Been trying the Vikings lately...I keep losing! Is it just me?

[Legal_My_Deagle]

Title pretty much says it all...I just finished a few games finishing as Caesar ranking where I ran away with the game, then went to try out Vikings and I've lost a few games in a row now. Are they underpowered, or am I simply not playing them right?

 

[King_Course]

I don't see how you can run away with games and then with a particular Civ just lose and not be able to win. The Vikings have military benefits, you can use them while they are there or play as if it was any other Civ and win as usual.

I mean how come you won all those other games, where you somehow dependant on a special trait, like frances culture bonus or something?

 

[PhilBowles]

Title pretty much says it all...I just finished a few games finishing as Caesar ranking where I ran away with the game, then went to try out Vikings and I've lost a few games in a row now. Are they underpowered, or am I simply not playing them right?

Don't worry, the AI does that all the time...

I think the AI has modifiers which affect how much it likes/dislikes a particular civ, and the Vikings are not popular people - certainly Harald's always at war with someone (and losing) as an AI.

It would be helpful to give more details on what strategy you're attempting and how you're losing (whether you get conquered, when you get rushed, if you do, if you're trying to declare war, etc.), and indeed what types of success you had with Rome.

The Danes - and most civs - are less able to take or to launch early rushes than the Romans; their first UU is medieval, and their two UUs do not work together (since they're in different eras), while the Romans play a very strong early game. If you've been relying on that, and perhaps focusing on Legions and Ballistas to survive, then you may need to break that habit - for most other civs you'll need numbers to stave off early aggression because you won't have that early-game quality.

The Danes are fairly specific in their requirements - playing them on Pangaea gives you no advantage, but they can be fairly strong on island/continent maps. Berserkers are a very strong UU - that extra movement is not to be sniffed at; they're basically knights who use iron rather than horses and don't have any drawbacks against cities.

I think they are a relatively weak civ in the sense that they don't have a UA that really helps them achieve any particular victory condition. You aren't going to win many Domination games just hitting coastal cities, and they don't have any inherent advantages aiming for any other victory types either. But no civ rises or falls completely on its unique abilities - they're as good as any other civ that's not optimised for a given victory condition - they're easily a match for Babylonian culture, Mongol science or Spanish diplomacy, say. The UUs are both respectable.

But most of all, you probably don't want to play Denmark if you're trying out civs and learning to win the game. There's a word I use and hear a lot where Denmark is concerned: fun. Playing as Vikings is fun, and the civ is designed with a lot of character when it comes to raiding, burning and pillaging. As an AI, Harald is one of my clear favourites for his sheer stereotypical Vikingness. I think Denmark is best thought of as a civ to play for fun, rather than one you play to win.

 

[King_Course]

I don't think he is playing the Romans, he is getting the Caesar rank in his score.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I think they are a relatively weak civ in the sense that they don't have a UA that really helps them achieve any particular victory condition. You aren't going to win many Domination games just hitting coastal cities, and they don't have any inherent advantages aiming for any other victory types either. But no civ rises or falls completely on its unique abilities - they're as good as any other civ that's not optimised for a given victory condition - they're easily a match for Babylonian culture, Mongol science or Spanish diplomacy, say. The UUs are both respectable.

But most of all, you probably don't want to play Denmark if you're trying out civs and learning to win the game. There's a word I use and hear a lot where Denmark is concerned: fun. Playing as Vikings is fun, and the civ is designed with a lot of character when it comes to raiding, burning and pillaging. As an AI, Harald is one of my clear favourites for his sheer stereotypical Vikingness. I think Denmark is best thought of as a civ to play for fun, rather than one you play to win.

Agreed.

I was very excited when the Denmark DLC came out, downloaded it immediately and have played them many times. I only just recently won with them for the first time. I've only ever actually lost once, though - the other times I just got bored and started different games. They're not very well geared to victory, but they can be great fun to play.

In my case, I'm a peaceful player and the Danes lose all their advantages if you don't go on the offensive at all. In the game I won, I wasn't even doing particularly well until I got sick of how well Gandhi was doing and decided to steamroll him, which cut him down to size enough for me to stay ahead in science and win the space race. You don't talk about which victory condition you go for, but as has been said, even with Domination the Danes don't give you a strong advantage.

A water map like Archipelago or Tiny Islands can be good fun to make the most of the UA - that might be a good one to try out.

On a related note, 90% of the time when he's on the map as an AI, Harald does really terribly. It's almost as if the AI doesn't know what to do with him either.

