Northgard Conquest Mode Discussion Feedback Thread

[JayTwoPointOh [Shiro]]

Hi All,

We are in the process of collecting feedback regarding the difficulty of the Northgard Conquest Mode and would love to get some information about some of your experiences!

So, if you could drop a comment here detailing your experience level (new to the game, casual player, hardcore player), problems you had with the mode, improvements needed, specific battles that frustrated you (and specifically what the issue was) and the clan you were using at the time, It would be greatly appreciated.

If typing a bunch of info out sounds unappealing, we have set up two surveys to get some data based feedback that we'd appreciate you filling out if that sounds preferable to you.

If you played solo, fill out this survey[docs.google.com]

If you played co-op, fill out this survey[docs.google.com]

Thanks in advance guys!

[ShovelKnight]

Hello, I am a casual player, and so far I played your conquest update with the clan of the Horse.I always go for the highest difficulty, but this time, I had to tone down from the extreme difficulty to hard.In my opinion it's not that it's impossible.I think it's rather that I am still not experienced enough to tackle it(I will eventually).I've been progressing trough missions and had some difficulties, but ultimately succeeded.I see some people say it is unbalanced and too difficult, and that may be the case with other clans, but I have not tried yet.If that is the case, then you should perhaps tone down the easier difficulties because I believe that Hard and extreme difficulty should be reserved for dedicated players who work on the best formulae and strategies to achieve victory.Those difficulties are supposed to be a challenge! I experienced no issues so far.All in all, I think you did a great job, that you made a very challenging game mode and this is surely going to keep me occupied for more than 100 hours.Well done, and I hope we see more content from you in the future!


Also, on another note, are there specific rewards from completion depending on the difficulty?

P.S. You choose a perfect song for the trailer!Have you considered putting some Metal soundtracks like that in game? :P

[Star Lord]

I already posted my two cents, one of the first to do so the day Conquest was released. Look, I LOVE Northgard. I'm not a great player. I prefer easy because I have lost at higher levels and would prefer to really master Easy before moving on. Plus, with a family, I don't have time for long drawn out games and having to restart over and over. I just want to say I finished it on Easy and come back in the future to step up the difficulty.

[themadgunman]

Tbh i did a solo conquest on easy and it was totally easy, but my coop conquest on medium has been a total joke, being attacked by 2 warchiefs + 10 blokes in year 2 after they instant capped 3 territories to get to my border made me Alt-F4 in disgust

The problem is that the cheating AI is not affected at all by any environmental factors, they dont care if they lose people/territories because they just cheat them back anyways. The statistics from our last game were hilarious, you can see the AI lose 5-6 man warbands and recover them in less than a month, and gain 1k+ food in the same time whilst only having 1 food territory :o

Whoever thought this was balanced is clearly delusional tbh

[capitan mid]

i liked high difficulty, realy challenging. But did someone beat it?

[IM*gUiLe*k]

I have only played Conquest a couple of times on solo, normal difficulty. I used the Horse Clan, really did not have a strategy in place, was just reacting to the two AI opponents. Once one of the clans started to get close to completing the objective I began harassing his unprotected tiles and sometimes used the Valk's to soften them up and then attack the Helm's Gate. I would like to be able to select the number of AI opponents as at times they would team up on me. It was not until they began fighting each other that I was able to progress. I thought I was going to lose but once I had a sizable army with 2 healer huts that were upgraded and the healing bonus selected in the tree I eventually completed the objective. Also, it took a LONG time because I was able to get some help from a Jotnar giant. I really enjoy playing this and have a few friends that play it as well but they have not tried the new mode yet. Thank you for the updates you release, the new clans that have been available (I have them all) and for creating this game. I generally play it 3-4 times a week and have no complaints really.

[Doom]

It would be nice to improve the ai so it wouldn't "cheat" so much (eg. Buy back a terrain 5 times during a blizzard. Have 10 warriors and no food gatherer).

