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Northgard [Steam] is now on Linux as promised, this strategy game from Shiro Games is something I've been looking forward to and it does not disappoint. It does have a few issues with launching the game right now. Note: My key was provided by their PR people over a year ago.

Right now, it seems to be a bit messed up when it comes to actually launching the game. For me, I was able to launch it on Ubuntu 17.10 by opening the Northgard install folder "/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Northgard" in terminal, so:

cd /your_steam_location/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Northgard

And then running this:

./linux/run.sh 

It seems they've done something odd with it, as others have noted it won't run without installing waylandwayland-egl and libbsd. I can't confirm that, as I didn't need to install anything (although I do already have all those installed—to be clear).

It also doesn't have a "steam_appid.txt" file, which needs "466560" inside it, to play multiplayer. You can quickly make one in terminal, inside the Northgard folder doing this:

echo 466560 > steam_appid.txt

I can confirm doing that, does make multiplayer work.

There's also one other major issue, with it not being able to load a saved game. That's a pretty huge bug that needs fixing, since some missions can take a long time.

It's a bit of a mess, but when you get it running, it's really damn good. I did a livestream on our Twitch channel earlier and ended up going for nearly four hours, I was totally engrossed by it. Absolutely nothing like I expected, it starts off feeling a little like the classic Settlers games and ends up becoming a battle against the seasons, invasions and so on.

The territory system is what's really quite interesting. You need to send scouts off across the map, to actually explore and get rid of the fog of war. Once you've dealt with any enemies inside or hostile wildlife, you can purchase land for food to expand and each section of land can only hold a certain amount of buildings. You can upgrade your land once, to enable you to build more.

I rather like the worker/villager system as well, as everyone starts off as a basic villager and you send them to specific buildings to turn become a worker for it. So to make Warriors, you would build a training area and send a villager to it costing money, however, what's great about the system is that you can turn anyone back into a villager and then into something else at any time. It's clever, unusual (to me) and quite a delight to play with.

I'm hesitant to recommend it until they fix the launch issues, but if you're happy doing a few tweaks to get it running then it's worth it.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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31 comments
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etam Mar 8, 2018
touch steam_appid.txt is not required. echo 466560 > steam_appid.txt is enough to create a file with given content.
Liam Dawe Mar 8, 2018
Quoting: etamtouch steam_appid.txt is not required. echo 466560 > steam_appid.txt is enough to create a file with given content.
Oh! Nice little tip there, thanks :)
STiAT Mar 8, 2018
Yeah, a bit of a launch-mess there. But the game is great. I don't recommend it to the average user for the obvious reason of "not just launching of steam", but it's damn fun to play.

I hope the devs can fix that, shouldn't be too hard.

But there is another issue I'm more worried about. It's launching from steam with a segfault in sdl. That has nothing to do with the other issues. I'll be looking into that, hopefully the developer too, I personally didn't see anything being loaded which could cause that (I didn't see any steam native libs being accessed, and it loaded the sdl which the game delivered), but never say it can't be.


Last edited by STiAT on 8 March 2018 at 11:44 pm UTC
elisto Mar 8, 2018
modify the run.sh to
LD_PRELOAD= LD_LIBRARY_PATH=linux linux/hl sdlboot.dat
than run
linux/run.sh
STiAT Mar 8, 2018
Quoting: elistomodify the run.sh to
LD_PRELOAD= LD_LIBRARY_PATH=linux linux/hl sdlboot.dat
than run
linux/run.sh

Holy shit. That makes even launching of steam possible. Now I'd be interested which damn library is fucking it up.
Good find, thanks! But that would .. basically mean that the delivered libs by the developer have issues...

https://youtu.be/XI_LyK8z3fw

worx :-)

or not sure if MP really works, but it looks like it in the lobby.

https://youtu.be/Xuew3v1iNo4

How about a lil' fight Liam? Let's give it a test run?


Last edited by STiAT on 9 March 2018 at 12:06 am UTC
STiAT Mar 9, 2018
Yep, multiplayer works then too.
https://youtu.be/MfUCt--cx_c

Ye, asshole because I quit, but I need to get to bed now ;-).
NaughtyDeveloper Mar 9, 2018
Do the devs intend to bring the game to GOG?
STiAT Mar 9, 2018
Quoting: NaughtyDeveloperDo the devs intend to bring the game to GOG?

Currently not, they rely on the Steam API for their multiplayer.
libgradev Mar 9, 2018
Loving it to bits so far :D

Crashes trying to load a save game though...
Tchey Mar 9, 2018
From what i've read and seen, it seems cute, but very shallow and quickly boring.

Not deep Civ-4X elements, basic RTS tools, poor buildings choice, unattractive Tech trees. It's doing less than Settlers, Warcraft, Civilization, Rise of Nations, without managing to find the right spot in between.

But, i didn't play it myself, i may be wrong.
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