Questions on playing Ragnar

[couerdelion]

Having pretty much played out a decent enough strategy with Brennus, I’m going to turn my attention to Ragnar for my next little foray into the unknown. I’ve got the following starting position

Traits: Aggressive/Financial
Starting techs: Hunting/Fishing
UU: Berserker – Maceman with Amphibious Promotion
UB: Lighthouse replacing giving +1 moving to naval vessels

So first of all the traits pull in two different directions techwise. Agg calls for Copper while Financial looks for Pottery. Ragnar is also not the happiest of guys and there’s no easy religious solution to that either. So in the medium term he’ll be forced to look to Hereditary Rule while early on, he wants to hope for some precious metals or some of your animal products.

Ragnar is also caught in two minds with regard to his first build. Does he try for a second scout to grab some goodie huts or build a work boat? I’m inclined to think that the work boat is better on Monarch level and above but not too sure if the same is true at levels below that.

Now it is interesting to note that Ragnar seems, on basic inspection, to get an inordinate number of coastal starts. Playing continents, I found him getting a coastal start (or the possibility of founding on the coast in the first turn) in 7 out of 10 starts. This compared to 3 out of 10 starts for Brennus.

From the first nine I can also tell you that Ragnar had Copper or Horses within 5 spaces from the starting location in 7 out of 9 cases (the 10th is the one I will play with so I do not know where the resources are). I’m not sure if this fact depends on the Agg trait of Ragnar but I certainly know that Copper seems more available that it was for Brennus – the one start where both Copper and Horses were completely unavailable involved an isolated start on a peninsula blocked off from the main landmass by mountains.

The start I am playing sees me start on the coast and I can see before founding the city here that it will be coastal, freshwater with clams, stone, cows and three floodplains. I can also see gold close to the capital and I can move onto the stone and found one turn later giving a start with at least 3FP and gold plus a bonus hammer in the city. It’s not really very tempting so the place on the coast is selected.

While I’m waiting to start this game, I’m now trying to figure out the best play from here. I’ve already figured that the workboat is best but how do I build this. From turn one I basically have the following tiles to work (3/0/1, 2/1/0 or 2/0/3) and a 1/2/0 tile will be added when the city expands on the 9th turn. I want to get the workboat out quickly but also want to work those food tiles that give me a little commerce too.

What do other people think?

The next question is tech and my leaning is towards Mining and Bronze possibly also Masonry. Is there a better plan here?

I think I’ve made my own tentative decision here but would like to here what other people would do.

[Tattila the Hun]

I'd quit and go back to Noble.

[rah]

For ragner. Looks like a food start. Build workboat, and it doesn't really matter if it takes awhile since this will allow the city to grow while you wait. By the time it's done the city should be primed to pop a worker.
Mining bronze. So you slave that population that will be growing out of control.

Race to CS and Machinery. so you can build a barracks and with one promotion of CR. Build lots of berzerkers while you beeline to chemistry+astronomy. Now build the Frigates and transports. Upgrade a few berzerkers to grenadiers.

NOW GO TRASH ANY opponents coastal cities. Frigates to bombard and your amphibious troops to attack from the sea immune to reprisals. You'll lose a few at first but those that survive will be able to take most cities defended by most units through rifles.

That's how you play ragner.

[couerdelion]

Hmmm. Not sure I'm happy about the idea of waiting until the Renaissance Era to start pillaging the coasts.

I think I really ought to be doing something round about the time of the Viking's Golden Age.

[Swiss Pauli]

I'd work the FP til size 2 then max hammers to get the WB out.

Initial research is a bit of a dilemma here, but with clams to work, I'd delay Pottery and go for Mining=>Bronze. If there's handy Copper, then go Wheel=>Pottery, if not then AH for cows and horses.

Thereafter it all starts to get a bit conjectural, but if I had Copper then conquest would be in my mind, if not then some stone-based wonders might be fun.

[rah]

Hey, it's their UU. In MP games on non island maps people get a little lax sometimes protecting their back cities, even if they're on the coast. I've sacked others capitals using galleys to carry as few as 6. If it's on surprise it can be effective.

With their UB you can get that extra space to move the ship so it's possible against the AI to reach their city from outside their culture range when you declare war on the same turn.
If you've already scouted before you do it, it's quite possible to catch the AI with it's pants down.

But If you gonna play Ragnar, you might as well take advantage of the UU and UB. They can be nice.

[couerdelion]

Rah, my thoughts on the UU is that it is late. To be really effective with the UU, you still need a good production base and have managed the tech route through to CS. Generally, you want to be in a decent enough shape by then that it really doesn’t matter what UU you have. You can still do a decent job of taking cities with Maces and Catapults.

Don’t get me wrong, the UB is quite nice and the UU is very interesting. But in the whole scheme of things, the benefit comes too late to make the difference between success and failure. Note also that if you are having to build galleys to transport troops then you are adding costs (both army maintenance/supply and hammers) to your empire. I’m a skinflint usually so prefer to do things cheaply where possible.

************************

After a little thought and a comparison of a few options I decided to settle on a rather different opening play. Since I had three 3/0/1 tiles and a 2/0/3 tiles then I really wanted to be working these rather than the 2/1/0 or 1/2/0 tiles. They are simply better tiles.

