The April 2023 patch included a number of important changes for Vikings. This follow-up video covers those in depth: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ebp1q9Fju7GRhnU.html

Imagine becoming a medieval superpower by putting a wheel on a box quicker than everyone else

I've always felt like they should just fold berserkergang into the elite berserk upgrade and come up with a new unique tech to fill the gap. Perhaps something with a bit of a naval bent to push that identity.

8:55 Age of Empires 2 is the only game where you can have Vikings attack a Japanese village in the middle of an Arabian desert

Extend Berserkergang (as +20hp regen) to all infantry. That gives you a unique feel and better value for all of your infantry, makes barracks more viable as a hard transition in lategame and makes you not generic in trash wars. And Berserkers are still unique due to having double the regen and movement speed. And cool capes.

I just realized the Vikings entirely missing Fire Ships is almost definitely a historical reference to the Rus Vikings getting repeatedly trounced by the Byzantines and THEIR fire ships XD

I remember all those years back SotL had a questionnaire which recommends a civ for you based on your answers, and I got Vikings. I appreciate the questionnaire to this date.

As Hera once said, it's almost impossible to mess up your early to mid game as the Vikings, just keep your town center working at any time and you'll end up with way more resources than you might expect

You're the only person I watch the ads for at the end cause I wanna see your company :D

Glad to see you doing more updated civ overviews. Could you perhaps do more? Like maybe with the Japanese, Franks, or Italians?

I think with viking one thing that should be mentioned is their weakness in hybrid maps. While they are great on maps where massing galleys is fine option even in early game, in hybrid maps lack of fire galley is a huge problem. Additionally the early wheelbarrow is less of a bonus in hybrid maps, since you'll be doing a lot less farming. So quite counter intuitively, while they are great water and great landciv, they are actually quite medicore in most hybrid maps. Unless maybe all the water is connected... and even then I don't they are that great.

I'm going to miss your old videos with all the graphs and explanations, but I'm more glad you're finding the time to redo a lot of your old civ overviews. Thanks for all the effort you put into these, SOTL!

I'm happy to see an updated overview about my favorite civ! And their unique units are so cool

What a pleasant coincidence! I just talked about the Danes the other day. I would love to see more remakes of older videos if you're ever up for it Spirit!

Thanks SotL, now I have to play vikings for my next 20+ games !

Dope, thanks dude. Appreciate all your hard work.

The intro music brings back memories. I love this channel so much and having it in the background is really neat.

Definitely your funniest video SOTL! Had me in stitches, love it ❤️

I really love your work Spirit, I am always waiting for your videos.

Spirit, please don't unlist your old Vikings video, it's a classic!

I can't wait until the next Squarespace sponsored video where we will learn about Spirit's new seafood restaurant, "Spirit of the Prawn."

Thank you for great content. Always appreciated

12:16 I just imagine that berserk walking around doing his own everyday things while a guy throws javelins at him

I really hope the Vikings or Norse or whatever will have a appearence in AoE4 or well a lot of the classic AoE2 civs are lacking there.

I love that you're updating these for new players like me! The Xbox release is a lot of fun but it can be hard to find up-to-date information with all the patches and dlcs. Thanks for your work!

Great video as usual. Thank you :D

Man, your Squarespace ads are becoming my favorite part of each video. Reminds me of when this was the case for The Cooptional Podcast. Good times.

glad to see the intro is back

Yes m8, i miss these vids, you should re-do every civ, seeing as how they've changed over the ytears, quality video

the thing with the two unique techs: well ok, but as you compare them to viking infantry, they also need the first unique tech

0:15 ah yes, my phone alarm clock tune. hands down the best AOE tune ever.

At 1:38 the displayed discount on the right is calculated based on the cost of a Fire Galley instead of that of the Demolition Raft. Just a small thing I wanted to point out. Love you and your videos, SOTL!

The intro with the big horn was really cool

Don't know if you hear this often because I'm new to AOE2 (Xbox player) but these videos are AMAZING! I love the effort you put into the visuals in the background, how you display the stats simply and effectively, and you summary at the end really wraps things up nicely

nice to listen againg the INTRO SONG.

