Viking Historical Victory Guide

[1SDANi]

Ireland, not Iceland. Empty Ocean tiles above Ireland take eons to convert to your culture, but Icelandic Whale gets Viking culture on that Ocean tile with the first cultural expansion (takes 1 turn with 100% culture). Polynesian UP makes them immune from Oceans resisting your culture penalties. And yes any civ's coast only ship can move on Ocean tile claimed by your culture.

I think even unmodded Civ4 allows you to send Galleys through ocean tiles you control culturally

Never knew. Wow. Awesome!

 

[HighFunctioningAlcoholic]

Just finished this using the 3000 BC start
Assuming Rome has fallen and settled France, the UHV becomes pretty easy. Start with the Oslo, Kalmar, Denmark start mentioned previously; eventually cut off England by settling Scotland. Use all your troops to move through France, destroying all improvements and razing all cities (they spawn to France anyway). Next move through Italy and Greece, this time settling the cities while still razing the improvements. I got lucky and also conquered independent Constantinople, but this wasn't essential.

By this time I already had 2000 gold from pillaging and it was just a matter of bulbing compass in time to send my settlers from northern Scotland to Iceland and Nova Scotia (important to time this right). After arrowing toward gunpowder and subsequently running 100% gold and switching to Mercenaries, I ran through France (again), finishing in turn 1190.

 

[1SDANi]

Alternative method:

Beeline Compass from the start. conquer England's two south cities and have their north capitulate. settle 1S of Stockholm for capital, 1N of cow, 1N of Deer, and the northmost core city behind the Mountain pass. Get the 3000 Gold by spamming Longships in all your cities until you get Galeasses, which you continue to spam. DO NOT GO TO WAR WITH THE OWNER OF ROME. In my game France took Rome and was able to spam ships way faster than I could.

 

[Enyavar]

Just finished a run of the Vikings in DoC v1.16 (development version of three weeks ago; I'm going to update on that).

My Monarch/Normal speed/3000 BC start proved to be a pretty tough run for the "settling of America" goal. Usually, I don't jump before I can run before I can walk, but this time it was the other way around. The infrastructure of my core region was pretty much on the backburner, while my focus was needed on the conquest. Which is pretty accurate, historically, I guess. By the way, Christianity spread almost immediately to me, so I could take full advantage of monasteries and missionaries.
So, I settled the northernmost point of Ireland, focused on culture buildings, had a settler and workers ready once the passage to Iceland was free, then settled Iceland with a missionary, so that passage was possible via the whale tile. And just a bit early, I settled in Vinland in 1050 AD.

For the "control European core", I concentrated on sacking Lutetia, Burdigala and Tarraco asap, but with the intention of NOT holding onto these places. Instead, I used them to stock up on settlers and workers, while my troops went further south and conquered Milano and Rome just as Spain and France emerged. I settled Sicily with a new city, as well. I just needed to hold Italy (great complimentary resources for the Norse, too!), and it seems that Italy is still a conditional spawn, because they don't even emerged in my game by 1500.

For the "pillage 3000 gold" goal I maxed out on my core, because it meant to get additional conquests. Thanks to the great "sacking" option, I had already looted my way through Gallia and Italy - now I went for the illyrian coast, then Athens and Sparta. With Byzance not existing in my game, the big player in the Near East was Arabia, from whom I sacked Sur, including the Great Lighthouse, which put me above the threshold. This goal was finished in 1040 already, so I wrapped up the UHV at the earliest possible date.

Another benefit of holding Italy: My city of Kalmar finished Notre Dame in 1050, too.

Takeaway message: The Settle-America-puzzle needs to be addressed immediately and was a good challenge of timing, especially combined with the conquest goal and the pillaging goal, which all need to be balanced with the domestic development of Scandinavia. That was both challenging and FUN. The sum that the Vikings need to gather could be increased (5000 gold?) but that would require players to be more aggressive even after the spawn of the other christian nations. Also, I was lucky with my unconquered independent cities. Just sacking Rome got me 500 gold (just the additional "sacking" sum that was not included in the Conquest...!).