I also factor in the fact that the workboat is actually worth +1f+2c because it makes the tile worth 4/0/3 and I should be comparing that tile to the next best available which (ie the FP). However, just by growing to I can work another floodplain tile which is worth +1f+1c. So there really is not a great deal of difference in getting the workboat as quickly as possible.

Now if we use a traditional approach it would seem that growing to size 2 and then maximising hammers for the workboat would be a decent enough call and seems to give the highest commerce over most alternatives.

But there is an alternative which we can try at Monarch level or lower and this works on the fact that we can grow to size 4 without a garrison and still not run into happiness limits. If we simply work the floodplains followed by the unimproved clams then we can get round our production problem using slavery. If we spend a few turns building the worker, our +5 food is now turned into production. When the worker is whipped, two population points will give the full cost of the worker and the overflow will go back to the workboat. In fact, we can even give ourselves enough of an overflow to give sufficient to finish the workboat and then complete a warrior in the next turn – because we certainly need a garrison

The one thing to worry about is that, we need something for our worker to do so it would make little sense to start the worker to early and must be on our way to a third tech (Wheel, Masonry or Animal Husbandry) before we apply the whip. An exception to this might be if copper falls in our boundaries but this is unlikely so we need to plan ahead. Of the three Wheel and Animal Husbandry are probably the best choices. If the three above are eventually completed along with Pottery then there is plenty for our worker to do – so much, in fact, that we will want two of them.

This approach is really one that focuses on techs – which is what financial civs are good at. As it played out, I managed to get a worker in 38 turns, work boat in 39 and warrior in 40 – Epic speed game. In 46 turns (2620 BC) I had researched Mining, Bronze and Animals which I don’t find too bad considering that Bronze and Animals don’t come cheap. I was lucky enough to acquire Wheel from his second hut which made things a little easier.

Having played this through to around 700 BC I cannot claim this to be a great success. Copper was accessible – as long as I could beat Elizabeth to the prize – but was on a plains hill and there was no obvious food source to complement it. And since I had no easy source of culture, I was forced, in some ways to accept a very poor second city (plains hill copper and plains hill gold but nothing else) which has the simple function of providing copper and building axemen for the barbarian clearances that are due. Horses are completely out of range for the foreseeable future although Iron falls within the fat cross of city 3 (fish, corn, gold, iron) for when I can arrange a border expansion.

You can guess from what I am saying that the wonder gambits (Great wall or Pyramids) were too far from my path to be considered. There might have been a window but there was no decent production source that would also have given adequate protection. City 2 could have been on verge of completing Pyramids if I had started it immediately but I decided City 2 should start work on the army to take two barbarian cities and secure Rice, Bananas, Silk, Sugar and Dye.

Overall, I think I have a little more work to do with Ragnar. This start was, perhaps, a little too strange.

[rah]

Yes, it does come later but not that late.
The sneak attack by sea can be quite economical.
Case in point. You're moving on a city across land that has three archers in it. You declare war and it take two turns to get next to the city through their culture border. You get there and all the archers have been upgraded to longbowmen. or longbowmen to rifles.

Attacking from sea, you declare and attack the same turn, not giving the AI a chance to upgrade. It can work out considerably cheaper in terms of loses.

But I do see your point, but would again argue that it doesn't come too late since I beeline to CS anyway.

[couerdelion]

I think we both agree then. Of course, bee-lining to CS does not give Berserkers. You also need to get to Machinery so require two Mediaeval techs. I’m assuming that these units with free promotions keep those promotions when they are upgraded. So UU’s like Berserker and Gallic Warriors are not simply units that become obsolete but ones that can contribute well into the game.

[rah]

Correct, I usually will over produce them, and use them so I can get them up to 3rd level CRs. You lose some but those that make it upgrade into quite nice units.
Yes with a simple barracks and nothing else they start with 10% and amphib. One CR promotion for the barracks and they really don't need many wins to become 3 cr units. So when you upgrade them they'll have 5 promotions, which is pretty good for having won just a few attacks.

And if you build the pyramids, the first engineer can lb metal casing so those berzerkers won't be far behind you gettin CS. You may not want to do that, but if you're playing ragnar, I think this maximizes his specialties. You're VIKINGS damnit.

[joncnunn]

Too me, Ragnar looks like play on argepello map.
Early on, subdue your landmass & develop finanically, which should definately include their UB.

Then I guess the best thing to do is mostly build naval units that upgrade to Galleys and miliatary units that upgrade to Berserkers, but you may want a few Caravals if you can't meet anybody to go conquer with mere Galleons.

Then go conquer an opponent or two or three before Rifles become adviable.

As to why the Bersker is a replacement for Maces & not Swords; it seems that a swordmen with amp is too powerful that early on.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by joncnunn
...miliatary units that upgrade to Berserkers...

Do you get the free amphibious promo if you upgrade to Berserkers? I'd suspect not, but I like to know for sure...

[rah]

You do.

[Swiss Pauli]

Well that changes my appreciation of Ragnar's abilities somewhat...time to wield some axe...

[rah]

If you get the circling the globe bonus along with your special UB promotion for ships, your navy can run circles around everyone else. If you're on a smaller world, your navy can almost be anywhere in the world in a few turns.
Ragnar is fun on island worlds. Your troops are never really exposed that much.