Vikings!

[0bsidi0n]

I just beat my first Vikings campaign (on a low setting ) and wanted to share a couple of things I found confusing at first for those giving it a try:

- You can research 'treasure locations' for a very rough idea of where you will find them. They are mobile units belonging to some random victim state. They are fairly hard to find, especially in a large territory, and if you accidentally kill that civ, the treasure disappears.

- To ransom a settlement back, capture it and the option immediately appears. This took me a while, as there are no diplomacy options, so I just razed everything for the first while. That lead to a couple lost treasures...

- You can only ransom a settlement once; if you attack it again, you cannot ransom any anywhere for the remainder of the game. I bring this up because the go-to function for units will plot paths through unguarded cities! I accidentally double-raided a city and lost an important gold source.

These probably seem blatantly obvious to a lot of people, but I thought I'd spare confusion for those players with my selective reasoning abilities

[Nugog]

Thanks for that - I've just got Warlords and am eager to try the pointy hats out.

[Fan2]

No, it's not obvious. It took me a few razes before I figured out the ransom thing as well. I never was able to find a treasure though.

I checked cities I was attacking to make sure it wasn't there so if it was, it's invisible. Finally I got frustrated and after researching one I turned on the map editor and found it. But it was barbarian!

I figured I had been losing them because they were all barbarian and figured it was virtually impossible for me to ever be in the right spot at the right time! But you say it does indeed spawn as one of the factions?

Does anyone know that if you research two in a row and haven't found the last one, if it disappears or is it possible to have more than one on the map at the same time?

[Akaoz]

Originally posted by nugog


Thanks for that - I've just got Warlords and am eager to try the pointy hats out.

Pet peeve:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking#Horned_helmets

[monkspider]

It is interesting they changed the Vikings capitol from Trondheim to it's old name of Nidaros.

BTW, horned helmets

[padillah]

Originally posted by Akaoz
Pet peeve:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking#Horned_helmets

I feel your pain.

As a Scots-Irish I'm still trying to live down the remark:

"Celts? They drink the blood of their dead."
RobinHood: Prince of Thieves


Tom P.

[Locutus]

The Vikings scenario is my favourite of the ones I've played. I'm still to try the Asian ones and Barbarians though...

Originally posted by monkspider
It is interesting they changed the Vikings capitol from Trondheim to it's old name of Nidaros.

I think you'll find that's hardly the only change in the city lists...

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Akaoz


Pet peeve:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking#Horned_helmets

[0bsidi0n]

Originally posted by Fan2
No, it's not obvious. It took me a few razes before I figured out the ransom thing as well. I never was able to find a treasure though.

I checked cities I was attacking to make sure it wasn't there so if it was, it's invisible. Finally I got frustrated and after researching one I turned on the map editor and found it. But it was barbarian!

I figured I had been losing them because they were all barbarian and figured it was virtually impossible for me to ever be in the right spot at the right time! But you say it does indeed spawn as one of the factions?

Does anyone know that if you research two in a row and haven't found the last one, if it disappears or is it possible to have more than one on the map at the same time?

Heh, having finished a couple more games, I think I'm a little wiser to this campaign. As far as treasure is concerned, it's a colourful idea, but not a good strategy. Treasure is more mobile than any unit you can have, and AI never puts it next to a coast. I've only ever found them by completely swarming a nation, which is not the viking forte, especially once they get knights and longbowman.

I researched 21 Treasures... and only found one in my last game
Though not in the spirit of the campaign, I gave up on science and made the rest of my money the old fashion way for a time win. In that last game, I also suffered an invasion... they grow up so fast

[sparkyal]

Ok, I just tried this scenario and it has a problem. when you ransom a city a red circlle appears on the city. which is nice because iof you re-attack a ransomed city no one will ever ransom to you again.

here is the problem. once you load the game again the red circles are gone. I don't remember which cities i've attacked, so what happens? does the game remember? if i attack a city previously ransomed with no red circle will i incure the penalty?

i remember seeing this before on a thread but i couldn't find it. Please let me know your thoughts.

sparky

[sparkyal]

ok, made some discoveries:

first, those cities are still ransomed even though they do not have the circle. So I used the sign function to say "ransomed" over each of the cities I ransomed.

Discovered something else, if another civ takes over a city that you have ransomed...you can't take it again and expect a ransom from the new owners...that's really too bad.

I hope the issue mentioned above is taken care of in a patch.

AHere is another quiestion, when you have played the scen have you ever captured some cities and did not ransom them to use as a base of operatioins?

sparky

[Blaupanzer]

How does taking a city raise gold, Sparky? The goal is to raise the maximum amount of gold, as I understand it.

[sparkyal]

Taking the city itself would not get a lot of money. but, it could give a base of operations to move inland better to attack and ransom cities that are not easily accessed by sea. It gives a place where units can heal quickly. It would simply make your future attacks more effective.

that's what I was thinking anyway.

sparky

[rah]

Yes, I early rushed a city that had horses near it so I could build horses. Then took a city next to iron so hopefully I'll be the one with knights.
Easier to capture treasure when you have mobility.
After reading all these threads I wasn't looking forward to chasing them down, but the first one I research appears right next to one of my units. It was a big surprise. Now just have to get it home

[sparkyal]

Cool, I was never able to find the one I researched so I gave up researching treasure. I was playing on Nobel, so it didn't make any difference. I imagine on the higher levels you would need the treasures

sparky