Up until Totally Lacking Care, uh, I mean The Last Chieftains, the Vikings were famous for not having Fire Ships, but having Longboats and Demo Ships instead. The naval rework and UI changes made it so all civs with unique ships that had Elite upgrades lack Demo Ships entirely, due to UI limitations. Well, I discovered a way for at least the Vikings to have their cake and eat it too, while restoring a classic tech tree quirk.
I checked Ornlu’s latest video, and this should work. Fire Ships are on the far right of the UI, so if Longboats take their place, there’s enough room to give Demo Ships.
Writing this, I realized I forgot to account for Cannon Galleons and their Elite upgrade, but that’s a simple fix too. Just give the Vikings the Catapult Galleon, which doesn’t have an Elite upgrade, and therefore only takes up one slot on the UI. It’s more thematically appropriate for the pre-gunpowder Vikings to lack the Cannon Galleon anyway.
With this reshuffling, we should get a Viking tech tree more similar to the classic experience.