anyone won as the vikings yet?

[solypsist]

on v 2.01, no mods, no cheating, no codes.

how'd you do it?

[motorhead]

- first 5-10 years pillage and burn to fund your economy
- with cash from P&B, build up trade network and/or hold and keep a few of the more viable provinces and build them up.
- build mostly thralls in the beginning just to garrison the provs you want to hold. Don't build expensive viking land units until you've got positive cash flow. Your economy starts in the red, don't make it any worse.

[Nowake]

rely on your king and heirs; accept battle against all odds, you'll win anyway; sack whatever you can, build a fleet.

slowly occupy the north of Britain.

[Magraev]

Colonize small islands asap. Raid and pillage the main isle and Ireland constantly - several places at once with small armies. I usually single out mercia and/or the saxons since they'll grow very strong if you don't. Burn everything in all provinces for great cash gains. Let noone but you have ships in the water. Your king and heirs are your main battleforce so don't squander them. You want the enemy to build large crap armies so they'll go broke without elite troops.

The beauty is, that you can always retreat to the islands and pull the ships away and start trade again without a peace-treaty.

I'd do this for maybe 15-20 years, then capture Ireland and then after another raiding break go for the biggest opponent first on the mainland.

Only hordes of saxon housecarles are a real threat, so make sure that does not happen and you're set.

good luck. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

[Cazbol]

First, note that the main money from raiding comes from monestaries. A province with a monestary will give you good money while a province without it will give you peanuts. Monestaries get destroyed once you take a province and since they hardly ever get rebuilt you only get one good raid on each province.

There are really two main easy approaches.

1. Start by taking the rebel provinces in southeast England. You'll get good money for raiding them, but only once, so therefore you might as well keep the provinces. Then take the Saxon lands, starting with their most developed provinces, and work your way north from there, possibly combining it with approach nr. 2. The rich provinces of southern England will soon balance your budget.

2. Start by taking Ireland. Get the raiding money and keep the rich lands which will finance your future conquests.

Take the poor provinces of the north last but keep and eye out for poorly defended provinces with monestaries and raid them at your leisure.

Landsmen and carls will get you far in the beginning and require very little teching up. Forget about balanced armies. The vikings don't need them.

Don't allow any ships except your own. If you see an AI province building ships, raid it.

[katank]

yep. target abbeys like crazy. at 2k a pop, they are invaluable.

pump out those carls and landsmenn in approximately a 2:1 ratio.

the carls can kill most low tech units and the landsmenn can take out armor.

you king and prince's huscarle units can chew up really tough ones and just act as reserves.

you'll get tons of attcker virtues and just attack at your heart's content and you'll do very well.

I like to go through Lindissi to Mercia also. Mercia is very strong later but in earl, their fyrdmen are no match for carls, landsmenn or huscarles.

I like to visit the saxons too.

if you want to go the norther route, go hit the picts as it's not too hard to isolate their king and ransom him once or twice which can help your cash.

as the Vikings, once you get past the economy problem, you are set.

[Kristaps]

Yup, just pillage for the first few decades: destroying any abbey that's there or pops up later. My approach would be to conquer Ireland first (while doing so you can still trade with Brits: just withdrawing all fleets from their coast, after the abbeys are gone, for a turn and returning to gain truce by default). After Ireland - it would be the Picts to fall...

At the beginning, I just rely on my princes and berserkers: i.e., berserkers would actually be the only units produced (not counting for viking raider cavalry which is invaluable to deal with those pesky archers) - I don't bother with carles and/or landsmen. It's fun to use swarms of valor 5-6 berserkers with +3 weapon and armor with a 9 star general ;) Meanwhile, back home, I build up all the requirements for Joms vikings ;)

I have not seen this mentioned before: viking's cannot build valor upgrades for cavalry in Scandinavia. They can do so in the islands though. My solution: Take the island of Man ASAP: it has iron deposits and vikings can pump out valor 3 viking raiders from there in no time.

