Well... I thought I would try something bold... and after it's done all I can say is I hope
I haven't already ruined the game?!
Herein lies the full story of the reign of Charis the Red
King Inge Charis stepped up to the throne in the auspicious year 843 AD.
He looked at the world of so-called "brothers" around him and knew that
when it came to dominant Viking powers... there could be only one. Others spoke
of invading the weak Celts, or the illustrious Brittains. Some even said that
we would be known throughout history as a nation that settled the Russian and
Baltic areas with great effectiveness, but Inge Charis only cared about one thing,
being the greatest Viking nation of all times. His plan was simple and straightforward,
although some would call it foolhardy.
Kill the Danes. Kill the Norwegians. Capture the Holy Grail. Expand throughout
all former Viking lands and the Baltic. Wipe out the Poles and Rus. Sack Jerusalem.
Any questions??
Why *so* bold? i) We have no 'defense' against Vikings, so unlike other nations who
only cower in fear and 'hope' they never attack us, we're going on the offense.
ii) If they send out zerks on their longships, their towns will be naked.
iii) If we hit and kill all three kings in first turn, there is no counterattack.
First turn is 10-15 and I plan 14 to 'even the years' (turn limit is 204).
Here's our start position, by the way...
[0] 843 AD - We have three longships, and three opposing kills to vanquish in each
foe's nation, plus six berzerks. Can you do the math, or is that tempting?!
Staraya to rax. Vastergarn on worker before its rax. Sigtuna a spear. Skara can't
believe it's not coastal, and starts a worker as well. We need improved land to build
zerks! Kopingsvik, low on food, starts a rax too. Olaf heads out to fogbust.
The only problem with the plan is - one zerk is off in never-never land, so one
ship will only have one zerk in it. For tech, we'll never reached horseback first,
will soon have no one to trade Norse techs with, and don't need Byzantine so-called
ingenuity. Seamanship in 40. Our ship meets the Danes. Polite niceties are exchanged.
[1] 846 - We've sent our *worker* to meet the neighbors with the brown border, and
say hi to the Kievan Rus. A so-called Viking, he has no port cities, and is not
militaristic. Inge Charis laughs in his face and says "You are no true Viking!"
Our ships meet the Poles.
[2] 849 - Our Northern ship meets the Norwegians, who are blue!?
[3] 852 - Tis turn 3, are the Danes ready to die? We ask them?! They say no, but
are willing to try. We declare from outside their territory!
The first attack, at Lund, goes swimmingly well, and of course... this kicks off
a Golden Age! Not a scratch on the zerk, either. He promotes, but a king remains
standing in the city. Olaf is 1.1.2. A sword is coming up to finish him off, freeing
up the zerk if things go poorly elsewhere. At Hedebsy the harbor is destroyed! A
crippling blow to them indeed (although zero chance we could keep it anyway).
We take a bombard hit first but kill the spear. Zerk beats zerk, losing 1 hp. King shows.
At Ribe we defeat a spear and sword, losing 2 hp but promoting on second attack. The
third king is now exposed. Note if this were Monarch diff w/o the extra spear defender,
the Danes would already be *eliminated*. With almost no roads, I don't think they'll be
able to reinforce in time unless ships are very nearby. Build queues all swap to
higher shield items with the GA in progress.
IBT - No counterattack, only one sword moves. Sigtuna expands to get the wheat, yay!
[4] 855 - At Ribe, we kill spear, King back on top. Zerk goes after him and... one down!
Since they have no counterattackers next to it, and since I hope the Danes are gone
very shortly, I keep the city. At Hedesby we do redline, but then win and promote.
(Six att *really* is nice!) Next attack destroys the rax. (Hmm, was hoping to
preserve that. Sword that moved in dies, then spear. King left... I can either bring
up the other zerk, or... if I let the zerk next to him enter the city I can face it
on offense, not defending. At Lund, zerk beats spear, "worker" showing. Hehe, that
means the King is the only defender. This should be good - a battle between
Erik Knutson and Olaf - I can't pass it up! Pardon this blatant risk, but... we really
just need one King and this is just a showdown of superiority of kings. Erik turns
yellow, then... promotes and wins, capturing Lund!
IBT zerk and worker move into Hedeby, and shoot, a spear appears too.
[5] 858 - Well, we do have three zerks on hand anyway, plus the Veteran Erik.
The healthiest zerk takes the first swing, expecting and getting a bombard. He
wins and promotes to elite. Next up destroys the temple, and promotes to vet.
Finally, it's our last zerk vs their last king. We destroy the marketplace, then
win, and *UNLIKE* elimination game, in regicide when you kill the last king it
counts as being *before* the city is taken, and so it turns to rubble! Ack! Eek!
Well... ex-capital or not, for us it would just have been another corrupt city.
It's just year 5, and the Danes are gone!
[6] 861 - healing
[7] 864 - moving
[8] 867 - more moving
[9] 870 - We declare, then move in their territory and assault. At Trondheim,
kill a spear and a zerk, still a zerk showing. At Stavenger, kill a spear.