Also, @1SDAN, what was your diff level? I somehow doubt that I could have beaten the America deadline with beelining Compass, on Monarch, but then I also didn't try such a thing. I guess it could be possible to run on 100% science, when you run a deficit and balance it with the pillaging gold. I was a bit more conservative in the spending, and had an average of 40-60% science, and still having a deficit of around -30 or -50 per turn.

 

[1SDANi]

Regent/Normal/600 AD. I brought a worker with my initial settler to chop out a Pagan Temple, though I can imagine a player getting a worker to iceland asap to 3 turn chop 2 forests and then finish both chops upon settling there.

 

[jorissimo]

I was doing some initial exploration of possible Viking strategies using World Builder when I saw this:

I seems like an extra piece of sea ice was added to Greenland. Or does it disappear after a certain date? If this is new, then it is now necessary to build a city or a fortress on the southern tip of Greenland in order to pass through it.

 

[merijn_v1]

It will be removed in 700 AD. (Only if the human player is the Vikings)

 

[mateyson]

Just finished a run of the Vikings in DoC v1.16 (development version of three weeks ago; I'm going to update on that).

My Monarch/Normal speed/3000 BC start proved to be a pretty tough run for the "settling of America" goal. Usually, I don't jump before I can run before I can walk, but this time it was the other way around. The infrastructure of my core region was pretty much on the backburner, while my focus was needed on the conquest. Which is pretty accurate, historically, I guess. By the way, Christianity spread almost immediately to me, so I could take full advantage of monasteries and missionaries.
So, I settled the northernmost point of Ireland, focused on culture buildings, had a settler and workers ready once the passage to Iceland was free, then settled Iceland with a missionary, so that passage was possible via the whale tile. And just a bit early, I settled in Vinland in 1050 AD.

For the "control European core", I concentrated on sacking Lutetia, Burdigala and Tarraco asap, but with the intention of NOT holding onto these places. Instead, I used them to stock up on settlers and workers, while my troops went further south and conquered Milano and Rome just as Spain and France emerged. I settled Sicily with a new city, as well. I just needed to hold Italy (great complimentary resources for the Norse, too!), and it seems that Italy is still a conditional spawn, because they don't even emerged in my game by 1500.

For the "pillage 3000 gold" goal I maxed out on my core, because it meant to get additional conquests. Thanks to the great "sacking" option, I had already looted my way through Gallia and Italy - now I went for the illyrian coast, then Athens and Sparta. With Byzance not existing in my game, the big player in the Near East was Arabia, from whom I sacked Sur, including the Great Lighthouse, which put me above the threshold. This goal was finished in 1040 already, so I wrapped up the UHV at the earliest possible date.

Another benefit of holding Italy: My city of Kalmar finished Notre Dame in 1050, too.

Takeaway message: The Settle-America-puzzle needs to be addressed immediately and was a good challenge of timing, especially combined with the conquest goal and the pillaging goal, which all need to be balanced with the domestic development of Scandinavia. That was both challenging and FUN. The sum that the Vikings need to gather could be increased (5000 gold?) but that would require players to be more aggressive even after the spawn of the other christian nations. Also, I was lucky with my unconquered independent cities. Just sacking Rome got me 500 gold (just the additional "sacking" sum that was not included in the Conquest...!).

Also, @1SDAN, what was your diff level? I somehow doubt that I could have beaten the America deadline with beelining Compass, on Monarch, but then I also didn't try such a thing. I guess it could be possible to run on 100% science, when you run a deficit and balance it with the pillaging gold. I was a bit more conservative in the spending, and had an average of 40-60% science, and still having a deficit of around -30 or -50 per turn.

It is easy only in 3000BC start. Otherwise it would be interesting to have 30-40 roubles (in sum) for conquest of Bourdeaux in 600AD.