Norway

daliwest

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 15, 2016
Messages
23
Have been playing with Norway and here is a bit and here is the strategy I find best suited for me early game:

1) Try settle on a hill next to river.
2) Produce Scout, Worker, Shrine, Slinger, Settler.
3) Tech Tree: Mining, Astrology, Pottery, Writing, Masonry, Sailing, Archer, Military Tactics.
4) Settle 2nd city next to coast and produce a worker followed by 2-3 longboats.
5) Religion: Critical to found a religion. God of the Sea, Crusade, Work Ethic/Jesuit Education, Meeting House/Wat.

Wonder List: Great Lighthouse, Colossus, (Terracotta Army - If you can build it once you have a large amount of Berserkers).

Before AD 900 try to have 6 cities.

Social Policy: Wars of religion.

Spread religion to nearby City States. Before going to war send missionaries to spread religion to the future enemy.

Denounce.

Attack and enjoy the power of Berserkers with 40+7+10(+4) (+promotion). You don't need catapults but some archers and a battering ram can be handy. If you have an Apostle that heals your units you will be fit for fight quick to take on next city.

Try to be the suzerain of the closest city states, they are handy allies in wars.

Be the defender of the city states, the other leaders will hate you once you start your warmongering...

/Dali
 
I play on King with epic speed, so some changes is obviously needed if you play on higher difficulty.

I have a pretty stressful job, so I prefer playing a quite relaxing game when I get time off to wake my inner child, haha. King suits me fine, but I will try Emperor next time to see how my strategy works.

Main goal is to get a religion so you can boost your Berserkers strength and get that extra production from sea resources, after all you will have your main cities close to the sea to be able to ship out exploration longboats quick.

The more city states you can find the better to get that extra production towards wonders and military units. Berserkers are pretty expensive, so you better set up a good production line to be able to get them fast.
 
I still don't get why berserk aren't swordsman replacement. I don't really like their place on the tech tree. Also longboat are a but underwhelming. I would like them to have some kind of range attack or something.
 
You won´t end up in many battles with longboats, so the main purpose for me is to get an early exploration advantage to be able to find new City States and future land with new luxury resources to settle.

The good thing with Berserkers are you don't need iron. But I don't like the -7 when defending. Vikings were pretty tough to handle when they formed a shield wall, so I would like an extra edge to Berserkers abilities to get +7 when defending if 3 berserkers are in line.
 
Thanks for this post daliwest. I only scratched the surface with my Norway game. Nice tip regarding the beserkers, I didn't build any as I was going for a religious victory.
 
Enter enemy land with 4 move Berserkers attacking at 68 strength is like slicing butter with a sharp knife. One Berserker takes down a smaller city without walls in 2 turns. 6-8 Berserkers is devastating.

I go both for religion and domination, the endgame will show wich one will be more likely.

I might play peacefully after the reign of Berserkers.
 
another fun strategy for island maps is to get galleys (as norway this allows land attacks) AS FAST AS POSSIBLE and conquer citystates as well as other nations.
i had a 6 city empire even before they had built city walls. my first city was captured with 2 galleys, with 3 or 4 it works even better...
 
So the plan is: "Do the strategies that would give you a domination win with any civilization, but try to use Norway when you do it."?
 
I play on King with epic speed...
And there is the limitation. It is possible on Deity to get a religion, but you have to commit to it, you can't take a lackadaisical path. Epic speed also makes it much easier to execute timing attacks since the windows last so much longer.

Berserkers have the problem that they can't be upgraded into, which makes them much slower to start a timing attack with. Unlike Knight based timing attacks where you can pre-build chariots and upgrade them into knights the turn the technology finishes.

The core advantage of Norway is their ability to cross the ocean much earlier than anyone else. You can build two ships, send them across the ocean (assuming Continents map) and meet everyone and all the city states. From there you have a couple of options. You can declare war and just raid the other continent's coast (all they can do is kill your ships, they can't reach you). Or if you find island or ocean blocked areas you can keep expanding there without having to defend them against other players.
 
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