Also, don't neglect the power of high-valor spies to tame your subordinates and territories ;)

[Ironside]

Citera[/b] ]
I have not seen this mentioned before: viking's cannot build valor upgrades for cavalry in Scandinavia. They can do so in the islands though. My solution: Take the island of Man ASAP: it has iron deposits and vikings can pump out valor 3 viking raiders from there in no time.



You'll need to build forest clearing to get better cav.

[katank]

it's not worth it in scandanavia though as it doesn't pay off in a longer time.

rather build towards joms in your homelands while other places go for cav (ie. richer conquered lands).

[ah_dut]

as said before raid and sack and then build up. However, i like sending in my king on his own, he PWNS all http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[katank]

it's kinda cheap to exploit jedi powers of your king but what work works, right?

his unit is autoreplenishing too. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[PseRamesses]

The Abbey road tour 2004.

Lothene, Dere, East Engle, Cantware, Cerniu, Defnas, Laigin, Defet, Clwyd, Reget, Sci, Cait, Connacht, Munster, Domon, Manau, Orcades and Brega.

It´s only rock´n´roll

[Apocalyp$e]

I found the vikings the easiest faction to win with - those huscarles are undefeatable. The kings unit automatically recovers lost men every turn, so I could constantly attack just using him alone, and he would defeat entire armies, and I wouldn't have to pay for a single lost man.

[The Wizard]

dude, I find it hard to lose with the vikings. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Oleander Ardens]

This http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif Jedi powers of the VI King. I just eliminated the Picts and what do the Vikings? Yes their 7* King invades me with his V8 Husacerl bunch. 4 Highlander V1 - V2 and one light pictish Cav are on my side with a 4* star general. The VI King has all sorts of virtues and is has +10 health...

Well I place my Highlanders on the steepest hill which was very steep indeed and tire the heck out of the husacerls with my cav. After more then twenty minutes of playing the exhausting game the King climed the hill. His unit must have been completly exhausted once my Highlander charged them from three sides with the Cav closing the ring from behind. After a long merciless butcher the Highlander in the front break but over the half of the Husacerls is down. My looses are high, my general units charges downwards..

Huge slugfest, the Husacerls go slowly down 15, 10, 5, 3 until only thier King and some 70 of mine brave warriors are there; Needless to say that he routed all my men http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif


And the nest year the whole unit was once again comlete. What would I have give for 4 Kerns http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ June 18 2004,14:49)]dude, I find it hard to lose with the vikings. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
In battle, yes. But I always go bankrupt after half a century or so.

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ June 18 2004,07:55)]The Abbey road tour 2004.

Lothene, Dere, East Engle, Cantware, Cerniu, Defnas, Laigin, Defet, Clwyd, Reget, Sci, Cait, Connacht, Munster, Domon, Manau, Orcades and Brega.

It´s only rock´n´roll
I guess u know the connotations of that, by the way, Ludens is right, you're usually bankrupt after a few years.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (ah_dut @ June 18 2004,11:27)]

Quote[/b] ]I guess u know the connotations of that

??? I know what I meant. What do you mean?


Quote[/b] ]you're usually bankrupt after a few years.

Then you´re just not playing them properly. I´ve never gone bankrupt with the vikings. Just invade, invade and invade. When you get your first heir - give him a small force and... invade, invade, invade. Same with third heir. Hit the province according to my "tour-programme" and money isn´t a prob no more. Lucky ducky

[Lord TangMo]

Yeah it is hard to manage the viking budget but I start w/ raiding the south for some money to sattle down and then try to inseart viking in pics land as soon as chance allow. Then the scott. Leave the NTB as a buffer state so no war w/ the rest but only trading. There is a strategic advantage to start from the north - no big guys here, small front to keep w/ only NTB as a potential enermy. Then move further to ireland when they join the party on the main land. After having ireland, built up the army w/ weapon and armour upgrade while waiting for those in the south start killing each other. Wait and accumulate money from the trade. Then mob up when ready.

