How to Fix Norway

rambow13

Chieftain
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Aug 19, 2016
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Given that most people either agree that Norway is the weakest or at least one of the weakest civs, I thought it would be interesting to see what ideas people had on how to fix it.

Obviously one of the main weaknesses Norway suffers is that Naval combat is not important or less then ideal in Civ 6 and that is unlikely to change (unless they add more viability to coastal cities).

So other then buffing coastal cities, how would you fix Norway?
 
No need to fix it, it is one of the most fun civs to play and because of that one of the best civs that we have for single player games.

I would allow the Berserker to be upgraded from the Swordsman though. This would increase the usefulness of that unit very much.
 
For me, one of the easier ways to help fix Norway also makes sense from an historical point of view. Norway should also have some sort of anti war weariness ability ala Macedon. The vikings were a warrior culture, who were often gone for months or years before returning home.

This would allow the player to really utilize the raiding bonuses to help bolster the culture/science/faith gaines to help Norway be more well rounded and competitive.
 
A fitting buff would be if coastal raiding gives higher yields if you are farer away from 'home.'

However, I think historically their are missing the trading part. They've been some of the most successful traders of medieval times and there's not a single part of an ability pointing in that direction.
 
For a start, there always be a weakest civ. For another thing, I like playing single player with Harald as an AI civ - as friend or foe - just because his leader animations are so much fun. :)

At the moment, if you're thinking of playing as Norway, they're a choice for Island Plates maps (though I prefer England). For Pangaea, not so much.

But here's an idea... Historically, since they were a Heathen folk for much of their history, they fit better with pantheons rather than religions. They were also very tolerant of other pantheons. I would like to see them able to earn two maybe even three pantheons as an alternative to getting a Great Prophet and religion. (After your first pantheon you could choose which route you'd take: multiple pantheons or religion, but not both.) If they had multiple pantheons, they wouldn't be able to build missionaries etc, but that's not what they did historically anyway. However, I do think that multiple pantheons as an alternative to religion would be a great buff and make Norway well worth a try.
 
Persia has a bonus to internal routes. Spain and Peter have a bonus to intercontinental routes to civs. Norway could have a bonus to international routes to City-States.
 
Some of my ideas:
Norway - Bonus gold from Fishing Boats and Oil Platforms (in addition to current bonuses).
Harald - Expand current bonus of healing in neutral water tiles to non-Melee Naval units as well.
Stave Church - I have no idea. Maybe it doesn't need buffing if everything else gets buffed.
Berserker - Remove the defense penalty and maybe add a couple of points to its base Combat Strength. 43 when defending / 53 when attacking and it could actually put up a fight against a Knight, another Medieval unit that everyone has access to.
 
I would give them a +10 combat bonus against coastal cities and double yields for pillaging (i.e. Raid policy at the start of the game).
 
How about they have the ability to raid coastal tiles outside of war? It would be really neat if they would implement the alerted scout mechanic to any unit that visibly sees the raiding, that unit then needs to return to the capital, if it does, war is declared. It would really allow Norway to perform raiding parties without always being in war.
 
No need to fix it, it is one of the most fun civs to play and because of that one of the best civs that we have for single player games.

I would allow the Berserker to be upgraded from the Swordsman though. This would increase the usefulness of that unit very much.

The upgrade change is one that I think would really help the civ, since the extra investment of actually having to build the Berserker reduces how practical they are pretty heavily.

That's not Norway's biggest problem, though. The real problem with Norway simply comes via the game's existing framework. If Civilization 6 played by 5's rules, I'd say Norway would be a pretty decent civ - not great, but decent. The problem comes with the fact that coastal cities simply aren't as good as more inland ones, and the fact that cities can gain access to the ocean without actually being on the coast, thanks to harbors. So Norway's strength at raiding and taking coastal cities - which admittedly, is really strong - just isn't very impactful in practice, outside of playing on a map where coast/ocean is the dominant terrain.

I would give them a +10 combat bonus against coastal cities and double yields for pillaging (i.e. Raid policy at the start of the game).

