Northgard (2018)

Played free trial on steam and beat story mode on Hard. The only mission I failed was the one playing as the Raven to rescue the Boar rebels. I took way too long and they got killed so I had to restart. This time I got my forces up to protect the ally before they lost any towers, and conqured from that position. A couple other missions were a little annoying with time limits but not enough to need to restart. I chose to use Wolf the first chance I got because their intro mission had no building. I used Bear for the last few missions because of the implied winter and Raven for the final mission. The final mission was surprisingly easy as I focused on colonizing up to the threat to bifrost, then wiping out the enemy factions. The story mode was really an extended tutorial, with the story itself being rather simple and not particularly interesting. I liked how it taught you how to use each faction and put you against the next faction. It did feel like there should be more story campaigns to continue the story.

I liked the Raven best because of their ability to colonize land with food and gold. I use gold starting off and later on because I find the gold does not scale as high as food, though sometimes I had an excess of food to use up. Using 2 resources instead of only food also allows taking more land. I go for the flat gold boost tech following by shipbuilding, and build as many harbors as I can for excellent gold income. The rest of the techs are rather lackluster so I go for food, healing, population growth and winter in the top tree before boosting military. The raids come in handy for converting gold into food. I got knowledge once from a raid though I have no idea if any other resources can be obtained. Raids are of limited use for war. They need to be upgraded with a lot of iron to be a threat, but even without any upgrades they can distract the enemy long enough to cheese some kills or even take a territory. The combined attack of an upgraded raid and warband is deadly.

Wolf might be my 2nd favorite because of the special fame ability to colonize land for free. That accomplishes the same thing as the Raven, but free and less flexible. I like the ability the get food from killing animals and gold from kills, though I find it encourages keeping monster lairs alive to farm. I only played them once though.

3rd I think is the Bear due to their lessened penalties for winter and even combat boost. That makes it good to attack rivals during the winter. I like having 2 hero units with the bear able to harvest fish and the hero boosting production in general. Though that does discourage using them for combat. The biggest flaw is happiness because they lack techs to boost that.

4th would be Stag because of their all round balanced stats. I like the tech that allows skalds to generate gold so you can get both gold and happiness from the same building. Other than that it is a run of the mill faction.

5th is Goat. The tech to halve the cost of colonization is great, and the sheep can be used for food and to offset winter heating. Their flaw is the extra tediousness of managing the sheep and the sheep pens taking up build slots.

Boar is my least favorite but I only played them once so they could rise a bit. The ability to spend extra food to colonize wolves and bears as friendly units was pointless during the story, but I can see how it would be good in the other modes where you don't start off with any military. Wolves are too weak to be useful but bears are pretty tough. The neutral faction bonuses can be useful and I like the less reliance on housing, but I find this faction does not vibe with my playstyle as much.

After beating the story I tried a huge single player game as Raven on Hard. It was much more difficult starting off without a hero, and I found it was important to get a training camp up early on to help with clearing enemies. Then get some iron to train a warchief. The military path aspect was entirely new and I chose legion because it gave xp for military buildings. The other 2 paths gave xp for towers or war chiefs, neither of which I had. I had a hard enough time prospering though I did manage to wipe out my closest neighbor the Boar. I even got 4 of his territories with buildings. Then I lost because an AI won science victory. I was 3rd placed in science. I really dislike these kinds of victory conditions in Civ, Endless Legend, etc because they are all a variation of a time limit. I prefer a more simulation style of play rather than min maxing for arbitrary win conditions. The only victory that matters is military. If I can hold my own and not be defeated by the other factions then that is a win in my book. If I can conquer them and be the undisputed ruler of the world then that is a super win. I sometimes leave the other victory conditions on while playing until I conquer the world if an AI wins, but this game does not let you keep playing after someone wins. Ridiculous. Then I tried conquest as Raven on Hard. It was similar but much easier with only 2 rivals. They were both dlc factions so I guess you only have to buy the dlc to play as them. There is probably a mod to unlock them without paying. I was in 2nd place for science victory and was lucky to have several bonus lore places. I attacked the winning faction and crippled them to secure my win.

My overall strategy was to build a scout camp and make 2 scouts to reveal the adjacent lands so I could plan how to build. After that I turn 1 scout back to villager while manually controlling what the other scout does; sometimes make him a villager if I need food. Next secure wood and food. The lumber mill is best in forest but can be used anywhere there are trees. Food is a limiter because you can only build food structures on the natural food resource. I always put a food silo as soon as possible. I squeeze houses in and needed, then get a healer, source of gold (dock or trader), brewery for happiness, and then stone and iron mines. In the story mode I delayed building military units as long as possible because of the free hero. Outside of the story mode I found I sometimes needed to take people off of specialized roles during winter for extra food production. I spend stone to upgrade food and wood production first, though I hold off on upgrading food silos until I get the tech for half cost upgrades. After that I upgrade gold and brewery, with the occasional house to remove the happiness penalty. Upgrading scouts is essential to attack rivals, and it can be useful to upgrade towers on the border with rivals. I use my iron in the same way, to upgrade the tools for the most important resources. I skip miner, villager and smith because it is difficult to justify the expense for those. Then I upgrade the military units. I like focusing on axe throwers with a smaller number of tanks; the hero, a few warriors and a couple shields. The most annoying thing about this game is the lack of slower speed settings or a pause that allows moving/selecting/issuing orders. It can be very difficult to micromanage during combat, so I found myself relying on cheese a lot; attack while the enemy is busy or create a distraction, then do hit and run. Destroy a tower or kill a few people, pick off wounded soldiers and try to get them spread out. I try to focus fire and have my wounded retreat individually but it is too hectic in a fight against a rival warband.

This was a solid enjoyable game. I found it enthralling to work out how best to exploit the given land to manage the needs of the people. Though the game becomes a bit overwhelming at later stages. Another big annoyance was the way the camera centered on the unit when I selected it from the master list, when 99% of the time I was looking at the building that I wanted to send a villager to. I also found it difficult to find my military buildings to train new units. The game could use some quality of life improvements. I did not buy the game but I might if the price drops by a couple $. I am happy that I beat the story and can see beating conquest with each faction, and playing more single player.

7.3/10