Northgard

Dropped the game and asked a refund. Technical issues: The game is poorly optimized and the fact is very well known (go check Reddit and Steam forum). Devs are aware of it and nothing has been done since 2020 (we are in 2024). Concretely, the game is lagging and stuttering. Commands respond with a delay of up to 2 seconds making the multiplayer unplayable even with a good PC. After reading some user comments, "Dune spice wars" from the same devs suffers from the same issues. The game itself: I personaly am a huge fan of Age of empire, Civilization and total war. (just so you know my bias). Northgard is not really a RTS since there is not much strategy : combat mechanics are very poor. The game is very slow and you spend a lot of time waiting. Their is not so much room for skill either. Frustrating: The way the game is played is very frustrating. Progression works by successive ban : - You can't move until you got some scouts - You can't retask a worker to another job (first have to task it to "no job") And finally when you can scout... you can't scout the oponent territory without a specific upgrade. BUT you can't enter in it if their is a wild animal between you and him. When you enter, you can't move freely in his territory : only certain tiles at a time... The point is : the complexity lies in fighting against prohibitions and it is extremly un-fun. In other games you are free : if I want to scout with a villager in AoE, I CAN ! I'll just learn that a scout is better at scouting and I'll get better at the game. Northgard just spits in your face : "NOT ALLOWED". The game clearly has good ideas and some potential and you can certainly find some fun playing it for some 20 hours. But you'll quickly be bored and even more so if you are an RTS fan.

TLDR: Great game, definitely buy it! Just don't buy it on GOG ~~~ I have almost 300 hours on this game. As an original fan of Age of Mythology, Warcraft and the like, this game is a phenomenal compliment to those! I highly recommend Northgard, especially when it is on sale! Pros: -Smooth graphics -Nice audio to compliment -Simple to pick up, but also leaves you yearning to 'master' the nuances of it -Great variety with the clans! Each with their own unique perks, gameplay elements, visuals and much more -PvE alone will keep you hooked, with multiple campaigns & a 'conquest ladder' for each clan. You can easily get your money's worth without touching the PvP aspect (if that's not you thing) -PvP is also fun, and you can equally get hooked on the multiplayer aspect alone -Ability to create your own custom PvE game, with a ton of available options to tweak the gameplay (such as # of players, win-condition, size of map, establish teams, and more). This is where I spend most of my time. -Great for all ages That said, I run into constant issues syncing this game. On occasion, when I load the game, it doesn't connect to the servers and the only solution is to close out GOG or - more often - restart my computer. Of all the GOG games I play, this only occurs with Northgard. Another example of syncing issues: everytime I log in to the game I get the same achievements over and over (as if they were just unlocked). I have to constantly reclaim the in-game rewards I receive for getting these achievements (along with completing Daily & Weekly challenges). And the most frustrating of all - I've lost all progress with each clan. Progress with each clan lets you to claim in-game rewards as well as giving you bragging rights. Losing this is pretty disheartening. If you don't care about achievements, stats and overall progress, grab this game immediately! If you do care about these things, I still heavily recommend you grab this game....just do it on any other platform than GOG.

First played this game thinking it would be a small phone/tablet game time sink, and I was proven wrong relatively quickly. The concept of this RTS is quite easy to grasp, and the solo campaign really helps getting familiar with the mechanics, but once this is done, the whole "conquest mode" and the vast numbers of clans delivers heaps of challenges and things to do, and quite surprisingly, it never got old with me. Game is great alone, better in co-op, and there is the multiplayer ladder for the more courageous. Replayability is really high. DLCs are not really necessary , but they add a lot of the same at a fair price for those who like the game and want more. In short, it has all I expect from a game : good interface, good mechanics, good replayability, lots of content, and coop.

Mix Civilization (without turns), Frostpunk winter survival themes, dota combat system, and Settlers building management together and you get Northgard. Such a combo you would think would be interesting, but Northgard is simply not my cup of tea. Obtaining resources and upgrades feels unrewarding, combat lackluster, building management frustrating, boring units, rather slow gameplay at times, getting too far behind in standings means game becomes impossible to win, and it takes forever to move your units when your land becomes too large. It's a good time sink if your pc can't handle more demanding games or if your looking for just killing time and have nothing better to play, but otherwise I can't recommend it.

Northgard scratches my nostalgic itch for both Age of Empires and Civilization, with RTS gameplay mixed with zone-based expansion and development which feels a lot like the city-based economy of a traditional 4X game in real time. This zone structure puts real constraints on the pace of expansion and aggression, encouraging fun multiplayer gameplay between players of a variety of skill levels. Better players can still rush or macro you off the map, but it's less frustrating than in AoE or StarCraft because you still get some time and space to actually play the game, even while being utterly stomped. Meanwhile, the variety of win conditions and useful creep/PvE fights mean that players can be as confrontational as they want to be -- from a bloody deathmatch to a peaceful Eurogame, and anything in between. The flip side of the zones and win conditions is that Northgard can also be frustrating for new players. Unlike the constant growth of most RTS games, Northgard adds in a complex economic system requiring you to balance a wide variety of resources and needs throughout the game, You don't just accumulate resources and spend them on one-time "purchases" or units and buildings (as in AoE or StarCraft); you also have to meet your people's constant and ever-increasing needs for food, firewood, happiness, money, etc. This isn't a game that you can play on cruise control, as you can completely wreck your own economy at nearly any stage of the game simply by overspending or neglecting a single resource. Several of of the victory conditons (esp. Commerce) allow strategies that are so non-interactive that they can feel like the game randomly ended out of nowhere! There's a decent amount of comeback potential, but that also means that it's relatively easy to lose a game that you were utterly dominating. Still, if you stick with it through the steep learning curve and occasional frustrations, Northgard will reward that effort with hours upon hours of engrossing gameplay.