Lackluster Vikings (Danes)?

[Ealdwulf]

So I know I'm bit late here - but I've just gotten back into the game

I was excited to try out the Danes, but upon looking at their abilities they seem very specialized and somewhat boring.

Is there some particular tactic to making the danes effective, am I missing something other than their embarkation and pillage bonus? These both seem fairly situational and weak.

Also the Ski Troops seem just so-so

 

[Zango]

The best usage of the embarkation ability is that in later stages of the game the increased movement points to embarked units actually allows embarked units to move faster on land than they could previously.

For example: Due to the +1 increased embarkation ability, an embarked catapault can move from the ocean, onto land, move, set-up AND fire in the same turn. Because it has 3 movement points at the start of the turn, (the +1 to embarked speed) and it costs no points to disembark, the catapult has 3 movement points even upon landing.

Like I said earlier, this effect can stack with later upgrades to embarked units, meaning that late-game units along the coast can be effectively just as speedy as cavalry.

The "no-cost to pillage" is generally considered more useful overall as it's less situational, plus it allows for interesting strategic play in that you can just have one unsupported cav unit go pillage all the enemies strategic resources in a few turns and quickly turn their Grand Armada of Frigates into embarked musketmen.

Ski-Infantry are also pretty situational, but can kick some butt if you do manage to get the right location for them.

Overall, the Danes can be potentionally quite powerful; however, their reliance on many situational circumstances makes their general rating to be rather meh.

 

[teddybroosevelt]

they were much better in Vanilla, when the Iron Working path was better and there weren't melee ships to take coastal cities.

 

[OwlRaider]

The Danes were always a very situational civilization, thriving mostly in small islands/archipelago and to a lesser extent large islands/continents maps in order to really abuse their raiding potential. With that said, even for such maps there are better civilizations out there. The Danes are simply bad at anything but domination since all their bonuses are militaristic, and while their UUs and UA are alright, there are far better options out there by civilizations with better tools. For example on the same maps England(another somewhat mediocre civilization which is also purely militaristic) would perform much better than Denmark in the majority of circumstances since Longbows and ranged units in general simply outshine melee units(which is what the Danes are focused on) and the Ship of the Line has no rival for ocean domination. Also agreeing with teddy, in Vanilla Iron Working path was better, ranged units merged into the melee line at Riflemen rather than continue into Gatling Guns and Machine Guns, Composite Bowmen were not in the game, etc.

 

[kirbdog]

It almost seems like, if you want to save the Danes, you have to start in Medieval. At least then you can use their only good UU (Berserker) without crippling your science/economy.

I enjoy beating on them as Sweden.