Yes, another one! Thanks SoTL! 👍

Love to see updated civ overviews, hope to see Japanese next :)

I like the intro music. havent heard that in a while

Honestly Vikings should get some change to umique tech, because berserkengang is very niche tech (like it is very hard to get a real positive value from it) and some more general tech would be nice, and It can also be used as a balance tool - you can reduce some of their bonus or remove some basic tech to replace it by unique tech with slightly different effect and cost. Like - absolutely Wild idea- remove a champion and give them a imperial unique tech which would give all their infantry some bonus: like 10hp regen per minute, +5-10 hp amybe some bonus attack (like +2) or something. It would make their infantry better but for higher cost and for more castle time and also it could reduce their power because missing champion is big, but it would in the end make their 2-handed swordsman into as good or even better than generic champions, but it would be more complicated to reach this point. Also it would be funny if Vikings would be infantry civ with no fully upgraded infantry unit 😀

The Berserk 1v2ing Eagle Warriors surprised me the most. That buff to give it 12 attack actually has an impact.

I am really not a rts player, but I absolutely love your deep analysis of the different civs❤️

Been loving all your civ reviews, Spirit. However, I’d actually like to request a video about a specific Age Of Kings tech, if you haven’t already made one. Whenever you talk about the Monk tech tree, one of the techs I notice you always tend to put a big emphasis on a civ having is Block Printing. I’d really like it if you made a video about the true significance and/or importance of the Block Printing tech, what civs make the best usage of it, and what civs you feel would really benefit most from having it but currently don’t have access to it.

12:19 BERSERKERGANG SON. It hardens in response to phisical trauma. You cant hurt me Skirmisher!

Can you make updated 2023 aztec overview?Your videos are amazing.

Updated old civ overviews. Yay!

Am I the only one who's super happy and proud to see SoTL now having sponsors?

This is great stuff

Those knights are defintely that old spinning villagers brother,by their dodging in the intro

one of my fav civs in the game

I must admit. The most appealing thing to the vikings to me is their campaign York. I took the Man of isle as a starting point and had a massive Army of Berserks and Longboats attacking Northumbria. So epic. The devs really nailed that campaign.

Yeahhhh , my OG favorite civ 😮😮😮

I'm sure a lot of less-experienced and/or less-skilled players have gotten cocky with Longboats, so I'll explain how you're suppose to use them. The chief advantage of Longboats in Castle Age is their creation speed and their ability to force engagements on their terms. They are NOT capable of beating an enemy fleet with equal resources if they don't micro, so don't just patrol 15 of them into 20 War Galleys. You'll get stomped on. The goal with Longboats is to quickly build a large fleet of them, outnumber and decisively defeat the enemy's fleet, and then destroy Docks to kick the opponent off the water. Many high ELO games on water maps are decided by late Castle Age, as there are very few viable comeback mechanics when it comes to naval battles. If your fleet has been destroyed, you're not gonna be able to build a new one since your opponent will kill any Villagers who try to build near the shore. Not even building a Castle is going to help, as your enemy will just pick off any ships that come out of Docks beneath said Castle. The Vikings can then just pin you down, get to Imperial Age, and then use Cannon Galleons to finish you off. That's where the Longboat shines. It allows the Vikings to avoid the need for a war of attrition by crushing the enemy's fleet and making it impossible for them to build a new one. Make sure you have an equal or greater number of ships than the enemy and you'll win as long as your opponent doesn't hit you with several Demo Ships.

This is the kind of data analysis I can get behind. Minmax like the Roman legion we deserve to be.

Great now we need one for huns

Nice

chieftans in castle age gives you some deadly pikemen at that point in the game, hot damn, my beloved teutons are shaking on their horses right now

You could start a front door repair and painting start up called Spirit of the Door. A carpet cleaning start up called Spirit of the Floor. A bandage delivery start up called Spirit of the Gauze.

I kinda wish the devs buffed the Guard Tower and Keep techs, as I feel like players rarely if ever get those techs. Whenever players do go for towers it's usually bombard towers and only a few specific civs for even that.

Vikings are a fun Trash/Tower rush civ. Their Spearman survive 1 more hit from other Feudal units. Faster moving Villagers are also really nice.

Military units having some kind of speed and / or attack bonus for some time after getting out of a boat!

Spirit of the Vikings

It would be so cool if they added the ability for longboats to transport infantry and archer units as part of their unique techs. It would add so much identity and flavor. Of course, they would still have to make transport ships for any cavalry, siege, monks and villagers they may want to transport.

