Vikings... How do you win?

[Drifting Embers]

I've played the game for a while now and have had my fourth run-in with vikings. And all my attempts to stop them fail.They didn't take anyone the first time, they took 1 peasant the second time, 2 peasants the third time and now have taken 5 this time. They win against me harder and harder each time and I've had more walls and more turrets! The more I try to stop them the more damage they cause me, not the other way around!

Is there a tip to stopping these guys? My trained generals are useless against them and they seem to know how to stay away from my turrets so they just go around setting everything on fire. And this isn't even the Hard mode and they act like this!

Since the fourth attack, I've upped my number of attack towers and did a better job at blocking things off to limit their entry. But is it just a matter of firepower or is there a trick to actually beating these jerks?

[Mr Compassionate]

I don't know much about how they work (I didn't even know they take citizens) but I've 100% the game so I must be doing something right.

Step 1: Instead of trying to build a wall around the whole town simply build a central keep area with towers that extend over all the stuff you don't want burned down.

Step 2: Stack a bunch of soldiers on a general, ideally at least 20 per general. Later on try having 2 generals to defend multple areas 'cause those pesky vikings will attack a wide area.

As for tactics make sure to pause the game when the vikings first arrive so you can order your troops properly. Don't worry about vikings burning s**t down you can easily replace all that if your economy is decent. Just make sure the ogres don't break anything important and everything else is A-Okay.

Basically the real challenge is having a good enough economy to pump out soldiers before the first viking raid arrives. The combined cost of the Chamber of War, Barracks, Blacksmith and a General is pretty taxing on such a time restraint.

[GreyBeard512]

Mr Compassionate's tactics are good for early to mid-game, but you never actually win that way. If the vikings land, you take a happiness hit. (At least you used to, and I don't think it changed.)

Mid to late game, you want a wall around everything. Put archer towers on it - all of it. By 4K pop, you'll have people to man them. By 2K you can man a lot of towers.

My game runs by itself. Viking attacks start with 12 ogres, and then 12 boatloads of vikings. They almost never manage to destroy a wall, and they haven't made it through the wall since I completed the wall over 1,000 years ago. I have no soldiers or army (this kingdom never had them, I've had them in other kingdoms). And I haven't taken a happiness hit from vikings or ogres since the wall was built. (I get a happiness buff from dragons.)

[Drifting Embers]

Okay, so what I'm getting from this - especially the latter comment - is just beef up the walls and really sock 'em with arrows and Ballistias? I'll eventually get them if I shade the sun with arrows? How tall are your walls, though? I might need to make them higher... it ranges from 2 - 3 blocks high. I noticed even a 3-block high wall can make an ogre stall for quite a while, which is good for multiple archer towers. So maybe just continuing my tactic of archer towers will work? Just, more of it?

Just for reference, my kingdom's just over 100 years old. So far, only 1 Ogre shows up at a time and six boats total.

[Bluedragon463]

Originally posted by GreyBeard512:

Mr Compassionate's tactics are good for early to mid-game, but you never actually win that way. If the vikings land, you take a happiness hit. (At least you used to, and I don't think it changed.)

Technically if the vikings leave with any surviving troops you lose happiness. You basically gotta kill them all before they leave.

[GreyBeard512]

Originally posted by Bluedragon463:

Originally posted by GreyBeard512:

Mr Compassionate's tactics are good for early to mid-game, but you never actually win that way. If the vikings land, you take a happiness hit. (At least you used to, and I don't think it changed.)

Technically if the vikings leave with any surviving troops you lose happiness. You basically gotta kill them all before they leave.

The game may have changed, but I used to routinely kill them all and still take the happiness hit.

Originally posted by Drifting Embers:

Okay, so what I'm getting from this - especially the latter comment - is just beef up the walls and really sock 'em with arrows and Ballistias? I'll eventually get them if I shade the sun with arrows? How tall are your walls, though? I might need to make them higher... it ranges from 2 - 3 blocks high. I noticed even a 3-block high wall can make an ogre stall for quite a while, which is good for multiple archer towers. So maybe just continuing my tactic of archer towers will work? Just, more of it?

Just for reference, my kingdom's just over 100 years old. So far, only 1 Ogre shows up at a time and six boats total.

My walls started mostly two high with three high archer towers every third to fifth block. Now there are still a few only three high, but most are five or six high, and the corners are seven or eight high. And there are archer towers on all of them. (No armies, so no dept of war, so no ballistas.)

[Drifting Embers]

After having built up more archer towers and now doing a double-wall effect to slow down ogres, I'm much more fortified. I found out that vikings can swim, though, so the gaps where there's water was open to them. However! I managed to over-power the raiders with my generals and a hailstorm of arrows. The fifth raid... I WON!

Thanks, guys, I think I'm on my way to having a secure castle, I just gotta get some piers up to put more walls on to slow them down more. Thanks for encouraging me - now I know I can do it. Thank you!

[Nefelia]

Generals need troops in order to be effective against vikings. Once you get your squad to 150 strength (one general + 20 soldiers), they tear through the vikings quickly.

It is possible to get armies up and running in time to fend off vikings without relying on a large number of archer/ballista towers. That said, getting the infrastructure for armies up and running in time for the first invasion is much more difficult than just spamming archer towers.

If archer/ballista towers required armaments, people would find this game significantly more difficult.