The Vikings

[mfberg]

The viking economy relies on raiding rich towns. (At least until you get converted.) Check all the provinces rebel and otherwise for the precious abbey and raid those. Make another raid the next turn, never stay for a seige you can stay out of the area for awhile until it builds new buildings, then raid again. Do not leave troops behind to keep lands until you have built a full army, and are making a little money from trade.

Economic Goals: Raids, then trade, then farms
If you like to grow things take lands that already have some farms on them.

mfberg

[Throb]

Poised, I too have heard of that mushroom legend and Beserkers, but the version I have read of was of Bezerkers drinking the Urine Of Raindeer, who in turn had been eating "Fly Agaric" mushrooms, the big red ones with white spots. Also used in medieval times to keep flies away from meat, simply chop the mushroom up and place in a bowl of milk, the flies are attracted to that more readily than any meat and it kills them.

Played as Saxon and those Vikings turned up on my shores, they did not have a big army, however they were the feared Bezerkers and I watched in horror as they tore my army to pieces. Curse those foul demons from across the icy sea.

[ShadowMagnet]

That'a quite weird. I rarely ever sack the provinces completely. Somehow I managed to develop trade well enough to keep my income at ~6000 a year for at least a decade and having kept the lands I invaded (Pictish and Saxon) I dont think i will run out of money anytime soon. The year is 952 and I have about 85000 florins and money is still flowing in. All it takes is beefing up my armies in the next 10 or 20 years and simply flooding England with my men. Battles are total yawners. Saxons lost 2.200 men recently trying to take east saexe back and my men never even broke into a sweat.

[British Mutt + Viking]

Vikings are the easiest lot in the whole game of MTW and MTW:VI, in my humble opinion. Your "base" is completely safe and leaving a bunch of peasants will guarantee your security totally, allowing you to operate with your full military might at any one time. You can trade your way to wealth, and the original map was such a yawn that I have spent weeks editting the start-pos file to make it more interesting. The non-Vikings peoples are so weak that I even editted the bloody unit file just to make things even remotely fair for the British units. I have modified unit costs (Vikings cost about 3 times as much as their "counter-parts" in Angleterre) and added a whole lot of carefully researched infrastructure to the British lands. The map is well balanced and gives me the option to do just about anything I desire, from being a Trade-Monopoly to a bloody war-lord looking for the main chance.
If one really wants some action on the original map, the Vikings are not the faction to play.

[CountMRVHS]

@British Mutt+Viking-

What sort of changes did you make on the map, other than increasing the cost of Viking units? I've always tried to mod things the opposite way -- to make the Vikings more of a force to be reckoned with while I played one of the Anglo-Saxon or Celtic factions. But it would be interesting to make it more difficult for the human player who wants to play the Vikings...

[sbroadbent]

The Vikings are generally very easy when playing the expansion. Their main advantage is not needing a port to move troops. In addition, your home provinces are safe from any raiding force.

My tactics mostly consisted of developing a raiding party (initial troops of around 800+ and very first game I had hired some mercs), and started raiding lightly defended provinces (preferably provinces with abbeys). Once conquered, I would sack all buildings and move to another province. I'd try to keep note of where the main military forces were, and not attack a province that was bordering it. Otherwise even if you try to assault the castle, if a nearby force moved in, you have to deal with them, and then castle assault on the following turn.

Once I started to set a number of provinces back technologically, and I had a nice warchest (about 100K Florins) I started to look for places with strategic advantages. The Isles of Domon and Manau are excellent for this. They can only be attacked by forces when your enemies have enough ships in the water, and if you have no ships in either of the two sea zones. With your frequent raiding, those likely be very rare (any ports or ship builders will usually be obliterated if you take it, but one faction did manage to get ships, which was very short lived). Once you get a watch tower and a pagan shrine they will very quickly become loyal. Add in a brothel, and it doesn't take very long.

The next place I look to is Ireland. This is a 5 province island and thus with sufficient troops, can be conquered very easily and is fairly safe. Periodically you should raid every province of Ireland to ensure that they are completly setback technologically, and when you finally return to settle on a permanent basis, they will be easy pickings.

From there I start at and establish a foothold at either Cerniu or Orcades, and sweep through England. This gives you a foothold which is easily defendable.

In any case, it's best to revisit on a regular basis many provinces, as the factions will continue to rebuild, particularly that of the Saxons. I find I frequently get the message saying the Saxons had the highest income, and strongest military power. It seems the Saxons tend to overpower the Mercians. Sometimes it's the Mercians though. That makes sense because the southern portion should be able to support greater troops (and generate more wealth).

