I feel like anything involving more food doesn't do the Danes historical justice. Much of the pillaging they became so infamous for was due to a shortage of food in their own home land.
Remember when the Danes actually came out? They were considered a good strong civ, a more seafaring Mongolia focused around their main UU, that really peak around one period of glorious and terrifying rampaging in the Medieval era.
Pretty sure that was at a period where swords and longswords were in the ascendancy and people used to do longsword rushes (subsequent to the Horsemen Era of the early days post release and prior to the current Archery Era) so the berserker was an upgrade of what was already a hugely powerful unit. The difference is that swords and longswords have been neutered to the point that they're hardly worth bothering with any more.
I feel like a bit more love for swords and longswords would be better for game balance all round and would fix up Denmark as a side effect. I can't remember if berserkers upgrade to muskets or straight to rifles, but I'd definitely have them upgrade to rifles so you can build them for longer (like the new change to samurai).
I generally refrain from and discourage this type of discussion as it usually results in people agreeing on a change that far overcompensates for the problem, i.e. people usually agree on a change that makes a somewhat lackluster civ into the best one in the game.
In this case, though, I have to agree that Denmark could use some changes, both for historical representation and for game mechanics. As far as historical representation, having a civilization that is supposed to be representative of the Danish empire, and more importantly having a game where the player can role-play the civilization of Denmark, and then NOT having longships is pretty rediculous. Along with Vikings (which, by the way, should be the name of the berserker UU), Longships are the first thing people think of and get excited about when they think of that civilization. It is akin to the history of the Japanese empire without Samurai or Spain without Conquistadors; they are so closely linked to what the average person thinks of when they think of that civilization, and the primary point of focus of what they want to play in a game like this, that to exclude it is almost an injustice to the civilization. I'm no expert on Denmark, the Vikings, and Norse mythology, but when I think of this game and the opportunity to role-play Denmark I think of four things that I want incorporated:
1.)Vikings - a strong and fearless unit that very conveniently replaces the longswordsman
2.)Longships - while generally thought of as exclusively a coastal raider(trireme), the timeline seems to synch it up more closely to a caravel. This may be a time to employ the "trade-off" UU, one that has a disadvantage compared to its counterpart but also an advantage that overshadows it (such as the weaker-but-retreating slinger, the slower-but-stronger cataphract, or the non-ocean-faring turtleship), and I feel it's much more appropriate for Denmark to have a coastal-only caravel than Korea.
3.)Pillaging as a way of life - the Vikings didn't pillage out of greed or malcontent for their victims, they did so because of lack of fertile grounds in their homelands made pillaging necessary for their survival, if they didn't pillage they would starve. This could be incorporated into their UA (which it is to an extent by the free MP to pillage) and could also be a part of the longship, perhaps free coastal raider promotion plus 1/2 the amount of gold pillaged is added as food(for that turn only obviously) to the capital.
4.)Norse mythology - the Norse gods were to the Vikings as Bushido was to the Samurai. Much like Bushido, it probably doesn't necessarily mean that the Danish or Japanese civilizations should get a religious bonus, but some aspect of it should be represented in the UA.
Finally, another reason to have longboats as a UU: before this game, who's every heard of Norwegian Ski Infantry? I'll digress that they were employed, and in that region, but how important is that to Danish history? Let me put it another way: when you google-search "norwegian ski infantry," the first hit you get is Civ5. when you google search "Samurai," "Minutemen," or "Longbowmen," the game doesn't register until about 20 pages in.
I'd be happy if berserkers kept their +3 movement upon upgrade. I'm not a fan of ski infantry for aesthetic reasons, but don't care if they stay in or not. It'd be a pure domination-oriented Civ, but that is fine. You are playing Vikings, of course you are going to go domination!
That sounds cool. A granary replacement that allows for smoked fish, deer and whale in addition to the food increase for other bonus resources that the granary already has.