I want a Viking campaign, it's been long overdue.

8:55 This give me the same vibe in Age of Mythology, where the Chinese are battling the Norse in Erebus

I truly love how SOTL makes a civ overview be so entertaining when it would actually be the most boring thing to learn about.

Vikins stable and monastery were equivalent or similar to Dravdians. In many cases its looks similar tech tree. 1. Vikings have self-healing berserk, whereas Dravidians have self-healing elephants. 2. Both have similar stable trees only exception is the cavalier or battle elephant. Both imperial options were not so good. 3. Both were strong water civs. 4. Both have a great eco bonus in land and water maps in early to mid-game. 5. berserk and urmi swordsman were good raiding troops. These are my opinion

Spirit of the Log :'D

I definitely want to get something from Spirit of the Log

Points for “Spirit of the Log”, wasn’t expecting that 😂

Now we need an update of this civ overview 1111

Watching Berserk part - this is so funny that some of the civs have a powerfull unique units and some of them are like regular.

I just downloaded the game four days ago and I've only really been playing Vikings, so thank you for the immense amount of help!

a truly iconic civ

holy shit that wheelbarrow has eyes

They could use some "Shield maidens"- an IA upgrade for skirms turning them in to Shield maidens. Simular to imperial skirms upgrade, but better looking ;-). Or make them as a light cav skirm unit like the Genitours and let Beserkergang effect them as well to compensate for lacking upgrades.

Threw us a curve ball with a similar-sounding word rather than a rhyme. I approve.

I'd keep berserkergang as it is, but would add in a new faction ability for them that gives them a set amount of gold for every temple they destroy. That would help fund that tech and otherwise fuels their war machine and that would be so fitting for their faction. The amount of gold it gives could always be adjusted until a good balance is found.

On Berserkers, I'll use some terminology that is used in Team Fortress 2, that being how the Berserker is a "Generalist" unique unit. It performs well in almost all situations and can go from attacking to defending on the fly when needed, and be equally effective on both fronts. This in comparison UUs like Teutonic Knights or Huskarls, who would be considered "Specialists" who undeniably perform better than Zerkers in certain situations, but become far less useful in most others.

GOO VIKINGS!

Love that ur still making vids but u should rly go back to HD edition

0:16 the noise you make after eating Taco Bell.

top tier wood is always welcome

I think for vikings they're close to Chinese in the way that lower skill people will not be able to take advantage of the wheelbarrow and hand cart all that much. And if you don't take advantage of those it's just a civ with a very bad stable and ok range.

i always watch your partner-advertisment to see what new website you came up with...

That younger sibling joke hit too close to home.

lets go

One of my favorite civilizations, Invincible.

Video idea similar to the Turk trash unit video: Are Teuton Scout Calvary even worth making? They are a lot more useful and powerful than you think: -Best Monk killers in a standard match game as the only Triple conversion resistant unit. Lose their triple resistance if they somehow get converted. -still retain their usefulness for scouting enemy positions -have all the Calvary upgrades in the blacksmith including bloodlines and husbandry -better attack stats than some Light Calvary - Save you resources for upgrading to Light Calvary and hussar - still a big nuisance to raiding enemy villagers - can be created in large numbers thanks to Teuton farm bonus

Spirit of the Log

My only issue with the civ is that Chieftains really ought to be called Jarls.

I'd suggest that Berserkergang makes all infantry regenerate HP, faster rate for Berserks, slow rate for other infantry. It costs 400f & 650g. Thus, they can go either champions or berserks, and their trash units at least are little bit better.

Does healing of Berserks stack when they are garrisoned in a building and if yes is the stacked healing faster or slower than other units garrisoned with Herbal Medicine?

I wanted a deeper chieftains overview :( but ok, still love ur videos

Great video as always, love watching your videos through the years, keep em coming! One question though, when rating each individual civ's archery units for an official rating, why don't you take Chemistry & Ballistic tech's into account? Always feels a bit weird to me, as the ballistic tech especially is such a crucial tech, especially for harassing!

I long to play this again.

The longboats should garison units too like in real life, that would be a nice addition

When did the intro come back? It makes me so happy.

12 year old me picked the Vikings because they had the cool dudes with an axe and a cape and epic taunts.

Losing thumb ring was really sad

I miss the days when the berserk had 2/2 armour.