
@@penzorphallos3199 They sometime survive for me too, but then Boneless typically gets some counties in Lothian, resulting in border gore. I've had Lothian survive on its own, but typically not with all of Lothian. I think if Aella gets blood eagled after Whiteshirt defeats him in the war for Northumbria proper, and his son Aelfgar also dies in the war or some other way, this has resulted in partition succession between multiple female heirs on one or two occasions, so it splits into Lothian and Northumbria (because it takes a while for the Northumbria title to be destroyed after they lose all de jure counties) and the war doesn't continue against Lothian or something - I can't remember the exact circumstances but I think this is how it has happened.
Usually when I play Boneless just takes the whole lot to be honest.
They are petty kingdoms, not duchies.
@@Easy_2TTV Petty Kingdom is a duchy-level title that exists in game in the Anglo Saxon culture (and other cultures) when the realm is independent. It's at the same rank as a duchy title however. My point was that IRL Wessex in 867 was pretty damn wealthy and powerful, and it should be considered a kingdom-level title. It's annoying that either the Danelaw is negotiated or Wessex splits into four on succession in the game (Alfred normally has a ton of kids).
@@roberthudson3386 seems like the realm collapse problem could be solved by the seniority confederation law. Ck3 treats kingdom tiers as geographical system dependent realms, would probably break vanilla balance to have 5 tiny anglo kingdoms next to each other.
Love "the pit of snakes" from 20:06
Lol
The struggle of England is one of those weird anticlimaxes of history, almost 300 years of battle and in the end the winner is a third party (i know people define the normans as vikings but at that time i think they were their own thing)
It’s not really an anti climax. The Vikings returned in 1066 to try and reclaim England and were utterly destroyed. Ending that chapter of history and beginning the Anglo french rivalry.
@@lesdodoclips3915yeah, "utterly destroyed" only 20 years after having successfully conquered all of England under Cnut. Plus the invasion in 1066 was only Norwegians, not Danes
@@liamwaterman2065They were still destroyed, lol. It doesn't matter what they did 20 years before that. They tried and lost.
@@hunterhorsehelmsley7315 idc about the norwegians, Danes beat the Anglo Saxons, stay mad about it
@@liamwaterman2065 Not really. Cnut was a temporary win. The Normans beat the Anglos, stay mad about it
20:01 laughed so much harder than i should've. love this kind of content because half the reason i play these games are for the history. hope your channel grows!
England was actually named that in memory of St Edmund. He called himself king of the angles and Alfred the Great wanted to celebrate hame by naming the kingdom ‘Angleland’ which is now known as England!
I’m not sure how true this is, but I’ve heard that in Norway, calling someone “boneless” actually means that they are sneaky or crafty. If someone is so quiet they accidentally startle you, you might call them boneless. It’s possible that Ivar was a clever general who thought outside the box, earning the “boneless” moniker.
Love the content guys, keep it up.
They definitely need to add a struggle mechanic for the British isles like Iberia got it
No, thanks, that ruined Iberia for me
@@jeffreyhornblower6515really? Why is that?
@@fmshazamThe struggle sucks from a gameplay standpoint, bluntly.
@@fmshazam One example is if you conquer Iberia in the wrong phase you can't even form the empire title despite controlling everything. You may say why not just wait for the next phase, well you can't, if you control the entirety of Iberia the phase doesn't progress anymore, it's a poorly implemented system.
@@Superintendent8814 ah ok, I see what you mean
alfred is unique in terms of gauging his historical character in that we can assess it not just from works written by other people, but works by alfred himself as he was an avid poet and scholar with many works written by alfred surviving to the present day.
I seriously hope the upcoming Persia update adds more to the region
We’ll cover the Buyids and Seljuks in a video in the near future, also hoping for a good update
I found your channel a couple days ago and found the topics you cover very entertaining and well researched. Coincidentally, when looking through your videos this is the exact topic I was curious if you'd covered lol. Glad to see this pop up on my feed.
What a nice coincidence :)
The Last Kingdom is such a great show. If you haven't watched it, give it a chance!
its actually pritty shit but the books on which the show is based are much better
@@michaelhaderach277 I read the Pale Horseman and it is a great book. The show definitely has weaknesses, but overall I enjoyed it.
