How to save the poor Vikings?

[CoconutTank]

Playing Norway a bit, here are main grievances thus far:

1. Eurekas and inspirations do not appear to work in Norway's favor at all. Norway likes controlling the sea, but there aren't that many sea-centric boosts.

2. I want Longboats to be a unique Sea Raider unit and not be a replacement for Galleys. Then they'd upgrade to Privateers, but more importantly they'd be an early ranged sea unit option for Norway that can still do coastal raids. Make them be 1 range, fine. At least don't make me have to go all the way to Quadriremes before I can take advantage of my capabilities for land fall and settling.

 

[zeGhost]

I will have a go at this.

Norway feels too naval centric and I really don’t like civs that only work if on certain maps. Worse even when I was playing on an island map my navy felt like an afterthought and not too important, because of big landmasses separated by not much water.
So the challenge is to make it viable on any map while holding on to the theme.

Unique Unit – Berserker
Looks very week, not much better at attack and comically worse at defense, which I understand to be the main role of melee units in MP.
Someone suggested making longboats be embarked berserks. I love that idea, very thematic to Norway vikings. I think when you unlock sailing that instead of a longboat you get berserks that are land sea hybrid unit using melee class bonuses and upgrades to muskets. With stats along these lines.
Str 28, move 3, cost 90ish. +7 str when attacking. + 1 move in shallow water
Or possibly like this
Str 28, move 2, cost 90ish. +7 str when attacking. + 2 move in shallow water, coast or next to a river.
Latter one is more thematic to vikings in my opinion, while first is less situational.

Civilization Ability – Knarr
Looks like a situationally useful ability. Would probably add one less move cost to cross rivers to give it some use on non-island maps.

Unique Building - Stave Church
Meh building but then I am not big on religion. To give it slightly more use and make it more thematic add plus 5 hex range to traders that start in a city with stave church. Vikings converted to Christianity in big part I believe to trade.

Leader Ability - Thunderbolt of the North
Too situational on its own and I put longship as part of berserk.
I have two ideas. One keep it like it is and make all pillaging use one move but be limited to once per turn. The other is to get an extra trade route per military policy(or per 2 policy else might be to strong) that is being used in your government.
First idea is focused more on pillaging aspect of Viking while latter one focuses on trade aspect of Vikings.

All of these changes together are probably to much but implementing some of them might make Norway more viable.
I would have liked to see Norway get unique commercial district to emphasize the trade aspect of viking culture.

One more thing I am not a fan of the historical agenda Norway gets. would have preferred to see them like you if you had lots of trade routs (or commerce districts) and dislike you if you did not have many. (But then again who does not got a some trade routes up).

 

[UnknownHuman]

The Stave Church should be accessible earlier, like the Madrasa is accessible almost one era earlier than the University, so I think it should be accessible through Mysticism. In addition I think it should give +1 production to all woods in the city.

Moreover I think all unique buildings should be built 50% faster, just like unique districts, so it would make them even more interesting to build.

As for the leader ability it should also give access to the Sack and Raid policies earlier through the Military Tradition civic. And for the civilization ability it should give +1 food for each fishing boat.

Personally I'd like to see longships be allowed to do melee attacks on coastal units, it's annoying enough you can't pillage when a warrior is sitting in the tile and I need a quadrdireme to get rid of it

Just saw that, and yes it would be a very good buff.

 

[Phrozen]

Vikings should have increased movement along rivers and pillaging doesn't end the units turn.

 

[greywolfe359]

Troll Trace Information Age Wonder.

 

[CoconutTank]

Haven't looked at this thread in awhile, but my proposal is given below. Changes are italicized, and additions are bolded.

Party Hard Rod's Ability - Thunderbolt of the North
Norwegian naval melee units can perform coastal raids.
War weariness is reduced by 50%.
All ships can heal in neutral territory.

Norway's Ability - Knarr
Units can enter Ocean tiles after researching Shipbuilding.
Units ignore additional move costs from embarking and disembarking.
Embarked units can attack and counter-attack at full Strength as though they are melee sea units.

Longboat
(Available only through Harald)
<Available at Shipbuilding>
Sea Raider unit, upgrades to Privateer
150 production
2 maintenance
4 move
15 Strength
20 Ranged Strength (2 range)
Has Camouflage and coastal raiding, like all Sea Raider units.

