How to save the poor Vikings?

[Tomice]

One of the few things almost everyone in the civ balance rating thread agreed upon is the weakness of Norway. It's seen as one of the weakest civs currently.
As a great fan of the country and temporary inhabitant, I would like to collect ideas to turn them into a strong, but not broken civ (comparable to Rome or Greece).

To avoid pointless disputes, I would encourage anyone to focus on stuff that may realistically be implemented through one of the early patches. I highly doubt that the devs would give them a new unique building or anything else that results in new artwork. I also doubt that they would be willing to change Norways flavor - they will surely stay Viking/medieval-focused.
What may be more realistic is stuff that only changes the tooltips for their uniques (change the price/strenght of their Berserkers, add a second bonus to Stave Churches,...)

Let's summarize their current traits first:

1. earlier crossing of ocean tiles
2. no additional movement cost for embarking
3. naval melee units heal in neutral territory
4. Berserker UU (stronger and faster when attacking, weaker when defending)
5. [LEADER] Naval melee Units may pillage coatal tiles (includes capturing civilians and taking undefended goody huts)
6. [LEADER] Longboat UU (faster on coastal tiles, stronger than galley)
7. Coastal start bias.

Comments:

1. Theoretically very powerful, but only under certain conditions. Considering that there is no terra mapscript yet, there is rarely much to do on other continents that couldn't be done on your own soil. Due to the district system, settling small islands is rarely worth it, and all larger landmasses have inhabitants that will block your exansion just as much as your direct neighbors. It may be powerful when terrorizing or conquering far away civs that can't retaliate. But other continents and proper victims need to be found first, making the window of opportunity narrow and cost+risk high.
2. This is rarely much of a benefit - shorelines are hardly ever so fragmented that you need to embark/disembark often. Very situational and surely no game-changer.
3. Useful for long-range exploration and overseas conquest, but melee naval units alone won't be able to achieve much. Should be extended to all naval units IMHO to be a real benefit.
4. Just too expensive for what they offer. Sure, they are amazing when actively attacking, but they can't survive much of an counterattack. Swordsmen come earlier, cost half the hammers and less upkeep while being even a bit stronger for defense. Yes, you need iron for swords, but this is Norways UU - compare Berserkers to Legions!
5. As many have said, there are less coastal pillaging targets than you might expect. Also, coasts rarely contribute much to the overall economic strenght of your opponents due to the extreme weakness of coastal yields.
6. Same Problem as above - early naval dominance is not worth much due to balancing issues.
7. Overall, Norway suffers from the core problem of useless coastal yields more than any other civ. Rebalancing of coastal vs. inland cities is a huge issue, but out of the scope of this thread.

So how to improve Norway? Here is a first suggestion:

• Let all their ships repair in neutral waters, not only melee ships.
• Make the Berserker less crappy for defence and adjust its price tag (the offensive bonus should stay for flavor, but the defensive penalty should go).
• Give some additional economic benefit to the stave church. Maybe additional production from nearby forests? Or all forests in this city?
• More food from fishing boats could also be a flavorful advantage, making them capable of settling coastal spots that arent't usually attractive - especially when they have the "God of the Sea" pantheon belief.

 

[criZp]

Healing for all ships and pillaging for all ships would be a start. The proposed changes to berserker are good too.

But I think the stave church seems fine, what needs improvements are the value of naval trade and coastal cities, to have more stuff to attack/defend with your navy.

 

[CurtisManning]

Norway should have the +3 housing when settling on coast, as if it were fresh water. That would make it at least decent to settle coastal cities.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions.

 

[LanguishViking]

If I could guarantee "feed the world" for norway's religion then conservation (the planting of trees) would turn norwegian holy sites into food factories. You could expect to produce 12-16 food per holy site.

However, on the whole boosting coastal cities in general would help.

 

[Gyrofalcon]

[LEADER] Naval melee Units may pillage coatal tiles (includes capturing civilians and taking undefended goody huts)

Go further with this. Due to "Viking Skills" the meele units (Longships and Berserkers) should be able to damage (never destroy) neutral units for gold, and some random science / culture / faith.
Can also "pillage" enemy units from coastal tiles, but never destroy them. Attack with Longships, or with Berserkers
The "Pillage Creed" is to leave something behind, so the survivors could tell the tale of horror, and the Vikings had something to pillage again in a year or so.

Civ6 in general should try to place Unique Units on Tech/Civic that is not very popular. And give these UU skills that will follow them, when upgrading to new era's standards. New units in same "branch" can buy this UU-skill at Tier2/3 in XP.

 

[criZp]

I don't like unique promotions that carry over with upgrades, they are supposed to be era spesific.