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (PseRamesses @ June 18 2004,20:38)]


Quote[/b] ]I guess u know the connotations of that

??? I know what I meant. What do you mean?
Abbey road is a very famous recording studio, (you should know that) and i've recorded there for LOTR http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif honest

[The Wizard]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ June 18 2004,17:15)]
Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ June 18 2004,14:49)]dude, I find it hard to lose with the vikings. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
In battle, yes. But I always go bankrupt after half a century or so.
Well, I have 100,000 florins and counting; I just raid raid raid etc... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

So I'm serious about what I said. The vikings are extremely hard to lose with to me... I raid so much that I'm now very close to jomsvikings, and I've annihalated the Saxons, Irish, Mercians and Northhumbrians by raiding alone..



~Wiz

[katank]

really? how did you get so much cash?

I frequently have problems due to the AI not really rebuilding their abbeys and the rest is usually small pickings

[Mightypeon]

Hmm, I charged Ulster at turn 2.
I then pumped some Cav (Cav owns Irish) and killed the little harploving bunch. While my king was killing some Irish my Heir was busy burning Abbeys.
Note that Rebellions can also help you to found the war.
The Viking King can handle most rebellions on his own.
I than build up Ireland and Nordaland and Juetland (they werent that unprofitable). During this I completely raided the Northumbirans.
Poor Guys, they had not a single building left.
I than made autotruce and cashed the north in.
I now have the starting lands, Scotland and Ireland while Mercia and Saxony are kicking the crap out of each other.
Oh, another good thing about taking out the Irish early is that you eliminate the only later see power.
Other faction build ships very rarely and this kerns can actually hurt your Viks.

[Satyr]

Soly, if you take the islands and Ireland first you can garrison them with just peasants. At only 12 upkeep they are the backbone of your 'keep the population happy' troops. After that, just start conquering in the north and work your way south leaving peasant levies behind. As you will get low on cash if you stop raiding, don't. Always have a stack made up of Huscarles and Cav (built in Manua with weapon and armor upgrades) that you use to raid and another couple of stacks for conquering. You are aiming to claim your 100% victory between 850 and 875. If it takes you longer than that you are doing something wrong.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (ah_dut @ June 19 2004,17:21)]Abbey road is a very famous recording studio, (you should know that) and i've recorded there for LOTR http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif honest
Yup, that was my intention. Since Beatles came from England and we´re talking about raiding English abbeys. But I guess you already figured out my connotation.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (katank @ June 19 2004,18:52)]really? how did you get so much cash?

I frequently have problems due to the AI not really rebuilding their abbeys and the rest is usually small pickings
You should try my raiding strategy, se above, then money is not an object when playing the vikings. I´ve actually played the whole game through without taking any provinces at all (except Manau) just for the fun of it. Boy does thoose florins roll in, he he

[Bhruic]

I've never had money problems with them either. I don't use the same raiding style that others seem to go with. My objective is two-fold: gain me money, and harrass the most dangerous enemies. I usually focus on Mercia. I use my initial army to move from province to province, destroying/selling everything in my path. As I'm doing this, I'm constantly shipping in new troops from the homeland (mainly beserkers). Once I get "critical mass", I start holding on to provinces. The Mercian provinces are quite wealthy. Once I've got the men to hold them, I can easily afford to grow from there. And there's really no one that can stop me with my nice central location.

Bh

[The Wizard]

Quote[/b] (katank @ June 20 2004,00:52)]really? how did you get so much cash?

I frequently have problems due to the AI not really rebuilding their abbeys and the rest is usually small pickings
Well, generally by raiding a whole lot, but also some serious ransoming; I captured (or killed) so many princes, great generals and kings that I've destroyed the Irish, Northumbrians, Mercians and Saxons that way.

What I do is non-stop raiding with two or more armies, while one or two are sitting in my homelands or a more developed conquered province being replenished.

