Northgard

Fun RTS game :)
I love that all the factions/clans are quite unique and they've all be really fun to play.
The game modes that Northgard offers is soo great! As it offers single player story, co-op 2~4 players, multiplayer PvP and MORE! So, whether you have people to play with or not, you can always play the game!

Some things to note about the game:
The factions/clans costs quite a bit of money $...
I don't know how often they go on sale and how cheap they get. I don't mind the cost of each factions/clans too much, as it gives me a reason to play what I currently have until I understand it. And it also makes me save up to get a faction that I want to play as a way to reward myself.

The combat is tile based.
The tile based combat can make combat a bit tricky. Attacking with ranged units might be a bit difficult since all units needs to be inside the tile before being able to attack, so ranged units are great for defending, but not sure about attacking.

Some of the win conditions might be a bit sleeper.
The trade win condition has been a bit boring to win with as there's not much contesting a player can do and there's no big red warning that tells you when a person is about to win the game with things like trade, so sometimes, it might feel like the game just randomly ended. Good thing is that, if you're playing multiplayer with friends, you can disable whichever win condition you want during game setup.

Came back to this game after a few months away and updated to the "Trade & Prestige" patch.

Since updating to this new patch performance in the single player custom game is utterly unplayable in the later stages in terms of jerkiness, screen lag and pauses. The game starts off fine, but towards the end when I've got a fair few regions under my belt it always starts to slow down. I have even tried a medium map with just one player on easy - same issue. Have tried reducing the graphic settings in the game, no difference. Devs, please fix this, it didn't happen to me on the previous version. Wish I had never updated :( The game is unplayable now because it is so hard to enjoy the later stages of a game. I've seen a lot of other people have raised performance issues so this is perhaps not new.

Used to be a great game, I'm cranky that I spent money on this game and it is now literally unplayable because I can't finish a game it runs so slow towards the end.

Game had potential but has taken the paradox model for the purpose of GREED. DO NOT BUY.

Visually and mechanically a decent game, yet AI is a worst peice of shit I ever seen in RTS. If you ever played StarCraft or Warcraft series please dont touch this cheating brainless hot mess.
DLCs are a freaking joke, no way a different race for same game should cost as standart game.

The game feels incredibly unbalanced in single-player. While you struggle to keep a balance of all your resources, rival clans often invade you with numbers you could only dream of, This game is beautiful and has great game-play loop, it unfortunately is just so unforgiving that it is not capable of leaving you with a feeling of positive progression.

In conclusion: Lots of potential for fun game-play but in its current state to unforgiving leaving you with a sour taste in your mouth.

After 1,300+ hours, I finally completed all the achievements in this game! 🎉
I’d like to share my experience with you:

Story Mode:
Rig’s Saga – A fantastic introduction to the game. A must-play for beginners.
Cross of Vidar – A challenging story mode. Not recommended for inexperienced players.
Overall – Both storylines have solid lore and satisfying endings.

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Conquest Mode (a.k.a. The Grind Zone):
This is where 90% of the grind happens—50 wins with each clan! Here’s my take on them:

Favorite Clan: Horse 🐎
Why? Two heroes that cost no iron, can be upgraded multiple times, and even craft their own gear.
Bonus: No need to waste villagers on blacksmithing.
Result: Max upgrades within 3 years + Altar of Kings.

Easiest Clan: Stag 🦌
Why? Starts with extra resources, and Skalds generate both Happiness and Gold.
Verdict: Easily the most beginner-friendly clan.

Hardest Clan: Hounds 🐺
Why? I just couldn’t figure them out. Even with upgraded brawlers and a mixed army, I kept getting wrecked.
Verdict: If someone has tips, I’m all ears!

Weakest Clan: Goat 🐐
Why? I think we all know why…

Most Boring Clan: Rat 🐀
Why? Mid-game becomes a chore. Managing shamans on every tile for healing, then scrambling to reposition them during enemy attacks—over and over again.
Bonus Frustration: AI armies magically respawn like they have infinite gold, leading to 3-4 full-strength invasions per year.
Result: I often saved and quit out of pure exhaustion.

