[R&F] Civ of the Week: Norway

[UWHabs]

Should Norway be buffed?

Norway has been directly buffed twice now. Once last year, when I think it got the production bonus for melee ships (or maybe the bonus was just increased) and the Stave Church started giving production. And then a second time when Berserkers got buffed.

Norway has also been indirectly buffed a few ways, eg: spears getting added to agoge, various buffs to coastal cities, buff to raid cards, more uses for faith.

Norway is also a Civ which is sort of great because it is a little underpowered. I wouldn’t want that to change.

But for all that, Norway does feel a little too weak sometimes. Although, I go backwards and forwards on that.

Overall, I don’t think Norway needs a direct buff, but it would benefit from a few other general things being tweaked.

Specifically:

- Coastal Cities and Harbours probably still need a small (small!) buff. I’d like to see Harbours give a +2 adjacency to Industrial Zones, and maybe Coastal Cities getting a free trading post or something like that. These changes would help everyone, but particularly naval based Civs like Norway.

- Making Anti-Cav cheaper and improving the value of Military Tactics would help Norway, Japan and Georgia (and sort of also help Greece and its Hoplite).

- Allowing Civs to coastal raid without necessarily declaring war. This might be quite hard to implement with the AI, but I feel that not being able to raid in the early and mid game without declaring war really limits options for conflicts.

If Norway was buffed, I’d like to see something like this:

(1) the Stave Church no longer gives a production boost to sea resources; instead, Norway gets the same production bonus just be settling a coastal city and having researched Apprenticeship (or maybe extra faith from sea resources once it unlocks theology); and

(2) the Stave Church keeps its adjacency bonus from woods, but also provides +1 adjacency to all adjacent districts (or gains +1 adjacency from adjacent districts).

If I was going to buff, them, I think I'd give them something like a science bonus for coastal raids/pillaging. Or you could even consider giving them something like Alexander's bonus - if you coastal raid/pillage a campus or industrial zone you get a eureka, coastal raid a theatre or holy site you get an inspiration. Either way, they could turn into a civ that could do a lot of damage going around pillaging every tile they see to speed their research along, to compensate for maybe building less campuses than other civs.

 

[RohirrimElf]

I’ve finished 2 games with Norway and found him fantasic when the map is in your favor. If not i’m tring to use as much of his ability to sail the seas early. The chances are good to found 3/4 cities this way inbetween continents. A lifesaver when space is cramped between civs. The stave church is a building to be neglected as i found it better or more fun to just expand and use my Longboats. But i’m not much into playing a religious game as it goes against my common gameplan of expanding and defending claimed territory.

 

[shaglio]

If I was going to buff, them, I think I'd give them something like a science bonus for coastal raids/pillaging. Or you could even consider giving them something like Alexander's bonus - if you coastal raid/pillage a campus or industrial zone you get a eureka, coastal raid a theatre or holy site you get an inspiration. Either way, they could turn into a civ that could do a lot of damage going around pillaging every tile they see to speed their research along, to compensate for maybe building less campuses than other civs.

Which makes me think the best civ to discover is Sumeria across a narrow channel from you. Pillage the Ziggurats for lots of science without fear of repercussion from his War Carts that can't embark yet.

 

[acluewithout]

"Lord Gilgamesh, its happened again. The vikings have attacked once more."
"The Villian! Restart the Donkey Swimming Lessons immediately!"

 

[Disgustipated]

The main thing about the longship is you can Magnus chop + Maritime Industries to make any district/wonder you want,

Pure exploit and I won't do it. I won't fault other people for doing, I just personally won't do it.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, it is sad that they're propped up by unintended behavior.

I don't consider it an exploit, but it should really go.

EDIT: Well, I started a new game on Emperor/Shuffle/Normal. This start is... well hard to say. I guess it's better. There's more usable space at least....

Starting slightly off the coast has always pissed me off in Civ, and it would be a bad idea to do it here anyways. Having a plantation resource blows because it requires a detour to irrigation but at least there's a few choppables to make things better and I'll just settle another city on the coast to chop out ships.

Yerevan showed up to give me enough faith for Goddess of the Harvest and then it died soon after that. I took it for myself later, but Tamar actually managed to stop me with walls; as it turns out, she's really far away and loyalty was no good.

Spoiler :

Exploring didn't go so well because there were a lot of barb ships; that really sucks but I had a decent fleet and used it to pick off Rome's cities. Also Montezuma was a bother and hard to attack due to Defenders of the Faith being stupidly overpowered.

Spoiler :

Hmm, why is this harbor so good?

And here's the final state of the capital. Meh. Failed to get Big Ben and lost intrest, auto-piloting until a culture victory.

