Denmark - Completely useless or...?

I agree the name of this thread is outrageous. No civ can be labeled as "useless" since they all have various traits that add to gameplay and never take away from gameplay. Even if you decide to pick Denmark, forfeit your UA, UU and just turtle for a Science Victory like a generic civ you're not being "useless", your just "average".

Imagine there was a civ that has a UA that reads "you can't gain Settlers". Now that sounds like useless...

vivalamexico said:

1. Bears do swim
2. Although it is true that all.uniques are somewhat situational, one can still categorize some civs as being better. For example, no matter the situation, Babylon's UA is always going to be better than that of the Iroquois. Thats just because of the way civ is designed, some bonuses are going to be more valuable than others.
Note: I am not against Denmark, and I certainly dont think they are the worst civ or anything near useless. I just think that it would be silly to say that they are on par with Poland or something (I realize you didnt say this exactly)



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Bears swim...you learn something new everyday! Lol. I see what you mean.

Paszczak said:

I agree the name of this thread is outrageous. No civ can be labeled as "useless" since they all have various traits that add to gameplay and never take away from gameplay. Even if you decide to pick Denmark, forfeit your UA, UU and just turtle for a Science Victory like a generic civ you're not being "useless", your just "average".

Imagine there was a civ that has a UA that reads "you can't gain Settlers". Now that sounds like useless...

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Sarcasm or never heard of Venice's UA?

BlackWizard said:

Sarcasm or never heard of Venice's UA?

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The smiley! Look at the smiley!

Resipsa said:

I think they're situationally good, unfortunately in those situations other civs are better. Frankly now that I think of it they are the worst

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I still stand by this quote from a year ago. Maybe the Iroquois are worse, certainly not Japan after the fall patch. The one thing it's supposed to be far better is amphibious assaults and using embark to gain movement and use trebuchets but in practice most games I'm on the top of the tech tree anyway and have access to frigates. I guess the point is to have premade catapults to upgrade and that's valid it just seems like a limited aspect to excel in.

The Iroquois took a heavy nerf to the Mohawk when iron revealed moved to bronze working maybe there is a case for them being the worst.

Edit: I think I did argue for the Iroquois being worse in one of these threads. That's probably true simply based on Berzerkers

Paszczak said:

I agree the name of this thread is outrageous. No civ can be labeled as "useless" since they all have various traits that add to gameplay and never take away from gameplay.

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I don’t agree that the OP premise is outrageous on its face.

Even if you decide to pick Denmark, forfeit your UA, UU and just turtle for a Science Victory like a generic civ you're not being "useless", your just "average".

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A civ with no UA/UB/UU is decidedly below average. If you are not willing to let this round down to being characterized as “useless” then you’re just shutting down the conversation. Yes, it’s a little hyperbolic, but it’s reasonable conversation seed, hence ten pages (and counting).

Resipsa said:

I think they're situationally good, unfortunately in those situations other civs are better.
I still stand by this quote from a year ago.

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Okay, in those situations, which civs are better? Songhai?

The one thing it's supposed to be far better is amphibious assaults and using embark to gain movement and use trebuchets but in practice most games I'm on the top of the tech tree anyway and have access to frigates.

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This doesn’t seem to be comparable eras to me. By the time you could have frigates, won’t Denmark have cannons? And have been wreaking havoc for many, many turns? I don’t disagree that Denmark causes one to play and tech differently than with most civs. But it seems to me that Cromangus has laid it out pretty well.

Resipsa said:

I still stand by this quote from a year ago. Maybe the Iroquois are worse, certainly not Japan after the fall patch. The one thing it's supposed to be far better is amphibious assaults and using embark to gain movement and use trebuchets but in practice most games I'm on the top of the tech tree anyway and have access to frigates. I guess the point is to have premade catapults to upgrade and that's valid it just seems like a limited aspect to excel in.

The Iroquois took a heavy nerf to the Mohawk when iron revealed moved to bronze working maybe there is a case for them being the worst.

Edit: I think I did argue for the Iroquois being worse in one of these threads. That's probably true simply based on Berzerkers

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At the same time IIRC, the Workshop/Longhouse also moved from Iron Working to Metal Casting, which IMO was even a bigger nerf for the Iroquois.

Longhouse is doubly bad IMHO because it loses the 10% production. In a game where science is king, you can't afford *not* to chop forests, because you need farms. You'd have to leave those forests unchopped until well after t100 to get any benefit from the longhouse, and by then your total production should be great enough that 10% should outweigh +1/improved forest tile.

The compensation for not chopping forests should come way earlier than it does, and should not require building the longhouse at all. IMHO. I think that the Iroquois are inferior to Denmark. The best thing about their UA is that workers can chop forests faster because moving into the tile doesn't end their turn.

Compare that to the Celts, who get t0 immediate benefit from forests... it's a joke.

Cromagnus said:

Longhouse is doubly bad IMHO because it loses the 10% production. In a game where science is king, you can't afford *not* to chop forests, because you need farms. You'd have to leave those forests unchopped until well after t100 to get any benefit from the longhouse, and by then your total production should be great enough that 10% should outweigh +1/improved forest tile.

The compensation for not chopping forests should come way earlier than it does, and should not require building the longhouse at all. IMHO. I think that the Iroquois are inferior to Denmark. The best thing about their UA is that workers can chop forests faster because moving into the tile doesn't end their turn.

