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Game #20 - Vikings/Ragnar
Game #20 - Vikings/Ragnar
In the next ALC game, I'll be playing as Ragnar, leader of the Vikings. The purpose of this thread is to discuss, before the game, how to best exploit that particular leader's characteristics, which is the main feature and purpose of the ALC series. Just so we're clear, I'm playing with the Beyond the Sword expansion pack with its most recent official patch (3.13) and with Bhruic's unofficial patches as well. The difficulty level will be Emperor and the speed is Epic. Here's the fact sheet:
Traits: Financial (+1 commerce on plots with 2 commerce.) and Aggressive (Free Combat I promotion of melee and gunpowder units. Double production speed of Barracks and Drydock.).
Starting Techs: Hunting and Fishing
Unique Unit: Berserker (Replaces Maceman; Strength: 8, Movement: 1, Cost: 70; Unique Characteristics: Starts with the Amphibious promotion)
Unique Building: Trading Post (Replaces Lighthouse; Cost: 60; Requires: Sailing; Unique Characteristics: Free Navigation I promotion for naval units built in the city)
Before I start discussing how to best exploit what makes Ragnar Ragnar, let's talk a bit about the settings. With the starting tech of Fishing and the Viking UB, everyone has been advocating a water-based map, and I agree. I'm leaning towards archipelago, maybe with low sea levels to ensure good-size land masses. Big and Small sometimes gives me a pangaea, and snaky continents also often results in a land-based game.
Some might say that a water-based map hands Rangar an immediate advantage, the same way that a pangaea does to Rome. To which my first response is, so? But, since Ragnar is Aggressive as well, and I plan to use him to warmonger, I am also proposing to use the Aggressive AI setting for the first time in an ALC. This should ensure that I face tougher opposition. My understanding is that it should take some pressure off the tech race; everyone will tech slower since they'll be building more units. Presumably.
Ragnar is in a good position to warmonger, especially thanks to his traits. Aggressive obviously lends itself to war, with the hastily-built barracks and drydocks and the Combat I for melee and gunpowder units. But we all know that wars cost money in this game and have a big impact on your economy. Here is where Ragnar's Financial trait comes in handy. Obviously with Financial I'll want to cottage quite a bit to take advantage of it, but I also foresee having several good production cities to pump out military units, and I wouldn't mind running a bit of a hybrid economy so that I can fall back on specialists to keep the money flowing and research going at the height of a war. When running a game as a philosophical leader, my hybrid economy tends to lean more in the direction of a specialist economy, with most of my cities running specialists and only a few good commerce cities running cottages. With a Financial leader, I find it's best to invert that ration--most of the cities will be commerce-oriented, with a handful focusing on production or on specialists.
The Viking UB, the Trading Post, makes Sailing a tech priority, and could lead to a lock on the circumnavigation bonus for extra-fast ships. With an archipelago map, there's a good chance of circumnavigating long before Optics and Carvels. Imagine 4 move Triremes and Galleys! They still can't move into ocean, though.
The Viking UU, the Berserker, is tricker to leverage. Amphibious is a promotion I rarely grant to units; in most games I wait until Marines come along with their automatic Amphibious promotion before I take advantage of it. Berserkers seem to offer a much earlier opportunity to use that promotion.
However, Berserkers (like Macemen, the unit on which they're based) appear at the precise moment in the game when city defenses are at their toughest. Walls and a castle give cities big defense bonuses in the medieval era (made worse if my enemy has built Chichen Itza). But the real kicker is that there's absolutely no way to remove those high city defenses from a water unit in that era. That ability doesn't come along until Chemistry and Frigates.
So, what to do with Berserkers? One option, I suppose, is to build many of them and suicide them at coastal cities. But with Galleys only carrying two units, that's a lot of Berserkers and ships to build. Another option is to be opportunistic: sail around looking for brand new, poorly-defended coastal cities to attack, which could either be fun or an exercise in frustration.
I have something different in mind.
What I propose to do is to use the Berserkers like regular Macemen. Build several, fight a war (or two) with them, but use them as land-based units. Then, when gunpowder units come along, upgrade them to Riflemen and Grenadiers and use those units to launch attacks from Galleons after Frigates have eliminated the cities' defenses (and ship-borne cannon have done collateral damage). Later they'll become Amphibious Infantry and perhaps even Amphibious Mechanized Infantry.
Question: if I upgrade an Axeman or Swordsman to a Berserker, does it also get the Amphibious promotion?
As for the starting techs, it's pretty much agreed that Ragnar starts, like the Greeks do, with two of the weakest techs. I'll probably look to exploit Hunting by building a Scout or two to try to explore as much terrain as possible, and to try to beat the AI to some tribal villages. As for Fishing, well, the map should provide a coastal start, hopefully near seafood. And Fishing means we have the pre-requisite for Sailing and the Viking UB. Since Sailing is going to be an early priority, should I consider building the Great Lighthouse? Refresh my memory--do you still need Masonry for it?
Victory conditions: Well, I'm obviously aiming for either domination or conquest this time. With the combination of an archipelago map and the new colony costs in BtS, I can foresee having several far-flung vassals by the end of the game. Should be fun.
Now it's open to you--what are your thoughts on the Vikings and my plans for them, as well as the proposed map type and game settings?