I was just involved in a battle with the Mercians when I went in outnumbered by 5-1 about 540vs2500. I came out of the battle with a 10:1 kill:loses ratio. On the other hand my forces were led by a 8 star general and the lowest Valour unit was 5. My opponents on the other hand were mostly No Valour peasants ;)

[Loucipher]

Just a little hindsight from my recently started Viking campaign:
When fighting battles as a Viking forces one thing is immediately visible - the fierceness of the Viking warriors. In battle they qive no quarter unless they are down to a handful of men. They often fight severely outnumbered - at least in my campaign - and yet emerge victorious. In one battle a single underpowered unit of Viking Carls (counting 42, Valour 2) stopped no less than 100 Spearmen and 200 Peasants (all Valour 1) dead. Literally dead. First off, Carls charged the Spearmen, killing 4 and losing one on impact. Then, they got charged from both sides by the peasantry, losing further 3. Bloodied but unbent (as far as I could see, their morale never fell below 'uncertain'), they continued to cut a bloodied path right across the hapless enemy... which resulted in a rightmost peasant unit breaking and fleeing. The other units followed shortly thereafter, close-chased by the (literally) bloodthirsty Norsemen.
My campaign (I have reached year 800 as of now) has started with raiding 3 rebel provinces in southeastern England (East Engle, East Seaxe and Cantware), which alone yielded 8k florins. I am now trying to build up some facilities there, to get into the thick among Mercians, Saxons and Northumbrians. Right now I am quelling rebellions, which are inevitable at first, until pagan shrine gets built and lasts a few years.

[Asmodai]

Dont overestimate them bro. Vikings are humans, not devils from nine hells. They die easily from pictish crossbows. Picts also have berserkers(they are not humans definitely, hmm or maybe someone invented speed in dark ages)
Ive played mercians, and my Militia Sergeant although cannot stand them for long, cause good damage to viking armoured units. Also, Irish will be you worst nightmare. Mobs of fast infantry with missiles very good against all that armoured meat.
Also, good cavalry can break viking units.

Also, from start, they have good army, and poor eco, so they must raid and pillage, to get money.
Select one fraction, and pillage one of their border province(with Abbey preferably, and head immediately to their main province(with fort and some troop producing building) and raze all to. Then retreat to your land, regroup and hit another fraction. First, neutralise Picts and Irish. Other fractions will be at the mercy of your buthchers

[John_Longarrow]

As the Vikings, a big no-no is to allow your homelands to be lightly garrisoned while you don't have assassins there. If ANYONE gets a couple diplomats to your homelands, they can bribe your folks there.

As I've done that a few times to take out the Vikings, I know its a nasty trick that works wonders.

[Caerfanan]

As the Vikings, a big no-no is to allow your homelands to be lightly garrisoned while you don't have assassins there. If ANYONE gets a couple diplomats to your homelands, they can bribe your folks there.

As I've done that a few times to take out the Vikings, I know its a nasty trick that works wonders.

That's right, but a simple parry is to keep heirs in your homeland provinces. they cannot be bribed!

[cori]

That's right, but a simple parry is to keep heirs in your homeland provinces. they cannot be bribed!

just delete ports after completing shipbuilder and it's it-no agents can get there...

[Ameretat]

The vikings are just too easy in the campaign - especially if you take Ireland early. Just move your fleet north and then west. Keep a ship off the norwegian coast and one in the north sea, then create a line to Ireland. You can raid the northernmost pictish provinces on turn two and sack them without resistance. You can then raid another two provinces on turn 3 and invade Ireland on turn 4 - assaulting both their provinces at the same time seems easier to me than taking them one after the other. After that, just wait for the conquered Irish to settle down a bit, build towers and border forts and some peasants to keep the locals quite, and secure the rest of Ireland and Manau. After that, once you have built forest clearances / basic farms in your Irish provinces, your cashflow problems should be over. Especially since you have only attacked the picts and scots so far, so everyone else are potential trading partners and even the picts and scots might still agree to a ceasefire or even alliance. Once you have your trade routes set up, it becomes ridiculously easy to just level your rivals one by one - even teaming up with other factions on your current victim. Which makes the viking campaign make a touch too easy, especially considering their unit roster. Best units + viking navy + best potentials for a very large income = Danelaw.

[oz_wwjd]

Weak is the word,they keep bringing peasants,spearmen and armoured spearmen against me,with the occasinal Celtic warrior units thrown in,due to the fact that I raided and pillaged everything and paralysed there troop production.Meantime I'm massproducing Hiscarles and Joms vikings and am wiping the floor with them,even huge rebellions don't bother me,just more training for my troops.