[GS] Norway in GS

[humble serf]

Norway's place in the game seems to have changed a lot. They haven't been directly tweaked, buffed or nerfed (so far as we know), but Norway has been significantly affected by changes to general gameplay, along with some of the new civs' uniques.

The Maori are better at embarking and crossing oceans, and they're better at early-game conquest (thanks to the Toa/Pa), and they have a better yield economy, and they have a strong CV game as well as decent science and religion games.

Phoenicia has a better unique galley, better naval production and better embarked settlers, and has a half-price harbour, and can fully-heal entire navies in one turn, and has an excellent trade economy, and has all kinds of loyalty shenanigans, and, like the Maori, is not by any means locked into a Domination victory.

So what does Norway have left? Coastal raiding? Sure, but between Medieval Faires and Electricity (roughly three full eras), the Ottomans have the best coastal raider in the game.

As far as I can tell, the Stave Church is the only Norwegian UX which isn't directly outperformed by another civ. Although if we assume the principal purpose of a Stave Church is to get hammers from coastal tiles, then surely the Kampung is the superior UI.

But as far as Norway in GS goes:

The upsides:

• Military tactics is no longer a leaf.
• Pillaging is significantly more powerful.

The downsides:

• Even though the Berserker is now more technologically relevant, it's still a questionable unit at best.
• The Maori start with Sailing and Shipbuilding.
• The Maori can embark into ocean from turn 1; their embarked units are also stronger and faster than Norway's.
• The Maori get +1F from fishing boats for free. This is admittedly not as good as Norway's +1P, but Norway requires a Holy Site + Shrine + Temple.
• The Barbary Corsair is now the best unit in the game for coastal raiding.
• The Bireme is (probably) as good or better than the Viking Longship in every way, except for Norway's coastal raiding and ocean-crossing.
• Phoenicia gets +50% production to all naval units (not just the galley->destroyer line), and settlers (the best unit in the game).
• Phoenician settlers are better than Norwegian settlers at embarking (better LOS, better speed, same free (dis)embarkation).

This isn't a criticism of the Maori, the Ottomans or Phoenicia; I think all three are well-designed. And I'm not saying Norway needs some kind of monopoly on bonuses towards embarkation, ocean-crossing, navy-building, pillaging or the fishing boats improvement.

But it does seem wrong that pretty much all of Norway's "unique" abilities are now outperformed by other civs (who also have strong bonuses in other areas). As far as I can tell, Norway isn't "the best" at anything. There's essentially nothing in Norway's kit which isn't done better by somebody else.

So is Norway doomed to be a weaker, more boring, domination-only version of Phoenicia or the Maori? Or will the pillage buffs really make enough of a difference to keep them fun, distinctive and competitive?

Like, will it be possible to pursue a culture/religion/science victory through pillaging? Going warlike and aggressive without actually trying to conquer land would make for some interesting gameplay. I loved religious Norway when I played at King, but it doesn't seem all that viable at Emperor+. Could GS faith pillaging change that?

 

[Casworon]

I honestly think only modders are going to be Norway's saviour now. But the big question is what to do with them?

A pillaging focus is a weak focus in a game where warfare to capture cities is by far the better option. I think Norway needs some more peaceful bonuses really. Maybe focusing on their history of setting up colonies on iceland, greenland, vinland and ireland. Maybe cities founded on other continents start with higher population?. Also they where famous traders, so maybe +1 trade route upon researching shipbuilding.

Also somone had the idea of making the stave church a UI rather than a UB. Think this is a great idea. Since Norway doesnt strike me as a faith civ which makes the stave church requiring a holy district not really congruent with the feel of the rest of the civ. Have it be a one per city improvement like the golf course and have it give extra faith per wood and extra production per sea resource.

Maybe also oil resources produce +1 per turn. To go with the new Gathering Storm Mechanics.

I think your right in the sense that other civs now do things better than Norway. But i think the solution is giving Norway more minor buffs to make it a sort of jack of all trade civ. Doesn't excel in any one area but has lots of little bonuses in many to make up for it.

TL.DR
-Change stave church to a one per city tile improvement
-Cities founded on continents different to your capital start with an extra +2 pop
- +1 trade route upon researching shipbuilding
- Oil produces +1 per turn

 

[humble serf]

I'd love to see a more peaceful bonus of some kind. I think they could easily drop Harald's coastal raiding for caravels, ironclads and destroyers, and replace it with a more economic/cultural/religious bonus. I don't really see Norway as a scientific or diplomatic victory-focused civ, but culture and religion would both be good alternatives to domination. The Stave Church looks really cool, but I always thought a runestone (either as a Shrine or a UI) would be more fitting, given the civ's overall pagan/Viking aesthetic (Catholic leader notwithstanding).

