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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.

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Fenix2412 Mar 10, 2018
Quoting: Purple Library GuySo, wait a minute--you cross the sea to a wild unexplored place, send scouts out to get an idea of what's out there, wipe out or at least set up defences against local menaces, and then . . . to start occupying territory you have to purchase land?!
From who, Odin? Skraeling real estate agents? Lucky Leif's Land Registry?

You are "colonizing" land by using food (one of clans can use money so let's say that they are paying the equivalent food price that way) so it kinda makes sense.
STiAT Mar 10, 2018
Quoting: GuestI bought it and quickly refunded. To me it's kind of appalling that they would release it when it doesn't even start from steam without workarounds. I'll probably pick it up after they sort the issues though.

They fixed that within a day - that's actually a very good response. We have titles out there which never got patched up at all.
STiAT Mar 10, 2018
Oh god, I love the raven clan .. slow to build up, but a lot of fun if the game lasts.
gojul Mar 10, 2018
W/ the fix the campaign prologue does not work anymore, at least for me. Does it for you ?
STiAT Mar 10, 2018
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: STiAT
Quoting: GuestI bought it and quickly refunded. To me it's kind of appalling that they would release it when it doesn't even start from steam without workarounds. I'll probably pick it up after they sort the issues though.

They fixed that within a day - that's actually a very good response. We have titles out there which never got patched up at all.

Well, I'm sure I'll pick it up again sometime. I used my refund and got Civ Beyond Earth Collection and Silence, so I'm happy.

If you prefer civ-like games you may be disappointed. It's like a mix of Civ, RTS and a bit of MOBA.

In the end, I hope you give it a try, I found it very entertaining.
STiAT Mar 11, 2018
Quoting: gojulW/ the fix the campaign prologue does not work anymore, at least for me. Does it for you ?

I'm at chapter 11 now, so I guess I got through.
I got a couple of savegames on each chapter, maybe I can share the one you seem to hang on. I started to play in easy though, going for normal and hard on a 2nd run ;-).


Last edited by STiAT on 11 March 2018 at 11:25 am UTC
STiAT Mar 11, 2018
Interesting, for me the sp skirmish does not work at all. Always at "spawning unfriendly creatures" it goes back to the beginning of the loading. Endless :D.
Fenix2412 Mar 11, 2018
Quoting: STiATInteresting, for me the sp skirmish does not work at all. Always at "spawning unfriendly creatures" it goes back to the beginning of the loading. Endless :D.

That's interesting because just yesterday I've played almost 2 hour of sp skirmish so that sounds very weird...
STiAT Mar 11, 2018
Yea, I'm having issues with map generation it seems. The developer just requested our GPU info... seems as amdgpu users are hit by this only. You're using NVidia right?

Maybe yet another mesa hickup... we'll see. The developer is responsive, I will give them that. And ye, it's launch issues, but I had a lot of fun with the campaign and hope they can fix it up for me still.
drlamb Mar 12, 2018
Quoting: STiATYea, I'm having issues with map generation it seems. The developer just requested our GPU info... seems as amdgpu users are hit by this only. You're using NVidia right?

Maybe yet another mesa hickup... we'll see. The developer is responsive, I will give them that. And ye, it's launch issues, but I had a lot of fun with the campaign and hope they can fix it up for me still.

I'll play around some more tonight but I wasn't having any issues with map generation on my system.
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