I think even if you added that combat bonus, Norway would still be at the bottom of the barrel, simply because of how navies and coastal cities work. Though it might be enough to make them better than Spain. :lol:
 
It's probably heresy on this forum, as everyone seems to love huge maps, but if you play on small maps coastal will matter much more if for no other reason that you will run out of room for inland cities
 
I think even if you added that combat bonus, Norway would still be at the bottom of the barrel, simply because of how navies and coastal cities work. Though it might be enough to make them better than Spain. :lol:

I still think it would make them significantly better. The AI still tends to build a decent number of useful coastal cities and it would allow you to acquire coastal capitals very easily. Coastal cities are also better now after the latest patch.
 
My Combined Tweaks mod kind of shows what I think about each civ and what would need to be done to bring them to Scythia levels of play.

Norway is one of the most changed civs in the mod. Here is what I did to them:
  • Receive a free Melee ship when you settle or capture a Coastal city
  • Longships have no tech or civic prereqs (enabling you to get one for settling the capital and begin exploring)
  • Ships disregard closed borders and are not ejected from borders when war is declared
  • Stave Churches are built in the City Center instead of in Holy Sites (because why does Norway push you to build Holy Sites? Weird.) Prereq build is a Monument. Allows the purchase of religious Apostles from the city center if you founded a religion.

The mod also makes a few other changes to general gameplay. Melee Ships have +12 against cities, cities on coast are generally more attractive in the first place. Also the mod has "friendship gifts" (stuff you get if you formally befriend a civ). Harald's is "Friend's melee ships can heal outside of owned territory." So he is quite nice to have around as a friend if you are planning a naval assault.
 
Always gotta be skeptical of posts that start with a line like "most people agree", but I'll bite.

The civ is built to raid, which is pretty much one should desire from Vikings, so I'm not sure why people would be disappointed with their execution. I might allow them to perform coastal raids without a DoW. In addition, maybe allow them to build harbors faster.
 
Always gotta be skeptical of posts that start with a line like "most people agree", but I'll bite.

The civ is built to raid, which is pretty much one should desire from Vikings, so I'm not sure why people would be disappointed with their execution. I might allow them to perform coastal raids without a DoW. In addition, maybe allow them to build harbors faster.

If they can raid without DOW, does that mean other civs can attack Norway's boats without DOW also, in order to defend their lands?
 
If they can raid without DOW, does that mean other civs can attack Norway's boats without DOW also, in order to defend their lands?
It might be reasonable that other naval ships could do so. Perhaps a way to balance it would be to require a denouncement to raid, rather than a full-blown DoW.
 
Maybe you are doing it wrong?

I played a game as Norway and I didn't think it was weak at all.

I used their uniques for a very quick religious victory (didn't get to Industrial Era even, I think). You rush to religion and then shipbuilding (research paths are compatible), and then you are in a situation when you can get your religious units anywhere before others can even embark (not speaking of crossing the ocean!). Then you just look who's next to found a religion via the GP screen, and send your clergy to them in advance, so you can eliminate the newly founded religion before they can start spreading it.

Oh, and of course, the naval pillaging is super fun :D

True, they probably suck on Pangaea-type maps, but they're a naval civilization, so that's sort of by design... Where there's water, human Norway is great. Snatching settlers and builders from every corner of the world, getting all those villages, can play the above described religion trick... Well, AI sucks with navies, so that might be one of the reasons why AI Norway is somewhat weak.
 
Isn't one of the reasons Norway is so bad a question of last minute balancing - i.e. they made cities much harder to take early game compared to beta versions, making Longboats considerably less useful? Either way, there are some good suggestions in this thread (I like the free Longboat when settling or capturing a coastal city!).

Myself, I added a culture-equal-to-faith-bonus-of-district bonus to the Stave Church. It's a small change, but it makes that really lackluster UB more interesting and gives you some reason to actually exploit the extra faith bonus from adjacent forests.
 
Maybe you are doing it wrong?
It's more like "looking at it wrong". If a civ has a military focus, conventional wisdom is that they should excel at capturing cities. Since players aren't settling by the coast as much as they were in Civ VI, you can't directly invade them with naval attacks. This seems to be leading folks to conclude that the value of navies is diminished, therefore so is that of Norway. Or something along those lines.
 
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