@@jaysonm.7264 ye these are good. Did u start reading from the second book?
@@michaelhaderach277 only the first 20 pages
Great vid as always guys, been waiting for this one for ages and it's just as good as I hoped!
Thank you very much!
@@historyinbits no problem, keep up the great work!
8:47 That's still the case today, leg and bone can both be translated as "ben" in Danish. These days "ben" is rarely used to refer to bones in general and more often to bones placed in a row like ribs or the bones in fish, or it refers to the material bones are made from. If you're referring to a specific bone you'd use "knogle" instead. It's still the name for legs in Danish though and there's no other word for legs in Danish. Also "løs" still has the same meaning in modern Danish.
I think perhaps this is a case where some of the meaning gets lost in translation. In Danish an epithet like "den benløse" could be understand as meaning, without legs, without bones (as in missing some), or as spineless. It might be a combination of some or all three at the same time, that'd be pretty common.
In German you can also still use “Beine” (nowadays means legs) to refer to bones (“Knochen”)
@@historyinbits "Gebeine" is somewhat more commonly used even today, referring to the (bony) remains of a person or animal
@@scoobydoo2587 ja voll, Bein kommt nur noch in alten idioms vor wie „durch Mark und Bein“
@@historyinbits Ja, wobei es laut Wiktionary in den süddeutschen Gebieten auch noch verwendet wird. Ich komme aber aus Norddeutschland, hier ist es auf jeden Fall veraltet, also kann ich das schwer beurteilen.
there's also the theory that it's a joke-name, similar to "Little" John being a huge bear of a man
Eh, Paradox is a Swedish company, can't blame them for over-egging the pudding a bit where their own are concerned. I was more miffed by that Assassins Creed game, where we English were the ones being invaded and murdered, yet we were *still* the villains of the game!!
Showing footage of the last kingdom is just magnificent
17:40 Not the only one. King Canute the Great was also king of England.
i think he meant a king from England that became great
@@kaiser4203Canute's epithet is literally 'the Great'
@@smashdown958 yes but he was born in Denmark and Edward the great was born France what I am trying to say was he was the only person born in England that was named the great
It may have been wise to include Jarl Haesteinn in this as there are records of him pillaging English lands around this time. I think that it’s supposed to be historically debatable to have him depicted as “settling” Montaigu which is why he is shown with the Varangian Adventure ability to be able to relocate his Viking nation. I’ve seen a number of playthroughs where AI Haesteinn resettles in England so that might actually be a mechanic in the game.
He just has the Varangian Adventure casus belli because he's an Asatru ruler that isn't a king and has the traits Ambitious, Greedy and adventurer. He just meets a number of predetermined requirements for the AI to adventure.
And he usually settles in England because the duchies are weak compared to the Karling horde that's nearby. For the first year after Northern Lords came out it was generally accepted that most games Haesteinn would Invade Kingdom against East Francia because it started really weak, then everyone would go independent and there would be extra disgusting borders in the region.
I personally hate how, in both CK2 and CK3, Jorvik annexes all of Northumbria if they win the war. Historically, Bernicia (modern-day Northumberland, County Durham, Berwickshire and Lothian) remained an independent Anglo-Saxon rump state which was ruled from Bamburgh after the initial invasion (as seen in the maps at 7:34 and 7:40). While its kings were subservient to the Danes, it wasn't conquered by the Great Heathen Army and was never part of the Danelaw.
In CK3, Lothian gets annexed by the Sudrejyar, which is even more historically incorrect!
I love your vids, please make some with imperator rome map as well
Great video! I think it would be cool if you covered India in CK3
I laughed so hard at 14:59! Seeing nostalgic and joyful Wicki-Footage, which just shot right in my heart, and hearing "... killing the enteire poulation of the place💀" 🤣
Can you do a video about western slavic / baltic tribes please? I think they are also very commonly played start in 867 CK3 and very easy introduction to tribal mechanics and this region has a lot of unknown history to many people, while many things happening there during period of CK3.
