A Vox Populi(CBP) Guide: Denmark

A guide on how to play Denmark with the Vox Populi(Community Balance Patch) mod. Most domination civs either struggle on the seas, or only have advantages on the sea. Denmark finds a middle ground between naval and land power to terrifying effect

Introduction

These guides are designed to help players who are new to Civ but still interested in Vox Populi, familiar with Civ but new to Vox Populi, or even those well versed in Vox Populi who just want to see if there's anything they didn't know about a particular civilization. I am actually a big fan of Zigzagzigal's Civ guide series, and it really helped me learn a lot about the game, and I wanted to bring a similar experience for fans of the Vox Populi or Community Balance Patch modpack. For those interested in the modpack it can be downloaded here[forums.civfanatics.com]

Anyways, without further ado, onto the Danish!

Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. +33% Great Scientist rate and +25% growth in all cities from rationalism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% Great Person Rate and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

Brief Unique Summary

Start Bias

Denmark has a coastal start bias. This let's them use their UA and UB more effectively

Unique Ability: Viking Fury

Embarked Units have +1 and pay just one to disembark

All melee land units gain the Viking promotion and all melee naval units gain the longboat promotion

Viking Promotion: Unit pays no to pillage, has +25% on pillaged tiles, and heals +5hp in neutral territory

Longboat Promotion: Unit pays no to pillage, has +15% on coastal tiles, and recovers HP twice as fast on coastal tiles

Unique Unit: Berserker(Replaces the Pikeman)

A melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades From	Upgrades To	Resource Needed
Metal Casting Classical Era	Rifling Industrial Era	Spearman (75 )	Tercio (175 )	None

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
19	N/A	3	N/A	2	None	Ignores penalties attacking across a river or while embarked. Gains a movement bonus moving across rivers(Amphibious) +10% attacking into open terrain. +20% attacking wounded units(Charge I) +33% combat strength against mounted units. +15% combat strength defending in open terrain(Formation I)

Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher (3 instead of 2)
  
• Higher combat strength(19 instead of 17)
  
• Arrives at Metal Casting instead of Steel
  
• Obsoletes at Rifling rather than Gunpowder

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• Ignores penalties attacking across a river or while embarked. Gains a movement bonus moving across rivers(Amphibious)
  
• +10% attacking into open terrain. +20% attacking wounded units(Charge I)

Unique Building: Runestone(Replaces the Lighthouse)

Technology	Building required	Required to Build	Production Cost	City Restriction	Maintenance
Sailing Classical Era	None	Harbor	150	None	1

Base Output	Citizen Yields	Specialist	Great Work Slots	Other Effects
2	None	None	None	When a unit created by this city pillages a tile, the city gains 30 & scaling with era +25% of melee and naval melee units +2 & +1 from coast and ocean tiles Internal Trade Routes from this city generate +6

Positive Changes

• +2
  
• When a unit created by this city pillages a tile, the city gains 30& scaling with era
  
• +25% of melee and naval melee units
  
• +2(up from +1) & +1 from coast and ocean tiles
  
• Internal Trade Routes from this city generate +6(Up from +4)
  
• City does not have to be coastal in order to build a Runestone

Strategies and Victory Routes

Strategy Ranking

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Danish uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking

Offense	Defense	Culture	Tourism	Science	/ Growth/Production	Gold	Diplomacy	Religion
8/10	6/10	6/10	4/10	4/10	5/10	5/10	4/10	2/5

Denmark is obviously strong at domination, specializing in rapid assaults from the sea. There strengths don't translate great to defense, but they will still have a strong army and navy to assist that if necessary.
Pillaging can give a surprising amount of culture due to their UB, but they lack any strength towards tourism
Denmark's UB can also give them a bit of extra food to their coastal cities although it isn't a huge amount.
Pillaging can also net Denmark a good bit of gold to assist in conquest or other things.
Finally, while they lack any advantages towards religion, they have to wait a bit before they can start building up their army, wanting to wait at least for their UB if not also their UU, so they can afford to build some shrines

Unique Ability: Viking Fury

The first part of Denmark's UA you'll notice is that all your land melee units start with the Viking promotion. The wording implies that only tercios and any unit that upgrades into it gets Viking, but in fact, any land unit lacking a ranged attack gets Viking. The most minor part of the promotion is that you heal an extra 5 hp in neutral territory, the same as if it was friendly. This will help out for clearing early barb camps, and does mean your army doesn't have to retreat as far to heal effectively.

