Subscribe to download
North Sea Hegemony

North Sea Hegemony
A titular, historically-accurate alternative to the North Sea Empire

“Are you a Viking player, excited to have China, but probably never going to get over there to experience the wonders of a Hegemony?
Well congratulations — here you go!”

This mod converts the vanilla North Sea Empire decision into a brand-new North Sea Dominion — a powerful, prestigious, but fundamentally fragile personal overlordship, modeled on Cnut’s historical dominion.

Unlike the NSE in vanilla, the Hegemony does not glue your kingdoms into one legal unit.
Instead, it acts as a titular crown with no de jure vassals, meaning:

• No de jure drift (See the bottom for a link to a mod that enables faster Empire-Hegemony drifting)
  
• No automatic consolidation
  
• No “legal empire”
  
• Yes — more civil wars, instability, and succession crises
  
• And yes — a far more historically accurate experience

Bonus: It behaves exactly like Cnut’s realm. Out of ten trial runs, not once did England stay inside the NSH after the founding ruler died.
For the record, I made this a Hegemony title for historical, mechanical, and personal reasons.

There is no other mod out there that does this for the North Sea.

I did it to see if I could, and to see if anything broke because paradox just added a new tier. To us modders this is like crack. Expecting me to use something old when I can use something new? NEVER!!!!!!!!! By all means suggest something or disagree with me, but do not expect me to make the change to fit your playstyle. While I encourage folks to pursue the game mechanics/mods/etc that they want, I encourage them to make it themselves. That's what I do after all, and I expect nothing from any of you that I wouldn't do myself.

---

✔️ Converts the North Sea Empire → North Sea Dominion
The decision still appears in the FP1 Major Decisions list, but forming it now grants instead of
✔️ Removes de jure assignment entirely
The Hegemony is treated as a pure titular overlordship.
England, Denmark, and Norway remain fully separate legal entities under one Overlord.

✔️ Removes the 30-year rule
As soon as you control the three kingdoms, you can form the Hegemony immediately — no long waiting period.

✔️ Leaves kingdoms free to drift
Since nothing is forced under the Hegemony, your realm will tend to splinter more often.
Your heirs will struggle to keep it together — exactly as they should.

A follow-up decision: If you maintain the Kingdoms of Norway, Denmark & Kingdom underneath you directly or indirectly for 30 years
✔️“Consolidate the North Sea Realms”
…which will create a sub-empire (Anglo-Scandinavian Realm) to ensure de_jure stability with Norway, Denmark & England underneath it. This recreates the intended Paradox experience, while enabling the player to ensure De_jure drift if they so choose. The AI will always choose this option (it's easier for them) if they make it that far (unlikely!)

---

This mod is extremely lightweight.
The entire feature is accomplished by editing only:

1.

common/decisions/nsh_override.txt

Overrides the vanilla redirecting it to create instead of the vanilla North Sea Empire.

No other decisions are touched, several files are however, it should be fully compatible with anything that doesn't edit the North Sea Empire decision tree.

No vanilla localization is replaced.

---

If you’ve ever wanted:

• A more realistic North Sea unification
  
• A realm that collapses and reforms dynamically
  
• A Hegemony-tier title outside of the pre-existing or established ones
  
• A flavor-rich Norse campaign that embraces chaos…

…then this mod is exactly what you’re after.

---

Fully compatible with:

• ✔️ FP1 (Northern Lords)
  
• ✔️ The China DLC / Hegemony Tier
  
• ✔️ Most title, culture, and decision mods
  
• ✔️ Ironman-friendly (no checksum changes beyond decisions/effects)

Incompatible with:

• ❌ Mods that also override the NSE decision
  
• ❌ Mods that overwrite FP1 scripted effects wholesale

Recommended mods!
Titles & Thrones: Vol 1 - Jarls & Konungrs - Highly recommended for flavorization.

More mods I have made:
• Sourceblood — Genetic god-bloodline progression
• Battle Hardened — Battle win tracker & warrior growth (⚠️ Not compatible with TPOB)
• The Path of Blood — Achieve immortality through battle


A mod I did not make, but I recommend.
Faster De Jure - Great for working de jure drift from Empires to Hegemonies which is slow in vanilla. Downloading this mod enables you to create empires and essentially adding them to your hegemony much faster.
• Custom Chinese Localization - I can not confirm this works, but I've been assured by the mod owner it does.