 

[smallfish]

The Danes... ah, I ignored their science in favor of brute force, and this is what I got:

Spoiler :

Thankfully it was on continents, though their amphib ability became extremely handy later on:

Spoiler :

 

[PhilBowles]

Agreed.

I was very excited when the Denmark DLC came out, downloaded it immediately and have played them many times. I only just recently won with them for the first time. I've only ever actually lost once, though - the other times I just got bored and started different games. They're not very well geared to victory, but they can be great fun to play.

In my case, I'm a peaceful player and the Danes lose all their advantages if you don't go on the offensive at all. In the game I won, I wasn't even doing particularly well until I got sick of how well Gandhi was doing and decided to steamroll him, which cut him down to size enough for me to stay ahead in science and win the space race. You don't talk about which victory condition you go for, but as has been said, even with Domination the Danes don't give you a strong advantage.

A water map like Archipelago or Tiny Islands can be good fun to make the most of the UA - that might be a good one to try out.

On a related note, 90% of the time when he's on the map as an AI, Harald does really terribly. It's almost as if the AI doesn't know what to do with him either.

I've come to think of that as part of his charm - and you want to root for him on the rare occasions he does well. It can't all be down to the AI's inability to use his UA since, as above, that's not especially powerful. And the AI can be a military threat with plenty of civs that have no inherent combat advantage, such as Egypt and Russia.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I've come to think of that as part of his charm - and you want to root for him on the rare occasions he does well. It can't all be down to the AI's inability to use his UA since, as above, that's not especially powerful. And the AI can be a military threat with plenty of civs that have no inherent combat advantage, such as Egypt and Russia.

Yeah, I suspect it's just that he's good at annoying the other AI. In about half my games where he's one of the Civs the AI picks, he'll have been destroyed before I even find him... then I will come across the Egyptian city of Copenhagen...

 

[smallfish]

I've come to think of that as part of his charm - and you want to root for him on the rare occasions he does well. It can't all be down to the AI's inability to use his UA since, as above, that's not especially powerful. And the AI can be a military threat with plenty of civs that have no inherent combat advantage, such as Egypt and Russia.

I cannot root for him.

When I was Washington and I smashed his cities and capitals with riflemen, he sat down in his remaining four cities and seethed for revenge. When neighboring early Renaissance Spain was overrun by Alexander's cross-continental WW2 invasion (and me last-minute intervention to divide Spain because holy poo poo Alexander on my continent), he planned. When the Iroquois and Rome fell to Alexander's atomics, and I turned America into a police state, he glared his glinty Viking eyes, and made deals with Alexander the Son of the Gods.

I know, I watched them. Watched his WW2 infantry on amphibious exercises in Alexander's Spain, them going in and out of the water near my borders, or the occasional show of force near American-occupied Copenhagen.

Then Alexander won his diplomatic victory, I discovered I had no uraniums and two closest sources of it were south in a Greek-allied CS, and I hammered that CS for its uranium...

Spoiler :

Denouncements from him, from Rome, from my old friend Alexander of the Gods.

Then I took another City-State to fully cement my southern security. I was planning to cement it further in the west and the north, Oh the North where the Norsemen and Grecians are, my first two submarines were making their way to the Pacific where Grecian carriers with atomics were spotted in previous friendship cruises.

Then Alexander of Macedonia declared war.

Then Harald Bluetooth declared Ragnarok, for time has come to liberate Copenhagen from the hated backwardly backwards foe of yonder, and I quit the game because holy poo poo I had no Manhattan and Alex had 12 and more and atomics on carriers and so many more city-state allies on my continent.

So I tell this story to warn ya'll with the fires of a defeated president. Beware the hospitality of the Viking, for he just wants to stab you in the back for all time.

 

[PhilBowles]

Yeah, I suspect it's just that he's good at annoying the other AI. In about half my games where he's one of the Civs the AI picks, he'll have been destroyed before I even find him... then I will come across the Egyptian city of Copenhagen...

Yes, he declares a lot of wars - as I say, I think the Danes probably have a negative modifier with most civs. Well, that's what you get if you ask people if they've seen your longship, telling them that it's soaked with the blood of your enemies.

So I tell this story to warn ya'll with the fires of a defeated president. Beware the hospitality of the Viking, for he just wants to stab you in the back for all time.