Something colonial would also be interesting, maybe tied into their ability to cross the ocean early. Maybe Viking Longships could settle coastal cities on foreign continents (like Conquistadors in Civ V)?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

They did hint that Norway would be receiving some updates in the Sweden livestream, but they neglected to mention what those would be. Only "Stay tuned".

 

[humble serf]

They did hint that Norway would be receiving some updates in the Sweden livestream, but they neglected to mention what those would be. Only "Stay tuned".

I had a feeling they specified improved pillaging as Norway's indirect buff, but I hope you're right. It does seem like an obvious civ for an update in an expansion which features so many different ways to generate electricity.

 

[Leathaface]

I don't think Norway will ever be good. Their UB is a religious building when Norway is not a Civ you want to go for Religious victory with. If you are a peaceful player the Berserker is a very bad unit since it totally sucks when defending.

I can't think of any reason to pick them, unless I want a really big challenge by going for a Culture or Religious victory with them. I hope they are made more viable in GS.

 

[acluewithout]

Pants.

Norway have a fun play style, and I don't see anything much has changed that. People should leave them alone.

A few points.

First, they're really more about faith than religion. Founding a religion with them is silly and a waste of hammers. But focusing on faith, and using that for settlers and builders and or units is a better way forward. You can also usually get an early Golden Age with your little Viking Boat too so you can faith buy settlers. (Hey, what do you know. Holy Sites being on the way to Harbours actually sort of makes sense for Norway. Fancy that.)

Second, you need to alternate between exploring, settling and raiding. Not necessarily in that order. You might start by harassing people with long boats. Then get a golden age and settle some cites. Later you might harass people with Berserkers - remember, few other Civs have medieval melee then. Slap on an Oligarchy Card and you're away. Norway is good at retreating into the water when other Civs aren't. Good for raiding.

Third, you can sometimes flip over to a fairly good culture victory later. Keep your forests - good faith adjacency anyway. Use faith to help with great people and naturalists. People may be cross with you, so that's bad, but you probably haven't actually captured many cities.

I could go on. Look, they're not powerful. I get it. Power-wise, they're probably bottom tier. But they have a play style that's fun. Indeed, part of their fun is that they're not strong. They're a very scrappy Civ. You have to work with it.

Otto's unique raider is a bit of a blow though, just because it looks like they'll have more fun raiding. But it does come much later. Maori are no Norway though. Phoencia will be a bit scary for Harry Harrington Harold the Third, but I guess just pick a fight with someone else? Or hit her with Berserkers later?

Buffs to raiding will help Norway, sure. Anything which adds things you can spend faith on help them too. Buffing Pikes helps them because they can rush Pikes while hard building Berserkers. So, you can go annoy people with Berserkers, and when they attack you, you just defend with Pikes. The Grievance system will probably help them, because they won't have everyone hating them forever hopefully.

So. They're fun as they are...

...well ...

...but. Well. If you were going to buff them... and I'm not saying you should ... well, I'd make Thunderbolt give +50% production to naval and land melee, but then limit that to Coastal Cities. That would let Norway get their raiding parties out earlier, be physically more scary overall, boost the Berserker, and wouldn't really require any massive re-work.

 

[Hawke9]

They did hint that Norway would be receiving some updates in the Sweden livestream, but they neglected to mention what those would be. Only "Stay tuned".

I think they just meant the scaling of pillaging yields

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think they just meant the scaling of pillaging yields

I don't think so. Otherwise they wouldn't have told viewers to stay tuned.

 

[Casworon]

Actually with the mention of grievances affecting loyalty, it might be much more difficult to go on a big conquering spree in GS. I guess we will see. If pillaging wars become a more legitimate tactic anyway it will be a big boost to Norway

 

[PKLarson]

I have been thinking about Norway lately and how to buff them and I have come up with this idea. Embarked Berserkers and civilian units escorted by a Longboat DO NOT consume movement points AND can cross ocean hexes IF the Longboat can.


This simulates two of the traits the Vikings are noted for but are not represented in the game:


1) The ability of Longboats and their crews (The Berserkers) to conduct deep military raids up inland waterways. The Longboat moves up to shore, the Berserker disembarks and can move up to 4 hexes inland!


2) The colonization of Iceland and Greenland. It does little good for if the Longboats can cross the ocean, but settlers cannot. This way a Norwegian settler can move 4 hexes on water and up to two on land.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think a buff to Norway should be to allow them to Coastal Raid up to three tiles inland if those tiles are River tiles.

 

[criZp]

Coastal raiding up-river is an interesting idea.

One thing I've thought of is to make the chaplain-promotion into a new support unit, an early medic that can only be made with faith. Not a norway-buff per se, but would make the faith somewhat more useful.

Another little, simple thing would be to detatch the +1 cog on sea resource bonus from the stave church, and put it into the leader ability instead.

 

[humble serf]

Norway have a fun play style, and I don't see anything much has changed that...