Love this video and subbed because of it! I think your pronunciation is off on the Vikings based off the Vikings shows and how they pronounced it (totally guessing here, but it stood out to me as I imagine they would have it accurate)
If you capture the jarl of Northumbria as one of Ragnar's sons you get an event where you can execute him via blood eagle.
Amazing video!
Thank you!
I didn't see any other comments about it, and I thought some people would like to know so id like to point out that the pronunciation of Ragnarr's last name is a little off. it isn't pronounced as a D but rather TH. The letter that looks like a d is the old English/Norse letter eth. ð(eth) and þ(thorn) are both pronounced as a th-sound.
In The Last Kingdom, they mentioned London was a part of Mercia
really enjoyed this
It's downright criminal that the legendary first king of Norway, Harald Fairhair being in the game doesn't get a mention in any of your three videos about the Norse rulers.
Well thank you for the feedback! And for watching all three of the videos :)
You should do a collab with Cambrian Chronicles!
Good content, looks like you got a new subsciber. What are waiting most in upcoming persia dlc ?
Wtf that pronouncation of Björn was like almost perfect, I just expected you to pronounce it "bjorn" like most people do.
I love these videos
Alfred the great is my personal favourite character to play in CK3 and I dont understand why the game says its a hard start as he is so OP you can form England with him and with luck and some good allies form Brittania in a few generations.
Must be something in the zeitgeist, because I just started a playthrough as Alfred a couple weeks ago. Due to my busy schedule, I have only been able to play up until the year 900, and Alfred just died and left to his three sons the kingdoms of England, Wales, and Brittany, with the King of England also inheriting the Duchy of Neustria (what will become Normandy), basically playing the Uno Reverse Card on France 166 years early.
i love that you used some Wickie bits :))))
I've no idea why Para made the Anglo Saxon rulers just Dukes and I hate it.
It represents their status as Petty Kings I think.
@@JohnSmith-rk7zy Yeah but they were actual Kings, with courts and everything
Everyone had courts but its just an in game decision to make a single de jure kingdom in 867 set up
@@battlez9577 Maybe it could be small de jure kingdoms merge, like the decision to unite the crowns of Castile
@@Aka_plays. yeah, a united the crowns of Castile mechanics could be good, imo the smaller heptarchy kingdoms like Kent or Sussex are too small to justify being kingdom rank titles.
Will you do a video of England 1066? We know some of the more important bits, but there are some other interesting stuff too, like Countess Margaret Eadwardsdohtor of Staffordshire, aka Margaret of Wessex and later of Scotland and Saint Margaret, and Gytha Haroldsdohtor, aka Gytha of Wessex and later of Kiev and probably died in the First Crusade as well or maybe not, and whose is an ancestor of Charles III.
Great video
Love to see Scandis in this. Very cool.
We might cover Eric the Heathen in the future as well!
@historyinbits As a Swede I would actually appreciate coverage of the 1066 Scandinavian Kings in general, and maybe throw in the Russians we know as well. I will gladly help if I can.
Do scotland next please
I am danish and i am proud to say that i am a “viking” 🙃
But could you next talk about sicilia or just Italia
We have some content on Northern Italy!
@@historyinbits thanks glad to hear it❤️
Imagine telling some random dude off for burning your cakes, then after he leaves you realize it was the King. She probably spent the rest of her life worrying that someone would come and whack her for telling the King off.
i know this is like a year later and I dont want to be a prick but what you are pronouncing as 'lodbrok' is actually 'lothbrok' the ð letter is an old and middle english letter, that is still present in icelandic
Do one about Wales!
Sad that he didn't mention of how they made Dyre the Stranger a descendent of Ragnar.
This is too stupid to even talk about. They also forgot about Askold.
Lore of Alfred the Great against the Vikings: How realistic is England in CK3? Momentum 100
As a norse person it would Make more sense for Ivar to be the legless as we only use “ben” for bones if its something we Eat or give to the dog fx while we would say ‘knogle’ for any anatomical terms for a bone so pretty much his bones would be “hans knogler”
Well, I wouldn't trust Alfred to bake a cake, anyway...