Most Overpowered Clan: Turtle 🐢
Why? Caravans gather resources without buildings.
Double harvesting from farms, fishing, and hunting.
Villagers can be bought with food, making population growth effortless.
Gold production is a higher —100+ food production within 5 years is easy.
Verdict: I wouldn’t be surprised if they get nerfed soon.

Most Unique/Weird Clan: Owl 🦉
Why? No wood, buildings are constructed with Lore, completely unique tech tree, and a “boss” unit.
Verdict: Very different playstyle, takes some getting used to.

The Other Clans:
Pretty well-balanced overall, each with its pros and cons.

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Bifrost Mode:
First attempts? Brutal. Even on the easiest difficulty, it felt nearly impossible.
After multiple tries? You start understanding the mechanics and making better choices.
Verdict: Tough learning curve, but once mastered, it’s extremely satisfying to win.

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Multiplayer Experience:
Why I didn’t play MP much: 90% of games are just Snake Clan rushing in 801.
Biggest issue: Finding matches where people actually develop their clans instead of speed-running aggression is rare.
Verdict: I’d rather play other RTS games for a more strategic multiplayer experience.
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Final Thoughts:

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! 😊
Hope you enjoy this game as much as I did! =D

This has to be one of the more annoying games i have played.
Even on easy setting rivals clans seem to progress much faster than i do. I would have thought on easy setting the progression of rival clans would be tied into the development of the player clan , to allow people to learn the game rather than be given a hiding by an AI that knows what it is doing.
When you start building a new building sometimes a builder is automatically assigned and sometimes a builder is not assigned and you have to do it manually. Why ?
Sometimes when you select a villager to do another job it picks a villager who was doing nothing (i.e. sensible) and sometimes it picks a villager who was already busy, very annoying.
When you do select a villager to go to a building ,the game tells you they were already assigned to do that job. NO they were not i have only just assigned the guy , he was not already doing that.
It costs to train a Military guy say a shield bearer, but the game happily lets you convert a shield bearer into a woodcutter , without warning you (see previous comment on random selection of villagers) and you lose your trained guy and would then need to spend resources to convert him back.
When you get into losing situations there is no reset , the game just keeps on hammering you with more mercenary ship raids and more attacks by local clans, but never quite enough to kill you off completely, its like a slow lingering death.

This is a fun RTS civ builder. I enjoy playing with friends. I didn't like the cartooney style at first, but it grew on me. The story mode is short and fine. It offers a good tutorial on the base clans. But the skirmish/battle mode is where the fun lives for me. If you like this style of game and find it on sale, especially with one of the bundles that have most of the clans in it, it is totally worth it.

There is one complaint I have with it, which it pretty good overall for a game these days.

The only way to differentiate teams in the field is by color. As a person with a color vision deficiency I want other ways to differentiate the people running around. The color vision settings do not provide enough contrast and I can't understand colors that are close together, like orange and yellow, or blue and other blue. Optional icons would be the most helpful.

The only bug I've run into is players being disconnected while in the lobby. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen enough that we have a running joke about it. When it happens we frequently have to restart the game and open a new lobby to get everyone in cleanly. And if we spend too much time sitting in the lobby (like more than 4 or 5 minutes) then someone gets booted at least 50% of the time.

Overall this is a fun game and I keep playing it.

Extremely stupid ai that will just repeatedly sit outside your borders but refuse to take your main building even if you purposefully kill all your own people to give them the best odds. Also just keeps on releasing clans for a high price when you think about much it would take to actually get the full experience.

Pretty fun game, it requires resources like Against the storm and soldiers are more expensive than other similar rts games but the diversity of the clans with each of them having multiple playstyle with the technology tree made it more complex and allow more creativity in gameplay

Fun game, one of the best RTS ive played. Multiplayer super toxic do not play if you havent spent hours practicing

Northgard is a really fun strategy game with a Viking theme. It’s got a good mix of city-building and RTS, and every clan plays differently, which keeps things interesting. The gameplay is pretty smooth, and the art style is nice too. Definitely worth checking out if you’re into strategy games.

