Northgard features no tutorial so if you are new to the game, you need to learn about different aspects of the game yourself. We have curated here this Northgard Beginners Guide in which we have explained all the basic mechanics of the game along with some tips and tricks which will help you get in line with the mechanics of the game in no time.
Northgard Beginners Guide
Northgard is a RTS game in which you must help the Vikings establish towns and grow their clans to survive the harsh winters and other attacking clans. The game is set in a newly found continent and different clans are trying to claim it as their own. You start from the scratch and work your way up to expand and develop towns all while trying to survive attacks from other clans.
Below you will find tips and tricks relating to some basic and advanced mechanics of Northgard.
Understanding the Basics
The game pretty much works just like any other RTS game. You left click on a unit to select it and right click to move it around. Once a structure has been built, you can choose a unit and right click on that building to assign that unit to that building. This will convert them into a specialized worker for that building.
Therefore, if you build a Hunter’s Lodge, assigning a unit to it will turn them into a hunter and he will hunt animals and collect food for the town.
By default, all villagers are assigned to collecting food. They will collect the food and drop them at your Townhall where is stored for later use. You can then start building more structures such as food collection points as well as other resource collection structures. Assigning up to three workers to each building ensures that the supply of resource is optimum from that building.
At the top right of the screen, you can different types of resources that can be collected in the game. They will keep you informed on all the current levels of each item at a glance. You can click your name on the top left side to see the winning conditions of the map and your progress towards them.
Bottom left-side shows you the map which is updated as you explore more areas while the below right side is the construction tab listing units and buildings available for construction.
Expanding Base
When you start a game, you will have a very limited space for constructing buildings. To explore more areas, you will need to have some scouts discover more areas for you. Build a Scouting Hut and assign workers to it to turn them into scouts. Once a scout is made, they will automatically look around the darkened areas to discover them for you.
You can also select them and give them manual orders to look around to discover more areas. This will increase their movement speed. They will discover new areas for you and will also highlight any new resources in that specific area. Always familiarize with the land around you. This will give you a huge benefit when you are expanding your base.
You can build resource structures closer to the resource if you know what is located where. Always expand based on the resources located around you easily. Constructing a structure outside the territory will not assign a unit to it automatically so make sure that you assign one to it manually.
Collecting Resources
To build and expand your town, you will need to collect different types of resources. The surrounding environments are full of different types of resources such as food, wood, stone etc. You will have to build special resource collecting structures and then assign workers to these buildings to collect that specific resource.
Build these structures near the source of the recourse to speed up the process of collecting a resource. If you want to collect some wood, find a place where there are a lot of trees and then build a Woodcutter’s Hut near it. Assign people to it and watch how quickly they chop down the trees and give you wood. Same thing applies to other resource collection structures.
Coming to food, Hunter’s lodge is the most efficient food collecting structure. Make sure you put them in areas, which has animals such as deer, which can be hunted for food. Increasing the number of hunters and upgrading the Hunter’s Lodge further increases the amount of food produced by these structures. Food is one of the most things that you need to watch in the game.
Building silos near production structure give them a production boost. It is recommended that you build silos near them once you have enough production structures running in your town. Silos are a late game structure and we will recommend that you build them when you have enough resources to stack and winter is nearing.
Build a marketplace in your town, as you might need to buy some resources there. If you ever run out of resources and want to buy it quickly, you can simply head to the marketplace and buy them quickly by paying the money. This is very helpful in winters. If you run out of food, you can simply head to the marketplace and buy some food from there.
Keep People Happy
Keeping your people happy is also very important in the game. Happy people will strive to keep your town up and running. There are different ways by which you can keep your people happy. Building a brewery and House of Skalds are vital and help keep the happiness of people high. Happy people will help you grow your clan and if you are unable to keep them happy, your clan cannot grow.
If you have some extra food lying around, you can also arrange feasts. They are a great way to increase the happiness of your people but on the other hand, they cost you a lot of food. Only arrange feasts if you have some extra lying around. Growing the clan is vital because the bigger the clan gets more people you can recruit in your army. So always, try to keep your people as happy as possible.
Victory Conditions
There are different victory conditions in Northgard and you can aim for anyone you like to win the game. Northgard does not limit you to one type of gameplay to achieve victory. It gives you different options for which you can work for. The most common type of victory conditions is by simply wiping out all other players on the map.
As you expand and explore more of the map, you will encounter more people building their towns and expanding on the same map. You can destroy their Town Hall to eliminate that player from the map. Another condition for victory is trade. This is achieved from making money and fame. They can be achieved by different ways such as conquering land and winning battles.
It can also be earned by Wisdom, which is earned by upgrading your clan fifteen times in the technology tree. Another condition is from the map’s special victory, which is unique for every map. You can click your name in the upper left corner of the game to check your progress towards these victory conditions. Each clan also come with a special ability that can aid you in the process of one of these victories.
Prepare for Winters
Winter is the harshest of weathers in Northgard. There is very less food production during winters so you need to prepare for them in advance. Preparing for winters is not easy, as you need to stock up on supplies most importantly food. Your food consumption is increased during winters and the production slows down during winters.
If you do not prepare well for the winters, you might eventually run out of food before the winter is over. You can speed up the food gathering process by calling back extra workers from around town and turning them back to normal villagers. Once done, they will all start collecting food. This way you can speed up the process of collecting and stocking up on food.
Constructing silos help in stocking up on food and other resources but we recommend that you only start building up silos late in the game. There is not much point building silos right at the start of the game because you will not have much spare resources to stock up on.
This concludes our Northgard Beginners Guide. If you want to add anything to this guide, feel free to use the comments section below!