Berserker
<Available at Military Tactics>
Recon unit, upgrades to Ranger
180 production
3 maintenance
3 move
40 strength
Pillaging does not cost move points for Berserkers.
Gains +6 Strength when attacking.
Gains +1 move while embarked.
No Strength and Movement penalty when attacking from sea or river.

Stave Church
<Available at Mysticism>
[Replaces Temple]
105 production
2 maintenance
+4 Faith
+1 Citizen slot
+1 Great Prophet point per turn
+2 Relic slots
Gains additional Faith adjacenty bonuses from Woods.
Whenever a city with a Stave Church trains a Berserker, that Berserker gains "Journey to Valhalla".

Journey to Valhalla: When this Berseker dies in combat, it has a 25% chance of creating a Relic. This chance increases by 10% for each promotion that the Berserker gained before dying.

 

[zeGhost]

Berserker
<Available at Military Tactics>
Recon unit, upgrades to Ranger
180 production
3 maintenance
3 move
40 strength
Pillaging does not cost move points for Berserkers.
Gains +6 Strength when attacking.
Gains +1 move while embarked.
No Strength and Movement penalty when attacking from sea or river.

Now that is one scary recon unit if it gets ambush.

Vikings are supposed to be strong folks, yeah? So why not throw a generic combat bonus in the mix?

That way, they won't rely solely on naval combat/invading other continents' coasts.

You could also give them a tundra bonus.

I guess they could get +5 strength on all attacks.
Instead of a tundra bonus how about +1 food from sea resources or +1 food for foreign trade routes?

 

[Heklios]

Should the Vikings be the only ones able to have Naval/Embarked Units cross over Crushed Ice Tiles ? (Nobody can currently)

That would make for one strongly themed unique trait right there ! And would complement their Naval/Embark focus, while allowing for some unexpected pathing for invasions!

That wouldn't fix them at all, but hey, since we're at it, adding a bit of flavor won't hurt!

 

[ComradeDavo]

Norway should have the +3 housing when settling on coast, as if it were fresh water. That would make it at least decent to settle coastal cities.

Agreed.

Also the AI in general needs to have some aggression added to it and expand more. What I mean is specifically is that every AI civ should try to expand more but certain ones should be way more aggressive and engage in war and some should be attempting domination victories. Norway is a civ that I would mark for more aggression, giving Vikings historic expansion through violence (in England, Scotland, France, Russian lands) as well as peaceful (Iceland, Greenland) (simplifying I know). They should actively try to capture coastal cities. Hopefully the AI will develop to a level where that can work.

 

[andydtoma]

The Vikings are supposed to settle along the coasts, therefore the late IZ overlaps are difficult to get. For them there must be additional rules for adjacency. Districts may get adjacency bonuses from coast tiles. Factory and Stade ranges should double if over the sea.

 

[bbbt]

I think Longships should be able to pillage up rivers. I.e. if they are on the ocean at the river's end, they can pillage up to 3 tiles up the river (on either side), not just the tiles next to them. Make it take the whole movement, so it's not too crazy, but I feel like that would make them much more frightening.

Bezerker needs to go in an upgrade path so it can be upgraded from swordsman or warrior, not just built fresh.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

Reduce berserker cost by 25-30%. As it is right now they're pointless unless you're completely lacking the resources for knights. Increase embarked mp like Denmark in V and give them an attack bonus for all units if debarking on the same turn. That would give incentive to actually plan attacks from the sea and give Norway that true terror from the sea viking effect.

Probably wouldn't move them into top tier but they'd have a unique and powerful play style. Even on Pangea you could rampage up the coasts and, once you've built up power, move inland later.

The Stave Church is actually pretty nice even without religion. They can produce quite a bit of faith which can be used for patronage later on.

 

[CoconutTank]

(1) So then Berserkers are basically Knights with your changes? Knights are 4 move 48 strength, though they do require Iron. I'm not overly opposed to Berserkers having more movement, just that your proposal makes them overlap a bit too much with Knights.

(2) Barbarossa (Germany's leader) already does the +1 military slot thing.

 

[dagriggstar]

Honestly toying with the idea of replacing the Stave Church with a Runestone unique improvement. Problem with Stave Church imo is it means you want two terrain based requirements (Coast AND Forest) to get Norway to work, which is one too many. Not sure what I'd do with a Runestone, right now either make them like Moai from V (Adjust sailing eureka to improve one coastal tile) or something like +1 culture for every adjacent resource. Available at Writing.