The more important part of Viking however, is that it costs no movement to pillage, and units on said pillaged tiles get a massive +25% combat strength. Pillaging a non-road tile heals a unit for 25hp, so doing so does give a bit of a defensive edge, but it usually comes at the cost of breaking your defense for a turn. Not so with Denmark. Pillage as many tiles as possible, and you'll find yourself with a massive combat advantage.



Of course not only your land units receive a promotion, naval melee units get a similar promotion too, Longboat. The free pillaging cost isn't as big a deal, as not only are there less sea tiles to pillage, boats are faster and don't risk as much from pillaging. However, the other two parts of it are a very big deal. Firstly, ships get +15% combat strength in coastal tiles. This isn't as powerful as the +25% land units get, but it is much easier to get it, and still provides Denmark with a sizable advantage on the seas, about equal to an extra promotion over everyone else, which is exactly what it is. This part alone arguably gives Denmark the strongest navy in the game. Some naval civs like the Netherlands have a dominant naval unique with a combat strength advantage but it will obsolete. Longboat doesn't, nor is it dependent on keeping upgraded units alive. The only civ that can maybe contest Denmark is England, but Denmark will still have the raw strength advantage, so even England will find a challenge in Denmark. The best part is that Longboat still gives one more thing, double healing on coastal tiles. That's right, double. Naval units usually take a good amount of time to heal. Not so for Denmark


They heal for 30hp. That is insane.

Viking and Longboat are strong, but they aren't what define the Danish playstyle, or even the UA itself. No what defines Denmark is their bonuses to embarked units. Normally to embark or disembark, it costs a unit all of it's movement. For Denmark, it just costs 1. But it goes further then that. When a unit disembarks, it will retain it's movement points -1. For example, if a unit has 4 movement embarked, disembarks, spending 1 movement point to do so, it will then end up with 2 left on the land. 4 movement is the base speed for Denmark as all embarked units get +1 movement, but the speed will go up throughout the game, as so

Tech	Embark Speed for Denmark
Fishing	4
Astronomy	5
Steam Power	6

Long story short, this means that units can disembark and end up with more movement then they have normally. This is of course more useful for units that have low movement speeds already, such as melee and siege units. Generally the best way to war with Denmark is to on the turn before you declare war, position your army just off of the enemy coast, then once the war begins, land, pillage everything in sight, then begin the siege. With enough siege you can easily take a city before the enemy can mount any sort of defense


Above: It was admittedly a pretty small force, but in one turn I've already taken a shot at their capital, pillaged several tiles, killed a Spanish unit, and positioned my melee units to protect my siege

Unique Building: Runestone

Denmark has a lot of incentive to pillage tiles for military strength, but it'd be nice if there was something more tangible in the long term for doing so. Enter the Runestone


It may not be British gold, but eh, vikings weren't that picky

Every time you pillage a tile, you gain 30 gold and culture, increasing by 30 every era (60 in the medieval, etc.). Along with Runestones giving a small amount of base culture, Denmark can actually keep up on social policies fairly well without having to build many culture buildings. In fact, this means Denmark doesn't even have to conquer anything to get something out of going to war. As long as they can pillage a bunch, you've already gained from your war. If you can get a mounted or even better a recon unit behind enemy lines to go to town on the enemy infrastructure, you can gain a lot, pull away the enemies attention, and hurt their resources all at once. This of course wouldn't be all that possible without the Viking promotion allowing free pillaging, and it works so well together.

