His influences are not discreet: Norlandlike many other “colony simulation” type games, is built on the foundations established by the reference of the genre (RimWorld) and adds a distinctive touch. In this case, the title is inspired by a large-scale strategy game focused on the micromanagement of a monarch and his lineage (Crusader Kings).
While this is certainly not the most revolutionary approach, it will be difficult to hold it against it. RimWorld he himself never hid the fact that he was more than inspired by Dwarf Fortress. The question is whether this game, released in early access in mid-July, brings something new to the experience and whether it is complete enough to be worth the detour.
Each game begins the same way: the player creates their king or queen and up to three family members, then assigns points in eight skills. Creating several characters allows you to distribute the points so that everyone has a role to play.
Then it’s building from scratch, attracting peasants, managing their labor, unlocking new possibilities through research, assembling an army, and overthrowing a religious order struggling to maintain its influence after the fall of a fragmented empire. in small kingdoms like yours and which exercises a virtual monopoly on trade.
You will still have to choose your approach. Alliances can keep you safe to some extent, whether from your neighbors, bandits, or an unholy horde that threatens to overrun the entire continent.
However, making enemies also has advantages, since it allows them to attack their kingdoms without too many diplomatic consequences.
Diplomacy, therefore, occupies a strategic place in Norland.
The battles, inevitable in this context, are a bit tactically simplistic. The army that is the most numerous, the best equipped and the best trained will always have the advantage. The recent addition of watchtowers, however, brings a slight advantage to the cities under attack. And that’s all the better, in the absence of other fortifications (an element that is sorely lacking in the game).
But before any conquest, you must build your city as well as your forces. The main thing is to plan your growth well.
A very present difficulty
The balance is not always easy to find during the first game. Building too quickly will cause a labor shortage and strong population growth will require ever more farms and breweries, which, like everything else, need that workforce to operate.
As for research, it is unique in that the learning of one of your nobles is his own, and not that of your entire population. If a noble leaves your kingdom or dies without passing on his knowledge, your entire civilization could forget how to forge swords, for example.
This can be annoying, but this choice gives importance to the transmission of knowledge between generations, since your characters reproduce, age and die.
Norland therefore brings interesting specificities to the genre of colony management games, but is it enough to stand out from the many other titles in the genre released in recent years?
It has neither the depth of RimWorld nor that of Crusader Kings. But the same can be said of just about any title it’s reasonable to compare it to. And this is an early access game to which more features will be added.
If its developers continue to work on its balancing (some systems are still a little clumsy, notably the one that manages interpersonal relationships) and add elements that respond to player requests (such as watchtowers and increasing the number of nobles allowed per kingdom), Norland’s potential is promising.
Those who are not looking to fill a void after having toured the garden in other colony management games – which mostly have the fault of being too repetitive once you master them – might still want to wait for the final version of Norlandat the end of early access, to play it.
Norland (early access)
Developer: Long Jaunt
Editor: Hooded Horse
Platform: Windows (tested on Steam)
Game available in French
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