Abusing the Vikings (strategy)

[Cookie Crumbs]

In my latest game I've played Vikings on Prince on a Huge Archipelago map (should've played smaller+low sea levels but whatever) and attempted a Machinery slingshot, which is said to be extremely hard but I found no problems given my fantastic start (Corn+Gold+3 Flood Plains+Copper all in fat cross). Researched Pottery early to get th flood plains cottaged, and built the Stonehenge instead of a Settler. The only way I can get away with this is because it's an islands map and there's no immediate need to settle cities.

Stonehenge is important for getting your GP quicker, which gets you Civil Service of course . After Worker/Stonehenge, build a Workboat for exploration and then get The Oracle for Machinery. My tech path was as follows:
Mining (left later if no gold/gems/silver)>The Wheel>Pottery>Mysticism>Meditation>Priesthood>Bronze Working>Metal Casting

The key is to have Pottery/Mysticism researched when the Worker is finished to build cottages ASAP and build Stonehenge (not hard). Get Machinery, then from then on research Sailing for Galleys and trade connections or get CoL straight away to try founding Confucianism, which will be handy for the final stage. So research CoL and Polytheism to get Civil Service and from then on you can either research the remaining techs you need or get them using Alphabet.

If you found Confucianism (I did), this will allow you a Temple to run a Priest, giving you a priest quicker for Theology. Theocracy then allows you to get CRII Beserkers and Nav. 2 Galleys, making for a formidable army. However, you just have to wait a little longer for Theology if you didn't get to Confucianism or didn't get a religion at the time, so it's no big deal. Beserkers will still kick arse.

Now, the main gambit here is the Machinery slingshot, but otherwise everything else is pretty straightforward. Ignoring settlers/military early on is only not suicidal here because it's Archipelago and so there's little fog for barbs to spawn from. The other disadvantage I see here is that I doubt this is possible without starting with the Gold resource.

The end result of this, if you suceeded, is a super-fast army of Beserkers on Galleys that rip the AI's archers to shreds.

This strategy, needless to say, requires a high-commerce (gold/rivers/flood plains) start for the Mech slingshot to work, but I don't know how successful it would be on Monarch (forget about Emperor and above).

 

[Duncan_Idaho]

Nice article
I have to try the metal casting slingshot on prince It will perhaps work on monarch too, especially on archipelago with a financial civ but..hmm..who knows.

 

[slowcar]

wouldn't it be easier (and more often successful) with an oldschool CS-slingshot?

 

[Hey Joni]

I agree, I've done it through CS for macemen on Monarch

 

[Cavanaugh]

once i did a cs-slingshot and got machinery through a great engineer. this works fine on monarch.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

wouldn't it be easier (and more often successful) with an oldschool CS-slingshot?

A CS slingshot only gives you one half of Macemen, unless you find a way to quickly generate a GE (run Engineer in another city). A Machinery slingshot+bulbing CS gets you to Macement MUCH quicker.

Well, I've just finished my third Warlords game and managed a 1766 Conquest win on Huge Archipelago, on Prince. The key techs beyond those needed for Macemen are Chemistry, Astronomy and Communism, completely ignoring the Feudalism>Rifling path. It is not really worth it getting Astronomy or Chemistry from Liberalism, because assuming you have Optics you just research Astronomy and ignore Liberalism for the moment. Liberalism is best used to discover Communism later on, and State Property is a must in order to manage your empire. Chemistry isn't hard to research -just get Gunpowder and trade for Engineering to start on Chemistry

I didn't need anything more than Grenadiers and Frigates to finish the job, and as long as you play aggressively (constant war) the AI shouldn't get to Chemistry before you win.