All the other aspects could use minor tweaks. How would people feel about them starting the game with the Sailing Eureka regardless of settling a coastal city ? Or going further and have them start with a couple of other Eureka's as well ? (Shipbuilding ? Celestial Navigation ?) Or does that go against the purpose of the Eureka mechanic too much ?

 

[TheGreatSleepyOne]

Norway's Ability - Knarr
Units can enter Coast tiles after researching Sailing.
Units can enter Ocean tiles after researching Shipbuilding.
Units ignore additional move costs from embarking and disembarking.

I think this change will make it less annoying to reach good coastal spots with settlers in the early game.

 

[Maaka]

Oh, and make IKEA a specialist building.

Wrong scandinavian country, bro. IKEA and Volvo = Sweden. Oil = Norway.
(We don't like swedes here)..

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Rework berserker tech spot and make it a bit less of a liability. Front-line melee sucks on average already, and neutering its primary role (defense) that it's stuck with due to its abysmal movement makes the UU a problem. Unless you buff its strength I'd remove its defense penalty entirely and place it in the bottom path of the tree.

Aside that, perhaps give Norway a bit more embarked movement for some coastal hop moving.

 

[ShakaKhan]

The vikings of lore were famed almost exclusively for pillaging. They were the boogeymen of their time, as other, "more civilized" societies would tremble at the mere mention of these monsters, who seemed to appear magically from unsailable seas. From the point of view of the vikings, however, they were doing what they needed to survive; their lands were not fertile enough to sustain their society,they needed to greatly augment their domestic infrastructure to survive and prosper, and fortunately other societies were unable to stop them from taking what they needed. And their "acquisition" wasn't evil, it was taking the excess from the fat and miserly and redistributing it to where it was needed, their own hungry people.

As such, the vikings need to have a game changing boost to their ability to pillage and, more importantly, the gains from pillaging. The berseker is a weak unit, and that's fine, so is the P-51. The civilization needs to be able to make massive gains in multiple categories (economy, research, culture, food yields, possibly tourism and production) from pillaging. That is the appropriate unique game element of picking the Vikings to play, and they need to organize it in such a way as to make the Vikings not overpowered nor underpowered. In order to have a consistent source of property to pillage, they probably need to be able to receive gains from pillaging unimproved lands, maybe they get the standard pillage gains from pillaging unimproved tiles but get 3-5 times the gain from pillaging improved tiles as a normal civ does. I wouldn't give them free pillaging ability as they had in civ5, since they could then pillage too much within a single turn, rather give each non-ranged unit +1 movement points, which would allow for the ability to pillage more frequently then other civs, but with the new movement mechanics would also make them a good civ to play in general, and has non-military application, but I don't think that would make them TOO powerful. Finally, make them the only civ that can heal on pillaging, and 25% is probably an appropriate amount to boost them to middle of the pack status, not making them overpowered.

 

[Manifold]

I don't know how they intend to make this work, but I'd be interested in seeing Berserkers and Longboats be combined into one unit (Longboat while at sea, Berserker while on land)...As for other suggestions, I would like for Norwegian embarked units to have the ability to attack and defend at sea as though they were melee naval ships.

That sounds good.
And longships could be used as defendable traders too.

And as UA only the Vikings could have embarked units . Every embarked Viking unit becomes a longship everywhere. The other Civs need an extra transport ship for naval transportation.

 

[CoconutTank]

That sounds good.
And longships could be used as defendable traders too.

And as UA only the Vikings could have embarked units . Every embarked Viking unit becomes a longship everywhere. The other Civs need an extra transport ship for naval transportation.

My position on that thought has evolved a bit since then If you're interested in seeing what my latest proposal for Vikings are, here it is: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-save-the-poor-vikings.603141/page-2#post-14578008

I think it would be less headache to let Berserkers (or all Norse land units) be able to attack and defend while embarked as though they are sea melee units. It achieves the goal that I wanted in the first place, which is to let Berserkers (or all Norse land units) be able to fight at sea and transition as seamlessly as possible to marine invasions. The problem with a hybrid unit is determining the upgrade paths and promotion trees that the hybrid unit would use, and since this "problem" is specific to the only hybrid unit in the game, it didn't make sense to me to put much thought into it.