The state flag of Denmark, also known as the Splitflag or Rigets flag. The oldest surviving laws relating to it come from March 27, 1630, mandating that armed Norwegian merchant ships could only fly the Splitflag if they were in Danish war service.

Availability: Days of Brilliance DLC
Focus: Late, 18c. Musketeers
Playstyle: European

Denmark (or rather Denmark-Norway, which were held together in a union from 1537 to 1814) is the fourth and final member of the quartet of late-game, 18c. Musketeer-focused nations alongside Bavaria, Saxony, and of course Prussia. They even boast the same early Pikeman penalties and gold-heavy 18th century upgrade cost as Prussia, so they don’t win any awards for originality on that front.

What sets Denmark apart from its fellow 18c. Musketeer factions is its monomaniacal obsession with firepower. Whereas Prussian, Bavarian, and Saxon Musketeers excel in a variety of areas like range and rate of fire, Danish Musketeers go all-in on their attack stat. They may not fire often or from far away and their bayonet skills may be a bit subpar, but once they start shooting their shots really, really hurt.

If you prefer long games, think yellow is an underrated color, or just want to play a straightforward, Prussia-esque country that believes in hitting as hard as possible, Denmark is a great nation for you.


Danish royal standard, 1731-1819. The central coat of arms was first adopted by King Frederick IV in 1699.

+ Armored 17c. Pikeman
+ Danish Musketeer–very strong attack but worse in other aspects
+ Balloon to reveal the map
~ Academies cost more wood but less stone
~ Danish Grenadier–slightly stronger but trains more slowly
~ 18th century upgrade costs more gold but less food, coal, and iron
- Tech cost penalties:

• 17c. Pikeman attack techs (17c. Barracks)

As already stated, Denmark boasts the same 17c. Pikeman penalties and altered 18th century upgrade cost as Prussia, making them weak in low-peacetime matches. Their Academy cost is also changed, but it’s not a big deal–just swap a few Peasants from stone to wood and you’ll be fine. The only other unique Danish features are their Musketeer and Grenadier, making them one of the easiest late-game countries to pick up and play.*

Something I haven’t really mentioned in other guides is that the nations with penalties on their 17c. Pikeman techs—countries like Denmark, Prussia, Bavaria, and the Netherlands—don’t actually pay that much more for their upgrades overall. Instead, the tech costs are reshuffled so that the earlier upgrades are more expensive while later ones are cheaper. This is still bad, though, because it increases the chances of those countries having a tech disadvantage during a crucial early pike fight, which could easily cost them the match. It’s better to have the cheaper techs come early so you can afford them when your economy is small.

* The classic Basic Nation Differences guide says that Danish Stables used to cost more and build faster, but this has been removed.


Danish infantry on the march. Once fully upgraded, Danish 17c. Pikemen (and those of other nations with penalties towards them) are just as good as anyone else’s.

Base stats:

Full upgrades:

Cost: 50 food, 80 gold, 40 iron max: 50 food, 40 gold, 20 iron min.
Training time: 5.5 seconds
Range: 16.88
Reload speed: 5.94 seconds max: 2.91 seconds min.

+ Very high ranged attack
+ Powerful when massed
+ Excels against armored targets
~ Becomes decent in melee with upgrades
- Slow training time and reload speed
- Lower melee attack than normal 18c. Musketeer
- High gold cost
- Melee upgrades are expensive
- Can be overwhelmed by faster-training Musketeers before you get a critical mass of them

The Danish Musketeer is one of those units that has a long list of downsides in exchange for being very good in one aspect. In this case, it’s their ranged damage: Whereas standard Musketeers max out at 25 ranged damage, Danish Musketeers start at 29 and cap out at a staggering 46. That makes them the third hardest-hitting ranged infantry in the game and it allows Danish armies to put out a lot of firepower if you can reach a critical mass of them.


Avenging Christian IV: Danish Musketeers scythe through a Habsburg Hungarian force. If a Danish army contains a large amount of yellow, their enemies are in for a very rough time.