Viking armies are so powerful that very little can defeat them; the biggest threat I have as of yet run into was a huuuuuuuge Irish army attacking me, who with their strong charge and armor-piercing missiles brought my army to the brink of a rout (they were so damned tired). Result: 2000 Irish dead, 1500 captured, 450 Vikings dead (of the 900). Ouch. Other dangers are Celtic warriors which can become a real danger when you let them (had to learn this the hard way, I won in the end), Scottish higlanders (duh) and Pictish berserkers (double duh).

Hmm.. I feel like battles, so off to a game of Viking raiding it is http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif



~Wiz

[hoom]

Yeah, reading this thread got me started on a Vikings campaign http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

Vikings are pretty much unbeatable once you realise the extent of the power in a unit or two of huscarles & the amount of money made in raiding.
Capturing a few of the south eastern provinces off the rebels helps out with the long term funding too.

[The Sword of Cao Cao]

Whats the diff between raiding and regular invading?

[andrewt]

You have to raid intelligently with the Vikings. I usually try to do 2 things.

First, while abbeys give more money than any other building, attacking a built up province also gives you a lot of cash. Provinces with advanced bowyers, churches, royal palaces and upgrades also give a lot of cash. Raiding it also has the benefit of destroying a faction's tech. What I do is raid every faction every so often to destroy it's most technologically advanced provinces. Mercians, Saxons and Northumbrians are especially important since their Huscarles will be the only units that can give the Vikings problems.

Second, I don't focus on one faction only. I attack all the factions one by one. Attack a faction, make peace, attack another. The reason is that you have to leave a faction with enough money and a semblance of an economy for them to able to rebuild so you can a lot of money by razing them again.

I take out Manau early to make a third troop producing province and making it specialize in cavalry. I attack the rebel lands last because they don't rebuild as much. I usually attack them when I'm close to actually conquering provinces for keeps. The rebel lands at the southeast are rich so I conquer them first. The Saxon and Mercian lands are next since they are also rich.

[solypsist]

I'm giving it a shot tomorrow.
Thanks for the "strategery".

[motorhead]

Quote[/b] (The Sword of Cao Cao @ June 22 2004,21:53)]Whats the diff between raiding and regular invading?

- when any faction invades the prov of another faction of a different religion, the religious buildings are automatically destroyed (and money gained) even if enemy forces are besieged in the castle.
- only after a besieged castle falls are the rest of the buildings in a prov subject to being damaged/destroyed (when u get the popup box saying "x buildings damaged, y buildings destroyed. Florins gained: 123")
- vikings get the special ability to extract the full value of a building during this initial province looting
- if the vikings are converted to christianity, they lose their raiding bonus and only receive 1/2 the value of looted buildings - just like all the other factions.
- vikings can go on raiding "tours", invade->sack abbey for full value(2k)->move on. Or, they can assault the forts and extract even more cash thru damaged/destroyed buildings. So viking raids are twice as profitable as a normal faction.
- If a viking player manually destroys a building, they only get the normal 1/2 value.

NOTE: pre-VI, when you invaded (but had enemies in the castle), infrastructure was damaged/destroyed before the castle fell. devs changed this because they saw AI factions (and their constant invade/withdraw attacks) were crippling each other's infrastructure. this led to AI factions building mostly low-tech troops.

[Magraev]

Let us know how the new tactics are working for you please - hopefully you are now extracting danegeld from all of britain.

[The Wizard]

Don't forget that the Vikings are far more mobile - they don't need ports and can therefore province-jump.

I like to land in Northumbria, then fight my way down to Wessex and then go off and repeat the cycle http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[PaolinoPaperino]

I don't like too much VI,
and I never learned how to play it(the units I mean). But I've played the campaign, and just using the raid, and invading from the North(Pits and then Scots) I finished it quite fast(one weekend).
Thx to their great mobility u can allways use the cornering strategy, in this way u invade 3 lands next to each one, forcing the enmy to retreat from 2, but the third, having no friendly lands around, are destroyed
Great pillage, and great carnage..without losing a single man.

