Norway isn't as bad as it looks.

[Gus_Smedstad]

I'm slowly working my way through the Civs at King level. I've seen commentary about how gimped Norway is, and I was expecting an uphill battle. Surprisingly, I did much better with them than with Gorgo as Greece.

It boils down to the early ocean travel.

Norway has:

- Coastal Raiding.
- Berserkers.
- An upgraded Temple.
- No cost for embarking / disembarking.
- Access to ocean travel at Shipbuilding.
- Longships, which are faster and stronger than Galleys.
- Melee ships (notably Longships) can heal in neutral waters.

Coastal raiding is mostly a waste of time, though I did snag a fair number of unguarded barbarian camps with longships while exploring.

Berserkers are gimped Knights. Just as expensive, substantially weaker if attacked, and almost as hard to research. You can theoretically beeline for them, but it's not much faster than beelining Knights. About the only plus is that they don't require iron, if you're short of that. I never built any.

The temple Faith bonus for adjacent woods is nice but mild.

No cost for embarking / disembarking doesn't help much until late in the game. in Civ 4 it was a big deal because water travel was a lot faster in the early/mid game than land travel. With speed-2 transports in the early game, it's no help to most units, and actually hurts faster units.

What really gave me the big boost was exploring the world very early, and contacting all the city states very early. Including a couple where I was the only contact because they were on an isolated continent with no players.

Early city state contact -> lots of free boosts in my capitol, plus more bonus envoys from fulfilling quests. Probably +2 or +3 envoys per city state, since I made contact an era or two earlier, and ran "first envoy counts as 2" as a wildcard policy for much of the early game. Yes, it does double the "first contact" envoy and quest envoys.

Early ocean travel also meant I had that smallish continent all to myself if I wanted to colonize it. In practice this didn't matter, because I took out my neighbors Germany and Arabia earlier, and had more room than I needed on my home continent. I even left my neighbor France alone until ~1300 AD because I didn't need the room.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

The thing about Norway is that early ocean travel, no disembark cost and ship healing outside your territory are the only true advantages. It's good to have, but they pale in comparison to Aztecs or Rome. Even less stellar civs like Arabia or America still have more focused bonuses, which helps more than Norway's naval bonuses.

Though I can confirm that early ocean access can be a good bonus, just like Polynesia's was in Civ V.

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

Norway's no Sumeria, I'll grant you. I just was surprised that I found them stronger, overall, than Greece under Gorgo. Early ocean travel can have a lot more benefits than Greece's extra policy slot and the early culture boost from combat. The Hoplites are nearly as useless as the Norse Berserkers. Sure, they don't require extra research, but they window in which they're effective is very narrow. Too expensive and too late for an early rush, they're effectively obsolete when your neighbors get Iron Working, and they don't upgrade to anything useful (unlike a standard early Archer army).

Though I suppose there are specific situations where they'd be handy. There are times when I've seen big waves of Barbarian Horsemen that can chew up an Archer force, but a couple of Hoplites would handle that easily.

 

[The googles do nothing]

I have fun playing Norway. Exploring the world, establishing a far off cities. I don't really think they are gimped, more so they are not buffed and the other civs are.
The the Stave Church requires you to be going for a specific victory type to be useful and the Berserker are is less useful then standard Knights.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I myself am not a big fan of Greece, mind you. Acropolis are almost worse than regular Theatre Squares due to placement restriction (for almost no bonuses at all) and a UU that's only better than the regular Spearmen because Spearmen themselves are considered one of the worst units in the game. Also, Gorgo need an aggressive playstyle that, in my opinion, doesn't synergize with those cultural bonuses.

On the other hand, at least Norway's bonuses make more sense when put together, with great emphasis on sea expansion through conquest. But they're still quite lacking, even comparing with "regular" civs. Brazil gets good adjacency bonuses. Vicky gets powerful bonuses when settling foreign continents. Japan has 3 half-cost districts and improved adjacencies. But Norway only gets better sea mobility, which may be neglected for a number of games and maps.

 

[gimper42]

Gorgo is only good if you use her as a blunt instrument against your neighbors. Then she can be amazing. She won't do anything noteworthy with a peaceful style. But she will get you Political Philosophy before the deity AI can get there if you but wee wee in her Cheerios.

 

[Bobfregman]

Gorgo is considered OP by many purely because of how well her passive ability synergizes with the aggressive playstyles that are most popular and effective on higher difficulties and multiplayer. It's not that she has a cultural playstyle, it's that she has the same militaristic playstyle you were going to use anyway but she gets a dozen free civics from it.

Norway is extremely gimped. The ocean travel is neat but even at it's best it's moderately useful and often it's almost useless.

 

[Bro]

Norway is a civ meant to wage coastal warfare with. If you are not doing that, you are not playing it right. Norway is extremely potent at this one thing, but has no buffs for almost any other kind of play style. Expect going religious.