Does the Norsemen have the worse early game roster is game?

**19891225** · February 28, 2015, 01:12 PM

Their late game unit are pretty good, but their roster in early game kind of sucks.......Nordic levy is ok, Nordic Band is terrible and the upgraded nordic brigade is not that much of a upgrade really.......when they face Germanic warband they will just broke.......and the Germanic warband is much easier to unlock then nordic brigade.......the norse doesn't have decent infantry until med game when u get axe warband, and their early cavalry are not good either, they do have good javelin man but it's just a support unit.........Any good advise for Nordic start up?

**Toho** · February 28, 2015, 01:23 PM

use your navy, they have good troops aboard. When I play as vikings most of my troops are exclusively naval early on in the game.

**Germanicus75** · February 28, 2015, 01:43 PM

I'm doing OK with the Jutes, but I agree their units are not the best.

Personally I want to know when CA are going to remove the Nordic units from the Saxons, Angles and Celts, even if this will slightly unbalance the game.

**Påsan** · February 28, 2015, 02:11 PM

As the jutes you can get access to the Huscarls and Hirdmenn pretty fast. And Huscarls destroy everything.

**veverčák** · February 28, 2015, 02:25 PM

The Nordic roster suffers early on and generally is more complicated to get better units being distributed to more buildings than other Germans. On the other hand they have better axe infantry and unlike other Germans they do not lose they access to it. Not sure if every single tribe evolve their germanic warband in to something else (Sarmatian Warband, Gothic Warband...). Otherwise the roster seems to me as good balance between spear/pikes, axe and sword infantry with not that awful cavalry. Only problematic parts are early units and lack of good archers and crossbows. Overall it is rather decent roster IMHO.

I do not think Saxons should have germanic roster. Here is why:

a) The tribes we can play after purchase of the dlc Viking Forefathers are not that special. Yes, one day their children will have those awesome dragon ships and helmets, but at the start of the game they are not that different from other Germanic tribes.

b) The second reason is more important: You do not need to buy dlc to have to fully enjoy the game. You can play as "poor man Vikings or Germanic kingdoms" as Saxon/Franks. Of course dlc factions brings something new and unique (as it should), but you have access to at least one faction doing very similar stuff.

**PeonKing** · February 28, 2015, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by veverčák

The Nordic roster suffers early on and generally is more complicated to get better units being distributed to more buildings than other Germans. On the other hand they have better axe infantry and unlike other Germans they do not lose they access to it. Not sure if every single tribe evolve their germanic warband in to something else (Sarmatian Warband, Gothic Warband...). Otherwise the roster seems to me as good balance between spear/pikes, axe and sword infantry with not that awful cavalry. Only problematic parts are early units and lack of good archers and crossbows. Overall it is rather decent roster IMHO.

I do not think Saxons should have germanic roster. Here is why:

a) The tribes we can play after purchase of the dlc Viking Forefathers are not that special. Yes, one day their children will have those awesome dragon ships and helmets, but at the start of the game they are not that different from other Germanic tribes.

b) The second reason is more important: You do not need to buy dlc to have to fully enjoy the game. You can play as "poor man Vikings or Germanic kingdoms" as Saxon/Franks. Of course dlc factions brings something new and unique (as it should), but you have access to at least one faction doing very similar stuff.

So basically, you're reasoning about liking the weak rosters is 'well good thing the dlc doesn't add much or I would feel like I need to buy it.'

Not really sensible reasoning. The DLC should add something usefully unique, not just like 'eh, sort of cool, I could do without it though.' Not a great way to motivate people to spend money

**veverčák** · February 28, 2015, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by PeonKing

So basically, you're reasoning about liking the weak rosters is 'well good thing the dlc doesn't add much or I would feel like I need to buy it.'

Not really sensible reasoning. The DLC should add something usefully unique, not just like 'eh, sort of cool, I could do without it though.' Not a great way to motivate people to spend money

Not at all. My main point is this: player already have has access to all basic rosters in the game with the basic game - no dlc, expansions required. That is my counter argument to suggestion to change Saxon roster to Germanic.

As original question of the thread is "Does the Norsemen have the worst early game roster in game?" I would say: "They have ,give or take, the same bad roster as their Germanic brethren.

**Gaidin** · February 28, 2015, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by veverčák

Not at all. My main point is this: player already have has access to all basic rosters in the game with the basic game - no dlc, expansions required. That is my counter argument to suggestion to change Saxon roster to Germanic.