The game is very well done. Extremely fun to play.

However, even after the original 30 dollars I paid for this game, around 66% of the games content was locked behind more individual paywalls.

At the start of a game, you choose which "Clan" you play as, and originally you get like 6 to choose from. There is a total of like ~20, each with their own price tag you have to buy after purchase. With each being around 5 dollars, that adds on an additional 60 dollars of content to a 30 dollar game.

Each clan gets their own individual perks, some get buildings, some get units. There is no explicit need to purchase them to win, but to put in perspective, a minimum wage worker would have to put in 3-4 hours of work to just buy the game. And they only get to experience a fraction of it. Absurd.

Keep crashing on the Victory Screen. Never in a game felt so annoying to win a campaign.
Otherwise could be a great game, now this makes it unplayable

Fun if you like RTS games (especially at first), but latest patch has broken the game so you cannot continue playing after winning a game (trade, fame, etc). DLC is underwhelming. 7/10 before latest patch, 4/10 after. Put in the time and work to build up your clan only to lose it all to a crash.

Decent game when it works, currently crashes on any game/story completion.

Annoying DLC achievements are part of base game and very long to get (50 wins on each clan!?!?

crashes when playing the campaign it freezes after the victory screen. Refunded because of this

quick update : guess what , the game also like to crash a lot in the single player mods

first the Ai is trash , and let's continue


i like the game but the devs are trying not to make it good
=========== i am writing this because i want it to improve ===================

1. why the hell the clans is dlcs ,, i bought the game , then i open it and you find most of the clans are locked , and you play against players that have them .... then i want to open the clans but then you see that you need to buy them from the dlcs , and every clan for 3 $ wtf do you want me to spend 36$ to open the clans ???????

2.the navigation and the controlling of your villagers and fighter get so much harder when you conolaize more lands , making me very lost.

3. the natural disasters is so groundbreaking they can literally but you in a spot that you will get annihilated sometimes even if you are the strongest in the match

4. in online , the match takes so long so so long so so long one match may take 4 hours . and you can't go even 20 sec without a disasters . so you can't pee or do anything.

5. in offline matches it's so bad , the AI in this game is so bad , when you put 1 hour or 45 minutes in the match it's programmed to make you lose your mind . the AI and the bots should be programmed to simulate a real players, and real players have their own problems too to deal with , and they don't know every feet that I take . but this game AI and bots is like playing chess , you alone against 10 people playing together if someone attacked me and I sent my military to protect the land then the other AI clan will attack me from the land that I left ,then I split my military to protect the land I lift , then another AI clan will attack from the sea , then you lose that lands and you lose 100% of your military , then you think smart you rebuild your military and colonize that lands again, then bc you are smart you build a defense Tower ,,,,,,,,, no no no the AI knows that you build a defense Tower , then the game says it's time for earthquakes ,rats ,ghosts, wolves and another 10 Clans attacking you from every land you have.


6.when you play against a clan that can send a mercenary ships , congratulations you will have the worst time in your life , every 30 seconds a ships will attack your Shores All the match , and you can't do anything about it if you kill them they will send again two ships this time, if you build a defense Tower they destroy your defense Tower in 1 second , if you put warriors , another clan will attack your borders then in the same time the ships will attack your Shores ............. wtf .

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and after 3 hours of your life you lose like you are nothing and you did nothing , you didn't even had a chance from the beginning

If youre planning to play Conquest (coop) i cant recommend it.
Im not a Pro in those type of games, but even on lowest difficulty, easy, the AI straight up cheats.
We hurry like crazy, need to wait for new People and Ressources and 1 Moment later you got 10 Enemies in your Base.
Or it straight crashes and you can NOT save in Conquest.

Really looking forward to this game, however I've requested a refund because the game crashes when I try to click 'continue' after completing the first mission. I tried both DirectX and OpenGL, I tried windowed mode and full screen and nothing allows me to prevent it from crashing. Maybe I'll try again in a few months if it ever goes on sale again.