Otherwise, as a casual gamer:
- I find a real challenge in hard difficulty - coop - bear (not successful map 1 yet). I can't imagine extreme difficulty is even doable. I'm fine with it though :D
- stag - 1st map coop with bear - normal - too easy - We both had twice the fame compared to the best enemy
- stag - 2nd map coop with bear - conquest map - normal - It is a joke. I don't see how it is possible to succeed.
- stag - 2nd map coop with bear - Igdrasil map - normal - It is a good challenge but doable once your get how the map works.

Keep it up. I love this game and been playing since day 1.

[Nostera]

So, i've played the whole campaign in co-op except for the last level. (literally impossible) there seem to be a sweet spot in the game where you need to have a perfect start and a warchief before 4 minutes in game + a upgraded scout camp and town hall to immediately down one of the 6 opponents or its impossible to beat the game. Let me tell you that after trying this 6 times and being able to off a clan before the 6 minute mark with alot of brute force it was'nt the answer either. I got zerg rushed by minute mark 20 by 6 warchief's, relic monsters, fully upgraded units about 30 of em while the largest army we could muster was 23 units 2 warchiefs and a bear before caving in.

My feedback,
The bots aren't hard to beat, they are really dumb actually (kinda comparable to CIV).
Instead of the bot being smarter and working together they just have unlimited resources, unlimited happiness, unlimited people. This leads to it not being hard but impossible to play against and it makes it unfun.

Instead of making the bots harder, they got more annoying to a point they were unbeatable in co-op mode. Comparable to playing a FTP game where someone just dropped a 100bux to overpower all the not paying players.

Scale down the co-op diffeculty and in future Smarterbots > Cheatingbots

[Hammock]

Solo, Goat Clan , Hard Difficulty
Tldr: reroll each map until you get a good start.

Longer version:
First map: Race to yggdrasil(Clan specific). Objective: settle yggdrasil in 5 years (requires 3000 food). Took tries: 5.
Feedback: Getting 3 k food in 5 years isn't much of an issue for a Goat clan. Much bigger issue is to find enough storage space for such ammount of food(you need minimum of 5 upgraded silos). So if you don't have 5 food sources in close proximity or you start to cose to an enemy player you might as well restart.

Second map: Master supplier. Objective: Domination/Fame/Wisdom. Took tries: 1.
Feedback: sooo, just normal map with no cash, but without cash win condition?

Third map: Surrounded. Objective: 1v3, Domination/Fame/Wisdom/Trade. Took tries 5, still not complete.
Feedback: Starting to guess Conquest was not designed for solo play. Starting in the middle of the map, struggling to find some space while 3 bots grind you down. Heavily dependant on map generation, not fun.

Fourth map: Winter is here. Objective: have most fame in 5 years. Took tries: 2.
Feedback: depends entirely on map generation: first try: pinned down in the corner by dragon clan with 6 dragon warriers and a chief by the end of third year; second try: start far away from bots, don't se bots till middle of the year 4, fame galore.

Fifth map: Kobolds Infestation: Objective: Domination/Fame: Took tries: 1.
Feedback: normal map, but kobolds everywhere and less win conditions.

Sixth map: Swamps of death(Clan specific): Domination/Fame/Wisdom/Trade. Took tries 3, still not complete.
Feedback: While I kinda like idea of having less building space I once againg feel like my fate is in the hands of map generator instead of my own.

Overall:
Good stuff: wariety of challenges and map conditions
Not so good stuff: I know that random maps add to replayability but maybe maps for Conquest should have been hand made. Also, once again higher difficulty comes as bigger pile of resources for bots instead of better ai.

[zordrak1]

Need to make the maps a lot more flexible so that other factions/clans can get a good run for their money. I feel like the biggest issues at the moment are unhappiness levels climbing too high in some maps (permafrost) and enemy ai fame/resources that means you can't really win a battle of attrition and they can just ignore any inconvenient events like blizzards etc.