Spoiler :

Rome actually had some nice land to take. I was chopping out Caravels (lol) thanks to Norway's Bonus.

Spoiler :

 

[KayAU]

I am happy to see so many people share my liking of Norway in Civ 6, even though it is certainly not one of the most powerful civs.

With regards to the production overflow exploit, while I don't consider it cheating as such, I do think it is something which should be changed, as it makes little sense. Why should Norway being good at building ships help them get wonders and districts faster? I don't understand why they still have this in the game, as it should be easily fixed. The very simple way would be to implement these production bonuses as cost reductions instead, but even if they want to keep them as production bonuses, the mathematics are not very complicated.

Of course, this would leave Norway weaker. I have three suggestions for this, two of which I have already mentioned:

• Give the Viking Longship the ability to strike coastal tiles
• Make the Berserker a Swordsman replacement
• Replace the Unique Infrastructure with something better
• Make the +1 production for sea resources currently attached to the Stave Church part of the civ ability instead

While Stave Churches are certainly very distinct and beautiful historical buildings, and thematically fitting for a Norwegian Viking civ, there seems to be a consensus that they are the least fitting in terms of the other bonuses Norway has. I actually really like the production bonus for sea resources, which on its own complements Norway's coastal theme, but to have it attached to the second tier Holy Site building is what breaks it.

Some ideas for improving the Unique Infrastructure:

• Keep the Stave Church, but make it a tile improvement. Some ideas: must be built on Forest. 1 per city. Provides faith and culture. If the production bonus for sea resources is not rolled into the civ ability, this needs to still be included.
• Look to the Old Norse religion instead, Hörgr/Hearg unique tile improvment. Available from the start or at Mysticism. Provides faith, production bonus for sea resources if adjacent to city center. If it is available from the start, it will help Norway get an early Pantheon (for example God of the Sea).
• Viking Longhouse as a Granary replacement. Provides food and housing as usual, as well as 1 production for each sea resource, 2 production for cities founded on the coast.
• Cairn unique tile improvement. Must be built on mountain (builder moves adjacent). Sea resource bonus. City visibility bonus.
• Viking Shipyard replaces regular Shipyard. Cheaper than regular Shipyard, and available much earlier, at Shipbuilding. In addition to the regular Shipyard abilities, 1 production for each sea resource.
• Viking Shipyard unique tile improvement. Must be built on flat land adjacent to city center and coast. 1 per city. +2 production, +1 production for each sea resource. Available at Shipbuilding.

These are just some rough ideas, but I generally like them all better than the current UI. I particularly fancy the last four. Both versions of the Shipyard would play well with Norway's coastal focus, and increase Norway's power significantly. The mountaintop Cairns would look distinct on the map, and be a nod to Norway's terrain. The Longhouse would introduce the sea resource bonus earlier, and further incentivize building on the coast.

 

[Arent11]

Look to the Old Norse religion instead, Hörgr/Hearg unique tile improvment. Available from the start or at Mysticism. Provides faith, production bonus for sea resources if adjacent to city center. If it is available from the start, it will help Norway get an early Pantheon (for example God of the Sea).

Yes, I really think it should be old norse themed/tile improvement.

Apart from that I would like more map balance. There is nothing wrong with a seafaring civ, but I would like the abilities to be at least of some use on land. If whole armies can embark in a single turn(!), without actually having to build ships(!) - why can't the soldiers of my ships land on the shore & continue as normal infantry? After all, that's what happened in history. I mean, landing on the shore, not the one-turn-embarkation, that's not realistic

 

[Stomper66]

Norway are nearly always ranked the worst civ but I don't think this is fair because a lot of players don't use them right. With most war mongering civs you build a large army, capture cities and expand your landmass/ empire whatever.

Norway are a war mongering civ but they don't play by the same rules. I get tired of comparisons between the Berserker and the knight because Berserkers are not even suppose to fight knights in land in pitch battle scenarios. The Vikings expansion (the best in my opinion) does a great job at teaching you how to play as Norway. You have to raid tiles and use Longships Berserkers for hit and run tactics. Your Berserkers show you their potential in Britain where they fight archers and swordsman but if you go to far into France Frankish knights will take them out fast.

I have played a game as Norway on Diety and was leading after about 300 turns out of 750 which is quite hard to do. I got to this position by exploring and discovering every civ and trading to get nearly every Luxury. Once you research Berserkers you then start raid wars on one civ at a time. Raid every improvement the civ has to boost your gold, faith, culture and science and then get the civ to make a desperate peace agreement in which they give you all their gold, great works and relics. It is also very satisfying to see a large empire you have attacked with all their districts and tiles destroyed when you leave to do the same thing to another civ. You can do this pattern of play for about 200 turns before the AI discover musket men.

