The Saga of Leif Ericson (of how to colonize the new world by 1000 AD)

[sedna17]

The first Viking UHV is easy enough to accomplish, either by focusing on researching Astronomy or by using the Conqueror event to capture a city and build a new settler. But neither method properly captures the majesty of longboats plying the unforgiving puffin-infested northern waters.



It is possible to reach and colonize the new world from the 600 AD start with galleys, without cheating or popping any techs from huts. I made it over by 1030 in this game, but could shave off at least a couple more turns and found by 1000 AD.

I'll share the full epic saga in a later post. The mini-map in the attached image provides an important clue, but the devil is in the details and I'd love to hear alternate ways to do it if people want to attempt this challenge.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Looks like you started with conquering Inverness, colonized Ireland, let the English spawn and gave Husavik to them at one point. Then you must have had a preloaded settler and crossbowman right on the west coast of Iceland, and then closed borders with the English, which may have flipped your longship across ocean tiles. But how did you get to Iceland in the first place?

 

[sedna17]

Getting to Iceland is easy. A city on the northern tip of Ireland requires only one cultural expansion to cover the deep water between the British Isles and Iceland.

You correctly deduced that I gifted Husavik to the English and that not having open borders with them kicked me across the the ocean. Arranging for this to happen requires a good deal of careful set-up however. I don't know the exact rules that govern the infamous "teleporting" out of unfriendly territory, but one critical point is that you must have map-knowledge square you get kicked to -- and it is not normally possible to see the coast squares off southern Greenland from anywhere in Iceland.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

But I'm being dense: how does covering the deep ocean tile with your Irish city send your galley across to Iceland? Does the fact that you can see the shallow water on the south-eastern coast of Iceland enable your galley to cross the ocean?
I think you had a land unit in Husavik, and when you close borders with the English, it flips over to Greenland (I had that happen when I was America conquering a Dutch Husavik). From there you can easily walk across to see the sea tile on the south-western coast for your galley to teleport to.

 

[blizzrd]

But I'm being dense: how does covering the deep ocean tile with your Irish city send your galley across to Iceland?

I think it is because you can navigate a galley through ocean if the ocean is within your cultural areas. As Japan, I often cover the Sea of Japan entirely with my cultural area and I can then send my galleys through the deep water (which is faster) and save a bit of movement costs before I get to Astronomy.

As long as you pump the culture out of a city on the north of Ireland, you can cover the little bit of ocean between Ireland and Iceland, which I think was the answer in this Viking challenge.

 

[scu98rkr]

What would be quite good is if some more of the squares were coast line during the early part of the game 600 AD to 1200AD or something to cover the medieval warm period.

Then flipped to ocean after 1200AD and you had to support the colony without being able to bring over units from Europe.

A few indians/natives to try destroy the settlement would be good.

Another point I've also made is that the Mercenary system needs to be altered. So that Mercenaries spawn in the capital, or if you pay a bigger fee they can spawn in one of your other cities that is CONNECTED to your captials trade next work. (bigger fee the further the city)

The problem with Mercenaries often spawn in completely useless cities making them somewhat of a gamble.

 

[Úmarth]

What does climate have to do with coast/ocean though? Surely it's a simple matter of distance from land.

 

[scu98rkr]

Well Global warming is meant lead to a rise in sea levels, which is actually the opposite of what im saying, but ignore that.

Im just saying the Vikings/Norse managed to settle Greenland and got to North America.

You should be able to in the game, maybe with the help of expanding cultural borders, but not having to teleport ships by gifting cities.

The Greenland only survived till 450-500 years till 1450-1500 and the settlements in Vinland only last a couple of years probably.

Its just a suggestion to give the vikings a chance to colonies north america but the colonies would have to survive with out much help from the mainland, just like in real life.

So a couple of Indian units could pop up and if you havent got enough troops they could quite easily destroy the settlements, and you would not be able to bring in reinforcements.

I believe Rhye used to have a mountain dissapear in S.America to let the Incas out at a certain point ? It could be like this.

 

[scu98rkr]

Basically a gameplay device not connected to real life sea level change. To simulate that during the medieval years the climate was more accommodating to crossing the atlantic by hoping from Iceland to Greenland to America.

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

Basically a gameplay device not connected to real life sea level change. To simulate that during the medieval years the climate was more accommodating to crossing the atlantic by hoping from Iceland to Greenland to America.

This is an awesome idea, the only problem is I think other civs would use it as well and that would cause all sorts of problems. The best option in my opinion would be giving the galley a say 25% chance of suceeding in crossing ocean tiles, like in civ 3. However, this would greatly alter gameplay so we'd have to figure out a way to make this route availiable to only the Norse(Maybe opposite of culture black hole, tile will always stay Norse unless the Norse are defeated but then there's always the open borders problem!)

 

[kbk]

Well, it could always be done with unique units or unique powers, but I like the Viking UU and UP already (even though I almost always play pacifist, and almost never raze improvements).

