"You'll find our answer at the end of an axe!" - Hammer v2.9 is out!

[SetuSinger]

Great scen!

It's only a shame, that there's no way to escape getting christianized...

[hardjoy]

Thanx guys - @our_man, I really enjoyed your play report so far

Now see if you can make the shift to christianity and hold your possessions. I'm intrigued to see if they can fight you back in the last half of the game.

@SetuSinger, you can try. You have to hold back your campaign of conquest so you don't get Baptism or other key christian techs. Then you're free to build all the Hammers and Berserkers you desire

[curtsibling]

@our_man:

Sounds like a fine game in progress!

"Hail to the wargodz of steel!"

[Arthedain]

Originally posted by curtsibling
@our_man:

Sounds like a fine game in progress!

Agreed. However it seems you have missed out the goodies of the east. I experienced that in my first PBEM of this scen. All the villages can give you good stuffs like heroes, giants etc. And there are some barbarians bad guys out there just waiting to be bribed.

[curtsibling]

Playing as the Danes, and really enjoying this epic saga!

I have conquered most of England and now seek to push West and South into the christian lands!

Great balance of units and techs!

My only pity is that you must abandon Paganism if you keep up the conquests...

Oh, well...

I haven't built a church yet, so I have not sold out on Odin!

[AGRICOLA]

Re: Scandinavian New Math??

I have just finished checking out the scenario prior to starting play. There appears to be minor problem, a problem identical to what Eivind had in one of his scens.

The shield boxes in the city window have the correct number of rows (e.g. 5 rows for a unit that costs 50 shields) but the number of shields needed to fill a row is not 10 but 16. Consequently, the actual cost of building a 50 shield unit is 80 shields.

To fix this, in RULES, change

16 ; # of rows in shield box

to

10 ; # of rows in shield box

Also, I'm a bit puzzled by dead end techs like True Faith which don't seem to do anything.

Otherwise the scenario looks great and I'm certainly looking forward to centuries of constant fighting.

[our_man]

Yeah, I noticed this too... I figured it must have been what hardjoy wanted though as it's a pretty obvious bug otherwise.

I finished my first game as the Danes having conquered around 44 objectives. The viking advance eventually petered out due to the improved units the rest of the civs started to field.

I started another game this time, determined to conquer as much territory as possible and to hell with holding back in order not to be Christianized. This strategy worked better - I don't believe that there's a suitable enough detterent in the scenario to prevent you from acquiring Christianity earlier on. The advantage you gain by conquering as many cities as quickly as possible while they're guarded by weak pikemen far outweighs waiting around for the nuclear option.

[AGRICOLA]

I figured it must have been what hardjoy wanted though as it's a pretty obvious bug otherwise.

I thought about various possible reasons but drew a blank.

City improvements still sell for the number of shields actually needed to build them.

The only differences are that:
Improvements present at the start of the scen are worth more when sold.
It takes longer to build units or improvements.
IRB is slightly more expensive.

If this is intended to slow down the development of all civs, then it could have been achieved equally well by raising unit/improvement costs in rules, thereby avoiding the confusing shield boxes.

I'm stumped by this one.

[hardjoy]

Setting the shield box value higher than usual has the effect of making the costs progressively a lot higher for each 'cost step' - as you very well point out.

I might do a next update of each unit/improvement cost, so that the same effect is achieved with the correct shield box display. This could make the build costs more differentiated, while keeping the 'slow down' effect.

@our_man
Agreed, the pagan path is a dead end. It was in history, and I wanted the scenario to simulate the challenge involved with accepting christianity - as well as providing some viking mayhem - In the next update, I might give the vikings a happiness wonder, which is obsoleted by a key christian tech. This might stir up some more trouble on the viking side, when christianity is introduced.

For the Danes it will often be a good idea to take christianity in early. But losing the cheap raiders and drakkars will not be fun, if you do it too early.

I think the Norse, which are worse off than the Danes, will have a slightly higher motivation to pursue the pagan techs. They will most likely have a tougher game than the Danes. They are researching Pagan Cult from the outset, and will get it for free if/when they slay their first Giant.

@Agricola, what is IRB ?

[hardjoy]

BTW, True Faith is really Future Tech, but during the last round of changes it slipped getting connected to the end of the tech tree. This is a minor bug really, as I didn't intend it to be researched until the end of the tech tree.

[AGRICOLA]

IRB = Incremental Rush Buying, a way to decrease the cost of rush buying an improvement or unit.

In an ideal situation you would have a sequence of units whose costs differ by 10 shields:

Unit A - 10 shields
Unit B - 20 shields
Unit C - 30 shields
Unit D - 40 shields
Unit E - 50 shields
Unit F - 60 shields
Unit G - 70 shields

If you need G immediately, a simple rush buy would be expensive. It is much cheaper to buy A and then buy B and so on until you get to G. In this scen, IRB is slightly more expensive than normal because unit costs differ by 16 rather than 10 shields.


I agree that playing the Norse is quite a bit more difficult than playing the Danes. The Norse cities are very scattered so that they have a very long frontier to defend and all reinforcements have to be by lengthy sea routes. By contrast, the Danes have a relatively compact empire and both shorter distances as well as some roads between their cities.

[hardjoy]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
IRB = Incremental Rush Buying, a way to decrease the cost of rush buying an improvement or unit.

Never thought of that idea... Nice trick

I agree that playing the Norse is quite a bit more difficult than playing the Danes. The Norse cities are very scattered so that they have a very long frontier to defend and all reinforcements have to be by lengthy sea routes. By contrast, the Danes have a relatively compact empire and both shorter distances as well as some roads between their cities.

Looking forward to hearing how well you fare.