At Borre, kill a spear. No promotions.
[10] 873 AD - Back at Trondheim our elite zerk attacks vs spear, and good news...
Erik the Victorious! The zerk is now called Charis the Sanguinary
Second zerk redlines but kills the zerk there, now just a worker showing (aka the
king). At Borre, we beat a zerk, spear left. At Stavenger, zerk beats spear to
become elite, sword showing. Vet zerk mauls reg sword, spear left.
With cities back home *bare*, major MP problems, and our tax goes to 20%. Oh well,
the boys are out playing, and Viking boys will be boys.
IBT - Norwegian longboat comes out of the fog at Vastern (eek!) and it...
does nothing! Phew.
[11] 876 - As mentioned above, I'm planning to take turns 14 on this first round.
If things go well, that will be about the time we finish Norway.
Trondheim - Charis the Sanguinary goes up against the king in pretty robes with
a 5 foot great axe. You can guess how that turned out
We capture the city,
including a worker and settler in town, and get a message that we've completed
the road to bring iron to Sigtuna??? Ah! Harbor intact in Trondheim, along with
rax, and it has a road going next to iron right next door, cool! Ironically,
I was working on a few warriors for cheap MP and defenders. The city is not fully
corrupt, btw, just 50% or so. Which city to try to keep and which do we see become
ruins? Borre is closer to the capital and next to cattle, so let's hope to keep that.
We attack Stavenger first. Hmm, first things first - bring leader into city, and make
an army. That may help us fishing. For now, til we have more zerks, we'll want exactly
two in the army, to get both attacks and have good hp, but that keeps an extra zerk
around lose to maximize #attacks. When we get more zerks, fill up with a third.
Borre, we beat a spear, but zerk showing, king hidden, and we're hurt. Will need the
other zerks to sail over and reinforce. OK, back to Stavenger. Elite goes red but beats
reg spear, now king showing. Full power vet zerk takes him on... and wins. Two down,
and we capture the city. Our two extra leaders are pulling MP duty there for now until
a defender can be produced. No one has any new techs, btw.
[12] 879 - Can it be?? A turn with no attacks?! With only one 1hp zerk at Borre, yes.
Others move up. IBT - That bloody English galley just founded Hastings on OUR new
territory, near Borre. No problem, a coastal town is something we can EASILY handle.
[13] 882 - Norwegian longship off the coast of Ribe. Do we attack it? Stats are 3.2.1.
IF it's full, that's a good thing to do. Actually, it's out of range. I move our
guy blocking the chokepoint back into the city. Our capital is at 10spt now in the GA,
nice. IBT - CRUD, it was full. Zerk beats warrior, but they only had one in the ship!
[14] 885 AD - Borre's time has come! The army arrives and attacks to draw the bombardment.
It lost a whopping 6hp, so good thing, but it wins. It hits the next zerk too and
wins. Now the elite can fish the spear. Our last vet zerk goes vs the king... goes
red... but wins! The city is in ruins, and the Norwegians are GONE! (Good timing too,
14th turn as desired). I send the zerk at Stavenger over to Ribe, as the English
are looking at it funny, and Erik goes to guard that chokepoint to Germany for now.
We now have 1715 VP, vs zero for the rest of the world *combined* :=)
That's 800pts for conquest (400 per civ? lol) and 915 for unit kills. That would be
about 1pt per shield kill then?
Thoughts for next leader
- If war wasn't over, Skara would have swapped to zerker but instead should finish its
granary this, as it's a high food, good shield city on a river. With the lateness of
aqueducts, only river cities should be considered for granaries in this scenario imho.
Sigtuna is in same situation, where granary is good idea now.
- At some point, no rush, Trondheim needs a temple.
- We need the rax cities to pump vet spears asap for defense and MP very soon. We have
totally unguarded cities at this point.
- Our Russian city now has spear with its zerk, and one might afford to go scout south
- Speaking of scouting, one very good idea would be to send a longship around the whole
globe and make a gazillion contacts... SOON.
- *KEY POINT* Get ONE of our roving leaders back home and SAFE in the capital.
Trondheim king could come back over mountains easily after the spear finishes
in that city, else get Bjorn the heck out of Stavenger.
- After war with England, it's open debate who is next. Poland, Celts, or Rus.
- An alternate plan that would work REALLY well would be to heal the zerks, load them up
plus maybe one more and assault England. Specifically Chippenham - home of the Holy
Grail, before that thing moves. If doing this plan, hit Hastings as well as it hits
size 2, so we can capture it. There's a zerk and longship in Ribe, ready to move once
the spear is done.
- I've rushed *nothing* this turn, to leave cash to buy techs - but only do so after making
about a dozen contacts!
- NINE turns left in our Golden Age, use them wisely!
Our lands at the end of the reign of Charis the Sanguinary...
Two of the toughest civs on the planet eliminated on player turn one... not bad!
Who will
Grab the game next?!
Good luck!
Charis