Let’s talk about the rest of their stats: Danish Musketeers have the same HP and range as normal 18c. Musketeers, but they suffer from a worse reload speed (2.91 seconds vs 2.3) and melee attack (30 max vs 40). They also train a full second slower, meaning Danish players can only make 87 Musketeers in the time it takes normal countries to make 108 18c. Musketeers.

With all that said, the burning question remains: Is the Danish Musketeers’ high attack really worth all the sacrifices they make?


87 fully upgraded Danish Musketeers vs 108 18c. Musketeers, reflecting the difference in training time.

It can be. With full upgrades, Danish Musketeers will lose in a straight shootout to an equivalent force of French Chasseurs as well as Bavarian, Prussian, and even normal 18c. Musketeers (though they beat everyone else). This is in part because against normal 18c. Musketeers and other unarmored units with 100 HP, the Danes waste a lot of their extra damage, meaning their special strength is significantly less relevant.

Where Danish Musketeers shine is in situations where their high attack allows them to kill the target faster. This primarily means armored or high HP foes like 17c. Pikemen and heavy cavalry but it also includes unarmored units like Saxon Musketeers and Ukrainian Serdiuks who have 92 HP or less, allowing the Danes to two-shot them. This effect can easily be seen when we rerun the previous test but add blocking troops to both sides.


Flipping the script: The same test as before, but with 108 fully-upgraded 17c. Pikemen on both sides. (Note how some of the 18c. Musketeers are being forced into melee mode by the Pikemen’s proximity, stopping them from shooting.)

Nordics triumphant: Aftermath of the previous pic. Further test revealed that the Danes’ effectiveness increases with the number of blocking troops.

In battle, Danish Musketeers are used pretty much identically to 18c. Musketeers. They take longer to amass, but once you have a large force of them with full ranged upgrades (especially the reload speed ones to raise their slow rate of fire), your army will be one of the strongest in the game, putting out loads of ranged damage while not taking unbearably long to train or replenish like it would if you were using Swiss Jaegers or English Highlanders.

Danish Musketeers have two flaws. The first is their weaker melee skills, starting at 8 attack and maxing out at 30. This isn’t terrible—30 attack is still pretty good, better than what Bavarian Musketeers and the countless ranged units without a melee attack get—but you’ll still want to keep them out of melee whenever possible.


Renegotiating the Treaty of Roskilde: A late-game Danish army smashes its way into a Swedish base. The Cuirassiers and melee infantry are out front to tank bullets and keep enemies away from their Musketeers, allowing the latter to blaze away unhindered.

The second and more glaring weakness is their slow training time. Again, 5.5 seconds isn’t awful, but it still creates a brief opening in the early 18th century when nations with weaker but faster-training shooters can strike a Danish player before they’ve built up a critical mass of Musketeers. Portugal, Ukraine, Saxony, and even Bavaria are especially good at this but any country with 18c. Musketeers can be a potential threat so be careful.

Even with these gripes, Danish Musketeers are powerful assets and the source of Denmark’s status as a late-game superpower. They might be a little more situational than the other 18c. Musketeer variants out there due to their preference for armored and high-HP enemies, but once you assemble a large number of them, they’ll tear through just about any foe.


Fire at will: Danish and 17c. Musketeers pour shot into the enemy from behind a thick screen of Mercenary Roundshiers and 18c. Pikemen.

Base stats:

Full upgrades:

Cost: 100 food, 90 gold, 40 iron max: 100 food, 45 gold, 20 iron min.
Training time: 6.5 seconds
Range: 16.88
Reload speed: 5.94 seconds max: 2.91 seconds min.