I cannot move past chapter 6 of story mode, because on the victory screen, when i press continue the game crashes. It is really annoying, in a relatively great game. I will change my review, when they actually fix the crash bugs.

Game is good, but the expansions are expensive and don't add much value, they should have been included within the game.

Prior to Northgard's new bifrost Mode Battling waves of enemies each winter the game was great and completely worthwhile to play. It has its issues, all games do. It has cheating AI like most RTS games do but they take it a step further. The game is worth playing if you never intend to touch bifrost. as I personally enjoy playing solo doing Conquest. |

This game is not worthwhile CURRENTLY if you intend to play the Bifrost as a leading factor to buying the game. at discount I can understand purchasing it. But until the developers fix more bugs with the mode it is nearly unplayable in co-op (Bugs in singleplayer still occur). From glitched out UI / Disconnects mid games / corrupting game files making it impossible to continue a current run / Mobs beginning to race back and forth in a zone like they are confused on if they want to run or jump into the fight until you defeat them / Ghosts just...chilling in the ocean nuking your happiness / Mobs becoming invisible due to a ui glitch from events (Like Meteors that spawn golems, Or the LITERAL Winter Invasions) | Now mind you this is not a constant and every game is a roll of the dice if you obtain a bug and it forces you to restart (Each session can take up to 30 minutes - 1 hour per map dependent on your efficiency) The last One hundred hours of gameplay done was in bifrost and we have only managed to get one bugless game run completed. (Failed several because Skill issues too) |

IF you plan to play solo it seems to work out for plenty of people on youtube. But I have seen quite a amount of issues while playing. Fresh installs / restarting / Conceding and restarting the map/ Alt tabbing does not fix any of these issues posted as ui issues.

Simply put. Until they make fixes the game is currently not in a state to play bifrost safely in, other game modes have worked great for me.
The game devs have worked hard and have made a great game. I hope they continue to do so as this game is worthwhile with a few Desperately needed Patches...

PS. where is the Literal only kitten clan? Gotta give all those weak clans the PAWS. Kitten council will rise on the shores of northgard someday.

Grabbed this on sale. I have regrets. Really enjoyed this game at first the intro levels are just balanced enough to get you past the refund point. Graphics and sound are lovely. After the refund point has passed the game turns to garbage there is little to no choice in the game you are basically forced to play the game exactly the way they want you to for each level or you are harshly punished (i.e you will lose). There is some interesting mechanics here for the tribes etc and some great ideas about how to make game play more interesting its just implemented wrong. Each tribe has like one special building unique to them all the other buildings are the same 12 buildings for every tribe. Each tribe has a couple of unique skills that you pretty much must use or you will lose. Focus seems to be more on multiplayer and rankings with very strong focus on needing to buy one of the many DLC clans to get ahead in the multiplayer or rankings. Having played RTS for decades this has sadly dissapointed me after such a promising start. I would not recommend this to anyone as a RTS unless they love Multiplayer games and love paying for DLC that should have been in the game in the first place as part of the release or added later to the game for free. Would refund it if I could however as mentioned they very cleverly made it good enough to get past the 2 hours before you notice how bad it truly is as a game.

My first time playing a RTS game, I really enjoyed the campaign for singleplayer.

Bought it during a sale. Game kept failing to load my saved games. I tried giving it a chance, saving it in a different slot, when I found discussions on Steam about others having the same issue I realized it was not me.
Refunded for myself and those I gifted it to.

The game is promising. The different flavours of clans feel like an interesting idea and reminds of the time when there was more than just RTS grounded in real-life history. Different win conditions are also present. It does feel a bit weird to play with a tile system where you have to claim each piece of the land or f.e. that one military building can only produce two warriors, 3 if upgraded. But that is just me being used to old RTS games probably.

Them going hard on releasing each clan as a separate DLC is questionable to me too. I understand, they gotta eat and keep developing but I personally would rather pay a bit more to buy the game in full, all in one place from the get go.

