Viking Raiders (1984) - Raiding is all fun & games until Olaf starts drinking
We're back on the multiplayer games with Viking Raiders, in which Vikings replace their "burning" skill with a "building catapault" skill. Their "loot" and "getting drunk" skill remains untouched.
It's going to be the same players as the Apocalypse multiplayer, basically because I feel bad for making them play Apocalypse. We'll return to the histrocial system for the following game, which should not be in 6 months.
So we have:
- Dayyalu the Wrathful
- Scribe the Scrounger
- [Operative] Lynx the Longsword
- Barachel of Ammon [KarbonKitty]
The map has been chosen thanks to a convoluted system that I don't want to get into, and Dayyalu the Wrathful is now pondering his moves:
I am sad to report that my reading of the manual indicates that army being drunk does not, in fact, increase its combat ability. Although given that the manual is about as long as an average tweet (xeet?), that might still be the case, just not mentioned!
Also, hoard is spelled correctly, yay! The catapult isn't, but that doesn't bother me nearly as much. 😉
The spelling of Catapault must be intentional.
Deep in the Frozen North, where in ages past Troll and Vanir walked the Earth, an army of angry men assembles. Guided by the visions of clan shamans and promise of loot, violence and drink, they prepare ships and weapons of war. First, their neighbors will know their wrath. Then, the weak Vikings of the South, corrupted by their proximity to the Franks and their deviant ways.
Well, after a one-turn kill, we started on a new map:
Dayyalu the Wrathful moves first. Some of this men use the ship as a bridge and attack Lynx Longsword's catatapault. Meanwhile, others take said ship and go search for treasures!
Viking see! Viking do! My boys... cross the boat-bridge and destroy Barachel of Ammon's catapault. It looks like starting with a catapault is NOT the meta. Another of my men get drunk on wine that was on the way. I also send some good lads join the fun in the West. A
[disclaimer: I recaptured my moves for the gif, so the drinking horn did not respawn in the GIF where it really respawned in our game]
After that, I build more troops and more ships, and wish good luck to Lynx Longsword with his turn.
Luckily my guards were sober enough that Dayyalu's sole attacker and Scribe's scout were stopped, and after that I focused on rebuilding the castle defences. Now that the green clan has been assimilated by Franks, there most likely will be a need for strong defence.
In the west there's a mad race going on. Who will claim the treasure chests? Stay tuned...
Operative jumped a step. Here is my destruction of Barachel of Ammon:
That puts me at a significant advanage - but still no chest to get some revenue.
Back to my turn AFTER Operative Lynx moved...
... but actually not much happened, except this beautiful naval action:
One movement, 4 Dayyalu assets sent to the bottom. No wonder he feels wrathful!
The race for the treasure turned into a fight for the treasure:
Unfortunately for Dayyalu, his man Olaf was more interested in drinking than watching the backs of his friends who went after the treasure. So, my warrior was able to take out two of Dayyalu's men single-handedly, and my men can now focus on collecting the treasure.
On my home island I sent a warrior to take out the trespasser, but he failed. So, I had to resort to overkill by crushing him with a boulder. Hopefully his friends on the north side of the fjord were paying attention and understand to stay out of my land.
[Shivering] What is that I feel in the air? Winter is coming!
I had expected to have a peaceful night since scouts were reporting that Dayyalu and Scribe were fighting far in the northeastern corner of the map. But then I awoke to find an intruding party on my land, this time sent by Scribe.
So, the natural course of action was to give them a proper Viking welcome:
Once again we are able to witness Scribe's ships sinking under the southern seas fjords.
On turn 6 winter had advanced so much towards south that the northern fjord had frozen, thus making my land accessible by walking.
In the northeast Scribe had gained upper hand against Dayyalu. Dayyalu had taken advantage of the ice bridge and sent some men towards south. They were good practice for my catapault crews. Otherwise I used this turn to prepare for offensive action by postioning my troops accordingly.
On turn 7 Dayyalu had been building up his defences, and they had been enough to stop Scribe's conga line coming from the east. (Editor's note: the rules make conga line tactics unsuitable for use in this game.)
Men, Dayyalu-the-Fearful is hiding in Dayyalu's Deep, but that won't save him. It is time to show him the might of the sword!
Dayyalu being now out of the game, there's only Scribe left. Me having now the advantage I start pivoting my forces towards east. There's no chance that Scribe can stop me now, or is there? You will see...
Thanks Operative Lynx for the AAR - I am a bit swamped at the moment so it's appreciated.
Speaking of which:
"Viking Raiders - it's Spectrum and I already covered this author, it should be perfect for a quick article. Let's just check a bit the history of this, er, "Firebird Software"
2 hours of reading later
"Oh God. That won't be a quick article."
At the beginning of turn 8 the situation looked like this:
Now that Dayyalu's men had been pressed into my service, I have 24 sober warriors against Scribe's 10. Having a clear numerical advantage I thought I had this in bag and I could just steamroll over Scribe. But the Viking gods had a different idea in mind...
Having become complacent I was just sending men towards east without considering their positioning. This turn consisted of a lot of fighting between my men and Scribe's men (I will spare you from the montage.) RNG had chosen its side and after counting the bodies at the end of the turn the situation looked like this:
I lost almost every fight and lost half of my men. Scribe was able to replace those men who were crushed by my catapults.
I hadn't such a numerical advantage anymore and this combination of bad luck and my complacency gave Scribe an unfortunate opportunity as you will see...
Quote from The Wargaming Scribe on 18 December 2024, 23h49Thanks Operative Lynx for the AAR - I am a bit swamped at the moment so it's appreciated.