I do think the Norway starting position should be tweaked. It says sea and forest starting bias but too many times i have encountered Norway in Jungle terrain. Maybe including Tundra tile starting bias would resolve this. The Stave church should also be improved. I would drop the adjacency bonus and just give it a +1+1 culture and faith to all forest in the city.

 

[acluewithout]

@Stomper66 Agreed.

One reason Norway is perceived as weak (and they are, sort of, just not as bad as all that) is that they’re built for war, but not built for domination.

So, you get these awesome combat units - longboats and berserkers - but they’re really more focused on raiding than conquest. So, for whatever military might they give you, they won’t give you a domination victory. You can see how that might put some people off.

Instead, I guess they’re actually probably better suited for cultural or science victory, using trees for national parks or chopping science stuff, and then using faith (without religion) to maybe get units or great people. Your raiding then gets you culture, science, gold and (again) faith. Culture might be particularly good given you’ll be across the map and have trading routes everywhere.

 

[Arent11]

So, you get these awesome combat units - longboats and berserkers - but they’re really more focused on raiding than conquest. So, for whatever military might they give you, they won’t give you a domination victory. You can see how that might put some people off.

Instead, I guess they’re actually probably better suited for cultural or science victory, using trees for national parks or chopping science stuff, and then using faith (without religion) to maybe get units or great people. Your raiding then gets you culture, science, gold and (again) faith. Culture might be particularly good given you’ll be across the map and have trading routes everywhere.

Well, the description says:

"Their early access to deep water sailing means Norway can easily explore and spread around the world. With Harald's ability to strike hard at coastal cities, Norway can keep other civs contained in the early and middle game to give it room to expand in the late game"

So, at least according to the devs, Norway is meant for exploration & expansion. And the coastal raiding is actually meant to contain the other civs, effectively to discourage them building coastal cities & monopolize all the unsettled patches of land/islands. So, a distinct victory condition is not mentioned, although the sheer amount of eurekas you get from exploration certainly helps science & culture.

 

[Victoria]

Norway should push religion, they are very good at getting a classic golden age and choosing monumentality with their sea ability means they can spread far and wide early.
Definitely a favourite for island maps

 

[acluewithout]

Push religion or push faith?

Norway doesn't get bonuses for getting a religion, and if you want to beeline naval stuff, it's hard to do that, and get religion and get all the things.

And I'm not sure you really get more faith having a religion, but you end up spending more of your faith maintaining it (although you can do that trick where you don't found your religion until later). Faith that you could use for settlers etc.

I think there's something to be said for leaning into faith with Norway, and using that to leverage some other victory, but I'm not sure they're a really good fit for a religious victory. But I might be wrong about that.

 

[KayAU]

I find this all out raid strategy very interesting, I might try that some time. It would certainly work well to cripple your opponents while boosting yourself. However, I do wonder, at the time when you are landing Berserkers and pillaging enemy lands, if you are able to do that, you might as well take some cities.

I think the Berserker is a really interesting unit, and especially after the patch, a pretty formidable one. Consider a Berserker with Battlecry and Commando, which is not that hard to get:

• Hits for 57, defends for 42
• 5 movement
• No embark/disembark cost
• Scales cliff walls
• Needs 2 movement points to pillage (which can also be useful for healing)

If available, you might also consider running Oligarchic Legacy for another +4 strength while on the offence. I actually really like the synergy of scaling cliff walls and disembarking for free, as well as the synergy of 5 movement points and cheap pillaging.

What is the best way to counter a horde of raiding Berserkers?

 

[Stomper66]

One reason Norway is perceived as weak (and they are, sort of, just not as bad as all that) is that they’re built for war, but not built for domination.

Instead, I guess they’re actually probably better suited for cultural or science victory, using trees for national parks or chopping science stuff, and then using faith (without religion) to maybe get units or great people. Your raiding then gets you culture, science, gold and (again) faith. Culture might be particularly good given you’ll be across the map and have trading routes everywhere.

Built for war not domination thats a really good way of putting it. Norway is definitely strong at culture and science but in an unorthodox way of exploiting the achievements of other civs, especially if you have the raid military policy card. All you have to do is focus on your military and let other civs concentrate on building tile improvements for you to raid later on.

I find this all out raid strategy very interesting, I might try that some time. It would certainly work well to cripple your opponents while boosting yourself. However, I do wonder, at the time when you are landing Berserkers and pillaging enemy lands, if you are able to do that, you might as well take some cities.