As far as historical representation, having a civilization that is supposed to be representative of the Danish empire, and more importantly having a game where the player can role-play the civilization of Denmark, and then NOT having longships is pretty rediculous. Along with Vikings (which, by the way, should be the name of the berserker UU), Longships are the first thing people think of and get excited about when they think of that civilization. It is akin to the history of the Japanese empire without Samurai or Spain without Conquistadors; they are so closely linked to what the average person thinks of when they think of that civilization, and the primary point of focus of what they want to play in a game like this, that to exclude it is almost an injustice to the civilization.
But doesn't the UA pretty much cover longships? It has the graphic, but it also covers most of what a longship does - i.e very quickly deliver coastal raiders to their destination. Their historical relevance was primarily as very good transport ships for dudes with axes rather than straight up ship-to-ship combat ships in the way that triremes and galleases are. You could pretty much change the UA name from "Viking Fury" to "Longships" and you'd be covered, I reckon. You could argue that the extra embarked movement also sort of covers the longboat's capacity for exploration and navigational feats (ie getting to Vinland), as you can explore a bit more with regular units rather than needing to build triremes and caravels. Any more and you'd be crowding out the Polynesian UA, I think. The only thing it doesn't cover is the trade aspect.
Finally, another reason to have longboats as a UU: before this game, who's every heard of Norwegian Ski Infantry? I'll digress that they were employed, and in that region, but how important is that to Danish history? Let me put it another way: when you google-search "norwegian ski infantry," the first hit you get is Civ5. when you google search "Samurai," "Minutemen," or "Longbowmen," the game doesn't register until about 20 pages in.
Absolutely, I associate ski infantry with the Finns and their incredible ski troops, not so much with Danes. But while these are a pretty ordinary UU on paper, they're an upgrade for your berserkers once they get a bit long in the tooth, so it's a decent set of advantages to keep your horribly well-upgraded troops relevant. Combat bonuses and extra movement on hills also syncs really really well with the coastal raiding UA. I think these are okay in the context of the civ as a whole, and in keeping the UA relevant later in the game. It's just that the overall gameplay theme is let down by currently-lackluster berserkers, who should be keshik-level terrifying but aren't (any more).
The Vikings were as much traders as raiders. I like the longer sea trade route bonus as well as the harbor that gives river gold. It would also be interesting if their trade route value were calculated differently so that actual distance increased the profit as much as the resource differential.
Another possible UB for Denmark is the one suggested by Thalassicus in the Communitas Project-namely "Jelling Stones". A replacement for the Heroic Epic that grants culture to the city from Conquests-& doesn't require barracks to build.
The elephant in the room for the Danes and the Japanese (who still stink even with the Fall Patch) is the awful tech-tree design putting Gunpowder exactly one tech away from Steel. Just make the gap wider and the Civs with replacement Longswords get that much better. Seriously, if it switched with Metallurgy I'd be happy. Lancers are useless where they are in the tree right now anyway.
I cant decide what i would get rid of/change in their current bonuses but reading this gave me ideas.
Food pillaging bonus tacked on to current pillaging UA , like what was suggested earlier except I feel like extra food that turn is not enough of an upgrade. Instead, any time the danes pillage a farm, it generates a land or sea caravan ( if it was only land it would not be as useful)however this caravan can only make food and will dissapear permanently as it has run its assigned route of your choice 1 time. Alternatively, pillaging any tile will up the corresponding yield of the nearest caravan on an internal trade route. However this could be very OP.
Shoreline navigators: As others suggested the vikings kind of have a longboat but still really dont. No idea how much programming this would take but here goes. Make the longboat an era early caravel as suggested HOWEVER the longboat can only enter an ocean tile if it has another land tile in its own sight range which is not connected to the coastal tiles it currently occupies, essentially allowing the ship to cross a small gap of ocean providing more coast can be seen to sail towards. This would be representative of earlier viking expansions from norway to the other side of the baltic or their journey from there to the British isles. I realize that the distance between norway and the islands they occupied in the modern UK is no stones throw however it is far smaller than the distance between say spain and north america. Coincidentally the vikings crossed to america in similar fashion, hopping from the isles to iceland to greeland and on to vinland.