Even if you aren't pillaging(although to be fair, what else would you be doing) Runestones do give another few solid benefits. They give 1 extra food to coastal tiles then the normal lighthouse. 4 food 1 gold is pretty great yields, and if there is a resource of some kind the coast suddenly becomes incredibly lucrative for Denmark to work. The other important thing to note about Runestones is that they give +25% production towards all melee units, land or naval. Since Denmark otherwise lacks production, especially with likely having lots of coastal tiles, this is incredibly helpful to actually keep your army up. The only thing you might struggle a bit to build are siege units, but you shouldn't ever need a huge amount of them.

The last thing to note about Runestones is that they can be built in non-coastal cities. You should probably still build most cities coastal because of the extra food, but don't feel like you are completely losing out building an inland city if it's in a good spot.

Unique Unit: Berserker

We eat the pig and together we burn! -Seananners probably

Tying the gift that is Denmark in a neat little bow, the Berserker is a strong unit. Pikeman are a bit of an weird unit for most civs. They may be fairly easy to amass, and even upgrade into, but they are fairly weak. They lose to pretty much every unit of the medieval era, even knights, which they should counter. The Berserker solves these problems, by both being stronger then the generic pikemen, but more importantly, arriving earlier then pikeman, actually coming in the classical era with Metal Casting. Having combat strength stronger then anything in their era, they will dominate anything pre-medieval, and come with some promotions, not to mention the Danish UA, to keep them ahead even in the medieval. The first is Charge I, a promotion normally reserved for mounted melee units. This gives Berserkers a bonus against wounded units, as well as attacking in open terrain. They also have Amphibious, meaning they suffer no combat penalty crossing rivers, nor do they suffer movement penalties moving across them.

While not a promotion, the last important thing about Berserkers is that they have 3 movement instead of 2. This means they act like mounted units in pretty much every way that counts other then moving after attacking. They can chase down units effectively, and they hit hard. Denmark should wait for Berserkers for their first war, as they'll be able to easily steamroll their first target, and just keep going from there.

Promotions kept on upgrade

• Ignores penalties attacking across a river or while embarked. Gains a movement bonus moving across rivers(Amphibious)
  
• +10% attacking into open terrain. +20% attacking wounded units(Charge I)

Berserkers do not keep the extra movement when upgraded, but with Denmark's UA they never really needed it anyways, so it is still worth it to upgrade them as soon as you can.

Social Policies

Denmark should take the normal warmonger route of Authority into Fealty followed by Imperialism.

Authority

Opener: Little bit of production to help early unit and building construction, plus easier barbarians and some culture out of them and any other units you kill to boot

Dominance: Get some science out of your kills too, plus the healing will allow your units to stand a bit of a chance at surviving a followup attack after defeating another unit

Tribute: Some extra yields for your cities here and there never hurt

Imperium: You're bound to be conquering a lot of cities, so this will probably add up to several techs and a few policies

Discipline: Denmark has some extra cash but unhappiness will be a problem. This will help with that.

Honor: Some extra units here and there, fairly likely to be a naval melee unit, which is pretty nice

Finisher: Free Companies, Foreign Legions and Mercenaries all benefit from the Viking promotion, so they can be pretty solid.

Fealty

Opener: Monasteries are a solid building, definitely build them where you can, but it's going to be hard to build them in every city considering how much you're likely to conquer

Nobility: Armories are good for warmongers, and so is happiness, so get both here.

Divine Right: Reduces unhappiness by a very large amount, plus if you actually manage to keep your happiness up for any length of time, enjoy a nice bit of culture

Serfdom: You're bound to have plenty of pastures somewhere at this point. Make them better

Burghers: You're bound to be conquering lots of resources and getting plenty of We Love the King Days, so get some production out of them.

Organized Religion: Not very useful if you didn't found a religion, but is still somewhat useful to get monasteries and industrial era great people a bit faster.

Finisher: Whether you've founded your own religion or had one spread to you, some extra yields never hurt

Imperialism

Opener: This is actually really important for Denmark, the extra embark speed is a huge deal.

Colonialism: You'll have lots of monopolies by now, get some more use out of them.

Regimental Tradition: Faster Great General and Admiral generation, as well as making them stronger, good to have on the land or on the sea

Martial Law: You'll definitely have plenty of puppet cities, and conquered ones too. Both of them will be less of a burden now.