 

[Securion]

Let Viking cities be able to hold a Thing (þing). Let it replace the "hold prayers" or whatever its called that you can build when you have a Holy District and make it much better than usual, maybe let it lower war fatigue dramaticly as well as give a temporary boost to amenities and city defense?
It would even be somewhat historical...

http://www.thingsites.com/what-is-a-thing

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I don't get the Norway design. Almost everyone thought Civ V Norway was grossly underpowered, and then they came back around with an almost identical Civ, just with a slightly better church? Meh.

I think double pillaging yields would be cool. This would further stack with all policies (so you could potentially get quadruple pillaging yields late game).

Boosting water tiles would just make the game better, and that would particularly help Norway.

And yeah, buff Berserkers. Those things should be terrifying beasts, and right now they fall short of that.

 

[Panixs]

I have always thought an intersting feature for Norway would be the abilty for Longships to embark onto land as a settler if its a land mass that they currently dont have a city on.

 

[LanguishViking]

Personally I'd like to see longships be allowed to do melee attacks on coastal units, it's annoying eough you can't pillage when a warrior is sitting in the tile and I need a quadrdireme to get rid of it

 

[CoconutTank]

I don't know how they intend to make this work, but I'd be interested in seeing Berserkers and Longboats be combined into one unit (Longboat while at sea, Berserker while on land). Basically a unit with very high mobility and lots of raiding and harassing opportunities.

As for other suggestions, I would like for Norwegian embarked units to have the ability to attack and defend at sea as though they were melee naval ships.

 

[Gentoo]

How about Viking units seize any resource they pillage for themselves and away from who they pillaged it from for x turns? Vikings could be very much about raids then. Combined with early ocean embarkment, your enemies couldn't follow you back home to attack you as you make off with their luxuries.

Or how about a big buff to Beserkers when within x tiles from a viking ship? Also to fit the theme of coastal raids?

 

[RageAmp]

Berserker should have 3 movement in all land other than just enemy land, and get rid of the defending penalty. Maybe every improved water resource is counted as an amenity and +3 housing for settling on coast, as mentioned by CurtisManning earlier. This gives Norway the ability to settle coastal cities that others wouldn't similar to Russia and tundra cities.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

 

[Gentoo]

Been thinking a little more about this, and here is what I have come up with:

Ability to loot improved luxury and strategic tiles within 3 hexes of the coast. Looting transfers the benefit of the tile to the VIkings for 30 turns. So you can get amenities as well as strategic resources this way, but only for a limited time until they pass back to the owner. I would add to this double pillaging yields for all tiles. This would make it a unique civ and not too underpowered.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Berserkers are the worst UU in the game, right? At least certainly if you don't count the unique fighters and submarines.

It's kind of hilarious when you compare them to Knights (which cost the same production and unlock at the same level of the tech tree!), and Knights are vastly superior. They could cut the -7 strength penalty for defending and Berserkers still wouldn't be worth building.

Oh, and Berserkers are unlocked by a dead-end tech, too.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

- Either change the beserker into a ranged unit that replaces the archer. Make him fling axes instead of melee. Make them slightly stronger and cheaper than the standard archer. This makes them useful for land play too. Alternatively a replacement to the warrior that's slightly stronger/ more expensive but has the ability to embark (shallow water only) and suffers no penalty to disembarking and/or less movement penalty for pillaging plus a little more of a pillage bonus.

- Stave church should be a unique district similar to the Lavra. Should give an extra +1 Great General / +1 great admiral point.

Keeping the rest of the stuff is fine. It gives Norway the option to play land or sea and not be severely gimped.

 

[Kahnugo]

I like the thing idea

Berserker needs some love as well, I don't understand why the unit is there as it is now. It's grossly underpowered, considering that it's base str is weaker than the samurai (which is not all that strong) AND that it's special bonus comes with a devastating downside is just weird. Maybe instead give it a +10 str and +2 movement speed when wounded, without a defensive penalty (looking at it right now, being 40 str seems like penalty enough).

 

[blciv4]

Vikings used to take their longboats up the navigable rivers because of their ability to traverse shallow water.

So, it would seem to me the ability to take this boat up a river and drop of multiple CARRIED Berserkers(think melee aircraft carrier) units that don't get penalized for embark/disembark would be a good start. And the cost for Vikings is too high.

My thought process behind this is, you could make a small army of Berserkers, put maybe 3 on a boat and send 3 boatloads across the ocean, raid a civ, and leave with no fear of being caught as they can't traverse ocean yet. You know...like a real Viking raiding party.

Oh, and make IKEA a specialist building.