Also the smokehouse sounds like a good idea. So many good ideas!! well just need to separate out the Nordic civs even more to shove them all in there. Norway and Finland please? Estonia maybe?
I agree with mlund - the tech tree is the issue. Swordsmen are too close to pikes and longswords are too close to muskets (also GW infantry are too close to infantry).
The way to improve Denmark is through tweaking the tech tree IMO.
Before Denmark was an official DLC, I played around with a viking civ concept.
It did introduce some out-of-the-box ideas, but one part of it might translate quite well into the current game mechanism:
Longboats: Embarked berserks may melee-attack naval units as if they where genuine ships.
This ability is an actual promotion and will be kept on upgrades.
I would like to see something that would make the civ actually play differently than other civs. This seems to be the trend with the BNW civs (Indonesia with their island settlements, Assyria with Tech stealing, etc).
Rather than just giving some sort of 2x or 3x pillaging multiplier keep the gold gained at 1x and add an additional bonus. Something along the lines of...
Pillage a farm and your nearest city gains +2 for 15 turns.
Pillage a mine you gain +2 in your nearest city for 15 turns.
Pillage a trade post you gain +2 in your nearest city for 15 turns.
Pillage a luxury you gain +2 For 15 turns.
Allow each of these to stack X number of times.
Obviously you can change the values and duration around for balance. Maybe even lower the values and make the bonuses global instead of just to one city. The general idea is to create a meaningful incentive to raid other civs that actually allows you to continue to grow your infrastructure. I feel that this more closely depicts what other posters have mentioned in that the Vikings raided as a way to feed themselves.
Just imagine a nice coastal civ with a bunch of improvements. Land your units, pillage as much as you can for bonuses then run back to the sea before they can counter with their military. Has a nice Viking feel, doesn't it?
Vikings should also come in to the game earlier and upgrade to longsword, historically that is more accurate since they become knights and settled down... ok, ok, they went on a bloody crusade.
The Viking period is between 700-1100 AD, the era of the longsword is between mid 14th century to the 16th century, when they started to be replaced by muskets. But by then, vikings where long gone.
But should the Danish UU come as early as the swordsman? Best thing would be to have something in-between.
I would not object to the idea to have the Danish UU the viking to be similar to the conquistador in that it is also a settler. After all, that is what they did. The unit should be able to both take down a city, but also start one. Perhaps limited to only settle by the coast or by a river.
And the one above who posted about them to be able to travel off the coast as long as they can see it. I like that idea. The vikings did however cross open water without seeing the coast early on but to give them the ability to cross the ocean with a warrior settler early in the game is perhaps a bit OP.
And something that reflects that they where also good traders. That is an ability that could stick with Denmark. Longer trade routes if by boat and trade routes that can defend them self. Would reflect that is was actually vikings who sailed the goods between their marketplaces.
And yes, the embarked vikings should be able to melee attack. That is something they where good at.
I would not object to Denmark being rather vanilla other then a powerful and flexible viking unit for that gives the player an early advantage but not much later on. Like in real life.
Double the range of sea trade routes and you have an incredible civ, they're already a pretty good warmonger civ if used well. The smokehouse UB instead of the Ski Infantry sounds good, but I'd rather have an Inuit civ with that building and a tundra start.
Allow Berserkers to settle like Conquistadors but allowed on same continent... raze cities, settle like historical Great Heathen Army did to gain Danelaw.
I don't think pillaging itself needs a buff. It is very strong. You gain some gold, but more important: your oppenent can not use this resource and gains unhappiness etc.
I'm testing this trait version:
the original viking fury plus
- rivers and the adjacent difficult terrain is treated as dry land
- Rivers are extensions to the on-land trade routes
and i want to replace the Norwegian-Ski-Infantry with something else. Building or Improvement. Since the fall-patch introduces mercenary Landsknechts, "Ski-Infantry" could be an Industrial Age Mercenary Unit....
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