Multiplayer has arrived in Northgard!

There was a time when you were fighting for survival against nothing but the harsh winter and scarce resources of Northgard… Now you’re not alone.

We’re super excited to announce that we’re releasing our second major update with more new features than you can poke a stick at. So let’s have a look at them:

Multiplayer:

We’re proud to offer you different multiplayer modes, so far we have:

• Teamplay (2v2, 3v3 or 2v2v2)
• Free For All (2 to 6 players)
• Add in AI players to your matches for extra challenge.

At the beginning of the early access we had talked about doing an ad hoc steam friends only PvP system… Many of you thought that this was a bad idea… So we listened and now you can play against anyone who has the game on Steam or limit it to your friends (or invites) only if you wish. You can also use the Steam invitation system to send a game invite directly to the friend of your choosing.

Features:

• Victory conditions remain the same as in the solo version, so when one team member reaches the condition that you’re working on, the whole team wins.
• Trading now actually sends a part of your resources from one player to another (in the solo version too), so there are some interesting team combinations to try out…
• You can transfer territory between team mates, however there is a pretty heavy cool down on this feature and the tiles must be adjacent to one another.
• You can ping locations on the map to your allies, if you need to let people know where to assemble for an attack or other types of scheming.
• There is a whisper chat that you can use to communicate directly in game if you’re not hooked up to a Discord or something like that.

Disclaimer:
This is our first time implementing a multiplayer system on Steam, so if you see bugs, experience crashes or come across any errors, don’t panic, but please do report them to us via the forums.

We also know that there is going to be A LOT of balancing to do. We know that you’re all going to find the best way to game the system and that we’re going to have to nerf a bunch of clans and mechanics… You’ve been warned. ;p

https://youtu.be/hSWl-QJIP4k

Discount:

From midnight tonight CET the game will be on sale at 15% off. Just a warning that’s not right now, so if you haven’t got the game yet, make sure you see the discount when you head to the checkout.

New Units:

Multi is not the only thing that we’re bringing to the table in this update. As promised we’re continuing to listen to the community and improve the base game as we go. So we’d like to introduce you to two new units:

The Axe Thrower:
Here is the ranged unit many of you have been waiting for! They’re a little more fragile than your average viking, but they can hit and run quickly and provide excellent support to any warband…

The Shield Bearer:
We couldn’t have ranged units without a defensive counterpart… So we present this guy, the big burly Shield Bearer, heavy armour and mountainous size allow him to take a beating, specifically -50% damage taken from projectiles (axe thrower + watch tower).

Both units are spawned from two new specialised buildings. The only catch is, they’re not quite finished, so we’re reusing the Training Camp as a placeholder for a little while. Each building has an icon to show which unit is produced by which building and costs 10 extra crowns to build than the base Training Camp.

Languages:

We’re also happy to announce that we’ve added support for some extra languages! We’ve added in:

• Portuguese (Brazilian)
• Russian
• Chinese (simplified)

We hope that this will allow you to play with some more of your friends! Let us know if there are any faults or things that you find a little odd in the translation and we’ll get that fixed up in a future patch. :)

Patch notes:

But wait, there’s more! We’ve also fixed, tweaked and generally fiddled around with all of this:

• You now start with 4 Villagers instead of 3
• Wolf clan: instead of having Sharp Weapons by default, the wolf clan now gets extra Food when killing wolves and bears.
• Stag clan: Supply Fame title bonus now gives +150 resources instead of +200
• Fame victory is now at 1200, we are currently looking at important changes at the Fame system
• Lore victory is a bit easier (less Lore cost for advanced knowledges)
• Training Camp (and new Axe Thrower and Shield Bearer Camps) now gives +2 Warband instead of +3, and a additional +1 when upgraded
• The number of Scouts is also limited by the number of Scout Camps you have (2 + 1 rule)
• Defeating another player now gives +120 Fame (+150 for Giants)
• Buildings have been reordered according to gameplay usage
• Sailors now produces +1.5 Lore instead of +1
• Colonizing a Wolf Cave gives 30 Fame, 50 for Draugr Camp
• Cost for teaming with Giants has been reduced. A lot.
• Raven Harbor Exploration costs are now always 10 Krowns
• Colonizing the Gates of Helheim now always costs 100 Food
• Civilians and Wolves are a bit stronger now
• Healers are more efficient on sick units
• All fight damage has been slightly reduced, allowing more time for micro

EDIT v0.2.4967 fixes a few errors, restart Steam to force update
EDIT v0.2.4995 fixes Out of Memory errors and add some various UI improvements