[Locomotor79]

yes but easy aint easy. easy is higher than hard. Becausse bear clan just killed my hero's in 1 strike and i had 2heros i whas clan horse.
plus i even had Hero 2guardians whit me aswhell and 4axetrowers how cna a single chieftan beat that. on easy
the hero guardians where from the warrior Tech tree
plus healer doesnt heal civi's anymore somehow only warriors and chieftans.
the first map and its different whit each clan are unbeateble for no appearent reason
i now did a run whit clan off the bear and guess wat i whas in the lead and instantly the AI makes a huge jump and overtook my first place instead off getting Jarl he whent straight 2 thane WTF.
start whit wolf you are alone against 3other clans isnt that a huge bit overpowerd against the player c'mon guys at hiro games

[Arkbennett]

Hey guys! I'd consider myself an intermediate player but I'm playing the game on normal difficulty. My first beef is the first Clan Kraken solo conquest level, the one where you have to befriend the Jotnar. I don't know who decided to put the Raven Clan against the Kraken in a 3 v 1, but it I vehemently disagree with you. It is already annoying to fight against against 3 clans, but fighting all three of their warbands at once and then getting two mercenary groups from behind is even more annoying - I'm not even trying to eliminate them or anything, I'm just trying to get a more defensive position to punish the AI for attacking the Jotnar. Another level I have issue with is the defeat 3 Wyvern coop mission (As Horse X Bear). The AI appears to be programmed to run around with a Wyvern death-squad that consists of 10-12 units - except they sometimes use it on the player and completely overrun a territory. This wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact the AI aren't fazed by the economics of the game and can ♥♥♥♥ them out every few minutes or so. This same issue is even further compounded by the Clan of the Dragon as their Dragon Kin can just run through your basic troops and do their AoE attack and wipe you within seconds.

Overall, I love your game and have bought all the DLC because I believe in you guys, but I really feel like the AI needs to be addressed. It is difficult to get a consistent experience because any given skirmish or game can range from being laughably easy to extremely difficult depending on how coordinated the AI is and if they decide to gang up on you or not. I know RTS' allow the AI to cheat in order to bring some level of challenge to the table, but the way you have chosen to work around this has always been a point of contention for me. I feel this new is mode is really highlighting the flaws with the AI and there will always be issues until this is addressed.

[capitan mid]

finished expert (the last) difficulty as stag, skipping Bifrest and Befriend with Jotun. It's pretty rng and most of maps being restarted a lot (start on last difficulty w/o +20% woods tile is 90% lose, also at least 1 runestone help a lot).
Also, any blizzard is a death.

I liked unique events and objections, thematic disasters etc, makes gameplay much interesting. Also, removing ability to gather food or gold or lore makes you play much different :D

A bit of polishing and maybe garantee of a wood tile would be great.

gonna try other clans, but i'm not ready to expert walk with them.

[Lord Edmund Allenby]

I've been trying to play the new mode on easy and continue to get wiped out. Really fun when the three AI all attack me at the same time just wiping out half my population and most if not all of my troops. I'm friggen done with this mode - much much harder than previous game and I just cant do it. I'm not a competitive gamer, I have a family, and honestly I game to relax not be stressed out or enraged, I'm friggen done

[II]

Finished extreme stag clan (skipped about 3 missions I think) and first mission of bear and boar.
Any mission on the stag and bear I've played was either moderately easy or a bit tricky, but perfectly manageable. From what I've encountered any map RNG I've gotten was beatable and I only failed sometimes dew to bad decisions and not knowing the special rules well enough. I can see how getting really really bad starting position could be a problem, but for me randomness is part of the fun and I don't see how winning every time is something else than boring.. !

So my conclusion - fixing one or two missions like boar first (you may have already done this, I saw some changes) and maybe some other ruleset / mission is quite good and necessary. BUT make sure to NOT make extreme easier, cause it already is easy enough for some players and after all it is the highest difficulty made to be hard (weren't you gonna add nightmare if we wanted.. ) .

I also think that bots 'cheating' to make it difficult for the player is perfectly fine. It would of course be better if they were smarter, maybe even used a bit of micro, but that's not needed for the game to be fun.

[Slava Ukraini]

I play on easy and it was normal maybe.... but I will not beat it on any harder difficult