Loved this game at first. It's just way too imbalanced now. On Normal difficulty the AI cheats for resources and units so if you get the Swamp biome you're toast. There's a bug on Extreme difficult that the AI is actually easier because they don't cheat for soldiers. So all ppl playing on Extreme think the game is easy, hilarious. Normal should be a comp stomp if you're decent at managing economy. I'm getting stomped every time now and stuck on a level that's unbeatable because the AI get's free resources and units. Devs are greedy AF.

I bought Northgard on sale because I like strategy games and it seemed interesting. Unfortunately, my experience has been frustrating. The user interface is incredibly small and doesn’t adjust to fit the screen, making it hard to see or use. I spent hours playing yesterday, saved my game, and returned to find an error message about a corrupted save. When I continued, my game was frozen and completely glitched. All my progress was lost. Between the tiny UI and the instability, this game is difficult to enjoy. Even on sale, I regret buying it.

I'm sorry- but I actually don't understand all the positive reviews and can not recommend this game despite how much I like the gameplay.
The devs love small quick matches like League of Legends loves ranked, so with the way the game has been built now over time, most clans have their identity stripped to "slightly different war-chief and brewer", "slightly different research effects than normal", except for some of the more powerful clans.

Which is strange, I shouldn't be allowed to actually say, "more powerful clans", and that shouldn't be a decision factor, but it's a HUGE one. Of course, they all cost money too. I would name them for examples, but then the devs will take notes, and make those few clans just as useless as the rest.
Some are basic or get overshadowed by something stronger, and when enough people finally complain, rather than buffing the weaker clans they nerf the stronger ones. Overtime the entire game has slowly become a slog because most clans are unfun to play for one reason or another, and all of them struggle a lot more than they should throughout the game, especially at the very beginning and end game.

Speaking of, I don't even want to talk about end game- I used to have singleplayer saves go on for days, just against the max difficulty environment with the map special victory. But now, if you run any match, single or multiplayer for longer than 2 hours, the entire game starts to shit itself and quickly destabilizes, no good game should do that. Case in point: the game used to be good, and when it was this didn't happen. But now, it's slowly getting ran into the ground because I'm not sure the devs know what the community wants, and they keep pushing out content for money at the cost of bugs and server instability.

If you then think mods can save this game, guess again sadly, because judging from the fact that there are like 3 or 4 ACTUAL mods, each multiple years old, and everything else are maps, it must be extremely hard to mod, which also isn't doing this game any favors. Again, I like the gameplay, but so many blunders and strange things make it not fun.
I will say though, the DLC clans are worth it if it looks like something you're interested in, the mixed reviews / negative on most are literally just because it was buggy when first released and those reviews never got taken down, or it's people complaining about how the clan is too op or not op enough. Ignore that noise and focus on what looks like the most interesting playstyle, they all play great, but it's just not the same still, as it was years ago.

The amount of time I've put into this game is not a reflection of the quality of the game. It's a reflection of the very slow pace, and very steep learning curve. Basically, the first 30 minutes of any game, you're entirely on your own. You're competing against the elements, and trying to build up your colony. But then you encounter an opponent, and it becomes IMMEDIATELY clear if you did well to prepare for their invasion. Either you get steamrolled, or you do the steamrolling. There is not much exciting back and forth in this game, and it takes way too much time to get the repetitions in to figure out how to build up your base effectively.

This has to be one of the worst AI's I've seen in a long time (!)

Cheating AI to compensate for being bit dumb is common practice in RTS games, but apparently the devs think that their AI is stupid beyond any redemption so they juiced all the cheating levers to the moon and the only thing that remains is artificial difficulty in the most boring and tedious way.

Raiding/attacking an AI is absolutely pointless unless you can actually destroy their main base. They're barely relying on population for their production and any villagers/military units you kill respawn almost instantly anyway so it's absolutely pointless to raid them.

The issue seemed a bit less apparent during the Campaign, so at least that part was bit better balanced. But trying out Conquest mode afterwards is just absolutely disgusting. It's doable, but an absolute drag cause it requires constant micromanagement to barely compensate for all the AI cheating. And even then it takes so long to finish off an opponent because raiding an AI does barely anything, so unless you're way way stronger the AI will just bounce back in the blink of an eye.