[hoom]

I don't like to raid too much, just for money & valouring up.
Generally I prefer to only raid rebels or my current enemies.
The Vikings are so powerful they don't need to win by backhanded means & I generally prefer to slaughter big armies than little ones http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif


Quote[/b] ]Whats the diff between raiding and regular invading?Raiding is where you leave next turn after pillaging rather than trying to permanently capture.


Quote[/b] ]...Northumbrians are especially important since their Huscarles...Northumbrians get Huscarles? Never seen that myself http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif

[Pellinor]

I've just been playing as Vikings to see what the fuss is about after reading this thread.

60% victory reached at 828 AD, though I'm staying for the full one. That's also quite deceptive: the only two British powers left are the Northumbrians and the Welsh: the Northumbrians have only half a dozen buildings in five provinces, and the Welsh are only there because Cornwall revolted and five stacks appeared. Most of Britain is now rebels - I think the provinces nominally mine but actually about to be retaken by revolts are counted in my 60%.

Oh, and I have 60,000 florins in the bank. I've not been under 50k for quite some time.

My aim is to conquer Britain in as few turns as possible, and to that end my strategy is:

- Keep control of the sea
- One army starts conquering Ireland, to give me a secure base to pump out lots of peasants for crowd control.
- Everyone else starts reducing Britain.
- Irish army moves over to Wales and starts conquering there as fast as the peasants can keep control.

By "reducing" I mean having large armies targeted at large armies. The aim is not to conquer, nor simply to raid for cash, but to destroy each kingdom's ability to make war and thereby interfere with the program of conquest. To that end I hunt down large stacks and destroy them, then move the army on to the next province next turn, leaving anarchy behind. Castles are only assaulted if they have meaty garrisons worth destroying. This incidentally generates a lot of cash along the way in the form of pillaged provinces - if you're chasing the Mercian king over his kingdom you get to do a lot of that in passing.

I have been faced by some powerful armies - so far as I can tell no-one has ever been at war except with me - but they all crumble eventually. The AI builds too many spears and archers to deal with a sword-based army like the Vikings.

[Ligur]

I just had a real fun evening with VI. I picked up Vikings yesterday from the bargain bin and decided to give a spin. I have terrible flu so I have to stay home anyway, and whats more fun then playing some MTW after a long break? A shame I read this thread before I started, because I knew what provinces to raid in the start off the bat and didn't have the joy of discovering it myself... Anyway, long post coming I fear.

I see it like this: You only have to have a tight leash on your chests of gold the first 20 - 30 years or so and you MUST aggressively raid abbies at first to survive this phase(otherwise I don't see how it would be possible to support any more military or upgrades, if it is someone please tell me how). Then you are all set and can start into a few different directions, both of which are ultimately very effective, fun and succesfull. The other is to churn units, raid and destroy, ultimately conquering everything before the AI can recover from the initial blows. At least I belive this is possible (read the post above mine).

Me, I've always been the trader, not the conqueror who bathes in blood, hunts wildboars with his bare hands and eats babies. My interest is rather more piqued by endless barrels of salted fish to sell, pelterware, fine linen, skilled crafstmanship and the steady, uninterrupted flow of silver from the merchant houses to my bottomless chests. Silver is the ultimate means to win a war in the very end.

I have to say I'm awed with the effectiveness and sheer killing power of Viking units as well as the quality of their generals (I'll have to try the Danes next), I'm rolling over everything the AI can throw at me at the moment with frightening ease, not counting some of the earliest pitched battles where I had to throw basic Carls against the AI at 1:1 or worse odds. Now I have Huscarls and I'm apparently invinsible. A good example was a bridge crossing where the AI actually had 2:1 odds against me, and I was able to punch through with ease and rout their army which featured nobles and a variety of medium level troops instead of peasant rabble.

I'm still in year 850 (24.000 gold, + 1000 a year with trade only) after an earlier 20+ year hiatus of just building traders, infrastructure and an unbeatable fleet, but I don't think the AI will have much say in this... I'm playing on normal though so next time I'll pick a more difficult setting.

