Viking Destiny (1066) scenario on Emperor

[Buccaneer]

This sounds like an awesome scenario. I used to play M:TW a lot but this sounds like an ideal game for that era. I say the same thing about other eras too: the best Revolutionary War and WW2 strategy games I've played were Civ scenarios!

[MadDjinn]

This is an interesting scenario, but I don't think it has overall replay value once you beat it with each leader on Deity. (map and strategies don't change, so once you do it...)

Each of the leaders has a semi-different approach to winning the scenario. So at least that part is nice.

[Morningcalm]

Yeah, it isn't as replayable as it should be, but it has more replayability and diverse strats than other scenarios.

Still looking for that help as Normandy...as England on Immortal things are going ok. Frantic around turn 15 though.

[MadDjinn]

Originally Posted by Morningcalm

Yeah, it isn't as replayable as it should be, but it has more replayability and diverse strats than other scenarios.

Still looking for that help as Normandy...as England on Immortal things are going ok. Frantic around turn 15 though.

The Normans are the last ones for me. (aside from that 28 turn defeat )

My guess is that you need to send the Knights through the west side first. Ignore Dover and head to Oxford ASAP. send the knights over the top of the river with your bombardment units/pikes/swords below the river and hit London ~turn 23. From their, you can just sweep north to get the cities you need to build the shires. The Danes likely won't give you too much trouble, but you should drop a few pikes along their river/the forest road and leave some crossbows around to clear their units as they come. Maybe even a few mott's just for fun.

I'm noticing that whichever norse civs you don't play are pretty pathetic ingame. So it's not an 'everyone rush to take out england then fight over the available cities'. It's pretty much always - you fight England, the other two randomly think about sending units over and be very ineffective.

-- in my current Norwegian game, the Normans only took 1 city from the english in the entire game. The Danes took the usual 3, but then left all of their units at home. I've taken every single city, except 1, on the island. (killed England) I've also allied with all CSs (4 on Ireland, Scotland/one other up north) except the 2 longbow ones. They are at peace with me though.

I even got bored enough with the scenario to try launching attacks at the Danish homeland.

[Morningcalm]

28 turn defeat? I had one in 25 recently. Sighhhh. Dover has great production, but I guess you're right. The risk of Brown invasion succeeding is simply too great. As for me, on Immortal I've found the other Norse civs to be rather annoying. They don't strike for a long time, but when they do, you lose all progress and Domesday Courts in those cities. Sigh.

Ugh, on Immortal as England, things are rough now. Being invaded on all three sides again, and I was making the Domesday in London when suddenly my southwestern city (which had a Domesday book) was taken by the Normans, meaning I lost all my Domesday Book progress. My eastern cities were pillaged by Norse berserkers. GRAH!

Still wondering how people beat the scenario on Deity, as the enemies just seem to be a thick wood and fairly unstoppable. I've had to reload numerous times to undo mistakes so I can win this. XD

[TM Moot]

Tried this scenario last night, got to say i quite enjoyed it. Played as English (naturally), on King level. Won fairly easily, but looking forward to try again with one of the invading civs on Emperor.

First of, I allied with Northumberland, and set up defences around Lincoln, Thetford and London. Happy to lose York, the coastal cities in East Anglia and Dover. The first 15-20 turns were very enjoyable, with all sorts going on, but once I got the first tax money, which I allied with the Welsh CS for more units, it was clear victory would be mine!!

[MadDjinn]

Originally Posted by Morningcalm

Still wondering how people beat the scenario on Deity, as the enemies just seem to be a thick wood and fairly unstoppable. I've had to reload numerous times to undo mistakes so I can win this. XD

I don't think the deity AI knows how to play the scenario. (except for the english)

In my norman game last night, the Danes only took Ipswitch. They couldn't even get the other two cities there. The Norwegians only took York and Lincoln. That's it. Their mighty invasion forces went home after that. The Danes kept trying for Dover, but a few M&Bs cleared that right up with a few Xbows to hit them in the water before they landed. (and the trireme)

Neither tried for London or for any other city. I think the only way to get all three 'AI' rolling is when you play as the English. Even then, you can effectively shut them down fairly quickly with the right CS choices.