Bit of cheating would be fine, but I mean the AI units literally respawn like 2-3+ times faster, and their armies have barely any upkeep so it doesn't matter if you destroy their economy cause they will just field an army of 15+ units without any economy supporting them anyway. It's just a joke imo, this is not an actual challenge.

Please put some actual thought and at least a little bit of effort into your AI so the cheating doesn't have to be so blatantly in your face.

It's a shame, cause the base game mechanics are interesting enough, the game looks nice visually and has a good theme. The campaign is decent and multiplayer might be fine, but beyond that the AI is a hot broken mess preventing you from having any fun.

fix that shitty servers. Trying to find the game for over 30mins and suddenly im getting message "server not responding"

The limitations in the game needs to be tweaked. This game could be such a great game, but the scaling is so low and congested feeling. The rats are just stupid. They don't present challenge, they just piss you off and wreck your game. Incoming raiding ships are WAY over powered and not challenging at all, it just simply destroys you. It can either occupy your military or you just get pummeled. They need to fix the gameplay. What is the point? What is the goal? I don't get it. 2/5

very fun game, 5$ for each new tribe ruins everything.

Technically it's a good game.

But it seems the current focus is on new tribes to buy, rather than game stability.
At least in the last six months, errors occur regularly and the game freezes.
It's quite annoying if you lose a few hours of play.

In addition, the AI isn't stable either. With normal it's sometimes quite difficult.
On easy it's... well easy but some times challaging as well - but sometimes the AI doesn't do much at all.

Do you like fun games? Games that work? Games that offer a good balance of challenge/reward?

Well this isn't that game. At worst you get a few minutes into the game, then the bots raid you twice or more at the same time so you're forced to start over. At best you do decent, The stats and military look good, but you get a ~3fps slide show you can't do anything about. It is a cool concept that can be fun at times and you can really get into it, but the current execution Is not there.

Very good strategy game, with a lot of content and ways to play it. Single player, online, with friends or solo. Highly Recommended!!

FIX YOUR AI. IT IS EMBARRASSING AND GAME BREAKINGLY AWFUL.

The AI system plays so robotically. Any time you move your troops anywhere, the bots know to execute whatever script. Above all else, they literally CHEAT. They have way more troops than would be possible based on tiles. 0/10. If the AI was fixed id play it.

Northgard is a fun game with a lot of potential, but it often feels like it's stuck in a perpetual beta state.
New bugs are frequently introduced with updates, and frustratingly, some older bugs tend to reappear as well.
This pattern seems to coincide with the release of new DLCs, which focus more on adding content to drive sales rather than ensuring the base game is fully polished.

The campaign is a highlight of the game — it's engaging and, by now, should be relatively stable after addressing many earlier issues.
However, the Conquest mode is still plagued by numerous bugs, which can hinder the overall experience.

The AI in the game is particularly frustrating. Instead of being "intelligent," they rely heavily on blatant cheating. There are significant discrepancies between AI clans: some will obliterate you with massive armies despite having virtually no visible economy, clearly benefiting from resource generation cheats. Others are so poorly designed that they practically self-destruct in some Conquest missions, making their behavior wildly inconsistent and often immersion-breaking.

As for multiplayer, I can't comment since I don't play it, but it's worth researching if that's a primary interest for you.

In summary, Northgard is a game I'd cautiously recommend.
While it offers an enjoyable and unique experience, its persistent technical problems and uneven updates make it hard to fully endorse. Still fun to play, but can be frustrating sometimes.
If you're willing to look past the flaws, it can be worth your time — but proceed with tempered expectations.