Exploitation: Some extra yields on almost every tile of the empire, and the expanded upgrade positions has some niche use

Civilizing Mission: Gold from conquering cities, and production in said conquered cities, everything you need to push the front line.

Finisher: Solidify your naval power, and have a new way to use air units to help manage unhappiness.

Ideology

Denmark will do well with Autocracy

Level 1 Policies

Elite Forces: Need some new units? They're better. Have lots of old units? They upgrade faster

New World Order: The Danish need every bonus they can get to reduce unhappiness, and this is a big one

Military-Industrial Complex: Cheaper unit upgrades are nice for those last expensive, bulk upgrades

Level 2 Policies

Lightning Warfare: Hey now enemy units can't stop your units from pillaging tiles. Sweet. Oh yeah they fight better too I guess, that's also pretty good.

Martial Spirit: An amazing bonus to clean up your last conquest or two, but it is a temporary boost. If you still have more then two civs to conquer, it might be better to postpone this, but it is always worth getting when the moment is right.

Level 3 Policies

Air Supremacy: Free Airports in every city means that you almost don't need a navy as long as you have a city on every continent. Also makes air units quicker to build if you need to.

Wonders

Ancient Era

Statue of Zeus: Pillaging is great and all but you probably want to take over some cities. This will help with that

Classical Era

Great Lighthouse: A big one for Denmark, ensures your navy can't be outspeed as well as outfought

Terracotta Army: You're gonna have a lot of tiles to improve, and a lot of enemies to kill. Get faster at the former and get some culture out of the latter

Medieval Era

Alhambra(Authority only): Some culture and an extra promotion should you choose to build some mounted units.

Renaissance Era

Red Fort(Fealty Only): You don't want an enemy to have this, since with the range it gives cities could easily snipe your embarked units, not to mention it'll be hard to conquer even ignoring that.

Industrial Era

Brandenburg Gate: Some extra xp never hurt

Neuschwanstein: Not the easiest wonder to build but it will help with unhappiness a good bit

Modern Era

Prora(Autocracy Only): Should almost entirely remove happiness problems, and hey, why not add a bit more culture when you pillage

Atomic Era

Pentagon(Imperialism Only): More, stronger air units. What more could you want?

Information Era

CERN: Two free techs to clean up the tech tree

Pitfalls to Avoid

Denmark is a fun domination civ, but they are a bit weird, and can easily be misused

Building Too Large a Navy Early

Danish Triremes are easily the best in the game, but that's partially because they won't face much competition. Early on enemy navies should be small if nonexistent. A few triremes can be useful when sieging coastal cities, but the bulk of your military should be land early on. Even mid to late game, your navy is strong and you will probably want more, but your power is still largely on land, and your units should be disembarked before they face any naval opposition.

Declaring War Before Your Units are in Position

While important for all warmongers, Denmark especially relies on the element of surprise. You should have your units a bit of a ways off the coast, then the turn before war you move them all right off the coast, then you declare war, make a landing, and mess them up.

Declaring War Before Runestones

The yields you can get from pillaging due to Runestones are very nice, but you won't see any of it if you go to war without building them.

Not Pillaging Lots of Tiles

Of course the same applies here, you don't get yields if you don't pillage tiles. It also goes a step further then that though. Your units are stronger in the pillaged tiles, it will give you a massive leg up in combat, you want to have it everywhere you can. There isn't even a reason not too, you pillage for free after all.

Waiting to Get Berserkers

You can start your first war without Berserkers, but you should still try to get them as fast as possible, they are very strong, basically being a medieval unit in the classical era. The longer you wait to get them the less powerful they'll be, as a big part of why they are good is that they come early.

Neglecting Siege

Viking is a really strong promotion, but it doesn't help much against cities. You'll need siege to take them down. In fact siege units benefit greatly from the embarked bonuses, being able to move into enemy territory from the sea and fire in one turn, so it is absolutely worth having a good amount of them.

Leveling Lego Land: Counter Strategies

Denmark can rapidly land their entire army right into your core land and tear it apart, with a strong navy to back it up. However they rely on some niche mechanics, and without them, are pretty powerless.