[Morningcalm]

Maybe my cities weren't as well defended, but Brown kept attacking eastern coastal cities, and took 3 of them (forgot their names, by Ipswitch was one). Normandy took 3 of the southern cities and tried to hit Stafford. Blue took York and the city right below that, but got stopped when attacking the next city thanks to catapults, murder bows, and citadels.

It's true the AI don't really aim to win, and I notice particularly that they just shuffle around London rather than attacking it. Maybe in a future patch, they'll ramp up the AI, fix the spelling mistake on Harold Godwinson's leader screen ("Kindom of England" rather than "Kingdom of England"), and add the narrator voiceover to the intro screen (they did that in a later patch for the Khan scenario too).

Still, the scenario is challenging to win, even if the AI aren't aiming to. I think the scenario where the AI do actually aim to win and often do is the Paradise Found Polynesia scenario, all the others seem to just have the AI there as an obstacle. O_o

[jdog5000]

This is a really fun scenario! The first 10 turns are quite a rush when playing as England

Originally Posted by Morningcalm

After taking your advice, I'm doing well as Hardrada on Emperor. The problem is, the Shire Court counter is bugged. I have 5 Shire courts right now, but the counter only says 2/6. Any idea what causes this bug and how to fix it? Otherwise I just have to hope it doesn't impact the victory at all.

EDIT: Looks like it went back up to 6/6 when I captured London. Odd. They should fix the bugged counter, but it doesn't impact victory, it seems. Won on Emperor! Wheee!

It's not bugged, it shows you how many Shire Courts the civ who owns London has. You can't win without London, so this is the sensible way to show who's close to winning.

[baldfalk]

Is there something I'm missing regarding 'respawning the scenario' to 'get other leaders'? D:

[MouseyPounds]

It defaults to random, but you can choose whichever leader you like. An earlier poster was confused about that.

[iggymnrr]

This is a really fun scenario! The first 10 turns are quite a rush when playing as England

Yeah. Tried this on emperor, kyped a worker off France. No more need be said, win turn 21. Then I tried immortal. All hell broke loose. But France and Danes played the game: "I don't want Dover ... Me neither ... Somebody should take Dover ... Yeah ... Maybe I will ..." Main battles ended up all "chester." Lost Chester, retook Chester. Lost Chichester, retook Chichester. Winchester sniped units and produced an engineer. Win, turn 20.

Edit: Deity is more enervating. Wow. Eventually realized that immortal/deity Norway likes to go for Chester instead of Lincoln as favored by king/emperor Norway. Danes suck at immortal/deity but not so much on king/emperor. France is the usual pain but if Dover is held they eventually go for that boondocks city. Favorite tactic: if Dover is held build sword/scout/scout. Scouts will sail to zone the road leading to London. A Danish cross will keep trying to sink it/them. London can be left wide open with primary defense at city north where a tile can be bought (after a border pop) for a real nice citadel. Interior lines with Winchester will keep arrows flying where needed.

Citadels also work empty. I had one game where 3/4 zerks tried to take one held by an HC. Last zerk succeeded but all went poof on the IBT. Learned something.

[Morningcalm]

iggy, did you win on Deity? Having trouble with it. Part of the issue is my units don't have enough LOS to see over those hills and find out whether there are cavalry waiting to munch on my ranged units.

Citadels help, but sometimes the units don't even venture near the citadels. I've found that placing them on the coast helps most to stave off Norse invasions, but they'll eventually just swarm the cities anyway.

One of the major problems playing as Britain is that you're so reliant on gold to fund your army, but you start with a small army and inevitably lose cities, meaning you inevitably lose the capacity to produce more troops, even with Shire Courts bringing in gold periodically. Sigh, I doubt I'll ever win on Deity. =|

[iggymnrr]

iggy, did you win on Deity? Having trouble with it. Part of the issue is my units don't have enough LOS to see over those hills and find out whether there are cavalry waiting to munch on my ranged units.

