"The specific rules changes for the Viking faction truly make you fight as
the Vikings did, ie raiding rather than conquering and developing ala the
strategy generally used in the later Medieval War time frames. The strategy I
used was simply to begin by raiding the 4 rebel territories along the SE coast
of England, while building up my forces to eventually conquer the Isle of Mann
west of England. I use my original 2 viking territories to become Jom infantry
and highest ship capable asap. Because Joms take 2 turns to produce, I therefore
need a third province to be able to produce my lesser infantry, and a few
cavalry. When Mann is capable of generating infantry, I use this island as my
staging base to raid the 3 gold producing rebel territories on the west cost of
England. At some point around the 30th year the Saxons will produce their first
ship, also in the sea around the Isle of Mann. They then immediately attack the
viking ship there, but are burdened by hordes of peasants and militia men, so
with a little finesse they can be overcome, all the while accumulating wealth
from them while you raid from one of their provinces to the next, becoming rich
in the process.
The Viking unique units are very strong at the beginning, and can easily fight
at 1:2 or 1:3 odds and come out with a kill ratio of 10 or 20 to 1. In one
battle a silly group of 100 peasants approached my battle line from the flank,
where I had a fresh unit of 12 berserkers waiting. Ordering them to charge, when
the mayhem was over on the totally 1 unit to 1 unit fight, there were 100 dead
peasants with the loss of only 1 zerker. The jom vikings (60 men to a unit) are
basically armored zerkers. The zerkers are bare-chested fyi.
Don't neglect building up a few viking cavalry also. So often you can sweep
behind the enemy and be ready to slaughter the soon to be panicking enemy
infantry as they flee the battle.
I rate this game a 9+ on a scale of 10, and HIGHLY recommend it for anyone who
enjoys the Total War series. I can hardly wait to be playing my Praetorians this
fall." - Mikelas