 

[sedna17]

Most of the pieces have been suggested, so I'll flush out the details.

1) I founded Birka (Manchester) as my capitol, destroyed Inverness (so I didn't have to defend it from an English flip) then settled a city on the north coast of Ireland. I ran caste system to get a quick culture pop in Ireland and sailed my galley across to Iceland with my final settler.

2) My experience leads me to believe that the only good jumping off point is the ocean square right next to the Greenland ice (see screenshot). This is accessible if Husavik's culture expands a lot. The only plausible way to do this quickly is to generate a great artist in Birka or Ireland and make a masterpiece in Husavik -- this would plausibly be the Saga of Lief Ericson.

3) Now I can place a galley with Settler + crossbow on this ocean square, and a few more troops on the deer in Iceland. The key is now to get the English culture to behave.

4) If Husavik is size 3, the English, who generally adopt Caste System, will run an artist to pop the city's culture once. Thus, I make sure Husavik grows to size 3 (easy after the great artist pop), then gift it to the English shortly after they rise. The first border pop sends our scout over to the Greenland ice, where he walks south to scout the open coast. Our galley is left stranded in the ocean.



5) Next, we get open borders with the English and produce a second great artist. This artist is gifted to the English in Husavik. They invariably use this artist to make another masterpiece (the Saga of Loki, on account of its trickiness). We cancel our open borders immediately after gifting the artist (i.e. before the end of the turn). This requires a wait of 10 turns between the scout getting over to Greenland because you must peacefully cancel open borders -- declaring war leaves your galley in their territory.



6) If all works out, you pop over to the new world and can found a city, which (at least in this game) gets immediately attacked by hordes of Skraelings. Good thing you have a crossbow (and in our case, an extra axe who came with the scout onto Greenland) -- a crossbow really has an easy enough time of it.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The Skraelings bit was fun. Human cities are like magnets for barbs.
Sounds like a lot of work, no wonder you're unstable or worse.

 

[sedna17]

I like the suggestions for making the Greenland passage viable for a short period of time. The best way to do this (it seems to me) would be to keep the ocean between Iceland and Greenland so that you have to invest a lot of culture (i.e. great boating sagas)in Iceland. Then, instead of removing all the ice, or turning ocean to coast, just remove one square of ice and turn one of the Greenland ice squares into something you can build a city on (i.e. tundra). See the squares marked in red in the attached image.

This forces you to build (the historically accurate) Greenland colony through which you could colonize the new world. Ideally the borders of N. America would be changed so that the Greenland colony itself doesn't meet the first UHV. After some short period of time the ice would close up again, trapping whatever you have in Greenland and subjecting them to native attacks.

I think the Incan mountain still disappears in the latest version (and also a swamp in New Orleans?), so modifying the map terrain is obviously still acceptable.

Other civs could do this to get to the new world, but it requires a big investment (and the AI would never do it, since nobody else is interested in colonizing Iceland). There might be a problem with the Mayans though -- they could send a boat to colonize the Greenland square and then they might be able to see a European boat or something and make early contact that way. Again, the AI wouldn't do this, so I'm not sure it's a big problem.

As an interesting aside. In my game where I got across the hard way, I didn't give the Aztecs the plague or get conquerors when I found them. Perhaps due to lack of some necessary tech? I didn't have many of the techs on the way to Optics.

 

[kbk]

Very crafty.

As far as not getting conquerers, it seems like you have to give the Amerindians a few turns after they spawn or you won't get the event. Usually after 1300, you can get it.

 

[blizzrd]

As an interesting aside. In my game where I got across the hard way, I didn't give the Aztecs the plague or get conquerors when I found them. Perhaps due to lack of some necessary tech? I didn't have many of the techs on the way to Optics.

There is a mandatory length of time (I think it is 6-8 turns) between when a native American civ (Aztec, Maya, Inca) spawns and when other civs first make contact where the conqueror event will not trigger.

For the Aztecs, I think you have to wait until 1270 to make contact. If you make contact prior to this, you have to first lose contact and then on re-contacting that civ you may trigger the conqueror event.

 

[scu98rkr]

"The best way to do this (it seems to me) would be to keep the ocean between Iceland and Greenland so that you have to invest a lot of culture (i.e. great boating sagas)in Iceland. Then, instead of removing all the ice, or turning ocean to coast, just remove one square of ice and turn one of the Greenland ice squares into something you can build a city on (i.e. tundra). See the squares marked in red in the attached image."

Sounds good too me I wonder what Rhye thinks ?

 

[Tboy]

Sounds good - the Greenland colony seems the best idea, requires one expansion of borders to allow access to America.

 

[Lord Neil]

But there is still the problem with open borders...

 

[onedreamer]

It is possible to reach and colonize the new world from the 600 AD start with galleys, without cheating or popping any techs from huts.

Depends on your definition of cheating. Let's say your method was at least not fair game.