Citadels help, but sometimes the units don't even venture near the citadels. I've found that placing them on the coast helps most to stave off Norse invasions, but they'll eventually just swarm the cities anyway.

One of the major problems playing as Britain is that you're so reliant on gold to fund your army, but you start with a small army and inevitably lose cities, meaning you inevitably lose the capacity to produce more troops, even with Shire Courts bringing in gold periodically. Sigh, I doubt I'll ever win on Deity. =

Yes to deity. Not as fast but under 30 turns. Danes just seem to suck, they can't take 3 cities with no opposition very fast. (They are faster on king/emperor.) The 3rd city they eventually take is Thetford. My favorite citadel was after the city west of Thetford border pops so a tile can be bought to put a citadel next to the marshlands. The Danes often try to surround it traipsing onto the marshes, negating their UA.

A couple of cities can produce scouts which can be useful for baiting/zoning to setup arrow volleys.

[Yzman]

I just beat this scenario on Deity with Denmark. Was quite a rush. England builds so fast that if you do not beeline for London you lose quickly. I took London first and then slowly worked my way up. Lost London to the Normans once but got it back a few turns/berserkers later. I ended up winning with only 10 turns left. What a rush.

[Morningcalm]

Good work! Still trying for Deity here. Would you mind telling us which cities you built your courts in, and providing a list of the conquests in order? I wish I was joking, but I really think I need to see all the details of other players' approaches before I can get a decent chance to win. XD

[MadDjinn]

Originally Posted by Morningcalm

Good work! Still trying for Deity here. Would you mind telling us which cities you built your courts in, and providing a list of the conquests in order? I wish I was joking, but I really think I need to see all the details of other players' approaches before I can get a decent chance to win. XD

I'll have a video about this scenario on YouTube sometime today/tomorrow. It won't be a full playthru, but I'll point out the cities with the courts for each civ and general plans.

[MadDjinn]

Originally Posted by Morningcalm

One of the major problems playing as Britain is that you're so reliant on gold to fund your army, but you start with a small army and inevitably lose cities, meaning you inevitably lose the capacity to produce more troops, even with Shire Courts bringing in gold periodically. Sigh, I doubt I'll ever win on Deity. =|

from turn 0 all shire cities (that won't fall before turn 10) should be making the shires. Each one gives +5gpt. If you play tactically with the minimal units that you have, you should be able to save 7 shire locations.

[bbbearbbb]

I think that the AI tactics have changed, or maybe this has changed since the patch??

When playing as England just now on deity the Normans attacked Exeter (which they never used to bother with), Winchester, Chichester, Wareham and Dover in the space of 10 turns. So you can't rely on Exeter anymore...
The Norwegians took York and Nottingham first, and flanked Chester before attacking Lincoln. In the previous games I played they never went straight for Nottingham.
The Danes took Ipswich first, then Thetford then Norwich, whereas before they would take Norwich first, then Ipswich then Thetford.
Has anyone else seen this?

With this new AI opening I think you need to build more units to start and delay Domesday Shires til the core cities are safe.

I've won it on Deity with everyone except England (went as Emperor the first time) and found it pretty easy til now.

Norway is easiest and I took out almost the whole map when I finished in 43 turns ( I didn't capture Norman home cities), Denmark is also fun as you can take out Norways homeland while winning but they took me around 45 turns, and Normandy was lot tougher and I only took out cities I needed from England and finished in 56 turns.

[Supr49er]

Morningcalm, As Norway (Hardrata) my city conquest order is:
York; Lincoln; then usually Nottingham; Stamford (might switch these two depending on the defenders); Stafford; Chester (usually tough because of the Murderbows, get your Beserkers healed first); Stafford; Warwick; Northampton; heal and position units, then take London.

Start the Shire Courts as soon as you take the cities, use gold to buy a workshop if necessary to speed construction.

Send ALL units from every city on turn 1, they will make good reinforcements.