Quote:
Originally Posted by Saridu
It's strange, the first four viking islands are very rigid , we all felt railroaded and forced to use less than great viking units (okay I'll make an exception for soothsayers - that loki's touch ability is fantastic! - but usless against the hordes of undead good design).
But once you get to Darion, the game suddenly opens up and you can get human, viking, elves and orcs with some dwarves thrown in, with as little as one quest gate!
Strange approach, I think they were trying to build authenticity (Vikings fight with a viking army!) - and make no loss more challenging (if that's your thing) by making the vikings crappy is comparison to the other races.
I mean who arrived it Darion and thought, hah Rune mages, Royal griffens and Paladins! Who needs them, I' going back to the homeland for another full army of vikings!
Before i get bashed just pointing out that the vikings aren't imho a good balanced army, I would takes even dwarves any day over them. Now maidens are good - if you can get them in sufficent numbers, soothsayers as I said above are good for the Loki's touch, Jarls are okay as tanks go but numbers again could be a problem, I've seen 30ish can't see it been viable (Note I haven't played past Demonis so I don't know if the Viking islands replenish at that point) - I would take Royal Griffens over them in a heartbeat (even with the bugged morale bonus to humans)
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I generally agree on most points. It was weird they put things on rails for a good chunk of the initial gameplay, and then suddenly let you go pretty much wild (though not completely).
I don't think they INTENTIONALLY made the vikings bad. They actually have a decent group of units:
Skald, Berserker, Soothsayer, Jarl, Maiden
That's a pretty decent force. Jarls tank, Maidens and Berserkers do good damage, soothsayer and resurrect are solid, skald supports. Heck, Jotuns are a complete beefcake unit if you want to load them up, though they aren't particularly good other than that.
The issue really, is that the Human units are INCREDIBLY strong now. Royal Griffons + Paladins was already a good strong combination before the degenerate rune mage unit was added. As cool as the Maidens are, Paladin's are that, plus a total tank, and do AoE heals, which are often more valuable.
Heck, even the human Bowmen is much much stronger than most other archers, due to its ability to slow, chill, and burn targets, depending on the need of the scenario.