Compare that to the Celts, who get t0 immediate benefit from forests... it's a joke.

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I paid 9 gold for road maintenance all game even while having 8 cities. Just saying.

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Yea but Inca handles that vastly better, plus they have an amazing UI.

Longhouse is just crap, worse than the building it replaces.

It would be better if it gave +1 to both food and production from forests, then it would be on par with other civs.

azzaman333 said:

The Japanese UA at least means your melee units are much harder to kill since they always fight at full strength. Also Samurais keep Shock on upgrade, I don't believe Berzerkers have any carry over on their promos.

Don't get me wrong, Japan aren't much good either, but they're much better than Denmark IMO.

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This is why avoiding wound penalties should've been available as a promotion which any modder could add to specific units--not a hard-coded trait for a whole civilization. Norse sagas often describe berserkers fighting till they collapsed, seemingly invulnerable. Giving all Danish melee units a Bushido-like bonus would be grossly overpowered, I agree. But if I had enough technical skill to hack the DLL, Harald Bluetooth's Berserkers would show some real Viking fury.

I think it would be a lot better if Iroquois could have a unique improvement replacing the lumber mill, which would give a +2 production bonus, and allowing a forest to be planted if built on a forestless tile (balance - chopping a forest with the improvement would not yield any production).

bhavv said:

Yea but Inca handles that vastly better, plus they have an amazing UI.

Longhouse is just crap, worse than the building it replaces.

It would be better if it gave +1 to both food and production from forests, then it would be on par with other civs.

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Longhouse is only crap if you can't do math.

And if you could do math, you'ld realize that chopping the forests, and having a 10% production bonus for your mined hills vastly outpowers the longhouse.

bhavv said:

And if you could do math, you'ld realize that chopping the forests, and having a 10% production bonus for your mined hills vastly outpowers the longhouse.

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I don't know why I'm wading into a debate that is clearly poorly defined, but ...

1) The relative impact of the longhouse is dirt dependent. Lost of flat tundra forest and deer camps -> the longhouse wins in a landslide. Capturing Mecca early with flood plains and desert hills -> well at least the longhouse builds a turn or two more quickly; clearly Workshop.

2) Determining the value of early chops is really difficult. Sometimes a chop means a wonder instead of a few gold coins or a key expo instead of a useless settler. Sometimes a chop is simply the equivalent of having a temporary extra citizen to work a mine for a few turns at the expense of lost worker turns. The fact that the Iroquois save a worker turn per chop is not irrelavent to the discussion.

3) To me the most interesting aspect is the tech path implications. Lots of lumber mills -> Scientific Theory increase in importance while Chemistry decreases. One of my favorite tenants is 5-Year Plans which boost mine output. If I am primarily working lumber mills then Order takes a moderate hit in desirability, etc.

4) Longhouses tend to provide more hammers earlier, but which scales better? Again it depends: the longhouse typically provides more base hammers which scale with all the mid/late game production modifiers while the workshop only scales with existing base hammers ... Longhouse has better synergy with Religious Community while Workshop is (very marginally) better with Guruship ...

On Topic: Iroquois > Denmark for a random blind start for me; but I wouldn't call the Danes useless. Free melee pillage is very tactically useful. Also in BNW coastal start bias is not a bad thing (a first for a Civ game? ). I would put Brazil last. Jungle bias + late game bonuses .... such a slow starting civ.

bhavv said:

And if you could do math, you'ld realize that chopping the forests, and having a 10% production bonus for your mined hills vastly outpowers the longhouse.

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Really? 3.3 hammers are worth more than 3 hammers + 1 food? That's interesting math.

I find it surprising that there's any debate about this. The opportunity cost of leaving forests unchopped outweighs the alternative, even for Hiawatha, simply because population = tech, and tech = everything, and early hammer boosts outweigh long-term hammers, because a fast start results in the snowball effect. Farms farms farms!

And, besides, you want to chop those tiles anyway to build plantations, or luxury/strategic mines. The *only* exception is *non-river flatland forested tundra*, where you're better off building a lumber mill even without Hiawatha.

Cromagnus said:

I find it surprising that there's any debate about this. The opportunity cost of leaving forests unchopped outweighs the alternative, even for Hiawatha, simply because population = tech, and tech = everything, and early hammer boosts outweigh long-term hammers, because a fast start results in the snowball effect. Farms farms farms!

And, besides, you want to chop those tiles anyway to build plantations, or luxury/strategic mines. The *only* exception is *non-river flatland forested tundra*, where you're better off building a lumber mill even without Hiawatha.

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in that case this means Hiawatha/Iroquois are a solid civ simply because of their forest start bias ... Chop'em all (most of) for fast starts longhouse be damned

Calouste said:

Really? 3.3 hammers are worth more than 3 hammers + 1 food? That's interesting math.

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Ignoring the 30-60 hammers from the chop, as if anybody works forest tiles or builds lumbermills in Civ V.

And by the time a city is producing 100 hammers, you're losing a whole 10 with the longhouse.

And yea, I'll go ahead and say Iroquois are bottom of the barrel, Denmark are a bit better at least.

Hey there, Since this Denmark thread has been active I'll throw in an interesting Immortal Denmark game save. Immortal/Small Continents/Standard. What makes this game more interesting than a run of the mill Denmark start is that you start with Mount Kilimanjaro in close proximity. It doesn't cont for the melee challenge becasue its only immortal but I did finish the game with Melee only units on t147.