As original question of the thread is "Does the Norsemen have the worst early game roster in game?" I would say: "They have ,give or take, the same bad roster as their Germanic brethren.

Plus immunity to seasickness or cold or an income bonus for razing depending on who you choose. I mean, if that's your only argument is their roster is the same and it's relatively balanced depending on how you play, and they get a friggin' bonus it seems like...well...hey, they do pretty good for themselves.

**Gaidin** · February 28, 2015, 03:55 PM

Is the game supposed to lie when it says the initial challenge is hard for 2 out of 3?

**Påsan** · February 28, 2015, 08:05 PM

Also the pay-by-kill bonus for the jutes is pretty insane. In a crisis you can get away with tying all your income into armies and still get enough money to survive.

**Gaidin** · February 28, 2015, 08:11 PM

Well *I* don't know about anybody else playing this game for the past decade but that immunity to cold, it's frickin' crazy. It's the only reason that civ isn't labeled hard like the other Norse. Because their units aren't losing a percentage of their units each winter and can walk around all casual like and even get a damn fighting bonus in the season. It's a nice thing to not have to strategize your movements to be in a town one out of four turns.

I'm just saying.

Norse have a bad roster my ass. Arguments can be made for similar. But there's not a lot of regional differences I'd say until you start talking to history professors who live and breath this stuff for a paycheck. But then, that's probably where the bonuses come in. To pay at least some attention to the nuances.

**Xelathur** · March 02, 2015, 05:24 AM

I'd say that Nordic Band is actually a good flanker unit. It's so CHEAP you can have a second stack nearby and just use them to swarm the enemies flank during engagements, making the early game as any of the Viking factions an absolute Breeze. Just steamroll Scandza and you can turtle until the end of the world!

Also to have some fun build a navy and go around sacking coastal towns. The vikings navy units are OP and will crush anything. ( disembarked )

There is one issue with the Viking tech tree. Nordic Axe Warband, which will be replaced with 2h viking units about 1 turn after, which I think is really strange.

**Osbot** · March 04, 2015, 08:42 PM

Other than the Huscarls, none of the viking units are especially good.

Elite Nordic Warriors are inferior to Chosen Warriors. Elite Nordic Spears are inferior to Spear Masters.

The hidden gem in the Nordic roster are the Raider cav. They have guerrilla deployment and they are no joke in combat.

**the_mango55** · March 04, 2015, 09:07 PM

Early infantry is very bad. very, very bad.

Early navy is very good! In fact once you get the first naval upgrade (which is very early, tier 1) to access heavy nordic marauders, their longships can take most garrison armies 1 on 1 even though they are only half the size. Use these to defend your homeland from incursion and sack coastal cities.

**Ritterlichvon86** · March 06, 2015, 05:39 AM

Viking Raiders, and as Jutes the Huscarls, are available pretty early on.

**Slaists** · March 06, 2015, 01:08 PM

You're talking about campaign or MP here?

In campaign, you can pretty much spam cheap Nordic Bands at the start and overwhelm everyone with numbers. The skirmisher types are not bad supplements either. The skirmishers get crazy kills in field battles especially against early units. Later in the game: combine raiders and Hirdmen (fear everybody) + fire arrows: the AI's dont stand much of a chance against this. So, against the campaign AI's the Nordic roster is quite sufficient.

MP: that's a different matter.

**Sacerdos** · March 06, 2015, 04:18 PM

The basic Nordic roster is a little bit weaker than the basic Germanic roster, in pretty much every category, and is completely missing decent ranged units (no high tier archers, no precision shot on slingers, no crossbows), except javalins, which are better than the basic Germanic ones.

However, Hirdmen and Huscurls are great and easily accessed, without military tech. Which makes up for the general weakness.

**Godless Crom** · March 06, 2015, 08:11 PM

Can confirm that the Nordic Heavy Marauders kill everything. I only wish I could use them in more battles. Nordic Band, however, they do suck. Cheap, though. Which is...something?

**Påsan** · March 06, 2015, 08:28 PM

Well the jutes get huscarls and hirdmenn in tier 2 which in combination is a damn good infantry solution. And there are mods now which gives the nordics some very nice mid tier units to play with.

Here, these should improve things:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ster-Expansion
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Norse-factions
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...refathers-DLC)