In my current game of Northland I had a crash while saving in mission 2 and after continuing the game and coming to mission 3 (Fenris chains) suddenly my vikings have lost their hunger/sleep status lines, as if the difficulty had been changed from normal to easy.

Saving and reloading does change nothing.

Is there a way to change the difficulty back to normal and have all 3 status lines again withing mission 3?

Or is the only way to start a completely new game?

e.g. that is the content of my file campaign.ini if that has anything to do with difficulty

[campaign_sub_missions]
a 1 10
a 2 10
a 3 10
a 4 10
a 5 10
a 6 10
a 7 10
a 8 10
a 9 10
a 10 10
a 2 20
a 2 40

Attached image of an error. Sounds as if the autosave had problems saving - however I did not install in C:\Programs... but in J:\JoWooD\Northland

Well the error could be if you didn't run the game as admin i think in your second post but not sure.

Also which vikings don't have hunger and sleep status anymore?
The soldiers or the other viking civilian.

I haven't played this game in some years but i think i remember that if you made children ingame they had all those stats back so maybe it's a certain mission that gives you vikings with such stats as i remember something similar and when you got a grown up in that level they have the sleep status and hunger again. Maybe it's only this mission perk or something that only starting vikings have such a stat missing.