Quelling the Viking Fury

One important thing to note is that while Denmark can rapidly go from sea to land, their units are still very vulnerable on the sea. If you can catch an embarked Danish unit it will go down fast to a ship or ranged unit. Keep your coastline well guarded with ranged units, normally siege is best to defend coast but Denmark can tear them apart if they land even one unit, so normal ranged are better. Try to leave no gaps on your coast for Denmark to make an easy landing on. As for dealing with their navy, early game their triremes are second to none, but once deep sea sailing becomes a thing, don't engage them on the coast, force them to engage on open waters, harassing them with naval ranged units should tempt them out.

Ruining Runestones

You already don't want Denmark to pillage your tiles, so this just gives even more reason for it. Keep units at pretty much every front, you never know when Denmark might try to send a cheeky recon or mounted unit to try and mess with you. If they do manage to slip a unit or two behind you, but you are still holding off their main army, it isn't worth risking your position to chase after them. Don't spend much on trying to stop them, yes they will gain a good chunk of yields, but it's better then them conquering you.

Bluetoothing Berserkers

Don't know if that makes much sense, but I just wanted to add a fun fact that Bluetooth is actually named after Harald Bluetooth

Berserkers are pretty strong and come earlier then pikemen so you will likely not have medieval units when they come knocking on your door. Other then the counters to the other Danish uniques, swordsman are probably the best thing you'll have access to. They still lose, but not too horribly, there is only a 3 point difference in base strength. Once you do get medieval units however, Longswordsman will destroy Berserkers due to the strength difference. Knights aren't a great choice, as the Berserker's increased strength and movement make them a much more significant threat to knights then pikemen

Strategy by Style

Early-Game Warmongers: You have to move in on Denmark fast, or risk them landing on your own shores and being conquered before you can finish the job yourself. Make sure you have all your army on Denmark's landmass, and don't have to cross any sort of water. Denmark is one of the few civs likely to have a lot of triremes, and will probably wreck any units in the water.

Mid-Game Warmongers: Similar to Early-Game Warmongers, get your army in fast. If at all possible avoid pillaging any tiles, as Denmark will get a big advantage if they can get a unit on that tile. If you have to fight their navy, do it on open water.

Late-Game Warmongers: Air units will help a lot, both at crushing their navy, and stopping embarked units from getting anywhere near you. If you send Carriers make sure they are well protected, even if Denmark has to leave the coast they will probably still have a large, well upgraded navy.

Scientific Players: Try to get to knights as soon as possible to beat back an early assault by them. After that, just try to stay on top of naval techs to keep your ships better then theirs.

Diplomatic Players: Other then the standard anti-warmonger stuff, don't let treasure fleet pass unless you are 100% certain someone will beat Denmark, they will gain a lot from having the Grand Canal

Cultural Players: Not a ton you can do other then follow the general advice above.

Other Guides

Meta Guides

These guide cover every civ in the game, and can be used as a quick reference

• Civ Summaries

Civ Specific Guides: Alphabetized

• America (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• Assyria (Science/Domination)
  
• Austria (Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Aztecs (Domination/Science)
  
• Babylon (Science)
  
• Brazil (Culture)
  
• Byzantium (All)
  
• Carthage (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• The Celts (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• China (Domination/Culture)
  
• Egypt (Culture)
  
• England (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• Ethiopia (Science)
  
• France (Domination/Culture)
  
• Germany (Diplomacy/Science)
  
• Greece (Domination/Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• India (Science/Culture)
  
• Indonesia (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• The Iroquois (Domination)
  
• Japan (Domination/Culture)
  
• Korea (Science/Domination)
  
• The Maya (Science/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Culture/Diplomacy)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination)
  
• The Ottomans (Domination/Science)
  
• Persia(Domination/Culture)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Rome (Domination/Science)
  
• Russia (Science/Domination)
  
• The Shoshone (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Domination/Culture)
  
• Sweden (Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomacy/Culture/Domination)
  
• The Zulus (Domination)
  

[lifeordeath2077]

Denmark's Scandinavian brother, and final civ, Sweden is up next!

[spacepillow]

Awesome contribution man. Thank you.