Tried the Berserkers again with new Norway. I confess to using overflow here and there, but nothing egregious - only to clear forests for mines, which I was going to do for certain areas regardless of the chop output.
I was able to make use of them in a pillaging war, but the pillaging war itself solidified my impressions that it just needs one last feature buff to make it complete - have the movement buff also apply whenever the unit is embarked, even if it's in Neutral or Friendly territory. This will justify the leaf tech placement. Oligarchy rework means Knights no longer benefit from that buff, so that closes the distance, and Berserkers pillage faster. they're also cheaper and benefit from a more generic production card, so you can make an entire army under the card, whereas you're locked into Knights only with Chivalry (and you may not even want Divine Right).
Right now, they're 50 on the attack and 35 on defense. It matters somewhat less in some cases because faster pillaging means they can just pillage back their health and go back for a second attack. Tortoise means they're 45 against ranged attacks - not bad at all. The fact that they benefit from being in enemy territory means they're best when you DON'T take cities. This is somewhat different from what you'd normally do.
Normally, once you deplete a city's defenses, you take it. With Norway, you... don't. You pillage the tiles for yields and then you leave it. You need a Chaplain, farms, or the healing Great Scientist to maintain your units. The main problem here is that the AI can produce units from her depleted cities so you can lose units to sniping. Once you've decimated a number of cities, you take them all at once, on the same turn, so they reinforce each other vis a vis Loyalty.
I was able to make use of them in a pillaging war, but the pillaging war itself solidified my impressions that it just needs one last feature buff to make it complete - have the movement buff also apply whenever the unit is embarked, even if it's in Neutral or Friendly territory. This will justify the leaf tech placement. Oligarchy rework means Knights no longer benefit from that buff, so that closes the distance, and Berserkers pillage faster. they're also cheaper and benefit from a more generic production card, so you can make an entire army under the card, whereas you're locked into Knights only with Chivalry (and you may not even want Divine Right).
Right now, they're 50 on the attack and 35 on defense. It matters somewhat less in some cases because faster pillaging means they can just pillage back their health and go back for a second attack. Tortoise means they're 45 against ranged attacks - not bad at all. The fact that they benefit from being in enemy territory means they're best when you DON'T take cities. This is somewhat different from what you'd normally do.
Normally, once you deplete a city's defenses, you take it. With Norway, you... don't. You pillage the tiles for yields and then you leave it. You need a Chaplain, farms, or the healing Great Scientist to maintain your units. The main problem here is that the AI can produce units from her depleted cities so you can lose units to sniping. Once you've decimated a number of cities, you take them all at once, on the same turn, so they reinforce each other vis a vis Loyalty.