Speaking of which:
"Viking Raiders - it's Spectrum and I already covered this author, it should be perfect for a quick article. Let's just check a bit the history of this, er, "Firebird Software"
2 hours of reading later
"Oh God. That won't be a quick article."
Apparently Firebird was a big player in UK, since the Digital Antiquarian has also covered its birth. Probably the best course of action for you is to split its coverage into several articles.
After the bloodshed of the previous turn there was now a much more room to move. For Scribe's man, who had been waiting in the safety of the ship, this opened an opportunity:
If Scribe thought he could challenge me directly because he had been slaughtering my men on the field, he was proven wrong. Lynx the Longsword is a master of the sword, and I decapitated Scribe's man for such insolence.
After that I gave my men the order to kill every Scribe's man they encounter on their way to his castle...
At the beginning of turn 10 the situation looked like this:
Now started a phase called Death Dance, where I was moving my catapults around the field in such a way that I could snipe Scribe's men without giving him a chance to retaliate.
Also on turn 10 my men, who had been assigned to raid the treasure chests, finally returned home. Each man could carry a portion of the treasure, which was worth of 5 gold.
At the beginning of turn 11:
I had lost all three of my men who had protecting the catapults, because I lost every fight against Scribe's men. In fact, it makes me wonder was it a some kind of curse, or did the RNG got stuck into one-sided position after Dayyalu's demise, because every time my men and Scribe's men fought I lost. The only way I could take out his men was by using catapults.
At the end of turn 11 I had crushed almost every one of Scribe's men with boulders and started the siege of his castle...
Turn 12: Lots of blood had been spilled, and not that many men were anymore alive. It was a high time to finally launch the assault and end this conflict.
Scribe the Scrounger had fallen! All the north may now rejoice!
Thus these lands were united under the rule of:
Now seems to be a good time to collect all those drinking horns for the celebrations.
About the overall impression of the game, I have somewhat a mixed reaction. In our match, Dayyalu's initial attack against me gave him an advantage, and I think if he had kept the pressure on, he would had been able to take me out of the game quite early. That would have given him also a clear advantage to win the whole match. Now, that he relented, my map position gave me a possibility to play a tactical game.
At this stage I was enjoying the game, since I wasn't at the mercy of the RNG, but I was able to execute my every move like I had planned. Here the PBEM format gave me an opportunity to take the time needed for calculating the best positions for my units. In a hotseat game the peer pressure probably wouldn't allow to be as precise as I was here. Thus when winter opened up the map I was able to attack Dayyalu before he was able to attack me.
It the final phase of the game it was more open warfare against Scribe, and here the combat left somewhat sour taste in my mouth when my men were losing every fight. I don't know what to think; I won probably less than 20% of all the fights, but I won all the important ones. It would be interesting to know if there are any modifiers in the combat algorithm, or is it supposed to be purely random. Because it sure didn't feel random in all those fights against Scribe's men.
Based on the experience so far, I would say that the enjoyment of the game depends heavily on what kind of map is generated and your starting position. I got some enjoyment out of it because of the chance to play tactically with catapults, but had I been at the mercy of the RNG all the time like KarbonKitty was, it wouldn't have been really enjoyable.
With this kind of randomness I don't see much point in it as a single player game, like for example in Chaos you could test how you fare with different spell books. There's not anything like that in here, so the only fun could be experienced as a multiplayer game, especially when playing in hotseat where you can play several matches in quick succession.
Merry Christmas to all the readers of this forum!
I mostly agree with you, and just like you I feel the game probably shines more in hotseat than in PBEM.
I feel one of the strength of the game is how fast it is. I think we played something like 8 turns in total, and in a PBEM situation it would have taken I suppose around one hour - definitely short for a 4-players strategy game with unit-building! Similarly, in PBEM, time pressure would have made mini-maxing position harder, and possibly catapults a lot less accurate. I also like how the game is strict with the economy: no chest, no money... but you can totally win without treasure chests. (and I almost did!).
On the other hand, the luck-factor is insane - as we have seen - and while I feel luck does not ruin a 15 minute games it does ruin a 1 hour game, particularly if you are eliminated in the first 10 minutes. I also found the game less hilarious than it could have been: horns of wine in particular are just too easy to avoid. Overall, if I had Viking Raiders and Chaos in the 80s, I would have played this Viking Raiders exactly twice, and then played Chaos all the other times.
I played two solo games, and while they were not absolutey uninteresting, I have no desire to play a third one ever again. Viking Raiders is really easy to learn, easy to master ^^.
The game is by nature a fun yet incredibly limited "play with friends while drunk" game. It's incredibly swingy and the utter dominance of RNG in combat resolution, and the frankly subpar map generation routine doesn't help.
Out first game (the one I posted a screenshot of before we restarted) ended with me killing off an opponent first turn because my little pixel man sprung forth, killed a defender and stormed the castle.
The movement rules remind me of a schizo version of chess for the infantry (it's extremely important to consider your position and future movement) while catapaults are a late game solution and are essentially invincible if your opponent hasn't some or can't afford some.
Naval play is interesting in theory. I think you could ignore it and stockpile resources for the winter and be better off. But that would be boring.
Is Viking Raiders deep as a puddle? Yes. But it's also fun in its simplicity, and considering the amount of rage some other games gave me, losing a good friendly game due to RNG and not because it took us by exhaustion still gets a passing grade from me.
I thank the Scribe for the chance and ... merry Christmas to the three readers of this forum!