You could take some cities but if you want to keep hold of them on another continent that means more garrisons, governors and policy cards just to retain control. Ive taken cities and ransomed them back to the AI for money and great works but in my opinion they are not worth the effort holding onto. You've just got to tear an empire apart and then leave for the next target. A strategy I employed was to keep restarting the game until I got a snowy forest start location next to the sea (Because vikings starting off in the jungle seems silly to me). Get the dance of the aurora belief, the holy city faith adjacency policy card and the grand masters chapel. By the time you research berserkers you will not have to build them you can just buy a giant berserker army with your massive faith output.

 

[Disgustipated]

Norway should push religion,

I'm not so sure. I got a religion in my game, but I don't think it was the best use of my resources, not by far. Especially since my capital built the holy site to do it, and my capital lacked access to sea resources.

I'm unsatisfied with my Norway game. I'm starting another. I've had fun with them in the past on Earth map, I'm going to play the Firaxis Europe map released with R&F. What better map to play with Norway? I'm still worried about loyalty issues, as I've had loyalty issues with this map in the past with Netherlands and Scotland. We'll see how it goes. I want to play them better this time and not play them like a generic civ this time. I will make more effort to utilize their abilities. The only problem with this map is you can only have 7 civs, I don't want to choose my civs as that's kind of cheesy. But if I start a game and no one is on the Northern coast, I'll have a repeat of my last game.

I'm still bothered by stave church, it just doesn't fit with their other abilities that much. I'd rather they be godless heathens.

edit: Funny their starting location doesn't have that much forest around. This may be a slow start.

edit again: This game isn't looking good. This civ can be so frustrating. England starts inland, Amsterdam has only one tile exposed to the sea. the best I can hope for as mentioned above is raiding. And even if I could conquer Amsterdam, I would never be able to hold it.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I've started a number of Deity games (all standard/standard/continents) with Norway, and although I got steam-rolled a couple times I also had a couple viable starts that I played 80-100 turns into. Acluewithout hit the nail on the head when he said they're built for war but not domination. This is the first time I've really made an effort to exploit chopping longships and it's actually not as strong as I was expecting it to be. It's substantial, but not the game-changer I thought it might be. Longships are fun to explore with, but I never seem to find the sweet raiding opportunities that I dream about. Lol... I'm so conditioned to using knights that in one game (the strongest of my attempts) I reflexively set up a knight rush before I remembered that I wanted to try the new-and-improved Berserker. Now that I think about it that might be my most damning critique of the unit, even if it is a ton of fun in the scenario. I also didn't get much use out of the Stave Church. I have a tendency to skip religion anyway and I didn't have many cities with multiple sea resources. I should probably try again and try for a religion, and maybe on island plates to make the bonuses pop. That might not happen right away though, as much as I want to like this Civ it falls a little flat for me.

 

[Victoria]

Yeah, I meant faith, sorry

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm going all out warmongering. I actually don't expect to have an earlier victory, especially since I disabled cultural victory as that's a crutch I use to get games over with. As expected loyalty is an issue. I knew St. Petersburg would be hard to hold, but I'm determined dammit. I could have at least got my monument if I could have peaced out with Peter.

And I don't get it, I went from 9 turns to finishing my monument repair to infinity turns. I don't understand this occupied penalty apparently. If I could have finished my monument, it would have helped loyalty issues slightly.

I'm beelining for Berzerkers at this point. It's berzerkers (and rams) or bust.

I posted this screenshot in the funny screenshots thread, but it's also an update. I goofed on my 2nd city, noob mistake. But a couple of barb camps was preventing me from settling elsewhere. I should have waited until I cleared them. There's just not a lot of good spots for cities with the Europe map and Norway. My 2nd city has horrible production. Big mistake. My capital is alright though.

Took 2 cities from Victoria in Northern England. Had to use warriors to get a little more damage done on the 2nd city since only 1 longship could attack at a time. The plan is for Berzerkers and later frigates. There will be no peace this game. At least until I'm bored conquering.

edit: Ouch, Jadwiga's crossbowmen are curb stomping my berzerkers. They were so effective against Peter, but Jadwiga is just too strong for me and has quite a large army. Time for plan B.

Spoiler :

 

[liv]

Playing Norway this morning and really enjoying it.
It is pretty crazy and a nice break from how the game goes normally.
Playing an archipelago map but what do you know that new "glitch" that came in with the new patch I think where landmasses are blocking ship along the map edges are even doing it on this map. Rather silly
I do not mind that the islands can be rather large but this landmass blocking being back is annoying.

And there is a weird temporary glitch that happens when you steal civilian units with your boats: You boat is displayed as a civilian unit in the enemy colour for one turn. Back to normal next turn

I have small Norway cities on all kinds of islands. The map is not a lucky one but good enough. I am approaching turn 100 and have 10 cities so OK for me