Hasteinn is related with Bjornn in ck3 too
the only time i played as alfred, my brother totally had kids. absolutely ruined my appetite to play as alfred, maybe ill try him again at some point.
Alfred the Great is not the only monarch in English history to be called the "great." Canute the Great for some reason is ignored in history discussions of the following period.
Can you review how accurate the papacy is
IIRC The Starement "Alfred was the only monarch in english history to have the epithet "The Great" " is inacurate.
King Cnut the Great also shared the epithet however was the combined king of England, Denmark and Norway (this is what the North Sea Empire decisionis based on)
17:30 Cnut was also a significant figure in English history. Sure, he wasn’t English himself, but…
17:25 Wasn't Knut the Great proclaimed as such, or is it just in Scandinavian chronicles?
Subtitles Jumpscare
I don’t understand how everyone views Wessex and Alfred as “the good guys”. If only the sons of the GREAT Ragnar would’ve worked together….
Paradox should be employing you. Your succession system advice was solid for Anglo Saxon England. Not like what high medieval England was like
So Ragnarr is the equivalent of Arthur Pendragon because there is such mythology growing on those two characters.
You could have touched upon Wales while you were at it. But I suppose you could make a separate video about hisoricity of the rest of Britain and Ireland.
Yea that’s the plan :)
No, should be seperate. They're not the same
One question: Why you don't have DLCs? Lack of money or anti-dlc policy?
COUD You make an video about Poland Hungary and Nubia
We’ll look into it! :)
i'm thinking the Viking brothers might be Blood Brothers rather than genetic brothers, kind of like how Loki and Oden are
From what i know its scripted for the king of wessex to die in battle in around 2-3 years after the start of the game
Edit: Also there is special succession law for saxon kingdoms which i dont know how close to real the one is
I was hoping someone could explain something to me. Why does a viking car about his claim on Dublin? Isnt claims sort of a civil society thing or between christian nations a way that war is justified through a right to property?
If the vikings were raiding why do they care? Is it that the local mayors of Ireland would respect their overlords claim?
I dont get why a heathen cares
Because dublin was founded by the norse and a claim helps bind your men to fight and die for you
Being non-Christian doesn't make one a savage. Danes and Northmen had codes of honour and conduct (though they probably only abode by them quite loosely, just like knights did), they had complex societal rules, a government system involving a fair bit of direct democracy, and they did indeed possess the notion of personal ownership. Not to mention, we have many examples of dynastic struggles for land and titles in Scandinavian writings - Ragnar Lodbrok himself was supposedly involved in a dynastic war for Uppland.
So my answer to you is another question: why *wouldn't* a "heathen" care about his perceived right, by blood, to rule over certain lands?
what is the cartoon at 15:00
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicky_the_Viking :)
@@historyinbits thank you!
Kievan Rus'! When?
We’ll look into it!
8:39 sounds like bs 😅 more like "spineless" - cruel or without honor
Dont forget that king Knut of denmark, norway and england was also called "the great"
Boneless is translated to "pussio"
england lore
This is good - or you can just watch the first 3 seasons of The Last Kingdom LOL
also that king of cornwall has a rather large in game family tree and shares the dynasty with the king of brittany
Yea the early medieval rulers were fascinating in that region
In the midirvak period it was not rare for people to live more than 100 years since th4 diseases caused by pollution didn't exist and if you could eat a healthy diet which was the luxury food of that time and as well as do sport and exercise to burn calories and stimulate the body which Ragnar did through raiding fighting wars and battles and getting the spill necessary to buy the luxury Ragnar eaten a lot of mess and chicken and had vegetables but mostly meat and vegetables acted to give him what meats don't have while meat gave him what vegetables didn't have as well as high calories and others vitamins through many vegetables and meats and fruits and with the fighting and raidings which required a lot of movement for him and since he didn't have a horse and did using through walking or the sea he did burn a lot of calories so he didn't get a lot of fat and thus remained healthy all pr most of his life until his death and his wealth and inheritance was decided between his sons and they used it to gather the great heathen army and invade england since an army of such a size can't easily be built without the power of king of a Scandinavian kingdom and since his sons where only jarls this is understandable