The terrible Danes

[smoogs]

Has anyone seen the Danes do decently in an unmodified game? I personally like playing the Danes, but when I am not using them they don't ever seem to do anything at all. The most I've ever seen them do is take Sweden. Normally, all they seem to do is turtle and let their royal knights accumulate.

[jelirus]

I've seen the danes take Sweden, Norway, then branch out into the East, gaining quite a bit of territory there.

[Gith]

I once had a decent campaign going (back in MTW 1.0) as the Danes. For me, I took Sweden and Norway, then branched to the west, challenging the normandy coast area, as those areas have significant income.

The danes do have a nice advantage with denmark being a choke point, and in VI even more so as the new units can be built early and fairly easily.

[nizar]

most of the campaigns i play, the danes are stuck in scandinavia and making lots of prince and princesses. Very useful for marrying your heirs, but useless as allies.

[Marquis of Roland]

Only thing I ever see the Danes do when I'm English:

I bribe Sweden and Norway, Danish king sees about 3 woodsmen in Sweden next year and attacks with his all-royal knight army, chase my woodsmen into that wooden shack. Next year I send a couple billmen to collect some horsemeat for the Welcome scandinavians to the English Empire feast featuring the Danish king's head in a cornucopia. Then I send my emissary to bribe the REBEL danes and the pope doesn't even notice they're gone hahahahaha http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

[mikebailey2000]

LOL. I love the horsemeat feast. Seriously. I have NEVER seen the Danes do ANYTHING except when I play them.

[Blodrast]

seldom, but it does happen. They are usually kinda shy, but in one of my games they got scandinavia, 2-3 northern russia, lithuania & livonia, and a couple of HRE provinces...

[Zortanius]

I think it depends on 3 things,

How quickly - or if they can take the nearest german province - I forget its name but its the one just below denmark.

How devastating the Franco-German war is to each other - heirs getting killed, civil war, etc, etc.

How much of an interest the Human controlled faction takes in Scandinavia and Northeastern Russia.

They have a stupid habit of accumulating RK heirs which are pointless.

They do decently on occasion in High and Late esp. in GA mode.

Cheers

[Papewaio]

Try playing the Italians and ally with France and the Danes... attack HRE and the Danes will push down. Also if a faction takes Sweden the Danes tend to get aggresive... so you could always take it, underman it and have the Danes invade... treat them like your own little bonsai tree that needs tender loving care.

[Magraev]

I've often modded the game to let the danes start with sweden. This increases the chances that they try to expand. Actually a prospering Denmark can be very annoying since they often put longboats in every seazone and control the seas.

[Ironside]

Citera[/b] (Magraev @ Juni 29 2004,01:11)]I've often modded the game to let the danes start with sweden. This increases the chances that they try to expand. Actually a prospering Denmark can be very annoying since they often put longboats in every seazone and control the seas.
I've modded Scandinavia to give slightly more resources, and it seems to be enough to get the Danes to thrive sometimes.

They do have a tedency to get quite strong if it happens, or what do you think of vikings from England winning wars in Spain? Or vikings in Venice?

And you're right Magraev, they are often big on the navy.

[ah_dut]

i like, vikings, they've colonised the world http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif Also, they never get anywhere without a human there

[Blodrast]

well, i guess overall they're pretty consistent with their naval expansionist profile (at least that's what i remember their profile was)...as most of the other factions are.
It's really too bad the AI sucks big time on the strategic map...

[Ulair]

My experience of the Danes matches the Marquis's. If there are rebels in Sweden the Danes sit there all game collecting a pretty darn good stack of RKs and doing nothing with it, nor indeed building any ships. Soon as I (when playing England) take Sweden, the Danes wake up and attack http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif . Go figure.

And hey, vikings backed by RKs hurt...

[ROCKHAMMER]

I have never seen them do anything unless I control them. They are very good at making Princes and Princesses though. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

[HARALD THE RUTHELESS!]

are you guys serious? In my egyptian/high game my allies the the danes have a massive baltic empire, invaded portugal and leon with five stacks of vikings and got longboats in about every sea lane. I'm seriously starting to reconsider that alliance... or possibly, not.

[rasoforos]

I ve seen the Danes become a dominant empire as well. Its all a matter of statistics, if you play the game many times you ll see just about everything due to random factors. From my experience there isnt a single faction that cannot become great , i ve even seen the burgundians carve an empire out of almost 10 provinces http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[IrishMike]

The Danes only seem to good in my games after the Mongels come into the game, but only becaues most factions break into civil war.

[pyhhricvictory]

My last game as the Byzantines saw the Danes take Sweden and Norway, all of the British Isles and attack Portugal before turning on the Russians and taking the Baltic along with Kiev and Lithuania and Livonia. It is kind of scary seeing white next to you when you aren't ready for them. Most times, they sit in Scandanavia, have babies and die off after the HRE or England take Denmark.

[Tyr, Binder of Fenrir]

As with most of the other posters on this thread,the Danes usually rot in Denmark during my campaigns. The few exceptions to this rule, are when the danes are wiped out, and reemerge with a large, high tech army. I see this with all of the smaller factions, and I believe the reason for this is that the royal heir units bankrupt them into oblivion before they can expand enough to support them.

To offset this, I have modded my game to give the Danes, Aragonese, and People of Novgorod better developed provinces and more starting florins, and now I regularly see one or all of these factions carve out a respectable kingdom.

For anyone wanting to see these factions do something other than sit around waiting to die, you may want to give modding a try.

[Balin son of Fundin]

In a game i played a few weeks ago the Danes were actually quite powerful... They had Denmark, Sweden etc. but they also too all of the British Isles, some of France, Germany and also Aragon. But then they broke their alliance with me so i had to kill them, but thats the only time i have really seen them agressive.