+ High HP
+ Very strong melee stats with full upgrades
+ Can destroy buildings with grenades
- Very slow training time
- High gold cost
- Slow reload speed
- Melee upgrades are expensive
- Way worse than Musketeers as mainline ranged troops

Grenadiers in Cossacks are in a tough spot. Their slow training time and similar shooting damage to a Musketeer make them poorly suited to large ranged battles while their strong melee skills aren’t that relevant in an era dominated by shooting. Danish Grenadiers do nothing to solve this problem. In fact, they arguably make it worse since they train even slower than normal Grenadiers (6.5 seconds vs 6) in exchange for barely-increased stats and a worse reload speed. That they compete with their nation’s elite Musketeers for Barracks training time is just another nail in their proverbial coffin.

The intended draw of Danish Grenadiers is that they have +5 HP, melee attack, and ranged attack over standard Grenadiers. This still doesn’t put them anywhere close to 18c. Musketeers as ranged combatants, let along Danish Musketeers (who three-shot the Grenadiers while requiring four hits to kill in return). Their slower training and reload times don’t help matters.


A shame to match Wolgast: 74 fully-upgraded Danish Grenadiers vs 108 normal 18c. Musketeers.

As their name might suggest, Danish Grenadiers come with grenades for destroying buildings and they can do it very well once you research their last Barracks attack upgrade. This costs a lot of money, however, and it means you’re making Grenadiers instead of your elite Musketeers, which is generally a losing prospect.

In short, despite their impressive-looking stats, Danish Grenadiers leave a lot to be desired. If you really want to give Grenadiers a try, go check out Bavaria or Saxony: Theirs are far more useable than whatever the Danes are trying to do.

NOTE: This section assumes you’re only playing with Danish units and buildings. That means it largely ignores capturing, although the advice given can easily be applied to games that allow it.



Aspiring Protestant champion: An early-game Danish base.

Being saddled with pricey 17c. Pikeman techs automatically makes Denmark one of the worst nations in the game for low-peacetime matches. They do better in games with longer peacetimes (15+ minutes) since that’s when 17c. Musketeers become the early infantry of choice, but without any relevant bonuses they’re still merely average and have to watch out for stronger early-game factions like Scotland and Spain.

On the flip side, you could deliberately pick low-peacetime games since the more armored 17c. Pikemen your enemies have, the better your Danish Musketeers will do relative to other shooters. This is very much a high-risk, high-reward plan since you’re putting your nation in a dangerous opening situation in the hopes of a later payoff. I don’t particularly recommend it, but if you want to give it a shot, try 10-minute peacetime games since that’ll give you more time to get over your expensive initial Pikeman upgrades and hopefully reach tech parity before the fighting starts. You’ll still be vulnerable to lots of rushing countries, though, so be careful and bring teammates along if you can.



Reclaiming mastery of the Sound: A mid-game Danish base.

Things improve once Denmark reaches the 18th century and gets some 18c. Barracks up, gaining access to their hard-hitting Musketeer. You’ll need a strong economy to build enough 18c. Barracks to produce them in large numbers, but even a modest infusion of them will make your armies a lot deadlier.

Still, as tempting as it is to start making Danish Musketeers right away, remember that you’ll need a certain number of them (and a bunch of expensive upgrades) before they start to make a meaningful difference. This is why, once you build your 18c. Barracks, it’s customary to start off spamming 18c. Pikemen. That will give your forces a quick and very cheap infusion of combat power while you research techs and construct more Barracks before you switch to Danish Musketeers. You should also make 18c. Pikemen whenever you're short on blocking troops or need to quickly bulk up your army. That way, you'll always have something to put between your Musketeers and the enemy.


Early-game power meets late-game power: Danish and Turkish armies clash.



Social reform and enlightened absolutism: A late-game Danish base.

Move over, Carolus Rex; there’s a new power in the Baltic.

Denmark is a true late-game powerhouse, up there with Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and France as one of the era’s reigning kings. With vast ranks of hard-hitting Musketeers backed up by artillery and your choice of cavalry and 17th century infantry, late-game Denmark can field one of the most powerful (and yellow) armies in the game, able to quickly shatter entire enemy forces with their powerful ranged attacks.