My path this far:

I raided about 15 years with my original units and some Landsmenn reinforcements from Norway (I love these guys). By Odin you can loot awesome treasures from some of the better developed provinces With the war chest I gained from my initial raids and sprees of mayhem and slaugher involving violating nuns and dragging monks into the sea to drown with 20 pound stones tied to their robes, I was able to support my units and build peasants/thralls to permanently pacify the Isle of Man and four (South/East Seaxe, East Engle, Cantware) SE provinces previously owned by Rebels, two of which had nice trade potential and all of which are quite rich, comparing. At this point I was losing considerable sums of gold every year, but the programs was working as planned, the economy was set to turn around completely.

One can see what I'm looking for here, a minimal border with the AI factions without keeping in Scandinavia only and a small core of extremely productive economic and high technology military provinces.

Now was the time to use my war chests to build what I need. Indeed, the adventurous Vikings were not only warriors, but traders as well. I upgraded untill I had traders and basic farming everywhere viable and a fleet connecting everything to everything. Denmark (Jutland) concentrated on ship upgrades, Isle of Man (Manau) and Norway (Hordaland) on other unit upgrades. Archers were, in the spirit, overlooked completely, as they are not needed. Between this the Saxons tried to stab me in the back as they felt cornered but a few Huscarls and incredibly resilient Carls were able to stop the intial invasion. I made punitive expeditions through all the Saxon provinces, looted boatfulls of gold and they ended hostilities rather quickly out of their own volition. I then proceeded to raid the Pict coast, pulled out to force peace, raided all the Irish provinces and again forced peace.

Interesting note: after the intial everyone is allied to everyone (including me) phase the AI factions started some minor wars in the mid 820s continuing to the 850s where I'm now.

I'm not sure what I'll be up to next. After my extensive raids against the Picts, the Irish and the Saxons, and the inter-AI wars none of the factions are poised to fight fleets pouring high valour and well equipped Huscarls. I'm just afraid I can't support enough thralls to pacify dozens of provinces in a short timeframe, but I enjoy this approach more either way. Maybe I'll keep collecting money via trade untill my chests are deep enough to support a war of conquest targeted at the whole island, meanwhile keeping the AI factions in check by targeted raids at developed provinces. These net silver and stall the AI from developing anything scary.

Does anyone have experience playing the VI campaing as Vikings with hard or expert opposed to normal? If you botch the first 20-30 years I can see it might end up pretty difficult at some point.

[Pellinor]

My game above was on Expert. I completed it a few days ago - total victory in 40 years.

I think one major help was building an inn in Jutland. After a couple of years of being empty it suddenly gave me a dozen merc units. With a decent Viking general in charge of them they allowed me to start reducing England far earlier than I would have been able to if I'd been relying on home-made troops.

[Ligur]

Wow you sure took a fast route to victory. No mercy to the AI =P I'll start on expert after I finish this, I'm over the 60% mark but want to see how many years it will take to annihilate the Picts, who haven't been in a single war yet (not counting province grabs from rebels and my single round of coastal raids) and hence doing quite well.

I took the nice trader guy role in this game... But theres still plenty of slaughter all the time because the AI handles its factions so poorly and makes moronic invasion attempts which always end on a catastrophe, I REALLY regret starting on normal difficulty. Apart from the round or two of raids & forced peaces during the fist 20 - 30 years I haven't started a single war. I have advanced 80 or so years from my last post (930 AD now).

I could have advanced a LOT faster conquering provinces, but I have these wierd quirks like I had playing MTW... I never attack unless I'm attacked first (apart from this VI campaign in the start, otherwise you will go bankrupt)... Try to trade and be friends and offer free meals instead of just slaughtering everyone the instant they are weak.
And so on.

A mystery: for some odd reason (??) the AI factions collapsed on their own after the year 830 mark I had reached on my last post and have lost more then 50% of their provinces to mostly rebellions and a few moronic inter-AI wars (which lead to more rebellions because they've been unable to hold on to anything, so I had to grab the land myself).