The DLC is not worth it. $4.99 for a single faction that you might not even like? Such a weird game. cool story but a lot of opportunities for the campaign to soft-lock, especially in the expansion, which ALSO costs money, despite not being thoroughly tested. do not recommend

If you are player not good at fast pace and manage land no recommended for this specially play with other friends it just destroy relationship

Not only does the games AI cheat excessively, it doesn't even do a good job of hiding it. Prepare to be focus fired by all NPCs on the map at the exact moment you move to defend elsewhere, their knowledge exact, their co-operation flying in face of the free-for-all. They have more resources, have to defend themselves less against monsters, handle emergent issues (frequent and crippling to you) without issue while attacking with a force twice the size of your own, while you barely muster an economy (which must be tightly crafted and again, can be crippled at any time).
I realize cheating AI is nothing new in the genre, but my god this is just un-fun. I play a game to enjoy it, not to hate myself. Basically, it doesn't feel like a challenge, it just feels cheap. Polish your AI and remove it's innate bonuses. Hell, even if you can't polish the AI remove them anyways and just let easy/normal difficulty be playable, I have no idea why anyone but most sweaty power gamer would ever select a higher difficulty aside from being a masochist.

8/10 Great RTS Game Wow, I wished I had picked up Northgard sooner. This is very much a modernized version of Age of Empires with some boardgame-like elements. Normally, I hate elements that are boardgame-like, but it works really well here. Also, I gotta say that you wouldn't even know this was Early Access with how polished and full of content it is (I did have one crash, though). I booted it up and four hours flew by. Took me about an hour to get my head around the mechanics.

Essentially, this is a RTS game with a variety of victory conditions. Everything is fully customizable. I only played single player and that mode is great; I'm excited to try multiplayer. Because it has multiplayer, there is no manipulation of time or pausing. Some refer to this title as a 'city builder', but I don't see really any aspects of city building - it's a RTS like Age of Empires. What really makes Northgard stand out from the pack is how the map is built from large tiles. The tiles create a whole new dimension to how you go about playing the game. Here are some interesting things:
You can only build on your tiles, and each tile has a colonization cost (usually food).
Not all tiles are created equal; many have powerful resources and/or buffs associated with them.
There is a special victory condition associated with a tile on each map; there are variations of this tile that are quite unique. For example, one I had to colonize was covered in magma. Once I got there, I needed to build a forge and then craft a special sword. Once I crafted it, I won. It was neat.
Everything felt great, overall. I'll definitely be dumping time into this one. I like the achievements, too.

Pros:
+Very polished and full of content already
+While staying true to the RTS genre, it definitely brings tons of fresh new ideas and mechanics to the table; the tiles are an outstanding addition
+UI is super clean and easy to understand
+Music and artwork are great
+The currently available factions all have cool attributes and lend themselves well to varying strategy

Cons:
-Honestly, I haven't found anything to really nit-pick about yet

This game is on the top of my list for “favorite games”. I appreciate the frequent updates to the game as well. The devs are still engaged with the game and it shows. I’m always looking forward to when the next clan will be released, and to see what new mechanics that clan has.

If you have a buddy or 2, or 3 buddies, the bifrost is all I play now, so it’s worth checking out. That game mode is basically a rougelike. Every play through is new and different based on the upgrades you will get. Coming up with good synergies with clans is really neat and exciting. The bifrost was a great addition to the game. I hope they continue to develop the bifrost game modemore in the future, but it still has a ton of replay value as of now.

I highly recommend Northgard, especially if you got a buddy to play with.

Fun game. Little Glitches like some unit will get stuck in a loop deciding which way to go. Enemy strenght scale insanely with difficulty level. I would say its a good distraction for solo story and couple game vs ai.

Multiplayer community is disgraceful. Hardly get to see a game through with all those rage quits.

Buy on sale. Enjoy then move on the better games.

Time consuming and difficult to micromanage the constant needing food, wood, stone, etc. even on easy. Game isn't fun. There is always one resource that you can't find, or trade for.

This game feels slightly shallow, but I'd say well worth the $5.99 price. There's a lot of different clans which gives early game variety. The overall progression and micro mechanics each match feels the same though. Much of it is growing your base for about 20-25 minutes and then you start taking down mobs/enemy clans. Cool art style, music, and sound fx though!

A Viking Strategy Masterpiece!