There are a few caveats to this strength. The melee weakness of Danish Musketeers means they don’t do as well if enemy troops can close with them and their somewhat ponderous training time makes them slow to replenish losses. If you throw your army away in a bad engagement, it’ll take a while to rebuild it, giving your foes time to recover and potentially reclaim the advantage. So don’t get cocky and keep playing smart.


Duel of late-game juggernauts: As bullets fly and bodies pile up, Danish troops press their attack against opposing French forces.

Reestablishing the Danelaw: Danish forces encounter fierce but futile resistance while storming an English town.

Like most other late-game countries, Denmark prefers match settings that let them skip over their early-game vulnerabilities and dive right into the late game. That means large maps with plenty of space between players to Marie rushing harder are their favorite, with Mediterranean being especially well-suited for it. Long peacetimes and starting with millions of resources or in the 18th century are also favorable to Danish players.

Naturally, the inverse is also true: Denmark doesn’t do well in games that emphasize the early game; small, open maps with low peacetimes, fewer starting resources, and so on. These kinds of matches are poorly suited for surviving against strong early- and mid-game countries, much less building the strong economy you’ll need to reach Denmark’s full potential.


Yellow beats blue: Amid screaming cannon and small arm fire, Danish Cuirassiers charge the Prussian lines to tank gunfire and force their Musketeers into melee.

One fun way to mitigate this weakness is to play with teammates. With other players to share the burden and take some of the heat off of you, Denmark can potentially pull through the early part of the match intact and become a strong late-game heavy hitter for the team. Their generic 17th century units are also perfectly serviceable (at least once you get past their Pikeman penalties), so it’s not like Danish players can’t contribute to early battles and pushes by their team. In fact, you absolutely should stay constantly engaged in the action even if it slows down your development, since letting your allies fall will be far more detrimental to your chances than not reaching your full military potential.


Meeting engagement: Danish infantry bump into another Hungarian force while clearing the ruins of a French town. The fight’s barely started and already the enemy Pikemen are dropping like flies to the Danish Musketeers’ high attack.

A collection of great Denmark games and tutorials showing how to skillfully play the nation. If you have any video recommendations, send me a link through Steam or YouTube (username 1Korlash) or Reddit (Effective_Can72)!

1. The first of two classic guides from top player colorfit. A must-watch for people looking to dive into multiplayer or just get better at the game.
https://youtu.be/XP19ocvOIg0

2. The second colorfit guide, this time covering how to micro your armies in battle. Again, a must-watch.
https://youtu.be/t6JE59Gnesk?list=PL9MM6y8GRIFcfOaVMvUGSZ7s3HANGpEPd

3. A massive, high-level three hour epic from colorfit. Features lots of back-and-forth action, huge battles between skilled players, and a clash of two late-game titans as Danish Musketeers + Hussars go up against French Chasseurs + Dragoons. There’s even a few Danish Grenadiers thrown in to bomb buildings!
https://youtu.be/e0d5yYHUkak?t=201

4. A 2v2 15-peacetime game from -Vladimir- where Denmark and Prussia team up to show off the standard European build order and army composition for games with this peacetime.
https://youtu.be/1hX7zb8Vymo?list=PL9MM6y8GRIFcfOaVMvUGSZ7s3HANGpEPd&t=1869

National flag of Denmark, also known as the Dannebrog after a (likely apocryphal) legend that it first fell from the sky to aid Danish crusaders during the Battle of Lindanise in 1219. While this myth is most likely just that, it does hold the world record for the oldest continuously used national flag, having been formally adopted in 1625.

That’s Denmark—the last of the 18c. Musketeer nations in Cossacks! While their buildings and tech tree aren’t the most interesting and only one of their two unique units is very useful, I think they still have their own personality and stand apart from their fellows. If you want large numbers of hard-hitting Musketeers, accept no substitutes.

As always, thank you for reading! Only six nations left!

Algeria
Austria
Bavaria
England
France
Netherlands
Piedmont
Poland
Portugal
Prussia
Russia
Saxony
Scotland
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Venice