Jämtland: I was too poor to create a Duchy

Question

I've tried playing as Jämtland, which starts as a lone Catholic count surrounded by many independent Pagans.

Its de-jure Duchy has only 2 counties, but the other one belongs to Norway, so let's ignore that.

Just to its north and east there is an unformed de-jure duchy made up of 5 counties, all pagan, all independent… borrowed money from Jews, hired the cheapest mercenaries I could find, and Holy Warred 3 of them into submission, enough to create the Duchy.

Problem is, creating the Duchy costs 155 gold, I had only ~100, and a monthly income of ~0.45 (once I dismissed the armies, of course).

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Caveats:

• Tribal Catholic, with Gavelkind succession law. Being Tribal means the some Councilor actions are different, i.e. there's no "Raise Taxes"
• I already borrowed money from Jews
• You can't expel Jews if you aren't King
• You can't ask money to the Pope if you have free investiture, and you can't switch investiture if you aren't King
• There are no vassals: these are all single-holding counties
• In order to win wars hoping to get prisoners, or to do raids hoping to get enough gold, you need to have enough troops, and without the mercenaries I didn't have enough (and with mercenaries, you easily end up paying them more than you gain)

Answer 1

I solved this, trying again… rushing.

Time is of the essence: since you pay every month, the less it takes to conquer the target counties, the higher the chances you still have enough money to create the duchy.

These are the relevant steps I did:

1. Marry a woman with as high Martial and Stewarship as possible, on day 1
2. Put the Marshal in your capital training troops, on day 1
3. Put the Spymaster in your capital, to scheme, in order to discover and twart plots against you
4. Go to pilgrimage, since you have to wait anyway for the new troops to be trained
5. During pilgrimage, if you are lucky, try to get new traits improving Martial or Stewarship
6. When you are back, consider if wait a bit more for all the troops to be trained, in case they aren't already
7. Pick your target, looking at them: if anyone happens to have already spent his troops (often they go raid somewhere), it's him, otherwise pick the weakest
8. Borrow from the Jews, hire The Sami Band (the cheapest mercenaries), Holy War
9. Focus on Siege, ignore enemy troops (this is because you just need a single siege to have 100% warscore. Of course if meanwhile he's besieging you, you might need to take action: do your math ;))
10. When you have won dismiss your troops only, not the mercenaries, and immediately declare another war
11. When you conquered those three counties, if you were quick enough, you might have enough gold to create the Duchy

I managed to do this on the fourth try (including the three failed ones before I asked this question).

Answer 2

This one is not immediate, but if you have way of life DLC you can choose business focus and hope an investment pays off

Answer 3

As you recently asked, you can Expel the Jews. This gives you a one-time lump sum of 5x your yearly income. It also removes the -10 church penalty for having borrowed money at the cost of 2 diplomacy: this will probably turn out to be a wash, but it's worth checking again to see if the Pope will gift you money with a change in opinion. You can welcome the Jews back in 20 years or immediately after any succession, which it may be worth trying to engineer your own demise if you have a qualified heir ready to inherit. This would get you another 300 gold loan right away followed by another potential expulsion. This is kind of gamey, but it's definitely the least costly way to repay your loan...

Also, you say that the Pope didn't feel like giving you the cash, but you don't say why. As long as he has the cash (which I've never not seen a Pope with 10k+ gold on hand) and you're not already at +100 opinion, it can be worth trying one of the following to sway his opinion:

• You can send your Chaplain to Rome on a mission and if he's any good (15-20 learning) odds are very good that you'll get a few +30 relations boosts in a year or two.
• Buying indulgence for your sins costs less than the gift of money the Pope will send back. So you can send the Pope some gold to butter him up before asking for a bigger chunk of change in return.
• Joining someone's Holy War or crusade can net you a quick relations boost with much reduced risk, if there's a qualified war happening. The Pope often joins Catholic's defense against Jihads, but doesn't send out a call-to-arms like as happens with a Crusade, but most of the time you can still offer to join.
• Your state diplomacy and personal piety both count for relations with foreign religious heads of state. (Secular, i.e. feudal/tribal, heads of state get bonuses from prestige instead.) It can definitely be worth your time to check for qualified chancellors and chaplains (high diplomacy and learning scores) who would accept an invitation to your court - both also increase your cultural tech point generation, which really pays off for relations in the long term (once you have secured your dukedom, that is).

You mention in a comment that you have no vassals – do you not have any other holdings built in your county? If you do have a city-vassal/mayor, raising city taxes is usually a good move.

Aside from that, I would try to figure out why you steward can't collect taxes. Are you a tribal Catholic?