Jämtland: I was too poor to create a Duchy

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).

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)

Solution 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).

Solution 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