I'm not seeing him backstabbing you in that story - you seem to have had it in for him from the start, he only allied with your enemies, and in the screenshot he's guarded. This is actually something I like about Harald: he rarely if ever backstabs me and tends to be very predictable. If he's pissed with you, you can be fairly sure he'll tell you in advance that he's coming (as in that screenshot). You can almost use him as a raincheck, to gauge the attitude of more relevant civs. And if you do declare friends with him and do things he admires (fighting a common enemy is a fave) you'll have a fully loyal yet essentially useless ally for the remainder of the game unless you really try to upset him.

I remember one of my first games with him, on King. He and I were the only civs on the same continent and I really, really wanted him to backstab me so that I had an excuse to grab his resources, particularly the iron he was in danger of securing. I gave up waiting after a while and just declared war myself...

 

[Dogmouth]

I once played against him on an archipelago map. He was my fiercest foe, and his empire was enormous. Many people here seem to play pangaea, where he will naturally be horrible. He's also not top tier in continents, which seems to be the other really popular map setting.

 

[PhilBowles]

I once played against him on an archipelago map. He was my fiercest foe, and his empire was enormous. Many people here seem to play pangaea, where he will naturally be horrible. He's also not top tier in continents, which seems to be the other really popular map setting.

I tend to play on fractal, which I believe is intended to be random but is almost always a straightforward pangea or two-continent map. On Archipelago I think he works partly because most cities are coastal cities, partly because his AI does at least try naval invasions sometimes where most of the others never will, but mostly simply because he's allowed to expand unmolested by other civs. As I say, in my experience Harald is very good at making enemies, so he tends not to last long where other civs are within reach. In nearly all cases, the Danish UA simply isn't strong enough, and the AI doesn't use it well enough even in archipelago, to explain the difference in his performance.

 

[apocalypse105]

The Danes... ah, I ignored their science in favor of brute force, and this is what I got:

Spoiler :

Thankfully it was on continents, though their amphib ability became extremely handy later on:

Spoiler :

Can somebody please tell me how to get more land masses on the standard continent map

I usally get only 2 continets?

Do you need to drop the sea level or increase it?

High sea level = more continents?
low sea level : bigger continents but only a 2 ?

 

[Gucumatz]

Never neglect science. I like playing Denmark because it allows me to blitzkrieg people via the coasts etc and gain footholds everywhere in no time flat. Doesn't mean I neglect science though.

Denmark's UUs work well together.

Upgrade Berserker after the era is done and you have a super Mobile unit on the seas and in hills/tundra/snow. And you get a combat bonus in fighting in these regions. Upgraded Berserkers are amphibious too, so you have an all purpose unit who can fight anywhere and easily.

 

[smallfish]

Can somebody please tell me how to get more land masses on the standard continent map

I usally get only 2 continets?

Do you need to drop the sea level or increase it?

High sea level = more continents?
low sea level : bigger continents but only a 2 ?

Nah, I just put the standard settings. Sometimes it'll be two continents and some islands. Sometimes it'll be a small continent, two large ones, and a small island somewhere. Other times it'll give me that juicy three.

Really depends. Play some more, I say.

 

[chazzycat]

As the Danes you want to gear up for a longsword (beserker) rush. That doesn't mean ignoring science - in fact the opposite, you want to get steel ASAP and have enough units & gold to upgrade them. Maybe even bulb steel via finishing liberty, or something like that.

take the left side of commerce tree to boost your embarked units bonus even more, then your dudes will have crazy movement....you can land, pillage, and attack all in the same turn. Conquer coastal cities but don't try to go inland...the +3 production in coastal cities helps too, you can carve out a nice productive coastal empire.

 

[BelchoSacha]

In one of my past games I played as the Danes and i have to say that thier UA basically won me the game.

I was going for a domination victory on a continents map and what happened was i conquered my neighbours Japan and India and by that time China, which was on a separate island were ahead of everybody in score. They had the biggest army, the most gold and were even with me in terms of tech. I knew that in order to win i had to declare war on them and take them out of the game.

When my naval invasion began, China had lots of artillery and riflemen positioned defensively.Ironically though they didn't have The Great Wall.As a result of the Danish UA you are able to get your melee units 2 hexes forward when disembarking just in front of your artillery units which can set up on the same turn after disembarking.Without this ability it could have been quite a struggle.Needless to say I beat China and then the rest of the remaining civs were easy pickings.

Here is a screenshot of the Danish UA in full effect (This is the move of the embarked unit and with the help of roads this is the result )

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/594714782037244892/05B331D590F3C158DB5A16946A451E2D0E700514/

So basically Denmark are a good civ for warmongering and harassing and their UA and UU are perfect for the job.