I don't get it, maybe its the normal level. I used to play plain MTW on Expert and don't remember this happening much, but in my VI game, after my initial round of raids, the AI factions really just collapsed on their own. They are constantly halved by rebel upraisings. Odd.

This game is finished soon, and it was plenty fun even with the dismal AI showing, the new units were a total blast and the Vike raid ability is just awesome, I used to play a similar type of game in SP with the Brits on vanilla MTW and the Vikings just make it 300% more effective, so I'll start a new expert game ASAP.

Also, why the hell does the AI STILL build so many peasants?
Against my max armor/weapon upgrade, base valour 3, 9 star general Huscarles the normal kill ratio has been 1800 dead AI troops versus 30 dead Vike troops the last 20 or so years in most of the battles. Just finished a minor scrap where some 2700 Saxons tried to attack me but had to withdraw with with over 70% dead or captured whilst I lost only 15 men... Hmmm... I understand the Viking units are a bit overpowered vs the AI spears but this is still fishy... Some AI provinces even have upgrades for better troops IIRC. They just don't use them and instead build 1.000.000 peasants who always retreat if I send more then one unit of Huscarls against them so I get all their developed provinces for free. Blah. Again some kind of normal difficulty thing?

I'll start my next game as soon as I finish this, on expert, and see if I can play the "trader viking" path and do something nice.

All in all, a good addition to MTW. A lot of little improvements for someone who enjoyed the game a lot and I had fun playing VI the last few evenings.

[Ludens]

The AI is so fond of peasants because it seldom has the money to afford anything better. They don't build farms and merchants or a navy, so they are dependent on what they already have. And, when there are Vikings, existing infrastructure gets destroyed quickly.

There is a solution to this, and that is installing MedMod. Version 2.04 (Abbey Road) does not include any changes to units (with the exception of two small alterations for Irish skirmishers, because the skirmish option seemed to confuse the AI). Instead, it has a number minor changes to improve the chance the AI stands. Most importantly: the AI will build farms, will build merchants, will build a significant navy, and will be a lot richer. Result: less peasants and militia.

[Ligur]

Medmod? Can you play a normal Viking campaign after installing it, but just with the AI behaviour alterations? Sounds interesting.

The currently available Medmod version seems to be 3.14 and has tons of edits regarding everything.

I could try the 2.01 version since I definetly won't bother playing another vanilla VI campaign, expert or otherwise, but I still like the game. The AI shows up so poorly and the Viking raiding ability makes them invincible vs mere computer lead factions... If only you had multiplayer campaigns things would be quite different ;)

edit: found a MedMod 2.04 (VI, no units) file, that must be it. Cool. I hope it works with the 2.01 patch

[Pellinor]

I had a nice game as the Welsh a while ago. IIRC I managed to sink the Viking ships as they came into the Irish Sea (some amazing ramming by my coracle drivers), and they ran out of cash to build more, so the Vikings were completely out of the game fairly early on (although not before they walked right through Wales once).

That then left the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to tech up to housecarls, plus lots of decent troops coming out in Scotland. Fighting my way into England was really very tough, given the quality of the Welsh heavy infantry.

Getting the Vikings out was a bit of a fluke, but I wonder what it would be like to have the game with them modded out (you'd only need to remove their starting ships, really).

Pell.R.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Ligur @ July 04 2004,17:40)]found a MedMod 2.04 (VI, no units) file, that must be it. Cool. I hope it works with the 2.01 patch
MM2.04 would be it. It functions fine on my install of VI (v2.01). What is does is install 4 new campaigns next to the existing ones: (MM VI, MM early, MM high and MM late). It does also make lot of changes, but mostly these are small things (trade goods, goldmines, some alterations to construction tree). Only two units have been changed, for the benifit of the AI: bonnachts lose their missile weapon and kerns got their javelin supply reduced, and the starting locations have been altered a bit (the people of Novgorod now live in Kiev, but their name is unchanged).

There is only one bug for as far as I can see: if I try to view the GA points of the people of Novgorod, the game chrashes to desktop. Oh, and you do get funy revolts sometimes.