Power-wise, they're probably bottom tier. But they have a play style that's fun...

Otto's unique raider is a bit of a blow though, just because it looks like they'll have more fun raiding. But it does come much later. Maori are no Norway though. Phoencia will be a bit scary for Harry Harrington Harold the Third, but I guess just pick a fight with someone else? Or hit her with Berserkers later?

My point isn't that Norway isn't fun (it's one of my favourite civs alongside the similarly low-tier Khmer), nor that Norway would lose a pound-for-pound war against Maori/Ottomans/Phoenicia.

My point is that A) Norway being fun doesn't excuse how bad it is, and B) Norway is becoming steadily less fun as all of its "unique" abilities are given to other civs, usually in stronger forms. All the fun you could have with Norway could be replicated with a higher-tier GS civ. Not even Georgia and Egypt have been overlooked that badly.

 

[acluewithout]

@humble serf Fair enough.

But to me, so far, most of what has been added in RnF and now GS has either boosted Norway or made them more interesting.

I’m not sure other Civs have really been given their stuff either. And to some extent, I like having Civs that riff on the same themes or mechanics.

But I could see that maybe Norway could maybe use a small buff. Not a big rework, just sort of a very precise tweak or two... Other than that, I think their core concept is still fun and their mechanics mostly work.

 

[Arent11]

I had a feeling they specified improved pillaging as Norway's indirect buff, but I hope you're right. It does seem like an obvious civ for an update in an expansion which features so many different ways to generate electricity.

I actually hope a whole lot of the vanilla civs will receive updates similar to englands new industrialization focus. I simply like most of the core civs more than the expansion civs & therefore I'm more interested in changes there than I am in new civs.

 

[pgm123]

I think a buff to Norway should be to allow them to Coastal Raid up to three tiles inland if those tiles are River tiles.

This would be great. I wonder how hard it is to code.

On a more general thought: I kind of hate people directly comparing aspects of civs to each other. If every aspect that makes Norway good was replicated in a single other civ that does it better, that would be a huge problem, but I don't think that's the case here.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

I don't like this idea that every civ needs to be the best at something to justify its existence. They can be more than the sum of their parts. Norway may not be the best at any of the things it does, but it is also the only civ that does all of the things it does.

Saying Norway is underpowered because its weaker than three other civs combined isn't a fair comparison.

 

[humble serf]

@acluewithout I have high hopes for the pillage changes, and if it ends up being possible to run an aggressive science/culture/religion game through pillaging without conquering (or at least not conquering very much) then I'll be happy. Even more so if the grievance system isn't too harsh on that kind of non-conquest pillaging. My dream would be to run a one- or two-city Norway game and coastal-raid my way to a non-domination victory as a semi-rogue pirate state.

On a more general thought: I kind of hate people directly comparing aspects of civs to each other. If every aspect that makes Norway good was replicated in a single other civ that does it better, that would be a huge problem, but I don't think that's the case here.

I don't like this idea that every civ needs to be the best at something to justify its existence. They can be more than the sum of their parts. Norway may not be the best at any of the things it does, but it is also the only civ that does all of the things it does.

Even forgetting everything I've said about the Phoenicians and Ottomans, I still think the Maori come pretty close to this criteria. They can cross the ocean faster, they're better at embarking, they're as good or better at launching coastal assaults, they have quicker access to their fishing boat yield boost (even if it is a worse yield), their melee UU comes earlier in the tech tree and is as good or better than the Berserker (depending on attack/defence). On top of that, their UB comes along earlier, grants more faith from woods as well as +2 culture -- and that's for all woods, not just woods adjacent to the UB -- and it also applies to all other passable features (which are also buffed by Mana). What does Norway have left? +50% production towards Ironclads?

Maybe the pillage changes will make enough of a difference to counteract some of this (I sincerely hope so), and maybe the no-chopping rule will really hurt the Maori (I'm not a chopper and probably won't notice it at all when I play them). But I really do feel this is a much bigger and more imbalanced overlap than, say, Trajan having a better road-based ability than Cyrus.

 

[The googles do nothing]

Norway was the best a early over flow chopping by combining Maritime Industries and Thunderbolt of the North. Better pillaging is mostly helpful when your are already at war and to civs who can use mounted units. The AI doesn't usuealy build enough costal cities to make much difference and players will just totally avoid it unless they are Australia.

I've never be able to hard build berserkers and get get them in position to do anything meaningful. On higher difficulties the AI has Muskets the time I can use them.

I like the idea of the Stave Church being a one-per-city improvement. One idea would be to allow Norway's ships an 'offload unit' ability which would allow them to transport a melee unit from any city with a harbor and allow the Melee unit to instantly attack. I would like to see the berserkers be upgradeable so the would start with promotions. Give Melee ships a +10 against ranged attacks.