Northgard is a fantastic real-time strategy game that blends Norse mythology with engaging mechanics. The asymmetric clan system is a standout feature, offering distinct playstyles and endless strategic depth. I love that there are multiple victory conditions—military, economic, fame, and wisdom.

Northgard offers a rich and rewarding experience for strategy fans.
Highly recommended. 10/10!

Review of Key Aspects of Online Gameplay

Game Issues:

First, the servers are a big problem. It’s normal for a room to have to be recreated because someone couldn’t connect. During sales, it’s almost impossible to load into the game at all. This summer, servers and the Hound balance were a nightmare, but now things seem okay. Bugs are still common—sometimes I can’t build houses after the countdown, or the interface disappears. Reconnecting doesn’t always work the first time, and sometimes it doesn’t work at all. Bugs get fixed slowly, but the servers never improve.

Online Population:

There are about 300 active players, not all at once, but during prime time, rooms fill up quickly with both new and experienced players. Everyone can find opponents. At night or in the morning, though, it’s bad—10–15 minutes of waiting. Ranked is worse, especially if you have high Elo. Below 400 points, matchmaking is okay, but higher up, it’s harder. Overall, 300 players are somehow enough for the game.

Balance:

The balance doesn’t change often, mostly when new clans are added. Older clans rarely get updates, and full reworks are rare. Reworks mostly focus on lore, but their unique mechanics and buildings stay the same. In general, the game feels balanced, especially in 3x3 mode, so it doesn’t need constant fixes.

Game Modes:

There are enough modes: solo, duo (up to 8 players), duels, 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4. Different maps with unique mobs make the game more interesting.

Meta:

Some clans (aggressive ones) play well in year 801, while others (scaling clans) aim for 802. Aggressive clans are usually better, but in public games, it doesn’t matter much. Duels have dominant clans, and the meta rarely changes. Clans focused on 801 usually beat 802. In FFA, it’s random—you either get rushed or rush others, but it’s all luck. In 3x3, the meta is most balanced, with lots of synergies, and even without them, all clans are playable.

Repetitiveness:

The game has many mechanics and clans, each with unique gameplay. Learning a clan takes dozens of games, and mastering it can take hundreds. Different clans, map layouts, matchups, and player skill levels keep the game fresh, even after many hours. PvE also has enough content to explore.

Conclusion:

I love Northgard, but I can’t fully recommend it. The game isn’t getting worse, and new clans with cool mechanics are added (like Hounds with leveling units or Turtles with moving buildings). But the low player base and constant server issues will bother some people. On the bright side, DLCs and the game itself are affordable, especially during sales. Learning the game is fun and takes time, and the developers seem to be improving it, though not very actively. Overall, it’s a good strategy game, but only if you’re okay with its flaws.

I have about 800 hours in this game, it's my weekend co-op with my wife. We're fairly casual gamers that enjoy a slow paced game. We've both been pretty unhappy with the roadmap of the game over the last year or so. A lot of what makes the clans fun has been removed or nerfed. Every time a clan DLC is released the game is just riddled with glitches in multiplayer.

In this most recent patch, I've noticed the following: towers are basically worthless, raven raiding ships now move at light speed giving you almost no time to react, my most recent game I was at negative (or close to) food for the first half of the game despite half of my squares being food squares while playing the newest clan, which ground expansion to a halt. I've hardly ever had issues with food production in the game in the past. Playing against Raven was intense, they were blitzing me every few months and the AI was set on easy mode. Strangely when I finally managed to muster the army to fend them off, they just quit attacking me.

Over the years there also were a lot of fun mechanics that took a huge hit, like Kraken. I would've much preferred that the devs lift up the other weaker clans instead of nerfing the few fun ones. Only a few clans have scaling in late game play. I was excited for the newest clan because they were advertised as a clan that was ideal for a player like me, but they just wind up taking a beating when facing other clans.

If I had to guess, I'd say the devs are balancing the game for really small maps of extremely skilled players that play Domination only. That's fine for the top 5-10% of players but really sucks out the fun for the casual players. I wish we could go back to a few years ago when the game was a lot more fun.